Dreamstorm

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  Here even two Seersa might be wildly dissimilar. What must that be like, he wondered? And how could he give it up?

  When he passed through the door into their home, he was arrested by an ambrosial scent. “What… is that?”

  Vasiht’h, sipping kerinne at the breakfast table, looked up from his data tablet and smiled. “Filbert-coffee muffins. Dusted with cocoa. They’re in stasis... have one?”

  “I think I shall.”

  The muffins in question were not the only thing waiting in stasis. There was a cup there of coffee—the kind leavened with chicory perhaps, from the oily dark that clung to the ceramic when he tilted the cup. Staring down at this evidence of such care, he felt something in him trying to crumble and stiffen at the same time.

  “You should take the licensing test, you know.”

  “I… I beg your pardon?” he exclaimed, so startled he almost questioned that Vasiht’h had spoken at all.

  But he had, and at Jahir’s utterance his partner twisted to look toward him. “The licensing test,” Vasiht’h said. “The next one is on Tsera Nova? We could go together. I’ll go drink purple things with umbrellas and get sand in my fur on the planet while you slave away at three days of tests. Then you join me and I make you drink the best purple things with umbrellas. I’ll have figured out by then which ones are worth the time.”

  “You… would have me do this.”

  Vasiht’h set his cup down. “Arii? Come sit? Bring the coffee and the muffin.”

  Jahir did so, because it was easier than objecting that he had suddenly misplaced his appetite. Nor could he reject an offering made so obviously with love. “I did not know you knew.”

  “I figured it out with some help,” Vasiht’h said. “But… that’s less important than that you know I don’t mind you doing it. And you really shouldn’t waste the time you’ve put into it already. Before you say you have the time to waste… it’s not about that. It’s about respecting the time you’ve already put into it. You know? If you don’t take it seriously when you’re studying it, you can’t expect yourself to start taking it seriously when it’s real.”

  “If I do take the exam,” Jahir said, grasping at anything to make sense of the conversation, “I will not have a full license until I accrue the necessary practical hours at the hospital. It will take away from the time we spend here.”

  “Not much, though,” Vasiht’h said. “And you’ll enjoy it.” He chuckled. “Actually, having done therapy research in a hospital, I can tell you that you’ll generate a lot of referrals.”

  Jahir stared at him. The mindline was quiescent… no, more than that. It was soft as a blanket, warm like sunlight. Quiet, the good quiet of a companionable silence. “You are taking this so very much more well than I anticipated.”

  Vasiht’h leaned over and cut the muffin into quarters. “And you’re taking it a lot worse than I expected. Your accent’s showing. Here. Try this, tell me if the flavor combination works? I like it, but you’re more the coffee connoisseur than I am.”

  Jahir sampled the muffin, and there was something grounding about the familiar act of trying some new recipe. It was… “Sublime?” he said. “Unexpected, though. One grows resigned to chocolate and hazelnut.”

  “Chocolate and hazelnut is good. I wanted something different.”

  Jahir set the quarter down. “Why?”

  “Did I want to do something different with the muffins? Do I want you to do it? Or why I’m not upset?”

  “Yes?”

  Vasiht’h settled back, warming his palms on his mug. His amusement sparkled in the mindline, just a touch, like sunlight on a pond shadowed by lily pads. “I’m guessing if I start with why I decided to change a recipe, you’ll be… um… ‘wroth’.”

  That startled Jahir into laughing. “No, never. That’s rather too much passion to expend on what would only be a minor irritation.”

  “But it’s related.” Vasiht’h nodded toward the muffin. “The way you put it: ‘one grows resigned’ to things. You do that too much. Never about other people—you wouldn’t let the girls ‘become resigned’ to not having enough money to accomplish their goals—but for yourself? All the time! And I hate that. You deserve good things too.”

  “Perhaps,” Jahir said, quietly. And then drawing in a breath and forcing himself not to avoid discomfort, “No, certainly I do, the same as every other being does. But I question whether it’s meet for me to give myself those things.

  “It’s not a gift to take care of yourself,” Vasiht’h said sternly. “And you have to do that. The Goddess doesn’t put us here to neglect ourselves to the point where we need to be carried by everyone around us. A little of that is okay, because we can’t be strong all the time in everything, but not constantly. We have… ah… responsibilities.” He smiled crookedly. “But wouldn’t my sister howl through this whole conversation.”

  “Her words, I take it?”

  Vasiht’h laughed. “She’d be pulling at my ears. ‘So you were listening but do you ever show it.’” He shook his head, tapped the table near Jahir’s plate. “But she’s right. Self-care is not indulgence.”

  Jahir said, quiet, “Where I’m from, arii, two outworld educations certainly are.”

  Vasiht’h leaned forward. “So why are you doing it?” He lifted a hand. “And don’t tell me ‘because I wanted to’ because one, you never do anything for only one reason, and two, you never do things for yourself unless people push you to.”

  “This,” Jahir said, “is the moment where I eat more of your muffin to conceal my chagrin, isn’t it.”

  “Probably,” Vasiht’h agreed, his affection mingling in the mindline with his exasperation. “Jahir… you’re here now. You can blame yourself for that, and miss the opportunities you could take advantage of… or you can make the most of it. Why would you do the former when you can do the latter?” The Glaseah paused, grimaced. “Honestly, if you’re going to lean toward the former, why even be here at all? You can’t be half a martyr. Or you could, but it’s ridiculous.”

  Jahir stared at the coffee, made for him, and the muffin, submitted to him for his opinion. “It seems so unfair, that I might have so many opportunities, when other people have so few.”

  “It is unfair,” Vasiht’h said. “But we can’t make the universe fair. That’s too big a job for any one person. All we can do is receive the gifts we’re given with gratitude and use them wisely. And help people, where we can, when we’re able. Which requires us to be healthy enough to do that first.”

  “Sometimes we make ourselves healthy by helping others,” Jahir murmured.

  Vasiht’h sat up and walked around the table. Before Jahir could ask, he found himself enveloped in his partner’s furred arms, and the embrace was so surprising he yielded to it without hesitation. They touched so infrequently this way, and when they did it was almost invariably at Jahir’s instigation.

  /You are bound and determined to make things as hard on yourself as possible, aren’t you,/ Vasiht’h said, in the mindline that proved—to his mind, and so to Jahir’s—that the Goddess loved them. /But it’s all right to have good things in your life, arii. And all right to say ‘yes’ to them. So say ‘yes’ to this one?/

  Jahir was silent a moment, resting in both the physical and mental embrace. Finally, he offered, of the hug, /I accepted this?/

  /You did,/ Vasiht’h agreed, drawing back to look at him. /And without a pause. I know this is harder for you because it’s all about you, not just me. But it is a little bit about me, too, because it would make me happy to see you doing something that matters to you. And this matters./

  “What we do also makes me happy,” Jahir said, voice roughened.

  “I know,” Vasiht’h said. “Or I would be a lot more scared about you apparently feeling the need to learn a completely different job. But this isn’t about either-or. It’s about both-and. Right? You can have both licenses, and it’s not going to hurt us. Or you. Or some nebulous other people who don’t
have the same chances you have to do the things you get to do.”

  Jahir thought of the Eldritch dying of unnecessary causes on the homeworld and wasn’t so certain about that. But… he also couldn’t help them until he had the education. “I suppose it wouldn’t take a great deal of time to sit the test.”

  “It wouldn’t, no. We’d get to have a vacation, too. With purple drinks with umbrellas in them.”

  Jahir leaned back out of the embrace. “I don’t know about the purple drinks. The ocean view sounds pleasing, though.”

  “After you take the test. Otherwise you might get distracted.”

  With a sigh, Jahir smiled at his best friend. “You’re convinced about this course, then.”

  Vasiht’h snorted, resuming his place at the table and drinking the rest of the kerinne. “It’s just a test, arii. What’s the worst that could go wrong? You fail it and have to do it again? Then we reschedule for a different time, after you take a few more classes.”

  “And if I pass?”

  “Then you get your provisional license and do some work at the hospital, and we move our schedule around to accommodate it,” Vasiht’h said. “That’s hardly the worst thing in the worlds, and the fact that you even think it might be is leading.” He pointed. “Do I need to refer you to Allen?”

  Jahir laughed. “No, please. I daresay one of us seeing him is enough.”

  “Exactly.” Vasiht’h smiled at him, and through the mindline the love felt like a warm wave, enveloping. “So is this settled?”

  “I… think so, yes.”

  “Good. Then finish your muffin and let’s make plans.”

  Chapter 8

  The trip to Tsera Nova could take as long as five days and as short as a single day, depending on the number of flight connections and the speed of the individual vessels. Even having had experience booking such trips, Vasiht’h decided to leave the arrangements to Jahir. It was one thing, apparently, to buy passage to Core worlds, which supported a constant flow of traffic of nearly every kind. Planets primarily attracting tourists… Vasiht’h wondered if it they were hiking the prices up on purpose, and if that was legal. But maybe there simply weren’t as many options to choose from, and the people with the money to go to entirely different planets just to recreate weren’t going to bat their lashes at the amounts required by dedicated passenger liners. With some creative juggling, he could have traded time for savings by hopping to one of the Core worlds first, then taking a short leg from there, but… his head started aching. He got the feeling if he started scheduling such contortions, Jahir would ask him why, and then they would have another tiresome conversation where the Eldritch didn’t actually say anything, just looked at him mournfully.

  Vasiht’h hated those mournful looks. They worked far too well.

  Vasiht’h didn’t pick the hotel either, because there was no such thing as a cheap hotel on Tsera Nova. The only economical alternative for that was to stay on the station, and Jahir refused.

  “We are not going to—” The Eldritch paused to lift the tablet and read from the marketing brochure, “—‘the tropical jewel in the Alliance’s Crown neighborhood’ to sleep in orbit.”

  “We can sleep in orbit and go down every day!” Vasiht’h said. “That’s what Pads are for!”

  “Padding from orbit is itself not a minor expense,” Jahir pointed out, setting the tablet down. “And the accommodations in orbit are not substantially less money.”

  “They are compared to those prices…”

  Jahir shook his head, expression stern. “No, arii. You talked me into this… well and again, we shall do it. And I shan’t go to excess. But I wish to do the thing in relative comfort. Or would you prefer us to wait until autumn? The licensing exam then is on Asanao, in some mountain retreat, I believe.”

  Vasiht’h had seen the photos of the ‘mountain retreat’. It was so high on the peak you had to use a Pad to reach it, because any trail would have been too steep for mere vehicles. Its major attraction was the path around its perimeter… the invisible one created by a field-generator, which allowed you to enjoy the thousands-feet drop under your feet. It was alternately billed as having ‘the most breathtaking views on the planet’ and being ‘the ultimate test of courage.’ “Ugh, no. Absolutely not.”

  “Then I shall book us a hotel, and I will be the one Padding to the station for the exam,” Jahir said. “After I finish, we can tarry a few days longer to enjoy the sights. Yes?”

  The viseos on the tablet between them seemed to sparkle at him. Vasiht’h imagined his triumphantly successful friend picking through a light meal and then diving into an ocean. That ocean, the pellucid aquamarine one that gleamed in the perfectly photographed sun. “Yes.”

  The Glaseah didn’t start feeling excitement until they were packed and once again at Veta’s docks.

  “Rather more traveling than we usually indulge in,” Jahir observed. “Two trips within a year.”

  “Maybe we should travel more?” Vasiht’h asked, but saying it he immediately knew they wouldn’t. “Or, you know. When the mood strikes us.”

  “Or need does.” The Eldritch was watching the crowds stream past, the mindline generating a warm wind that seemed to brush against the fur on Vasiht’h’s sides. “I believe this might be better classified as… a business trip?”

  Vasiht’h laughed. “Yes, I guess so! Who would have thought it.”

  “We could go to more conferences, I suppose.”

  “Or,” Vasiht’h said, resettling the strap of his carry-on over his shoulder, “we could just stay home and be domestic.”

  “There is a great deal to be said for domesticity.”

  “One of the many reasons we get along so well.” Vasiht’h grinned, catching the sparkle in his friend’s eye.

  “One of the many.”

  The liner Jahir booked for them made the trip in a leisurely day and a half, necessitating a sleepover in a surprisingly comfortable cabin, given its size. The ship was typical for its purpose, Vasiht’h guessed: big windows everywhere, great food, lots of entertainment, helpful associates. He and Jahir spent most of their waking hours in the passenger lounge, which had its window wall open to Wellspace, overlaid with a glittering projection of their location relative to their destination and popping up landmarks in normal space as the ship passed them, unseen. Jahir read medical journals, as was his habit; Vasiht’h caught up on his backlog of messages, writing all his relatives including the ones who preferred only sporadic correspondence.

  After dinner, when they’d repaired to their cabin to sleep, Vasiht’h asked, /Are you nervous?/

  Jahir sat on the edge of his bunk, shaking his sleeves down over his hands. Staring up at the ceiling, he answered in the intimacy of the mindline. The associated emotions… like a clear sky, bright with sun and potential. /No? Not the way you would suggest, I think. I know the material. I do not fear the test./

  /The rest of it then? After?/

  “Mayhap,” Jahir murmured aloud. His sigh was subtle, more visual than audible: Vasiht’h could see it lift his shoulders, make his braid shift against his neck. /I am nervous like a horse ready for a run, waiting to be released to it./

  Which wasn’t the whole story, Vasiht’h thought, and felt a flush of satisfaction. The puzzle of his partner’s complex emotions never ceased to fascinate him… when he wasn’t worried that it was his fault, anyway. Like now: would he learn what had made the Eldritch shift out of the mindspeech into words? What uncertainty had prompted it? The mindline wasn’t giving any hints.

  “It’ll be done before you know it,” was what he decided to say aloud, and plumped his pillows.

  “Yes.”

  There was something in the endlessness of the Alliance that stole one’s breath, at the contemplation of the concept, at the confrontation of the reality. Disembarking from the passenger liner onto the orbital station’s dock, Jahir had to remind himself to keep walking lest he trip Vasiht’h behind him… for the dock’s entire exterio
r wall was flexglass, and the planet spread in that vista, so enormous, so vibrant and dark a blue....

  “Goddess,” Vasiht’h said, coming up alongside him, wide-eyed. “Can you imagine what it cost to put that up instead of something more sensible?”

  “But oh, how good that they did!” Jahir said.

  “It is a tourist destination, I guess.” Vasiht’h came to a halt beside him while the traffic flowed around them out of the gate. “Those are some interesting cloud patterns, though.”

  The white swirls glossed the surface of the world like paint under the glass of a marble, so crisp they looked sharp to the touch. The impossible clarity of vacuum never ceased to delight Jahir… that and the Alliance’s ability to create a pane of material so clear he could see through it thus.

  It was the outrageous size of it, and the breadth of the view, as if he could fall forward into it, that made him feel suddenly how fortunate he was, and how impoverished his people were.

  “On the other hand,” Vasiht’h said cheerily, “if this is what the dock looks like, the place you’re doing the test should be gorgeous. I hope you’ll be able to concentrate.”

  “God and Lady save me,” Jahir answered, to the Glaseah’s amusement. “Speaking of which, I must report into the proctor. Can you handle the hotel?”