It’s Dax. And are you okay?
Kiryn stared at him. Did you just read my mind? Maybe there was a little Liminal in him. He laughed, wondering not for the first time what it sounded like from the outside. It felt clunky and awkward on the inside.
He sighed and took the paper and pencil.
Dax’s hand lingered over his for an extra second before letting go.
Bad dream. Class in fifteen minutes. He hesitated, then scribbled, Dinner?
Dax took the paper, and a grin lit up his face. His eager nod needed no translation. I work at the hatchery until six. Meet me there?
Kiryn nodded and grinned.
Dax slipped out of bed and pulled on his trousers and white shirt, the V-neck showing off his chest to perfection.
Kiryn sat back with his hands behind his head, admiring the view.
He leaned over, kissed Kiryn on the cheek, and mouthed, “See you.”
When Dax left, Kiryn grabbed a change of clothes and headed down the hall to the dorm bathroom. He hopped into the shower, using the aromatic red berry soap bar his mom and mamma had sent him from the Estate. The smell transported him, and he closed his eyes and imagined himself standing among the long, even rows of red berry vines that arched across the hillsides.
His parents worried about him, out here alone, but it was Andy who had insisted he go.
When Kiryn had been born congenitally and profoundly deaf, Andy and Shandra had learned sign language from the world mind in vee.
There were so few other deaf people in Forever. So few like him.
The day before he was set to leave for university, to catch the public wagon headed for Darlith and then Micavery, he’d had a huge panic attack.
His parents had sat him down along with his sister, Belynn.
“I’M SCARED. Why do I have to go away?” He was fidgeting, nervous.
“You have to go. There’s nothing here for you.” Andy indicated the Estate, where the family had built a thriving agricultural business on the backs of Trip’s and Colin’s earlier work.
“You’re here.” His hands signed it while his knee bounced up and down.
Andy shook her head. “This is our place. You need to go.”
He flushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was such a burden.”
“No.” That was emphatic. “That’s not what I meant. We don’t want you to get trapped here, working on the Estate for the rest of your life. There’s a whole world out there for you to explore.” She looked up at Shandra, who nodded.
“I’ll go with him,” Belynn said and signed it at the same time, but he could hear her inside his head too.
Mom could do that, too, of course, but she had to touch him to do it.
“You’re not ready.” Shandra glared at Belynn and shook her head.
“I’ve been with Kiryn in every vee class since I was born. I’m only two years younger than he is. Let me go with him to help.”
Kiryn frowned. He wasn’t sure he wanted his little sister tagging along after him, cramping his style. If he decided to go.
Belynn’s hand found his, palm to palm, and he could feel her emotions. We can take care of each other. That thought was private, just for him, inside his head.
Maybe so.
Andy looked at Shandra. “They could take care of each other.” She echoed Belynn’s thought and touched Shandra’s hand. Something passed between them.
Shandra looked at him and then at Belynn, uncertainty clear on her face. “We could… try it.”
Belynn squeezed his hand. “Yes!”
“For a semester.” Andy kissed Shandra on the forehead.
Kiryn thought about it. It would be nice to have someone close by, just in case. Someone who really knew him. “Okay.” And it would be a lot less scary.
NOW HE was here, and Belynn wouldn’t be far behind.
Where are you, big brother? Belynn’s insistent voice.
I’ll be back in a minute. He pulled the towel from its wooden peg, dried off his hair and shoulders.
A couple of the other guys in the dorm, Stave and Trevor, waved on their way to their own showers. Cute as hell, but straighter than the old antenna on Micavery’s village green. Well, except when Stave got drunk on red berry wine….
Kiryn grinned. He pulled on his trousers and shirt and padded back to his room. Belynn was waiting for him on his bed. “How did you get in?” he signed.
They touched palms, the emotions flowing between them and synching.
“Easy. Aric at the front desk is a sucker for a pretty girl.”
“Like I said, how did you get in?”
She stuck out her tongue at him. “Come on. We’re going to be late.” She tugged him off the bed, and Kiryn barely had time to grab his carry sack before she had him out the door and down the hall.
BELYNN PULLED her brother out into the bright daylight. The golden light from the spindle high above filtered down to mingle with the light of the great mallowood trees that towered over the dormitory building. The dorms were some of the oldest structures in Micavery, originally erected to house the first colonists.
Her own grandfather, Aaron, had lived in one of them for a while.
She loved history. At least when her head wasn’t pounding like horse hooves along the cobblestone streets of Darlith. Damn you, apple wine. She’d only had a little. Just enough to take the edge off.
Kiryn pulled her to a halt. “Why are we in such a hurry?”
Belynn had learned to sign with her brother as soon as she could move her hands. It came to her as easily as breathing. Sending to him was harder. Although he was a Liminal like she was, he’d been born without the gifts that most Liminals took for granted, including the ability to talk with one another through the world mind, and her own ability was extremely limited. She could talk to him in his head, but it took some effort. “Because Della Deveaux is going to be there, and I want a good seat.”
He laughed. “Why didn’t you just say so?”
She loved his laugh. It was dorky and adorable.
They ran down the pathway to the Schoolhouse, a round three-story brick building surrounded by grass and trees. A steady stream of traffic was flowing toward the entrance. “She’s going to talk about Old Earth.”
“Okay, okay. But you don’t need to….” The rest of whatever he said was lost in the press of the crowd.
They funneled under the stone archway, under the “From Many, One” inscription, and down the wide central hall that led to the auditorium. The crowd twittered, jostling elbows in the packed hallway.
“Do you really think there was an Old Earth?”
“Mamma said she came from there.”
“My da says it’s all a myth. That we were born here. He says the whole thing’s a lie they made up to keep us from doing what we really want.”
She funneled a little of the clamor and errant bits of conversation to Kiryn, and he grinned at her, though he frowned at that last one.
She’d asked him once what it was like to be deaf.
He’d looked up at her with his hazel eyes, inherited from Shandra. “I don’t know. It’s just… me.”
Still, she knew he enjoyed the occasional glimpses she passed on to him from the way she experienced things.
The pounding in her head had diminished, but she still winced as the heavy mallowood doors to the auditorium were thrown open to let the throng in.
She looked longingly at the empty places along the front of the audience and glanced back at Kiryn.
“Go,” he signed, and she grinned and bounded down the stairs and over a couple of seated students to reach them before anyone else.
Belynn sat and shrugged off her carry sack onto the space next to her to save it for Kiryn. He arrived a minute later and dropped onto the bench.
They sat together, and she watched the stage eagerly.
The Schoolhouse was only ten years old—more than half her lifetime, but still new enough to be imbued with a sense of hope and the futu
re to come. It was a far cry from the Schoolhouse Mom and Mamma had described to them when they were little.
The auditorium took up the back half of the ground floor, dug into the ground to provide tiered bench seating. The walls were rough dark-stained mallowood, angled for the best acoustic affect, and the stage was planked with polished mallowood, its variegated red-and-gold tones marking a beautiful contrast to the somber black curtains that blocked off whatever lay behind at the moment.
Kiryn nudged her.
“What?”
“Were you drinking again last night?” He frowned, his brow furrowed.
“Just a little. It’s college. Everybody drinks.”
He shook his head. “Not everyone.”
“Leave me alone. I know when to stop. You’re not my keeper.”
“No. You’re mine.” He crossed his arms and turned away.
She knew there were times that Kiryn didn’t want her there. When he wished he could sleep his way through the whole college campus—at least the pan, bi, and gay parts—without having his little sister hanging around.
It was a bitter pill for her to swallow.
She started to apologize, but the curtains opened and the auditorium went silent.
She signed, “Sorry,” but he didn’t see, or maybe didn’t want to see.
Belynn sighed.
A woman dressed all in black strode onto the stage, wearing a cape with a wide hood covering her face.
She stood at center stage, her hands on her hips, and stared out at the crowd.
A hush spread through the auditorium as she made her presence felt.
An icy cold seized Belynn’s chest, and her heart beat faster, an adrenaline surge racing through her system.
“Imagine.” The figure’s hand rose, pointing toward the ceiling of the auditorium. “A world where buildings rise higher than the tallest mountain on Forever.”
Belynn closed her eyes. She could almost see it. Still, her heart raced. Something screamed danger in her head.
“A world where you can have anything you desire. Drugs. Sex. Pleasure. A world full of toys for adults.” The figure swept back its hood to reveal a raven-haired woman, beautiful but cold. She looked older, but Belynn couldn’t tell how old. Ageless. “I have seen it. I have walked its streets, sampled its wares.” Her ice-blue eyes scanned the audience, coming to rest first on Belynn. “Would you like to see it too?”
Belynn’s heart felt like it would burst, and then her world shifted.
BELYNN STOOD in the middle of a wide boulevard, enormous buildings rising above her on either side, looming over the street like nightmares of silver and black and sharp metallic teeth.
Traffic zipped past her at unimaginable speeds, and craft of various shapes and colors flew overhead as well.
Belynn ran for the curb, dodging the flow of traffic, her heart truly racing now.
On the curbside, a woman lay flat on her back in a gray suit, foam coming from her mouth while pedestrians stepped over her, oblivious to her distress.
“Wanna fluck?” A young man close to her age, shirtless with skin a strange pale blue, held something out to her. A pipe?
“No thanks.” She had to get out of here. None of this was real. She was sure of that. “Kiryn!”
She reached out for her brother and felt his solid presence.
Here.
She followed his touch, and in seconds the strange city faded from sight.
SHE WAS seated on the bench in the auditorium, drenched in sweat. Everyone was staring at her.
“You okay?” Kiryn asked.
The sweat seemed to freeze on her skin. “Yeah. Maybe. No. Let’s get out of here, please.” She looked up to find Della’s eyes still latched on to her, the woman’s lips twisting up into a sideways grin. For a second, Belynn saw something else—a ghost of a face—leering at her from Della’s own, like an ethereal green mask.
Belynn shuddered. “Now.”
“Are you okay?” Della’s kind voice was entirely at odds with her face.
“Yes. Sorry. Just felt light-headed.” Get me out of here. That last bit she sent right to Kiryn’s mind.
He nodded. “Sorry,” he said out loud to Della, ducking his head, and ushered Belynn down to the aisle and out of the hall.
Chapter Two: Dream Drunk
ANDY’S AWARENESS was spread across myriad points in Forever simultaneously. A part of her immense consciousness was handling conversations between her Liminal kids, who were one of the primary means of communications across the length of the world. Another part oversaw the worldbuilding as the ocean floor was laid down, piece by intricate piece.
Yet another part was drawn to a curious ping that a piece of her mechanical equipment, long unused, was sending across her bio network.
It was an antenna, the one pointed back at Earth.
It was picking up… something.
Some kind of signal.
Such things did occur from time to time. Usually it was a burst of radiation from a dying star that lay in the same direction as the solar system, or an unusually active solar flare cycle.
Sometimes it was an echo, a leftover piece of equipment broadcasting the same SOS message over and over for years and years.
This, though, seemed different. There was a regularity to it, a repetition to the pattern that had caught the attention of one of her monitor subroutines, and it didn’t match any of the previous false positives.
She listened to the signal, trying to make sense of it. It was unclear, interrupted again and again by bursts of static. But something about it made her curious.
She ran it once more against previous alerts, ruling out flares and supernovas as the likely cause.
The pattern of it suggested strongly that the signal was artificial.
She needed more information.
She shunted the signal to a memory store to collect it for a while. Perhaps if it was really repeating, she could gather enough of it to fill in the gaps.
It’s probably nothing.
She sighed and went back to the hundred other things demanding her attention.
KIRYN LED his sister out of the school building and back down the cobblestone path toward the dorm, watching her with concern.
They’d talked about the drinking thing, and she’d promised to cut back.
She was pale, her normally tawny skin almost white.
“Are you okay?”
She didn’t respond.
He stopped her and tried again, right in front of her.
This time she looked up, and her face was ashen.
“Those late-night parties are catching up to you.”
She knew he disapproved of her drinking. She shook her head. “It’s not that. It’s… I feel sick.”
He sighed. Belynn, Belynn, Belynn. He kissed her cheek and put her arm over his shoulder, helping her make it the rest of the way back to his dorm.
“No nonresidents allowed,” Aric said from behind the desk. He frowned at Belynn’s hunched-over form.
Kiryn set her down gently on an empty chair and picked up a piece of paper from a stack left on the counter for that purpose. She ate something that made her sick, he wrote, and handed it to Aric.
Aric’s reply was too fast for him to catch, but he thought he read medic.
“No. Just needs sleep.”
Aric frowned.
“Please?”
Aric laughed. “But only because you asked nice.” He waved them up the stairs.
You owe me for this one, little sister. In truth, Kiryn was worried. Maybe he should take her to a medic. For now, he’d let her rest and see how she was a little later.
Kiryn heaved her onto his shoulder and carried her gently up the staircase to his small dorm room. He laid her on his bed and pulled off her boots and socks. Then he went to get a cloth and some cool water.
Cradling her head in one hand, he used the cloth to wash her face and gently pulled back her dark hair.
Her eyes opened a
crack, and she managed a tiny smile. Taking care of me now?
Hearing her voice in his head made him feel better. He set the cloth in the bowl to free his hands to talk. “Now? More like all the spinning time.”
Her smile broadened. Some of the color had returned to her face. “I know. I love you, Kir.”
He touched her forehead. She felt normal. “You okay?”
“A little. When Della looked at me….” She reached her hand up with some effort to touch his cheek. I saw a city.
Suddenly he was there.
The city loomed above him like a mountain. He panted, trying to stay calm.
It was just like he imagined Old Earth would be, but it was so much bigger and faster. The superscrapers and skyrises made Micavery look like a provincial backwater.
She let go.
He stared at her. “How?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Rest.” He pulled his hand-quilted blanket up over her shoulders, wishing he’d had time to wash it, but she was too tired to notice. Or care.
“Okay.” She closed her eyes, and he kissed her forehead.
Maybe it was a result of the drinking, but he’d never heard of getting drunk at night causing hallucinations the next day.
He sat back in his wooden chair at his desk. Not the most comfortable place but a good vantage point to watch over her.
Something had happened to her at the lecture.
He closed his eyes, thinking back. Della, the woman with the strange gaze. She’d looked at Belynn, and his sister had shivered. She’d looked at him, too, and it was as if her gaze was dissecting him.
He had homework to do for his history class, a paper his teacher had asked for involving the Collapse and the relations between the West and the Cino-African Syndicate in the final two years of the world.
He could at least get started on that while his sister slept off whatever had happened to her.
He got up and turned the chair around, hoping he wasn’t making any noise, and pulled out his notes and a blank page of cotton paper from the drawer.
The Shoreless Sea Page 2