There is no accusation in its voice, only a longing to comprehend why I didn’t come running back to the research center the moment I could.
I was too weak to come back.
I feel Weast’s emotions brighten, its hope rekindling.
You have become lumani enough that the orindle’s treachery harmed you. That is good. Anger wells in the lumani. The orindle’s treachery also cost us our first chance at combining. It destroyed your offspring.
I breathe deep, afraid that Weast will see how grateful I am for that destruction.
But that is of no consequence, Weast sends, its anger lessening. We will begin again. You are strong. We have adjusted our machines. A new egg will form quickly.
My stomach lurches. But the lumani’s reliance on me to get what it wants is my protection. If I’m careful and sly, that desire might carry my companions and me safely out of this place.
The orindle said that the doumanas who were with me at Presentation House are here, I send.
Two of them are here, Weast replies. The weakest one dissipated during testing. We are still testing the others.
Emotions pour from the invisible lumani, a torrent of excitement, rivers of blue and dark lavender flowing from four distinct places in the room.
My chest feels squeezed. Larta takes a step toward me, but I warn her off with a look.
In what ways are you testing them?
I have told you, Weast sends, that the corenta-dwellers were left in their natural state. This is a first time—a corenta and a kler doumana side by side to evaluate their differences. We have questions about what physical differences in internal organ size and electrical or chemical makeup may have developed since the two groups separated.
A wave of fear sweeps over me, wondering how the lumani might be finding the answers to their questions.
Larta opens her mouth to speak, but I shake my head.
Weast flickers into sight for a moment and then disappears again.
Shall you see the doumanas before you and I begin our joining again? Weast sends. I would find of interest your opinion of the information we have gained.
Yes. I would like to see them, I send. Will the other doumana come with us?
Only you and us, Weast replies.
I don’t let the disappointment I feel take hold. I want Larta with me. I need her help.
She can’t hear us, I say. I need to tell her with doumana speech that we are going and she will stay here.
Without waiting for an answer, I turn to Larta and say, “I’m going to see Azlii and Tanez. The Powers will take me. You are to wait here.”
Larta’s shoulders pull up and she shakes her head.
“I don’t like it either,” I say.
The door wheezes open.
Go into the hall and wait, Weast sends. I will become visible to lead you to the doumanas.
In the hall, Weast’s vaporous form twists slowly in the windless space.
Through the third door, it sends.
The blue-purple door, the color of victory, is in the middle of the long hall. Pradat said that all the stairwells were at the hall-ends. If Tanez and Azlii are on the ground floor, getting them out will be easier than if they are several levels up.
My heart is thumping while I wait for the door to open. Inside, the room is dim, but from the doorway I can make out two figures laying on cots, their faces turned away from the door. I also see several machines on three-legged stands. Three lumani are inside and visible. Weast was behind me, but it slips past me into the room. The millions of tiny bits that make up its form spread apart, flowing over me like a hot mist. My stomach knots in revulsion at Weast’s touch.
I want to call to Tanez and Azlii, but can’t—not if I want Weast to believe that I’ve become lumani enough to be only curious, not concerned, about them. One of the figures moans—Azlii, I think, by her body shape. The other doumana lies quietly. I want to run to her, but don’t. Neither is secured to her cot.
Azlii turns her head toward me. Her face is puffy, her lips cracked and dry. Ugly blue-black circles ring her glazed eyes. I think she recognizes me, but I can’t be sure.
Are they drugged? I ask Weast.
Yes. But lightly. The small one is sleeping.
Can you wake the sleeper? I send. I’d like to evaluate their states of awareness.
Awareness? Weast sends.
To see if they are affected differently by the drugs.
The thin bands of all four lumani begin swaying. One of them coils in on itself.
A question of interest, Weast sends. Yes, let us discover this. I will call an orindle to adjust the medications.
Could I do it? I ask quickly. I want control of the machines, and don’t want one of their obliging orindles in here with us.
You wish to learn, Weast sends. Good. The sedatives dispense from the machine with green in the tubes. Slide the lever groundward. Do not lessen the dosage quickly or shock will come on their minds.
Next to each cot are two machines, each with a flexible tube no wider than four or five strands of beast fur. One tube from each machine is fixed into a small incision in each doumana’s arm. One set of tubes is blackish green, the other yellow green. I stand over Tanez’s cot and reach for the lever on the machine pumping the yellow green fluid.
The other! The green! Weast sends. The agitation in its voice makes my heart knock against my ribs. But I’m relieved that Weast also doesn’t want them hurt. At least not until the lumani finish finding out what they want to know.
I close my eyes a moment, then slide the lever down about one quarter of the way. The bluish-red gauge on the machine’s silver face records falling numbers as less liquid is pumped through the tubes. Weast watches me. I’m sure it knows the levels I can set safely, but wants to see what I’ll do on my own. I lower the pressure as far as I’m brave enough to try. Tanez doesn’t respond. When I go to Azlii’s cot, she stares at me. A mix of fear and sorrow show in the colors on her neck. I press down the machine’s lever further than I’d moved Tanez’s.
How long before they are both fully conscious? I ask Weast.
If we knew that answer, it sends, we would not need this experiment. I believe the corentan, in particular, will wake first. She has been stronger and more resilient through all the procedures. The thin band of Weast contracts then spreads into a small disk. We suppose that living in one place, which is unnatural to your species, may have weakened the kler doumana. It will take further study to determine if only she is weakened, or if all kler dwellers are.
I don’t bother reminding Weast that the lumani are the reason kler and commune doumanas live in one place their whole lives.
The drugged dullness in Azlii’s eyes seems to be fading. I push the lever down another quarter distance and do the same to the machine hooked to Tanez.
What are the other machines for? I ask Weast.
The disk-like form it had taken swells and rounds, becoming a ball floating at my waist-height, not more than an arm-length away.
Such curiosity, it sends.
I feel its happiness like a finger of pale-green stroking my neck. The color feels pleasant, but my stomach knots up anyway.
Bending my knees to peer at a head-sized silver oval with several small, ridged, black tubes sticking out, I send: What does this one do?
Worry emanates from all four lumani. The bits that form them move faster. The air grows warmer. Then Weast seems to decide that whatever threat the machine poses is not a serious one. Its whirling pieces slow back to their normal pace.
That machine analyses energy output.
I can’t grasp why that would make the lumani nervous and think Weast is lying. Mounted on the cube’s face is a black touchpad with twelve white squares arranged in a diamond. The squares are numbered in tens from twenty to one hundred and thirty. Above the diamond’s top point is a blank square. I touch this and the machine begins to hum.
There is no need to use that machine now, Weast sends, plain
ly nervous again.
I press the square marked forty. The humming tunes to a higher pitch. The muscles in my stomach cramp. I ball my hands into tight fists and then fling my fingers open, throwing off my tension.
I’d like to know if the doumana’s energy levels rise as they come back to consciousness, and if they do, at what rate, I send. How do I make this machine show that?
Pradat weakened Weast by disrupting the balance between the positive and negative bits that form it. She said that only the machine that created the artificial magnetic fields in the room where I was kept could have that effect. The lumani are worried about this “analyzer.” I think that even if I can’t disrupt the lumani with it, I can at least make them uncomfortable. Maybe uncomfortable enough to escape with Tanez and Azlii. I press the button marked sixty. The pitch of the machine’s hum moves higher.
My stomach clenches again and I gag on a sudden rush of bile in my throat. Sweat covers my skin. I push the levers on the drug dispensers lower. Azlii is fully awake now. Do the lumani know that? They seem busy, their bits moving fast. I walk the few steps to the machine by Tanez and push that lever completely down.
You must turn off the analyzer, Weast sends. The calibrations will become wrong.
There’s fear in its tone. I look over my shoulder. Weast is compressed into a ball no bigger than my fist. The other three lumani have contracted in the same way. I step back to the analyzer and push the square marked one hundred—and double over in pain. My head swims. The muscles in my arms and legs cramp. A sizzling sound comes from the lumani, like water dripping onto red-hot logs. A sharp smell fills the air.
Tanez and Azlii are watching me, both awake and aware now. Neither seems to feel any effect from the analyzer.
Turn it off, Weast sends, and I feel its desperation. Push the blank square.
I want to do what Weast says. I want the pain to stop. Weast’s elements are swirling crazily, the orderly orbit of two bits around one falling apart, single pieces flying away from the main body. Weast’s companions are no better off. One of them spreads across the floor, its bits sparking. I push the button marked one hundred and thirty, and scream from the pain.
Azlii rolls off the cot and rushes to me. Her legs are wobbly and she nearly falls over me. She wraps one arm around my shoulders. Blood trickles down her arm, from where she’s torn out the tubes.
“Khe,” she whispers.
“Out,” I tell her. My breath is shallow, my throat squeezed. “The door isn’t locked. Larta is close.” I hope the door isn’t locked.
Tanez is sitting upright on the cot, trying to pull out the tube that tethers her to the machine.
“Can you walk?” Azlii asks Tanez when the tube is out.
She nods and swings her feet over the side of the cot. When she tries to stand, she sinks to the floor.
“Get Larta,” I tell Azlii, who seems the fittest among us. “Down the hall. In the room with the lavender-blue door.”
Azlii stumbles across the room and waves her hand in front of the wall near the door. The door whooshes open and Azlii goes through. The door stays open behind her. We might have a chance after all.
Weast has stopped sending to me. Its pain, the pain of each lumani, is worse than mine. I see their suffering like flaming yellow sparks careening through the room.
My legs give out. I grab at the stand supporting the analyzer, miss it, and crumple to the floor. Tanez crawls toward me. Our hands meet and clasp.
Then Azlii is at the doorway again, with Larta behind her. Azlii’s face is ashen, her movements stiff. Larta darts across the room, her arms supporting first Tanez to her feet and then me. That I can stand is a miracle. That my feet are moving, more amazing still. We walk down the hall toward the entryway—me leaning on Larta, Azlii and Tanez supporting each other. Helphands and orindles stare at us, mouths gaping, frozen in their places. The guardians point their stun-shooters at us.
Larta calls to the four guardians, “We are leaving Chimbalay. You will come with us to the gate and ensure our safety.”
Their weapons do not lower. Their emotion spots spark and glow with the orange-yellow of confusion.
“We are guardians,” Larta says to them, “sworn to protect our sisters from all harm. Look at these doumanas. See what the Powers have done to them.”
The guardians keep their weapons pointed at us. Larta’s jaw tenses. The colors of determination show on her neck.
A guardian slowly lowers her weapon and steps up to Tanez. “Lean on me. It’s a long way to the gate.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Heat is a fine prod to action.”
--Azlii
The soft pink-yellow light of dawn awakens me. I open my eyes and see Pradat tapping away on her textbox.
“Tanez and Azlii?” I ask, as I’ve asked each of the two previous mornings.
Nool is sharing her sleeping quarters with the four of us. The room is cramped with cots. Mine lays closest to the outer wall. Pradat is sitting at an angle that blocks the rest of the cots from my view.
“Azlii is in the meal room,” Pradat says, looking up. “Tanez is sleeping.”
“Still?” Tanez has slept since we came to Kelroosh. She tosses and turns restlessly, muttering and sometimes crying out. I’ve spent much of the last two nights sitting on the edge of her cot, stroking her neck. It seems to comfort her.
“Do you want something to eat?” Pradat asks. When I shake my head, she frowns.
I have eaten some since we arrived here, but all food tastes bad to me, and none of it digests. It sits in my stomach like hardwood.
I sleep little now, maybe a fifth of the night, which leaves me plenty of time to think. My anger is so strong—I feel it will lift me from the cot. I am ashamed of what I have become, and wish that my spots still lit so others could know how I feel. But part of me merely notes each emotion with detached interest. It is this part that thinks about Weast and the other lumani; how they and I reacted when the machines changed the magnetic fields in the room we shared. It is this part of me that doesn’t want to drive the lumani from our world. It is the part that schemes to destroy them.
“You were my great success, you know,” Pradat says.
I sit up, to encourage her to go on.
“Of the one hundred and twenty-six doumanas I’d treated for Resonance dysfunction, eleven showed new talents. Ten went insane.” Pradat looks at the floor a moment, and then back at me. “But you didn’t lose your mind. Simanca kept me informed. I knew every time you went to mating. I knew you were using your talent to help your sisters at Lunge. I was thrilled when Simanca reported that you showed no ill effects from the restoration or from using your gift.”
“She lied,” I say quietly. The bitterness in my voice is like a shout.
“Yes,” Pradat says. “I know how many years have passed since you hatched, and I can count the dots on your wrist. It doesn’t take much to reason that something went wrong.”
“Pushing the crops to grow better aged me.”
Pradat winces as if I’ve struck her. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” I say. “You did a good thing. I’ve always been grateful for the chance to mate and lay my egg.”
“I tried twice more to come and see you,” Pradat says. “Simanca put me off. I should have insisted.”
I shrug.
“I didn’t insist,” Pradat says, “because I didn’t want to call attention to you.”
I listen, curious about her reasons.
“I’d kept you secret,” Pradat says. “As First of Morvat Research Center, I reported to the Powers. It was they who devised the surgery that let you feel Resonance.”
“I know,” I say. “Azlii told me.”
Pradat nods. “They tracked each patient with great interest. When the gifted doumanas began to go mad, the Powers ordered that all patients showing new talents, sane or insane, be sent to Chimbalay immediately. Once they were there, no one ever heard from them again. But
there were rumors—”
I see the gray mist of sorrow rise from her shoulders, a match to the colors on her neck.
“Whatever happened to those doumanas isn’t your fault,” I say.
Pradat sighs. “To save you from the Powers, I never reported you. I’ve lived in fear that Simanca would let the information slip. When the Powers called me to Chimbalay, I thought they’d discovered my disobedience, but they only wanted me to work with the babblers.”
I think of Marnka and want to ask Pradat if she’d found a way to restore babblers’ sanity, but this is not the time.
“One day the Powers informed me that they’d found a doumana who they believed would make a good candidate for breeding with them.” Pradat rubs her throat to comfort herself. “This was too much, too great an insult to our species for me to help them. I’d already made up my mind to do what I could to spoil the experiment. When I saw that the doumana they’d chosen was you—I decided at that moment to get you out.”
“Thank you,” I say.
“I wish I’d gotten to you sooner. You are physically changed, Khe.”
I nod, but don’t say how changed I am. I don’t tell her that when I look at the lumani now, I see not the hazy bands that I saw at first, but all the individual swirling pieces that make up their form. I don’t say that I’ve hardly eaten or slept in six days and it doesn’t bother me. I don’t tell her the worst of it—that when I was in that room with Azlii and Tanez, I was truly curious and almost willing to let the lumani finish their tests, so I could know the answers.
“Pradat,” I say, “I came to Chimbalay in hope of finding a way to get back my normal life-span. Is it possible?”
Her mouth draws into a line. “We’d need to know if your body was truly aging, or if the extra dots were the result of something else. Your resonance sac was sealed. When it was opened, chemicals that had been kept from your body suddenly flooded in. Perhaps you are allergic to your own chemicals and the dots are a physical reaction to that, though there is no test or machine devised yet that could figure that out. Most likely, Khe, you are aging. I don’t know of any way to stop that.”
“Weast, one of the Powers, said that when they’d … changed me, I’d live longer than a doumana should. Almost double our lifespan.” I feel my heart begin to pound.
Khe Page 19