Whispers on the Wind

by Judy Griffith Gill

  “But sometimes your dreams were pleasant?” he coaxed. “Those of the child, for instance?”

  She glanced at him. He took her hand and held it, feeling her cool fingers curl around his as if seeking warmth. He gave it to her. Inside him, too, something warmed and strengthened, began to grow—and it was much stronger than the physical passion they had shared, would, he hoped, share again. Once more, he shrugged it off. It was inappropriate. Especially under the circumstances.

  “The dreams of the little girl were always—fun,” she said, though she had stated her preference for leaving her dreams to be forgotten. “I enjoy the way she laughs and sings and begs me to come and play with her. To dance.”

  “Do you?”

  She sighed. “No. I can’t...find her. I go out and search—in the dream, of course—but it’s as if she’s concealing herself deliberately to make me curious enough to chase her. She giggles. She teases. She hides. She tempts me to follow her. And she promises that some day she will let me catch her.”

  Ah! That sounded so much like the child his sister had been he again suspected it was the hidden Zenna who was contacting Lenore. Who knew what kinds of effects the trauma of being taken from home and safety and love could have had on her? One of those effects might have been to enhance her abilities to slide in and out of the childhood memories carried in her Kahinya...or even to project from within them. He longed to see for himself, to know!

  “Can you tell me more about her? Where is she? What kind of place do you see her in? Is it like the place you saw before when you touched my Kahinya? Like my grandparents’ home?”

  “No, it’s nothing like that. I don’t think I see her in any particular place. Not an identifiable one, anyway. Though it’s always outdoors. There’s grass, trees, shrubs—” A swiftly startled expression crossed her face. “There’s salal.” She frowned. “I see her on Earth, so obviously, Jon, I wasn’t dreaming of your sister.”

  He gripped her arm. “Salal? Tell me! Tell me where!”

  Chapter Nine

  LENORE RECOILED FROM HIS urgent intensity. “Would you relax?” she said, wrenching her arm free. “Why are my dreams so important to you?”

  “Just...tell me, Lenore. I beg of you, tell me. It might be very, very important. It might help me find my sister.”

  Lenore failed to see how, but she closed her eyes for a second, recalling the details of the recurring dream she’d had of the child.

  “There’s vegetation where she lives—it’s likely part of a wilderness reserve, so there’d be no one cutting salal, if you’re thinking that’s where Rankin might be. Cutting anything in such a preserve would be forbidden.”

  She hesitated, bit her lower lip for a moment while she considered that. Of course, if Rankin was the kind of criminal Jon claimed, he wouldn’t care much about the laws on Earth, would he?

  “The shrubs,” she went on, “salal included, create shady spots where the little girl hides and plays. There are fir and cedar and hemlock and alder trees, ferns, moss, grass, red huckleberry bushes, salmonberry and thimble-berry bushes, blackberry vines and plenty of spring flowers. The shrubs were all in leaf in the last dream just before I left, and the salmonberry bushes had pink blossoms, but no berries yet. Those don’t usually form until June. And I could see the ocean nearby, and a gravel beach. Sometimes I could even smell the salt and kelp. I have very vivid dreams.

  “There’s a house, a small one, more like a summer cabin than a real home, near the shore.”

  “People live in these wilderness preserves?”

  “Not live...not all the time, anyway, though some have cabins they visit for vacations. If they had them before the preserve was created and as long as they’re maintained in good condition, and no harm is done to the surrounding land, they’re allowed to remain as long as the dwelling stays in the same family.”

  “Do you see a family? Or just the child?”

  “There are two men, though never at the same time. One, she fears, the other she simply hides from as she does from me. She doesn’t like him, but keeps that to herself.”

  “Do you ever see the woman you dream of?”

  “No. I only feel as if I am her. As if I have a child who is in danger, as if I’m begging someone to come to help, to take the child from whatever peril threatens her.”

  “When you saw the child, did you also sense the woman?”

  “No. The two kinds of dreams were always separate, often days, even weeks apart,” she said, “and you are beginning to sound like my shrink.”

  “Shrink?”

  “The doctor I went to because of these dreams and other symptoms. But as I was saying, the woman and the girl were always separate. And never on the same night. But it was because they recurred that they worried me. They made me feel like I must be going crazy. Especially when the little girl came to me when I knew perfectly well I wasn’t asleep. There were times when she was just...there.”

  He steadied her with one arm as the horse almost stumbled due only to Jon’s lack of control over its motor senses. “What does she look like?”

  “I don’t think I really know. She flits from tree to shrub, and in and out of the cabin, just giving me teasing little hints of her whereabouts, ducking around corners just before I can reach her, tempting me to chase and try to catch her. She’s ephemeral. So I’d have to say no, I’ve never actually seen her.” She laughed softly. “Of course, that’s because she doesn’t exist.”

  He wanted to remind her that until very recently she had kept insisting he didn’t exist, either, but held his peace.

  The trees thickened beside the rough, narrow switchback trail the horse followed, dropping the level of illumination almost to twilight. Dead twigs and branches crackled under its hooves. Living branches brushed at the horse’s flanks, at the riders’ faces and hair, and tugged at their clothing. Jon reached out with his mind and gently urged them aside, not wanting to cause harm to the delicate foliage. He was accustomed to shrubbery that knew enough to sweep itself aside to permit other beings passage.

  Other beings...Need and loneliness flooded through him, alleviated only by the contact of Lenore’s hand with his, the memory of the mental communication they had shared.

  But wait!

  If her warmth and openness, her natural affinity to the Aazoni mind, had drawn his Kahinya toward her, could some or any of the others have been guided along the same path? Was that why Minton had seemed so close? Was he, also, on his way to Lenore? Once more, he cast forth a beam of energy, keeping it low and narrow, not knowing the whereabouts of Rankin and B’tar, as wary of alerting them to his presence as he was eager to connect with his group.

  The horse crossed a small meadow where wildflowers bloomed bright gold and red against the backdrop of dark green forest. Far across a valley below, more mountains rose in the west, gleaming white caps reflecting the sun.

  “You said,” Lenore reminded him, “that on Aazonia ‘wrong’ minds were not allowed to stay that way. If that’s true, why are police officers required? And why do you have such things as drug dealers who are obviously breaking your laws? Why don’t you just fix whatever’s wrong with their minds?”

  “We try,” he said. “Some minds refused to be repaired. Having a criminal mind is a choice some of our people make.”

  “Who would choose to be a criminal? And why?”

  “You do not have criminals here on Earth?” He knew full well they did, but wanted Lenore’s views on the subject.

  “Of course we do. But they aren’t responsible for what they are. They were damaged by circumstances, such as childhood poverty or mental illness, or bad choices made by their parents or teachers or...or...or a wide variety of factors.”

  “Would one of those factors be greed?”

  “Well, yes. I suppose so. Sure, some criminals do bad things hoping to get rich. Many do. But they’re that way only because they were never taught to control their greed. Society has failed them. They have not failed society
.”

  “And what happens when they are apprehended?”

  “They’re given treatment.”

  “Even if they do not want it?”

  She looked defeated. “I guess not, if they resist it, or if it simply doesn’t work on them. And maybe there are those who do choose a criminal lifestyle. I suppose that’s why we still have prisons.”

  “Exactly,” he said. “We, too, have those who reject treatment. If they put up strong enough barriers, no one can get into their minds to right the wrongs that exist.”

  “Then what do you do?”

  He looked at her for several moments as the horse carried them from sun to shade to sun again. He consulted with his Kahinya, which could give him little guidance in this matter. He opted for the full truth.

  “We eliminate them.”

  Before he could stop her, Lenore slid from the back of the slowly moving horse. She put several meters between them, her back against the trunk of a tree, her eyes wide and accusing. “So you’re not just a cop. You’re an executioner as well?”

  He brought the horse to a stop. “I am many things, Lenore. In my Octad is a healer, Wend. Rankin and B’tar will be given every opportunity to allow her to reform them. If they refuse, we will have no option but to stop them the only way we can. Would you allow someone to go free who causes deliberate harm to many others, purely for his own profit?”

  “Maybe not go free, but do you have to kill him? Can’t you simply lock him up somewhere?”

  Jon laughed as he urged the horse forward again, very slowly, his gaze never leaving Lenore’s face. She was no longer retreating. “How?” he asked. “When all he’d need to do is translate out of wherever we locked him up?”

  “I...Well, yes.” She allowed the horse to catch up to her and paced along slowly beside it, looking up at Jon. “Okay. I see where that would be a problem. But what about those who are addicted to the substances this Rankin provides? Why can’t you just fix their minds? Where there’s no market, there’s no profit. That would eliminate the problem, wouldn’t it?”

  “Where we can, we do just that, but many—most—of Rankin’s victims are not Aazoni and have minds that we cannot reach to effect the necessary cure.”

  She frowned. “Different species? On different worlds?”

  “That is right.”

  “But...if they’re not even your people, why do you care so much?”

  “Because,” he said, “the damage is being done by one of ours. It is our duty to control him, to curb his activities. To stop him and those like him.” He brought the horse to a halt at her side. “Do you not have other species here on Earth that you work hard to protect?” He knew it was true, and wanted her to admit it.

  Slowly, she nodded, and he reached down, scooped her up again to place her on the back of the horse, looping one arm around her back.

  “We do have lesser species who need our help to survive,” she said.

  “So, you see? We are not so different after all, are we? Who do you on Earth protect?”

  “Animals, birds, plants—entire ecosystems. That’s why we have preserves. Places where other species can live undisturbed, can flourish without the interference of mankind. We no longer think of humans as being the most important species on our planet. We are simply one of many, all of whom have a right to be here, a right to live their lives as they see fit—as we do, too, of course.”

  “And how do humans see fit to live their lives?”

  “Most of us live in population corridors. Many live and work in agricultural preserves to provide food for others, or park preserves to maintain places for city-dwellers to find temporary peace and recreation. There are forest preserves, where culled trees provide building materials for homes, and mountain preserves, which capture clouds to produce rainfall that fills rivers and lakes and reservoirs. Along the crests of most mountain ranges in the world, where winds are strong, there are windmills that spin turbines to create electricity to supplement the hydrogen cells that run most things.”

  “It all sounds very orderly.”

  Lenore laughed. “And sometimes it actually is. A lot of the different preserves have overlapping uses and conflicts do arise. The majority of people, though, live in the cities that make up the corridors.”

  “This is a mountain preserve?”

  “Yes, in part. It is also a recreation preserve, which is why I came here, for rest and relaxation.”

  “Have you found those elements?”

  “I thought I had. The dreams of the woman and the child stopped. But then...you came.”

  “I,” he reminded her, “am not a dream, Lenore. I am real.” She made no comment, and in a moment, he went on. “Do you think perhaps the woman—or the child—could also be real?”

  Again, she tossed her hair back as she swung her head to look at him. “No,” she said. “Of course not. Why should they be?”

  “Why should I be?”

  The expression on her face was one of mingled confusion, frustration, and anger. “I’m still not convinced you are.”

  “Then,” he said, “I shall have to convince you.”

  Her eyes glistened, so deep a brown he felt he could almost swim in their depths as he had in a dark mineral pool on Mount Sarrila. She licked her lips. “How?” It was less a word than a breath.

  “You know how,” he said, tightening his arm around her as the trail emerged from the forest into full sunlight pouring warm and golden over a grassy meadow that sloped down toward a snug-looking dwelling.

  Lenore broke free of his hold, and again slid from the horse’s back, making haste to put distance between them.

  “That,” she informed him loftily, “is not going to happen.”

  Yes it is, Lenore.

  Lenore heard the words, but Jon’s lips had not moved from the faint smile in which they were set.

  Before she could accuse him of breaking his promise and invading her mind, there was a rush of wings and a Stellar’s jay alit on the longest branch of a clump of red osier, bouncing slightly. “Yes, it is, Lenore,” the bird said again, its beak moving in perfect timing with the words. “You can count on it. It’s going to happen because you want it to.”

  Lenore closed her eyes to block the sight of what she knew she really wasn’t seeing, the memory of what she really hadn’t heard. The damn bird’s thoughts had not, absolutely not, penetrated her mind; nor had it been lip-synching something Jon said. On the contrary. The thought the jay had broadcast had come straight from her own mind—and in her own voice.

  Had Jon heard it? Did he recognize it as hers? She tried to speak, but could find no words, could only stand there, mouth half agape, staring at Jon, who had dismounted, Jon, who had invaded her most private places, and whom she, for reasons she couldn’t quite plumb, had forgiven.

  As if her standing there like that was an invitation, Jon cupped the back of her head in one hand and drew her closer with the other. Her eyes popped open, then fell shut again as his mouth took hers in a kiss that left her blood all but sizzling, stole her breath, and finally, fully, convinced her mind he was there, this was happening, and there was nothing she could do to change it.

  Nor anything she wanted to do to change it.

  Under her hands, his warm, bare shoulders felt like steel covered in satin. As her arms encircled his back, her palms smoothed over rippling muscles, her fingertips bent and pressed, testing the depth and strength she felt there. She glided her touch down his sides, found not a hint of a scar from the injury that had bled onto the rocks of the cave. His hard buttocks, as they had in her dreams, flexed under her hands and she moaned softly. Her head rested in the curve of his shoulder, her cheek against the heat of his chest, when he finally broke the kiss.

  He cupped her chin in his hand, whispered, “Open you eyes, letise, look at me.”

  She looked, gazed long and deep until she felt herself sliding away to some place she was afraid to go, and swiftly dropped her head. And blinked. She could hav
e sworn that during their kiss he had felt as naked as he’d been in her dreams. She’d stroked her hands over his shoulders, his arms, his back. She’d clenched her fingers into the tautness of his bottom, rubbed her face against the sleekness of his chest and shoulder—and there hadn’t been a stitch of fabric between her hands and his body. She knew she had touched his bare skin. And yet...there he stood, as fully clothed as she was, complete with knit hat now inexplicably decorated by a brilliant blue feather from the jay’s tail.

  His eyes, though, when she risked another confused glance into them, looked as bewildered, as disconcerted as she felt. Before she could stop herself, she cupped his face in both hands, drew him down to her and initiated another of those indescribable kisses.

  Clinging to Mystery’s back for support, knees weak not, Jon assured himself, from the effects of those kisses, but from the trek down the mountainside, he crossed the meadow with Lenore. In the shed where the horse lived, he watched silently as she gave him food and replenished his water. She rubbed the animal’s coat, then brushed it, offered it something from a bin that was out of its reach, and patted its nose.

  She was a kind woman. She treated other beings well. He liked that. His studies of Earth had told him that, as on most worlds, truly good-hearted people did exist in the majority, but there were also those who only pretended to care for others as long as there was personal reward in it for them.

  The power of a mental projection caught Jon just as he crossed over the threshold of the dwelling in which he had first seen Lenore.

  Zenna! Letise, I will find you!

  It was Minton! Jon stumbled and caught at the doorframe. Minton was near, seeking not him, but Zenna. He felt Lenore stagger as the broadcast caught her, too, and sensed her mind fading to black. He flung a protective shield around her mind and drew her close, held her, one hand supporting himself, the other pressing her to his chest, as if he could protect her, guard her from harm, though he knew Minton meant none.