by T. J. Quinn
"Of course, he would. They treat us equal there," Hankura remarked with heavy sarcasm.
"Well, maybe he is a bigot, Hankura, but he did give his print for your hearing so you could get out of jail," Chelle reminded him. "You can stand his company for a few hours."
"Sure, Hankura. Just ignore him the way you always do," Trevin laughed.
Hankura half grinned and shook his head. He reached for Chelle's hand, and the three headed for the subway where they took an underground capsule into the city of Salla.
The domed city had hardly changed. It was a beautiful city of varied but elegantly simplistic architecture, housing nearly three-quarters of a million people. The magnificent world capital was filled with highly artistic structures of the most modern design. They ranged from tall pointed towers of a glassy substance that shimmered like jewels in the bluish sun to shorter, round towers with flat roofs and gently sloping domed structures made of concrete and painted in flat, textured, pastel colors and white. It was necessary for the three to pass through the city to reach Trevin's hovercraft parked at its assigned pad on the east side of the city. There was only private transportation available outside the five major urban centers of Aledus, this was supplied by various shapes and sizes of relatively speedy hovercrafts, and these were not allowed inside the domed cities. Inside, pedestrians either relied on the beltways or the subways to get from place to place. For those living in outlying agricultural districts, owning hovercrafts was essential.
Even though it tried Trevin's patience a little, both Hankura and Chelle insisted that they cross the city on the pedestrian beltway instead of the faster subway. He didn't understand. They got off at Narcaza Circle, a city park traversed by none of the beltways.
The grounds were somewhat crowded this late in the day, and they were deliberately jostled more than once by one of the small groups of young Normals who got their kicks by harassing Psions. But this didn't stop Hankura from crossing the exotically beautiful park with Chelle close at his side.
Ignoring the stone paths, they walked across the brownish moss that covered the ground instead of grass which scarcely grew anywhere on Aledus. There were trees and bushes of all kinds, and plants with huge bulbous flowers that pulsated like jelly fish in the ocean all arranged into a great botanical garden.
At its center stood a huge round pool with a fountain shooting water high into the air and raining it down on lavender ropans, a kind of reptilian water fowl native to Aledus. There were other pools with fountains in the park, but Narcaza Fountain was by far the most magnificent.
Trevin stood by with a puzzled frown as his brother and Chelle seemed to be held spellbound before the fountain, staring fixedly at the rising and falling water. Hankura only moved to draw Chelle a little closer to his side, and neither one spoke or offered Trevin any explanation.
We are like the water that soars in the fountain. Your love is my love...your sorrow, my sorrow.... your pain, my pain. I know your strength and weakness; I know your joy. Your passion. Through the pain and sorrow, the joy and laughter, there is always love. We will be one with our love again. We thank you, Mother of Life that we are here, safe together. We honor you in the name of Narcaza our forefather and ask that you guide us---that our spirits will soar high again like the water of the fountain and we will share one mind in joy and passion as Narcaza said it was meant to be for those who share a Path of Insight.
They stood gazing reverently upon the statue until a group of rowdy young men pushed past Trevin and shoved them both into the concrete wall of the fountain. Hankura recovered himself first and turned in a chackrin pose ready to defend himself and his wife.
"Welcome back, Psion." Theron gloated from just a few feet away. "I wouldn't if I were you---unless you enjoyed your stay in Salla jail before. Another could easily be arranged."
Blind rage made Hankura lunge at the other man, but Trevin and Chelle each grabbed an arm to stop him.
Hankura, please don't do this. You know it's what he wants. Chelle admonished silently. He will have the Enforcers on you if you so much as touch him and you know it.
Theron laughed derisively as Hankura slowly backed down. "So you are a coward after all."
"You may think so, Theron, but I have killed better men than you," Hankura replied coolly, holding his temper only by a thread. "I'm no fool. The law is on your side." Trevin and Chelle released him as he assured them without words that he was in control again. "You may laugh, but we both know which of us is the coward."
Theron's eyes narrowed, but he ignored the last outwardly and turned to Chelle. Sandy haired and fair, he might have been attractive to another woman. But there was a mean streak that ran deep inside him. He was a lot like Berke back on Earth, a man who had tried to own her and nearly killed Hankura to do it. In his own way, Theron was just as dangerous.
"You're looking well after all these years, my dear." He tilted his head a bit ruefully. "You should have taken my offer. I could have taken care of you a lot better than your precious physician."
Chelle felt her husband stiffen beside her as this enemy touched on the heart of his guilt. She gave Theron a scathing look. "You're pressing your luck, Theron. My chackrin is a lot better than it was, and I've been worse places than Salla Jail. However, we do have better plans for our time, so if you'll excuse us, we'll be going."
She took Hankura's arm with a trembling hand noticed only by him as he drew her away from Theron's smug regard. She didn't stop trembling until long after they had left Narcaza Circle, and only then did Hankura's seething anger begin to cool.
"Now you understand my worries, Hankura?" Trevin said after several minutes. "I should have hit that son of a bitch myself. I'm not a Psion; they wouldn't be quite so quick to throw me in jail."
"But, it wouldn't change anything, Trevin," Hankura mused over a bitter memory. "There are still the laws, and if it were not Theron, it would be someone else waiting to taunt us and goad us into breaking them just so they can build a stronger case to continue withholding our rights to vote and to make even stronger legislation to control us. It was their damned laws that nearly destroyed Mother and me both---all because of an insane religious fanatic who tried to take over when Aledus was still an Earth colony. Now we are even forced to practice the old religion in secret."
"Do you really believe in that stuff?" Trevin asked.
"Let's just say that I don't entirely disbelieve it," he replied quietly.
He was, of course, referring to the Path of Insight cult founded in the first century Aledan time by Malkan, a powerful, insane telepath. Using his powers to win converts to an offshoot of the ancient Wholaskan Circle of Life Chronicles, Malkan became absolute ruler of Aledus. He kept control for nearly a hundred years until he was overthrown in the Psi Wars.
Many innocent people died Normals and Psions alike. When it was over, though, the Normals came into power. In the third century, they used the research of a philosopher and scientist by the name of Narcaza to formulate a program of conditioning to maintain a tight standard of control over the Psion population on Aledus.
An ancient ancestor of Hankura's mother, Narcaza was admired by both factions for different reasons. The man was, indeed, a great philosopher and his scientific research could have benefited both Normals and Psions alike. It was not his fault that his theories were used to found the Aledan Psi Institute.
All children born on Aledus are tested at a very young age for their psychic aura ratio, and all psions are taken from their families under law by the age of ten. They are placed in the Psi Institute for brainwashing into a tight code of conduct regarding both their powers and their place in society.
Natar went through it and vowed that her children would never suffer like she did. She and Ludren sent Hankura to Velran to be educated by the Wholaskans. He hated them for months, believing they had done this because they didn't want him. All of this took its toll on Natar. She had a breakdown when he told her he was leaving Aledus again after less than
two years when he'd already been away for twenty.
"Aledan law is outdated by centuries---since Narcaza's treaty with the Wholaskans. Their psychic research is far in advance of anything else in the Federation, maybe even the Galaxy. Control is second nature to anyone trained by them."
"I certainly agree with you," Trevin said. "But, I don't know what can be done. We have voted again and again to change the laws, but the prejudices still run too deep."
"Yes, and it is this conditioning that they inflict on our kind that is causing most of the problems they have with the Psions in the first place." Hankura went on. "Conditioning is psychologically damaging to the more fragile minds. Here they treat telepathy as a curse instead of the gift that it is. The human mind is evolving to a higher consciousness, and Aledus is still in the Dark Ages of ancient Earth.
"You don't have to worry, Trevin. Chelle and I won't be staying long on Aledus. We just came back for a rest. In spite of everything, it does feel good to be home again if only for a while."
CHAPTER TWELVE
Bittersweet Homecoming (II)
Evening shadows had lengthened over the agricomplex as the three arrived from Salla in Trevin's hovercraft. Greenish-blue yarrel flowers bobbed to and fro on thick green stems in the gentle breeze, closing their petals with the dusk. The exotic blossoms were used to make yash, a popular wine-like drink on many worlds. It was a very profitable as well as beautiful crop.
The plants grew in compact rows seven abreast in the fields surrounding the domestic grounds and gardens. The mist, thick and white, was laced with fertilizer and trace minerals to feed the plants daily. Its composition was regulated by a scanner analysis of plant and soil conditions, temperature, and humidity. Whenever necessary, the plants were automatically inoculated with pesticides and disease inhibitors that were chemically compatible with the environment and safe for consumption by some human and non-human races.
Near the center of nearly one-hundred thousand hectares of yarrel and various staple food crops stood four white concrete domed structures rising from the landscape. Short yellow-orange bushes dotted the moss-covered grounds and tall red-trunk trees swayed above them with their reddish needle leaves whispering in the wind. The evening was quiet but for the breeze and the chatter of tiny white, coarse-furred gresar monkeys with their cat-like faces and big blue eyes. They played noisily among the bushes in the garden. In the pond at the front of the larger main dwelling, featherless ropans dove for scaleless transparent fish.
There was no need for Trevin to announce their arrival before the three entered the main dwelling. Natar had been expecting them for some time, and she knew the minute they came on to the complex.
Then, it almost seemed sudden; Hankura stood before his mother for the first time since she had nearly destroyed him. She looked smaller and somehow more vulnerable than he remembered, and there were flecks of silver in her ebony hair that she wore elaborately piled on top of her regal head. Natar stood searching his face expectantly with emerald eyes that were a reflection of his own.
He felt her maternal love, and when she opened her arms and hugged him warmly, the pain and horror of the recent past dimmed. For the moment, he went back in time, and he was a child again, safe in the haven of his mother's embrace. The poignant feeling only drove home more sharply how much was lost between them when he was sent to Velran as a boy. There was no longer the demanding possessiveness or attempt at manipulating his thoughts as in the past, only her tenderness that she lavished upon him so freely.
Then Natar turned to Chelle, who she had hated so before, and framed her lovely face in her delicate hands. There were tears of compassion wetting her eyes as she kissed both Chelle's cheeks. "Welcome home, my daughter."
This was the same Natar who had wished Chelle dead five years ago and nearly made it so.
Hankura turned a questioning gaze to his father, an older, more mellowed version of himself physically. She doesn't remember, my son. She only knows what you both have suffered. Please---lay the past to rest.
"It was long ago, Father," Hankura murmured and embraced him tightly. "I guess it's really better this way. We can all begin again."
In another moment, he found himself with Chelle in the middle of a boisterous family huddle. Hankura's sister was there with her free-mate Stefan and Trevin's wife Floria along with five excited children all clamoring for attention at once. It was good to feel all of this excitement in honor of them, good to forget for a while what had brought them slinking home from the far sectors. For a while, they let themselves enjoy these comforts as pampered children while they gathered strength to go out and face the universe again.
The first few days at the family complex were pleasant enough. Hankura's loved ones were openly affectionate and sympathetic, even if they didn't comprehend the guilt and anguish he was still carrying. They understood even less why he wanted to go back to Zevus Mar and take his wife with him after what happened to them there---or why she wanted to go just as much.
Ludren argued with him again and again, and Natar cried, but she never tried to force her will upon him, though it was within her power.
Going back to Zevus Mar had become an obsession for Hankura. It was the only way he believed they could really put the nightmare behind them.
During their visit, their days and nights were filled with activity. Hankura took Chelle through the mixed patronage shops in Salla, and they frequented all of their old haunts. They went swimming alone in the Tharn Sea and made love under the clear, moonless night sky. They saw the Paskien dancers at the Lenth Coliseum and the chackrin matches in Fenlay. They danced and drank and feasted at the Luellian Pleasure Houses until they needed a rest from their vacation.
All of the activity didn't help Hankura forget or ease the growing tension between him and Chelle as they tried to avoid their memories of captivity by Tregans. Nor did it stop them from withdrawing from the bond of their psi-link as they tried to avoid sharing their pain and anger. Hankura found he was learning to hide himself from Chelle better than most Normals could from their lovers. He knew he was hurting them both, but he couldn't seem to stop what was happening.
At the beginning of their relationship, Hankura had taught Chelle to hide her thoughts and feelings from others very well. Now she used this skill on him, her own psi-mate.
It was over; Stagg and Mograton were dead. So, why wouldn't they die in his dreams? And why, when he wanted Chelle, couldn't he shut the picture of them raping her out of his mind? The vision rose up between them every time she reached for him, or he reached for her. They had both come to stop reaching. Hankura still wanted, still needed...still loved, but the guilt and anger were eating him alive.
Chelle came to him, yet, again, wanting to soothe his pain and ease his guilt. She reached out to his mind, offering the love he had shunned for these past days, and he couldn't accept it. Nor, could he offer her the kind of comfort and support he knew she still needed.
"I need more time, Chelle," he said finally as they stood alone in the garden watching a pair of gresars playing tag in the moss a few meters away. He felt trapped and confused. He didn't know how to deal with his own feelings anymore now that the danger was past. He had to get away alone; his confusion was hurting them both. "I'm going to Lenth for a while," he said after a tense total silence.
"Go then---if that's what you have to do," she told him with a quaver in her voice.
He knew she was hurt and maybe a little angry. She knew why he was going to Lenth even if he hadn't admitted it to himself, yet. A surge of guilt gnawed at his insides as he watched her turn from him and walk back to their dome without looking back. He was tempted to follow her inside and try again to smooth the rift between them, but he knew that would never get to the root of the problem.
And perhaps, the same pride that kept her from turning her hurt filled eyes back for him to see kept him standing rooted to the spot.
Hankura swore out loud and strode up the decorative stone path to
the resting pad of their sleek silver and black Lefarian air wedge. He climbed into the arrowhead-shaped craft and sat before the controls, pressing the preset course on the guidance computer for the little town just two hundred fifty kilometers southeast of the agricomplex.
Chelle walked slowly back into the dome as she heard the hover craft take off. She stood inside of the lounge not knowing what to do with herself. It was hard to be angry with Hankura because she was as conflicted. Their love should have made them stronger. Just then, Chelle didn't feel very strong at all.
Trevin. Chelle sensed his presence even before he walked through the doorway behind her. He stopped just inside the entrance and stood there waiting for her to either beckon him to come in or demand that he leave. She turned slowly to face him.
"I saw Hankura leave," he said. "I thought that you might need some company---may be someone to talk to. I can see that you two are having a really tough time, and I really want help." Trevin came toward her slowly and stood directly in front of her. "Do you want to tell me about it?"
"No! I don't ever want you to know what happened to us. I don't want you to think of me in the context of that horrible prison camp and what they did to me. That's why Hankura can't stand to be around me. That's why he keeps shutting me out. Between that and he did to get us out of there." Chelle let out a sigh. "Goddess, Trevin it’s tearing us apart!"
Slowly Trevin moved closer and put his arms around her. "Chelle, I'm so sorry. I'm sure he knows how much you love him. He's just hurting so much that he can't reach beyond it. It's just too soon to expect him to do any better." He laid his cheek against the top of her head rubbed her back as he spoke, but it was what he didn't say that moved her more. I love you so much; I wish I could make this all better for you.
Chelle looked up into his eyes. Something electric sparked between them and in a moment they were kissing eagerly. Suddenly, she wanted the comfort and tenderness he was offering perhaps because he had no real knowledge of the devastating memories that hung between her and Hankura. It was probably more than that. She did love Trevin though not with the overwhelming, soul searing intensity that she shared with Hankura. Just then, she knew he could give her the comfort Hankura could not.
