The Search for Ulyssa

by Heidi J. Leavitt

  One night she was staring blankly at a list of Denicorizen verbs she was supposed to be memorizing and brooding over the fact that she still hadn’t heard from her family when Bren spoke from across the table.

  “You’re frowning at those words like you want to stab them.”

  She looked up to find Bren watching her, his own study sheets spread out before him. She looked back down at the frustrating verb list. She still couldn’t remember a single one on the list. Stupid verbs.

  “What did they ever do to you? They’re just poor, innocent verbs.” He smiled, and she grimaced.

  “I’m never going to learn these, and then Master Terune will make me stay in first term Denicorizen for the next three years.”

  “Don’t be so pessimistic—Master Terune graduates next year. He can’t possibly have any effect on your schedule that long. Of course, your next mentor might be even worse,” Bren said cheerfully.

  “Don’t say that!” she groaned. She dropped her forehead onto the table with a thunk.

  “Come on, Kendra. It can’t be that bad.”

  She sighed. “What am I doing here, Bren? I should just drop out and go home.” Her voice was muffled by the table, but Bren clearly heard her anyway.

  “What? You want to quit?” He sounded incredulous.

  Don’t be so melodramatic, Dina added.

  “No, I don’t want to quit,” Kendra admitted. “I guess I’m just homesick. You know how it is.”

  Bren was silent. She lifted her head from the table curiously. “Aren’t you homesick?”

  He shrugged. “Not really. I haven’t been gone long enough to miss anyone yet.”

  See, Bren’s fine and he doesn’t have anyone here at all. While you’ve got me.

  I miss my family, Dina. Just like you miss your twinspark.

  Bren tapped his pen nervously on the table and cleared his throat. “But if you quit, you know, I’ll miss you.”

  She stared at him in shock. Then a slow smile spread across her face.

  “I guess I can’t quit, then.”

  5. A Favor from Bren

  Dina and Bren were both right. It took a few months, but finally the Denicorizen started to work its way into her brain. By the start of second term, she still couldn’t speak it worth a diezmo, but at least she didn’t feel like she was drowning in an ocean of words that would never make sense.

  As for missing her family, the persistent ache dulled a bit, though it never went completely away. Her friendships with both Tiran and Bren kept her busy—between the two of them she never had much time to feel lonely. Only her nagging sense of frustration about finding Ulyssa still pricked at her. Dina tried to hide it from her, but Kendra could feel the constant longing she had for her twinspark. It was more than longing, really. It was a driving need, as if Dina were desperately thirsty and stranded on a moon without water. She had felt like this on Zenith, too—that was what had convinced Kendra to ask Grandfather Forrest to sponsor her at the university and beg her parents to agree to let her go. It was even worse now. Even with Dina shielding her, Kendra felt the pull until every night she was dreaming about finding this isithunzi that she had never met.

  Eventually, Kendra decided to take action. It meant convincing Bren to do her a huge favor, and she would have to risk letting Kip Vanhorn’s precious scanner out of her hands. But something had to be done, or Dina might go crazy. And if Dina went crazy, chances were Kendra would too. So one night during their study session, Kendra asked Bren if he had ever heard of qualian energy. When he shook his head, she plunged into an explanation about these invisible particles of energy that were partially responsible for the expansion of the universe, and Bren’s eyes started to glaze over. “I’m the son of a regional governor, remember, Kendra? Politics, sure, I get that. Astrophysics? Not so much,” he complained.

  “Well, I’m fascinated by qualian energy,” Kendra said, opening her eyes wide and smiling brightly at him. “Part of the reason I wanted to come to Corizen was to discover if the qualian energy here was different from on Zenith.”

  “Wait, I thought you said they were particles in space?”

  “Usually. But they can be found in concentrated pockets around the surfaces of planets also,” Kendra said confidently, parroting Kip’s explanation from so long ago, the one that Dina had memorized. “I have a scanner that is supposed to detect the pockets, but my aunt and uncle won’t let me outside the International Complex, even to try and get readings.”

  Bren cocked an eyebrow at her. His seminar was on current events in Roma, and he had heard rumors about the Red List and who was on it. “They probably have a point, you know.”

  “Yes, well . . . I’m going mad trying to shovel all this Denicorizen into my head, and I just want a break. A chance to study something I’m interested in for once.”

  “So take your gadget and try it out in the complex,” Bren sensibly suggested. “It’s a pretty big area, and you’ve got plenty of places to take different measurements or air samples or whatever it is you are trying to do.”

  “I would, but something in the shield blocks me from getting any readings.” She looked at him imploringly, trying her best to look pathetic and adorable at the same time.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he grumbled. “I’m not going to take you on a field trip outside the complex against the wishes of your aunt.”

  Kendra of course wasn’t planning any kind of field trip out of the complex. Once or twice she had experimented with walking up to the complex gates, and Dina had hysterically reported that she could feel the shield stripping her bare. So they had steered quite clear of the edges of the complex.

  “Fine,” she grumbled, pretending to reluctantly agree. He didn’t need to know how the shield affected her. “But what if next time you head out of the complex you take some readings for me?”

  Bren looked askance at her. “I don’t leave the complex either.”

  “But you could, if you wanted to . . .”

  He heaved an enormous, long-suffering sigh. “I could, yeah. My roommate is constantly pestering me to go with him to some of the bars in the city.”

  Part of the plan for getting the Citizen and Denicorizen students to “integrate” was to assign each Citizen living in the dorms a Denicorizen roommate. There were far more Denicorizen students than Citizens, so those who did get a dorm room were seen as especially favored. It made sharing a room with a stranger seem more of a privilege than a punishment. (As far as she knew, Kendra was the only Citizen student not sharing a room with a Denicorizen. Of course, she wasn’t sharing a room at all . . . the perks of living in the Ambassador House. The ambassador’s clout was much higher than Kendra would have guessed. She wondered how Uncle Casey gained such respect.) Bren’s roommate was a local from Roma with wealthy merchant parents. Mikal had a tutor who’d taught him Basic for years, as well as plenty of practice working in the family business. That meant that Bren had no trouble communicating with him. The drawback was that it made it easier for Mikal to try to enlist Bren in his constant effort to spend his entire first term of university as drunk as possible.

  “I keep trying to explain to him that I came here to actually learn something, but he just laughs and says we have plenty of time for that,” Bren had groused after his first trip “out” with Mikal had resulted in one fist fight and a lot of throwing up. He refused to go again after that.

  Now Bren pointed his pen at her. “You owe me. Big time.”

  ♦

  Two days later Kendra waited impatiently for Bren in the common area of his dorm. The day before he had accepted Kip’s precious scanner from her with the promise that he would keep it safe with his life. “I’ll do my best, though Mikal keeping his mouth shut so we stay out of trouble seems a little much to hope for.”

  “Isn’t there any way you could just visit some of the landmarks in the city or
something? Take readings at tourist places?” Kendra asked nervously. The scanner was unique and impossible to replace. Though Dina could sense the presence of other isithunzi nearby, Kip’s scanner could detect residual levels of qualian energy, like the faint afterburn image of a flash of light. Even if Ulyssa wasn’t in the city now, if she had been in Roma since her arrival on Corizen, there should be some kind of reading. It wasn’t much, but it was at least a lead. Somewhere to start. But it seemed unlikely that Ulyssa was haunting the bars of Roma.

  “If I can get him to visit somewhere that doesn’t involve drinking alcohol, it will only be after he’s too drunk to object,” Bren said gloomily. “And the way things are in Roma right now, I can’t wander around the city without a Denicorizen. I need someone who knows his way around and speaks the language. My feeble attempts at ‘Where is the bathroom?’ won’t get me very far.”

  Kendra waited and worried all night. She fretted that Bren wouldn’t find anything, and then they would be back to square one with no leads of any kind. She was paranoid that somehow Kip’s scanner would get lost or broken. And she was concerned that Bren would end up in another brawl. Not because she expected he would get belligerent and start something—or even that one of the local Denicorizens would decide to pick a fight with him. Tall as the Denicorizens were on average, Bren was taller than most and certainly broader. No, the problem was his roommate Mikal, who was entirely likely to incite something. Even though Bren was huge, his awkward clumsiness wasn’t much help in a fight.

  It was times like these she missed flipcoms the most. But nobody had them on Corizen. There was no network. If she wanted to communicate with anyone it had to be by terminal, and Bren wasn’t going to slip away from the carousing just to find a terminal and comm her with the news that everything was going fine.

  Now she wondered if Bren had forgotten what time he had promised to meet her. She had already confirmed with the resident advisor that Bren made it home the night before.

  When he finally trudged off the lift, she awkwardly pushed herself out of her squashy chair and hurried toward him.

  “What happened to you?” she demanded. One eye was swollen shut, and he had a long angry gash on his other cheek. “Another bar fight? I’m going to smack Mikal!”

  “It wasn’t a bar fight,” Bren said guardedly, with a glance around the room. Kendra followed his lead, wondering who he was concerned about. At least a half dozen other students were relaxing and socializing, though none of them were Mikal or his friends. “Let’s get out of here, and I’ll tell you about it.” Apparently Bren did not want to provide any fresh gossip for eavesdroppers.

  She pulled her heavy coat back on and fastened it as she followed him out the door. Even though the weather was milder this week, she still shivered constantly. Bren, however, wore nothing but a long-sleeved thermashirt and pants. Either he was far more accustomed to the cold than Kendra, or he was agitated enough to forget that he was heading outside on a winter day without a coat. Kendra hoped his thermashirt was a very good one.

  Maybe he likes the feel of goosebumps breaking out on his arms, Dina chimed in. I do. I wish you’d go outside without your coat more often. It is the most delicious, prickly, odd sensation!

  Dina, you are the oddest person I have ever known.

  You’re using “person” very loosely. I prefer “alien body snatcher.”

  Well, you’re the oddest one of those I’ve ever known too.

  “Let’s walk back to the Ambassador House,” Bren said once they were outside. “You can show me around the Civil Strip.”

  “You have a burning desire to look at identical boxes posing as houses?” Kendra asked incredulously. The Civil Strip was the nickname given to the two streets of houses constructed for the diplomats and higher-level staff assigned to the embassy. It was about as interesting as looking at a row of harvest sheds at the train depot back in New River.

  Bren didn’t answer her; he just started off down the narrow lane that led back toward her home. Kendra shook her head and then hurried to keep pace with him. With Bren’s long legs, even his most leisurely pace forced her to speed walk. In his agitated, distracted state she nearly had to jog to keep up. When they reached the turn off that led to the Civil Strip, she tugged at his sleeve.

  “Slow down,” she panted. “You’re killing me. Not all of us have a shuttle-length stride.”

  “Sorry!” he exclaimed, abruptly stopping in the road. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  Kendra tried to take a deep breath and pressed a hand against the stitch that was forming in her side.

  “I’m the most thoughtless clod ever. My father would string me up,” he said apologetically. “Are you OK?”

  “Yeah,” she said, her breathing already slowing back to normal. “But can we walk a little slower?”

  “Guess I was just anxious to get somewhere we aren’t likely to run into any locals.” He held out an arm. “Hold me back, OK? I forget sometimes what a shrimp you are.” Kendra took his arm, and they started walking again at a much slower pace.

  “What in the name of the stars is a shrimp?” she asked.

  He laughed. “You really don’t know?”

  “Never heard of it before,” she said. “Does it mean someone slow?”

  He laughed again. “It refers to a tiny sea creature. It means you’re short.”

  “I’m not short. You’re freakishly tall,” Kendra rebutted comfortably.

  Like one of those towering eyesores in Omphalos, added Dina. Though he is easier on the eyes, I’ll give him that.

  They walked in silence for a few moments, Kendra idly noting the brown, lifeless landscape. It looked so desolate compared to when she had arrived in early autumn. It was hard to believe she had been on Corizen for almost five months now. What was going on back home? How was her family? She had lived with her grandparents for four years before leaving for Corizen, but her parents and Erik made regular trips out to Omphalos to visit her. She had never gone this long without seeing them. It had been even longer since she had seen Berry, though she and her sister kept up regularly through comms. Berry’s social anxiety was getting worse and worse as she got older. She made the trip out to Omphalos to see Kendra once in all the time Kendra lived there, and most of the time Berry was miserable and on edge. At this rate she was going to be like Uncle Jax—living her entire life inside the family compound, content never to set foot outside. Now that Kendra was on Corizen, the worst part was the lack of comms. Of course she didn’t have a flipcom, and even if she did, there was no such thing as live comms between planets. The best she could do was send text comms that went through the long distance queue via interdimensional gate. She’d received a batch of comms from her family only two weeks ago, but it wasn’t the same.

  “Do you miss your family?” she asked Bren, breaking his brooding silence.

  “What?” he asked, startled. He frowned in confusion.

  “Do you miss your family?” she repeated. “Are comms enough? Or is it no big deal to be this far away?”

  “Oh . . . well, I miss them, of course. Especially my brothers,” Bren said thoughtfully. “But I was ready to be my own person, not just the governor’s heir. I’m enjoying that freedom.” He twisted so that he was facing her, though he didn’t stop walking. “Are you homesick again? I thought you were feeling settled in here.”

  “I am,” she reassured. “I’m not terribly homesick. I just miss my family, that’s all. But I’ve been missing them for years now, so you’d think I’d be used to it. Being in the next solar system apparently does make it worse.” She smiled lopsidedly.

  “At least you live with your aunt and uncle and cousin,” Bren pointed out. “You’re not totally alone.”

  “I’m not,” she agreed. “So I’m actually incredibly lucky. Probably the only Citizen student with family here.”

  “Tiran is close to your a
ge too. You have a built-in friend and a study partner. I’m stuck practicing Denicorizen with Mikal.”

  Kendra stole a sidelong glance at Bren, wondering if that innocent comment contained any sign of romantic interest in Tiran. She had introduced Tiran to Bren the first week of the term, and to Kendra’s disappointment Tiran hadn’t shown any interest in him at all. Kendra was pretty sure her cousin was nursing a secret flame for one of the librarians, which was kind of creepy, since the guy was so much older than them. Kendra didn’t understand it herself; Markus was nice, but well, old. Like the same age as her dad old. She’d been hoping that Tiran would find Bren more attractive. Bren was a good-looking guy, and he was certainly at least as nice as that librarian.

  You think it’s your job to find Tiran a boyfriend? Dina definitely sounded amused.

  Hey, friends always look out for each other that way, Kendra defended.

  Are you going to find me a boyfriend too?

  Uh . . . do isithunzi have boyfriends?

  Dina’s mental laughter rang through Kendra’s head. Isithunzi don’t sexually reproduce. So I suspect we don’t need “boyfriends” in the human sense. We do have companionship—our twinsparks are like lifelong partners, and we have family groups also. I’m only female to you because that’s what you are—so somehow I started to see myself that way too.

  Kendra digested this idea thoughtfully. So if I’d been a boy you’d have seen yourself as male?

  Probably. You really, truly don’t like thinking of anyone as an “it.” It affected me quite a bit—now I pretty much assign genders to every other isithunzi as well.

  Just based on who they are shadowing?