For us, also, I send. Egg and hatchling are our futures.
The coil of Weast contracts in. You abandon your young. You cast them out and let strangers raise them. Not even your beasts or birds do such a thing.
I feel the lumani’s revulsion as clearly as if it were my own emotion. I feel anger rising up despite the relaxation drugs they’ve forced into me. My anger or Weast’s? I can’t tell.
We don’t abandon our offspring, I send. The gathers take them as soon as they leave the egg. The hatchlings are sent to the doumanas who have shown the best ability to raise them. We may not know which of our sisters raise our own offspring, but that doesn’t matter. We don’t know the doumana who laid the egg or the male who gave his essence to the hatchlings we raise, but we don’t love or care for them any less because of it.
Yet even as I argue, I think how I would like to know my own offspring. I think of Tanez with her face so like mine, so like a male I once mated with, and how that familiarity warmed me to her. And perhaps warmed her to me, that she gave me her hip wrap and foot casings, and more—that she asked to come to Presentation House with us.
My heart thumps. Whatever her reasons or mine, Tanez is now somewhere within the lumani’s hold. Is it my fault?
All of this is of no importance, Weast sends impatiently. You must listen and remember what I tell you. We will start with the history of the lumani on this world.
The glittering haze uncoils and stretches again to touch from ceiling to floor.
Nearly twelve hundred of your years ago, we discovered the first sign of sentient life outside our planet—here, on your world. Twenty-seven of our highest researchers were sent to this world. The trip was long. By time we arrived, those who had sent us were long dissipated. Nevertheless, we set about studying the native sentients and sending reports back, where others would interpret our findings and make practical uses of them.
Twenty-seven lumani. Only twenty-seven of them, and they’ve changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of us.
Energy pounds in my veins. I need to sit up, to move. I push against the straps holding my body to the cot.
You are in need? Weast sends.
Yes, I send back. The straps hurt me. Could they be undone?
Escape will be that much easier.
Weast gives no response. I pull my wrists against the straps. It’s useless.
I’ll remember more of what you tell me if I’m not thinking about how much my wrists hurt.
The vaporous band slides around the rolling cot, stopping to peer again at the gauges on the machines casting colored lights on my skin. Weast doesn’t send words, but I know the lumani’s pleasure at what the machines tell it. I think its pleasure should frighten me, but it doesn’t. I want it to frighten me.
I cannot do what you’ve asked, Weast sends.
I clench my fists and turn my head away.
A helphand must do it, Weast sends. I will call.
The thin line of Weast contracts and grows thicker. Hundreds of sparks burst, glow bright, and then dim inside its form. Weast contracts further, then seems to wink out, and is gone.
I yank at the bonds at my wrists and ankles. They tighten, biting into my skin.
Finally the door irises open and a different helphand bustles into the room, staring at me with wide eyes. She doesn’t speak as she turns the dials on the machines, or as she undoes the ties at my hands and feet, then undoes the broad straps across my body, but leaves in the chemical-carrying tubes. The moment I’m freed, she backs from the room almost at a run. Perhaps she’s heard how I attacked her sister.
The air immediately warms again. I’m busy rubbing the circulation back into my arms and legs when Weast reappears.
You are happy? it sends.
Weast seems genuinely concerned. Likely my comfort has something to do with how well I can accept its essence. All the calming drugs in the world can’t stop the shiver that thought sends through me.
Why did you call for a helphand?
The lumani laughs. Can you not guess? Where are my bone and muscle tools to undo the straps that held you?
I push myself up to a cross-legged sit. Not having hands must be difficult, I send, stalling for time. My body tingles from head to toe. Not from being bound, I think, but from the changes in my electrical energy. How long until Weast judges me ready?
Not difficult, but sometimes inconvenient. Not possessing hands became inconvenient when we’d realized we needed different tools from those we’d brought here to study the sentients. We could ask the question of ‘what do we need?’ and formulate the answer, but we could not build. We needed doumanas to build machines for us.
Why doumanas and not males? I send. Or do both work with you?
The haze of Weast glides around the rolling cot again. I swivel my head, watching.
Only the doumanas. By time the machines were necessary, the sexes had moved apart. We asked ourselves, which will be most useful, and answered, the doumanas, who have more vitality and endurance.
There were further problems, Weast continues. There are always problems with your kind. You were nomadic. This was not optimum for us. We needed our builders in one place until the machines could be finished. We needed helpers trained in our methods and procedures to conduct our experiments. We made the klers as places to keep the trained helpers and the builders. We put research centers in some klers, to keep our subjects in one place while each experiment was conducted. We had Chimbalay built to meet our needs, which allows us to live in your world. We conceived of the communes to provide food and goods for those who work in the klers.
Weast is bragging. My spots flare gray-green with loathing at the lumani’s pride and at its blindness that it can’t read my spots and see how I feel. Now I know that Azlii was right when she said that the lumani, not the creator, made the three types of communities we live in.
But you left the corentas, I send, wanting a fight. The drugs have suppressed my fear, but what should have been fear is anger.
Some wanted to eradicate the corentas, yes, Weast replies. Corentans are a great bit of trouble for us, but a necessity. We must have a control group—a way to view your natural changes.
My spots riot on my neck, burning in fury. I’ve never felt this intensity before. It scares me. I breathe slowly, to calm myself.
What interests you most on our world? I send. Perhaps what interests the lumani can be turned to destroy them.
So many things, Weast sends. Its sparks are skating wildly inside its outline. There are, here, a great variety of naturally occurring plants with medicinal effects. We are interested in the separation of the sexes. Lumani, being integrated, could never see the effects of that separation in our own kind.
Weast breaks off communication. I try to send another question, wanting to fight with the only tool I have—words. Weast won’t respond. It’s like banging my fist against a wall.
I try again. Don’t you see that it’s wrong to deprive the kler and commune dwellers of their natural way of living? You’ve made us into something we were never meant to be.
It was necessary, Weast sends with a force that knocks against me like a fist. How else are we to learn? We hunger for knowledge the way you hunger for food. Without learning, we wither.
I feel the lumani’s anger lessen, then drop away, replaced by pleasure.
The change in you is working, Weast sends. Listen to how you ask questions and push for answers; you are becoming more lumani already. When you are as fully lumani as you can be, I will teach you the excitement of knowledge gathering. The joy of it. Only mating comes close to the feeling.
I stare at my hands and legs, half expecting them to have faded into a lumani-like haze, but they are solid. One of the machines shining light onto my skin begins beeping. My neck feels suddenly cold. A shiver trembles across my shoulders.
The time is near, Weast sends. One more dose and you will be ready. I will call an orindle to change the medication.
Wea
st shimmers the way it did when calling the helphand before, then vanishes.
The door whooshes open immediately. I recognize the orindle, the pale red shade of her skin, the dark brown eyes that look too large for her small face. Pradat.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rejoice! Rejoice! My sisters return weary from their work.
--Commune song
I know Pradat recognizes me. She stops mid-step, plants her feet apart, knees bent, and yanks the textbox in her arms up in front of her like a shield. Her spots flare with the colors of surprise and fear.
“Khe,” she whispers.
My neck tingles but my spots don’t light. Is this from the drugs?
Pradat lowers the textbox. She lets her arms fall to her sides. “I often hoped to see you again at Lunge, but Simanca never invited me back.”
It’s good to hear spoken words again. I want to answer, to hear sounds coming from my throat and mouth. I try, but nothing comes out.
But Pradat is an orindle, a helphand to the lumani. She’s here to adjust the machines and medications, to shove me over the ledge and make me into the thing Weast is creating as its mate. I should attack her now. My hands curl into soft fists, ready to harden.
“They used a drug to relax you,” she says, her words slow and bland. “The effects should be almost gone. Keep trying to talk.”
I look away and then back at her. I don’t see Pradat, but her outline, and in that shape a swirl of colors pulsing slowly, old-leaf green mixing with pink. Blue-purple flows over the whole. A trickle of yellow-orange seeps down the sides of her shape. The colors confuse me. They aren’t tied to what I feel of her emotions. Is this how the lumani see? I blink rapidly and see Pradat again as she has always looked. My breath comes in short, rapid bursts.
“How long have you been here?” she asks, walking toward me.
I shake my head. I must be patient, wait for the right moment to overcome her and escape this place.
Her jaw tenses. “Try, Khe. We have very little time before the Power will grow restless. There are things I need to know. You have to speak.”
Do I trust her?
Pradat takes another step forward. “Did Simanca send you here?”
“No,” I say. The word comes out rusty. I try for more. “I was caught at Presentation House.”
Pradat nods in a way that tells me that she knew this and was only trying to get me to speak. She veers around the rolling cot, walks over to the machines beyond, and looks at each of them. She enters something into the textbox that must be more than a textbox, and frowns.
“Your natural energy pattern is completely altered,” she says in the maddening noncommittal voice I remember from Lunge and Morvat. “It can’t be undone.”
A lump rises in my throat. I am no longer Khe. I’m something else now.
Pradat moves quickly, making adjustments to the machines. She concentrates on the two that cast the circles of colored light. I wonder where Weast is, if it is watching us. The textbox that Pradat has tucked against her ribs with one arm is hampering her work. She sets it on the rolling cart. The screen is filled with numbers that mean nothing to me.
The room begins to warm. Weast, or some other lumani, has slipped in. Pradat’s mouth draws to a tight line and she begins turning the knobs on another machine, working faster. I feel dizzy and fevered.
I know it’s Weast, and not another lumani, that has come in the room—though I can’t say how I know. I know too that it won’t become visible so long as Pradat is here.
Are you here? I send, and watch the thought-grains undulate through the air, seeking a destination.
Weast doesn’t answer, but I track my thoughts across the room and see the spot where Weast absorbs them. The lumani is next to the machine from which the green-black liquid flows. I feel its excitement.
Pradat, too, seems to know that Weast is here. No spots are lit on her neck, but I feel a change in her, an anxiety, and determination. She makes more adjustments in the machines.
Weast, talk to me, I send.
This is the moment of our uniting, the lumani sends. You do not feel the effect of my essence yet, but I feel it working.
My heart beats wildly. My neck burns, but my spots don’t light. I try to rip the tubes from my arms, but they are too well embedded.
Stop, Weast sends. You will do damage. The tubes must be pried out easy, with two hands. You cannot remove them yourself.
“Take the tubes out,” I yell at Pradat. “Take them out.”
Pradat doesn’t answer. She twirls dials on the machines.
I slump back on the cot. There is no hope … no hope.
We should speak together now, Weast sends. To keep our minds from unpleasantness. You asked to speak with I.
What do you feel? I send, but don’t care about the answer. All I want is to sleep, and wake, and find myself back with Marnka, or in the kler with Inra and Tanez.
A draining, Weast replies. More pain than the calculations predicted. Not normal.
I’d laugh if I could. How could the lumani have expected something as unnatural as this to seem normal?
And you? Weast asks. What is your experience?
An egg is quickening in my sac. It feels like half-congealed blood. And hot, like the electric heat the lumani bring. My channel is expanding, to let the egg slide out. It feels like something clawing at me from the inside. I want to scream.
Nothing, I send. I don’t feel anything.
Pradat leans over the machine where Weast is. Her bottom lip is caught between her teeth. I feel her concentrating as she makes more adjustments, working to get it right. I don’t know who I hate more, her or the lumani.
A wave of dizziness pours over me. The hum of Weast’s whirring fragments changes pitch from a low steady thrum to a higher, erratic sound.
You are fortunate to feel nothing, Weast sends.
I sense Weast wanting to say more, its nervous apprehension.
I want to talk, too, to block my pain with words. The egg moving down my channel feels wrong. Too soft. Growing softer. Burning—a river of flame sliding through my core.
Pradat works at her dials and buttons. Nausea rocks my stomach. The hum of Weast’s fragments grows shrill.
The orindle is mistaken, Weast sends. Tell her to see the machine that tracks my changes. She must lower the energy.
I clutch my hands into fists and grit my teeth. I feel Weast’s panic, its suspicion that Pradat is making the wrong adjustments on purpose, its failure to make that fit with its belief that orindles always follow orders exactly.
Make her stop, Weast sends. Make her stop now.
Sweat bathes my skin. I want her to stop as much as Weast does. The egg is wrong. Moving too quickly. Burning.
“You’re doing it wrong,” I tell Pradat. I can hardly force out the words.
Pradat’s face screws up in anger. “You presume to tell an orindle how to do her job? My orders come from the Powers.”
The textbox on the rolling cot begins whirring. I glance down and see words forming on the screen.
“Here.” I try to point in Weast’s direction, but am too weak. “Look at what the machine says. The Power wants you to stop.”
I’m as desperate as Weast to end this.
“Please,” I say.
Pradat gives the dials another twirl. Pain stabs through me. My stomach knots and my neck muscles tense, snapping my head back. I feel like I’m going to fly apart.
A deep, gurgling sound comes from Weast.
The air turns suddenly cold—a shock against my burning skin. In the back of my mind, a dim awareness rises. Weast is gone.
“Quickly,” Pradat says, hastily but carefully removing the tubes from my arms. “The Power may have sent messages to others.”
She grabs my hand and pulls me from the cot. My legs are weak. I wobble, hardly able to stand. When I do, a thick, sparkling glob of something rolls down my leg and falls on the floor. My stomach clenches in disgust at the lifeles
s abomination splattered at my feet.
Pradat glares at me, pointedly ignoring the thing on the floor. Her voice is cold. “You’ll have to walk. We’ll go as slowly as we can. If the creator is kind, the Power hasn’t called for help.”
My head swims. How can Pradat expect me to walk when I can hardly stand? I must walk. I try a step and don’t fall. Maybe I can make it.
Pradat presses a button on her textbox and the door dilates. She takes my elbow and drags me toward the door. When we step into the hall, there’s no one there. She glances up and down the long passage.
“Is this a trick?” I ask, and mean a trick by the lumani, or by her, or both. It’s hard to talk. I need all my energy and focus to stay on my feet and walk.
“Possibly. The Powers are fond of their tricks, though they don’t see it that way. They see it as letting an incident run to its natural conclusion.” I look at her neck. There’s no color. She’s being honest.
“That’s how they caught you and your companions,” Pradat says and leads me down the hallway. “Azlii the corentan was spotted moving through the kler with three kler doumanas. The Powers watched your movements until they felt your destination could be predicted, arranged for gas in each room at Presentation House, and waited.”
Her spots light with the purple-black of shame. I lean against the wall for support and wonder if Pradat helped in our capture.
“There never was any hope of success?” I ask.
“Not while you were with the corentan. The Powers know their enemies.” Her mouth crinkles. “Most of them.”
I open my mouth to speak, but Pradat hushes me. “We’ve no time to waste. Come.”
She leads me down a hall painted the blue-purple of victory. I make my legs move one at a time, one foot after the other. We pass rows of doors, all shut, and another hall jutting off the one we are in. No lights are on and I realize from the natural brightness that it must be day. Night would be better for escape.
“Where are we going?” I ask quietly.
“Out of Chimbalay.”
“I won’t go without the others.”
Khe Page 15