Haze and the Hammer of Darkness

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  He settles on the simplest question, trying to block his own thoughts at the same time.

  “Is it that bright outside all the time?”

  “No. It isn’t bright at all. Normally the intensity is about that of early morning on Karnak. Bright, but nothing to worry about.”

  “But … when you came in?”

  The golden man smiles. “It only seems bright to you. You don’t see me at all. You’re perceiving paranormally, and any light hurts your eyes. Except for the solidio cube, the belt clasp, and the port light, your room is totally dark. We’ve even screened out the glittermotes.”

  Martin gulps.

  “I’ll put it another way. Off Aurore, you have to make a conscious effort to use esp. Here, you have to make a conscious effort not to. As I mentioned a moment ago, when you really weren’t paying attention, you are a full-range esper, one of a double handful in the entire Empire. That’s fortunate in ways I’ll not explain, and unfortunate in others. Unfortunate because the Empire would want you dead off Aurore, and because your adjustment to Aurore will be difficult at best, assuming you do make it.”

  The golden man is lying. Martin cannot explain which statement is wrong, decides to let it go, and tries to keep his doubts about the man buried.

  “You’re doubtful, Martel?”

  “Why do you keep calling me Martel?”

  “Because that’s your real identification. Subconsciously you think of yourself as Martel, and not as Martin. I would advise you to cut some of the confusion short and go with Martel. That’s an easy problem to solve.”

  When the other makes no move to leave, with the silence drawing out, Martin/Martel clears his throat.

  “Call me Apollo. I’m here because I can’t resist danger, however removed, and because someday you might decide to help me.”

  Not exactly the most helpful answer, reflects Martin/Martel, but it rings true.

  “What sort of help?”

  “I’d rather not say. You’ll find out.”

  Another true statement, according to Martel’s internal lie detector.

  There are too many fragments. Norms, glittermotes, strength he doesn’t have, but has. Seeing in total darkness …

  He closes his eyes but wills himself to see. The room does not change, is still visible through closed eyelids.

  As he realizes he can see behind the half-closed doors of the wardrobe, he begins to itemize the small personal trinkets.

  He stops, half bemused, half frightened, when he realizes that Apollo has gone and that the portal had not opened.

  The ceiling begins to glow, shedding a real light.

  “Flame. Just beginning to tell the difference.”

  Just make it habit. The thought comes from far away. Apollo?

  A low note chimes, and the green light above the portal illuminates. Martel braces himself for the glare, but with his eyes slit, the increase is bearable.

  A thin older woman carries a small tray into the room. The mental static that surrounds her announces that she has some sort of shield or screen.

  She does not look at him.

  “Good morning. Is it morning?”

  Her face narrows. The frown, her black hair, and her thin eyebrows all combine to form a disapproving look. Martel studies her, decides she is younger than he thought.

  “It’s morning. How do you feel?”

  Despite the mental screen, Martel can sense her puzzlement.

  “Confused,” he admits. “How long have I been here? Asleep?”

  “Two standard months. Not always asleep.”

  She puts down the tray and steps back, eyes taking in the bent metal railing.

  “What do you mean, not always asleep?”

  She backs farther away.

  “That’s something the doctors need to discuss with you. I will see what can be done. You’re not scheduled yet.”

  Martel frowns to himself. Not scheduled? Scheduled for what? Two months? From a stunner? Has he been here ever since Boreas stunned him?

  She drops a folder on the low table and scuttles for the portal.

  “If you read that, it will give the right perspective.” She darts out. The door irises shut, and the amber light replaces the green, but the ceiling glow remains.

  Apollo had said that using paranorm powers was easy.

  Martel reaches for the folder with his thoughts and is still surprised when it floats up from the table into his hands.

  The folder is not what he expected. Rather than a general brief, it is an excerpt from a technical article: “Dealing with Fullphase, Full Awakening of Paranormals in an Ultrastimulatory Environment,” selections from the full and uncompleted works of one Sevir Corwin, S.B., P.D., M.D., S.P.N.P., etc.

  There is one introductory paragraph that catches Martel.

  Inasmuch as Dr. Corwin did not live to complete his work, and could not be consulted on the selections, the editor has attempted to include those portions most likely to help clinical personnel working in high-risk situations.

  Martel studies the folder. Cheap reproduction, right from an ordinary copy unit. More questions.

  He reads the entire folder. Twice, despite the odd turn of technical phrases, while he eats the fruit and the protein bar and the flat pastry that the aide has brought.

  Phrases ring in his thoughts.

  Ultrastimulatory environments can be dangerous for newly aroused paranorms … transition under sedation … subconscious realization … LR50 for intervenors during I.P.,… de facto ban on paranorm transfer to ultrastim (read Aurore) …

  He leans back on the pallet, closes his eyes, tries to list what he knows, tries to get it in some sequence, something that makes sense.

  Item: He is considered paranorm.

  Item: Paranorms arriving on Aurore are dangerous as flame, to themselves and to those around them.

  Item: Boreas has stunned him en route, under Brotherhood orders.

  Item: The Brotherhood definitely wants him on Aurore.

  Item: For two months he has been out of his mind.

  Item: While dreaming, he had literally crushed a heavy steel railing.

  Item: Apollo isn’t afraid of Martel.

  Item: The woman is.

  Item: He is getting sleepy.

  Item:

  His last thought on the listing is Don’t you ever learn, Martel?

  Again, the dreams … but more confused, this time, these times.

  He is floating above the same ice peak, but no one is around him, and there are no clouds, but the upper levels of the mountain are still in shadow.

  He turns to move closer to the peak, but from his left a golden thunderbolt blasts in front of him. On his right, a dark thundercloud materializes.

  He contemplates the needlepeak, waiting …

  … and finds himself sitting at a table, across from a golden-eyed and golden-haired woman. She is speaking, but he cannot understand the words; though each is a word he knows, her sentences form a pattern and a puzzle he cannot assemble, and as he wrestles with each word the next catches him by surprise.

  Finally he nods, and looks past her over the railing toward the golden sands that slope down to the sea. He touches the beaker by his left hand. Jasolite. A jasolite beaker. Jasolite, jasolite …

  … LIGHT!…

  … and he is strapped down on a cold metal table, under the pinpoint of a telescope. The telescope is gathering starlight, and that light is coming out of the pinpoint needle just above his forehead.

  He twists, but the heavy straps and metal bands do not bend.

  The light coming from the instrument burns his skin, and he wrenches his left hand free, then his right, and cups them under the enormous telescope to catch the torrent of light. But his hands overflow, and the burning light cascades over his palms and blisters his forehead.

  Finally he throws the light back into the telescope, which melts, collapsing away from him.

  Then he curls up on the metal table, and sleeps …

/>   … and wakes in a lounge chair. For a long time, he is not certain if he is awake. A woman is stretched in the chair next to him, but he cannot turn his head. Perhaps he does not want to.

  He is near the sea. The salt tells him so, and the slow crashes of the breakers do not confuse him, not the way the words the unseen woman speaks do.

  She speaks slowly, and the words are in order, he knows. But some he hears twice, and some he loses because of those he hears twice.

  “… you, you, understand, stand, sedated, sedated … if, if … remember, remember … dream … dream…”

  The strain of pursuing the words presses him back into the lounge, and he lets himself float on the vibrations of the incoming breakers.

  “… god, god, you, you … forget, get…”

  The urgency of her tone chains him, whips across his cheeks like a blizzard wind, and he drowns in the sounds, drifting into a darkness.

  Thoughts boom like drums in the darkness, out of the black.

  This one troubles me.

  As well he should.

  That upstart?

  Boom! Boom-boom! Each letter of each verbal thought brands his brain, and he screams, and screams …

  He wakes.

  The clarity of his surroundings announces that he does not dream, and may not be drugged.

  Although his eyes focus on the pale yellow overhead, someone waits. Another woman. He knows without looking.

  Instead of sitting up and reacting, he remains motionless, thinking. Deciding if he can sort out what he has dreamed from what he experienced under the sedation. Deciding that sorting can wait, and filing the memories in a corner of his mind for more scrutiny.

  His thoughts scan the room.

  The woman wears a mental screen. Both a laser and a full-range stunner are focused on him from the ceiling, and the thickness of the walls argues for a prison rather than a hospital. Idly Martel lets his perceptions change a few circuits in the laser and stunner to remove their immediate threat.

  Then he stretches, slowly, and begins to sit up.

  The woman is red-haired, and radiates friendliness.

  Martel notes that she has appeared in his dreams, and files the note. He senses that her friendliness is genuine, and lets himself smile.

  “I’m Rathe Firien, and I’d like to welcome you formally to Aurore. I suspect you know you’ve already been here for some time.”

  “Delighted,” responds Martel, with a twitch of his mouth preventing a full smile. “How long?”

  “Five standard months.”

  “Wonderful.”

  He puts his feet over the edge of the bed, lets them dangle, lets his mind range through the room again. The room is not the same one, but built like a Marine bunker, meter-thick plate behind the walls, and ferroplast behind that.

  He shakes his head.

  “Something the matter?” She is concerned.

  “No. Just a little amazed. Do you go to this extent for all paranorms?”

  She hesitates.

  “Special instructions, huh? From the Brotherhood?”

  “Brotherhood?” Confusion there.

  “Apollo?” he pursues.

  Fear, but validation.

  He decides to change the subject.

  “What’s next on the agenda?”

  “For you?”

  Martel nods.

  “I suppose you could get dressed…” She grins.

  “I meant … in general terms.”

  “Once you’re dressed”—and she grins again, and Martel cannot resist smiling back—“we’ll get you out of here. Then we’ll go over the things you need to do to get settled in.”

  Martel wraps the one-piece robe around him as he realizes that it has started to fall open, then relaxes. Obviously, the woman knows all about him. He shakes his head.

  “Does it always take this long?”

  “What?”

  “Getting adjusted, or whatever this process is called.”

  “For a paranorm it varies.”

  So many questions … He gives up, and decides to work on one thing at a time. He stands up, feeling fit, stretches, and sees Rathe’s mouth in an O, suppressing a laugh. He suspects he has grown somehow, until he discovers he is floating a good ten centimeters off the floor, and lets himself down.

  “Sorry. Not used to this.”

  “I’ll meet you outside. The fresher’s next to the wardrobe. Touch the plates next to the portals to open them.”

  She leaves.

  Martel discovers that he does want a shower. After cleaning up, he pulls on one of the yellow tunic/trouser outfits and a pair of the formboots.

  He doesn’t like the yellow. When he can, he will have to replace the clothes selected for him.

  Wonder of wonders, the outer portal opens at his touch, and Rathe Firien is waiting.

  vi

  Outside the portal is a balcony, and from it Martel can see a town spreading down a gentle incline toward the silver/green/gold expanse that has to be the ocean.

  He still must squint against the unaccustomed strength of the light, indirect and unfocused as it is.

  A light breeze ruffles his hair, and he notes that it is neither warm nor cool, but bears a faint scent of pine.

  He is conscious of Rathe Firien, who has stepped back as he moves to take hold of the black iron railing.

  The roofs of Sybernal are white. Some sparkle; some merely are white.

  A wide dark swath of trees halfway between him and the sea breaks the intermittent pattern of roofs and foliage.

  Must be some sort of park.

  … some sort of park …

  He shakes his head, trying to remember to hang on to his control.

  “Is something wrong?” asks the woman.

  “No.” He pauses. “The dark stretch there?” He points.

  “That’s the Greenbelt. It surrounds the coastal highway where it cuts through Sybernal.”

  “‘Coastal,’ and not on the coast?”

  “It is, except in Sybernal. You can walk the Petrified Boardwalk there. You’ll see.”

  Martel supposes he will.

  He studies the grounds beneath the balcony. The grass is nearly emerald-colored and short. Roughly half the trees are deciduous, which seems wrong.

  Why?

  He knows it is “wrong,” but also knows he is not thinking clearly enough yet to pose the question correctly, much less answer it.

  The streets are little more than paved lanes, suitable for walking and for the electrobikes he sees under a covered porch at the far end of the building.

  The square paved space in the middle of the lawn, he assumes, is a flitter pad, which would make sense for a hospital, or whatever institution he is confined in.

  “What’s next?” he asks.

  “I’ve called a flitter.”

  “For what?”

  “So you can leave.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Do you want to stay?” She favors him with a half-smile, one that reminds him of the friendliness she radiates.

  “I can’t say that I do, but that’s not the question. Don’t I have to check out? Or see someone? Or sign something?”

  “That’s been taken care of. You’re ready to leave.”

  Taken care of. Right. You’ve been taken care of. And how! What’s next? A quiet little trip to another secluded hideaway?

  “Just a flaming instant! Just what other little tricks do you all have planned? If I’d been hospitalized, or institutionalized, anywhere for this long, I couldn’t possibly be let go the minute I woke up and the first pretty nurse to come along said, ‘You. All right. You can leave now.’” He takes a deep breath.

  Rathe Firien just waits for him to continue. Her smile is even more amused.

  “Here I am, drugged, doped, and dreaming for months on end, and now—snap, bang, yes, sir, Mr. Martel, time to check out and get on with your business. Of course, we haven’t told you where you are, why you’ve been here, how
long you’ve been here, and where we want to take you. But let’s get going!

  “Now! Just what the flame is going on in this place? And what’s the sudden hurry?”

  He completes the last word with a slam on the iron balcony railing. The twinge that rips up his left arm reminds him that he is awake and that iron bars do not bend at his touch.

  He looks down at his wrist, uncovered and pale, and at the yellow cuff of the tunic. Both are too light.

  The woman stands just beyond his reach, waiting for him to insist on an answer.

  “I won’t,” he whispers, understanding that his refusal only hurts himself.

  … won’t, won’t, won’t …

  The day is still, and the breeze has died. The pine scent is gone, replaced with a heavier smell of flowers and freshly turned earth. A single bird chirp breaks the silence.

  Swallowing, he finally looks up. “Would you care to explain?”

  “If you’ll listen.”

  Martel nods.

  “First, you’re on Aurore. You know that. Nowhere else is like Aurore, and you don’t seem to understand that. You’re leaving because your mind is ready to cope with Aurore. With your background, the sooner you leave here the better. Besides, when He says you can go, you can go. I don’t question Him, and neither should you.

  “It may be months before you understand why, but please take my word for it now. If you don’t agree, you can always ask your questions later.” She purses her lips, licks the upper one with the pink tip of her tongue, and goes on.

  “For the time being, please remember that you are totally responsible for the results of your actions. If you keep that in mind, you won’t do too badly.”

  “Totally responsible for the results of my own actions?”

  “There are a few exceptions, but, yes, that’s a fair statement. This isn’t the time or the place to get into that discussion. Wait until you’ve had some time.”

  He senses bitterness behind her statement and refrains from pushing that line of questioning.

  “So what comes next? Where are we going, and why?”

  “On a quick aerial tour of Sybernal, to help you get your bearings, and then for something to eat. After that, I’ll help you look into lodgings, though that’s scarcely a problem.”

  Scarcely a problem? Then what is? He keeps the questions to himself and looks toward the flitter pad in reaction to the flup/swish, flup/swish of a descending flitter.