Mindtouch

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  And yet, he had made Vasiht’h breakfast again.

  He padded back to the great room and applied himself to the hearth, in the hopes of figuring out how to make a fire work in it.

  Jahir woke with a start. He hadn’t planned to fall asleep, but he’d been unable to fight it either. As a youth his mother had put him to bed early despite his complaints, saying that only half of learning was done while wakeful; the mind completed the process during dreams. To be sure, he was exhausted often, and when he slept long enough he woke feeling more confident of the knowledge he’d been studying. He pushed himself upright and was contemplating getting to his feet when his roommate peeked in the room.

  “The bread’s done,” he said. “You should come eat with me.”

  “I didn’t burn it?” Jahir asked.

  “Not at all,” Vasiht’h said. “You set the cook-timer perfectly.” He wrinkled his nose. “I wish I’d done as well with the fire. It’s harder to make one than it looks.”

  Jahir laughed, quiet. “I’ll take care of the fire, if you will make the coffee, arii.”

  “Fair and good.”

  So he repaired Vasiht’h’s attempt, and his roommate made the coffee, and they sat down to the first meal of the first day of the new year. He drew in a deep breath, smelled honey and almonds and springfruit jam. By summer, God and Lady willing, he would be practicing on real people: under supervision, certainly, but still. The thought was unbelievable.

  Vasiht’h broke the bread and handed him a piece. “To the new year.”

  “To all our endeavors,” Jahir said. He opened the jam pot. “You have not said how your latest study concluded at the new hospital. Were you able to keep the results?”

  “All of them this time,” Vasiht’h said. “Or at least, Palland said they should be fine. This coming semester I’ll repeat it there and then we’re going to discuss how to increase the scope of the study with me being the only one running it. And I’ll have to start writing my thesis.” He shook his head. “I am not looking forward to that.”

  “Not fond of writing?” Jahir asked.

  “Not really, no,” Vasiht’h said. “Not this kind of writing anyway. Writing letters to my parents and cousins, sure. Writing dry and factual?” He sighed. Smiled. “Well, I’ll learn.” He tapped the more-almond butter with the tip of his knife. “Isn’t this a little expensive for one breakfast?”

  “I am sure what remains will go into cookies at some point,” Jahir said, amused.

  “Augh!” Vasiht’h winced and laughed. “I can’t imagine using something this expensive to make cookies!”

  “It is there to be used,” Jahir said.

  “Better to eat it straight with a spoon,” Vasiht’h said. “It’s that good.” He glanced up at Jahir. “You didn’t—”

  “Have to do it, I imagine you are about to say,” Jahir said. “Can I not be a touch indulgent? At least once? We are not exactly spendthrift.”

  “No, we’re not,” Vasiht’h said, toying with the handle of his cup. “Jahir… you’ll write? When you’re gone?”

  So casually said; the Glaseah wasn’t even meeting his eyes. But the words struck him, sharp as spears. “I may not leave,” he said.

  Vasiht’h looked up at him sharply. “What?”

  “Only one of the residencies I am applying for is offworld,” Jahir said. “The other is here, at the campus teaching hospital.”

  “Oh,” Vasiht’h said softly. “I didn’t know. Why… why would you stay?”

  Jahir looked down at his plate, at the fire, at the great room, which had become so familiar. He returned his gaze to his roommate and said, “I have friends here.”

  “Short-lived friends,” Vasiht’h murmured.

  That could not be borne. “I miss Nieve,” Jahir said to him, willing him to believe. “But I would not elide her from my life for the brevity of her passage through it. I don’t regret knowing her.”

  Vasiht’h looked up, eyes wide.

  Jahir refilled his cup. “Now. Shall I bring out my gift for you? I hope you do not mind that I bought you one, despite the uncertainty of the year.”

  “The point of the gift is to help shape the uncertainty,” Vasiht’h said. “Not to suggest we can control it.”

  “Good,” Jahir said. “Wait you here, then.”

  In his room, as he found the small box he’d hidden, he thought of how much it bothered him: that Vasiht’h might consider himself a burden, that he thought Jahir might prefer not to have known him, when the truth was so very far opposite. Was he failing to express that in a way an outworlder might recognize? Perhaps, as Sheldan had suggested, his body language was too restrained. And yet, he couldn’t change it. He looked at his box and hoped it was enough to express some part of his fondness. It had seemed a good idea at the time, and now it seemed too minor to communicate the depth of his feeling.

  Perhaps it was always so, with gifts. With speech. Even with actions. Perhaps the only thing that made such things completely incontrovertible was the mindtouch.

  He brought the box back with him and found Vasiht’h waiting at the table. Instead of setting it there, he held it out. “For you.”

  Vasiht’h glanced at his ungloved hand and then up at his face, then carefully took the box. A whisper of a mindtouch: a shivery feeling, like a nervous stomach. To calm it, Jahir said, “I do not fear your touch.”

  “I still don’t want to do you any discourtesy,” Vasiht’h said.

  That didn’t sound right; the mindtouch welled forth as if specifically to suggest that his roommate was trying to hide something. But Vasiht’h was opening the box, so Jahir didn’t pursue it. He watched, hands folded in his lap.

  “This is…” Vasiht’h squinted at it. “Cream?” He frowned. “For foot leather?”

  “Some of my classmates in Clinical Management are digitigrade and wear no shoes,” Jahir said. “They often talk about proper care of their paw pads, to keep them from cracking. I have seen that yours are dry and thought…” He trailed off.

  “You noticed my feet,” Vasiht’h repeated, eyes wide.

  “We do a lot of walking,” Jahir said.

  “I don’t even notice my feet!” Vasiht’h said with a laugh.

  “You are not the only one who can take care of others.”

  Vasiht’h sobered. “No… no, I’m not.” He set the jar on the table and said, “I’ll try this after we’re done. But first, this is for you.” He handed over a box not much larger than Jahir’s, and hesitated before maintaining his grip on it and waiting for Jahir to take it.

  Inside the box was a book, a small and beautiful book with soft covers—surely not leather; did the Alliance use animal skins? It seemed unlikely. But something brown tooled in gold leaf, and the title a looping swirl of calligraphy that any illuminator at home would have been proud to have produced. It was entitled Major Poets of the Exodus, and he paged through it with reverence. Many of the poems were in Meredan, the secret language of the Pelted, but they were translated. Some of them were lyrical, rhyming things that rolled off the tongue; others were a staccato rhythm, as visual as they were aural. He stopped on one.

  there is freedom in the stars

  there is somewhere

  out there

  looking up we see a dome

  but it is only

  illusion

  if we could fly up past it

  we would find

  out who

  we were

  when we were finally alone

  “Vasiht’h,” he said, softly. “This is a marvelous gift.”

  “It was that or a book of songs, but I thought you might already have bought yourself some of those. And you read so well,” Vasiht’h said, sounding sheepish.

  Jahir tilted his head. “Maybe after breakfast, I might read some of these for you?”

  “Would you?” The Glaseah’s ears perked. “I didn’t think… that is… I thought you might want to save them for—” He stopped and chuckled. “Listen to
me, I sound like I’ve been knocked on the head. Yes, I’d like that.”

  And that is what they did, after breakfast, while nursing their drinks by the fire. Jahir read from the book, pausing when they found a poet that intrigued them so they could consult the u-banks for biographical data. That led inevitably to discussions of the Exodus, of the cultural issues at the time and the evolution of the races and how that might have affected the poets. And Vasiht’h tried the foot cream on his paws, a process Jahir watched with interest: his roommate could twist his paws far enough to reach them with his hands, but it looked awkward. He wondered if he should offer…? But no. Surely that was too much. After Vasiht’h had finished, and they’d had enough of poetry, they dressed and went for a walk.

  Jahir did not have to wonder if, like him, his roommate was wondering what the year would bring. The mindtouch whispered hints like uneasy skies before a storm.

  Would the full mindline have made those feelings plain to him?

  Was it strange that he wished he could find out?

  CHAPTER 32

  “This is it, you know,” KindlesFlame said to him over lunch. “Your practicum this semester is going to involve real people, not simulations. You’ll be observing, not affecting, but it’s going to be the first real test for you.”

  “I know,” Jahir said, warming his hands on his mug.

  “Have you told Lasa yet about your issues?” the Tam-illee asked, watching him.

  “I have,” he said. “Though I have not made much of the problems involved. She seems to have intuited the ramifications on her own.”

  “She would have,” KindlesFlame said. “Smart as a whip, Lasareissa. How are you feeling about the workload?”

  Jahir lifted a shoulder just enough to convey his ambivalence. “It should be similar enough to last semester, which I weathered. The practicum is the only new element, and I cannot predict it. So…”

  “So, back to where you started,” KindlesFlame said. “With it being a challenge.”

  “Just so,” Jahir said. He added, “Healer-assist Kandara has been a great help to me. I thank you for the recommendation.”

  “She told me she would have tracked you down on her own, even if I hadn’t pointed her at you.” The Tam-illee waved it off. “I was just accelerating her own process.”

  “Still,” Jahir said. “You did not need to watch over me so. You’re a busy man, to be taking such interest in a single student.”

  KindlesFlame chuffed a laugh. “Don’t start talking like you’re already leaving, alet. You’ve got a long ninety days ahead of you before you can shake the dust of Seersana off those boot heels of yours. Pass all your classes this term and then you can start telling me how much you’ll miss me.”

  “I will,” Jahir said.

  “Eggs. Chickens. Counting,” KindlesFlame said. He tapped the table. “Stay in the now, alet. You can express your undying gratitude when you’re packing for your residency.”

  Jahir smiled. “Yes, sir.”

  “Better.”

  “These are good results!” Palland said. “How are you feeling about the study design now?”

  “I think it might be better, at least from a methodological perspective,” Vasiht’h said. “From a personal perspective… I don’t know. I’ve only got twenty results using the dream-affecting without the talking, and it looks like the two together are far more effective than the dream-affecting alone.”

  “Mm.” Palland pushed his chair back and folded his arms behind his head, frowning. “It’s hard to design good studies around the efficacy of talk therapy, though. So much depends on the personality of the therapist. You can give twenty people the same twenty questions to ask their subjects and you’ll get twenty different deliveries that affect people completely differently.”

  “But we know talk therapy works,” Vasiht’h said. “How did we find out?”

  Palland laughed. “By doing it since the beginning of time?”

  Vasiht’h frowned. “Not very—”

  “Sciency, I know,” Palland said. “But we’re getting into seriously tetchy waters there. Stick to the methodology that’s working to do the second batch this semester. After that…”

  “We try something different?” Vasiht’h said, hopeful.

  “You write a thesis,” Palland corrected.

  Vasiht’h’s shoulders fell. “Right.”

  “Have you considered what it says about the therapist conducting the study that his novel approach to therapy is more effective when he’s personally involved?”

  Vasiht’h eyed him, but his professor remained the picture of nonchalance. He rubbed one of his forepaws against the other and said, “May I ask you something, sir?”

  “Go on.”

  “Have you ever wondered… how viable this is outside the lab? You keep suggesting I go practice with these techniques. But who’s honestly going to let a stranger adjust their subconscious while they’re unable to supervise the process?”

  “It’s been done before,” Palland said, and at Vasiht’h’s incredulous look, said, “Hypnosis.”

  “Hypnosis!” Vasiht’h said. “And we see how common that is.”

  The Seersa held up a hand. “Granted. But recall my comment about the personality of the therapist. You did this study twice at All Children’s. You told me the second time you had more volunteers than you had time. They knew what you were doing. So why did they let you do it? Why were they so eager to be chosen?”

  “Because their peers told them it was working?” Vasiht’h said.

  “Because they trusted you.” Palland shook his head. “They trusted you, Vasiht’h. To help them.”

  “But why?” Vasiht’h asked. “Why me? Why does everyone keep telling me that I’d be so good at this?”

  Palland’s brows lifted. “You really don’t know.”

  “No!”

  “Because,” Palland said, “you care about them.”

  Vasiht’h sat back on his haunches.

  “That’s it. It’s that simple. You care about people. You want them to be happy. And we’re wired, instinctively, to look for that in other people, to read the cues that say someone cares about our welfare. You give off those signs, alet.” Palland gave him a lopsided smile. “That’s all. In therapy, that’s everything.”

  Vasiht’h thought about that all the way home. When he got to the door, he looked down at his feet; brought up one paw to have a look at the pads. They were supple and glossy, and when he flexed his toes he felt no nagging aches from cracks. People who care about people, he thought… take care of each other.

  Resting his brow against the door, he thought: What are we doing?

  CHAPTER 33

  The woman sitting in the chair had weight, breath, warmth, presence… and most importantly, a real aura. Jahir sat by the door as the healer-assist he had been assigned to shadow joined her by her hospital bed. He’d been introduced before his relegation to the far end of the room; the patient had indicated previously that she was willing to have a student there, but once she’d greeted him she ignored him to focus on her visitor.

  He could see why she’d agreed. Her resignation was so deep it had become a species of apathy. The addition of one more stranger to the host of strangers who were importuning her didn’t matter at all to her. He rested his hands on his knees and listened as the healer-assist asked her how she was feeling. She replied to all his questions in a monotone, but her hands… her hands were knotted in the shift over her knees. Occasionally she would notice their disposition, and smooth the fabric out self-consciously. Then her hands would curl into fists again, and the process would repeat.

  She was speaking about her miscarriage. Her sixth, which had happened a week ago, and for which she was still under surveillance… for some reason relating to her physical health, he assumed. He remembered reading about the Tam-illee and their troubles having children and tried to imagine what it would be like, to long for a family and fail in the endeavor six times… in a row? Ye
s, in a row. She had no children yet, and it seemed unlikely she would.

  When they left, the healer-assist said, “In a couple of weeks, I’ll let you talk to her instead.”

  “Weeks?” Jahir replied, hiding his surprise. “Will it take her that long to heal?”

  His guide glanced up at him, ears flipping back. “Her body’s fine, alet. She’s here on suicide watch.”

  So it passed, that class. They visited a Seersa who had lost an arm—an entire arm, Jahir noted with astonishment—and had it reattached. But the duplicate had been rejected, a rare complication in a routine operation, and it had taken the surgical team a day to discover why, amend the process and redo it properly. The patient once again had two functional arms, and was in the hospital until the nerves finished knitting… but he had become anxious about the arm, and had begun evincing panic attacks at the least twinge in the new limb. And there was the human who came for regular treatments for a chronic disease that could only be managed, not cured, who struggled with feelings of inadequacy and resentment; she lived badly with the despair of lying beneath a Pelted halo-arch because the human versions were not as advanced, and wished she could go home.

  Glad there was nothing scheduled after the class, Jahir walked to the apartment. He found it empty when he arrived and hung his bag by the door, and his coat and scarf—pulled his boots off, leaning against the wall for balance in a way he would have avoided had he been in company. Then he sat on the couch and let his head rest on the back. Grief had a taste. Like licorice root: glutinous and too thick, as if one could choke on it. And the pall… it was distinct from the grief. Not a flavor, but a weight on the back of his neck, so that the muscles of his throat tightened in reaction. He would have a headache soon, if he didn’t take care.

  What the matter wanted was a cup of tea. Or coffee. No… alcohol. He forced himself to rise and go through the kitchen cabinets. There was one bottle of wine left from the holiday, so he opened it and brought a glass back with him to the couch.