Outcaste

by Fletcher DeLancey

  After all those hanticks of quiet counseling, it was strange to see Lanaril’s study full of people conversing while they browsed the food plates on the sideboard and decided what to drink. Rahel took a moment to appreciate the scene before joining them and choosing a few savory foods. She avoided the spirits. At this point in her recovery, they were no longer forbidden to her, but she found she did not want them. They were associated with nightmares, misery, and a loss of self. She didn’t think she would ever drink again.

  “What’s that?” Lhyn asked when she saw the glass of cloudy liquid in Rahel’s hand.

  “Tang water. Lanaril must have done some research; it’s a treat in central Pallea. No spirits and very refreshing.”

  “I’m beginning to realize that I need to do far more work in Pallea.”

  “What you need to do is go to Whitesun. It’s not like anywhere else.”

  “Do you miss it?”

  “All the time. Do you miss your home?”

  “This is my home.”

  Rahel was startled by the emotional power accompanying that simple statement. “Then you’re where you should be,” she said.

  Lhyn smiled and tapped their glasses together.

  While speaking with Lanaril some time later, Rahel noticed that Lhyn had cornered her mother and Sharro.

  “Did I look like that when I met her?” she asked.

  Lanaril glanced over and chuckled. “Yes. She does have that effect on people.”

  “She’s like a winter storm coming in from Wildwind Bay. Except not dangerous.”

  “She’s one of the kindest and most loyal people I’ve ever known,” Lanaril said. “Someday, when you get to know her better, she may tell you her story. Then you’ll find out how dangerous a person who speaks truth can be.”

  74

  FAREWELL TO WHITESUN

  After the celebration, attention turned to the biggest potential hurdle between Rahel and her new service: the lingual implant.

  Dr. Wells, chief surgeon of the Phoenix, had shuttled down the previous day to meet with several healers at Blacksun Healing Center. They had experience changing language chips in existing implants, thanks to working with the Voloth settlers, but none installing the implants themselves.

  Rahel spent the rest of her oath day undergoing one scan after another and listening to Dr. Wells prove the efficacy of her own implant by speaking perfect High Alsean despite never having learned it. After several hanticks of this, the Gaian shooed everyone else out of the room and sat Rahel down for a talk.

  “I’ve performed this surgery hundreds of times,” she said. “It’s not trivial. But it’s not dangerous, either. You need to know that there are some profound differences between the structure of your brain and that of Gaians, but—and this is the important part—none of those differences are in the area where your implant will go.”

  That was reassuring. Even more reassuring was the cloud of confidence floating around this healer, who was calm and competent and harbored no doubts.

  Rahel listened to an explanation of the surgery, the likely aftereffects, the admonitions to refrain from vigorous physical activity for at least a nineday, and various other details that began to overwhelm her.

  At last Dr. Wells stopped, sympathetic understanding flowing from her. “Too much?”

  “It’s a lot,” Rahel admitted.

  “May I ask you something?”

  The tentativeness threading through what had previously been thick confidence told Rahel that this was not about her implant. “Yes, of course.”

  “Are you sensing my emotions right now?”

  She nodded.

  Dr. Wells exhaled, a small smile touching her lips. “I want to ask you what it’s like, but if you’ve experienced it all your life . . . how do you verbalize something like that?”

  “I haven’t experienced it all my life. I mean, not like this.” She remembered what Lhyn had said. “You know my history?”

  “I have a full medical and psychological report, yes.”

  “Dating back how far?”

  “Your medical records date back to your birth, though I understand there may be a few healing center visits that aren’t covered. The psychology report includes the personal history you shared with Lead Templar Satran.”

  “Then you know about the empathic rapist.”

  “Yes.”

  Gaians seemed to use short answers to cap a fountain of emotions. Dr. Wells could not fully comprehend what an empathic rapist did, but she understood enough to be sympathetic, horrified, angry, and—

  Rahel tilted her head. “How can you feel protective when you never met me before today?”

  “That’s going to take some getting used to. We might need to talk about what Gaians will be comfortable with hearing.” Dr. Wells settled back in her chair. “I think a protective instinct is common among healers. It’s part of why we become healers. We want to fix things. People.”

  “But you can’t fix something that happened nineteen cycles ago.”

  “No, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting to.”

  An ancient grief rose from the depths and subsided again, put down with what must have been many cycles of practice.

  “I guess that makes sense,” Rahel said. “Warriors want to fix things, too. But what I wanted to say was that I’ve spent half my life being uncomfortable around high empaths. They know everything we feel, but it only goes one way. And the powers they hold . . . we have to trust that they won’t abuse them.”

  With a wry smile, Dr. Wells said, “You’ve just encapsulated two years of argument into a couple of sentences.”

  “I don’t hold those powers. I can’t reach into your mind. But being around Gaians . . . it makes me think I know how a high empath must see the world, because I have to work to not sense your emotions. They pour off you like . . .” She searched for the right phrase.

  “I’ve recently heard the term erupting volcano,” Dr. Wells said.

  Rahel smiled at the image. “Yes, that works.”

  “Isn’t that overwhelming? I would generally want to stay away from an erupting volcano.”

  “Right now, it’s fascinating. But I’ve only met three of you.”

  “And there are over a thousand more sitting up there in orbit. That’s a concern. I’m going to want you to check in with me every day for at least the first two weeks you’re aboard.”

  Rahel nodded. Weeks, she now knew, were only seven days long, and years were shorter than cycles. She would have to accustom herself to the Gaian way of measuring time.

  Dr. Wells straightened in the chair, her full confidence returning. “They did choose you well. Shall we get started, then?”

  Her surgery was done that evening, but they kept her sedated until the next morning. When Rahel woke, she found Dr. Wells at her bedside and six Alsean healers standing behind her.

  “How do you feel?” Dr. Wells asked.

  “Um . . . slight headache? And crowded.”

  “I couldn’t keep them out. You should be grateful for them, though. A slight headache is nothing compared to the usual experience after this surgery. There are a few kinds of pain our drugs can’t access, but empathic healing . . .” Dr. Wells shook her head. “That is something else. Rahel, I’m going to speak in Common now. I want you to answer in the same language. Are you ready?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. How hungry are you?”

  It took Rahel a moment to realize that Dr. Wells had not spoken in High Alsean. But she had understood the foreign language perfectly.

  “I could . . .” She stopped, baffled by the fact that her tongue was not moving in the way she expected it to. “I could eat half a fanten. This feels very odd.”

  “It does, I know. You’ll get used to it. The muscles that form your speech are receiving inorganic neural instructions, so it will seem strange for a few days. After that, your brain will adapt.”

  “May Fahla guide and protect me,” Rahel said in Common, testi
ng the feel. “On the dark path I must walk.” She switched to High Alsean. “And if she calls the heroes home, their deeds shall ever be taught. Huh. This might be the strangest thing I’ve ever felt.”

  She spent a hantick undergoing every test and scan the Alsean healers could think of, plus several more that Dr. Wells ran with her own equipment. They pronounced her “perfectly compatible” and released her with instructions to rest and recover for the next four days.

  She couldn’t go far with Dr. Wells wanting to check on her every day, and they forbade her to do anything active, but she took advantage of the enforced rest to spend time with her mother and Sharro. For the first time since the Battle of Alsea, they were together as a family simply enjoying themselves. Ravenel was no longer grieving, and Rahel was no longer sinking under the effects of trauma shock or sitting in judicial limbo.

  They visited museums and took the official tour of the State House, though Rahel refused to enter the Council chamber. Shantu’s blood had stained the floor, and the Council voted to keep it there. She understood the reasoning but still found it abhorrent. When others on the tour spoke excitedly about the combat and how they looked forward to seeing the blood, she wanted to throw them out of the nearest window.

  They took a cruise down the Fahlinor River all the way to the massive expanse of Fahlinor Bay. She had visited the bay before, when her need for an ocean grew too strong, but Ravenel and Sharro had never seen it. They walked the beach, breathed the salty air, waded into the freezing surf, and ate local shellfish before boarding the boat that took them back upriver to Blacksun. Rahel barely made it to the healing center in time for her evening checkup.

  Best of all was when Lhyn led them on a tour of the Caphenon. Captain Serrado had given her a Gaian pad with schematics of the Phoenix, but those were lines and angles and abstract concepts. Walking the corridors of its sister ship and seeing the design for herself was breathtaking. Watching her mother and Sharro take it all in made her swell with pride.

  At the end of four days, she was pronounced fit and ready for travel. It was time to return to Whitesun.

  She didn’t want Ravenel or Sharro to see where she had lived while in her hole. They said it wouldn’t matter to them, but it mattered a great deal to her.

  “It won’t take long to clean it out,” she said. “Please, let me finish this.”

  They looked at each other, and when Sharro nodded her head, Ravenel sighed. “You’ll come home for evenmeal?”

  “I promise.”

  She opened the door of her apartment and recoiled at the mess. When she had left here, sober and focused on her mission, she had thought she was recovered. One look at the disaster she had left behind put the lie to that. Thank Fahla she was the only person seeing this evidence.

  She spent the day cleaning the apartment and packing up the few things she would take with her. Mouse’s drawings, Shantu’s sword, the statue from Brasalara, and the wooden daggers that had started it all were carefully placed into a bag and cushioned with various articles of clothing. Everything else she wanted to keep went into a few crates, which Ravenel would pick up tomorrow and store for her.

  Evenmeal found her at the beautiful house on the hill, stepping across the threshold for the first time in far too many moons. Despite parting company with her just that morning, Ravenel and Sharro offered happy warmrons in greeting.

  It felt like coming home.

  They shared a comfortable meal, talking about past history and future dreams. Once the dishes were washed and put away, Sharro sat on the couch in front of the picture window and put a pillow in her lap.

  Rahel went down with a sigh of pure bliss, lying on her back and looking up into smiling green eyes.

  “I fantasized about this,” she said as Sharro’s sure fingers began combing through her hair. “In all of my worst times, this was what I wanted. This and a warmron from Mother.”

  Her mother lifted Rahel’s legs, slid beneath them to sit on the couch, and lowered them into her lap. “I fantasized about this, too. All of us together, the way it should be. It feels like I’ve waited a lifetime.”

  In a way, Rahel thought, she had.

  “Sharro?”

  “Hm?”

  “Do you remember, a long time ago, when I asked if you would tell me your truth and you said you would when I was old enough? And that you had to wait a lifetime to hear it from your trainer?”

  “Yes.” Sharro trailed her fingertips over Rahel’s temple.

  “I understand that now. We’re all in a different life, aren’t we?”

  Sharro’s smile brought out her dimple. “Yes, we are. I didn’t know, back then, that our lives would still be entwined. Now I can’t imagine it any other way.”

  “Neither can I,” Ravenel said. “I will forever mourn my children. But this feels . . . right.”

  They had left Blacksun in the warmth of late spring. In Whitesun, it was almost winter and already dark. Rahel turned her head to watch the familiar lights twinkling around the bay and felt a desperate longing to stay.

  “Captain Serrado said the patrol will last less than a moon, and then we’ll come back. After that, the Phoenix is scheduled to return to Tashar for some diplomatic meetings. They have whole cities there that are protected under giant domed shields.”

  “And you’ll be the first Alsean to see them.” Ravenel rubbed Rahel’s ankles. “I’m so very proud of you.”

  “I haven’t been proud of myself for a while,” Rahel said thoughtfully. “Not since the Battle of Alsea. Certainly not in the last moon and a half.”

  “The last moon and a half is when you should be most proud of yourself,” Sharro said. “Not for attacking the Bondlancer, but for what you did afterward.”

  “I didn’t do much. She did. And Lanaril.”

  With a firm hand on her jaw, Sharro nudged her head back. “If you truly think you didn’t do much in healing yourself and overcoming your worst fears, then you’re a grainbird. I never believed that of you.”

  “We went to Blacksun to ask for the Bondlancer’s mercy,” Ravenel said. “We didn’t dream she would have given it to you before we even arrived. But you had already convinced her you were worth it.”

  “I thought there was no magic left in the world.” Rahel held out a hand, and Ravenel took it with a smile. “But there is. Fahla’s power walks on Alsea, and I serve her vessel. I have an implant in my head that lets me speak an alien language without thinking about it. In a few days, I’ll be living my childhood dreams. And right now, all I want to do is stay here.”

  “I want that, too.” Ravenel squeezed her hand. “But you were born for this. You knew it when you were thirteen.”

  “It’s good that you don’t want to leave,” Sharro said. “The best explorers were the ones who wanted to come back home.”

  Rahel closed her eyes under the soft touch of Sharro’s fingertips. “Then I’ll be the best.”

  Lhyn Rivers flew down to spend several days with her in Whitesun. Officially, it was to train her for living aboard the Phoenix, but Lhyn made it clear that she was also there to see a part of Alsea she hadn’t yet visited.

  Rahel found it easier to say farewell to her home city when it was disguised as an introduction for someone new. Lhyn was fascinated with everything, and Rahel enjoyed her company so much that she ended up showing her parts of the city she hadn’t planned to. She even took her to meet Deme Isanelle, who was thrilled to see Rahel, effusive about her upcoming adventure, and then captivated by the alien scholar in her office. Within ten ticks, the two women were so lost in conversation that Rahel thought she could walk out and not be missed. When they reluctantly ended their talk, it was with an exchange of com codes and promises to talk further.

  “What a resource!” Lhyn exclaimed as they went down the library steps. “I hope you don’t mind me trailing after you on your first leave, because I’m coming straight back here.”

  Rahel had a sudden image of Lhyn running after her like a very ta
ll yardbird chick chasing its mother. Her life had become unrecognizable.

  Wherever they went, Lhyn garnered stares from people who recognized her as the Gaian who had been given Alsean citizenship. The looks were curious and usually fleeting, though quite a few people—especially children—offered friendly waves. Lhyn responded to all of them with a smile, her pleasure palpable even to low empaths.

  “If you’re not careful, you’ll have half the city following when you fly back,” Rahel said after another child waved at Lhyn on the magtran.

  “Isn’t it astonishing? I always wonder why they don’t assume I’m a Voloth. They’re statistically far more likely to see one of them than one of the few Gaians currently on Alsea.”

  “In Blacksun, maybe. Not in Whitesun. And you don’t feel like a Voloth.”

  “What do I feel like?”

  “A Dr. Rivers.”

  Lhyn looked at her appraisingly. “This is one of those instances where I’m not certain whether the words and body cues are in conflict. You don’t seem like you’re joking.”

  “I’m not. You’re unique.”

  “You’ve only met three Gaians so far. Your data set is too small for conclusions.”

  “I’ll bet you an evenmeal that after a nineday on the Phoenix, I’ll still think you’re unique.”

  “No bet,” Lhyn said with a hint of laughter in her voice.

  Four days after Lhyn’s arrival, Rahel took her to the end of Dock One, where they sat with their legs dangling over the water. It was a crisp day, with a gray sky and an equally gray Wildwind Bay ruffling its surface in the breeze.

  “Mouse is here,” Rahel said without thinking.

  Lhyn looked around. “You have mice that live in this environment?”

  That made her chuckle. “No, I mean Mouse. My childhood friend. I spread his ashes here when I was seventeen.”

  “Oh. Shippers, I’m sorry.”