“Discharge,” Vasiht’h said. “That means… you’re done?”
“I’m not, no,” Pieter answered. “Since I wasn’t discharged dishonorably. I could re-enlist.”
/He’s not done, is he,/ Jahir murmured.
/You were right about this,/ Vasiht’h said. Aloud, he said, “So, why don’t you?”
“Re-enlist?”
“Yes?” Vasiht’h asked. “Since you could?”
“Because…” He stopped. He stopped, and didn’t speak again for a while, frowning into his coffee.
Not angry, Jahir thought. Confused, perhaps. “Because?”
“I… don’t know. I never thought of it as an option. But… it is. Isn’t it.” Pieter looked up at him.
“You’re not too old to go back?” Vasiht’h asked.
“No.” Pieter put the mug down. “No, I’m not.”
“So nothing prevents you from this course of action?” Jahir asked.
“My kids,” he muttered. “They’re already worried about me.”
“They might worry less about you if you’re not off doing extreme sports,” Vasiht’h said. “Fleet’s a job, after all. They’re going to think of it as something structured and expected.”
“You will have companions to watch your back,” Jahir added, quiet. “That is certainly safer than to be alone.”
Pieter looked at him suddenly.
“They want you to be happy,” Vasiht’h said. “You miss your job, alet. If you went back to it, you wouldn’t miss it anymore.”
“And you would no longer strive to fill that void with other, less meaningful exercises,” Jahir finished.
Their client didn’t answer immediately. They let that silence sit. At last, Pieter said, “I want to say something. Like. ‘I never thought of going back because my wife died, and she was sad that I was often away so much.’ Or ‘I feel like being happy again after she died by going back would be a betrayal of her memory.’ Like I owe it to her to feel grief. But… I don’t. Feel any of those things. I just don’t know why I never woke up and thought of it.”
“You got into a routine,” Vasiht’h suggested. “This was your new life. Your new life was raising your kits.”
“But that phase of your life has ended,” Jahir said. “Perhaps the transition was so gradual you did not note it, and so did not think of its implications for your own life.”
“I didn’t,” he murmured. “I didn’t at all. This was… just the thing I did. I kept doing it until it was done.”
“And now that it is,” Jahir said, “you may choose a new focus for your life.”
“You maybe better,” Vasiht’h added. “Because now that they’re adults, your kits aren’t going to want you trying to push them back into that pattern.”
His eyes narrowed. Jahir added, testing, “Or they might need you to change so that they can let go of you, and the last of their childhood.”
That softened his expression. /Good guess,/ Vasiht’h said, surprise coloring the mindline with a blooming yellow, like a field of new spring flowers.
/They kept recommending him for therapy,/ Jahir said. /They continue to be very involved with him. Admirably, but perhaps too closely./
Standing, Pieter said, “I’ll think seriously about this.” He paused after walking to the door, one hand on the handle. Turning to face them, he added, “Thanks. This was important.”
“You’re welcome,” Vasiht’h said.
The man nodded and let himself out.
Vasiht’h blew out a breath. “Well. I hope that worked. And that it was the right thing to do.”
“We can only work so far as we trust ourselves,” Jahir said.
“I guess we’ll see where he takes it.”
“Do you think Dami and Tapa had to kick us out of the house to make sure we grew up?” Vasiht’h asked Sehvi later that day.
“What?”
“It was just something I was thinking. About how your relationships have a pattern and unless something disrupts them, you keep repeating that pattern. So, as long as a child is home with the parent, even if they’ve grown up, they still act like a child…”
Sehvi snorted. “You need to find something new to be anxious about, ariihir. This topic’s getting old. You’re going to chafe it down to the skin, just like your paws.” She leaned toward the screen, trying to get a good angle downward. “Should I make you show them to me? I bet there are bald patches…”
“Sehvi!”
“Well? Are there?”
“No!” he said. “I wasn’t thinking about me. I was thinking about a client!”
“Yeaaaah, tell me another one.” She sighed noisily. “When are you going to accept that you’re as grown up as you’re going to get? And that if you don’t feel grown up enough now, nothing’s going to convince you?”
Vasiht’h grimaced. “That sounds dire.”
“Listening to you complain about it every time we talk? It is.”
“I meant me never feeling good enough!”
“Ah hah!” She pointed. “That’s it. That’s all. You said it. Now you’re done, right?”
“What?” he asked, bewildered.
“The core of all your problems!” She held her arms open. “You don’t feel good enough. Now that you’ve figured that out, the rest is easy, right?”
Vasiht’h snorted. “I wish.” More meekly, “Do I really talk about it every time you call?”
“Maybe that was a littttle bit hyperbolic. But only a little bit. Can we go back to talking about my problems?”
“If you had any,” Vasiht’h answered, amused. “I’m sure you’d bring them up.”
She snickered. “There, that’s better. The brother I know.”
After they said goodbye, Vasiht’h sat on the patio with his data tablet, thumbing through HEALED BY HER IMMORTAL HEART in the vain hope that it would have something useful to tell him. “About anything,” he muttered to the text. “Life. Feeling good enough. Not feeling good enough. Feeling so lucky something might go wrong. Feeling like you can’t move on from a pattern that doesn’t work for you. Anything. Go.” He let it scroll until it came to a halt and read the top line, hoping for divine insight.
All he got was the end of a sentence. “…went there the next day.”
“Great,” he told the novel. “Not only are you unbelievable as a narrative, you’re lousy as a mechanism for revelation.”
Setting it aside, he looked at the nodding ferns and the trees rustling in the breeze. It was an odd day, moist and gray; on a planet he would have predicted rain, but it didn’t rain on Veta. It just felt comfortable, the right kind of day to stay inside and drink kerinne and read a better book than this one. He didn’t think he wanted to read anything about fictitious Eldritch. Maybe next time he could get his sisters to recommend a book without them, though if their tastes ran to ridiculous romances he doubted their next selection would be any less painful.
Kerinne and a chance to do meal planning for the remainder of the week, though… that sounded perfect. As he ducked back into the cottage, he wondered where his partner’s walk was taking him, and if he spent any part of them wondering if he was grown up enough yet. Or was that something that centuries of living took care of?
Vasiht’h tried to imagine Jahir young and tentative and found the image charming. Maybe one day he’d see a picture. Wouldn’t that be something? Rexina Regina would probably faint. He grinned and started a pot of cream before putting his tablet to more practical use.
Jahir was, at that moment, climbing from one of Veta’s pools. The bank farthest from him had been sculpted under an embankment on which a tree-lined path wound, and a waterfall fell from its lip over the shadowed nook. He’d explored underneath it and discovered doors into the water environment’s private areas, which he’d elected not to investigate; he didn’t know how often Naysha needed to breathe but he guessed it was far less often than he did. The opposite end of the pool, where he made his exit, gradually rose from the water like
a mock beach, but without the sand. It was a charming conceit, though he preferred the rectangular pools for the exercise; it made counting laps easier. But once he’d finished them, he liked wandering the connected pools, seeing what the landscapers had made of them and observing the people using them.
Swimming remained a great comfort, though it was no longer as urgent a relief as it had been on Selnor, where the gravity had been more intense. He liked the idea that he was slowly strengthening himself against a repetition of that episode. Perhaps one day he might even become capable of visiting Anseahla for longer than an hour or so. He would like to know his partner’s family better.
Veta, he thought, was coming along well. The revelation that an existing member of the community had taken them to apprentice could not help but make their case for them when their six months’ probation elapsed. So long as they pleased Helga, chances were good they would be able to take over her practice and she would retire. In their dinners, the Hinichi had mentioned wanting to travel… she had family on Selnor and in several locations in the Hinichitii system, but had never had the time to visit them. That they would make it possible for the woman to do so was also pleasing. Everyone would benefit from the situation, and surely that was exactly what the starbase housing committee would like most to see.
Pulling down a towel from the stack set out for visitors, Jahir dried himself enough to walk back to the lockers and halted at the sight of Allen Tiber on one of the nearby footpaths, standing beneath a tree. At his side, his dog paused, then sat, ears lifted and head cocked.
“Doctor Tiber,” Jahir said. “I didn’t expect you. It’s a pleasure.”
Ignoring the greeting, Tiber said, “You have a lot of gall, you know.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Asking me to come by and sleep on your couch.” The man’s lip curled. “So you could do who knows what to me.”
“You need not take advantage of the offer if you wish otherwise.”
“You know I would never. But you offered, so now you can say you did. And I get to be the villain of that piece, because I didn’t try it—”
“Doctor Tiber,” Jahir said, wishing he was dry and dressed in more than a swim-stocking. “If you are correct and our methods are coercive and abusive, then your refusal makes you the hero, does it not?”
The human paused.
In that quiet, the dog rose from his haunches and padded to Jahir. Sitting, he offered a paw.
“Trusty?” Tiber said, startled.
The dog’s expectant look seemed to want a response, but his life had not equipped him to guess at the behavior of companion animals. Livestock, perhaps. Horses, certainly. But dogs? “What is he asking of me?”
“You don’t know?”
Jahir glanced up at the human. “I am afraid I have never had a dog.”
“Poor you,” Tiber murmured. More clearly, “He wants to shake hands.” When Jahir hesitated, Tiber said, “Just take his paw and give it a shake. Like you would a person.”
That handshaking was not common among the Pelted, who preferred palm-touching, and unheard of among Eldritch who did not touch, Jahir chose not to point out. Instead he went to a knee before the dog. A handsome creature, large without bulk, with variegated fur in grays and dark browns and a black saddle over the back. His eyes were golden and their regard felt almost sapient.
Jahir had never had a dog, but if the histories were correct, he might have had such a companion on the hunt had he been born generations ago. He took the animal’s paw in his, finding its narrowness and different textures fascinating: leather pads, furred skin, hard black nails. Warm, it was, but it carried with it no thoughts to unsettle him, only a sense of interest and benevolence. Cautiously, he tried shaking, and the dog sat for it, opened his mouth with lolling tongue, and appeared to grin.
“Is he really smiling?” Jahir asked, surprised.
“Yes,” Tiber said. “They have expressions of their own. That’s a good one… he likes you.”
“You can tell so quickly?”
“Sure.” The reluctance in Tiber’s voice was fading as he spoke, and the enthusiasm that replaced it, and the natural confidence… Jahir caught a glimpse of what his clients must find so compelling. “He’s relaxed, you see? His body’s not tense at all. The ears are up, and he’s smiling. He offered you his paw—that means he sees you as someone he can use his trick on. He wants to entertain you.” The man crouched alongside his dog and wrapped an arm around his neck, tugging him over to rub his head with his knuckles. “Crazy pup. What are you doing, making up to strangers, hmm?”
Trusty yipped at this treatment, a noise that sounded happy somehow. He and his owner wrestled playfully until Tiber offered both his hands and the dog shifted upright so he could set both his paws in them. Tiber wiggled them. “Good dog. Great dog. Best dog.”
Trusty yipped again, ears up.
“You’ve really never had a dog?”
“No,” Jahir admitted, fascinated by the relationship.
“Cat? Bird? Pet goldfish? Anything?”
“No,” Jahir said.
Tiber glanced up at him. “I can’t imagine not having a dog. Petting them lowers your blood pressure, did you know? And you live longer, with pets.”
“You would have a dog even if there were no health benefits to be derived from one,” Jahir observed.
“Yeah.” Tiber chuckled, rubbing Trusty’s ears as the dog leaned into him. “I would.” He glanced up at the Eldritch. “Don’t think my dog liking you means anything. I still think what you’re doing is wrong.”
“You seem a man of science,” Jahir said. “Does it not offend your sensibilities to dismiss something without first understanding it?”
Tiber snorted. “And how am I ever going to understand it, when I have no esper powers of my own?”
Jahir said, “Do we need to have suffered all the ills of our clients to be capable of helping them? Experience is not the only lens by which we see the world.”
“It’s the most important, though.” Tiber sighed and gave Trusty one more pat on the head before rising. “Look, you might be the nicest people in the world and still be doing the wrong thing. If you’ve had any experience in practice yourself, you’ll know that happens all the time. And you’re siphoning off a lot of existing clients, people Minette and Helga and I feel responsible for.”
“Helga seems content with our progress.”
“Helga…” Tiber grimaced. “Helga’s her own person, with her own opinions. But I’ve got mine, and they’re no less valid.”
“Come try our methods,” Jahir said. “We can allay your misgivings, if you allow us the opportunity.”
“No.” Tiber shook his head. “I’m sorry. Maybe your methodology would serve an esper population, people who might understand it well enough to identify abusive behaviors. But on a population primarily composed of people who have no defense against what you’re doing? It’s not ethical.”
“Doctor Tiber,” Jahir said. “Our clients are vulnerable to us no matter our methodology. Our training gives all of us the ability to manipulate and abuse clients without their having any protection against it, whether we do it with our minds or with speech. It is why we have a code of ethics. Can you not trust that we too hold to that code? We swore it in school, and again before the licensing board, and before our deities as well. To do no harm. To hold the health of our clients foremost in our minds. This is our calling.”
Tiber eyed him. “Before your deities.”
“To them we swear first,” Jahir said. “And that oath is the most binding of all. They know our secret hearts in a way no mortal might.”
Tiber shook his head. “I regret this, but I can’t recommend what you’re doing. And in fact, I plan to warn people that in my opinion, it’s unsafe.” Glancing at the towel, he added, “I’ll let you dress now.”
As the human departed, the dog at his side glanced back and grinned again at Jahir.
“So that was a disas
ter,” Vasiht’h said once Jahir had returned home and described the encounter.
“Disaster is a strong word,” Jahir said. “But it was… discouraging.”
Vasiht’h set out cups for them both: kerinne for himself and black tea for Jahir. “I’d call ‘respected and established therapist starts telling the community at large to avoid us’ a disaster.”
“If he was the sole therapist, perhaps. But Helga is no doubt informing the community at large that we come highly recommended.”
“And you think they’ll cancel each other out?” Vasiht’h snorted, the steam from his cup bending away. “I wonder if Dashenby will come down on our side.”
“Dashenby,” Jahir said, “will watch from the sidelines until she’s certain of the outcome.”
“That’s a harsh assessment.”
Was it? And yet he knew it to be true. “Not necessarily. She is friends with both Tiber and Helga. Alienating one or the other before time would put her in an uncomfortable position.”
“Or it might have made Tiber rethink his prejudice. That’s what you do when friends tell you you’re wrong, isn’t it?”
“One would hope,” Jahir said. “But it does not always work out that way.”
Vasiht’h was silent, his ruminations weighing the mindline as he sipped from his cup. Finally, he said, “Dogs shake hands?”
“At least one does.”
“That sounds… kind of cute,” Vasiht’h said. “I’m sorry I missed it.”
“Perhaps if we win Tiber to our side, you might witness it yet.”
Vasiht’h shook his head. “I wouldn’t hold our breath.”
Chapter 15
Ametia remained the highest-energy of their clients. Sometimes she napped through their sessions; often she paced, tail lashing, her hands jerking through a series of gestures so abrupt they would have looked more at home in a dueling circle than in a therapist’s office. Jahir noted the fire in her eyes when she described her crusades on behalf of her human protégés. He was not the only one who saw it, either.
Dreamhearth Page 16
