“You’re doing it again,” she agreed firmly. “So stop doing it. Go do something else. Read more of the novel!”
Vasiht’h sighed. “At least tell me it gets better.”
“Oh, goddess,” she said, eyes dancing. “You’re about to get to the best part.”
There was nothing for it, then, but to make lunch and resume reading, this time in the garden outside. The table had been designed for bipeds, but he brought a couple of bolsters out and settled himself at a good height. The chirping of birds was far more interesting than the book, but he resumed reading over his butternut and ginger soup, nibbling on a soft sour bread roll as he turned pages. Thaddeus and the girl, whose name he finally remembered as Alana after half a book of nicknames like ‘the sweet maiden’ and ‘the gentle goddess’, had recovered from their episode of sexual completion and were just discovering…
“What!” he exclaimed at the tablet. “You have got to be kidding me. She can’t possibly be pregnant!”
The recreational complex was not Jahir’s sole destination, though it was enough of a primary one that he felt no twinge at what someone might have otherwise construed as misdirection. And he did, indeed, go there, and was unsurprised—and enchanted—by the landscaped park with its jogging track and playgrounds, and the swimming pools set into them in imitation of natural lakes that connected with the water environment for the aquatic races. There was a separate area for competition training, with the facilities he’d come to expect from the university and the hospital on Selnor, but he found the more natural areas charming.
But much as he wanted to linger, he was drawn on toward the commons, and the list of addresses there.
Two of the five names on his list he dismissed: they were medical therapists attached to Veta’s civilian hospital, and did not take personal clients. But there were three other names, and he wanted to see them. He had no plan to engage with them, but the need to face them was irresistible, and he could no more have explained it to his Pelted friend than he could have failed to do it. Some needs did not belong to this civilized society.
The first address took him near the university where Ametia must work. Not on campus, but near its greenways, the office shared a building girdled in trees and little café tables with a coffee shop, a bakery, and a bookstore. Jahir bought a cup of espresso in a thick-walled ceramic cup, hand-glazed in teal and orange and dark brown, and sat outside to watch the clientele drift through the area. This was Minette Dashenby’s practice, Karaka’An therapist, and most of her appointments looked like university students.
The coffee was good, if strong. The breeze gentle and the sunlight warm. He spent an hour there and regretted leaving.
The second office took him to the city’s most peculiar landmark. Looking up at the city’s sky one saw an uninterrupted view from horizon to horizon, with only the distant lattice of the Spindle to suggest the artificial environment. But the city was in fact bisected by the starbase’s external wall. The interior of the wall was thick with the warehouses, factories, and industrial works necessary to the maintenance of the civilian port and its vessels, which were on the vacuum-facing side.
But the wall of the starbase was invisible until one crossed some magic line, and then it hove into very abrupt view, rising out of sight in uncompromising lines. He would have thought it to be uniform in color—gray—but like the outside of the base it was patterned with projections that allowed its murals to remain vivid no matter how long they stayed up… or to be reconfigured in an instant whenever the person charged with that particular bit of real estate decided. And there were, as with everything the Pelted did, so many windows. It was less grim architecture and more a piece of sculpture, and he found it fascinating that it existed and was hidden.
At the foot of the wall, and along its balconies, were a number of shops and apartments, more technological in style than the rest of the city, more like what he’d imagined a society like the Alliance would create. But the second of his addresses was not along these boulevards, but in the Wall itself. It took him some time to locate, in fact, because there were so many offices in the Wall. But eventually he found it, a luxurious practice on the outward facing skin, with glass doors and a lobby with an enormous window overlooking the city from a breathtaking vantage.
This was Allen Tiber’s office, and he took a seat on a bench nearby to watch the stream of people in the hall as they separated into passersby and clients: several Karaka’A. A Tam-illee. A delicate, dark-haired Malarai, her soft gray wings folded behind her. The people entering Tiber’s office were wealthier, and more varied in age, and there were a lot more of them. And strangely, while he found the style of the office repelled him, whenever the doors opened he smelled something bright and welcoming and it kept him in place long after he would have left for his final stop.
The third office was in the commons itself: not in the city’s center, but close enough to it that he could have walked to any of its cafes and shops. He liked it instantly: the proximity to the bustle while also maintaining a remove, the way it was integrated so nicely with the surrounding shops and homes, the trees nodding over the lane and the pedestrians passing. This was the Healer’s Knot, a clinic that should have had several doctors in practice? But no one was entering its door, and when he stopped there he found a sign indicating that it was no longer open for business.
Three general practitioners, he thought, walking home. And one gone. That left a vacancy, and a vacancy was—just perhaps—enough space for him and Vasiht’h to fill.
Chapter 9
There was a garden outside. Vasiht’h knew nothing about gardening, but it felt impolite to let it get overrun. And while he preferred baking to pulling what he hoped were weeds, he couldn’t spend all his time inside. The cottage, so welcoming at first sight, was beginning to feel a little small. How that was possible when he and Jahir had lived practically stacked on one another in the hospital apartment on Selnor, he had no idea. But it wasn’t about living with Jahir, specifically, because he felt the same restlessness when Jahir was off on a walk or an errand. Something about Veta made him want to spread out, breathe more.
So he pulled up common guides to gardening, figured out the climate zone the starbase was maintaining in this part of the city, and set to work learning to identify which plants were ornamental and which needed removal. This was a much better distraction than wading through HEALED BY HER IMMORTAL HEART, which he’d abandoned after the todfox had magically impregnated the entirely alien Eldritch girl.
He still found himself muttering about that sometimes.
“Well, this is a nice surprise!” came the voice of Ilea EveryLivingThing. Looking up he found her leaning on the garden gate, arms folded and a smile on her lived-in face. “I didn’t expect you to do any maintenance on the yard, you know.”
Vasiht’h sat back on his hindquarters, one scrawny plant dangling from a hand. “Alet! Ah… I hope I’m not hurting anything.”
“Not by pulling that never-do, you’re not,” she said, amused. “I came by to see how you two have been getting on, now that it’s been a couple of months. Still happy with the place?”
“It’s wonderful,” Vasiht’h said. “The roof patio in particular. I like to read up there.” Or he had, before the mystical impregnation. “Can I get you anything to drink? Lemonade? Tea and biscuits?”
“Lemonade sounds nice, thank you. And here, leave that plant with me, I’ll tuck it in your waste bag there.”
Bemused, he handed her the plant. By the time he got back with the tray, he expected her to be weeding, and she was, whistling to herself as she plucked up the plants scraggling along the edge of the pavers. “So how is the starbase ecosystem?”
“Getting along,” she replied cheerfully. Straightening, she brushed her hands off on her pants and took a seat at the table, and a long sip of the lemonade. “My, that’s good. Did you buy that down at the corner market or… no, you made it, didn’t you.” She grinned. “I could tell by the l
ook on your face. The idea of buying something like this that you could make more easily is offensive, isn’t it.”
“It’s not that it’s easier, it’s that it’s easier and mine tastes better,” Vasiht’h said.
“I can’t argue that. And these?” She picked up the biscuit. “Don’t tell me you make these too.”
“Yes. But not the cheese.” Vasiht’h managed a lopsided smile. “I don’t raise goats.”
Ilea laughed. “No, only Margery’s crazy enough to do that. But we all have to keep occupied somehow. So, you and your partner doing well? How’s business?”
How was business. Good question. “We have some clients,” Vasiht’h said. “We could always use more.”
“Who couldn’t!” she said with a chuckle. “Though I expect you’re doing pretty well, to pay the rent. Xenotherapy… there are easier ways to make money.”
“Are there?” Vasiht’h suddenly wondered if he could find one, maybe make up the shortfall they would have been experiencing had they not been floating on Jahir’s largesse.
“Pulling weeds, for one.” She sliced herself a wedge of cheese. “But I would think so, since it’s what I like to do.”
Thinking of Lennea, Vasiht’h said, “Sometimes we do things and they don’t end up being what we imagined, though.”
She snorted. “Of course not. How else do they stay interesting?”
It was such an unexpected response that he laughed. “Well, some people like routine, you know!”
“Even the people who like routine need some shaking up now and then. Otherwise, how would they know they’ve got a routine? Sameness dulls your sensitivities.” She waved a hand at the garden. “That’s what I do, after all. I introduce random variables to a system that would otherwise be too sterile. That’s the spark that keeps things moving. Otherwise, entropy would run it down eventually.” She ate another biscuit, expression complacent. “Nature knows that. It’s why there are trees that only release their seeds after fires. The unexpected needs to come.”
Vasiht’h refilled her glass. “How much do I owe you?”
“Beg your pardon?”
He grinned. “For the therapy session.”
She barked a laugh. “Oh, alet. That’s not therapy. It’s just common sense. You know it yourself, or you wouldn’t be in the profession, eh?” She rose, stretched. “So, you want me to teach you which of these plants need to stay and which to go?”
“Sure!”
“Come on, then. You were on the right track, but leave those fermilions there, some people think they’re a nuisance but in autumn they turn golden against this backdrop of evergreens I’ve planted and it looks like filigree.”
Jahir found him outside several hours later, still tidying.
“I did not know you gardened.”
“I don’t,” Vasiht’h answered, amused. “That’s why it’s taking me so long. Is that supper?”
“It is at least salad greens.” Jahir set them on the table beside the tray. “Did you entertain, then?”
“Our landlady came by to see how we were doing.” Vasiht’h gave up the effort for now, squinting at a sky that had turned periwinkle blue. He could just see the lights of the spindle starting to wink. “She gave me an impromptu lesson on how to keep the patio pretty and it was a nice day out.”
“The days seem unlikely to become less nice,” Jahir observed, drawing one of the chairs out and settling on it. “Even summer must be mild.”
Something in the mindline felt vague, like a mist. Or the distant smell of perfume, or flowers. Vasiht’h narrowed his eyes, puzzled. “Do you miss weather?”
“Do you?”
He thought of the flash floods at home, and the torrential downpours, and then the abrupt days of clear skies with a brassy sunlight that seemed to sharpen the edge of every leaf. Then he thought of the mud on his paws, and drenched fur, and the discomfort of damp skin. “No. Weather is a nuisance. I could be very happy in a place with no weather.”
“We are certainly in the right place for that,” Jahir said.
Vasiht’h eyed him. “You didn’t answer the question, though, and this time I want to know the answer.”
The amusement this time tasted like cream on strawberries. “I have not been away from weather long enough to miss it.”
Which was another evasion, Vasiht’h thought. But an acceptable one, because behind that sweet-scented amusement there was something melancholic that he didn’t want to push. Instead, he said, “Ilea EveryLivingThing thinks that we all need some change to shake us up now and then. So maybe we should take vacations to places with weather. You know. See some snow. Get rained on. Dance in a thunderstorm.”
“Dance in a thunderstorm!” Jahir said, laughing.
“All right, you can dance in a thunderstorm. I’ll huddle under a rain cape and cheer you on.” Vasiht’h grinned. “I’m going to go rinse off. You can bring the salad greens in.”
“Maybe we can eat on the patio?” Jahir said. “You have put such work into it. It seems a pity not to.”
Which they did, while the afternoon deepened into a cool purple twilight, so beautiful that they walked to the commons to the ice cream shop, where Karina declaimed on the latest flavor. Vasiht’h watched indulgently as she pressed several samples on Jahir until at last he settled on a decadent more-almond concoction topped with great curling shavings of dark chocolate and grains of pink salt.
“She says it needs coffee,” he began, and stopped when the pard appeared at their elbow with a tiny cup of espresso. “Ah, thank you, alet.”
“I’m fine,” Vasiht’h said firmly, before she could eye his choice too carefully.
The contrast between their quiet patio table in the Garden District and this table in the brightly lit parlor on the commons main street could not have been more distinct. The river of people passing, holding shopping bags or drinks, talking, laughing, strolling or striding purposefully past the glass storefront, versus the quiet murmurs of the occasional pedestrian back at the cottage… there, the lights had been dim and discreet, and the loudest noise the rustle of wind through the plants. Here lights were strung over the byway to accent the lit displays from the stores and restaurants, and conversations were so numerous he could hear their hum even inside the insulated parlor.
“Seersana was not so busy,” Jahir observed.
“The university wasn’t,” Vasiht’h said. “The capital was, the few times we visited. This is just… city-living.” He glanced at his partner. “It doesn’t make you uncomfortable? So many close by?”
“But they are not close by. They are there, and we are here.”
Vasiht’h snorted. “Very minor distinction. We have to walk out there to go home.”
“But you are with me,” Jahir said, eyes still following the passersby outside.
Vasiht’h tried not to let the flush of pleasure overwhelm the mindline, but that was a lost cause from the beginning. He was blushing when the Eldritch glanced at him and cocked his head, one of those little smiles on his face.
“Yes?”
“Always,” Vasiht’h said, spooning up the ice cream to keep from meeting that gaze.
“Then, what worry do I have?”
“It’s too bad we can’t live here,” Vasiht’h said. “It would be nice to be in the center of things, wouldn’t it? Not just work there, you know, in that office building.”
“It would be pleasant,” Jahir murmured. “Perhaps, when we know…”
“Yeah.” Vasiht’h smiled a little. “When we know.”
“It will be well,” Jahir added, quietly.
“I know. Just… it would be nice to know for sure.”
“So it would. And yet, so few things are certain. Are they?”
Vasiht’h snorted. “What I’m certain of is that you should finish that ice cream, because you need it more than I do.”
“Well,” Jahir said with a measure of primness the mindline informed him was staged. “Perhaps some things are eternal.�
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Vasiht’h grinned. “The best things.”
Preparing for bed later that night, Vasiht’h divulged his concerns about Lennea. “Do you think we’re helping her any?”
“She returns,” Jahir observed, thoughtful.
“People do that sometimes even when things aren’t helping.”
“We could ask?” Jahir said at last, and maybe something of Vasiht’h’s reluctance seeped through the mindline because he finished, “We may do so without seeming incompetent.”
“Are you sure?” Vasiht’h asked, rueful.
“To admit to mistakes must improve trust between healer and patient,” Jahir said, straightening the duvet and turning his pillow. “That is what we are aiming for in these preliminary sessions. We cannot pretend to omniscience, arii.”
“No,” Vasiht’h said. “The Goddess we are not.”
But it preyed on his mind through another week with the Karaka’An, during which she scheduled an extra session. At the conclusion of that second appointment, Lennea said, hesitant, “I was wondering... one of my students’ father is a friend of mine, and I thought I could refer him to you?”
Asking if she was sure that was wise was not a good idea, and yet he found himself opening his mouth.
“Do you believe we can assist him with his coping skills, in a manner similar to what we have done with you?” Jahir asked before Vasiht’h could speak.
She flicked her ears outward, thinking. “Not exactly. It’s that you don’t try to help me cope that helps. If that makes sense? I’ve been to two other therapists before and they wanted me to work on my skills. I’ve read up on them myself. I’ve done guided exercises out of the u-banks. I know what I should be doing. But the only place I succeed in doing any of them... is here!”
“Here?” Vasiht’h repeated, mystified.
She nodded firmly. “Here, I actually put my head down and I sleep, and I sleep restfully. And everyone’s right! If you do get good sleep, you are better able to handle things. But I could never figure out how to rest on my own. Something you all do... do you still go into my mind? No, don’t tell me, or it might break whatever you’re doing! Anyway. I come here and I lie down on your couch and... I rest. And when I wake up, I feel refreshed.” She exhaled, eyes closing. “Good sleep is such a blessing. I had no idea.”
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