Mindtouch

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  Did it help? After a few sips on an empty stomach, it gave him some distance. It left him staring at the glass. Then he rose and poured the rest of the bottle out. He could see drinking becoming a bad habit and didn’t want to leave the temptation.

  The glass was the first thing Vasiht’h looked at when he entered. He frowned and met Jahir’s eyes across the room.

  “Rough day,” Vasiht’h said. “You had the practicum?”

  “I must imagine it becomes easier with practice,” Jahir said.

  “Either that, or you get jaded,” Vasiht’h said, voicing the fear Jahir had left unspoken. The Glaseah came near, and brought with him the smell of new flowers, a distraction that felt like a breeze that carried whispers of conversations Jahir couldn’t decipher but felt healthy. When his roommate began to sit on the carpet, Jahir said, “No, please. Closer?”

  Bemused, Vasiht’h padded to the couch and sat on the floor beside it. He began to speak and the mindtouch stopped them both: it raveled into the line and sprang alive between them. The weight of Jahir’s melancholy met Vasiht’h’s energy in the center and shivered apart, leaving only a vague sense of disquiet.

  They stared at one another, and their mutual shock sang sympathies, like a harp-string plucked hard enough to cause its neighbor to resonate.

  “Did you know…” Jahir trailed off, still astonished.

  Vasiht’h didn’t immediately answer, staring at the space between them. He lifted his eyes and said, “That it could do that? No. No! Of course not. What do I know about mindlines? I’ve never had one!”

  “Perhaps there is Glaseahn literature on the matter?”

  “If there is, I haven’t read it,” Vasiht’h said. He licked his teeth and made a face. “And what is that awful taste? It’s like it should be sweet, but it’s not, and it clings to your throat. What are you drinking?”

  “Wine,” Jahir said. “But you are tasting licorice tea.”

  “Let’s never have that, ever,” Vasiht’h said.

  “You will have no arguments from me.” Jahir cleared his throat and said, “How long will it last?”

  “I don’t know,” Vasiht’h said. “Until we break it, or pull apart, or it fails on its own.”

  They fell silent again. Jahir said finally, “Do you see it with your eyes?”

  “Do you?” Vasiht’h asked.

  “Yes. Though when I do not concentrate on it, it falls out of sight. When I do it looks like…” Jahir stopped, watching the gleam of the thin rope. “Like a ferroniere.” At Vasiht’h’s blank look, which he heard as a subconscious white noise, he elaborated. “A very delicate chain across the brow. For decoration.”

  “To me it looks like DNA,” Vasiht’h said, voice low. “Like a gold helix, made of sparkles.” He paused, then laughed ruefully. “Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?”

  “Not at all,” Jahir said. “If DNA carries all the possible information that might make a person unique, why would a mindline not look like one when it carries all the possible information that might be shared between two people?”

  Vasiht’h glanced at the wine. “Like the information that you haven’t eaten, but you’re already halfway through that?”

  “I discarded the remainder of the bottle,” Jahir said, and knew the sheepishness that was usually betrayed only by a slight change in his voice was obvious to the Glaseah. That would ordinarily have disquieted him, but the look on Vasiht’h’s face… he started laughing. “What?”

  “That emotion…you’re making me feel like I’ve been caught stealing cookies,” Vasiht’h said, and laughed too. “I haven’t felt like that since I was too young for the size of my paws.”

  “Too young for the size of your paws,” Jahir repeated, and his roommate gave him an image—gave it to him, through the mindline—a Glaseahn kit, short-legged, with the large feet he’d grow into. He looked up, eyes dancing. “Oh, how marvelous!”

  “It is, isn’t it?” Vasiht’h said, and then flushed. The mindline’s gleam faded, took with it the sense of easy companionship. “Ah, there it goes. It probably wouldn’t have survived me walking to the kitchen anyway.”

  “Perhaps,” Jahir said, and closed his eyes. “Ah, but I feel… much more hale. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Vasiht’h said. “But let’s get some dinner in you before that cup goes to your head.”

  “I am not an unpleasant drunk,” Jahir protested.

  “No, because you’re an unconscious one,” his roommate answered, wry. “So if I don’t feed you now, you won’t eat until breakfast. Come wash vegetables. You can do that without cutting off a finger.”

  “I am not that tipsy,” Jahir said firmly.

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “I am not, I assure you—”

  “Just wash the vegetables.”

  That became a pattern: four times a week, following his practicum classes, he returned to the apartment and waited for his roommate. He restricted himself to tea, knowing that Vasiht’h’s arrival, his presence, would soothe away the distress of the sessions. Sometimes the mindline raveled, and sometimes there were only mindtouches. But it became rare not to have at least those.

  Those were good evenings, spent tentatively exploring something new to them both, consulting one another over the sources of some of the less decipherable impressions. Jahir was careful never to break the Eldritch Veil, but if he could not be generous with his memories, he could with his feelings, and he shared those with his roommate with a gladness.

  One night, preparing for bed after one such session, it struck him that he had never been suited to the reserve cultivated by his people. To hold himself apart from the alien had never been in him. His going to the Alliance had probably been an inevitability.

  Jahir found himself grateful that there was an Alliance to escape to. He did not like to think what he would have become had he been trapped at home. Like Nieve’s grandmother’s tree: a thing warped by its need to reach outward, to grow. He suppressed a shiver and went to bed.

  Vasiht’h didn’t enjoy it, but he was scrupulous in observing the necessary distance from his new crop of subjects. The last thing he wanted was to repeat the study because he’d had to throw out the results, even though he was resigned to having to repeat it again in summer to harvest more data. So he waited for his subjects to fall asleep before entering their cubbies, touched their dreams and then removed himself before they woke. They responded to him via survey afterward, to maintain the separation.

  Several weeks later, he was surprised by one of his subjects, who appeared at the door to the cubicle he’d been using to note his observations before leaving the hospital: Deniel, one of the doctors, a Seersa male with ash points and black mottles on a lighter gray coat. He had dreams of the hospital, Vasiht’h recalled.

  “Do you have a moment, alet?” the Seersa said.

  “Sure. Have a seat?”

  The Seersa nodded and hooked himself one of the ubiquitous rolling stools. He perched on it and said, “You always lead me out.” At Vasiht’h’s perplexed expression, he said, “I dream I’m here and I can’t find my way outside, or to my station, or to a patient. And you always show up in my dream, and I follow you and you get me to where I need to go.”

  “You see me? Me, literally?” Vasiht’h asked, interested. He didn’t try to insert himself in his subjects’ dreams. In fact, most of the time he didn’t see them for himself. Once in a while, someone’s mind was so powerfully involved in the narrative that Vasiht’h caught images or scents. He tried to minimize those incidents, to keep from being intrusive, but Deniel was one of the dreamers who projected.

  Still, even knowing the Seersa’s dreams, he didn’t try to rewrite them: just project a sense of motion if things felt constricted, or stillness if they seemed agitated, and a well-being overall.

  “I see you,” Deniel agreed. He smiled a lopsided smile, one that went all the way up to his ears, which splayed unevenly. “I was hoping since you were so good at helping me
find my way while asleep, that you’d have some ideas how I’d do it when awake.”

  “You… know what the dreams are about, then,” Vasiht’h said.

  “About my younger sister,” the Seersa said. “She’s marrying too young, and I think the boy she’s with—” He paused, grimaced. “No, I don’t think. I know he’s no good. I’ve tried to tell her, but she won’t hear it.”

  “So you end up in the hospital, but unable to move or find your way. Because you can’t with her,” Vasiht’h said.

  “I have to guess that’s what it is.” Deniel’s hands were resting on his knees; he opened them without lifting them, as if he couldn’t admit to enough loss of control to spread his hands in entreaty. “Though why it would be the hospital that it shows me, I can’t figure. I know my way around here.”

  “That’s probably why,” Vasiht’h said. “It’s the feeling of helplessness when you feel like you should know what to do that your mind is struggling with.”

  The Seersa looked up, frowning. “Huh. Yes. I can see that. But you put it that way…” He chuckled. “I guess it’s unreasonable to expect you can be that certain of things everywhere.”

  “You certainly can’t control your sister’s life,” Vasiht’h said. “That’s for her to do. And if she makes a mistake… well, we all make mistakes. As long as we’re breathing, we have a chance to fix them.”

  “And that’s her job, not mine,” Deniel said. He sighed. “But, Speaker-Singer, I want to help her. What do you do with that? How can I… how can I—”

  Vasiht’h held up his hands. “You’re about to say ‘fix her’ or ‘stop her’ or ‘change her’.”

  The Seersa paused, then flicked his ears back. Rueful, he said, “Yes.”

  “You can’t,” Vasiht’h said. “The only thing you can do to help her is to listen to her. And be the big brother who loves her, and to whom she can turn when things get bad.”

  The Seersa considered that, head bent, elbows on his knees and hands laced. Then he sucked in a breath and nodded. “You’re right. She’ll need me if things go wrong, and she won’t trust me if I try to run her life for her, will she? Hells, I wouldn’t want her running mine! Can’t blame her for that.” He stood. “Thanks, alet.”

  “Any time,” Vasiht’h answered, meaning it.

  “And maybe I’ll stop dreaming about being lost in my own hospital, ah?” Deniel said with a grin. “See you next nap, alet.”

  Vasiht’h waved… and then covered his face with a hand. Had he just? He had. Contaminated his own study… again. Grumbling, he returned to his notepad, but he was aware of a spark of rebellious pleasure beneath the exasperation.

  “We’re leaving!” Meekie said as they entered. Jahir paused at the door, then stepped aside so Vasiht’h could enter. That gave him a moment to compose himself against the jolt of adrenalized worry the girl had inspired.

  “Leaving?” he said, noting the despondency of the humans sitting at the table.

  “Yes,” Meekie said. “Kayla and me. In two weeks we’re going to that doctor who came to see us. He’s all the way over on Selnor! Our families are moving!”

  “But he thinks he can make us better,” Kayla said. “And the doctors here think whatever he’s doing is new and might work, so…”

  “Two weeks,” Jahir said. “That is… not so much time.”

  “I don’t want to go,” Kayla said, ears drooping.

  “We don’t want you to go!” Persy said.

  Jahir could see where this was heading. He shared a glance with Vasiht’h, felt the warmth of agreement from a passing mindtouch. “Do you know, ariisen, that it is a fine and pleasant day out? For early spring, positively hot. Perhaps we might ask Hea Berquist if we can go to one of the gardens.”

  “Oh, the fish!” Amaranth exclaimed.

  They asked, and the excursion was approved. With Berquist bringing up the rear, they made their way to the garden with the fish pond, and the air of melancholy eased as the children sat at the ledge and watched the colored koi laze in their cool waters. Jahir sat on the end of one of the benches, and Vasiht’h joined him, sphinx-like, on the ground alongside. To his surprise, Berquist paused in front of them and said, “Would it be too much if I…”

  “Please,” Jahir said. “Join us.”

  She sat close enough to be heard, but far enough that they could have fit another person between them. “I guess they told you?”

  “The Tam-illee are leaving,” Jahir said. “This new treatment is promising?”

  “I think it might work.” She nodded to herself, tucked a strand of blonde hair behind an ear. “It’s a long ways, though, and their parents are uprooting themselves to go. Selnor’s not an easy place to find work. So many people want to live there.”

  “Will the other girls be all right?” Vasiht’h asked, looking past Jahir’s knee. His concern felt like a cool fog.

  “They’ll get used to it,” Berquist said. “There will be new kids assigned to the room and they’ll be distracted by that. Not to say they’ll forget Meekie and Kayla, of course, because they won’t. But the kids here…” She frowned. “It’s hard to see, but they get used to this. To losing people.”

  “And you?” Jahir asked, gentle. “Are you taking care of yourself, alet?”

  “Me?” Startled, she looked at him. And then managed a self-conscious laugh. “I hope I don’t look too tragic!” She shook her head. “No. I’ll miss them, but losing them to the hope of a cure is much better than losing them because they get worse.”

  “It is still,” Jahir observed, “a loss.”

  Her glance then was thoughtful. She smiled. “You have to make the whys matter. Otherwise, you suffer too much.”

  Kuriel detached herself from the group and padded over. She paused in front of Jahir, wringing her hands, and the sight of her rare uncertainty made Jahir hold out an open palm to her.

  She sighed and climbed into his lap, bringing her grief with her, and he said nothing as she rested her head on his chest. She also reached down and petted Vasiht’h’s shoulder, squeaked when he lifted a wing and rested it on her foot. “I forget you have those until you move them!” she said.

  Vasiht’h looked up at her, solemn. “Kuriel… I forget I have them until I move them.”

  She giggled, and if it was a half-hearted sound it was still a giggle.

  “Sometimes,” Jahir said, sorting through her feelings and letting the words come, slowly, “you feel like you will be the only one left at the hospital. Everyone else will come and go, but you will always be there.”

  Kuriel kept her head ducked against his chest, but nodded against it.

  Jahir wrapped his arms around her and held her, felt Vasiht’h rest a hand on the girl’s knee, and the closeness knitted the mindline back together. They were in accord, and Kuriel sank into their wordless reassurance. So strong was that union that when Berquist added her hand to the girl’s back, Jahir felt the woman’s presence as a sweet concern—and nothing else, no whelming, no unpleasantness.

  He tried to remember when he had felt anything like it, and was sobered to realize the answer was that he had… but only with his roommate.

  At last Kuriel sat up and rubbed her eyes. She looked better, though she seemed abashed from the dip of her head.

  “You know what, Kuri?” Berquist said. When the girl looked up, she finished, “You’re not going to be the last person standing up there. I am!”

  It was just the right combination of rue, resignation and teasing. Kuriel blurted a laugh and then covered her mouth.

  Berquist just grinned and tweaked her nose. “Oh, go ahead and laugh, I don’t mind.”

  Kuriel giggled again and hugged the healer-assist, then popped off the bench and went back to the fish. The children scooted over to make room for her.

  “I don’t know how the two of you do that,” the human said softly. “But it is amazing. And I kind of want to be near it all the time.”

  “Alet?” Vasiht’h said.

/>   Berquist shook her head. “That thing with the… the soothing. Like a crack in the universe opens and you can see God’s love in it.” She shivered. “Like sunlight.”

  Jahir glanced at his roommate, who said finally, “We care. That’s all. That’s what you’re feeling.”

  “I care,” Berquist said. “But I can’t do that. But the two of you…” She shook her head. “You know, if I look out of the corner of my eye, it’s almost like you’re one person.” She laughed. “Isn’t that ridiculous.”

  “No,” Jahir said, struck to the quick. “No… it’s not at all ridiculous.”

  “I’m glad you think so,” she said. “Would you mind if I just… sat here? And…” She trailed off, sheepish, then said, “Well, if I basked in it.”

  “You can still feel it?” Vasiht’h asked, his incredulity in his voice.

  “Yes,” she said, nodding. “And it’s good.”

  “Then by all means,” Jahir said. “Stay.”

  The mindline lingered throughout the visit and accompanied them out of the hospital. They did not speak, but then, they didn’t have to. They were aware of one another, and if the emotional information they received from the line was lacking in granularity, there was enough there to sate them, for it was still so new… and there was a perfume in it like the resin-sweetness of incense, touched with awe and gladness.

  When at last it dissolved halfway to the apartment, they were silent a while longer. Then, Jahir said, “The mindline is something very special.”

  “Yes,” Vasiht’h said.

  Jahir dared say nothing more, lest he grow too attached to what he was feeling. He knew that Vasiht’h was doing the same.

  CHAPTER 34

  “So, give me the news,” Sehvi said, muzzle in her hands.

  Vasiht’h couldn’t help a touch of suspicion. “And you’re looking at me like that… why?”

  She grinned. “You haven’t talked about your roommate for three weeks, but today you’re back to rubbing your paws, so you must be ready.”

  “My—how can you see my feet??”