Mindline

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  "No," Jahir said.

  "Well, night shift's arriving. You should get off that stool before your joints freeze up."

  Jahir nodded and rose. He rested a hand on the male's ankle, just a feather touch... and was shocked to feel a pale echo back.

  "What?" Radimir said. When Jahir glanced at him, the Harat-Shar said, "You've stopped moving. What? Can you feel something?"

  "A little. Yes." Jahir let his other hand rest on the other foot and stretched his senses out. A flame of hope lit: maybe one of them would survive. Maybe one of them would wake up.

  Come! he called. Come back!

  Another echo, like a flicker of light in a dark room.

  That was all the warning he had before the world erupted.

  The cup fell off the table and shattered, spraying the kerinne on the patio. Vasiht'h leaped to his feet so quickly his feet tangled and he stumbled, catching himself on the table's edge. Something was wrong. Oh Goddess, something was catastrophically wrong. The mindline was a howl in his head and all of it was urgency: COME NOW COME NOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE

  He didn't remember running back. He remembered fear, mind-blinding, throat-burning, chest-constricting fear. He remembered how much his legs trembled as he darted through the afternoon crowds. Time smeared. The light on his shoulders and back flickering: shade, then sun, then shade again. The towers of Mercy Hospital, skidding into the emergency room. Somehow getting out to the person at the desk that he was here for one of the employees. Her polite attempts to calm him down. His desperation... the door that had opened for another patient, the one that allowed him to rush in.

  Ignoring the startled people he left in his wake.

  The calls that he couldn't make sense of, because the only thing that mattered was in front of him and needed him NOW.

  The urgency of it, the mounting terror—

  —and then crashing into a room and diving for the crumpled body at the foot of the bed, and vaulting after the spark he could barely feel in the mindline, dwindling.

  Noise and sound and light—

  No, Vasiht'h snarled into that maelstrom. No, I did not just find him to lose him! And dragged that spark back up through the screaming chaos, digging into it, feeling it slip away and refusing, refusing to let it fall. With everything in him, with every experience that had made him, with every breath he'd taken in comfort and safety, he drew back and pulled his best, his dearest friend with him, until the spark became a flame, and the flame became a light, and the light became the sun and flooded him, and Jahir welled back into his own body and fell forward into Vasiht'h's arms, gasping. The animal panic that accompanied him made both their hearts race, and that was fine for Vasiht'h but not good for an Eldritch already too taxed by the world. So he clutched Jahir close and said, "You're fine, you're fine. You're here, you're safe." Vasiht'h let his head sag forward to rest against the fine white hair. He could feel Jahir's fingers digging into his back. They were going to leave bruises. When had the Eldritch ever been so frightened? Frightened enough to show it?

  Easier to concentrate on that than to let himself feel how scared he was, too.

  "Who the hell—"

  "Let us—"

  "Stay back," Vasiht'h growled before he even looked up to see the people trying to approach. He lifted his head, just enough to see them. A Harat-Shar and a Karaka'An in the uniform of healers-assist, both of them wide-eyed and fretful. He forced his fur to smooth back down while also shifting his lower body to keep as much of Jahir hidden from them as possible. "Stay back," he said, quieter. "Don't touch him, or you'll make it worse."

  More people were showing up at the door now, and the threat of their entry, the probability that they'd accidentally brush against Jahir—or do it on purpose, trying to help—Vasiht'h's fur fluffed up again. "Who are you?"

  "We were about to ask you that," the Harat-Shar said. "And these people need to get in here. The patient just..."

  "Died," the Karaka'An said, ears flattening. "Like the others. Was he here again? Did he..."

  "He was touching him." The Harat-Shar's tail was lashing. "He said he felt something. He was touching him and concentrating...."

  And when the patient died, he almost took the Eldritch with him. Vasiht'h's arms tightened around Jahir's. "This is one of the drug victims?"

  One of the other strangers said, "That's yet to be determined."

  "Temple."

  Everyone in the room froze, including Vasiht'h. Jahir moved his head, trying to lift it and failing. He rested it against Vasiht'h's shoulder, eyes still closed, and said again, hoarse, "Temple. Injected at the temple. Or... into the carotid. With an AAP."

  The Harat-Shar stared at him, mouth agape.

  "Are you sure?" one of the others asked, intent.

  A flicker of images, so vibrant Vasiht'h wobbled: the cold pressure of the metal against skin, the hiss, so close to the ear. The sudden rush—

  —so good—

  "Stop!" he hissed, digging his own fingers into Jahir's back. "Come back!"

  Jahir shuddered and rasped, "I'm sure."

  "I am too," Vasiht'h muttered, his skin crawling at the memory. He concentrated on the taste of the espresso-laced kerinne: the fatty cream, the nose-itching bite of the cinnamon, the earthy bass note of the coffee. He felt Jahir's frown against his shoulder: concentration. Interest. A whisper: More. Vasiht'h closed his eyes and dragged the rest of the memory back from before the spike of crisis: the sweetness: honey, not sugar, and a wildflower honey that tasted like the air smelled. A hint of something else... /Nutmeg?/ Yes, nutmeg. /You've been learning your spices./

  /Because you taught me./

  They both felt Jahir swallow, and the violence of his shaking began to subside.

  A cleared throat drew Vasiht'h's attention from the very important task of making sure his friend didn't fall apart. "So... ah... you didn't say who you are?"

  "And how the hells you got in here," a second voice said, irritated.

  Vasiht'h looked up and found another man shadowing the Harat-Shar... human, this time. "I'm Vasiht'h," he said. "And I'm his partner. And you damn near killed him. And for what?"

  "He's right." The healer bent over the body frowned, parting the fur at the male's temple. "You could have missed it. But there's a pump injection site here."

  Everyone in the room looked at them. Vasiht'h's claws inched from his paws. "Great," he said. "Now you know. And you can stop asking him to throw himself off the tops of buildings."

  "Va.. Vasiht'h..."

  Vasiht'h ignored Jahir. "And I am, in fact, taking him home. Now."

  The Karaka'An woman said, "Makes sense to me. He's off shift. Right, Radimir-alet?"

  "Well... yes... but they might have questions..."

  The human, who'd been silent since the outburst that had heralded his arrival, said now, "I think they can wait. You—Vasiht'h, right?—can you get him up? I don't think he can stand without help. We could get a stretcher."

  "We could put him in a room here?" Radimir said.

  "No," Vasiht'h and the human said in unison. Vasiht'h glanced at him warily, but the human shook his head. "No, Rad, he's got to get out of here. Get some real down-time. That's not going to happen if he stays." He looked at Vasiht'h. "So, can you get him up? Because if you're the only one who can touch him right now, it's going to be hard for us to help you."

  "I can manage," Vasiht'h said. "I have before." He braced his feet beneath himself and turned his attention to Jahir. /You're listening./

  /...I am./

  /Can you—/

  /—I don't know. I... I don't know./

  Vasiht'h didn't like the taste of the sendings, disjointed and brittle. Hold on, then. Sliding his arms under Jahir's, he started to rise, and was grateful when the Eldritch managed to stumble up with him.

  "Are you sure you can make it?" the human said, assessing them once they'd stood.

  "Jiron... alet." Jahir managed the words and nothing else.

  "Get us a stret
cher," Vasiht'h said, and ignored the tired denial in the mindline. He held Jahir up until it arrived and then helped arrange him on it... and the moment the Eldritch was prone he passed out. The snuffing of his consciousness in the mindline was so abrupt Vasiht'h panicked until he felt the reassuring weight of the Eldritch in the back of his mind. Not receding, not distant. Just exhausted. He sighed out, realized he was shaking.

  "Can we get you anything?" the human, Jiron, said, his gaze somber. He rested a hand on Vasiht'h's shoulder.

  "No. Yes. No. Just... oh Goddess. Tell me this is over."

  Jiron looked at him, then at the Eldritch. "I hope to God it is."

  That wasn't good enough, but it was also all he was going to get. Vasiht'h followed the stretcher out of the hospital.

  Chapter 14

  When Jahir woke, it was to shock that he was awake, and fear at what it might bring… and then a hand snaked into his, squeezing the fingers, and the nightmares scattered. Jahir opened his eyes and found Vasiht'h sitting next to him on the floor by the bed. His bed, in the apartment.

  For a very long moment he could say nothing. Had nothing to say. There was light on his face, pale morning sunlight. A blanket up over his shoulder, hiding the uniform.

  He had socks on.

  What he finally said, then, was, "You put socks on me."

  "Our feet were cold," Vasiht'h answered. And then his head fell forward to rest against their joined hands, and while he didn't weep the mindline shook between them, a gleaming shimmy that suggested the strength of the will that was keeping his friend from overwhelming them both. Relief. Panic. Anger. A great deal of anger.

  "I'm here now," Jahir offered, hoarse.

  "You almost died!" Vasiht'h exclaimed. He looked up, eyes fierce. "That wasn't in the deal. It was forever until I die because I'm the one who has the shorter lifespan! You're not allowed to go circumventing that! At least, not less than two weeks after I show up!"

  Jahir winced and pressed his fingers against the Glaseah's. Four to his five; furred on the top and skin on the bottom. Complicated hands, so different… it kept him focused on reality, to concentrate on them. "I did not go courting my predicament, arii," he said, and the mindline made it apology.

  "I know." Vasiht'h's shoulders slumped. "I know. I just… if I hadn't been there…."

  They were both silent then, dread congealing between them.

  Even now, even feeling his complete depletion, the hollow aches that warned of a frailty as much mental as physical, Jahir found it difficult to believe that he'd almost died. That someone's mind could draw his after it and smother them both. He'd read about such things of course; there were even stories of people doing it a-purpose. Horror stories, naturally. Myths of terrible villainy. To discover those stories were true in a place as mundane as a hospital?

  When he let his mind wander, the memories of the cacophony tried to crowd back in. He turned his face into the pillow, shoulders tightening.

  "Computer," Vasiht'h said. "Put the baroque original channel back on."

  Strings swelled into the silence, dispelling the ugliness. Jahir felt the tension flow out of his spine, and accepted that this was deeper trouble than he had been prepared to admit to.

  "And this is going to end," Vasiht'h said, answering the thought. He shook their hands gently. "All right? They got what they needed. They have the proof. Now it's up to them. We're therapists, arii, we deal with people who can respond to us. We can't do a thing about people who need surgical intervention."

  "Yes," Jahir said. Softer, "Vasiht'h… I did not mean to imperil myself. I am sorry."

  A wash of remorse. "I know. I know, and I'm sorry I yelled at you. I was just… I still am… really upset. Scared." Vasiht'h ran his free hand over his face, from forelock to lips. He shook his head. "I was lashing out at an available target. I didn't mean it."

  "I know," Jahir said. He tried, tentatively, to extend his own forgiveness through the mindline, felt it accepted with an embarrassment that felt like a faint tint of peach on pale skin. He made himself look toward the window. "Is it morning already? Really?"

  "Yes," Vasiht'h said. "And don't you dare tell me you're thinking of going to work. You can call in sick."

  "But who will replace me?"

  "They have on-call healers-assist. All hospitals do. They can wake someone else up to take your place, and you will rest."

  And he did feel weak. But lying in bed with nothing to keep the impressions of the dying mind from preying on him.… "I think I would prefer aught else. Something to fill me."

  "Then you'll let me arrange for that," Vasiht'h said. "While you call in. Or I can do it for you… they know me by now."

  "Do they?" Jahir paused, sorting through hazy memories. "You reproached them." A better memory: a snarl like a hunting cat's. "God and Lady, you yelled at them."

  "I was a little upset," Vasiht'h mumbled.

  A trickle of golden amusement snuck past the fear and exhaustion. Jahir said, "A little?"

  "They were pushing you." The Glaseah's ears fanned back. "They were pushing, and they didn't have the slightest idea what they were asking of you. I know it seems funny, and maybe it is, a little, in retrospect, but this is important, arii: non-espers are never going to understand what they're asking of people like us when they ask us to perform for them. As far as those people know, what happened to you was the equivalent of someone taking a punch. They don't understand: you were a dying person. And if I hadn't been there to separate the two of you.…"

  Jahir sat up, ignoring his anxiety. "And yet, where we have talents that are not otherwise available, we have decided it is our duty to use them. Is that not so?"

  "And you have," Vasiht'h said, still gripping his hand. "And you did your duty. It's done. Over. It's their game now. Right?" When Jahir didn't answer, the Glaseah said, "Jahir. It's not your place to die for these people."

  "There are some who would say to die to protect others is a great good."

  "And what makes their life more important than yours?" Vasiht'h asked. Exasperation filled the mindline with burrs, prickly and close. "You're not a soldier. You're a healer-assist. Not even that yet, until you graduate. That gives you the duty to try to save your patients. Not to commit suicide."

  That penetrated. Jahir winced.

  "Jahir?"

  He met his friend's eyes. Brown, earnest and far too somber.

  "This noble sacrifice impulse… I understand it, and I understand you have it. But I also want you to know: you've already made it. By coming to the Alliance, by committing yourself to being willing to care about people who are going to die centuries before you do. By committing to me, to a mindline with me. All right? Please, don't go looking for more opportunities. The ones you've got are going to be hard enough on you."

  "Do you really believe yourself to be a sacrifice?" Jahir asked, quiet.

  "Not yet," Vasiht'h said. "But I'm not kidding myself that one day I will be, and neither should you." He paused, then added, ears flattening, "Unless you go get yourself killed. On the second week of your promise to me."

  The pain in the mindline wanted more than words. Jahir brought their joined hands to his heart and pressed the back of Vasiht'h's hand to his chest, where the racing of his taxed heart could be felt as an undertow between them—psychically, if not physically. And that made his friend sigh and relax a little.

  "Go on," the Glaseah said. "Call in. I'll take care of everything else."

  "I hear and obey," Jahir said, to make him laugh, and it worked.

  Vasiht'h waited until he heard Jahir's voice, talking in a low tenor murmur to his supervisor, before putting a pot on for tea and dragging his data tablet off the coffee table. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so taxed himself, but the night had been harrowing. The death impression kept trying to reassert itself in nightmare, and when it had, it had disrupted Jahir's sleep and jerked Vasiht'h awake to soothe it away again. It had only stopped when he'd thought to leave the music runn
ing, and that had given them both a coherent framework to cling to. But he hadn't slept well or much, and some part of him was still desperately trying not to realize just how close a thing it had been. If he'd arrived too much later....

  He rubbed his face again. He didn't like feeling so raw. Some part of that was Jahir, though... and that he could fix. They both needed filling, with something so vast the events of the prior evening wouldn't find any purchase again. And it had to be something that wasn't too physically demanding. Vasiht'h paged through the tourist listings for Heliocentrus, feeling more than hearing the call in the other room end. His hearing was average for one of the Pelted, and it surprised him to hear the hiss of the shower so clearly until he identified its source in the mindline. Come to think of it, a shower sounded good to him too. He scratched at his pelt where it had matted against his side where he'd been leaning against the bed all night and made a face.

  The good parts of the mindline were very good.

  The bad parts were terrifying.

  Vasiht'h stared at nothing for a while and then shook himself and returned to examining the listings. Museums, too much walking. Concerts... promising, but they'd done concerts before. He wanted something less expected. Tours of rooftop farms, an exotic flower festival, three or four art exhibits, including one touring the Alliance on artifacts from the Diaspora...

  ...when he found what he wanted, he grinned and made arrangements. If it bit hard into his funds, well, celebrating living through the previous day was worth it. That took care of the afternoon. If he timed it right—he made a quick call. By the time Jahir was stepping into the living room, he was ready with their lunch and tea.

  "It is strange," Jahir said. "To be in normal clothes."

  "Given that you've been falling asleep in uniform, I'm not surprised," Vasiht'h said. "I happen to like you this way." A hint of trepidation, cold and sour, seeped through the mindline, and Vasiht'h wrinkled his nose. "I don't mean it that way. I just think you should have more balance in your life. Working so much that you collapse in your clothes at night isn't balance, arii."