Mindtouch

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  “So that limits you to practice here, in the Alliance,” KindlesFlame said. “If ‘limit’ is the right word with all the known worlds available to you, and all the starbases and ships linking them besides.” He tapped his finger on the desk, as he was wont to do while thinking. “Have you any interest at all in the research track?”

  “I think not,” Jahir said. “At very least, it has not drawn my attention at all.”

  “So your choices are medical or clinical.”

  “Just so,” Jahir said. “And I find the clinical route attractive, in a pastoral way; it’s something I could imagine sustaining save that I wonder if I would not become overmuch involved.”

  “That’s always a concern, of course,” KindlesFlame said. “But I’m not sure how you’d avoid it in the medical track either. If anything, it’s more extreme there: acute cases tend to incite acute feelings.”

  “Mmm.” Jahir looked away. “I suppose. But at least those cases are severed from you decisively.”

  “Maybe,” KindlesFlame said. “But I think you’d find the clinical setting a better fit for your personality. And I think you’d have an advantage there, being Eldritch, one that would work against you in an acute care setting.”

  “Ah?” Jahir asked. “How so?”

  The Tam-illee grinned. “Everyone’s going to want to tell you their problems.”

  Jahir frowned at him. “If that is more teasing, Healer—”

  “No, not at all. I laugh at it because it’s true.” He took up his cup and sipped from it before saying, “There’s something about you that inspires confidence. I think part of it is that people are aware how many secrets Eldritch keep, and assume that their own secrets will be just as safe. They’ll also think… ‘he’s lived so long, he’ll have seen everything already, so my personal shame won’t be so shocking.’ There’s a psychology, you see, to a therapist’s appearance: species, presentation, dress. Some part of that you can control, and some part of it you don’t. And you just… have it. That thing that makes people want to talk.”

  “Are you serious?” Jahir asked, startled.

  “Oh yes,” KindlesFlame said. “You listen well.” He smiled. “Probably to keep from talking too much. Yes?”

  “Perhaps,” Jahir said, and the Tam-illee chuckled. “But surely these things don’t make up for my being able to read their thoughts. Would that not distress patients?”

  KindlesFlame snorted. “With you gloved and keeping your distance all the time? Not at all. No, I think you’d be a very successful therapist, if you committed yourself to it. Not to say you wouldn’t excel at the medical application, if that’s really where your heart lies…?”

  “I don’t know,” Jahir admitted. “I find chemistry easy, at least. Probably the easiest part of my studies.”

  “That’s handy, particularly if you want to specialize in pharmacology.” KindlesFlame nodded. “That’s not a bad thing for a practicing therapist, as well. In fact, if it interests you, you can always take the pharma courses as an adjunct to the clinical track. It’ll make a little extra work for you, but you’ll use it.”

  Jahir shook his head minutely. “You aren’t making the choice any easier, Healer.”

  “It’s not my job to make the choice easy. It’s my job to make the potential choices clearer, so you know which one you want.” KindlesFlame stirred his cider, inhaled the steam. “You still have a little time to decide, anyway.”

  Jahir attended to his own drink, watching the students pass on the sidewalks below their perch on the glassed-in balcony. Their posture had changed as the weeks had worn on, and now with finals approaching he thought he could read their nervousness, their late nights, and their focus in their body language and the speed of their gait. “If an Eldritch therapist inspires confidences, what of a Glaseah? I don’t see many of them.”

  “In the medical campus?” KindlesFlame shook his head. “You’ll catch some of them in the research labs, but for the most part they don’t often practice any form of medicine. You’ll find the exceptions, but the culture tends to turn out scientists and teachers. Which is a pity, because they’re a friendly species… they put people to ease. And they’re hard to faze, emotionally.”

  “I see,” Jahir murmured. At KindlesFlame’s inquisitive look, he said, “My roommate is a Glaseah, and two years into his psychology degree.”

  “Ah! Well.” KindlesFlame grinned. “There’s a gem. I bet he’ll never want for work. If he’s going clinical. Is he?”

  “He’s not sure,” Jahir said.

  “I hope he does go into practice,” KindlesFlame said. At Jahir’s glance, he said, “Like I said earlier, once you get to be my age, you’ve seen so many students that the patterns become obvious. I like to see a student break the mold. They’re usually the ones that go the farthest.”

  That thought stayed with him after lunch, dogging him through the afternoon lecture in neuropsychology. The pattern-breakers going the farthest. Was it so? It made him wonder…was that what had the Queen so interested in the Eldritch willing to leave the world? He knew very well the troubles their people faced, and the opposition the Queen had to getting them to change, even to save themselves. For a small investment of her time and money, she could cast some seeds on the wind and bring them home, and perhaps with them, some hope of change.

  Which reminded him that he had money, and it was now growing close to the holidays. He could buy presents. It seemed an excellent notion, particularly after KindlesFlame’s pass on his health. He could go into the city and explore, now that he was more confident of the world.

  The Pad station that normally took him to the gelateria with Vasiht’h sent him to a central hub in Seersana’s capital city, in which the university was set like a gem in a crown. From there he selected an esteemed shopping district and stepped over the Pad, and on to adventure. It was the first time he’d chosen to go out into an Alliance city: his trip to Seersana had involved the Queen’s courier service ship ferrying him to a station in orbit, and from there, via shuttle and Pad, to the campus. His impression of the Alliance thus far was of bustle, and broad, high, clean spaces: great terminals with windows taller than a cathedral wall looking out onto orbital space busy with transports and interstellar vessels.

  It was late afternoon when he walked out among the crowd of Pelted strolling down a pedestrian walkway bordered in shops: shops with real shingles hanging from their eaves, painted in pastel colors and shrouded with small flowering trees. Lamps with lace-like ironwork hung from short posts, glowing in the red light of a setting sun. It smelled like flowers he didn’t recognize… and flowers he did, as when he caught a sudden, startling draft perfumed with roses. And it was busy and bright and it felt healthy: like a society in its prime, rather than the declining world he’d left.

  Even surrounded by the Pelted, all of whom did not brush against him—not on purpose anyway—he could not help but love it. Breathe it in and feel it as a promise of a good life.

  He could go back home, and he would… eventually, for the Seni would need him. But until now he’d been uncertain that he would find the world outside the university setting appealing enough to risk the losses he would inevitably endure living among the short-lived races of the Alliance.

  But for this?

  For this, he could imagine staying. For the size of the Alliance, for its wide spaces, for its many and fascinating people, none of whom he could predict.

  Jahir drew in a long, slow breath of the winter air and went to find his gifts.

  He returned, triumphant if a little shaken by the effects of dealing with so many people so close by… but he assuaged his jangled nerves by walking the long way home from the Pad station. By the time he stepped through the apartment door he felt powerfully alive and very content, and his arrival brought Vasiht’h up short. Perhaps something of his epiphany remained visible in his face, because the Glaseah put down the knife he was using to chop mushrooms and said, “Something’s changed. Something good. Y
ou’ve decided something.”

  “You can tell?” Jahir said, putting his bags beside the hall to his room and unwinding his scarf.

  “Yes,” Vasiht’h said, padding out of the kitchen. “Can I help with those?”

  “No, no, it’s fine,” Jahir said, and shrugged out of his coat. “I was about to ask you the same. What are we eating?”

  “Winter soup,” Vasiht’h said. “It seems a good night for it. Mushrooms, spinach, a lot of broth. It’s mostly done though, you can relax.”

  “I’ll lay in the fire, then,” Jahir said and suited action to words. As he stacked the wood, he said, “Vasiht’h? What prompted you to choose the psychology program?”

  He had startled his roommate, if Vasiht’h’s pause was any indication. He thought the emotion had a sharp bite, like a knife slipping against the finger—no, that was real? The Glaseah had his finger to his mouth and was frowning.

  “Is it so surprising a question?” he asked.

  “It is a little out of nowhere,” Vasiht’h said. “I guess… I chose it because I like people. I like understanding them. I like helping them. When I do that, it makes the world around me seem a calmer, safer, happier place. Less entropic.” He glanced at Jahir. “Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t see many Glaseah in this part of the university,” Jahir said. “And Healer KindlesFlame tells me that is more typical than for them to be here. He tells me Glaseah are more like to become scientists and teachers? You are apparently an anomaly, alet.”

  “Well, therapy is a way of making too,” Vasiht’h said. “It’s just a people-and-community sort of making, not an ideas-and-science making.”

  “That is a fine way of thinking of it,” Jahir said, and gently blew the fire to life, thinking of the breath of an alien goddess. When he had done, he looked over his shoulder to find Vasiht’h staring at him. So he said, “I’m staying. I know not what I’ll do when I am done here, alet. But I will stay, and see what more the Alliance has to teach me.”

  Saying it made it real and he savored it, like a dark red wine, so strong he could smell the bouquet. He would pay the cost, he knew. But he had a sense now what he was buying with it, and he was eager to meet it.

  That night before bed, Vasiht’h rested his head in his arms on his desk, the rest of his body crouched on the floor, reflecting his tensions. In his mind he had the picture of his roommate as he’d returned from whatever errand had taken him off-campus: cheeks flushed and his eyes… like sunshine through honey. He imagined his silent conversation with Sehvi: “He’s picking up things he shouldn’t, ariishir. Once in a while, he tastes my thoughts, as if he’s still reaching for them. And he’s staying… he’s going to stay, in the Alliance, once he’s done with school.

  “And I want to be there, where he is.”

  With a noise somewhere between a moan, a sigh, a laugh, Vasiht’h covered his eyes with his arm.

  CHAPTER 17

  The week of final examinations seemed to arrive precipitously, and with it a gray sky and weather that alternated between sullen rain and slush: no clean white snow here, merely endless repetitions of cold, wet days that made Jahir wonder if he would take a catarrh. But perhaps the nights spent studying indoors had protected him; no doubt it helped that those nights were spent in an apartment already warm enough without the fire he and his roommate had come to enjoy for pleasure more than physical comfort.

  He was deeply gratified to pass all his classes, though he could read his struggles in neuroscience in the grades. His touch with chemistry saved him in physiological psychology, at least, and the grounding the children had given him in the Pelted had most certainly solved at least one weakness in his education.

  There was, he thought, much cause for celebration, and he was glad that the term was over, and could now indulge himself in one.

  “And here are your visitors,” Berquist said, opening the door for them. “Come early!”

  The girls were in the midst of decorating their room, threading strings through silver and gold paper stars and smoothing a red paper cloth over their play table. At their healer-assist’s comment, they one and all looked up and exclaimed. Jahir had set aside his finery when coming here, having researched the customs of the Alliance. But he thought, for once, he might come dressed for the occasion, if only to delight them, and from their expressions it had worked. Surcoats were out of fashion at home, having given way to the longer court coats, but the Pelted wore many variations of them. He normally wore plain ones here, finding them suitable.

  “Oh look at the silver thread!” Amaranth exclaimed. “You look like a prince!”

  “Are they snowflakes?” Kayla said. “They are!”

  “It is winter,” Jahir said, putting his bags on the table. Vasiht’h padded in behind him, grinning, and the girls squealed again.

  “Hat! Hat!”

  “Hat!” Vasiht’h agreed, ducking so Kuriel and Meekie could bat the pompom at the end of it. “Hello, ariisen. Happy holidays.”

  “Have you passed the week well?” Jahir said. “And are you meaning to hang those stars from the ceiling? I might be of some aid to you there.”

  “Here,” Kayla said, handing him one of them. “It should stick, if you can touch the string up on the ceiling. Miss Jill said it was all right.”

  Jahir took it from her and affixed it so that it hung down on its string. He took the next too.

  “We’re having cookies today!” Meekie said. “So everything’s already great.”

  “How about you?” Amaranth asked. “You had tests this week, right?”

  “We both did fine,” Vasiht’h said. “Though we’re glad it’s over!”

  “And we are both at liberty, and so we thought to come early for your party,” Jahir said. “Particularly after receiving such beautiful invitations.”

  “So are we scattering glitter on the table now that it has the cloth on it?” Vasiht’h asked, looking at the abandoned packets.

  The girls were eager to give them direction. For once, all of them were off their beds, though Kuriel and Persy sat often to rest. But the excitement of the holiday was imperishable, and Jahir was glad to be spending some part of it with them.

  When they’d finished the decoration, he said, “I see we have some time yet before the guests arrive. Perhaps it is a good time… for presents?”

  “You brought us things?” Persy said, eyes wide.

  “We both did,” Jahir said, and Vasiht’h nodded.

  “It is a holiday,” the Glaseah said, and grinned. He reached into one of the bags they’d brought. “Unless you want to wait?”

  A chorus of ‘no’s answered, and Jahir sat on one of the small chairs, watching Vasiht’h distribute the gifts. Berquist had examined them and declared them suitable, and they were for the most part trinkets, so as not to overwhelm them. But he’d found several stores selling children’s gifts and had been unable to resist… a little curving pillow shaped like a dragon for Persy, and one like a unicorn for Amaranth; a set of new pencils for Kayla, who had taken to penmanship despite prior complaints, and a set of paints for Meekie, who much preferred to draw while the others attempted their calligraphies… and for Nieve:

  “A hat!” Nieve exclaimed. And then started laughing. “It’s a sleeping cap!”

  “Since I seem only to see you when I am putting you to your nap,” Jahir said.

  She lifted it for the others to see: it was pale purple and silver, elegant despite the soft knobby yarn from which it had been made. Its end was long enough to trail onto her chest, reaching just past where she’d indicated her hair had once rested, and there it ended in a soft puff of yarn. “It’s wonderful!” she said, placing it on her head. And then she giggled. “It has holes for my ears? It does!” She adjusted the cap to let them poke through and then hugged him, and it was a wind out of spring, warm and new and bright. He felt the crush of her head against his chest and his heart fluttered.

  Yes, he could love the Alliance.

  Vasih
t’h’s gifts were clever: puzzles and board games and paper dolls, and other things they could occupy their hands and minds with together. And since they had some time before the children’s guardians arrived, they broke open one of the puzzles and began it, while overhead the paper stars glinted.

  It was a very successful party, particularly the cookies, which were frosted and sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon. They stayed until it ended and the children’s parents left, and then they helped Berquist shepherd her charges back to their beds, overdue for their naps but glowing with happiness. He whispered his dream-wishes to them as they drifted off, soft with snow-outside but warmth-within, and thought he sensed Vasiht’h doing the same.

  “There,” Berquist said, as they slipped out. “That was a perfect day for them.” She smiled at them. “Thanks. The two of you are gold.”

  “Do you need help cleaning up the decorations?” Vasiht’h asked, folding the bags they’d brought and pausing at the last one.

  “No, leave them,” she said. “They enjoy having them up for a while. I’ll take them down after New Year’s.”

  Jahir said to Vasiht’h, “That last box is for her.”

  “For me?” Berquist said, surprised.

  Vasiht’h glanced in the bag, then offered it to her. She glanced at Jahir before unwrapping the gift and laughing. “You bought me coffee.”

  “I’m told it is a very particular and high quality kind,” Jahir said. “And they permitted me a sample and it was sublime. You’re always with a cup in your hand when we come out of their room… I thought you might enjoy it.”

  “That’s very thoughtful,” she said, looking down. Her fingers stroked the ribbon twice, a quick gesture, and then she closed the box and said, “Happy holidays, ariisen.”

  “And to you,” Jahir answered.