A Rumor of Angels

by Marjorie B. Kellogg

  Tekhon’s solid presence is like an arm to lean on.

  Sleep now.

  Sleep. You are safe with us.

  Sleep.

  The voices were gone. The nightmare paralysis was gone. Jude stirred in her tangle of quilt and nestled closer to the sleeping man, resisting the compulsion to wake him that remained after the dream had fled. But as she touched him, he turned over and took her in his arms.

  “Cold,” he murmured, groggy with sleep and reawakening desire.

  “The dreams again.” She shivered.

  His hand caressed the inside of her thigh.

  “Ra’an, listen to me.” The compulsion was too great.

  He heard the tremor in her voice and came finally awake. “I’m listening.”

  “I think… I’m convinced you’re in some kind of terrible danger.”

  He reached over her head to touch on the light. “What?”

  Her hands fluttered. “Now I’m embarrassed because it sounds so silly, but I had to tell you.”

  He studied her seriously. “Another dream. Tell me.”

  She told him the dream, hoping he would scoff and dismiss it, but when she had finished, he lay back, silent for a moment, still as death, then a long hissing breath escaped him. “Maybe it’s me he’s after.”

  “Ra’an, what’s going on? Why do my dreams make more sense to you than they do to me?”

  “Perhaps because they are intended for me.” He sat up, hunched over crossed legs, pondering this revelation. “What if your dreams are not, as we thought, the result of random halm impulses? What if somebody has been sending you exactly what he wants me to hear? Or know. Or fear.”

  “Who? It would have to be a Koi, right?”

  “You of all people should know better than that.” His fingers twitched the bed cover back and forth. “I think it’s James Andreas.”

  “But why?”

  “Suppose he has some rational… well, maybe not, but some purpose in mind for me. He can’t reach me directly. We have no halm connection, he and I. So he uses you as a conduit. By planting suggestions in the form of dreams in your head, he seeks to direct my actions along some predetermined path.”

  “In the dream you were trying to stop him from doing something.”

  “Yes. I wonder what.”

  “The implication was that he was prepared to kill you if you got in his way.”

  “No. The implication is more than that. Otherwise he wouldn’t be trying to tell me ahead of time. He wants me to be there, wherever it is, so that he can kill me.”

  “Ra’an, this is crazy. Why?”

  “For Daniel’s sake? Revenge?”

  “Look, if he wanted to avenge Daniel, he could have killed you back in the colony.”

  Ra’an shook his head impatiently. He had fastened onto the vengeance theory. “His mind was too scattered then. Some extraordinary thing has happened to snap him into focus. That’s what I saw when you showed me your dream on the huruss. This new focus. It’s like light burning through a lens. Lethal.”

  Jude was suddenly galvanized. “But he’s coming here! In the dream, the beach, the cliffs of glass! He was there!”

  Ra’an’s eyes narrowed. “Quaire’en. It can only be. If he’s headed there, we don’t go to Quaire’en.”

  “But Anaharimel… the halm school…!”

  “Ah, yes. A pretty trap my brother lays for me. If this teacher is the only one to give me back that which I lack, how can I not go to Quaire’en?” His jaw hardened as he answered his own question. “So be it. I will not. I will not go to Quaire’en. I will not take his bait. I will not live out this destiny he plans for me. I am sick to death of being manipulated, used by Terrans. Daniel is dead. The past is dead. I want only to be left alone, here in Ruvala. I have lived half my life already without halm. I will live the other half the same.” His fist clenched defensively, as if to assure himself that he believed his own words. He turned off the light and lay down, his desire forgotten. “If you dream again, tell me nothing about it.”

  And what about me? Jude wanted to ask him, but did not.

  Chapter 29

  Warm fragrant air and freckles of sunlight filtered through the leaf canopy. Beside Jude, the bed was empty. From the heat smells, she knew it must be midmorning already.

  She washed hurriedly and rummaged through the closet for some clothing, any clothing but the same trail clothes she had been living in for three weeks. She tried on a loose-fitting shirt colored like an iridescent shell, but decided she was unable to make a spectacle of herself. A pair of baggy trousers made her thin body look like a stick above the waist. A robe-like garment with half-sleeves seemed too formal, and she was not used to skirts. After she had emptied the little closet onto the bed, she hung everything up again and pulled on her own worn shirt and pants. They were clean this time, after all, and they did feel comfortable.

  Fleetingly, it bothered her that the Koi clothing, although it had fit her body perfectly well, had not felt comfortable on her. Was this some hint of an inability to assimilate? Is that what I want? she wondered. To assimilate? To become Koi, or half Koi, as Ra’an is half Terran? He certainly isn’t very happy that way.

  Then she thought, Gods, give it time, you just got here. Find something to do make yourself useful, but give it time.

  She trotted across the branch walkway and down the circular stairs. The dining platform was deserted but for several bright-green birds pecking at crumbs on the tabletop and one of the wolf dogs asleep in a corner. Jude nodded to herself. The true sign of being a guest is arriving at table long after breakfast is over. She stood listening. The great tree house felt completely empty. Not even the murmur of halm static in her head. They must all be out in the fields. But wait. Having made a conscious adjustment in her brain to listen for halmtalk, she now felt a gentle nudge, like a greeting without words. Across the platform, the giant dog creature raised itself up from its nap and ambled over to her. Jude had been introduced to three of them, and was unsure which one this was, but she touched its shaggy head in welcome. What had Rya called them? The gria. They reminded her of the mules who had shared her journey, so she could not help but like them immediately. As she stroked the gria absently, thinking of her mule friends, an image formed in her head of herself blissfully asleep, followed by a sense of inquiry. She glanced around, startled, but the beast nuzzled her hand patiently, and she remembered what Ra’an had told her about the animals in Ruvala. She knelt down to look it in the eye.

  She thought a question. Where is everybody? The animal blinked at her in placid incomprehension. Jude scolded herself. Don’t think in words and expect a beast without language to understand! She tried again, laboriously working up an image of Rya, then each of the others in the family, ending with a question. Immediately the gria wagged its massive tail, and visions of the hay fields streamed into Jude’s head, of Tekhon and Dai loading heavy bales on a wagon while Elgri adjusted the harness on a mule, of Gire’en and the twins gathering eggs from long rows of nests, finally of Rya singing as a flock of minute birds whirled around her head. No sign of Ra’an. Jude formed Ra’an’s image again, but the gria lowered its head and seemed to shrug. Jude ruffled its ears by way of apology.

  “Of course you can’t know where he is,” she said aloud, “unless he has the halm to tell you.” She was beginning to get an inkling of what Ra’an had been missing.

  She fumbled for a way to ask the gria to take her to Rya, finally picturing herself and Rya together. Obligingly, it shook itself and led her off through the tree trunks to the outer edge of the dome, where they found the older woman fussing among the blossoms of a flowering hedge. All around her hovered the little birds, the lai, no doubt, and very much like hummingbirds they were, long needle beaks set in a blur of beating wings.

  Rya smiled a welcome, and static hummed in Jude’s head. She tried vainly to make sense of it, then looked at Rya helplessly.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t…”

  R
ya laughed. “You must stop thinking so hard! I merely wondered if Theis had offered you anything to eat.”

  “Theis?”

  Rya indicated the gria. “Otherwise she seems to have taken care of you.”

  “Ah. Yes. She’s been wonderful.”

  “She has been interested in Terrans ever since I explained to her that her cousin, the dog, is the one animal the Terrans have learned to live with.” Her eyes sparkled, softening the reproof. “Come. Meet the lai. Then you will eat.” She held her palm out and four of the winged blurs settled on it, peering at Jude with bright eyes. Then Rya shooed them away gently and parted the leaves of the bush she had been working on. Fastened on the branch were several thin glass tubes. Leaning closer to look, Jude saw each contained an amount of clear liquid. Rya loosed one from its housing and emptied it into a bottle she carried strapped to her belt.

  “Proper cooking crystallizes it,” she explained. “I make mine in my lab because I can keep an eye on it while I work, but of course that is not necessary. Did you sleep well after your nightmare?”

  “Yes. When will you call the Gathering, Rya?”

  “After dinner is the usual time.”

  “I see. Do you have any idea where Ra’an is?”

  “He went out early with Tekhon and Elgri. The bales are lying in the fields and there are reports of rain heading our way.”

  Jude digested the idea of Ra’an doing fieldwork. “I’m surprised you’re not more mechanized here. I mean, you do have the technology.”

  “Yes, but we are a small household. We do not need it. Where hands and backs can do the labor, why take their work away from them?”

  “All right. Then there must be something you can give me to do.”

  Without even a moment’s polite equivocation, Rya replied, “There is always work that needs doing.” She put her tubes aside and led Jude out into the warm sun to a luxuriant stretch of dark greenery. Along one edge were stacks of rush baskets. Rya caught one up and passed it to her.

  “The ripe ones are deep purple,” she said, hitching up her skirt and wading into the rows to show Jude where the berries lay hidden under broad blue-green leaves.

  “How many should I pick?” Jude asked with widening eyes.

  “As many as you can!” Rya returned gaily. “What we don’t eat right away, we trade or preserve. There’s never any waste. If you get tired before dinnertime, take the baskets to the kitchen. I’ll have Theis bring you something to eat.” She gave Jude a maternal pat and returned to her own labors.

  Before dinner? It’s barely lunch. Jude’s heart sank as she gazed over the sea of berry bushes. She had the distinct impression from Rya that what looked to her like a potentially vast effort was a task normally left to small children and the elderly. She lowered herself to one knee, careful not to crush any stray vines, and began to fill her first basket.

  Three hours later, she sat back on her heels, two brimming baskets sitting at the end of the row. The task was not hard as she had feared. The ripe berries were easy to distinguish and practically fell off the vine into her hand. As she worked, the hot clear sun baked the last ounce of tension from her journey-worn muscles. She felt completely relaxed for the first time in years.

  She nibbled at the vegetable pastry that Theis had delivered in a small cloth sack. Above her head arced a sky so blue it hurt to look at it. A golden haze clung to the fields and tree-dotted hills like a blessing. The fine shimmer that still warped her vision wrapped distant objects in an aura of magic. The midday stillness was so profound that Jude fancied she could hear the young vine shoots pressing up through the rich loam between her toes, so profound that it brought tears of recognition to her eyes. Poor Langdon’s journal had not been the ravings of a lunatic, but an earnest attempt at accurate description. The mistake had been to assume he was talking about religion, when what he was trying to record was a firsthand view of paradise, or something surely close to it.

  It was hard for her to worry in such blissful surroundings, hard to remember the grimness of the colony, hard to believe that one could be threatened by dreams and distant madmen.

  She bent back to her berries in contentment.

  The cool shadow of Yron fell long across the berry fields when Jude stood up clutching a final basket. Her back ached and her knees were sore, but she was pleased with her afternoon’s labor. She could look forward to a wash and dinner and feel she deserved it. She lugged the basket to the end of the row and set it down beside the others. Five full baskets. She stood back, admiring the burgundy glisten of the mounded fruit, then pondered the problem of transporting five overflowing baskets in one trip to the kitchens. Her legs tingled, weakened. Still not in shape. As she bent to sit down, a wave of dizziness struck her. Too much sun? She straightened, swaying, and looked up. A sheer wall of rock towered over her, not as in a vision but as if it were there before her, so real that she could see chill light glimmering on each needle of the pine scrub clinging to the ledges. The sky glowered gray. The rock was dark and slicked with rain.

  Now what’s happening to me? She dropped to her knees and touched soft grass and fertile earth. She looked again.

  At the foot of the scarp, a dark hole gaped, like a… Ruvala Station? No. Too barren and cold. But yes… She could see a single broad rail curving through the boulders. She waited, knew she must wait and watch, expecting the sudden blur of the huruss to emerge from the tunnel mouth. Instead, the blackness expanded, drawing her inward until it filled her entire field of vision. A pinpoint of light bobbed at the center of the void. It grew, nearing without a sound.

  Jude buried both hands in the grass which her touch insisted was there, and hung on for dear life. This waiting is unendurable!

  And then he was there, stepping into sunlight.

  The rain. What happened to the rain?

  He stood in silhouette against the dark rock. Behind him a raised hand brandished a torch whose flame paled against the brilliance of the man ahead. Others followed from the tunnel, a crowd, a flock that gathered around him as he lifted his arms in benediction.

  He comes! He comes!

  She felt him perilously close and knew the madman was among them.

  The dizziness struck again. She reeled and was back in the green berry fields. Alarm bells clanged in her brain. Come! Come! shrilled the alarm. Her body twitched with the impulse to run. He comes! He comes! her brain echoed, confused. Her head swiveled in panic. Across the fields, she could see Tekhon and Dal and the others heading in from all directions. A halm alarm? She broke and ran for the house.

  The family met in commotion on the dining platform. The adults immediately settled themselves on the cushions surrounding the great table. The twins and Elgri hung back, curling around the three gria, who crouched with ears alert.

  As Jude stumbled up breathlessly, the Koi turned expectant eyes on her. “Sit with us,” Rya insisted. “Such a signal has not come for many years.”

  “Did you see him?” Jude gasped. The alarm still beat its rhythm in her head.

  Rya frowned. “See him? Who?” The halm signal ceased. “Tell us later,” Rya said. “Come listen.” She turned to her son. “Ra’an?”

  From the stair post where he had been leaning distantly, Ra’an gave an awkward shrug intended to remind them of the pointlessness of including him, but he slouched over and pulled up a cushion next to his grandfather.

  The circle quieted. Jude concentrated on tuning her brain to what she imagined might be maximum receptivity. Nothing happened. She stole a glance around the table. Except for Ra’an, who was watching her darkly, the others sat relaxed, eyes closed. Waiting? Jude eyed Rya’s hand resting lightly on the table beside her. Would physical contact complete the circuit?

  But Rya murmured, “You must learn to listen.”

  Jude listened.

  And the message was rolling through her mind like a flash flood, so fast and complex she could grasp only snatches. Images, no words, a sequence of action: a rocky scarp in
the mountains, squat towers of masonry, a silent crowd in a courtyard, a pale-haired man in… Andreas!

  Her recognition ricochets around the table.

  Tekhon finds her first. Who is it?

  Her lips struggle soundlessly, for it is Ra’an she must warn and she is floating in the halmweb and cannot verbalize.

  Ra’an!

  Tekhon is insistent. Who is this man we see?

  The one who comes. James Andreas.

  She feels Rya’s gasp, and the circle is flooded with a memory of a towheaded child slowly turning a huge rock crystal in fascinated hands.

  Ra’an! Jude fixes his position across the table and sends the image of Andreas bolting toward him. Touching his mind is like walking through darkness. He limits her access, resists her presence, but the image captures his interest.

  What do they hear of James?

  She tries to draw him into the circle.

  He resists. No. I cannot.

  Come, try, it will be easy now.

  No. Tell me the news of James.

  You could hear it yourself!

  No.

  She must be his bridge to the circle.

  Where is James?

  She cannot name the mountain towers, but Tekhon is near and knows it well.

  The retreat of the Diamo. A Terran has found his own way through the Guardians.

  She passes this along, and feels Ra’an shudder. His mind goes racing away along several potential futures that all begin with James Andreas and the Diamo.

  There is more. The man in rags addresses the crowd. His passion touches their upturned faces with fire. Jude cannot catch the words. Tekhon? Rya?

  A suspended moment, then a current of horror stirring the circle. Dal breaks contact abruptly.

  Jude cannot grasp it. What? What?

  Ra’an is demanding to know.

  I cannot find them in the web.

  Then they have barriered themselves.

  Wait. One last fleeting image: the long white beach and the cliffs of glass. Quaire’en. The circle disintegrates.

  Jude sat stunned on her cushion. Why were they looking at her with such fearful compassion?