Ascendant Sun

by Catherine Asaro

  “Is this better?” she asked.

  “Yes.” He touched her hair, orienting himself. They were seated together with their heads tilted toward each other. “What were you saying?”

  “You’re turning gold. I wasn’t sure earlier, but it’s easier to see in this light.”

  “You mean my skin?”

  “Skin. Eyes. Hair. Got a lot of gray in your hair too.”

  He smiled. “It’s Tarquine’s chemical cocktails.”

  “Cocktails?”

  “I bought a genetic tattoo to hide my coloring. Tarquine had it revered.” He regretted having to give up the medical cycles in his body. They might have lengthened the time he had left now. “Jeejon, if I don’t survive this trip—”

  “Don’t!” She closed her hand around his arm. “You’ll make it.”

  He put his hand over hers. “Listen, please. We both know I might not. If I don’t, you have to promise me something. Even if you think it’s crazy.”

  “What is it?”

  “My parents are in custody at the Allied United Centre north of Stockholm in Sweden. Go to them. Tell them what happened and how they can recover my body. My mother’s name is Roca Skolia. My father is Eldrinson Valdoria. You must tell them about me.”

  “Skolia? Valdoria? You mean Ruby Dynasty?”

  “Yes.”

  With great gentleness she said, “Whatever you like.”

  He sighed. “I’m not crazy.”

  She patted his arm. “You’re a good man. That’s what matters.”

  “Promise you will do this for me, even if you’re certain no one will believe you.”

  She pressed her lips against his cheek. “I’ll do it.”

  He felt the truth of her answer. She would do it even though she thought his mind had cracked. Her loyalty went all the way. No conditions. Stunned, he realized she would have faced down Aristos for him if necessary. He wondered if the Traders had any idea what a gem they had with Jeejon. He doubted it. Idiots, to waste her on Spikedown. No matter. Their loss was his gain.

  With a grin, he tapped his cheek where she had put her lips. “Nice kiss.”

  Her laugh was so soft, he felt more than heard it. “Are you angling for another one?” she asked.

  “Could be.” He brushed his lips over her hair.

  “Eh. Behave yourself. What will people think, us two oldsters necking here?”

  He smiled against her soft curls. “They will envy me.”

  She snorted, but he could tell she was pleased. So was he.

  A comforting sense of release settled over him. Even if he didn’t make it to his family, they would know what happened. The record of all he had done was in his biomech web. Bolt would survive.

  With his fingers curled around Jeejon’s hand, he closed his eyes, knowing he could finally rest.

  26

  Green Hills

  Silence.

  It encompassed the world. Kelric turned slowly in a circle, trying to keep his balance. The silence and darkness that had become his life enveloped him.

  He stopped turning. “Jeejon?” His mouth formed the word, but he heard nothing. He was fairly sure he hadn’t whispered or shouted, but as to the exact tone, he had no idea.

  She had left several hours ago. Too long. How would he know when she returned? He had barely heard her when she told him she was going out. As soon as he was alone, he turned on the holovid to its loudest setting. It was like a whisper. He turned it off, afraid of disturbing the hotel’s other patrons.

  He had refused Jeejon’s help this morning and waited until she left before he dressed. He easily found his clothes on the armchair. He never did locate his boots, though, despite a search of the room. Maybe Jeejon had put them on a shelf he didn’t know about.

  Was she all right? Where was she?

  He knew she thought he had gone nuts, insisting they use most of their remaining funds to buy airfare from Sydney, Australia, where they had landed, to Sweden. They had converted their last few Trader credits to Swedish kronor at the Stockholm starport. It left them enough to pay for a day at this hotel.

  Her loyalty stunned him. She believed he would die here and wanted to ease his last hours. She had no idea what she would do after his death. She would be alone on a world where she knew none of the languages. She had no permission to stay after her tourist visa expired, no funds to buy a ticket for anywhere else, and no idea how to deal with the culture. Simply walking under an open sky left her numb with shock. She struggled with Earth’s heavy gravity. On Spikedown she had exercised regularly and lifted weights, as required by her owners to maintain her “prime operating condition.” But it would take more than regular exercise to make her comfortable here.

  Jeejon had been born a slave. Bred to it. She had never questioned authority nor turned from her duty. Yet, incredibly, she had come with him. Despite all the conditioning, breeding, brainwashing, coercion, genetics, and manipulation, the Aristos had failed to mold her into a machine. Given a chance for freedom, she had jumped at it. She made a dramatic contrast to the silver provider who hadn’t even understood his offer of freedom.

  What caused such differences in people? He didn’t know. He was just glad she had come. So odd, to find so bright a gem at such a low point of his life. Except he didn’t feel low. He ought to be devastated by his condition. But he felt oddly content. Free.

  He just hoped Jeejon was all right. They had arrived in Stockholm this morning, though apparently at this time of year, this far north, it was still dark well into the “day.” As soon as she came back, they would go even farther north, to the Allied United Centre. He hoped.

  During the twenty-second century, Earth had developed a world government. Born of the United Nations, the government established the Allied United Centres throughout the world, huge complexes in some of Earth’s most beautiful regions. Jointly supported by the political, military, academic, industrial, and financial communities of the world’s nations, which still existed, the Centres were dedicated to studying the ramifications of combining Earth’s many diverse cultures and governments under one umbrella. Given the military and political aspects of the work, admittance to an AUE complex required a high-level security clearance.

  It didn’t surprise Kelric that his parents were in custody here. Although Sweden’s AUC was associated with Stockholm, it was located farther north, in countryside where no one lived now except Centre employees. Deep within the forested AUC, his parents would have the freedom to live on open land while being kept under guard.

  A nudge pushed his mind. Kelric stiffened. Then he drew in a breath, calming his adrenaline surge before Bolt took the notion to throw him into combat mode. Reaching out with his mind, he caught the gentle brush of Jeejon’s thoughts. He smelled her too, a pleasing fragrance from the soap they had used earlier when they took a bath together. Remembering the bath, he smiled.

  “You can come over,” he said. “I won’t attack.”

  He stayed still, unsure which way to face. A hand settled on his arm. Even expecting her to touch him, he still almost struck out in reflex. He laid his hand on hers, curling his fingers around her hand. Leaning toward the bed, he searched with his other hand until his palm brushed the quilt. Then he drew her down onto the mattress.

  They lay together, holding each other. She squeezed his arm and her breath tickled his ear. He gave a wan smile. “As much as I like it when you blow in my ear, I’m afraid I can’t hear anything.”

  She stroked his hair, her hand trembling. He wished she were a psion. With his family, he could pick up verbal thoughts. Jeejon’s thoughts came through as words only if they were unusually vivid in her mind, spurred by surprise, shock, or joy.

  “Ah, well,” he whispered. “Hearing isn’t so important.” Touching her face, he brushed tears from her cheek. “Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.”

  She hugged him, burying her head against his shoulder. He worked the covers down under their bodies and then pulled the sheets and quilt ov
er them both. It made him feel closer to her, a connection he needed now, as he lost his other links to the world. He smelled her fragrance, felt her arms, knew her moods. Her mind suffused his with the warmth he had come to know so well these past few days.

  For a while he simply absorbed her presence. It relieved him to have her back. A few hours alone, in a strange city, on a strange world, in the silent dark, had been enough.

  “Don’t go out again without me,” he said. She nodded, her head on his shoulder, her arm across his chest.

  “Did you find out about the visitors’ center?” he asked.

  She nodded again. Sliding up along his body, she brought her lips to his ear. Again her breath tickled the sensitive ridges of his ear. It felt good, but he had no idea whether she was trying to talk to him or initiate love-play. When they were close like this, he always felt her sensual haze of desire. Right now, though, that haze was distant.

  Her breath stopped. She paused, then slid back into his arms.

  “If you just told me something,” he said, “nod your head.”

  Jeejon nodded.

  “I didn’t hear.” Gods. He really was deaf. “We need a code.”

  Again she nodded.

  “How about this?” he suggested. “Use your thumb. One tap means yes. Two means no, three means you don’t know, and four means you can’t answer just using taps.”

  Jeejon tapped her thumb once against his chest.

  “Did you find out about the AUC?”

  She tapped once. Yes.

  “Does it have an information office?”

  One tap. Yes.

  “Can we go today?”

  Two taps. No.

  “Why not?” When she tapped four times, he asked, “Is it because we don’t have enough money?”

  After a pause, she tapped twice. No.

  He wondered about the pause. “We do have enough money?”

  Another pause, followed by one tap. Yes.

  Kelric shook his head. Their tap code wasn’t enough. “Do you know any sign language?”

  Two taps. No.

  “We need to make up some.”

  One tap. Yes.

  Although they couldn’t do much in such a short time, over the next hour they managed to work out signs for a few Eubic glyphs. With that and their tap code, Jeejon communicated what she had learned. The AUC had a visitors’ center for tourists. At this time of year, in winter, it had no scheduled tours, but the center stayed open. They had too little money to rent a hovercar, but they could buy two tickets and ride the magrail north to Ockelbo. From there they could catch an airbus to the AUC. At the visitors’ center, she would find someone in charge and tell them Kelric’s story.

  They both knew she would face disbelief. After her life as a slave, she feared both she and Kelric would be punished for bothering the authorities, then deported or imprisoned. Yet still she agreed to help, because she believed it would make his dying easier. And deep inside a part of her wondered—as he turned more gold each day, as she touched his gauntlets, as his mind brushed hers—if maybe, just maybe, some small part of what he told her was true.

  When they finished making plans, she arranged to have the hotel EI wake them early the next morning. As they settled in to sleep, Kelric winced, his joints and muscles aching. The strain of using his deteriorating hydraulics was taking its toll on his body, particularly in this heavy gravity.

  Jeejon nudged him onto his stomach. She undressed him, working his clothes out from under his body. Then, unasked, she gave him a slow, thorough massage, easing his pain. When he tried to offer her the same, knowing how the gravity exhausted her, she refused. From her mind, he picked up that she simply liked to feel him, that it relaxed her almost as much as him. After the massage, she touched him in ways he liked, brushing her fingers down his spine or over his arms. He sighed, settling into the nest of covers with relief.

  Later she offered more sensual comforts, loving him with an untutored eroticism. And he loved her back, appreciating the gifts that life granted in the most unexpected ways.

  The vibration under Kelric’s seat stopped. Jeejon drew him to his feet. He pulled up the hood of his new parka, enjoying the soft synth-fur against his skin. It wasn’t real fur, of course; on this ancient homeworld of humanity it had long been illegal to kill animals, those few species that remained.

  Cold air hit his face as they stepped down from the bus. It was a “Tuesday” morning, whatever that meant. He moved in silence, aware of icy wind blowing across his face. He smelled trees and felt Jeejon’s arm under his hand. They were walking up an incline. The ground was solid, maybe plastiflex or cement. He detected no other people, at least not nearby.

  They walked slowly, both fatigued just by this short trip. How had humanity survived on this cold, heavy planet? Then again, Earth’s humans didn’t normally grow as big as Kelric or his ancestors, who had engineered themselves for a hot, low-gravity world. It wasn’t his height so much as his musculature. At six foot seven, broad-shouldered and massive, he felt too heavy for the home of his own species.

  “Jeejon?” he said.

  She tapped her thumb on his knuckles.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  Puzzlement came from her mind. She tapped once. Yes.

  “Your bones? Have you broken any?”

  She projected the sense of a laugh and tapped twice. No.

  He smiled, relieved she found the question funny. It suggested she wasn’t in as much difficulty as he feared. “I’m sorry about the gravity.”

  She squeezed his arm.

  “Is it far to the visitors’ center?” he asked.

  She tapped twice. No.

  “Less than a hundred meters?”

  Two taps. No.

  He felt too tired to guess. It took all his concentration to keep limping up the hill. “Think the distance. As loud as you can.”

  Her thoughts brushed his, vague and distant.

  “Again?” he asked.

  Two hun …

  “Two hundred meters?”

  She tapped his knuckles. Yes.

  Two hundred meters. Hardly any distance at all. The prospect loomed as if it were a light-year.

  They continued on, slow and steady. His concentration drifted, but his body kept moving, directed by his worn-out hydraulics.

  Jeejon tightened her grip, stopping him. Then she nudged him forward. He took a step and his foot hit a solid object. Raising his leg, he felt the barrier with the toe of his boot. A step.

  They went up three stairs and walked forward again. The sweet scent of fresh wood wafted in the air. Stretching out his arm, he touched a wall made from planks. Real wood.

  Jeejon took him inside the building. They went a short way, then stopped. He felt her attention on someone. Her hand clutched his so tight it made his fingers ache. Then she tapped her thumb five times on his knuckle, the signal for Kelric to talk.

  He spoke in stumbling English. “Hello? Have you a person here who speaks Eubic? My friend speaks Eubic. I hear not.”

  He waited, in silence. Then Jeejon nudged him again. They went somewhere and sat in chairs.

  As they waited, Kelric felt a curious sensation in his mind. A lightening? No. Anticipation? No. Something else. It came at a level below conscious thought, like a deep, deep drumbeat.

  So deep.

  What?

  Jeejon drew him to his feet. They went to another part of the building. From changes in the air, he thought they walked through an open area, maybe a lobby. Then they entered a closed-in space. He stretched out his arms, but felt nothing. Understanding what he wanted, Jeejon nudged him to the side until his hand brushed a wall.

  Eventually they sat down again, in an office maybe, though he wasn’t sure. In the chair at his side, Jeejon moved as if she were speaking, gesturing with her hands. She stopped, spoke again, stopped. He picked up vague impressions from the others in the room, more than one person, at least two, maybe three. Their minds bathed his w
ith a blurred mix of puzzlement, curiosity, and incredulity.

  He also felt Jeejon’s unease. She had no real idea what she was doing and little facility with words. Yet she kept on, doggedly, never giving up. Why this remarkable woman had given him such loyalty, he had no idea. He wished he had a way to repay her.

  Throughout it all, the drumbeat in his mind continued, deep and full. It spread through him, filling his mental niches.

  Puzzled.

  Searching.

  Where?

  Kelric tilted his head, trying to understand the sensation. Then Jeejon drew him to his feet. Again they went for a long walk. He didn’t think they were in the visitors’ center anymore.

  The next room smelled of antiseptic. At least four people were with them now. He stopped just inside the door, put off by what he sensed. A trap? Whoever he faced here, in this office, bore him neither ill will nor hostility. If anything, they seemed genuinely concerned for his health.

  Mental health. Pah. They had brought him to a psychiatrist.

  When Jeejon tugged his arm, he jerked away from her. “I’m not crazy,” he said in Eubic.

  The attention of everyone in the room focused on him. Distrust. Wariness. How did he know their location? Was he really deaf? Assurance from Jeejon. More questions from the others. He thought Jeejon was telling them he was an empath. They didn’t believe her.

  Suddenly she started to unfasten his parka. He caught her hand, clenching his fingers around hers. Gently she pried open his fist. Then she continued to undo his coat. He stood in a rigid posture, fighting the urge to knock away her hand. Finally she opened up his parka. A vibration transmitted to his neck as she tapped his collar. He understood then. Provider. It proved he was a psion.

  Puzzlement. The Allied authorities had no idea what to make of his story. All the while the drum beat within him.

  Stronger now.

  A growing sense of … of what?

  Recognition?

  Something was happening now, Kelric didn’t know what. Alarm tinged the thoughts of the AUC personnel. Why? It wasn’t him, or not him exactly. Something else? Jeejon was puzzled too. What was happening?