Spherical Harmonic

by Catherine Asaro

  I went to the edge of the cliff. No lake rolled at its bottom. A city nestled down there, penned on one side by this cliff and on the other three by forest. Rounded and natural, the buildings resembled the blue, green, and aqua beetle-tanks. Paths wound among them. I saw no machines, but I suspected the city dwellers had plenty of technology. It probably wasn’t possible to make a permanent home here without the benefit of modern advances.

  I felt rather than heard Hajune emerge from the forest, an eerie repetition of how I had first met him. This time, however, he emanated no hostility.

  His footsteps rustled behind me. “I thought you would come here.”

  I turned, pulling my hair across my body. He stood several paces away, his pack slung over one shoulder and an axe lashed on his back.

  “I won’t go back with you,” I said.

  His forehead furrowed. “Understand you, I do not.”

  “Go back with you, I will not.”

  “I know.”

  “Then why you come?”

  “It isn’t safe for you to roam.” He gaze traveled down my body and he reddened, then looked back at my face. “Especially like that. Manq take.”

  I grimaced. “I met them.”

  He stared at me. “They caught you?”

  “No. I ran away.”

  “Smart. Smarter still for you to have a guard.”

  “You offer protection?” I couldn’t hold back my incredulity.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” I scowled. “You wanted to kill me before.”

  “I thought you were Manq.”

  “Not Manq.”

  “I know.”

  “How know you?”

  “Talk. Listen. Watch.”

  “Why leave me tied, then?”

  “I did not want you to run away.”

  “Why?”

  “Beautiful you are.” Softly he added, “Lonely I am.”

  His undisguised pain caught me off guard. I was used to the Assembly and Imperial court, which were both saturated in the protective discourse of politics. An admission of vulnerability would bring in the predators faster than an eye blink—and given the power we dealt with, that could ruin a life. Pah. No wonder I spent so much time in the web, hidden from all but my family. My people didn’t have the brutality of the Traders, but we weren’t angels either.

  I spoke more gently. “Married, I am.”

  “No husband here.”

  “Told you. Manq take.”

  He exhaled. “Then he is dead.”

  I shook my head. “He is more valuable alive.”

  “Why?”

  Good question. He was my consort, but it was more that that.

  Rhon.

  Eldrin and I were Rhon psions. Empaths. Telepaths. Our family had been bred for the traits. Rhon had a specific meaning: we were the strongest psions human DNA could produce. And the rarest. Rhon also meant we were members of the Ruby Dynasty. Eldrin and I were part of the same extended family. Anger shot through me, but I didn’t know yet what caused it.

  How much did Hajune understand the Manq? Trader Aristos were anti-empaths, the result of an attempt to make humans resistant to pain. But the project hadn’t worked; instead it produced mutated empaths. When an Aristo picked up another person’s pain, the Aristo’s brain sent the signals to its pleasure centers. The more another person hurt, the more the Aristo experienced pleasure.

  My heart lurched. Psions projected their emotional responses more than normal humans, making us highly sought by Aristos. Eldrin was their ultimate prize: both a priceless political prisoner and an empath as powerful as the human mind could produce.

  I stared numbly at Hajune. To his question I said, simply, “Psion.”

  His face revealed his dismay. “The Manq will hurt him.”

  I felt ill. “Yes.”

  “My wife was also an empath.”

  Softly I said, “My sorrow.”

  His grief rippled. “Mine also.”

  I sorted through my Shay libraries for the appropriate phrase. “I offer grace to her time and space of burial.”

  When he stiffened, I feared I had misspoken. But then he said, “We had no burial. The Manq took her body.”

  I shuddered, wondering why they wanted her body. She could no longer project the emotions they craved. “Are you sure?”

  The pain on his face made me wish I hadn’t asked. “I saw her die. I saw them take her.”

  It was beyond my ability to understand how they could inflict such cruelty. “I am so very sorry, Hajune. This is too much hurt”

  His jaw worked. “Yes.”

  “How long since it happened?”

  “Two ****”

  I tried to decipher the word. “Decadar?”

  “Ten risings of sun.”

  Twenty Opalite days had passed since the murder. Eighty hours. Saints almighty, it had just happened. He must be raw with shock. No wonder he had attacked me when I came through his territory, my hair lustrous with hanging flyers, resembling Aristo hair.

  “Go you to the authorities?” I asked. “Report what happen?”

  His shoulders hunched. “No authorities on Opalite. Only city Shay.”

  “Go you to city?”

  “I am Hajune. Other Shay. Not city.”

  I had only a few files on the Shay, but my scant library suggested they formed insular societies. Apparently a demarcation existed here between forest and city dwellers. But we had to warn the city Shay about the Razers. And Hajune needed help to deal with his grief. His heartache filled his thoughts.

  “How many Manq are here?” I asked.

  He spit to the side. “Four have I seen.”

  “I also.” I wondered at their behavior. They had to know they faced interrogation and execution if they were caught. They should never have touched Hajune’s wife. Then they had let Hajune, a witness, survive. Even if they had guessed about his antipathy to the city, they couldn’t count on his silence.

  The implications of their choices hit me like ice. Hajune was also an empath. It made sense; psions tended to seek each other as mates. I picked up his moods more easily than I did with normal humans. The Razers had probably fed off his emotional pain. He had far more value to them alive; empaths brought high prices on the Trader slave markets. They probably hadn’t expected his wife to die and would have been more careful with him if they meant to take him later. It could also explain why they hadn’t shot me.

  But that implied they expected rescue.

  The prospect of more Traders arriving, probably with an Aristo warlord, chilled me. I wanted to run and run, to find the deepest hole possible. But if they decided to look for us, there was nowhere we could hide from the sensors of their warships.

  We had to bring in help. I spoke gently. “Did you tell the city Shay about the Manq?”

  “Why? It is no use. My wife is dead.” He clenched his fist “Thinking of them—of her—I cannot.”

  I softened my voice. “Must tell, Hajune Tailor. To give warning.”

  “City Shay have never helped forest Shay.”

  “Even so. You must tell them. It is right.”

  He crossed his arms, their well-developed muscles bulging under his clothes. “No.”

  “Must.”

  “To city, I take you. What you tell city Shay, I care not.”

  It was a good solution. He knew I would go to the authorities. By escorting me to the city and providing protection, he ensured its people received warning, but without admitting his intent.

  “Your proposal is fair.” I wished I could as easily find a way to assuage his grief.

  “We go, then.”

  I spoke awkwardly, still holding my hair in front of myself. “My clothes are gone.”

  A blush touched his cheeks. “Nice it is.”

  I glared. “Embarrassing it is.”

  His expression softened. He pulled off his axe and shrugged out of his pack. After setting them on the ground, he took off his jacket and gave it to m
e.

  “My thanks.” Relieved, I fastened up the big jacket. It hung almost to my knees.

  Still stolid, he put on his pack and took up his axe. “We go now.”

  So we set off, Hajune leading the way down a switchback path cut into the side of the promontory.

  The city waited.

  5

  City Shay

  The city simmered in the dawn. From above, it had looked small, only a few hundred square meters. Down here, its extent became clearer. The Shay built up among the trees rather than out along the ground. They cut stairs into thé massive trunks and strung bridges between the columns far above the ground. As a result, they lived on many levels.

  We encountered no one on the winding paths. I soon realized people were peering at us from homes within the trees, hidden in foliage. Hajune projected a confident lack of concern, but beneath that his tension thrummed, as tight as a vibrating drum skin. He disliked the city; it constrained him, both physically and mentally. I understood. I too had trouble with large groups of people. Even when I buffered my mind, their emotions surged against it in waves, until I had to escape that mental pressure.

  I also felt Hajune. His emptiness at the loss of his wife hollowed his heart. Psions responded strongly to each other. Eldrin and I had also felt it. When we loved, we felt the pleasure it gave our partner as well as our own. It created a two-way exchange, as our partner’s contentment became our own. Hajune had lost half of himself.

  As had I.

  Another memory came: once Eldrin and I had climbed the Sky, the inner surface of the spherical Orbiter. Sky glowed like a blue glaze in a gigantic bowl. Such a waste of space, to give half the surface area of the station to a human-made sky. But the Orbiter was designed for beauty, not efficiency. Ground had an even more compelling splendor: mountains, trees, valleys, parks, and an ethereal city, all idyllic.

  Holding hands, Eldrin and I had strolled to the sun and sat on the edge of that great lamp. We looked “up” at the ground hemisphere several kilometers above our heads. And we talked, sharing thoughts, reminiscing, enjoying each other’s company even after decades of marriage. He and I were two parts of a whole.

  The knowledge of his capture burned in my mind. He had given his freedom, maybe his sanity, to protect Taquinil and me. I wouldn’t let that sacrifice go for naught. I would make it home and I would find Taquinil. If only I could remember what should have happened here.

  J’chabi Na.

  My steps faltered. A name. In my Iotic accent, I had trouble with the glottal stop in J’chabi and pronounced it as “Jaichabi.” It translated as “watcher.” J’chabi Na played a role in this.

  “Hajune Tailor.” I glanced up at him, aware of his height and powerful build. “Know you a man named Jaichabi Na?”

  His face became even more closed. “City Shay, he is.”

  “He lives here?”

  “Yes.”

  A rush of emotion hit me, so powerful it felt visceral. What? Fear? But without threat. J’chabi Na had importance. I didn’t know what provoked the fear, but I needed to see him. I trusted my intuition; it had always proved solid, and now it was also augmented by analyses my neural nodes performed at an almost subconscious level.

  “I must find him,” I said.

  Hajune clenched his fist. “Why?”

  “He may have answers about my husband.” I hoped.

  “J’chabi Na is city Shay.”

  “Yes. City Shay.”

  He stopped and stood, large and forbidding, staring off into the trees. I waited with him. Just when I felt certain he would leave me here and return to the forest, he brought his gaze back to me. “Come, then. I will take you.”

  As the sun passed overhead, Hajune led me up dark green steps carved in the tripod leg of a tree. At the place where the legs joined into a massive trunk, the stair became a spiral that wound around the tree. Fifteen large people could have circled that trunk, holding hands, their arms outstretched. And it was only moderate in size compared to the other trees.

  We climbed about a hundred more meters, passing several levels of the city. People peered out at us from houses within the trunk. Apparently the tree could go on living after having parts of its column hollowed out Perhaps nutrients traveled in the outer layers, making the core less necessary for survival. It didn’t even need all of its outer portions; the houses had many windows. It intrigued me that the Shay chose to build here, where Slowcoal saturated the city with ruddy light.

  Far above the ground, Hajune led me across a bridge made from vines and solidified pulp. It hung between two giant trees, narrow and supple. The bridge swayed with his weight and long-legged stride. It provided the only access to the trunk we were approaching.

  “No stairs?” I asked.

  “No stairs,” Hajune agreed.

  I tried again. “What if this bridge breaks?”

  “Build another.”

  The tree we were approaching had no stairs. “What happens to the people on that tree when the bridge is out?”

  “They get hungry.” Hajune stopped and turned back to me. “Only wing-things up here to eat.” He touched my hair, which had acquired a covering of gauzy black and gold fliers. “Like these.”

  My stomach flipped-flopped. “People eat these?”

  “They do not taste so terrible.” He turned and set off again.

  I followed, glad I didn’t live on Opalite. I had my doubts about the cuisine.

  At the end of the bridge, Hajune stepped onto a narrow deck that circled the tree. As we walked around the trunk, I glanced at the windows above us. Shutters covered most, but I thought someone looked at us from the darkness beyond one portal.

  On the far side we came to a short stairway that penetrated into the trunk. Climbing the stairs, we entered a tunnel of dark green walls. At the top, Hajune halted before a rounded door. Then he stepped aside for me. “Home this is, to J’chabi Na.”

  I wiped the back of my hand across my forehead. I still couldn’t remember J’chabi Na. Many reasons existed for his name to stay in my mind; he might be my contact, or he could be a traitor, the reason my escape route had partially failed. I might be about to greet an enemy. But I became more agitated when I considered leaving this place than when I thought of staying.

  “How do we let him know we are here?” I asked.

  Hajune indicated a loop of vine hanging by the door. “Pull.”

  So I pulled. A vibration shivered the ground under my bare feet and a bittersweet fragrance drifted in the air. After several seconds, both faded.

  We waited. Shadows of evening filled this tunnel. The brooding light turned the air red and walls black.

  “Do you think he is gone?” I asked. I couldn’t be sure I had seen someone in the window.

  Hajune snorted and said, “City Shay,” as if that explained everything.

  The door slowly split down the middle. A man stood there, his face closed and wary. He wore gray-green trousers, a dark shirt, and dark ankle boots. His iridescent blue belt gleamed with inlaid shells from beetle-tanks. He narrowed his gaze at Hajune. “Why come here, you?”

  Hajune jerked his head toward me. “She ask.”

  The man looked me over, taking in my apparel, or lack thereof. “What want you?”

  Good question. I wished I knew the answer. “Are you Jaichabi Na?” I almost winced at the way my pronunciation of his name revealed my Iotic accent.

  “Asks who?” he responded.

  “Dyhianna Selei.”

  The color drained from his face. His surging emotions were too complex to separate, but his agitation came through like a jolt of electricity. Whatever my name meant to him, it went deep.

  He turned sideways, revealing a green, rounded hall, and raised his hand in an invitation to enter. I didn’t want to go alone. When I glanced at Hajune, he tilted his head to me. Then he drew the axe from his back. Pulling a weapon was hardly a gracious response to hospitality, if that was what J’chabi Na offered, but even so
I was glad for Hajune’s axe.

  I detected no recognition from Hajune, neither in his body language nor his mind He didn’t know my name. I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or unsettled that he had no idea he accompanied the Ruby Pharaoh. It all depended on what that title meant to him.

  J’chabi Na made no protest about the axe. He didn’t seem surprised that I came with an armed guard. As we entered the hall, he stepped back, his posture indicating reserve and caution. He resembled Hajune, having the same large build, broad shoulders, brown hair and eyes, and strong face. He kept close control over his facial responses though. I couldn’t pick up his mood as well as with Hajune, but I could tell he didn’t know whether to offer welcome or denounce me as a fraud

  The hall ended in a circular room about twenty steps across. It extended many stories above us, with balconies circling each level, giving a tiered effect to J’chabi Na’s living space. Moss carpeted the floor, the same type that had grown in the cavity where Hajune had confined me. Although Hajune still made me uneasy, I understood now what had motivated him. My fear for Eldrin tormented my thoughts, unrelenting.

  J’chabi courteously indicated a mossy ridge. “Sit, please, if you will.”

  With a formal nod, I settled on the ridge. Hajune stayed on his feet, at my side, his axe gripped in his large hands.

  “Care you for nourishment?” J’chabi asked, his voice guarded.

  I thought of my reaction to my last meal here. “My thanks, but no.” Hajune didn’t answer.

  I wasn’t sure what to think of this strained tableau. Rather than risk revealing my vulnerable situation, I waited for J’chabi Na to make the first move. He stood awkwardly, a few feet away, watching me. I grew uncomfortable sitting while they stood, so I rose again, aware of Hajune at my side. I wanted to ask J’chabi what he knew about me, but I didn’t want him to see my disorientation. Outside, night had fallen, though it had been noon when Hajune and I entered this unnamed city. Discreet light panels set around the room soñened the red light that poured in the windows, giving it a gold cast.