. . .spoke to me awake . . . dreaming of madness. Real. Now . . . know. Not it is notmadness . . .
At dawn. shimmering. the light. Chilled, my bones. Aforce. It has invaded my mind. soul
—their song in my heart. Yes, song! Voices! ! Not from me. Who re theyy?!!
Lucid.
Never felt such clarity. spirits give me vision, kind of vision toto ends of the univrs.
WHER D THEY COME FROM?
cannot return, no way but forward—pray tht—
Someone must. Read.
not be much longer. The voices.
MOZZZZY!!!## I hear you!!
read this. Plse. Someon.
Jonders read and reread the message, massaging his forehead. Dear God, Hoshi—you poor, poor bastard. I'm so sorry. You deserved better. Jonders could not remember ever feeling so weary. What was going on in this world? Intimidation . . . suicide . . . madness.
Mozy. As though Hoshi had heard her voice at the end? Voices. Spirits. Hoshi had been confused and delirious, clearly. But . . . it sounded almost like a spiritual encounter, a religious epiphany.
Perhaps Hoshi's final thoughts were not as incoherent as they seemed. If his eyesight had failed him, that would explain much of the choppiness of the words. They could not simply be dismissed as madness. What they were was another question.
Jonders ground his eyes with his knuckles. It had been one hell of a bad day. And he still had not heard from Slim. Maybe it was just as well. Go home. It's not going to get better.
* * *
Marie's fingers probed his shoulder and seemed to touch, as she massaged, a corner of the complexity of worries and uncertainties that struggled beneath his surface. He closed his eyes, forcing out his breath, as his muscles released a fraction of their tension. "You're a solid knot," she said, and he nodded slowly.
He heard footsteps. "Here, Dad," said Betsy.
He accepted the cup of tea with whispered thanks. He took a sip of the steaming brew; it was too hot to drink. Marie took the cup from him and set it on the end table, then shooed Betsy off to bed. Her thumbs pressed harder into his shoulder muscles. "I guess it couldn't have happened any other way," he said, exhaling.
She worked on his left shoulder. "What couldn't?"
"Hoshi. There was nothing I could have done for him. Not since Mozy's death."
Marie worked silently for a while. "Want to tell me about it?"
He didn't answer at first. As she bore down on a spot of tension, released nervous energy flowed to his fingertips, his toes, the back of his skull. "Can't," he said softly. And then, as though he had in fact said just the opposite, he began talking. Telling her some of the story, not all of it—a bit of Mozy's life, Mozy's death, and Hoshi's tragedy. She listened silently, massaging the back of his neck, and said nothing until he added, "I wonder if Joe Payne knows."
"The newscaster?" she asked in surprise.
He nodded. "I've . . . talked to him already. Before, I mean. Told him some of it." Marie's hands stopped moving, and he reached up to cover them with his own. He leaned his head back and looked up at her upside-down face. "I gave him a starting point. Don't worry. I'm not doing anything that will get me sent to jail." I hope.
Marie kissed his forehead. "That wasn't what I was worried about, dear."
"No? Well, anyway, Payne probably knows more than I do at this point." He chewed his lip, thinking about Hoshi's note—Payne couldn't know about that, though—or could he? It was so hard to shake the feeling of futility, when you had nothing but pain and worry in your heart. Marie was stroking his hair now, and he leaned his head back again between her breasts and pulled her close for a kiss, just a brushing of lips, and he buried his face in her hair, hugging her as she leaned over him. She slipped her hands down the front of his shirt, and he let out a long breath, as he felt himself becoming aroused. "Shall we go to bed early?" he whispered.
She chuckled close to his ear. "What, early? It's after eleven."
"Early, late—what's the difference?"
"None at all," she said, pulling him out of the chair. Together they padded down the hall, flicking off lights, and slipped into the dark and quiet of the bedroom.
Chapter 59
It was a difference in the songs that first caused her to wonder . . . odd musical riffs running through a nearby strand of consciousness. She rippled her viewpoint around and beneath the unfamiliar patterns, listening from various perspectives. (These songs—they're strange to me. Are they stories of your homeworld?)
(They are—) (—of worlds—) (—we have known.)
(Indeed?) she said. (Memories? Songs spun of your visits?)
(As undertones—) (—and themes—) (—yes—) (—but also songs—) (—reaching to us now.) For a moment the sounds were muted, and then the odd riffs that she had noticed before recurred, this time alone. They reminded her of some exotic instrument, perhaps a sitar.
(You mean—) she said, surprise rippling through her, (you are receiving these songs—now—from other worlds?)
(Of course.) A flickering vision shot through her senses: a spidery tachyon beam, like a ray of light, joining one world to another, star to star, planet to asteroid, flickering through space in search of others. Something in the image struck her oddly; it was more than just the passage of a tachyon through space—it was a passage through layers of existence, world after shimmering world.
(What are they like, the people of these worlds? Are there pictures within the songs?)
(Of course—) (—we shall translate—)
Light rippled along the interface lines that joined her with them; and images took form. Images of worlds visited:
—a green and purple landscape, rolling hills under a sky whose color defied description. Along the banks of a river, rows of bisonlike creatures marched purposefully.
—a curious botanical city, peopled with lazily good-natured, flat-billed creatures that struck her as lizardly and birdlike at the same time. (The Slen—) A glimpse of Slen society suggested an astonishing partnership, a plant kingdom fully co-equal with the animal, four-legged creatures seeking intellectual and philosophical advice from phototrophic, rooted mentors.
—a mouselike creature peering out from under a palely golden leaf, maroon sunlight casting a shadow across its nose, and illuminating the tiny pincers that tipped its forelimbs, clicking to some unheard musical rhythm.
—creatures that shimmered at the limits of visibility, like living manifestations of an aurora borealis. (The aura-predators—) remarked someone, with a tone suggesting, Beware. One of the creatures slowly melted and pooled into a luminous liquid, and suddenly metamorphosed into a sharp-edged thing with jutting razor fangs. It lunged forward. Mozy instinctively tried to duck aside, but the creature transformed itself into a netlike sail that enveloped her. Then it dissolved, and reappeared as a benign pool of light.
(Careful!) A burst of laughter brought her back to the present. Her avoidance instinct had sent a Talenki fawn stumbling across the floor, its companions scattering.
(Sorry to—) (—frighten you—) (—but it scared—) (—hell out of us—) (—when we met it!) jabbered her collective guides.
(You nearly gave me a heart attack,) Mozy said breathlessly. (You have met all of these beings?)
(And many more.)
(But surely you're not still in contact with all of them!)
(Those who possess—) (—the skill—) (—and the will—)
(But how?) She imagined an immense network of tachyon links emanating from dozens—hundreds?—of worlds, all converging and centering on this one moving asteroid. Even across the light-years, the worlds remained linked in thought, song, and memory.
The image seemed almost too fulfilling, too bold. (Aren't there ever failures, people who don't want you around?)
The Talenki lapsed into stunned silence, and she wondered, had she offended them?
An image opened like a maw and surrounded her. Dark, cold walls on all sides of her. Moisture con
densing, dripping. She was deep within a cave. (What is this?) she whispered. (Why are we here?) Even if only a memory, it was frightening.
(The Klathron—) whispered the answer. (They dwell in mines—) (—deep inside their world—) (—circling a shrunken red sun—) (—a gloomy body—) (—deep within a dust cloud.)
Mozy shivered.
(Witness our welcome.)
A pale light shone ahead, from beyond a bend in the passageway. The geometry of the mines reminded her of the passageways in the Talenki craft, but without ornamentation or the tricky shifts of dimensionality. Without warmth. Perhaps this was only a little-used outer passageway. As the Talenki rounded one bend and then another, new side passages came into view, offering glimpses of other mazes. Mozy wondered if the Talenki were wandering through the mines unescorted, uninvited; then, dancing at the edges of her vision, she caught the shadowy form of someone—something—guiding them. The Klathron?
A barrier dropped away in front of them, exposing an open area, more brightly illuminated—a chamber, with dancing fire at one end, a chamber full of Klathron.
They were all angles and jointed limbs, and they were black as coal, and moved quickly and skittishly, and were hard to track. There was a humming in chorus, which Mozy realized was the Talenki, composing a greeting; but something about it felt odd, it was a very tentative song, the Talenki were uncertain about their welcome here. (Didn't they invite you?) she whispered, as though afraid that the Klathron even now might hear. No one answered. The song grew slowly, hesitantly.
A pair of smallish Klathron "crabs" darted sideways and then toward the Talenki. They muttered with low, throaty voices, husky and hollow—evidently trying to communicate something. Their behavior was agitated and restless, but the Talenki judged it to be a welcoming, coaxing behavior. They flowed forward, their song shifting to a lighter, more melodious tune. Listen to the Klathron song, feel it, find its raspy rhythm. What do they feel, what do they mean? What is real, what illusion?
Talenki and Klathron faced. Song and rattle and uncertainty filled the room. The Talenki song quieted; the rattle of the Klathron died down. There was silence.
And suddenly chaos. As though at a signal, Klathron screeched and swarmed across the chamber, and erupted from the walls, limbs waving and snapping. The air was filled with dark, angular arms and legs flying, and claws striking at the eyes. The view began to quake and shimmer. It was impossible to tell what was happening. Mozy heard screams of pain—Talenki pain—and felt the slashing of flesh and burning acid spurting into wounds. Something black and hard struck at the eyes that were seeing, and there was a flash of agony as all went dark, and then images streamed in from other eyes, but everywhere it was the same—everywhere massacre. The Talenki didn't know how to fight. Did they at least know how to run?
The answer came in a jumbling of the vision. Talenki were blinking in and out of existence about her, and even the chamber was flickering; the watcher was himself dodging in and out of the continuum. The Klathron, enraged, struck harder and faster than ever. For a time, it looked as though escape would be possible. Talenki flickered out of reach of the claws, in and out of walls. But the hope was an illusion. Something in the bedrock—perhaps the bewildering maze, perhaps another force—thwarted their efforts. Always they found themselves back in the Klathron chamber, set upon in an instant by clouds of flashing fangs and rock-ripping arms. Escape was possible for an instant, and then another instant; but beyond each instant was that terrifying moment of vulnerability, and pain.
The imagery dissolved in a haze of fear and a mist of blood, and behind it all the terrified cries of the Talenki still in their asteroid, watching through a link that was being chewed and whittled to pieces . . . all slowly dissolving, until the only thing left was the mourning wail of the Talenki in space reliving the death throes of their murdered siblings.
(Were they saved—any of them?) she whispered, as though speaking out of the abyss of a bottomless dream.
Silence. And then a whisper. (A bit of their thought—) (—their spirit—) (—their memory—) (—no more.)
(I—) she said, thinking of the Talenki struck dumb with terror, unable even to save their fellow Talenki as, later, they had saved her. (I'm—terribly, terribly sorry.) She wanted to say more, ask more—but she could scarcely talk, it was no longer a time for talk.
Slowly she slipped back into the silence of dreaming.
* * *
Images of Earth: sunset coming on.
She awoke to a golden sun glowing through broken layers of clouds, white stuff banked against the horizon, shimmering with wintry light and shadow. The layers were pulled apart like cotton, letting the dying daylight blaze through. The sun was a sinking, expanding orb, turning crimson and finally spreading its furnace-glow across the undersides of the sky.
She held the image, not wanting to stir from the moment of awakening, not wanting to let pass this memory of the physical beauty of Earth. What had she been dreaming of earlier—the Talenki? She loved them and their world, but it was not Earth—not her world. A longing filled her—to see her Earth again, to hold its beauty in her eyes, its warmth against her breast, its spirit in her heart.
Sunset . . . sculpted desert rock . . . a broad, muddy river twisting its course down the center of a continent . . . majestic, thundering oceans. . ..
Thinking of days when such things were a part of her world, Greater-Mozy passed into a reverie of Earthly images and explorations, landscapes once known to her, mountains, ocean, and plain. Sun and storm, desert and snow. Manhome. Cradle of her species. Womb that had given her up to the cosmos.
In her lesser-self, other thoughts stirred. Memories emerged as though from a vault. How could she have forgotten the gift Kink had given her on her eighth birthday, when she feared no one remembered, or cared? The trio of glass figurines, the stallion and mare and filly, stood proudly on the third shelf of her built-in bookcase for nine years, until the filly was knocked over and broken, and she'd put the other two away in sadness, because she couldn't stand to see them bereft of their offspring. By then, she was angry with Kink more often than she was happy; now, she could scarcely remember why.
How was it that she'd gotten herself bound up in such anger and insecurity—that she'd left with hatred and despair in her heart, and bitterness toward almost the whole of her human race? Had events been so unkind to her?
She riffled through memories like files in a library catalog, viewing each long enough to catalyze the recall: days in school, not feeling quite a part of things, but not yet so isolated as to provoke despair; at home, the arguments and tension that crisscrossed the family, and the occasional moments of understanding that almost, but not quite, cemented them together; the night of evil, the mugging, and the terror and humiliation both during and after; the cutting of the bonds of home, going far off to school with Dee; the excitement of freedom—and then the loneliness—breaking with Dee, who'd abandoned her for a man (but had she really?); the beginning of work on the Project, meeting Kadin . . . and the rest.
Hoshi. Images of Hoshi blazing in her memory now—stark and painful—why? Hoshi stumbling, agony in every step—where did this image come from, had she dreamed it?—Hoshi calling to her, stirred by a Talenki song. But Hoshi had not . . . Where did this image come from? A dream, it must have been a dream. Another puzzle, another question.
And Homebase. Their recent message had been full of confusion. Had she made the last song to them too cryptic, or too blunt? Was she acting out her own past anger?
Here she was, the first and only envoy of Humanity to a race of beings from the stars, and she had to ask: Was she still fully human? Could she fulfill the role that had been thrust upon her? Did she possess the understanding, the compassion? She'd learned to get along with the Talenki. Could she do the same with her own kind?
A feeling welled into existence in her, a prickly light shining through the depths of her consciousness, an aching sullen glow like banked embers emerg
ing, their radiance burning into the self-awareness, making every thought a reflection of the heat. Her people: she could not remember ever thinking of Humanity in this way before. Her last memories were of Homebase—Jonders and Hathorne and the rest—but they were little more than a fleck of Humanity, a quirk. Hers were all the people of Earth, full of imperfections, people who required understanding and care, and mothering.
(You are troubled, Mozy?) A single voice interposed itself softly, at the edge of her consciousness.
It took her a moment to respond. She trembled, aware again of the Talenki presence all around her, like silent breaths of air. One was gently seeking her attention. N'rrril. (Yes?) she answered softly, her answer a question.
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