A moment later Flora was on the line.
“Hello, Mikel. I’m afraid you’re going to have to do whatever Casey asks,” she said in a thick, slow voice.
“ ‘Afraid’?”
“He—he has shared information that I cannot, at present, divulge,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Because he—he does not wish me to,” she replied. “But you will cooperate with him, yes?”
This too was not the Flora he knew. But Mikel knew better than to question her. Not because she was always right, but because there was no changing her mind once it was set.
“Of course,” Mikel told her. “I’ll do whatever you need, Flora.”
“Thank you, Mikel.”
He was immediately aware of—and concerned by—a couple of slight catches he had noticed in her voice, brief hesitations. She was one of the most certain people he had ever known. Were those catches natural, or was she trying to signal him that all was not well?
“Before you go,” Mikel asked casually, “how is my find behaving?”
But Flora was not available to answer. Casey Skett was back on the call.
“Your find is fine,” Casey informed him. “It’s under control.”
“You’ve evidently been promoted,” Mikel said.
“I could not resist the compensation package,” Skett said. “And you, Dr. Jasso—you are a valued reallocated asset.”
“Meaning?”
“That my promotion means you are no longer working for Flora but for me. And the favor I need is for you to go to the site where fire erupted from the ice.”
Mikel didn’t ask how he knew. The Group has access to satellites monitoring every area of the Galderkhaani continent. “Do you know what caused it?”
“Something in the past, I believe,” he answered. “Or rather, something that began in the past and rippled through to the present. That process is one of the things I wish to understand.”
At least he wasn’t cagey about answering. “I have a broken wrist,” Mikel said.
“You still have one hand that works? That’s all you should need.”
“True, if I could get out there,” Mikel said. “But I’ve created problems down here—lots of them. No one is going to do me any favors.”
“Find a way to compel them,” Skett replied bluntly. “They’re already trying to understand it—but from a distance, like the safe and incurious academics they are.”
“How do you—”
“I saw it in a report filed by Dr. Bundy,” Skett said. “I have resources too, Dr. Jasso. Aren’t you curious about it as well?”
“Of course I am,” Mikel said. “But I’m grounded, and frankly, I don’t like being under the whip hand of someone who was until today a custodian, in effect.”
“Who pretended to be a custodian, in effect,” Skett said. “And spare me the hauteur. You took orders from Flora easily enough.”
“She earned my respect. You haven’t even begun.”
“Dr. Jasso, pride has no place in my work. You will do as I ask and that is that. However, I assure you, my reasons are not hostile even if my methods seem to have been. Inform these scientists of yours that you can show them what happened out there. Assure them they will never figure it out just using instruments, but that you can explain it.”
“Just by going out there?”
“Correct,” Skett said. “By going out there and witnessing an experiment that I will be performing from here. Dr. Jasso, you know there’s more to this phenomenon than geology. You were down there, among ruins. Don’t bother to deny it—Flora told me everything.”
“She couldn’t have, Casey. She didn’t know everything. That’s what reports are for.”
“Educate me,” Skett said.
“Why? If you want my help, put Flora back in charge and tell me what you know.”
“I know that Flora and her entire staff will die if you don’t go,” Skett said. “I’ll tell you what: you can keep your secrets for now. Just get out there. You’ll want to share with me in due course.”
Mikel hesitated. Skett was right about one thing: the issue was Galderkhaan, not Group politics. He didn’t seem to have many options.
“What are the risks?” Mikel asked.
“They are abundant, but you’ve taken risks before.”
“I have, but I need a good reason to go out in temperatures that are negative thirteen degrees Fahrenheit and falling,” Mikel said, glancing at the Halley VI weather app on his phone. He wasn’t being entirely truthful: he would risk a great deal to be able to go back out there.
“I already gave you the reason,” Skett said with growing impatience.
“And I’ve agreed,” Mikel said. “But I need to come up with a really persuasive argument to get permission to use Halley equipment.”
“Two words should do it,” Skett said. “Actionable information.”
“I just said, they have their procedures here—”
“And they have funding to consider as well,” Skett said. “They have to produce results or the spigot runs dry. Now go and get this done, Dr. Jasso.”
It was a simple but possibly effective argument. Among the twenty-three scientists, there had to be one who would back him.
“Put Flora back on,” Mikel demanded. Then he added, “Please.”
A moment later Flora was back on the phone. “I’m here, Mikel.” The echo told him she was on speaker.
“Are you all right with this?”
“In theory, yes. I would have preferred more time for preparation, but Skett is running this operation at the moment.”
“Flora, who is Casey Skett? Why is he doing any of this? Why now?”
“It is not just now,” Skett said angrily, grabbing the phone and taking the call private. “My god, Dr. Jasso—it has been this way for centuries. The Group—do you think they are this benevolent research organization funded by the scions of the old East India Company?”
“So I’ve been told,” Mikel said cautiously.
“It’s a lie, Dr. Jasso.”
“Let me hear that from Flora,” Mikel replied.
“I’m afraid she doesn’t know everything either,” Skett said. “Now enough talk. Just get to the site. You will understand better when you see what kind of power we are exploring.”
“We? Who else is involved in this?”
“There is nothing more to discuss,” Skett said. “Call me when you are there.”
“I need to rest,” Mikel said. “I’ve been going nonstop for days.”
There was a brief silence. “Take three hours, then go. I will expect your call.”
Mikel heard a scream.
“Flora?” he yelled into the phone.
“Mikel, be care—”
But Casey had already terminated the call.
CHAPTER 3
This was not a dream. It was not a vision. All of this was real, and the physical stimuli were an assault on the mind of Caitlin O’Hara: the unfamiliar sights and smells, the loose touch of the clothing, the sudden and unfamiliar sense of agoraphobia—she wanted to be home—and her inability to will these things away . . . the onslaught drove her into a swift, ungovernable panic attack.
She struggled, she rose, she moved, and she remembered little of it until now.
Now? What is “now”? she wondered with considered clarity that was almost worse than the raw panic. What is “is”? She was obviously in ancient Galderkhaan in a body that was not her own. From the bracelet, she assumed it was Bayarma’s body, the mother of Bayarmii.
Standing with her back to the tall, powerful woman who had restrained her, Caitlin breathed slowly and pointed the first two fingers of each hand at the ground. Her vision was sharper, the smell of fish and jasmine filled her nostrils, the air was cool to the point of chilly a
nd free of pollen, and there were no mechanical sounds anywhere in the world around her, her arms and fingers felt different. The sky was a rich blue, the clouds the same as her own time, and there was a thin tendril of black smoke that came from somewhere in the distance.
But she did not feel the one thing she wanted desperately to feel. She could not find the active stones in her own time, and the tiles here appeared to be quiescent. Without them, she did not know how to return to her own time. The one other occasion she was here—protecting souls in her time from aggressive souls in Galderkhaan—she was disembodied, a spirit, a conduit for energy. Caitlin felt none of that now.
Because the tiles are all in harmony and balance, she thought. Vol has not yet activated the Source. Who knows how many years—or weeks or days—until he does.
Panic was replaced by helplessness. Plugging into the earth calmed her and she somehow managed to remain calm. Perhaps it was the balmy air, cool and refreshing, with the salty smell of a nearby sea. Maybe it was this body, which wasn’t her own; it didn’t seem to want to panic. It didn’t seem to understand, even, what that was.
Caitlin was glad for all of that because she couldn’t afford to lose control again. She did not know if there were psychologists here—there didn’t seem to be a word for one, she realized, as she thought in Galderkhaani. The closest she came was galdani—a physician who heals with a kind of empathic energy. But she imagined that there were prisons and hospitals and she did not want to end up in either.
Being physically present in Galderkhaan felt different from being here in spirit. In her previous experiences with the Galderkhaani, Caitlin had felt like a hitchhiker. With Maanik, with the other children, she was not alive in a foreign body but merely observing through their eyes. Eavesdropping. This was not like that. She was inhabiting, controlling, this woman’s body. The chronic numbness in Caitlin’s hip, from childbirth, was gone. She looked at her fingers, saw the whorls of her fingerprints. The encroaching farsightedness, though slight, was also gone. She did experience a little difficulty breathing, however.
No, she realized suddenly. It wasn’t difficulty. It was simply different. Either her lung capacity was less or the oxygen content was diminished.
As she continued to take stock—quickly, intellectually, like when she was an aid worker checking her gear before boarding a truck or helicopter—she realized that her arms were shorter, fingers more slender, but both were stronger. Her upper arms were toned, bronzed, fit, either from whatever work Bayarma did or from speaking in Galderkhaani with the constant superlative gestures that gave depth and nuance to every spoken word and phrase.
Caitlin noticed all this as the woman continued to hold her supportively, gently, despite the obvious strength in her big hands.
The woman asked if she could let Caitlin go. Caitlin indicated that she was all right now. Her captor finally released her and took a step back. Caitlin made sure she could stand on her own, then turned slowly and looked behind her. As she gazed at that strange, alien face, the flesh ruddy bronze with oddly elongated gold eyes, Caitlin fought very hard not to freak out again.
This is real. I am here.
But becoming agitated would not help her get home—if that were even possible—and she did not know how much time she had. If she perished with Galderkhaan, what would happen to her soul?
They spoke, Caitlin gathering her thoughts, not remembering what she said after she said it—she was still trying to find the tiles, to feel comfortable in this body. She continued to breathe slowly. There was a pool of water to her left. She extended two fingers toward the ground near it. She closed her eyes and, through the pool, tried to connect to any of the waters around New York. She did not feel her soul reaching outward as she had when she was on the rooftop and used the harbor to find Yokane, the descended Priest living in the city. She pushed her fingers hard, curled them, tried to pull something, anything, from the water. She heard the sound of the sea nearby, but could not feel it. She pictured her body lying in Washington Square Park—just that—and attempted to return to it, to the moment she fell. There had been firefighters, flame, water from hoses.
Caitlin felt nothing. She sought the bodies that had been buried centuries before in the potter’s field under the park. Again, nothing.
Of course, she thought with rising horror. I can’t reach them because those bodies have not yet lived and died. Manhattan and its waters—perhaps they’re somewhere else on the globe in this era, nearer to the equator as they once were. There was no way of knowing.
My body has not yet been created, she thought with true horror. But then how did her soul exist? And not just her soul, but her memories. She thought about her son and tried to use that to get home. She imagined Jacob in their apartment. He was not born yet in this time, but his spirit lived strong inside Caitlin. That should help . . . it had to help.
It didn’t. Once again, there was no vibration, no sense of anything beyond her fingertips other than the unfamiliar Antarctic air, the distant cries of seabirds, the receding sound of leathery flaps from the airship not far, the crashing of waves.
“You seem better now,” the other woman said.
Caitlin nodded tightly. They spoke some more, she gestured as they spoke, she confirmed whose body she had . . . “borrowed.” Caitlin definitely was not better but she had to find a way to appear so. She did that for her patients sometimes, when she had problems of her own and was not quite ready to hear those of others: she compartmentalized, and she had to do so now. She allowed herself to submit to the present . . . this present, not her own present, millennia hence. She relaxed her fingers.
Caitlin knew she would have to learn more about her surroundings . . . and, most importantly, what was holding her here. Had she flashed here from the tower where she had faced Pao and Rensat? Or was that in the future? Or the past? Were the tiles of that structure binding her to this place?
If so, why can’t I feel them?
It was a struggle to remain focused, to try and prioritize.
They were talking about Caitlin’s home, about her having come from the north. The psychiatrist found herself doing what she always did, what challenged Ben, concerned Barbara, occasionally shocked Anita: she was telling the truth, regardless of the consequences. Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea.
Meanwhile, the woman in leather and silver regarded her quizzically. She returned to Caitlin’s name, which she had provided just moments before.
“Cai-tah-lin Oh-ha-rayaah,” the woman said thoughtfully. “The name and inflection are unfamiliar to me.”
I am not surprised, Caitlin thought. The language will not be created for tens of thousands of years.
“As I said, I am not from around here,” Caitlin replied.
“The bracelet,” Lasha said accusingly. “Perhaps it is stolen?”
“No,” Caitlin replied. “I—I would never do that. Maybe I am Bayarma.”
“Ah, so now you are two people!” Lasha said, holding up a pair of fingers, one on each hand. “Maybe you are a flendro as well!”
“There is no need to be insulting,” Qala cautioned.
Lasha grumped back a step.
“Tell me about your home in the north,” Qala said.
“I—I can’t remember much,” Caitlin lied. She didn’t want to alienate the tall woman who seemed intent on actually helping her. It was better to buy time, try and find out when she was, relative to the end of Galderkhaan. She looked at the cloth wrappings on her feet. They were bound with leather strips attached to a wooden sole. The edges were scuffed, old. She looked at her fingernails. They were worn, chipped. She could be a laborer of some kind.
“Do you wish to see a physician?” Qala asked. “There is one on my airship.”
“No, thank you,” Caitlin replied, gesturing sweetly. She didn’t want to end up a guinea pig. She touched the bracelet. “This girl, Bayarmii.
I should try to find her.”
“As you wish,” the Standor said. “Then I will leave you to Lasha—provided he promises not to noose you.”
“I am a gentle man, my companion will tell you so.” He wagged a threatening finger at Caitlin. “But she must swear on the scrolls not to misbehave. Can she guarantee that?”
“I am fine now,” Caitlin assured them. “It was the shock of waking in this strange place.”
“Or . . . it could be overheated fish,” Lasha said accusatorily. “That could be the cause.”
The Standor made a face at him. “Every time I see you, Lasha, you blame all the ills of Galderkhaan on fish or fishers.”
“Not all,” Lasha scowled back. “If you want to know whom I really blame it on—” Lasha began, then bit off the rest of the sentence. He looked around at the crowds still hovering in the shadows. “Well . . . the fish are the innocent heirs of poor decisions made . . . elsewhere.”
“Another Khaana beater? Will you also blame the government for the way the air blows?”
“You don’t think cloud farming and airships alter the currents?”
“Please, no politics or science,” Qala said, raising her hand. “I have enough of that aloft, where I cannot escape the mutterings of the crew. I do not wish to speak of our ruling body.”
“Or Femora Azha?” Lasha said, challenging Qala.
At that, Caitlin became alert. “I know that name,” she said. Caitlin had to control herself from overreacting at the mention of the name. She knew Azha too well. It was that Galderkhaani’s ascended soul that had directed her to Pao and Rensat, to the confrontation that had brought her here.
“I’m not surprised you’ve heard it,” Lasha said. “The name is whispered everywhere in Galderkhaan.”
“It will not be here and now,” Qala said. She fixed a critical gaze at Lasha. “Criticize the fish if you will, speculate on shifting air currents if you must, but as a Khaana appointee I will not hear the rest.” Her eyes shifted to Caitlin. “I wish you well. I am due in Aankhaan.”
The Sound of Seas Page 4