Mindline

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  "And how exactly is she supposed to do that?"

  Vasiht'h put the cup down. "Sir, our methods might be new, but dream interpretation is an ancient field of study. And the psychological principles are going to be the same, no matter how we're going about affecting them."

  "Mmm."

  That was it? Mmm? Vasiht'h narrowed his eyes at the Seersa. "What?"

  "I assume you're taking case notes?"

  "Yes?"

  "So what makes you think she has anything to add to what you're already doing?"

  Vasiht'h bared his teeth. "The fact that she's had seventeen years of experience doing this and we haven't? Sir, this is our practicum. If she fails us, she's going to put us back a semester, maybe prejudice our next overseer against us."

  "Vasiht'h," Palland said, and the firmness of his voice was quelling. "Ravanelle's fair. She's not going to throw the semester if the two of you get good evaluations."

  "Even if she can't tell how we're doing it?" Vasiht'h asked. "I know it sounds crazy, sir, but without being right there in our heads, she can't really tell how we're doing what we're doing. For all she knows, we're brainwashing our clients."

  "Give her a little credit," Palland said. "She's a smart woman. If she can't find a way to evaluate your process, she'll figure out how to evaluate your results."

  "So his advice was to trust her," Vasiht'h concluded later over the remains of their dinner. The mindline brought him a whiff of cinnamon and he said, testy, "And no, I do not need to bake an apple crumble."

  "You don't?" Jahir said, interest piqued. "I had not had anything specific in mind. I like the notion of an apple crumble."

  Vasiht'h opened his mouth to protest but seeing the hope in his roommate's eyes made him laugh. "Aksivaht'h bless," he said. "What am I going to do with you."

  "Feed me until I pop, most probably," Jahir said. "Shall I make coffee now? How long will this crumble take?"

  "I'm not making—oh, fine. An hour, probably. Wait on the coffee."

  Jahir managed to look abashed despite not moving much. Perhaps it was the feeling in the mindline, a faint skin flush that Vasiht'h was fairly certain wasn't his, but that he couldn't see on his friend's fair face without scrutinizing it. "I could slice something if you need it done."

  "You can start by peeling. After that, you slice."

  In the kitchen, plying the knife, Jahir said, "KindlesFlame shares Palland's opinion."

  Vasiht'h paused, pastry cutter in hand. "That we should trust Ravanelle?"

  "That we should trust the system," Jahir said, carefully shaving the top of the apple. He always did that: cut a flat surface on fruit so he could hold it steady against the cutting board. The mindline's permanence finally brought Vasiht'h a hint of his friend's concentration, and fainter, the fear that he might cut himself badly with the knife if the fruit slipped out from under him.

  "They can reattach them, you know," Vasiht'h said.

  Jahir looked up, startled, honey eyes wide. "I beg your pardon?"

  "Fingers. If you slice them off. They can be reattached."

  Jahir stared at him for several heartbeats more, then said, with commendable dignity, "I would very much prefer not to put either of us through the trouble of escorting me to a clinic with one of my fingers wrapped in a napkin."

  "I think I'd prefer not to spend my evening that way too," Vasiht'h said. He went back to cutting the butter into the flour. "I still don't trust any of it."

  "We shall do right by our clients," Jahir said, cutting his apple with careful strokes. "The rest will take care of itself."

  Chapter 32

  The challenge they'd been expecting was visited on them two weeks before the end of the semester, when they arrived at the clinic to discover all their appointments had been canceled.

  "That's weird," Vasiht'h said, ears flattened. "Why didn't they call to tell us not to come?"

  "Because you still have one appointment," Ravanelle said, joining them in the hall. She folded her arms. "Me."

  "You?" Jahir asked.

  "Me. For the next two weeks, I am your appointment."

  /We may need to sit down for this,/ Vasiht'h said, and Jahir couldn't tell if that gelatinous texture was unease or surprise or revulsion. Perhaps all three?

  To banish it, he replied, /At least it is in the open now, arii./

  /Maybe./

  Ravanelle led them into the room they used for their patients and sat on the couch, facing them. She crossed her legs, resting her hands on her knee, and said, "I've been watching the two of you work now all semester. And I've been paying attention in this trance you pull me into, but it's really hard to interpret anything through that. It's like..." She trailed off, ears flicking outward as her gaze lost focus. "It's a little like trying to understand a dream. I'm lucid enough to watch it happening, but I can't tell what part you're playing with it. Are you moving through it because the students are dreaming you in response to your presence? Or are you fixing things somehow?" She shook her head. "Sometimes I think I can hear the two of you talking, but it's not a channel I can access, if that makes sense."

  "It makes sense, inasmuch as any of this does," Jahir said.

  She snorted. "There you go. Diplomatic as always." She folded her arms, leaning back on the couch. "Now I know what the students tell me. And I know something from my independent evaluations of them. But that's not enough. Not for something like this, where there are no rules yet, and where we don't even know if the methods are going to be harmful."

  Vasiht'h opened his mouth to protest, but Jahir sent a soothing quiet through the mindline. /Let her. This may be the only way we can convince her./

  "So," Ravanelle finished. "You've got two weeks. Try this thing on me."

  "Is there some problem you wish us to address?" Jahir asked.

  She chuckled. "I'm tired and stressed. Is that enough?"

  "I guess we'll find out," Vasiht'h said. "Can you fall asleep?"

  "Sure." Ravanelle pulled her heavily jointed digitigrade legs onto the couch and fluffed the pillow. "Any excuse for a rest."

  They stepped out of the room to give her some quiet. Jahir waited for the outburst and was pleased when Vasiht'h sat on it instead.

  "It wouldn't be productive to be upset," the Glaseah said after a moment.

  "She is giving us a chance," Jahir replied. "And as we are going into her subconscious mind, you may not want your resentment of her neglect to reach her."

  Vasiht'h made a face. "Wouldn't that be a mess." And then laughed. "Don't give me that severe look. I'm not going to do anything to jeopardize our grades. I want out of this as much as you do."

  "Good."

  "Of course, we might still fail because she doesn't need a therapist," Vasiht'h said. "Wouldn't that be ironic."

  "I would prefer not to court such ironies by mentioning them."

  "Do you really think that works?" Vasiht'h wondered.

  Jahir said, "This from the male whose Goddess made the world with Her thoughts?"

  "Good point." Vasiht'h looked at the closed door. "Prayer might not be such a bad idea right now, at that."

  Ravanelle's dreams were reassuringly mundane, clogged with anxieties about the claustrophobic tightness of her schedule, the plethora of responsibilities, and the many tasks that were left undone because there simply weren't the hours in the day. There were murky hints of things that concerned her, but it wasn't until the third session that they followed one of those hints successfully to its source... and saw themselves.

  They backed out of that dream so quickly Jahir almost gave himself a headache.

  /Oh hells,/ Vasiht'h said as Ravanelle slept beside them, innocent of their shock. /Is this what it looks like? Is the professor who just implied that our passing grade is going to be based on whether our therapy works on her... having psychological issues with us?/

  Jahir rubbed his forehead slowly. /Yes./

  Vasiht'h covered his face; Jahir could hear him taking several long, slow brea
ths.

  /Come. Let's step outside a moment./

  In the corridor, Vasiht'h said, "Now what do we do? How can we tackle this at all? Ethically, it's covered in thorns."

  "I think our only choice is to tell her," Jahir said. "We cannot assuage her concerns directly. At least, not with our therapeutic methods."

  "We haven't been able to demonstrate the technique to her, though," Vasiht'h said. "How can she make her decision if we don't?"

  "I don't know," Jahir replied. "But we certainly can't adjust her interior perceptions until they show us in a more favorable light."

  "No." Vasiht'h looked away. "No, we can't. It's just..."

  Unfair. Ridiculous. Frustrating. Laughable.

  "Yes," Jahir said, wryly, and pushed the door back open again. They came to a halt over the couch, looking down at their professor, revealed as somewhat more careworn in her sleep than she managed to look when animated by her ferocious energy. "Do you wish to do the honors?"

  "I should," Vasiht'h said, and set a hand on the Seersa's arm. "Healer Ravanelle? It's time to get up."

  She cracked her eyelids, squinting. Then sat up and shook herself. "Already? It doesn't feel like it's been two hours."

  "It hasn't been," Vasiht'h said. "We've... run into a problem."

  One brow went up. "Ah?"

  /Here I go,/ Vasiht'h said, sour as lemon juice. "In our first sessions, we noticed you had some anxiety about a particular issue, so we've been trying to chase it down. And today we finally isolated it."

  "Oh?" she asked, straightening completely. "This should be good."

  "And... it's us," Vasiht'h finished. "Right now, the thing that's most upsetting you is us. So we pulled back and woke you up to tell you we can't... well, we can't do anything more."

  "Why not?" she said, brow lifted.

  /Is she making a joke?/ Vasiht'h asked, incredulous.

  /I think that looks more like a test to me./

  "Because to fix your opinion of us is wrong," Vasiht'h finished.

  "Isn't that what you've been doing with these other people?" she asked. "Fixing their opinions of things."

  Vasiht'h's words came so tight with tension they made Jahir's shoulders ache. /Help. You handle this./

  "It is one thing to offer someone help in battling an issue that has nothing to do with you," Jahir said. "Another to manipulate their beliefs to your own profit."

  "And manipulating them to conquer their issues isn't to your profit," Ravanelle said, hands folding again on her knee.

  "Only as much as it is to anyone's profit to see other people more content, more whole." Jahir replied, ignoring Vasiht'h's strain. "This is what we have gone into the profession to effect, is it not?"

  "Helping people cope with their problems, their fears?" She tilted her head. "That's why most people do it, yes. You honestly think that's what you're doing? What if you hadn't figured out my problem? What if you'd spent weeks tromping around my subconscious, influencing me? What if you hadn't figured it out in time, and changed my opinion of you?"

  "But we did figure it out," Vasiht'h said, quiet.

  "And I daresay you have not changed your opinion of us," Jahir finished, and Vasiht'h sent a startled squeak through the mindline.

  "Wow," Ravanelle said, studying him. "You're never that blunt."

  "Forgive me," Jahir said. "It was not intended as insult. Merely as an observation. It is true, isn't it?"

  She smiled a little then. "I think we're done here. You two can take the rest of the semester off."

  "What about our patients?" Vasiht'h asked.

  Ravanelle looked at them, brows lifted. "What about your patients, is it?"

  "We have a responsibility—"

  "Don't worry," she said. "They know the way it works at the clinic. They get a good rate, but they know the student therapists come and go. They're not going to expect to keep you."

  They had to be content with that, Jahir thought, because it was all they were going to get. He opened the door for Vasiht'h by way of tacit suggestion and his roommate walked through it. They were halfway home beneath a sky gone gray and blustery when the Glaseah said, morose, "Well, that's done it."

  "We did our best," Jahir said.

  "If we'd just kept our mouths shut..." Jahir didn't have to send his disapproval through the mindline; Vasiht'h had trailed off and sighed, his mood gone leaden. "But we couldn't, of course. Not once we knew. It wouldn't have been right."

  Jahir paced him, hands folded behind his back.

  "You're not upset?" Vasiht'h asked.

  "Yes," Jahir said. "But... surprised also, at the abruptness of our dismissal."

  Vasiht'h frowned, and then yelped. "What? That was rain?"

  "No," Jahir said, eyeing the sidewalk. "That was hail. Now we run!"

  Racing for their apartment, Vasiht'h sent, /There are not enough cookies in the world today./

  /Probably for the best. I'm not sure we could afford the ingredients for so many./

  Chapter 33

  Jahir received more mail now than he had expected he would ever, particularly given how difficult it was for people to reach him. He had distributed private keys here and there, but there were enterprising individuals who used other means, such as sending messages in care of the university, or Mercy. But he found himself glad of it. He had made his choice: he would stay. Now it was time to begin building the connections he had been leery of inviting when he'd been uncertain of his course. So he sent mail to Paga, practicing his sign, and listened with interest to the story of the Naysha's trip to the homeworld of the alien Platies, and renewed his promise to one day return to have his mindtouch with an aquatic alien. He read mail from Griffin Jiron and Radimir and Paige and Maya on how things were proceeding at the hospital, observing with amusement how different the letters were; Jiron tended toward a broad perspective, the hospital's interaction with society and with the recent drug outbreak, while Radimir's were mostly talk about hospital politics. Maya's were filled with funny—or hair-raising—anecdotes from working triage, and Paige's were commentaries on how working at the hospital differed from the expectations she'd had in school. He enjoyed them all and responded between his studies, hoping his own letters proved as interesting. He received occasional viseos from Kayla and Meekie as well, always a delight.

  The one letter he'd been expecting, however, was long in coming. He spread the message from his mother, without alarm, knowing that very little changed on their world so there would be little news to prompt frequent letters. He read with interest about the various doings of his distant family members, and the tenant farmers and families that owed allegiance and received protection from his. It was not until he reached the end of the note that he paused, fingers stilling on the floating display.

  The Queen informs me that you have acquitted yourself well recently, and earned the thanks of some of the Alliance's important organizations. I told her I was not at all surprised, as you have excelled at everything you have turned your hand to. I am proud of you, however, and I believe her to be also. She has sent along an increase in your stipend, saying that you will need it soon to settle yourself in your new profession—you are graduating soon, are you not? I say this so as to warn you, knowing that you have expressed misgivings about the stipend in the past. Do not argue with her about it until you know if she is right or not! I have no idea what it would cost to set oneself up as an independent in the Alliance. Perhaps you do? Either way, use the money, or let it accumulate. And tell me where you dwell, if you do not choose to stay on the world where you are being schooled.

  Jahir skimmed the courtesies that ended the letter and leaned back. He had not thought as far as what he would do when he left, and it was an issue still a year away in the deciding. Did Vasiht'h have some notion? Would he want to stay? Assuming, of course, that Ravanelle did not fail them! He managed a grim smile. That would be luck. He could afford to tarry, of course, and try again at his leisure until some university gave him the license to p
ractice. His partner did not have that luxury. He pondered putting the question to Vasiht'h, and decided there was no point until they knew when they would be done with the schooling. Composing himself to reply, he took up the stylus, wondering whether he should explain the Queen's cryptic comments. He was still trying to decide when a spark traversed the mindline in advance of Vasiht'h peeking into their bedroom. "Arii? I have news."

  "Good news," Jahir guessed.

  "Meekie and Kayla did so well they're done early. They're coming home this week!" Vasiht'h said. "Jill just asked if we wanted to be there for the reunion."

  "Oh!" Jahir said, sitting up. "How could we miss it?"

  "That's what I figured you'd say. I'll tell her." Running like a current beneath the words: And we'll have something to look forward to.

  "Arii," Jahir said. "We will get through this."

  "I know," Vasiht'h replied. "One way or the other."

  The chosen day was a bright one, presaging summer; Jahir turned his face up to the sun as they approached the hospital and drew in the warm air, and through the mindline he felt Vasiht'h's pleasure at his pleasure.

  /You don't feel it?/

  /Sun on fur feels different,/ Vasiht'h replied. /Sun on skin is so much more.../

  /Intimate?/

  /Immediate,/ Vasiht'h said after a moment as he padded into the foyer. /But that too./

  Upstairs, Berquist waved them in. "They know something's up, the rascals. Are you sure psychic powers aren't contagious?"

  "I hope not," Vasiht'h said, laughing. "That sounds like a lot of trouble."

  "Go on in." Berquist grinned. "Tell them we're going out. Just not where."

  In the room, the three children were in soft, comfortable and shapeless outfits that reminded Jahir strongly of the first time they'd met in the parking lot, when the girls had been jumping rope. The two humans were sitting on their beds, swinging their legs, and Kuriel was leaning against one of them, playing with a plush Seersa doll. They all looked up when he and Vasiht'h entered, three eager faces, curious and young, and suddenly Jahir thought that they would all survive.