His hands, he suddenly realized were white, and had one finger too many. They weren’t his hands, but Jahir’s.
Vasiht’h woke on a gasp. It was late afternoon, and his heart was racing and his pelt sticky with sweat. And in his mind the words resounded: I was wrong.
So long ago, Jahir had told Luci that distance made most things bearable. It was a common wisdom, certainly. But the answer to pain wasn’t distance, but a deeper connection, with others, with life, with people who could stay and sustain one’s heart when it faltered. And somewhere inside, Jahir had known that. Known that none of them was replaceable.
That was what had driven him into the medical track. Nieve’s death had shown him that he couldn’t stop loving the people around him, and that they would inevitably die. And he was reacting out of an anguished need to make it stop, to make it stop happening, because before he could admit to loving any of them he had to make them stop dying, make them stop receding into the distance, out of reach, beyond his grasp. The hospitals, the society of the healers, it was all his defense against loss. And it was too late for him, because he already loved them.
Vasiht’h, who had spent a year researching the use of dreams to heal, had not paid close enough attention to his roommate’s. Jahir had told him his grief himself:
I’m alone.
Vasiht’h went to the window, gripping the sill so tightly his palms ached. That night he’d soothed that dream by telling Jahir that he wasn’t alone, and it had worked because that was the core of the Eldritch’s grief. Not that he would outlive them, but that he was to be forever held apart, and that he must be complicit in his own abandonment by those who sought to protect him.
Sought to protect him! When all he wanted was to fully engage the life he’d chosen, and the people he’d taken into his heart?
And he had encouraged Jahir to leave… had all but sent him away!
“Oh Goddess,” he whispered. “What did I do!”
She seemed close, so close he could feel Her breath on his shoulders. “No,” he said. “No, You would say the past is in the past, and not to dwell on the mistake. So what do I do now?”
And asking made it obvious. The temerity of his plan didn’t matter. Trembling with the need to fix it—fix everything, now—Vasiht’h lunged for his data tablet and started writing messages. He left one for Palland, requesting an emergency meeting. He left one for Sehvi, telling her he might be out of contact for a while. He researched schools he could transfer to, and academic leave requests in case he wasn’t accepted at any of them. And he looked up shuttle itineraries. Too much to do, and so little time… he didn’t think he could put it all to bed for a week at least. Probably two. Goddess! Two weeks! Luci would help, surely, when he explained it to her, and the quadmates. Palland, too. Maybe he could continue his studies through correspondence…
He didn’t know how he would work it out, but he knew he would. And before intersession was over, he was going to be on a ship bound for Selnor.
“Hang on, arii,” he whispered as he worked. “I’m coming. And this time, I’ll listen more carefully when you tell me what you need. We’ll get through this together… and we’re going to end up where we belong—
“—I promise.”
At the advice of Vasiht’h, his first and truest friend, Jahir Seni Galare has accepted one of the most coveted residencies in xenotherapy, even though doing so has severed him from all the relationships he’s fostered since leaving his cloistered homeworld. But not all the simulations at school have prepared him for the reality of being an esper in a hospital large enough to serve the winter capital of the entire Alliance, and it’s not long before he’s questioning the wisdom of having left the university for the tumult of one of the largest port cities in the known worlds.
When Vasiht’h follows Jahir to Selnor, he’s not sure whether his plan is to help his friend survive his residency, or to drag him back to Seersana University and into a less strenuous residency program. But a storm is coming to Heliocentrus, one they’re uniquely positioned to address, and their nascent mental link is about to receive its first test in the crucible that will either forge their lifelong partnership—or kill them both.
APPENDICES
KERINNE
Like coffee and tea, kerinne has as many variations as it has drinkers. It’s always based on milk and cinnamon, but every other variable can (and has been!) messed with. I’ve seen molasses-sweetened kerinnes, or kerinnes with extra spices; restaurants will often have house variants or even kerinne cocktails! Vasiht’h’s recipe is a very common one, and begins with creaming butter, as if you’re making a cookie.
Vasiht’h’s Kerinne
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp honey
¼ cup cream
pinch of salt
milk to taste
Over pot set to medium-low heat, stir butter, cinnamon and honey until combined and warmed through. Add cream and stir until combined. Leave on burner until steaming, then season with salt and add milk to taste. (Steamed or warmed milk integrates more easily.)
Yield: 1-3 servings (depending on how much milk used)
The Species of the Alliance
The Alliance is mostly composed of the Pelted, a group of races that segregated and colonized worlds based (more or less) on their visual characteristics. Having been engineered from a mélange of uplifted animals, it’s not technically correct to refer to any of them as “cats” or “wolves,” since any one individual might have as many as six or seven genetic contributors: thus the monikers like “foxine” and “tigraine” rather than “vulpine” or “tiger.” However, even the Pelted think of themselves in groupings of general animal characteristics, so for the ease of imagining them, I’ve separated them that way.
The Pelted
The Quasi-Felids: The Karaka’An, Asanii, and Harat-Shar comprise the most cat-like of the Pelted, with the Karaka’An being the shortest and digitigrade, the Asanii being taller and plantigrade, and the Harat-Shar including either sort but being based on the great cats rather than the domesticated variants.
The Quasi-Canids: The Seersa, Tam-illee, and Hinichi are the most doggish of the Pelted, with the Seersa being short and digitigrade and foxish, the Tam-illee taller, plantigrade and also foxish, and the Hinichi being wolflike.
Others: Less easily categorized are the Aera, with long, hare-like ears, winged feet and foxish faces, the felid Malarai with their feathered wings, and the Phoenix, tall bipedal avians.
The Centauroids: Of the Pelted, two species are centauroid in configuration, the short Glaseah, furred and with lower bodies like lions but coloration like skunks and leathery wings on their lower backs, and the tall Ciracaana, who have foxish faces but long-legged cat-like bodies.
Aquatics: One Pelted race was engineered for aquatic environments: the Naysha, who look like mermaids would if mermaids had sleek, hairless, slightly rodent-like faces and the lower bodies of dolphins.
Other Species
Humanoids: Humanity fills this niche, along with their estranged cousins, the esper-race Eldritch.
True Aliens: Of the true aliens, six are known: the shapeshifting Chatcaava, whose natural form is draconic (though they are mammals); the gentle heavyworlder Faulfenza, who are furred and generally regarded to be attractive; the Akubi, large dinosaur-like fliers with three sexes; the aquatic Platies, who look like colorful flatworms and can communicate reliably only with the Naysha, and the enigmatic Flitzbe, who are quasi-vegetative and resemble softly furred volleyballs that change color depending on their mood. New to the Alliance (and not pictured in the line-up) is the last race, the "Octopi" of Either Side of the Strand.
For a more detailed look into the species of the Alliance, a Peltedverse Guidebook is available through me; you can get it by signing up for my mailing list (from my website), by jumping on my Patreon, or by emailing me directly (haikujaguar at gmail).
Author Sketches
It's typical for m
e to do sketches while writing, a sort of mental doodling as I work out events and character arcs. These sketches are not intended to be the final word on what the characters look like! In fact, I usually have trouble pinning down people's looks. I just keep at it anyway.
Jahir and Vasiht'h are among some of my oldest characters in this setting. My original drawings of them... I think they date back to the early '90s! Needless to say there's a lot of bad art of them, by my standards, because there's a lot of art of them in general. Here are my favorites of the lot.
1. Saddlebags: Wrapping your head around what Vasiht'h looks like is a bit challenging without pictures. This is a pretty good one so you can see all the limbs (and the saddlebags). His lower body is more catlike than people guess from the coloration.
2. Jahir Bookmark: Boy, this picture is ancient. And yet, one of the better pictures of Jahir, whose face changed a lot of the years (for a while he had a pointed chin, but I gave him a squarer jawline later, which is what ends up described in the books).
3. Shelving Books: It is handy to have a taller friend! Interestingly, that's more Eldritch-like clothes than Jahir effected while in the Alliance.
4. Pattycake: Vasiht'h playing with the children. This was drawn during the developmental stage of the novel, so I wasn't sure how many kids there were yet, or what their species were.
5. Jahir Portrait: A much more modern portrait of Jahir (and of him about 10-15 years after the events of Mindtouch, even). It's not perfect, but it's pretty close.
6. Apartment: Here's the student apartment layout, for those of you who like floor plans.
7. Early Development Sketches: I wish I had the originals for these! But I don't, all I have left is this old jpeg. But these were some of the very first sketches I did, when I thought this was going to be a brief short story about how the two ended up roommates. I'm glad I kept going...!
Playlist
Using formalized playlists as inspiration is a habit of about two years' standing now. These playlists are not intended to be literal soundtracks; I use songs that give me the right "feel" for what I'm planning, either in lyrics or sound quality. Then I listen to them while commuting or running, which is when I do most of my plotting.
Jahir and Vasiht'h appear in several books in the Peltedverse setting; while Dreamhealers is their most pastoral, there's still drama. Finding a good balance between that sunshiny "everything's good" feel and the tension that sometimes crops up was a bit of a challenge. But on the whole, a theme fell out, and it was... (God help me) 80's pop. Jahir will tell you he'll listen to anything, and he will (and certainly Eldritch music sounds more like chamber pieces from the Baroque period), but the 80s "we're on top of the world" vibe is very them.
I have only one playlist for this series, but some songs are more appropriate to Book 1. Mindline needed a few different songs, so you'll see those in the Appendix of Book 2.
"Space Age Love Song," A Flock of Seagulls
"Pale Shelter," Tears for Fears
"More Than This," Roxy Music
"If I Ever," Red Flag
"What Do You See," Cause and Effect
"Too Shy," Kajagoogoo
"Forever Young," Alphaville
"Beautiful Day," U2
"Doctor Doctor," Thompson Twins
"Crazy," Seal
"Alive and Kicking," Simple Minds
"Summer Spies," Fatal Charm
"A Little Respect," Erasure
"Living a Boy's Adventure Tale," A-Ha
"It's My Life," Talk Talk
"Love's In Bloom," Daniel Ingram
In addition to these, I liked Alanis Morrisette's "Princes Familiar", not just because it's a song about psychology, but also because I always thought of Jahir and Vasiht'h as the girls' princes.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daughter of two Cuban political exiles, M.C.A. Hogarth was born a foreigner in the American melting pot and has had a fascination for the gaps in cultures and the bridges that span them ever since. She has been many things—web database architect, product manager, technical writer and massage therapist—but is currently a full-time parent, artist, writer and anthropologist to aliens, both human and otherwise. She is the author of over 50 titles in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, humor and romance.
The Dreamhealers series is only one of the many stories set in the Pelted universe; more information is available on the author’s website. You can also sign up for the author’s quarterly newsletter to be notified of new releases.
If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review… or telling a friend! (Or both!)
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Mindtouch (The Dreamhealers 1) Page 40