Dreamer

by Steven Harper

  Kendi mutely shook his head.

  “It means you’re alone a lot.” Ben’s blue eyes drifted. “Mom was always running here and there, tracking down or saving Silent. Nana and Papa were busy, too, even though they’re supposed to be semi-retired. Aunt Sil and Uncle Hazid and my cousins—they’re all Silent. I’m the outsider. The freak who can’t reach the Dream.”

  Kendi grabbed Ben’s pale hand with his dark one. “Hey—you aren’t a freak. If anything, the Silent are freaks.”

  “Not in my family,” Ben said bitterly. “When we were younger, my cousins made fun of me behind the adults’ backs. My aunt and uncle and grandparents treated me like I was semi-retarded or something. When I got older, my cousins looked—still look—at me with pity or contempt. They’re always in the Dream or planning their next trip into it. Mom, too.”

  Kendi realized Ben hadn’t pulled his hand away and took it as a good sign. “So why work for the Children?”

  “At least this way I can do something. You want a computer hacked? An engine repaired? A ship piloted? I’m your man. You want a Dream, call someone who counts.”

  “You count to me,” Kendi said seriously. “And you count to your mom. I love you and need you, Ben. You keep me grounded in the real world. You stay serious when I get stupid.”

  “I can’t follow you, Kendi,” Ben said in a flat voice. “The Dream calls and you have to answer. So does Mom and everyone else.”

  “And you think you can’t compete,” Kendi finished with sudden insight. “Ben, that’s bullshit. You’re more important to me than—”

  “It doesn’t matter, Kendi,” Ben said. He set Kendi’s hand aside. “I can’t wait for you on the sidelines. I won’t be the spouse who waits for you to come home from something I can’t understand.”

  Ben got up and started for the door, leaving an empty space on the bed. Kendi’s stomach lurched. He knew that once Ben walked through that door that any hope of a future with him would end. He wanted to grab Ben, snatch him back and hold him. The yearning filled him until it was a physical pain. The door slid open.

  And then Kendi knew what to say.

  “What if you could go into the Dream?” he said.

  Ben halted and turned. “What?”

  “Sejal pulled me into the Dream,” Kendi said. “What if he could do the same for you?”

  “I’m not Silent, Kendi.” But a haunted look stole over Ben’s handsome face. Excitement rose. Kendi scooted to the edge of the bed and got to his feet. His legs were steady now. It was going to be all right. Sejal would take Ben into the Dream, and Ben would finally see what it was like. His family problems would be over, and he could move back in with Kendi. They would be together again. Kendi’s heart sang with joy.

  “Genetically you are Silent,” Kendi reminded him urgently. “What if all you need to reach the Dream is a jump-start? I’ll bet Sejal could do it. You could start training, even be a Brother. What about that?”

  Ben stared wide-eyed, like a deer frozen in a spotlight. Then he turned and fled the room.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  FROM SEJAL’S JOURNAL

  DAY 5, MONTH 11, COMMON YEAR 987

  After Mother Ara got me out of the Dream, Harenn showed up at my room to examine me. I could hardly sit still for her on the bed. I had entered the Dream! I was pumped full of energy and I wanted to do it again and I didn’t want Harenn around spoiling the feeling for me. I hadn’t forgotten that she was the bitch who’d told Mom about me tricking, and now she was sitting on the chair in my room with Kendi’s readout unit on her lap.

  “You have done something unprecedented,” she said. “There will be much excitement when we arrive at Bellerophon. You must be ready for that.”

  That set off an alarm bell. I saw myself standing in front of a big crowd of Silent who all stared at me like some kind of freak.

  “What kind of excitement?” I asked, angry at her. “Are you going to tell them about the tricking? You sure couldn’t keep your mouth shut around my mom.”

  “Your mother was being uncooperative,” Harenn said. “We had little time, and I took the route that would convince her most quickly that you needed to come with us.”

  “It was none of your damn business,” I snapped.

  Her hand moved so fast I didn’t even see it. Suddenly my wrist was trapped in a hard grip. It hurt. “Don’t be a fool,” she hissed behind her veil. “You are everyone’s damned business.”

  I didn’t like her hand on me. I was going to reach out with my mind and force her to let go when suddenly my empathy talent switched on and I flashed on her. A mix of emotion washed over me, and the topmost one was fear. I gasped. Harenn was afraid of me? Under that I noticed a sorrow and pain so deep and penetrating I was afraid I’d be sucked in. And she was also eager, so eager I was surprised she wasn’t climbing the walls.

  “You can possess the non-Silent,” she said, still hissing. “Do you know what that means?”

  Still awash in her emotions, I couldn’t do anything but stare at her and shake my head.

  “You could assassinate any ruler you choose by making him jump off a building or swallow poison. You could take the mind of any official and use her to spy on her own government. How much do you think anyone will care that you traded simple sex for mere money?”

  The emotions switched off as abruptly as they’d switched on. Harenn let go of my hand.

  “The Empire of Human Unity knows of you,” Harenn continued, “and they sent a squadron of battle cruisers to take you back. Do you think a backwater gigolo rates that sort of attention?”

  “I’m not a gigolo,” I snarled at her, angry again.

  “No,” she returned, still calm. “You are far more than that. The problem is, you have been thinking as one.”

  “That’s not true!” I snapped.

  “Is it not? Tell me, then, why you left the planet that birthed you.”

  I felt like my head was blowing up like a balloon. “It was a backwater slimehole,” I yelled. “We lived in a slum and there was no way out of it.”

  “You lived in a clean, safe neighborhood,” she countered. “You lived in wealth and comfort compared to many of those around you. But you wanted more. So you sold your body.”

  “You’re twisting it. You’re making it sound—”

  “And then, when we Children of Irfan arrived and offered to take you away, you accepted without hesitation because we promised to give you what you wanted. How is this different from what you did on the streets?”

  “It’s completely different!” I yelled. “It’s not the same at all. I wanted to get Mom off Rust too. I did it to help her!”

  She stayed so calm I wanted to slap her. “If we had offered to take your mother off-planet on the sole condition that you remain in your slum on Rust, would you have accepted?”

  “I—” I halted, unable to say anything. I should have said yes, but I wasn’t able to—

  Okay. I’ll say it: I wasn’t able to lie that fast.

  Harenn nodded. “You were selfish. And it is easy to take advantage of selfish people, Sejal. You are fortunate that the first ones to do so to you were the Children of Irfan.”

  My thoughts were swirling around like a pinwheel and I couldn’t do anything but nod.

  “Many people will want you,” she continued. “They will seek you out and try to use you. They will tempt you and entice you, and if you continue to think only in terms of a prostitute—and by that I mean in terms of what you can gain—then they will use you indeed, just as they would use a whore. And then they will cast you aside.”

  Harenn fiddled the readout unit on her lap, the first fidgeting I had seen her do. Her words rang through my skull like a headache and it occurred to me that I had never asked why Kendi and the others had come to Rust in the first place. Everything had happened so fast, and I had just sort of assumed that Kendi had first found me by accident. A cold finger crept up my back.

  “Did all of you go through all that
shit on Rust just to find me?” I asked.

  Harenn nodded. “Kendi was the first to feel you in the Dream, but the Unity Silent sensed you as well. Even before we found you, we knew you could perform impossible feats. Now you have pulled someone else into the Dream, and this too was thought impossible.”

  “Why is it impossible?” I said. “It wasn’t hard.”

  “For you, perhaps.” She paused. “Could you do such a thing for a non-Silent?”

  Her eyes looked like hard brown glass. I wanted to squirm. It felt like she was examining me under a microscope. I remembered her eagerness.

  “I’m not sure,” I said.

  “This is my selfishness, then,” she said, as if to herself. Then she took a deep breath. “Could you do it for me?”

  I blinked. After her long lecture about my thinking—and I have to admit she hit close—I wasn’t sure how to react.

  “You want to enter the Dream,” I stalled.

  She closed her eyes briefly. “I am not Silent, but my husband is. I wish to find him.”

  “You’re married?” I blurted stupidly.

  “I am. I was. My husband visited a Silent son on my body ten years ago. One day I arrived home and saw he and my son Bedj-ka were gone. I have since learned many things about the husband I thought I knew. He was a criminal who hadn’t even told me his real name. I am his fourth wife and his fourth victim.”

  “Victim?”

  “Yes. My husband carries strong Silent genes. He marries non-Silent women, beds them until pregnancy, then steals the child away for sale into slavery.” Her voice was soft and poisonously calm. “I wish to find him. Other Silent have not been able to trace him in the Dream, but I am certain if I could do it if I could only find a way there. I know his mind. I could track him. And then—”

  She made a gesture at my crotch that made me cringe.

  “Oh,” I said, not sure what to tell her.

  “If you learn to take non-Silent into the Dream, please alert me,” Harenn said, getting up. “I have little to offer you except friendship and gratitude, but I hope you will consider it.” And then she left.

  I still have no idea what I’m going to tell her.

  DAY 8, MONTH 11, COMMON YEAR 987

  Kendi won’t let me back into the Dream. He says I need more controls, more people to watch me in case something goes wrong. But I know what I’m doing. I can feel it. Kendi’s got me doing more meditation exercises now, but I don’t need them. I can breathe and trance like it’s second nature. I don’t even need the drugs he says everyone else needs.

  The whispering started again. Kendi says that the Silent are always at least a little aware of other minds in the Dream. That’s the whispering I hear. Traditionally, it means the Dream is calling. Some people are more sensitive to it than others, and I guess I’m pretty sensitive. When you answer by entering the Dream, the whispering ends. For a while, anyway.

  Kendi says no one knows how or why this works, though some people say that a Silent’s brain is structured to need other minds around it. The Dream fills that need.

  If it’s a need, then why shouldn’t I go?

  DAY 15, MONTH 11, COMMON YEAR 987

  We’re one day out from Bellerophon, and I did it. I went back. I’m shaky now, but I’m okay. For a minute I thought I was going to die, but—

  It was easy, actually. I just went to bed, tranced as deep as I could, and reached for the Dream.

  I opened my eyes in my room back on Rust. For a brief second, I thought I had fallen asleep and was dreaming. Then I realized that this place was too real, more real than a regular dream ever is. I half expected Mom to come walking in. Suddenly I missed her and I hoped she was safe.

  I pushed the feeling aside and went exploring. The whispering was still there, but it wasn’t scary. It was comforting, a soothing presence in the background.

  I left the apartment and trotted out to the street. It was empty. Kendi says that you can create animals in the Dream, but not people. Again, no one knows why. It may be a subconscious taboo that no one’s been able to overcome.

  Maybe I’ll be able to do it one day.

  Anyway. At the end of the street was that blackness I saw the other time, the one Sister Gretchen asked me if I was creating. Angry red cracks showed through it, and it felt powerful. It seemed bigger than last time. I stared at it. It felt like any minute the darkness was going to roll up the street like a thunderstorm.

  And something in the darkness called to me. It was a strong voice, familiar and lonely. It didn’t call to me by name, but it did call. I wanted to be there, next to the darkness. The desire filled me and pulled at me. And then it happened. The city vanished around me, and I was standing on a flat surface with darkness an inch from my nose. I jumped back, lost my balance, and fell flat on my ass.

  I scrambled backward. My heart was beating fast. This close to the darkness, I heard a deep thrumming, a vibration that set my teeth on edge. And the darkness wailed. It cried and screamed. My hands shook. The whole thing scared the shit out of me, but I also wanted to go into it. It’s like the way you want to pull a scab off a sore—you know it’s going to hurt, but you can’t resist.

  There were other people around, some in clumps, others alone. Lots of them weren’t human. I stared. The Unity doesn’t allow non-humans, not even as slaves, and I’d only seen aliens in pictures or holograms. Most of them had too many legs or eyes or were weird colors or actually had tentacles. After a second I realized I was staring and I made myself stop.

  The humming and wailing continued, like a nail dragging across glass. Something moved inside the dark, and that desire to go in filled me. I moved toward it again, ignoring an alien standing only a few yards away, and slowly put my hand out. My fingertips crept closer and barely entered the black area.

  Instant cold swept my hand and arm. Some kind of force grabbed my hand and yanked me forward. I screamed. I dug in my heels and fought, but whatever it was had me good. I tried to leave the Dream the way Mother Ara had taught me, but I couldn’t think straight enough to concentrate. The force dragged me in up to my elbow.

  And then two other people were beside me, pulling me back. They grabbed hold of me hard. All three of us dug in and pulled. It felt like my arm was coming off, but we didn’t stop pulling. Finally my arm wrenched free. We toppled backward into a pile with me on top and lay there breathing hard. After a second, we all rolled apart. I got up and turned to help the others up and thank them. That was when I noticed only one of them was human. The other had four legs, two arms, and a long neck with a big head. The other was a human woman with dark hair and eyes. She wore a brown robe and a gold disk on a chain. A Child of Irfan.

  “You are uninjured?” the alien asked.

  I tried to answer, but only squeaked. Whether it was from what had just happened or from the fact that I was facing a real alien, I’m not sure. I cleared my throat and tried again.

  “I’m all right,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “What possessed you to do something so foolish?” the woman asked.

  I shook my head and gestured at the darkness. “What is that?”

  “Is this the first time you view it?” the alien said. “You must be new in the Dream.”

  “Kind of.” It suddenly occurred to me that if the woman was a Child of Irfan and she recognized me later, I might get into trouble for entering the Dream without permission. I thanked both of them again, pulled my thoughts together like Mother Ara taught me, and suddenly I was back in my room on the ship.

  I sat up and looked at my arm. It still ached, and I felt bruises forming where the alien and the woman had hauled on me. Kendi had warned me this would happen, that any injury I received in the Dream would carry over into my physical body. I went down to the bathroom and took a hot shower, and that helped. I can’t ask for painkillers without Harenn asking why.

  Speaking of Harenn, she hasn’t asked me again if I would take her into the Dream, though she nods when I meet her in the c
orridor or at meals. Part of me says I should do it and make her owe me, but then I realize I’m thinking like a gigolo again. Part of me says I should do it because it would help her. And part of me says I should just stay out of the whole thing.

  When I was little and saw Mom making big decisions for the community, I thought it must be great to boss people around. I couldn’t wait to be an adult so I could make big decisions too. Now that it’s happening, I don’t want it.

  Sometimes growing up really shits.

  Kendi tapped the final keys that brought the Post Script into orbit around Bellerophon. Ara was engrossed with receiving last-minute landing instructions, Gretchen was relaying sensor information to Kendi’s boards, and Ben—

  Ben bent over his console, not looking in Kendi’s direction. It was as if he and Kendi had never spoken. Ben had gone right back to avoiding Kendi, refusing even speak to him except as ship’s business required. It was driving Kendi insane. He’d tried to push Ben out of his mind by putting all his energies into teaching Sejal. It didn’t work.

  On the viewscreen, Bellerophon showed dark green continents and bright blue oceans beneath dramatic spirals of sweeping white clouds. Kendi sighed. After so much time on red Rust, the green, cool forests of Bellerophon called to him, making him long to vanish into emerald leaves and silver mists.

  “He’s doing it again, Mother,” Gretchen said from her boards.

  Ara looked up. “Who’s doing what?”

  “Kendi. He’s making cow eyes.”

  “I never made cow eyes in my life,” Kendi protested. “I’m just glad to be home.”

  Gretchen snorted. “Uh huh. In a month, all you’ll be complaining about the humidity and how the trees get in the way of the view.”

  “You need to shave your mustache more often, Gretchen,” Kendi said. “You’re coming across all prickly.”

  This argument would have gone further, but Ara firmly put an end to it and Kendi turned his full attention back to piloting. Ben had already put the sound-dampeners on full, and the power drain made the ship sluggish. The Unity didn’t care how much noise a ship made, making the spaceport a deafening place. Things were different on Bellerophon.