WOLF DAWN: Science Fiction Thriller/ Romance (Forsaken Worlds)

by Susan Cartwright

  “Hello, mother.”

  Sartha jumped. “Ash, you frightened me, slipping up from behind like that.”

  “Sorry,” he said, his words almost inaudible.

  Sartha covertly studied her son. Ash looked like a plant that had been living without light or water. His springy thirteen-year-old enthusiasm had disappeared. Over the last two days he had hardly eaten and Sartha had barely seen him, as he preferred to stay in his room. He was engaged in Icom gaming and repeatedly stated that he wished to be left alone. Ash hated it when she pressed him about his health, but she knew something was wrong.

  “Are you feeling better today?” Sartha asked, with a calmness she didn’t feel. He had no fever and hadn’t complained of any specific pain or symptom, yet he certainly didn’t look well.

  “Fine. Shall we continue training?”

  “Of course.” Sartha smiled. He must be feeling better if he wanted to study. She immediately went to the security console and took out the golden volume. Ash’s face lightened a little at the sight of it.

  Good, Sartha thought with satisfaction. Perhaps after a taste of the Interpretations, which he had wanted to read for so long, he would be back to his old self. “Come and sit here with me, at the table.” She smiled, patting the chair nearest her own. Ash came and sat down, but he chose to sit opposite her.

  Sartha opened the Testimonials. “I’m ready,” she announced.

  Ash began to recite, “Hate crushes the power …” However, after only a few short lines, it was evident to both that he had forgotten many of the words, and could no longer even vaguely repeat them to his prior standard.

  “Ash, where has your concentration gone?” Sartha remembered that he seemed unwell, and felt instantly contrite. “Never mind,” she consoled. “I’ll help you run through; you’ll get your memory back.”

  “I’d rather practice by myself,” Ash mumbled sullenly. His tone bordered on the discourteous.

  Sartha stood and went to him. Her son was never ill mannered. “Ash, what’s bothering you?” she asked, placing her hands on his shoulders.

  He jerked away from her touch. “Nothing.”

  She had had enough. Two days of it, in fact. Whatever was his problem? Well, it was time to get to the bottom of it. “Something is bothering you and I want to know what it is.”

  “There isn’t anything wrong with me,” Ash stressed the last word. Face flushed in anger, he glared at her with hard, cold eyes: two dark stones that seemed to cut right through her. “Why don’t you just read my mind and find out?”

  Sartha felt the blood leave her face as Ash’s words hit her in the chest with the force of a clenched fist. She was shocked at his implied accusation. To steal someone’s thoughts would violate the most sacred vows and beliefs of Delian. How could he suggest such a thing? While it was common to monitor off-worlders, as no one knew what they might do, it was considered depraved to see another Delian’s thoughts without consent. There were hundreds of Delian morality tales adjuring such a violation of privacy. Culturally it was as vile a crime as premeditated murder.

  With effort, she managed to keep a bland expression and said, “Ash, do you want me to touch your mind?”

  He jumped up instantly, as if burnt. “No. I don’t want your touch. Not now — not ever!” he shouted, and ran down the ship’s corridor to his quarters.

  Sartha stood staring in disbelief. Listening intently, she thought she could hear Ash crying. Why wouldn’t he confide in her? What could a thirteen-year-old boy do that he couldn’t tell his mother?

  Two people alone in space were already an unusual circumstance, even more unusual due to the dangerous situation they were in. Neopol and Conqueror were out there, searching for them. And she and her son must be in full agreement and harmony when they arrived on Kalar — to arrive otherwise would court disaster. This was an exception and a time of special need. There was only one thing to do, she decided, her jaw set. As Ash’s mother, to heal him she would have to touch him without his permission.

  Having made the decision Sartha didn’t wait. She sat down and shut her eyes, reaching out. With an unpredicted jolt, Sartha touched Ash. She was overwhelmed with a storm of tumult and upheaval. His thoughts were whirling, thick, and heavy.

  Sartha physically recoiled with shock and surprise. Ash, her quiet and obedient son, the loving child she had never once had to raise her voice to, hated her and wished she were dead. He planned to escape the moment that they reached Kalar. He wanted to finish his training before then so that nothing would stop him from leaving her as soon as possible. Never before had Sartha encountered such fierce hostility — toward her! She lost her grip on Ash’s mind.

  Sartha sat still for some time, dazed.

  Her wits returned and she ordered up two hot chocolates; all the while her mind was busy with explanations. Perhaps Ash had somehow guessed the truth about his father and had blamed his death on her? No, he couldn’t hide that knowledge, she was certain. Yet he was caught in the grip of the Dark Sankomin. What trigger had brought it on? Perhaps Ash had, without her consent, mind-touched her?

  Sartha caught her breath at the thought. great

  Could he? He had only touched her mind on one occasion, while under close supervision. Ash was capable of enormous psychic power — he was a great deal stronger than she was, but his was an untrained gift. Even if he was able to touch her, would he actually do it? Sartha swallowed, revolted. The thought was so abhorrent that her stomach twisted and she almost gagged. For a moment she thought she might actually throw up.

  She rubbed her face, wondering how any Delian could consider violating such an inflexible moral convention. In early times, people found to be reading other Delian’s minds without consent were killed out of hand. Who could forget Prime Minister Batalov the thrice damned? His High Office didn’t save him or his entire family when it was found that he had been reading the thoughts of others.

  First he had been damned through the loss of his wife. After she died he neglected to seek another’s help, to provide himself with healing mind-touch. This let him to become blocked and burdened by the Dark Sankomin, where he lost control of his mind and his sanity. He had no insight into his condition and deluded himself into thinking he was mentally well. In fact, in his diaries he wrote that he thought himself a God, so completely had his mind been overwhelmed.

  Thus he was secondly damned through the madness that came to him when he avoided all healing mind-touch. For how could someone allow a personal touch of their mind when they were intentionally committing crimes? The odd thing was that there was no sign. The man was articulate, cultured and educated — one of those rare people capable of concealing madness.

  Thirdly, he was damned by violating strict moral convention. He used his powers to forward his career and achieve his personal goals, his own personal gain. He read the thoughts of hundreds of people and kept a comprehensive diary. When this diary was found, and the details disseminated through broad Icom report, the reaction was like setting off an incendiary device in an ordnance depot.

  The mob that gathered when his offenses were exposed was merciless. Prime Minister Batalov and all four of his children, each under fifteen years old, as well as his housekeeper, cook, and a maid, were all killed. The mob virtually tore them apart. His home was set alight and burned to the ground, along with five other homes nearby. Batalov died in a town called Callasburg, which shortly after changed its name to Bannock after the Prime Minister that replaced him. To this day Delians were known to say during a crisis, “It could be worse. Don’t forget Callasburg.”

  Crime could never be hidden on Delian, not when lawful orders allowed authorized persons to see into the mind of the accused. When a population’s only sanctuary from madness was through mind-touch, what wouldn’t one be willing to do to those who violated such security? As in all things Delian, passions ruled. Criminals were lucky to live long enough to be lawfully killed. Those convicted were allowed to choose a self-delivered lethal i
njection or death by starvation.

  Sartha felt ill at the idea of anyone peering into her mind without her agreement. Was it possible? If so, how could Ash justify it? Yet it certainly explained his irrational behavior. Had he read her mind without permission? She had to know, but she was too distressed to mind-touch. For now there was only one way to find the truth.

  She took the two drinks from the auto-chef. Then, with clenched teeth, she strode down the hall of Assurance. Sartha went to her son, hoping to soothe him with a peace offering of hot chocolate.

  Ash was lying on his bunk, his face dark. He sat up but didn’t look at her when she tapped on his door and walked through to his bed. Sartha handed him the cup. He took it, but gave no thanks and made no effort to drink it. He ended by putting it on the bedside table.

  “Son of Jarith,” she began, her voice soft and reasonable, “you will someday be King. A king cannot refuse the healing power of mind-touch.”

  “I will not refuse the power of mind-touch,” he replied. “I just don’t want to be touched by you.”

  “What is wrong with me?” she demanded, incensed by the insult. He was a child — her child and he needed discipline.

  Ash stood up and faced her, his dark eyes fierce and a little wild, his pale skin flushed. His movement caused the cup of hot chocolate to fall to the floor, but neither Sartha nor her son noticed. “What is wrong with you? I’ll tell you what is wrong with you. You are a traitor to my father, the King of Delian. You are not honest nor pure nor worthy to be King’s Consort. You’re no better than an off-world whore!”

  Sartha stared in disbelief. She gripped the edge of the bunk, lest she fall.

  Ash drew in a long breath, his overwhelming passion burning him, consuming him. “I’m ashamed you are my mother. I wish I’d never been born!” He threw himself on his bunk, curled up into fetal position, and began to weep with racking sobs and gulps, his tears flowing unchecked.

  Sartha sat down heavily, as if someone had pushed her. Shaken, stunned, she felt unable to breathe. Her poor son. For the love of the Goddess. He must have mind-touched her when she was with Larren Forseth. She forced the implications of that idea away, unwilling for the moment to look further at what that involved.

  No wonder he thought she had betrayed him and his father, she realized, piecing it all together. She had no idea how he had done it, but it was clear that he had. Astonishing. Such a powerful gift in the body of a child. Poor Ash. He is burdened with an even greater wrong than my assumed unfaithfulness. He had committed the immoral act of mind-touch without permission on me. She trembled at the thought. How could he have done it? When it was against everything that he had ever been taught?

  No matter what he had done, her son needed her now. Sartha shifted closer, and put a hand out, touching him on his shoulder.

  He shrank back. “Get away from me,” he said.

  “No, Ashton, we must talk.”

  He sat up and turned toward her. “And what shall we talk about, mother?” He spoke the word like an obscenity. “Perhaps you would like to explain that you were using your body as payment, so we could continue our journey to Kalar? I suppose it’s the Freeworlds Police who are after us?” His voice rang with sarcasm.

  Sartha’s whole body went cold.

  Ash stood up remorselessly continued his attack, before she could interrupt. “We could discuss comparisons. Tell me, would you say that the Captain of that cruiser was a better lover than my father?”

  Without conscious thought, Sartha slapped Ash with the full force of her hand, silencing that vicious scourge of words. “How can you think of pointing a finger at what I have done? You who have none of the facts, you who are guilty of almost the most dishonorable crime of all: looking into my mind without my permission.” Sartha was sickened by his behavior. He had been with her during an intimate mind-touch. Like some sort of pervert — there, unseen, crudely participating. She shook with repugnance, humiliation and shame; her healing touch now felt cheap and soiled.

  Ash straightened like a soldier on parade, his long black hair just touched his shoulders. His eyes were puffy and bloodshot, his fists were clinched so tightly his knuckles were white. “I never saw your mind,” he said. “I only touched you that once when you allowed it.”

  Sartha remained silent, her body taut with disbelief.

  Ash’s grim resolve seemed to relax. He looking away and became quiet, contemplative, as if the memory were already becoming obscured with age. “That was when I was learning,” he said. Sartha wondered if Ash was there now, reliving the past, that moment when he had first been within her flesh, had first touched her mind.

  All at once, Ash turned and faced her with rekindled rage. “But I didn’t need to look into your mind to find out what you were doing.”

  Sartha took a step back, instinctively retreating from such anger. Then she held her breath, her thoughts frozen, as she began to comprehend.

  “Don’t you understand?” Ash demanded in a loud, shrill voice. His eyes seemed wild and bright with something Sartha couldn’t quite grasp, some sort of madness or pain. “I wanted to practice what I had learned. I reached for the off-worlder exactly as you taught me. And I succeeded! I mind-touched Captain Forseth — but my contact was incomplete. Although I was able to experience his body, I couldn’t know his mind. I knew only a small portion of his thoughts … and that was only at first.” He swallowed.

  Sartha stared at him with dawning comprehension.

  A flush of red colored Ash’s face. “One moment I was reading his thoughts. He wanted to know where Assurance was bound and he knew you were lying when you said you were the only one on board. Then he began to think you were beautiful. I could see you through his eyes. The next moment I was there, holding you, having sex with my own mother!” Ash trembled with emotion. He collapsed back on to the bunk, exhausted. “I was caught, mother,” he whispered. “Caught within his body. I couldn’t break contact. I tried to get away. But I couldn’t stop being there, doing … what he was doing. I couldn’t stop seeing … what I know now.”

  How could I have been so blind? Sartha thought with remorse. She had only begun the mind-touch drills with her son. Of course he would want to practice — especially on an off-worlder who could pose a threat. But to successfully touch Larren at his age, with his complete lack of experience? Powerful and gifted as he was, she could never have predicted that. Ash had become disoriented. His mind naturally ignored the abstract aspects of Larren’s thoughts and had concentrated on the sensory. Thus his power had focused on the physical as identified from an aroused male adult.

  Sartha hadn’t yet warned him of the dangers of mind-touch, of how one could become trapped in another’s body. Nor had she had the opportunity to teach him how to escape from another if caught. Becoming trapped in another’s mind was rare. It was a recorded fact that some Delians had been known to die while in mind-touch with someone while they were killed. Though remote, it was still a possibility.

  Looking at her son, Sartha felt her heart twist. He was too young to have had such an experience, and to have had it with his own mother. If she herself felt disgusted, how much worse must he feel? And for him to believe that she had been unfaithful to his father would only increase his pain.

  Sartha raised a hand toward him, wanting to explain.

  His reaction was instant. “Don’t touch me,” he snarled. Then in a hushed sort of whisper, “Don’t ever touch me again.”

  Sartha didn’t know what to do. She had to make him understand, to know about Delian and his father, and the truth about Captain Forseth. What was difficult to put into words could be easily explained by the mind.

  “Ash?” she began tentatively. He wouldn’t look at her and made no sign of having heard. “Ash, I want you to read my mind.”

  He made no response.

  “Ashton,” Sartha said. “It’s not what you think. I need your contact. Please. You must try. Don’t deny me.”

  Ash shook his head. “I c
an’t, mother. I’m afraid.” He quoted from the Testimonials, word perfect: “Fear hides the power. O’ coward, will thy gift abandon? Canst thou use thy power if afraid what thou might see?” He shrugged. “I don’t want to know the truth. I’m sick from what I already know … about you,” he looked away and added quietly, “and about myself.”

  Sartha sat down on a chair across from him. They were in the same room, but the distance between them was incalculable. Sartha felt a painful combination of shame and misery. In her joy in finding Larren and having her own Dark Sankomin lifted, she had neglected her son. Ash had had his first sexual experience … with her!

  Ash still knew nothing about the death of his father and his people. She turned things over in her mind, wondering the best way to explain, to get them both out of this mess. She didn’t want Ash to know about his father’s death until he recovered from this. But how was he to recover? What could she say to him? Her son was exhausted and sick at heart, and so was she.

  An empty gulf stretched between them. There was only a hushed, waiting silence.

  The lack of sound seemed almost loud after all the shouting.

  A soft whirring noise intruded. The auto-bot had sensed the overturned cup of chocolate and had arrived to clean up the mess. It was unobtrusive and thorough. Some minutes later it left.

  In the returning silence Sartha still could still think of nothing to say.

  Please, Jana, Ash thought as he sat on his bed, holding a pillow over his stomach and rocking back and forth. Make this all go away. The King’s Mirror rested against Ash’s thigh, a heavy burden. Thoughts of the King could only add to this pain. What would his father say when he found out what had happened?

  It was the Dark Sankomin. This evil dark deed was lodged firmly in his mind: it was in the present … in the present … in the present … forever. Such guilt. Such shame. He could not escape it. In his mind was the vision of his mother’s nakedness. He was disgusted yet attracted, he hated her and he loved her. What could he do?