by Audrey Faye
She relaxed several notches and swiped a very fancy card against a very fancy scanner, one that I assumed was reading everything there was to know about both of us. “Of course. We’ve run exhaustive experiments to ensure we won’t negatively impact localized climates—or shipboard ones, for that matter.”
I was enough of a child of the jungle to doubt the hell out of anything that claimed to be exhaustive, but I wasn’t here to pick that kind of fight. “Any side effects on plant or human life forms?”
She marched us down a hallway of unrelieved white that was my idea of sensory torture. “None. We have an excellent botanist on staff—I’d be happy to take you to his office. Dr. Angelini very much enjoys discussing the results of his work.”
She clearly didn’t enjoy the good Dr. Angelini very much. Which probably meant the plants hadn’t shown any adverse reactions, but I’d talk to the man anyhow. I wasn’t a Grower, but hopefully I’d at least be able to figure out if we needed one. Plants often read the woo better than standard-issue human beings. “I’d be happy to do that. I’d also like to talk to whoever heads up your Psych work.”
She turned to face me, and the ice in her eyes would have done Yesenia proud. “There are no holes in our work, Ms. Ravencroft. I’ll arrange for you to meet with Dr. Angelini and Dr. Tingrik and anyone else whose time you wish to waste, but I will not tolerate any attempt to interfere with our work here. Do I make myself clear?”
She did. Perfectly—and she had Regalis Marsden and Yesenia Mayes backing her up on that particular directive. But I still needed to figure out how to protect Shamans, sensitives, and possibly a few hundred million plants, and I was looking at a formidable obstacle in the way of that objective.
Dr. Miori wasn’t evil, in any sense that word is generally used. But she was a problem. A very rational, very focused problem who didn’t believe in anything she couldn’t see. One with Yesenia’s competence, but lacking the boss lady’s awareness of the many fierce and fragile forces in the universe that have never registered on any scientific device.
A woman who didn’t believe in the dark, even as she walked in it.
-o0o-
There were words coming out of the mouth of the man who headed up the botanical risk assessment arm of the Harmonium project, but I’d stopped listening to them. They grated, just like the energies flowing around him. He knew how to say nothing in long, elegantly composed paragraphs that almost sounded reasonable until you tried to deconstruct them.
And the woo didn’t like him.
I let him talk until the annoyed drumbeat in my head was ready to have babies, and then I held up a hand. “So are you telling me there’s no risk?”
He leaned back in his chair with a personable manner that might have totally fooled me if I couldn’t see the oil slick on his spirit web. “Of course there’s risk. There is in almost everything we do from the moment we’re born until the moment we die. Our job here is to measure that risk as accurately as possible so it can be weighed against the benefits to humanity. In this case, the upside of the Harmonium technology is very substantial, both fiscally and in terms of quality of life, and the measurable risks are small.”
It was the ones they couldn’t measure that were worrisome. “I also work in a job where we weigh costs and benefits. And I’m aware of how often real life doesn’t stay well attached to those equations.”
His face crinkled in friendly amusement. “Forgive me for saying this, Ms. Ravencroft, but you’re not a scientist. The equations we work with are very tightly calibrated and tested at a level far beyond what the average citizen understands.”
The climate-control guys who blew things up on a regular basis said the same thing. “That doesn’t mean the average citizen is wrong to be concerned.”
His oil slick shimmered slightly. “Of course not.”
I knew what the oil was now. Once again, not evil. Just a subtle sense of superiority that invaded everything he did and touched and thought, and he lived in a protected scientific bubble that made very sure conflicting data never challenged that sense of superiority. Unfortunately, his bubble was a powerful one—and it had some strong personalities in charge. Ones who left too little room for doubt and created too much faith in their own certainty.
Most bad things in the history of the galaxy could be traced to those two things.
Dr. Angelini leaned forward, studying my face. He might be arrogant, but he wasn’t stupid. “I would have imagined that someone of your background would be less concerned about the risk than most.”
Something deep and ancient within me woke up and paid attention. “Someone of my background?”
He smiled as if I’d just confirmed his pet hypothesis. “You’re from a tribal world, are you not? One of the closed planets?”
I wanted to rake my claws against his smugness. “I am Quixali, yes.” That information wasn’t particularly easy to find, but it existed on the GooglePlex if you knew how to look.
“The very existence of your home world is a risk, if you will. Some would even call it a threat.” He shrugged, as if to distance himself from such radicals while still acknowledging that they might have a point. “You could infect the entire galaxy with some awful plague, and yet you’re permitted to exist.”
The tribal child in me wanted to make abundantly clear to him just what he could do with his “permission.” The rest of me knew better. Words didn’t change people like this.
However, I held out hope. The man worked with plants. One day, if there was any karmic justice, one would rise up and eat him. Until then, the rest of us would have to listen to his elitist spew. I’d make sure to put a few gardeners and Growers in the way of the Harmonium roll out, just in case his professional assessments were as blind as his ego.
I leaned back in my chair and sighed quietly. Torture by scientific imperialism. If Yesenia had tailor-made this assignment to push all of my buttons, she’d done a very good job.
-o0o-
The spirit web of the young woman walking toward me was a delight after the ooze of Dr. Angelini’s presence. I smiled at her, hoping my day had taken a turn for the better. “Dr. Tingrik?”
She beamed at me. “Yes, and please call me Seren. Thank you for not presuming I’m my assistant. Most people don’t think I’m old enough to be heading up the Psych team here.”
Age and wisdom didn’t always travel together. “People often say the same thing about me.”
She laughed and pointed to a conversation area that looked positively cozy after the unending white hallways. “Let’s assume we’re both good at our jobs, shall we? Can I get you some synth-caf, or a light snack?”
Her bright, lively energy was doing a better job than either of those could ever do at clearing the gunk I’d accumulated over the morning. “Water is fine, thank you.” There was a pitcher of it sitting on a low table, and my throat was still complaining about breathing filtered air so constantly.
She gracefully poured two glasses and handed one to me. “Dr. Miori said I was to tell you anything you wanted to know, so shoot.”
I hid a grin. Someone played vids in her spare time. And her friendly openness gave me a chance to toss out a question I needed to ask without raising suspicions. “Can I start with a dumb one? Where is the tech? Is it running? Can I see it?” I did my best to sound like a slightly star-struck student.
She laughed. “Everyone always wants to know that. It’s not on right now. The prototype has been fully tested and the beta units are being built off-world, so there’s really not much need for it to be on.”
She leaned in, looking sympathetic. “It’s not much to look at, honestly. But it’s very impressive once you understand what it does.”
Time to ditch the star-struck student and get to work. “I’m very impressed by what I know so far. Can you tell me what was done to explore potential side effects of the Harmonium tech? I understand you’re in charge of evaluating psychological impacts.”
Her smile was pleased, a
nd just on the right side of professional. “I am. Would you like the long song and dance, or the short version?”
That depended, but I knew where to start. “The short version—for now, at least.”
She sipped from her water glass, and her spirit web held clear and steady. “It’s one of the safest technologies I’ve ever studied. It has about as much impact on the average human brain as that water pitcher.”
My planet would have a lot to say about plastics and the impact they had on both the humans who used them and the water they contained, but I took her point. Harmonium had cleared her department with flying colors. And if she’d been chosen so young to run the testing on such a high-profile project, she would have done an impeccable job. “I presume those results have been reviewed by people far better versed in Psych science than I am.”
Seren leaned back and sighed, and this time more of the person she was outside of work snuck out. “You have no idea. And they all wanted to start with whether I had enough credentials to fetch coffee around here, never mind to touch actual machines.”
So the science was likely rock solid—but as in all things, the devil was often in what hadn’t been done, what hadn’t been put in front of the experts to review and dissect. “Any adverse incidents?”
I was glad when she nodded solemnly. All projects had them, and I didn’t want to have to kick someone this nice for lying to me. She met my gaze squarely. “We had some isolated reports from Epsi workers who sometimes felt jittery working in close proximity to the technology.” She made some low voice commands into a clip on her jacket and pulled up a cluster of impressive charts on the coffee table’s holo. “Most of them showed slight increases in their sensitivity scores, so we ran a full battery of tests on a dozen volunteers, including several with fully developed psychic gifts, and were unable to detect any effects.”
Sometimes you predetermined the answers with the questions you asked. “Did they report any experiences that didn’t register on your equipment?”
“Not beyond those you’d expect from a random sampling,” she said carefully. “However, we chose to take the reports from our staff very seriously, despite a lack of scientific evidence supporting their claims. All Epsi employees and contractors who will be in close, sustained contact with the Harmonium technology are required to have low to normal psychic sensitivity scores. Dr. Miori insisted on it. She’s very thorough.”
That was an interesting and possibly damning nugget of information. It might simply be zealous competence, but my gut said otherwise. It suspected that Dr. Miori might have seen something in the data to be worried about. Something worth taking action to keep such reports below the levels of random statistical noise.
Clear all the sensitives out of the room, and they’ll stop providing contrary data.
I didn’t have nearly enough data of the scientific kind to be drawing that kind of conclusion, but someone with my Talent didn’t need them. I waved at the charts still up on the holo. “Any chance I can sit here and read through some of this?” I didn’t need to, but I wanted time to open my Talent and let it roam a little.
Seren beamed, and then dimmed. “I’d have to clear it with Dr. Miori.” Her wattage dialed back up. “But I could walk you through some of our most important readings.”
I hadn’t expected the answer to be yes, but it confirmed another suspicion. The very young Dr. Tingrik was kept on a very short leash. A unit head with a little more experience would have kicked anyone trying to bottleneck her data—or locked it up herself.
Which just had my gut feeling firming up a little more. I was cultivating a sizable suspicion that there was a reason Seren was young and bright and impassioned. Such energies could be steered easily enough, especially if their bearer was fairly clueless about things that moved in the dark. Seren was someone I would choose as a friend, but she wasn’t a warrior. Not yet, anyhow. Not the fighter that would be needed to take on Dr. Miori’s fierce rationalism and deep denial about abilities she couldn’t see and make sure this project was truly safe for everyone it might touch.
I was convinced the Harmonium tech would be safe enough for the average person—Seren’s bright competence would have taken care of that. But for those of us who were outliers and statistical noise, I smelled a scientific brushing under the rug. Not by the sharp and innocent scientist in front of me, but sometimes innocence is an unwitting bed partner to things far less shiny.
Which, on any other project, would have been enough red flags to get it shut down until we could get the right people sniffing at the tech. But it would take a lot more than that to get in the way of the launch of the technological advance of the century—and from what I was seeing, there wasn’t anyone on the inside with the weight I needed and the willingness to throw it around.
Because it would take a lot of weight. If my gut was right, Dr. Miori, knew, or at least suspected, that something flitted outside the narrow range of her scientific vision and had taken steps to push the flutters off the viewscreens of everyone who mattered. Keeping the equation of her view of the higher good as clean as possible.
My brain was quietly writing a far different equation on the stark, white walls of this place. Which meant, in one of those irrational leaps Shamanic Talents often made and learned to trust, my next steps didn’t involve the very sincere woman explaining the graphs in front of me, but rather, the one who had quietly served me breakfast.
Elleni. A woman with skills remarkably similar to a Shaman, living on Epsi’s doorstep. And I’d somehow spent twenty-four hours finding that unremarkable.
I hid a smile as Seren began describing yet another neatly sanitized chart in which I had no interest. I imagined there was a Sister going about her work of the day and chuckling quietly as she waited for me to put the puzzle pieces together.
She’d certainly handed me enough of them.
9
“So.” The Sister I’d come seeking looked up from her small plot of dirt and happy flowers and gave me the once-over. “You don’t look too much the worse for wear.”
I knelt down beside her and watched what her hands were doing. Untangling stems, it looked like. “The folks at Epsi are an interesting bunch.”
She pushed a small, skinny rod that bore passing resemblance to a stick into the ground and wound some of the flower stems around its length. Then she handed me one of the rods. “If we curl this particular varietal as they grow, they hold that shape later.”
I had no idea why anyone sculpted green things, but I’d seen enough Lightbodies do it that I’d lost my disdain. I picked a ruddy orange specimen that looked like a bit of a bully and slid the rod into the loamy soil at its base.
Elleni smiled. “Most people pick one of the struggling flowers to stake.”
I was also familiar with lessons taught sideways, and often in the dirt. “I grew up in a jungle. Most things that struggle aren’t meant to survive. It’s the strong, wayward energies that need attention. Wrapping one around a fake stick gives it something to do.”
She chuckled. “Found yourself some strong personalities at Epsi, did you?”
I held up one of the small rods. “Got these in a bigger size?”
Humor traveled in bright pulses along her spirit web. “We Sisters are generally good at listening, if it would help to hear yourself talk out loud.”
Some people processed things that way. I’d never been one of them, but I understood the request underneath the easy invitation. One I planned to accept, but with conditions. “On my home world, we speak very plainly. So know this isn’t meant as insult or distrust, but I need to understand your interest in my mission.”
Elleni tapped a pretty blue flower and tilted its head just so. “Oh, I imagine you have subtlety and diplomatic charm when you need it.”
That wasn’t an answer, so I kept winding my orange flower bully’s stem around the rod. It was a lot harder than it looked.
“I can say this much. There is work the Sisters do that is done qui
etly, in the shadows of our other work. It’s possible that the Harmonium technology will impact this other task. You have access and ways to collect information that we don’t. We’re hoping to learn through your eyes and ears, if you would be willing to share.”
I had a herd of questions yammering in my head. I pulled out one of the deceptively easy ones. “Is KarmaCorp aware of this other work?”
“No.” Elleni paused a moment, hands perfectly still. “Although it’s possible the woman who guides you is aware.”
This assignment had more layers than Mundi’s birthday cake. I breathed in. I knew better than to run down a dark hole chasing a detail that might not be the important one—or at least, not the only important one. The wording of Elleni’s initial offer to exchange information had snagged on my intuition. Learning through another’s eyes and ears. I remembered Dr. Angelini’s pointed commentary on my upbringing. Our early years shaped our core, no matter what we became next. “Where did you grow up? Before you joined the Sisters?”
She smiled and planted another rod. “A little bit of everywhere. My village was nomadic.”
I did the math, listened to what my Talent already knew. One tribal child, recognizing another. “You’re a Wanderer.”
Her lips turned up in a faint smile. “Some call us that, yes.”
Spiritual descendants of the gypsies of Earth, traveling dispensers of art and story, at home in many cultures, absorbed by none. I remembered my manners. “You call yourselves The People. Just as we do.”
Another faint smile. “Yes.”
I was getting closer with my questions, but I hadn’t asked the right ones yet. I breathed into the intuition of hands and dirt and rods and patience. “Did you leave your clan because of whatever it is that the Sisters do when they’re not being cultural historians?”
This time, the smile was more full-blown. “Most of us are only that. And all of us are that at least some of the time.”
I waited, wound another of the stronger flowers around a skinny rod, and tried to recall what my galactic anthropology training of long ago had said of the Wanderers. I remembered tales of a flamboyant and colorful people who paid little heed to the mores of the cultures they traipsed through, but made friends anyhow. Art, music, and really excellent brewed beverages made them welcome most places, and itchy feet meant they eventually left.