Dreamhearth

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  "He didn't even give us his name," Vasiht'h said, bemused.

  "At least it's on his breast tab," Jahir said, looking at it. "Amadeo, Paul."

  "Right," Vasiht'h said, checking the data tablet. "Looks like he's the captain of that battlecruiser."

  "Well," Jahir said, looking at the man's careworn face, now slack; he had rarely seen such a deep sleep in one of their patients. "I suppose we should find out what's ailing him."

  "Worried?" Vasiht'h said, padding closer.

  "A little," Jahir said. "I have no experience with the military mind."

  "I suspect the military mind is a lot like any other. Just with different worries," Vasiht'h said.

  "And worries are what we're about," Jahir observed. But he held out his hand, and his partner took it, and together they slipped down the mindline, out and into the sleeping mind of their patient.

  When the captain awoke, he did abruptly, as if in response to some unheard alarm. He rubbed his temple. "Uhn. Are we done?"

  The two therapists looked at one another. "For now," Jahir said. "We'd like you to come back—ah, how long are you staying?"

  "Two weeks," he said. "Minor refits."

  "Then we'd like to see you all two weeks, if possible."

  "My chief medical officer is going to be thrilled. She says I'm a cracked mess and if someone doesn't fix me, I'll explode." The captain grinned, weary. "I get the feeling she was hoping she wouldn't have to do it."

  "We'll take care of it, alet," Vasiht'h said seriously. "See you tomorrow."

  "Right," he said, and left at a good clip, like a ship under steam.

  They stared at the door. Then at one another.

  Jahir started to smile. Vasiht'h laughed and tapped the mindline until it sang.

  Every day, then, exactly on time to the minute, Captain Amadeo arrived for his therapy. Each time, he put his head down on their pillow and fell immediately to sleep. After that first session, however, neither of them did anything more invasive than watch over him and keep the temperature comfortable.

  The man who woke on that final day was bright-eyed and focused, with good carriage and straight shoulders. He stretched, rolling his wrists, and then put his hands on his knees. "So, doctors. This is our last session. Tell me, am I cured?"

  "You were never sick, Captain," Jahir said. "But I believe your chief medical officer will have no complaints of you."

  Rising, Amadeo said, "I'll have the ship's purser square things with you, if that's all right."

  "Perfectly," Jahir said.

  The captain shook Vasiht'h's hand and politely refrained from offering to Jahir. "Thank you, gentlemen. I feel like a new man." He paused at the door. "You never did say... and if it's all right to ask? What exactly was it that was bothering me?"

  The two therapists traded glances and frissons of silver laughter through the mindline.

  Jahir said, "Lack of sleep."

  "Lack of—" Amadeo stopped. And then laughed, round and rolling. "Good one, gentlemen. Next time I'm in the area, I'll be back. For a nap!"

  "We'll keep the pillow plumped for you," Vasiht'h said.

  Case Study: In Dreams

  Some of their patients were able to remember their presence in the dreams Jahir and Vasiht'h used to help them. And in that, the two therapists found many moments of amusement.

  The Harat-Shar who dressed them both up as one of their intraracial angels, in spotted cloaks that became part of their skins, and masks with fangs and terrible slim swords:

  /Do you at least know what to do with one of these?/ a leopard-spotted Vasiht'h asked him, brandishing the sword.

  /I've had some small training, but certainly not enough to justify this rather martial loincloth I'm in./

  /At least yours is in the right place,/ Vasiht'h said, looking down at his, placed where the base of his torso merged into his centauroid chest.

  The human who'd come after too much badgering from wife and son saw them as humans; Vasiht'h appeared as a heavyset man with brown skin and wiry white and black hair and Jahir as a pole-thin man so pale his veins seemed to glow.

  /You're bald!/ Vasiht'h said.

  /So I am,/ Jahir said. /I also appear to be.../

  Vasiht'h looked at their uniforms. /A parole officer?/

  /Our client seems to be repressing feelings of resentment over his having been forced here,/ Jahir said.

  /This doesn't seem very repressed to me!/

  The enormous centauroid Ciracaana who stretched Vasiht'h up to match his own race's height:

  /Aksivaht'h's breath!/ Vasiht'h said, looking down some nine feet. /How do they manage all their paws from this distance? I can barely see my own toes!/

  /You look.../

  /Go ahead, say it,/ Vasiht'h said with a sigh.

  /Emaciated,/ Jahir said finally, amused. /I think I prefer you short and solid./

  Vasiht'h snorted. /At least one good thing about this shape... for once, I'm the one looking down at you!/

  Another Harat-Shar this time, who put Jahir in homeworld native clothes. A woman's native clothes.

  /I never thought I'd see you in silk,/ Vasiht'h said. /Much less see-through silk./

  Jahir looked down at the filmy scarves that passed for a bra and the jingly belt and extra scarf that did nothing to cover his nethers. /This is the only time you will see me in see-through silk, I pledge you./

  /I don't... uh... recall you being quite so... endowed./

  /That, arii, is a Harat-Shariin addition. Thank God and Lady. I don't know that I would be able to walk otherwise./

  There was a Hinichi who gave them fur and put them alongside the ancient wolves of the religion that gave rise to their sentience ("We made a handsome set," Jahir observed of their black and white shapes racing alongside one another). And the Asanii who envisioned Jahir as a priest of the Sun and Vasiht'h as a priest of the Moon. The Seersa male who saw them as floating symbols in his race's alphabet, the Seersan Universal Phonetic Alphabet—they'd had to look those up later to find out it had been their names. The Tam-illee engineer had abstracted them into diagrams with diaper pins: he'd been having issues with his children. A Fleet officer passing through had sensed them as vague ships in orbit around an unknowable star, and had woken up complaining of ghost readings on his sensor panels.

  And then there was the Glaseahn woman with the spotted back, who after a single session had conceptualized Jahir as Aksivaht'h, the goddess herself, and never once deviated from it in all the sessions since.

  "Why you?" Vasiht'h complained outside the chamber while they waited for her to wake. "I'm the Glaseah!"

  "Maybe she thought I was more feminine than you," Jahir said, amused.

  Vasiht'h snorted. "We don't notice things like that. We don't have the hormone issues the rest of you folk do."

  "Is that so?" Jahir said, the mindline dusted with daffodil-yellow amusement.

  Vasiht'h's retort was interrupted by the arrival of their patient, who smiled tentatively at them both.

  "You're free to go, alet," Jahir said.

  "Thank you," she said. And smiled at Vasiht'h. "Ah... maybe you can walk me out?"

  Vasiht'h blinked at her owlishly, his feathered ears slicking back. "Of course."

  Her smile was shy as he fell in alongside. He had the uncomfortable feeling he was about to uncover the source of the issues that had brought her to their door.

  Politely, Jahir left them alone and went to strip the sheets from the client couch. He noted the spike of surprise through the mindline without comment and tossed the dirty linens into the hamper, running a decontaminator over the pillow and beginning on the mattress.

  When Vasiht'h returned, he said innocently, "Asked you out, did she?"

  Vasiht'h grumbled and stomped through the door to the kitchen.

  Jahir called, "She was sweet!"

  "You go out with her, then!"

  Jahir hid a smile and started making the bed for the next client.

  Case Study: The Sailorr />
  "I think this is less psychiatry and more meddling," Vasiht'h muttered. "Again."

  "You may be right," Jahir said, standing at the entrance. "Shall we leave?"

  "Nooooo," Vasiht'h said slowly. And sighed.

  So they walked under the broad arch with its decoration of shed stars trailing from a solar skiff, into a hemispherical room englobed with curved floor-to-ceiling windows. Amid the chatter of passengers awaiting their boarding calls, they spoke quietly to a steward and were escorted into an office where a surprised Asanii looked up from his tablet. He was middle-aged, more humanoid than feline, lean and focused in a dark blue uniform embroidered with the trailing stars from the arch.

  "You're here to apply for the opening?" he asked, looking from one to the other.

  "No," Jahir admitted. "We're here to ask a question of an experienced sailing master."

  Vasiht'h said, "Jahir and Vasiht'h, xenotherapists. We work—"

  "—down past the commons, I've heard of you," the man answered, mystified. "Go on, then. How can I help you?"

  "Would you hire a man who'd had a sailing accident?" Vasiht'h asked.

  The Asanii leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest, and lifted a brow. "What's this about, then? You have a candidate for me?"

  "We... might know of one, yes," Jahir said, exchanging a look with Vasiht'h. "He ran small vessels for twenty-two years between Seersana and Karaka'Ana. A bad accident put him on shore. He's come out to the starbase for a change of venue."

  "He's healed up," Vasiht'h said. "But he hasn't applied for new work. His wife sent him to us, but we haven't had any luck getting him to open up about what's holding him back."

  "We're a bit adrift," Jahir finished. "We came for advice."

  "Neither of you've had any trouble in space, eh?" the Asanii said, flicking his ears back. At their expressions, he said, "Then neither of you've been scared enough in your lives to imagine what it's like. Particularly if you're the captain. And if the ship's small... well, so much the worse. They come apart quick when they fail, small ships." His eyes lost their focus. "I've had some bad ones, I have."

  /You think.../ Vasiht'h began, the mindline tinged with the astringence of uncertainty.

  /I do,/ Jahir said firmly, making tea of that astringency. /Think of it as a referral to a more experienced practitioner./

  /If you say so,/ Vasiht'h said, but a touch of humor reached him, like honey.

  "I don't suppose you'd be willing to do a fellow sailor a favor," Jahir said. "And go out with him for a drink."

  The Asanii's eyes grew sharp again. He looked at them. "Eh? I thought you were going to ask me to give him a job."

  "We wouldn't do that," Vasiht'h said. "You don't know him."

  "But you do know ships, and you do know accidents, and frankly not all the reassurance from two ground-bound souls will convince a man who's spent twenty-two years piloting small craft that we know what we're talking about," Jahir said. "He needs to hear the stories from someone who's been there."

  "It is good, trading stories," the Asanii said. "Well, sunspit, no reason not. Haven't talked to someone new about the trade in ages. I'll forward you my card, ah? You tell him to look me up. We'll have a beer."

  "Thank you," Jahir said as Vasiht'h offered his hand palm-up.

  The Asanii covered it with his, and nodded to the Eldritch. "No trouble," he said.

  At the conclusion of yet another unproductive session, they mentioned the offer from the owner of the solar skiff enterprise on the rim. "A colleague," Jahir said. "He thought you'd want to talk shop."

  With a grunt, their patient took his leave.

  The man missed his next appointment with only a cursory note of explanation.

  "We failed this one," Vasiht'h said with a sigh. His voice was embroidered with little rain-clouds in the mindline, which Jahir brushed off vaguely until the sending between them was only a little damp with pessimism.

  "Patience," he said over his cup of coffee, reading his data tablet.

  "Do you really think we need to have experienced things to help people through them?" Vasiht'h wondered.

  Jahir set his data tablet down and looked at him over his small breakfast. "No. Obviously, or we wouldn't be in this line of work. We've helped Harat-Shar with labyrinthine amorous troubles, parents with children, workers with job problems so esoteric they had to explain them at length to us. And they've walked out of our office with lighter shoulders."

  "Then why is this one different?" Vasiht'h asked. "Why did we have to give it up?"

  "Because, arii," Jahir said, "he needed absolution, not healing. And we are not priests in the religion to which he adheres."

  Vasiht'h glanced at him sharply, but the Eldritch had already returned to his reading.

  Three weeks later, they finally heard from their grounded captain.

  "Tickets?" Jahir said, bemused.

  "Two," Vasiht'h agreed, spreading the message for the details. "On a tourist's skiff. A shot through the spindle for a spacer's view of the inside of the base, and then a skim off the top to catch a trail of passing debris. A 'jewelfall cruise.' And our man's in charge. I guess we got him a job...!"

  "He arranged that job himself, more like," Jahir said, laughing. "Well, then, arii? Shall we?"

  "I'll go schedule it now!"

  Case Study: Helplessness

  ...the devout Hinichi whose medical tests had proven him incapable of fathering children, torn between his desperate desire for a family and the religion that barred him from extraordinary measures, a religion that had given him strength and purpose all his life... he could no more turn from that faith than he could from his life, but he could not relinquish his dreams of a family, of children and grandchildren. He came to them because they could meet his eyes without flinching, could bear the anguish there, so gravely mastered so that he could remain functional. But they knew, and their patient did also, that he was dissolving out from under that mastery, and that there was nothing any of them could do about it if he could give up neither of these things that made him who he was.

  ...the woman who'd remembered loving music for as long as she had memory, who had wanted nothing more than to be a musician, and whom had proved utterly untalented despite her devoted studies, her constant attempts to improve... she came to them, and wept, and asked them for silence. They tucked a blanket around her thin shoulders and crept from the room, leaving only the ambient noises of their office to distract her from the symphonies that played in her head, and that she would never play in any other way.

  ...the Harat-Shar who loved two others; a cripple no longer able to respond to him physically and too afraid to share him, and a human who loved him and couldn't bear to admit that love for another man, and another species... on arrival he begged them to take his dreams from him; in vain they explained that to do so would be to disable him, to disorder his mind. He refused to listen. When they entered his dreams that first session, they understood why, for they were filled with loneliness and the inexorable sensation of being ripped apart. His soul, asleep, was nothing but a long, unfinished scream. They guided his dreams in other directions, vigilant, grieving.

  ...the woman who worked on the starbase, who loved a Fleet officer from whom she was parted for years at a time... she said to them, exhausted, "We can give up the work that fulfills us... or give up the love that completes us. Either way we are condemned. But... I miss her so much." She found peace in their company, speaking of her work or the news of the day, but the pain central to her life, around which all other weaknesses and stresses revolved, none of them could resolve and she refused to broach.

  ...the widower who made his first appointment with them eighteen years after the death of his wife, who had raised all three children and seen them into adulthood and never healed from his loss... he never spoke during their sessions, only went quietly to their couch and stretched himself upon it, and closed his eyes, and slept.

  Week after week, they came, and slept or t
alked or did not talk. Week after week, Jahir and Vasiht'h received them, and stood vigil to their dreams, faced their depressions without judgment, ministered to the pains that shaped them, and could or would not be removed. And when it wore them down, Vasiht'h found Jahir in the bedroom and sat beside him and silently wrapped his dark-furred arms around his taller friend; and Jahir bent until he could rest his brow against the other's forelock, and set a hand, flat and open, on his back. And there, they took comfort in that they could comfort one another, if they could comfort no one else.

  Case Study: The Harat-Shar

  "So, Keshya-alet, is it?"

  "That's right," the Harat-Shariin woman said, leaning on the couch and smiling at him. It was a very Harat-Shariin smile, hinting at happy, lascivious thoughts.

  /I get the strange the feeling she is not here for therapy,/ Vasiht'h murmured through the mindline.

  Jahir ignored him. "Keshya-alet, then." He glanced at the copy of the intake form she'd filled out on his data tablet and tried not to notice her watching him. "Why are you here?"

  She continued to stare, lost in her own private reverie.

  "Alet?" Jahir said again.

  "Oh!" she exclaimed. "Sorry. Ah, I am here for a therapy session. I filled out the form...?"

  Jahir tried not to exchange glances with Vasiht'h; technically he didn't need to, since he could sense his partner's bemusement through the mindline. It tasted like that peanut butter liqueur they'd had once. Confusing.

  "We've reviewed the form carefully," Jahir said. "According to your responses, alet... there's nothing wrong."

  "Oh but there is!" she exclaimed. "I have a thing for unavailable men!"

  There was a long silence in the room. Vasiht'h and Jahir looked at their patient. Their patient stared... at Jahir. Happily. Almost indulgently. After a moment, she even purred a little.