Spherical Harmonic

by Catherine Asaro

  Hajune stood like a statue while I ate nutrient sticks from the food stored here. Experts had designed them specifically for my metabolism and body chemistry, so they not only appeased my hunger, they also settled my stomach. I sat against the wall, my legs stretched out on the designer moss, my body warm, and my thirst quenched. Ruddy sunlight poured through the portals above my head. After the last few days, this would have been heaven if Hajune hadn’t been staring at me.

  Had J’chabi known the full story, he would never have left me alone with Hajune. As a Rhon empath, I knew Hajune wouldn’t attack me again. But convincing J’chabi would have been difficult, and I had no wish to argue the matter.

  I considered Hajune. “Does it make you tired, standing so much? Please be comfortable.”

  “I watch.” An edge came into his voice. “Always now, I will watch.”

  My contentment vanished. The Traders had left him that legacy: constant fear.

  Vibrations shuddered the floor. A door scraped and footsteps rustled in the entrance tunnel. As I stood, Hajune moved between me and the entrance to this room, his weapon ready in his hands. He no longer carried his axe; J’chabi had given him a Lenard K16 laser carbine.

  “Hajune Tailor,” a voice said from the doorway. Looking past Hajune, I saw J’chabi with Natil. Their mood was sober.

  “It pleases us to see you safe,” I said. Then I winced. It pleases us? Talking that way wouldn’t help hide my identity. It did relieve me that they were back, though.

  Natil watched me with close scrutiny. “Your Shay is hard to understand. Strong is your Iotic accent.”

  Ach. So they knew. I said, “I regret the difficulty,” but offered no other explanations.

  “Have you news?” Hajune asked them.

  J’chabi took a deep breath. “We found the Manq.”

  Hajune went very still. “Did you capture them?”

  Natil answered. “Two.” After a pause that went on too long, she added, “The other two killed themselves before we could take them.”

  A muscle twitched in Hajune’s cheek. “So.”

  Sorrow softened J’chabi’s voice. “Hajune Tailor—we found your wife.”

  7

  Skyhold

  Green and round, the hospital was part of the forest. It spanned the gigantic tripod bases of four trees. Inside, it had a small but modern facility. The doctor led Natil, J’chabi, Hajune, and me to a rounded chamber. Two small globes in one corner shed muted light over a bed against the far wall. A woman lay there with a pale green sheet pulled up to her shoulders. I barely recognized her as the person in Hajune’s memories; this woman was wasted and still, her body gaunt under the sheet.

  She was also alive.

  Hajune made a strangled noise and strode past the doctor. But he froze when he reached the bed, as if he feared to extinguish the faint breath that clung to his wife’s dying body.

  The doctor, another tall Shay woman, joined him. “She has been in a coma.”

  His words were almost a whisper. “I saw her die.”

  The doctor’s voice was infinitely gentle. “Her state mimics death. It is a defense against the unbearable.” She started to lay her hand on his arm, then hesitated as if unsure how he would respond. Softly she said, “Sorry I am, so sorry.”

  My sadness deepened. Although I hadn’t realized the Shay could go into a death trance, I knew other humanoid races that used such a defensive mechanism. The Razers must have taken her in the hope that she would revive. But it didn’t work that way. The person died within a few days.

  We withdrew then, not wanting to intrude on Hajune’s final moments with his wife.

  J’chabi spoke in Iotic. “No one uses our telop console now. We’ve tried to reconnect with the offworld nets, but we find no trace of the psiberweb. Without any means to leave Opalite, we have no idea what happened.”

  J’chabi, Natil, and I were in an alcove of the hospital. We sat on a wall bench, a ledge covered by engineered moss with cleansing properties that made it sterile. J’chabi balanced the laser carbine on his knees, guarding me while Hajune stayed with his wife. Natil watched us with her keen gaze. The room had several entrances, and medics passed through now and then, absorbed in their own affairs.

  “Are any planetary computer networks working?” I asked.

  J’chabi made an affirmative wave with his hand. “The city net failed when everything else collapsed, but we had it working within an hour.” He paused. “The Traders who destroyed our port told us that you had died in the war.”

  Dryly I said, “I’m sure they wanted that to be true”

  “I wish I could offer you offworld access. But we’re an inconsequential settlement, one with low priority for repairs.”

  “Don’t you, personally, have a top-priority link to ISC?” I had set it up myself, so he could reach Imperial Space Command no matter what.

  “It is down also.”

  That finished off my last hope that some fragment of the psiberweb might still survive.

  Footsteps padded nearby. Turning, I saw the doctor. She came over and sat next to J’chabi, her face weary. “Hajune Tailor is still with her. I think he could use some support.” Softly she added, “He hurts so much.”

  So we went with her. Hajune’s pain filled the hospital in a fog, one I had trouble moving through. Yet no one else seemed affected. My empath’s mind was a curse now. It tore at me to feel his anguish and be unable to help. The injustice of it struck like a blow. He had recovered his wife only to lose her again.

  We found him sitting on the bed holding his wife’s hand. He glanced up as we entered, then went back to watching her face. J’chabi and I stood with him, and Natil stayed back, apparently assuming we knew him better. But none of us could really call him friend.

  I laid my hand on his shoulder. “My sorry, Hajune Tailor.”

  He nodded, still looking at his wife. Her thoughts slumbered at the edges of my awareness. My mind skirted hers like a soft-footed animal searching for an entrance to a fortress.

  I acted in pure instinct; my mental barriers dropped and my mind Opened. Come back, I thought to her. Hajune needs you. He loves you.

  It wasn’t until I started using biofeedback on myself that I realized what I was doing. Yes, I remembered. I had a talent for this. Humans had long known how to use biofeedback. Some empaths could turn that concentration outward, affecting others as well as themselves. I reached my mind out to Hajune’s wife, my efforts aided by the biomech that enhanced my brain. But I still couldn’t connect. Not alone. Instinctively, I drew Hajune into our link.

  Skyhold, come back, he thought. Without you, I am nothing.

  No response. His wife continued to fade.

  Skyhold, truly do I need you.

  Nothing.

  Please. His thoughts ached. I would like to say good-bye.

  Still nothing. Hajune bent his head and tears slid down his face.

  I gently withdrew my mind. It was just him and Skyhold now. I didn’t think he realized we had all been in a link. Although I could open the mental door, only he could truly reach her. She probably had too little of her conscious mind left to sense him, but perhaps this would give him a small portion of closeness with her in their final hours together.

  J’chabi, Natil, and I stayed in the room, seated on a wall bench. The doctor was at a console, monitoring her patient. Although Hajune seemed to want us there, he never spoke, only sat on the bed holding his wife’s hand. Silence filled the room, but it wasn’t complete. A faint hum came from the walls, a vibration of the life within the hospital, the sound carried by the trees that cradled this building within their great bases.

  Hajune suddenly spoke. “Skyhold?”

  I raised my head, stirred out of my doze.

  “Skyhold? “ His voice was urgent.

  “Hai!” The doctor jumped up from her console and strode to the bed.

  I froze. No. Not now. Skyhold couldn’t be dead already.

  “Sweet gods,”
Hajune whispered. The doctor was leaning over Skyhold now.

  Then, in a husky voice almost too soft to hear, a woman said, “Hajune Tailor? Why cry you, Husband?”

  He made a choked sound.

  The doctor spoke kindly. “Rest you must, Skyhold. Sleep.”

  “Rest I will…” Skyhold murmured.

  Hajune spoke softly to the doctor. “What happened?”

  Her voice caught. “Apparently she is stronger than we knew.”

  Tears wet his cheeks. “Thank you.” He glanced at me. “And you.”

  “It is you who brought her back,” I said.

  He bowed his head, then turned to his wife. His joy filled the chamber.

  Yet pain still existed here. It didn’t come from Hajune.

  Then I knew; it ached within me. I had many memories now: Eldrin laughing, Eldrin in my arms, Eldrin swinging a young Taquinil into the air, Eldrin beaming with pride at his son.

  Eldrin.

  The Web Chamber resembled others I had used, except this one was round, as were most rooms in this city. Such geometries fit better within the trees. The white waÙs glowed with subdued lighting. The room contained a few small consoles. Only one had a telop chair; and it was a pale copy of the Triad Command Chair I usually used to access the psiberweb. Triad Chairs thundered with power: this one whispered. But a whisper would be all we needed, if the right people heard.

  The Web Keeper insisted on installing me in the chair. I had designed its prototype a century before her birth, but I let her help me out of my clothes and into the telop skin anyway. The bodysuit had small holes at the wrists and ankles, neck, and base of the spine. Prongs from the chair snapped easily through those holes into sockets in my body, and biothreads linked the sockets to my neural nodes. The chair’s exoskeleton folded around my body, sheathing me in a silver mesh.

  This chair was a stranger, with unfamiliar smells and textures. Closing my eyes, I went through a series of relaxation exercises. Then I let signals from the console “shake hands” with the biomech in my body. When my neural nodes and the console had become acquainted, my mind diffused outward, reaching for the web—

  And found nothing.

  I felt as if I had dropped into a cold void. The gateway created by the console should have boosted my thoughts into psiberspace. But this gate went nowhere. The Kyle space it had linked to no longer existed.

  I turned my concentration inward. With the support of the chair, I had better focus and control. I entered a netherworld, unformed and dark…

  The universe existed as a green blur.

  Gradually, the blur resolved into a low ceiling. I was lying on my back, covered by a sheet. Moss made a pleasant cushion under my body.

  Some time later I turned my head. This chamber resembled the main living area of J’chabi’s home. Someone was sitting on a ridge across the room, reading a holobook.

  “My greetings, J’chabi.” My voice came out rusty. I sat up slowly. I still wore the telop skin, so I let the sheet fall.

  He looked up with a start. “Greetings, Pharaoh Dyhianna.” He spoke in Iotic, with relief. “You look well now.”

  “Thank you.” I hesitated. “I don’t remember coming here.”

  He didn’t seem surprised. “You have slept for three days.”

  “Opalite days?”

  “Yes.”

  That meant twelve hours. I was losing track of time. Nor did I have any idea how much time had passed between when Eldrin pushed us into Kyle space and I coalesced on Opalite. “J’chabi, do you know the date by the Skolian calendar?”

  “Not exactly.” He came over and sat by the bed on a mossy ridge. “We don’t use ASC dates here.”

  It didn’t surprise me. Opalite’s residents had little reason to use the ASC dates of the Skolian calendar. Computers here could convert to ASC, to provide a baseline for a comparison with the standard timeline. But from the solitary nature of the community I had so far seen, I doubted much demand existed for such a service.

  “Do you have an idea of the Skolian date?” I asked.

  He considered. “The web collapse came toward the end of 374 ASC. It has been over a standard month since then, I think. Perhaps two.”

  That meant I had been stranded in a mathematical limbo for over a month before I reformed on Opalite. So long? That time span fit J’chabi’s attitude, though. The web collapse must have sent shock waves through all the settlements of humanity. Yet the Shay seemed relatively blasé about it now, which suggested they had grown used to the situation. Given how long I had spent in a nascent psiberspace, it astonished me that I had come out again.

  But wait. Someone had called me there.

  I strained to catch the elusive memory. I had sensed Taquinil this last time, but I had no idea when or where he existed; neither time nor space had meaning in Kyle space. It was more than Taquinil, though. I had been aware of two other minds.

  Eldrinson.

  Yes. Eldrin’s father. My father-in-law. It had always bemused me that the father was called Eldrinson and the son was Eldrin. Eldrinson had probably decided that naming his firstborn Eldrinsonson was overdoing matters. It didn’t surprise me that I sensed my father-in-law. He, Soz, and I formed the Triad that made the psiberweb possible. I created the net, Eldrinson supported it, and Soz used it to direct ISC. Together, we made a formidable force.

  Had made a formidable force.

  Soz was gone.

  I sat in silence, stunned with this new realization. Soz no longer formed part of the Triad. But it was impossible to disengage from it without damaging your brain beyond repair. The only way to leave the Triad was to die.

  Nausea spread through me. I folded my arms across my stomach while my eyes burned with tears I couldn’t shed. Damn the Traders. Damn them all. I rocked back and forth. Soz. Soz.

  Gradually another tendril of memory curled past my up-welling of grief. I had felt a third mind in that nether universe. Who?

  Kelric?

  He was my nephew, the youngest child of my sister Roca. Kelric had died eighteen years ago, a casualty of war. I had long grieved for him. Physically, he and I were as different as possible; he was huge and muscular, a military officer, gold rather than dark. But I had more in common with him than other members of the Ruby Dynasty. A gifted mathematician, he shared my love of equations.

  But he was dead.

  The blurred memory of a conversation in psiberspace came to me …

  Aunt Dehya?

  Kelric?

  Where are you?

  Gone …

  Have you died?

  I exist.

  Come home. Our people need their Pharoah. Your family needs you.

  I will try…

  “Pharaoh Dyhianna?” J’chabi was watching me intently.

  I refocused on him. “I’m here.”

  He regarded me curiously. “Even when you are present, rather than faded away, you are not always here.”

  I gave a wan laugh. “You put that far more politely than the Assembly does.”

  He flushed. “My sorry. I meant no offense.”

  “You gave none.” I rubbed the back of my neck, working out kinks. “Did I fade away in the telop chair?”

  “Your body became translucent.” He blinked rather rapidly. “We feared to touch you, lest it do damage. Your body overlapped the chair, like a holo superimposed on a solid object.”

  Such a strange image. “I wonder if that’s where ghost tales come from. Maybe ghosts are people partially transformed into an alternate reality.” Seeing J’chabi’s alarmed expression, I gave him a rueful look. “This must all seem bizarre to you.”

  “It is my honor to serve the Ruby Pharaoh.”

  That was tactful. “It is my honor to have your loyalty.”

  He actually blushed at that. “What will you do now?”

  “I’m not sure. It depends on whether or not I contacted anyone.”

  “Don’t you know?”

  I sifted through my memories. �
��I recall a vague sense of Eldrinson Valdoria, the Web Key. Perhaps other family members.”

  “Can they send help?”

  “I’m afraid not.” Eldrinson and my sister Roca were still on Earth. ISC had sent them there during the war, for protection, because the Allied Worlds of Earth had remained neutral, too small a power to pose a threat, but big enough that neither we nor the Traders could easily conquer them.

  Conquer. I winced. But I couldn’t deny we called ourselves the Skolian Imperialate for a reason. Unlike the Traders, we didn’t blatantly subjugate worlds, but ISC had been known to occupy settlements without their agreement. Supposedly Skolia was a democracy, like the Allied Worlds, with an elected Assembly, but we stretched the definition to breaking.

  The constant political maneuvering of the Ruby Dynasty with the Assembly wore me down. I resented the clenched control they exerted over our lives—

  Anger surged over me, and a rush of memories. Control, hell. They were maniacs. Eldrin was my nephew. The son of Eldrinson and Roca. The Assembly had forced our marriage and demanded we have children. Rhon psions were almost impossible to produce in the lab, which made the Ruby Dynasty the only known source. Without us, the psiberweb couldn’t exist Any telop could use the web, but only we could power it Desperate to ensure their supply of Rhon psions, the Assembly had given Eldrin and me no choice. Never mind that it threatened to tear apart our family. No price was too great.

  J’chabi was waiting patiently. Seeing me focus on him, he continued. “Could you have contacted anyone in Kyle space but not remember?”

  Hard as it was to do, I made myself switch gears. Brooding about the Assembly would do me no good right now. “It’s possible. I tried to project an impression of my location and situation, but even if I reached someone, it might not register enough for me to remember.”

  He spoke with a hope that sounded forced. “If anyone can make contact, it is you.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Eventually someone would find out we had been here.