by Kate Elliott
The garden consisted of a bed of flowers and a vegetable patch, with a five-meter-square lawn in the back. Hal took the younger kids out there on afternoons he was free (and the weather was good) and taught them baseball. One dwarf Myriad grew by the back gate, an arthritic old tree developed in the heady days of hybridization; the pear and apple limbs still bore fruit, but the peach and apricot only leafed out and then faded. Valentin liked to sit in its shade, but he wasn’t sitting there now.
Back by the house the cellar doors lay shut, but the bolt was retracted. Mired to the earth by a sudden sense of dread, Ilyana forced herself forward, heaved up one door, and took the steps down into the darkness. It remained cool and dank down here, even with the filter running. Various kits, chests, cupboards, and power nodes cluttered the cellar. None of the residents of the house really bothered to straighten it up except at the winter reset. Beyond this storage the bulk of the cellar simply drifted into a melange of beams and plascrete reinforcements and darkness.
In the farthest back corner, she found Valentin shivering. He was all over gooseflesh. His fingers twitched spasmodically under gel tips and his left foot, curled awkwardly under his rear, was tangled in a wire. He had old-fashioned goggles on, although he could not have seen her in any case. The tray of nesh-drives sat on the ground just out of his reach. Either he had slid away from it, or he had stationed himself out of reach on purpose.
Ilyana bit down so hard on her lower lip that she swallowed blood before she realized that she had broken her skin. She wanted to scream. She really wanted to panic. Had he been here all night? But she blanked out her emotions and knelt down to begin the sequence of drive deceleration. It wouldn’t do any good to run the return sequence that would alert the person in nesh that it was time to get out. She had to compel him into a narrowing sequence of paths, like jaran hunters on a birbas driving game into a shrinking center, and thus push him into the “air-lock” that would return him to here.
She picked up the monocle that allowed an outside observer a fail-safe to peer into the nesh environment and squinted into it. A bewildering array of images rushed by her. The sun rose over a golden, infinite plain and shivered, transforming as a wave like heat passed over the scene so that a paler sun gleamed coldly down at midday on an army retreating in disarray through a frozen wasteland of snow and trees. Tower Bridge slid by in twilight. A vast spaceship loomed and faded. Infinity Jilt blasted through a space lock and crossed the threshold into a council chamber whose walls were a hundred swaying slender tree trunks that shot up into a sky filled with the lights of the aurora borealis, shifting, weaving, a spider dropped silken strands down and the delicate threads caught and bound a crippled bird that dragged its shattered wing along the ground and it fought against the binding and Valentin began to retch, dry heaves.
Ilyana dropped the monocle and pulled the goggles off his eyes. He was doubled over, wires knotting, and she ripped them off his fingers. He was shaking hard and gagging and vomiting, but nothing came out, only a little spittle. His shakes turned into shivers. The cellar light snapped on and Ilyana started back, gripping Valentin’s hands protectively. His fingers were blue with cold. He was back, in this world, but he wasn’t yet aware.
“What is this?” asked Anatoly Sakhalin.
Trust him never to let any covert action go undetected, not in this house.
“Oh, gods,” said Ilyana under her breath. Still holding Valentin’s hands, rubbing them, she looked back over her shoulder.
Sakhalin regarded her and Valentin in silence. Like all the Sakhalin princes, he was a good-looking man, and Ilyana found him imposing, even though he always treated her politely. She adored Diana. Anatoly made her feel—well, anyway, a man like him never noticed girls like her. She flushed.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“I am also sorry,” he replied in khush, walking forward now, “that there are not Singers here trained to guide a boy’s journeys. He is sorely in need of help.”
Hope flared. “He needs to see a dokhtor,” she said hurriedly, before Valentin regained his wits. His retching had subsided into hoarse coughs. He sounded like he was coughing his lungs out. Ilyana flinched at each convulsion. He began to blink frantically as he reoriented.
“Then the etsana must order it done,” he said, and hope died. Karolla Arkhanov was “etsana” of the jaran exiles, and she would never admit anything was wrong with her eldest son. Anatoly crouched on the other side of Valentin, examining the boy with a frown on his face. “But if the dokhtors here are also Singers, I have not heard of it, and it is the Singers who must sing to the spirit of the wounded, to grant it healing.”
“Wounded?” Ilyana stuttered.
Valentin’s hands tightened on hers and his gaze focused on her face. “Yana?” he whispered. He swallowed, hard. “Damn it. Why did you do that? I was just going good.” The harsh cellar light made his skin look stretched and white.
“Do not speak to your sister with such disrespect,” said Anatoly mildly, still in khush. Valentin began coughing again. “These khaja machines are poison to you,” added Anatoly, in the same deceptively bland voice.
“What do you know?” Valentin retorted, made belligerent by the aftereffects of the guising. “You’ve never lived anywhere but on the surface world.”
“What is the surface world?” Anatoly asked, looking at Ilyana.
“Never mind,” said Ilyana hastily. “Won’t you and Diana try to help me get him to a dokhtor?”
“He doesn’t need a khaja dokhtor. He needs a Singer. He should have been apprenticed to a Singer years ago. That is why the khaja machines have poisoned him, because they make ghosts of the gods’ lands and lure spirits like his there.”
“But we don’t have a Singer—” began Ilyana just as Valentin said, “See, he knows I don’t need a doctor.”
“Can you walk?” Anatoly stood. He picked up the nesh tray, weighing it in both hands, and sniffed at it. “It smells of nothing,” he commented. “It is only ghosts.”
“You don’t know anything!” gasped Valentin, struggling to his feet, but his legs gave out on the first try and then Ilyana yanked him back down.
“Just sit down!” she snapped. “That’s a bootleg model, Valentin. You’re not supposed to be neshing outside of school.”
“That is true,” added Anatoly, “and you must do as your sister says. As far as what I know, Valentin, I know enough to have tried these khaja machines before passing judgment on them. If you will, Yana, I will get rid of this.”
Valentin fought against her, but he was too weak, too thin, and still too freshly emerged from guising to have any hope of getting free of her grip.
“Thank you,” she said and glanced up in time to see Sakhalin smile at her and then, abruptly, modestly, look away from her as any proper jaran man would from a woman. Ilyana felt her face burn, but, thank the gods, he left, carrying the nesh-drive. Men didn’t treat girls like that; that was how they responded to women. Confusion boiled through her heart and then dissipated as Valentin stopped struggling and just lay there, looking bleakly up at her.
“Oh, gods, Valentin,” she said, letting him go. “Where did you get that? Don’t you know bootleg machines can be dangerous?”
But he had gone silent now. She recognized the look.
“Let’s go upstairs and get you ready for school. I’m going to have to nesh a message to M. Tioko, though. Valentin, if you were guising all night—!” She stopped, too full to go on. What was she going to do with him? Oh, gods, and she and Kori were supposed to leave soon for the rehearsal. What if Valentin was too sick to go to school and she had to stay home with him? At once, she felt ashamed of her own selfishness, and then angry at Valentin for acting this way. “Come on!” She grabbed his wrist and hauled him to his feet. He coughed a final time and followed her meekly.
“He hates me,” said Valentin suddenly.
“Who—? What? Anatoly Sakhalin? You’re feeling sorry for yourself, Valentin. He doesn�
��t hate you at all.” She voiced off the cellar light and they climbed the stairs and blinked hard in the morning sunlight.
“He can’t like me,” mumbled Valentin, and clammed up again.
“Where’ve you been?” demanded Anton when they slipped into the flat. In the camp, phantom jaran busied themselves about their morning tasks. Nipper had arrived and she waved at them and went back to carding wool, sitting cross-legged on the ground next to the fire. She had the baby now. Its pale head peeped out above the brightly woven sling.
“Go eat something,” said Ilyana.
“I’m not hungry,” said Valentin.
“You’ve been guising again,” said Anton.
“Shh!” hissed Ilyana, but Nipper was too far away to eavesdrop.
“I want to go play soccer tonight,” said Anton.
Valentin sighed. “Oh, all right, I’ll take you,” he said, paying out on the blackmail. “Let’s just go to school now, Anton. You’re not going to school today anyway, are you, Yana?”
“Valentin—”
“I’ll tell M. Tioko. I promise.”
She bit at her lip. “All right. But go. Before—”
“Ah, there you are, Yana,” said her father, emerging from the big tent. Valentin grabbed Anton by the wrist and led him away.
“Good morning,” said Ilyana cautiously. Vasil looked sunny this morning. That was always suspicious.
“It isn’t often you get a day off school and I get a day off rehearsal at the same time,” he said cheerfully. “How about I come with you today?”
The ceiling could have fallen in on her and she wouldn’t have felt any more crushed. “That would be wonderful, Father,” she said brightly. “But I don’t know if they’re running open rehearsals…”
“Oh, I’ve already cleared it with the stage manager. Don’t worry about that. Take Evdokia upstairs. She’s to sit with Portia until your mother wakes up. She’s very tired today.”
Sometimes, in her more uncharitable moments, Ilyana wondered if her father was really as solicitous and considerate as he seemed, or if it was all acting. A snap sounded from the door panel, and the double chime of a nesh message sounded.
“Receive sight only,” said Ilyana, and watched as Kori appeared, standing in the front of the door, her image so real, so three-dimensional, that she could just as well have been standing there. “Transmit sight,” added Ilyana, and Kori’s eyes tracked round the room and caught on Ilyana. She grinned.
“Uncle Gus and I are leaving now. You wanna skate over and come with us?”
Ilyana winced, wondering if Kori or her uncle knew about Vasil’s plans. “I gotta take Evdi upstairs, so I guess I’ll meet you there.”
“See you, then. And out.” Kori vanished.
Vasil agreed to take regular transport, thank the gods, but Ilyana knew people were staring at them. They got off the Underground at Covent Garden and walked to Covent Annex, which snuggled up behind the Royal Opera House. The porter at the stage door recognized Vasil at once—he had performed here when he was still with the Bharentous Repertory Company—and they let themselves into the back of the auditorium. Kori sat in the back row, watching as Uncle Gus and the other dancer chatted with the musicians, and two members of the tech crew paced and repaced the stage, marking out the light and nesh coordinates.
“First tech rehearsal?” Vasil asked Kori in a low voice.
If Kori was surprised to see him, she didn’t show it. “Neh. Second. Yesterday was first, but the new lighting system kept shattering the nesh so they’re trying different settings today. Uncle Gus says the designers and the nesh tech had a terrible argument yesterday but it was really only because the light designer’s grandmom just hit the Decline, so he needed to be angry with someone.”
“Is that Ajoa Sen?”
“Neh. He got the commission to do the first run at Concord, so he’s gone for at least two years. It’s Kwame Jones Bihua.”
“He did the lights for the Mahabharata,” said Vasil instantly. Ilyana had long since noted that her father had an astonishingly poor memory for people who couldn’t do him any good, especially if they had no essential power which they might turn to his benefit, but, conversely, he had total recall for anyone whom he deemed useful. He showed particular notice to lighting and costume designers. In return, they treated him well.
Uncle Gus glanced up, saw them, and lifted a hand in acknowledgment, then went back to his discussion. After a bit, they took their places, Gus stage right and his partner stage left. The woman dancing the part of Parvati was long-limbed and tall and voluptuous, a typical dancer, graceful and confident in a way that gave Ilyana the usual pangs of envy. She was barefoot, the soles of her feet in pale contrast to the lush mocha color of her skin, and she was dressed in a sari spangled with tiny shimmering mirrors, an anklet of bells around each ankle. She triggered her nesh, and she appeared center stage. Behind her, upstage center, stood a small shrine draped with a garland.
When Ilyana had first come to Earth, she had not been able to distinguish a person from her nesh, if both were indoors. It was easier outside. The right kind of light betrayed many things, including the lack of weight. Inside, Ilyana had learned subtle cues: For instance, the mirrors sparkled and flashed to angles of light that didn’t match the way the lights illuminated center stage. The dancer stamped her feet and spun, both of her spun, and the mirrors shot splinters of light all through the auditorium while the bells shook and rang. She stopped and bells whispered to silence.
Gus triggered his nesh. He wore plain rehearsal clothes, and he stood a foot downstage so that his nesh stood alone in front of his partner’s nesh while he turned once and twice. They both squinted expectantly toward the back of the auditorium. An unspoken command reached them. Gus took one step back, and the two neshes intermingled. It looked strange at first, Gus superimposed on the woman, she on him, and yet each separate on either side. Their stillness radiated out like a force in the hall. Ilyana held her breath. Then a drum opened a beat, a sitar and flute entered, and Shiva and Parvati began to dance.
Ilyana rested her arms along the silken back of the seat in front of her and stared. The Hindu god Shiva was many things; among others, he was Lord of Dance, who, dancing, set the universe in motion. He was also a renowned lover. His second wife, Parvati (who was the reincarnation of his first wife), was so beautiful that he loved her divine body without respite for a thousand years. Ancient artisans in India carved statues of Shiva and Parvati integrated into a single body. Thus had Uncle Gus named this piece “Ardhanarishvara,” the Lord whose Half is Woman.
As he and his partner danced in perfect separation so their nesh dance commingled, blending together until their arms became the four arms of a single being, their bodies sculpted and flowing so that at times they were hermaphroditic and at times sexless and at times a seamless unity, as any divine beings might love, coalescing into a new form that partook half of the female and half of the male. Parvati’s braid, as thick as a child’s arm, floated up as she—as they—spun, wrapping around her—around their—waist like a belt, like a symbol of their joining, and fell back again. Their hands made the most expressive gestures, nuanced and emotional, speaking of longing and love and bliss. Ilyana was amazed by how strong and supple the dancers’ feet were.
Ilyana forgot time, caught in the endless cycle of birth and death, destruction and rebirth, union and sundering, the melody itself repeating with different rhythmic intonations and the dance repeating and changing and then her breath caught and suddenly it was over.
Two new people walked onto the stage and an intense discussion ensued. Ilyana sat back and grinned at Kori.
“That,” proclaimed Kori, “is why I’m gonna be a scientist, not a dancer. I could never be anything but Augustus Gopal’s niece. Isn’t he grand?”
Ilyana realized that her cheeks were hot. “Do you think that’ll get past the Protocol Office?” she asked, not that the dance was explicit, just that it suggested so much.
Ilyana’s cheeks burned. “I dunno!” she retorted. A second later she realized that her father was missing.
She looked around, but he wasn’t in any part of the auditorium that she could see. “Where’d he go?”
“Shh,” said Kori. “They’re starting again.”
The music began again. The dancers started, but now they worked in fits and starts, fine-tuning the nesh and the lighting and whatever else they had to niggle with. Vasil did not return. After a while, Ilyana leaned up against Kori and whispered, “I gotta go use the loo,” and crept out like a spy or a refugee.
She didn’t have to use anything, but it bothered her that her father had vanished like that. Why would he make such a business of coming with her and then disappear? If he had wanted to act the whore with Gus Gopal he certainly couldn’t do that with the dancer on the stage the whole time; not that Uncle Gus had ever shown any sign of being interested in Vasil. Ilyana often suspected that her father simply did not believe that any person could be uninterested in him. Maybe that was why he was so attractive: sort of like a self-fulfilled prophecy.
She slunk back into the dressing rooms, but there was no one there. She tried below, remembering the layout of this theater from the times the Bharentous Repertory Company had performed here, with Vasil as part of the company, and she and Valentin had explored the place. Those had been good days, before Valentin had discovered neshing. Or at least, most of those days had been good. The Company had given Vasil stability and Karolla some measure of support, and Owen had always been able to squash Vasil’s worst pretensions without alienating him.