Chagrined, Jahir paused.
“Oh, it’s okay,” the Glaseahn said with a laugh. “You’ll end up hearing about mine anyway. I love them all, though I’m glad to be gone from home. There are seven sisters and four brothers, and my aunt and my grandparents live with us, and the clan is a bit overlarge if you like your breathing space.”
“Seven sisters and four brothers!” Jahir exclaimed, stunned.
“My mother and father took populocampi seriously,” Vasiht’h said. “Very seriously.”
“And that is…” Jahir said, pouring glasses of water for them both.
“Some of the Pelted aren’t as mad about reproducing as others,” Vasiht’h said. “For a while, some of us have been under the replacement rate. “Populocampi” was the word someone coined as a joke to represent an initiative to have as many children as possible. Except it stuck, and it really is necessary. Or at least, some people think so.”
Jahir said, “If every family ends up with twelve children, I can’t imagine there being a problem.”
“Ah, but most families have only one child, or two, or none. My parents decided to have a big family…Glaseah tend to pair off for life, but as a species we aren’t very enthusiastic about breeding. It was some side effect from decreasing the hormonal load when we were engineered.” Vasiht’h ran a spatula down the center of the omelet and than plated the halves, pushing one over to him. “Whatever the case, the situation’s getting better. It’s just not as good as some specialists would like.”
Jahir wondered what those specialists would make of the Eldritch, where babies died so regularly his brother had been considered a miracle birth and all children of roughly the same generation called each other ‘sib’ just for the novelty. He, Amber and Sediryl had been the only children of an age among the northern Galares, and had spent many a happy afternoon exploring the nearby forests. They’d grown up and gone their ways: Jahir to learn management at his parents’ summer estate, Amber to dream of the buildings that would later lead him to an offworld school of architecture, and Sediryl to an Alliance starbase of all places, after which her family had disowned her.
“Cloud-spinning?” Vasiht’h asked.
Jahir shook himself. “Pardon?”
“Your mind was wandering. A fin for a travelogue?”
The reference puzzled him until he remembered that the Alliance called their money fin. Then Jahir laughed. “Just trying to imagine living with siblings. Tell me about yours.”
The run-down on Vasiht’h’s many relations took them through breakfast and part of the way out of the apartment, into a chill autumn morning with another of those damp breezes beneath a low gray sky. The walk to the hospital was uncomfortable, but more because of the weather than the pace, which Jahir noticed his roommate kept rather leisurely. He made a note to buy warmer clothes.
The children’s hospital, seen from the front rather than the parking lot, was faced with sculptured gardens not unlike one of the country manors at home. Together they passed through the glass doors and into the lobby. As Vasiht’h approached the front desk, Jahir stayed in the center of the tall room, sampling the emotional climate of the room the way an uncertain swimmer does the water. The faces around him were clinical in their detachment or their haste, and though the cleanliness and broad spaces of the architecture suggested the Alliance’s enviable luxury with technology, the people looked not unlike the pitiably few doctors among the Eldritch: carefully controlled.
The lobby itself had been painted with a soothing aquamarine mural with sea turtles, bright fish and other streamlined creatures. The smiles on their faces did not seem to marry well with the smell of antiseptic.
“I’m fairly sure the kids we met yesterday are on the second floor,” Vasiht’h said, joining him and offering him a visitor’s pass sticker. “We’ll take the stairs.”
Jahir carefully received the pass and pressed it to his chest, before following the Glaseah. His every nerve was alert for the faintest brush of another person, but most people gave him and Vasiht’h a wide berth. The stairs ended up being broader than the Eldritch expected, the stairwell itself sun-spangled with light from the window wall. When they reached the second floor, the elevator slid open, revealing a compartment filled with people, standing elbow-to-elbow.
Jahir reflected that Vasiht’h was altogether too good at anticipating Eldritch problems.
Turning a corner brought them to doors leading to long term care. Vasiht’h touched the chime and waited for entrance.
A man with amazingly orange hair opened the door. His brown eyes seemed clouded with distraction. “Yes?”
“We’re visitors, here to see some of the children,” Vasiht’h said. “We’re students in the psych program.”
The man’s brow furrowed. “Students? We don’t allow students here, unless they’re interning. And which children? Are you related? We don’t have any Glaseah or…” He eyed Jahir. “Christ on a bicycle. Certainly none of you.”
“We spoke with Healer-assist Berquist at the beginning of the week about a visit,” Jahir said, waiting for the man to begin to look uncertain before adding, “We promised the children we’d come by. We don’t want to disappoint.” He spread his hands. “They found us entertaining, apparently.”
“Well, if Jill said it was all right,” the man said. He squinted at their stickers. “Computer hasn’t kicked you out, anyway.”
…which it certainly hadn’t, because the Veil allowed the rare Eldritch visitors to Pelted worlds a great deal of license in where they went. “Please,” Jahir said. “We’ll stay quiet.”
“Fine,” he said. He pulled open the door. “If you’re looking for Jill’s wards they’re next to the window on the right. If you’re going to come often, you should talk to her about getting a permanent pass. It’ll let you in this door and save me the trouble of staring at you.”
“Thank you,” Jahir said. “We’ll do that.”
“That worked out well,” Vasiht’h whispered as they walked down the quiet hall. In the rooms they passed Jahir glimpsed people crouching over beds that seemed miniaturized, unreal. “I don’t know if he would have let me in alone.”
“You just have to know how to talk to them,” Jahir said absently.
“This must be the place,” Vasiht’h said, peeking into the window next to the final door. Jahir could just glimpse the edge of a brown pigtail through the glass. The Glaseah opened the door, gathering the gazes of all six children. Three were seated at a short table in the middle of the room. One of them was on the window-seat in the sun, cradling a book. The other two were in their beds, trapped there by metal arches that partially extended over their bodies.
“Hey, Manylegs came back!” crowed a girl at the table. “Along with the Dragon Prince!”
“Dragon Prince!” Jahir said, startled.
“Well, we were trying to decide what your life was like,” one of the girls said, “And we decided that you must have a dragon after all, you just didn’t want to tell us about it.”
“We figured it was probably engineered,” said another of the girls. “You know, like some of us.”
“Yeah, dragons can’t be much harder than people,” the third girl at the table said.
“Ladies!” Jahir said. “One thing at a time, please. Names? I’ll start: I’m Jahir Seni Galare at your service. You must call me Jahir, for I fear I am no prince at all.”
“And I’m Vasiht’h,” the Glaseah said, his amusement richening his voice.
The girls at the table were Kayla and Meekie, two Tam-illee with oversized ears and tiny brush-like tails, and Amaranth, the human with the pigtails and bright sparrow eyes. The bald girl on the window-seat Jahir also remembered, with her limp but pointed ears: she was Nieve. In bed were another human, Persy, and a Seersa girl, Kuriel.
“Now that we’re done with that,” Vasiht’h said, settling himself at the table with eyes that sparkled far too much for Jahir’s comfort, “why don’t you continue on with the story
of Jahir’s life? I want to hear more about this dragon.”
Only too eager to oblige, the children spun a tale about Jahir’s magical dragon, which he rode daily from a palace of such proportions that Jahir reflected legendary Queen Jerisa’s court would have been lost in it. The dragon conveyed him from palace to treasure hoard, a vast cave containing all the gold and silver and jewels the girls could imagine, which, they assured them, was quite a lot.
“What about food?” Vasiht’h asked.
“Oh, he obviously doesn’t eat much,” Meekie said. “Otherwise how could he be so thin?”
“We don’t think Eldritch eat,” Kayla agreed.
“I think they eat,” said Persy from her bed. She was peeking past the arch that forced her to lie flat. “Salad. Flowers. You know, no animals.”
“They do not eat flowers,” Kayla said, her large ears flipping backward.
“Oh yeah? Then what do they eat?”
“I think they drink moonlight,” Nieve said from the window, resting her cheek on her knees. “And eat pollen-dusty rays of sunlight.”
Jahir glanced at her, surprised.
“That doesn’t sound very appetizing,” Meekie muttered.
“It’s romantic, though,” Amaranth said. “I think it goes with the dragon.” She peered at Jahir. “There is a dragon, isn’t there?”
Jahir looked at the six pairs of eyes gazing hopefully at him, then smiled and leaned forward. “There’s no dragon,” he said. “But there is a unicorn.” He took off his ring and set it on the table in front of Kayla.
“Oooh! It’s beautiful! Is it from your treasure hoard?”
“Just so,” Jahir said. “From the family treasure, the jewels of House Galare. That is the unicorn that succored our family, and since then the unicorn has been on all our jewels. It is his purity that guides us, you see.”
Nieve slid off the window-seat to join the other three girls at the table. They passed his ring to one another, admiring the delicately carved unicorn inlaid on the face of the oval gem. The stone spanned Jahir’s finger nearly from knuckle to the first joint, and it dwarfed the hands of the girls who handled it.
“I wanna see!” Persy said, and the girls hastened to bring it to the bedsides of the other two.
“A unicorn is even better than a dragon,” Amaranth said happily.
“Are not,” Persy said, and added at Amaranth’s scowl, “but they’re almost as good.”
“This is wonderful treasure!” Kuriel said, staring at the ring. “Is there more?”
“There’s more,” Jahir said. “But you wouldn’t find someone like me wearing it. It’s… well, rather noticeable.”
“I bet!” Amaranth exclaimed. “Look at the size of this one ring! You have crowns?”
“The Queen has one, yes,” Jahir said. “You’ll note I am no queen.”
“No, you’re a prince, we’ve already decided that,” Amaranth said. She offered the ring to Jahir, which prompted Vasiht’h to speak.
“He’s Eldritch, Amaranth… you shouldn’t touch him.”
Amaranth’s mouth opened into a little round ‘o’. Hastily she placed the ring on the table for Jahir to retrieve before continuing, “You look like a prince, after all.”
“Perhaps. But many people would have to—” Jahir paused, glancing at the complex-looking displays above the beds, “—choose not to be the next ruler of the world before I could even be considered a minor prince, ladies.”
“So it could happen!” Amaranth crowed. “I knew it. What’s it like to be a prince?”
Jahir hesitated, unwilling still to break the Veil. And yet they were all so eager, and Nieve… Nieve with her large eyes, nearly the lilac of a young Eldritch lady’s, so intent… he sighed and said, “It involves a great deal of allowing people to help you dress, bathe and move from room to room. And horses.”
“Horses!” A nearly simultaneous squeal. He could see the horse portion of his story was going to be popular.
Halfway through his account of the prince going to the fields outside Ontine to symbolically bless the land so it would be fruitful, the door into their small room opened for the nurse that had shepherded the children away yesterday. She waited until Jahir finished off his last sentence before saying, “All right, girls… that’s enough excitement for the day. It’s time for the rest of you to get on the bed.”
Cries of disappointment followed.
“We haven’t found out how the blessing ceremony ends!” Amaranth complained.
“We’ll come back,” Jahir promised. “The story will keep.”
“Just what he said,” the nurse said. “Into bed with all of you. When I come back in this room I want you all ready for your naps.” She opened the door and eyed Jahir and Vasiht’h significantly.
“We’ll see you again soon, ariisen,” Vasiht’h said before slipping out.
The nurse closed the door behind her. She eyed them. “I’m not sure how you got my name—”
Jahir didn’t glance at the woman’s name tag.
“—but you haven’t done any harm, and I think the rascals like you. Any light in their lives is good in my book,” she finished with a sigh. “You might as well tell me who you are and whether you really are planning to come back.”
Vasiht’h said, “Truly we are. I’m Vasiht’h and this is Jahir. We’re xenopsych students.”
“Planning to make this your internship?” the woman asked with interest. “We have a slot open once a year. It’s an organizational psych rotation for the clinical track, seeing to the staff.”
“We’re not sure what we’ll be doing,” Jahir said. “It’s rather early for us both to be making internship decisions. They just seemed to derive such pleasure from our presence that we thought we’d return.”
“Between a Glaseah jumping rope and an Eldritch—an Eldritch of all things!—telling them stories, I can’t imagine why they might have been enjoying themselves,” the woman said with a laugh. “My name’s Jill Berquist. I share the care of that tuplet with a couple of other people, but I’m their primary care-taker. The computer let you in? It does background checks… I’ll put you on the visitor list, then, save Patrick some grief at the door. Mornings are best, so you came at the right time…but they do have scheduled doctor and family visits. If you like, I’ll keep you informed.”
“Please,” Jahir said. He paused, then said, “If I may ask…what’s wrong with them?”
“And the prognoses?” Vasiht’h added quietly.
Berquist paused, then chuckled, tired. She rubbed her face with one hand. “Back home, I couldn’t tell you, but the Pelted are fine with sharing information that would make humans want to sue you. They have a social thing, with silence being worse than speech—”
“—because of their history on Earth,” Vasiht’h said. “With their designers forcing them to stay quiet.”
“Which isolated them, yes,” Berquist said. “It’s hard for me to get used to after working on Earth where they value privacy over that sense of solidarity. Anyway, Meekie and Kayla should be okay. They have very virulent cases of Auregh-Rosen Syndrome, which typically doesn’t kill. Amaranth and Persy both have a kind of cancer. We’re having trouble keeping it at bay. Cancers have become more pernicious in humans since they’ve become spacefarers, and no one’s sure why. Kuriel has cerrmoniah; we keep re-building her nerve endings, but we’re having trouble keeping her body from destroying them again. And Nieve… well, her cells keep apoptosing and no one knows why. No one’s seen anything quite like it.” The woman looked away and let out a long breath. “Anyway, we’re doing all we can to make them comfortable.”
Which didn’t sound at all encouraging. “We’ll look forward to the schedule,” Jahir said quietly. “If you can indicate to us any particularly good or bad time, we can attempt to arrange our own activities accordingly.”
“Thanks,” she said, and let herself back into their room.
Outside the hospital, Vasiht’h broke the silence to ask, �
��So how much of that was true? The dragon prince, blessing the fields, the horses.”
“Does it matter?” Jahir asked. “As far as they were concerned, it was all true.”
Vasiht’h smiled a little. After a moment, he said, “Are we going back, then?”
“Was there ever any question?” Jahir asked.
Vasiht’h said nothing for a moment. “No. No, there really wasn’t.”
CHAPTER 6
The following week saw the semester’s start. Jahir had spent a day locating all his classrooms to spare himself the anxiety of doing so on the first day of school, and that was well: it also allowed him to arrive early enough to pick the one furthest seat from everyone else. He’d been very careful about dressing, leaving almost none of his skin exposed below the neck, and had worn gloves thin enough to write with. But even taking precautions he wanted to minimize the amount of accidental contact between himself and his classmates.
The back of the room also suited him because it prevented people from staring at him, or trying to engage him. He found it uncomfortable, being the focus of attention… he would have thought that the urbane, multicultural Alliance with its dozens of species would have found yet another alien unworthy of note. The opposite, in fact, seemed to obtain: the people here were more curious about him, as if living among so many different aliens had only whetted their appetite for the investigation of additional species.
Fortunately, he did not have much time to devote to worry, because Vasiht’h had been prophetic: keeping up with all five classes needed all his attention, and then some, for his preparation for the degree had been incomplete. He often found himself researching additional reading material, more basic in nature, and studying that before returning to the subject matters at hand: for this semester, the basic biology of the body and how it affected the mind in the varied species, engineered and natural, of the Alliance. It was maddeningly complex and often incredibly difficult work, the learning.
It was also fascinating.
“How can there be so many of you, so different, and yet so alike?” he said one evening to Vasiht’h, who was sharing the great room with him.
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