“Yes, I think so,” Vari said.
“I wonder if there’s a way to teach them what normal vision should be for her,” Dr. Jula said.
“I doubt we could teach them,” Vari said, speaking slowly. “But they might be able to figure it out on their own, eventually.”
“That would be great, but in the overall scheme of things I have to say that strange and confusing sight is better than no sight at all. My only question is, how am I going to sort all of this out enough to actually use it?”
Vari thought about that as she watched Dr. Jula turn back to the vid screen. After examining the latest scans and finding no differences between them, she began entering commands into the system. Within moments she had a result.
“The nano-bots are finished,” she said. “I don’t think they ran out of material though. If they’re smart enough to give her eyesight, they’re smart enough to factor in how much material they had available for the task.”
“I agree,” Vari said. “Ria, when you control your empathy, you can do it selectively, right? Not just off and on, I mean.”
A wave of guilt washed through her because she hadn’t told Vari she no longer had that ability. She ignored it and answered the question. “Yes, I’d go crazy if I couldn’t.”
“I don’t understand,” Dr. Jula said.
“If I want to help someone with their grief, for example, I need to feel it first. If I open myself up to all the emotions around me in order to feel one person’s grief, it’s too much. I have to choose what I want to focus on, and block the rest.” She turned her face toward Vari. “Do you think the same thing will work for my vision?”
“I’ve no idea, but it’s worth a try.”
“I need to start with something I’m at least a little familiar with, and for me that means infrared.”
“That makes sense,” Vari said. Dr. Jula arched a brow and Vari laughed. “Sorry, Niri. It makes sense to us.”
Dr. Jula smiled, then turned her attention back to Ria. They fell quiet as they watched her sit motionless for a couple of minutes. Then she slowly opened her eyes and smiled.
“It works,” she whispered as she looked around slowly. She saw a figure standing to the left side of the bed. That had to be Dr. Jula. Turning to the other side, she another figure leaning toward her before dabbing gently at her cheeks. Vari.
Until that moment, Ria hadn’t realized she was crying. She reached up and hugged her sister tightly, her entire body shaking. She’d done her best to accept that she was blind, and would likely remain that way. She hadn’t even allowed herself to hope that the nano-bots would restore her vision. She’d just hoped they didn’t make anything worse.
“I’m sorry they didn’t give you normal vision, Ria,” Vari said.
“Don’t be,” Ria said. “This is enough. More than enough. I’ve got no complaints.”
“Can you describe to me what you see?” Dr. Jula asked.
“Heat signatures,” Ria said. “If you hold your hand up, I can see that it’s a hand by the shape. It’s bright red and yellow which is my brain’s way of interpreting the temperature of different objects. I can’t tell you what color anything is, and I can’t see the pattern that I know is on this shirt I’m wearing. But I can see.”
“That sounds like something to celebrate,” Vari said. “How would you like to get this thing off your head and go have dinner?”
“I’d love it, and I’d love it,” Ria said, smiling. “I didn’t eat much at lunch so I’m hungry anyway.”
Dr. Jula began removing the neuro-cap which wasn’t a complicated process and only took a couple of minutes. Then she and Vari studied the last scan taken by the device while Ria put her shoes on.
“Is it still the same?” she asked when they were finished.
“Yes, it is,” Vari replied.
“Ria,” Dr. Jula said, coming to stand in front of her. “I want you to let me know if you have any changes, pain, discomfort, dizziness, headaches, anything at all. All right?”
“I will, Dr. Jula, I promise.”
“Good,” Dr. Jula said. “Don’t worry, Vari, I plan to forward the new data to Jasan as soon as I finish putting it all together.”
“Hari kna, Niri,” Vari said.
“Rokna li,” Dr. Jula replied. She picked up the cane from the bedside table and put it in Ria’s hand, then watched as Vari led Ria out of the infirmary.
Chapter 14
Ria sat cross legged on her bed, eyes closed, hands relaxed on her knees. She’d been trying for more than a week to separate the different wavelengths she saw in an effort to use them the way she used infrared, but so far she wasn’t having any success. It had been so easy to shift into seeing infrared that she’d thought the others would be simple too. Now she realized that infrared had been easy because she’d looked through infrared glasses and knew what to look for. While Vari could explain to her what radio waves, gamma waves, or ultraviolet might look like, it wasn’t the same as knowing and being able to picture it in her mind.
The problem was that when she let herself see what was now her normal vision there was so much all at once that it made her dizzy and a little sick. She’d tried to pick one thing and focus on it, like the strobing lights, but she could only manage it for a few minutes before it gave her one doozy of a headache.
This was going to be her last try for the day, she decided. She really didn’t want another headache. Especially not today. This afternoon Lanok was going to help her start working on her tiketa again.
It was one thing to walk along a corridor using a cane and infrared vision. It was an altogether different thing to leap into the air, spin around and flip. Her sense of balance wasn't the same, so she’d reluctantly asked Lanok for help. She was nervous about it, but determined to try her best.
She pushed her wandering thoughts away, breathed in long and deep, then opened her eyes. She frowned, tilted her head, and blinked. “Huh.” She closed her eyes for a moment, opened them again. “Oookay,” she said softly as she tried, and failed, to come up with even the tiniest inkling of what she was seeing.
“Ria?” Pandora asked, drawn away from her entertainment vid. “What’s happening?”
“Now that is a very good question, Pandora.”
“You separated your vision?” Pandora asked excitedly.
“Apparently,” she replied slowly, frowning in thought as she stared at…well…whatever it was she was staring at. “Maybe. Could be.”
“What do you see?”
“Everything is black except for a large ring of…light,” Ria said hesitantly.
“Ring of light?”
“It’s like long, feathery tendrils of light flaring into blackness, surrounding a solid circle of…well…blackness. The light is mostly white but the longer I look at it, the more colors I see.” Ria waited for Pandora to say something, but she didn’t. “Any idea what it could be?”
“None whatsoever,” Pandora admitted.
“Me neither.”
“Walk over to whatever it is you’re looking at. Then I can tell you what it is.”
“Good idea,” Ria said. She got off the bed, reached for the cane leaning against the bedside table and crossed the room toward the object. Her cane hit the wall and she frowned. “What’s here, Pandora?”
“Nothing but bare wall.”
Ria raised one hand toward the object, but even when she knew her hand should be within her sight, she couldn’t see it. She brought her hand toward her eyes, then covered her eyes with it. She still saw the strange ring of light, but not her hand.
“That’s disturbing.”
“You can’t see your hand?”
“Nope. It’s like it’s not even there.”
“Let’s go out into the corridor.”
“Okay, but I can’t actually see anything else so you’ll need to play seeing-eye Sylph for me.”
“All right.” She settled on Ria’s shoulder and they left Ria’s room. “Still see it?” Pandora a
sked once they were in the corridor.
“Yes, straight ahead.”
“Straight ahead is empty guestrooms.”
“Since they’re empty, might as well check.”
“Agreed,” Pandora said. A minute later they were standing at the farthest wall of the guestroom opposite Ria’s, and she still saw the same ring of light.
“Obviously I’m seeing through walls and furniture. I wonder if this is the x-ray vision Vari told me about.”
“If so, wouldn’t you see more than one circle of light?”
“No idea. What’s on the other side of these rooms?”
“I don’t think it matters,” Pandora said thoughtfully. “I think we should go to the observation deck.”
“You think I’m seeing something outside the ship.”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“If that’s the case, the only way you’ll be able to see whatever I see is if we have a direct line of sight. We won’t get that on the observation deck.”
“Why not?”
“It’s on the other side of the ship.”
“Hmmm…so it is,” Pandora said. “We’ll have to go to the bridge, then.”
“I don’t think we’re allowed to just wander onto the bridge, Pandora. Well, you might be, but I’m not.”
Pandora was silent a moment. Just before Ria asked her if something was wrong, she spoke. “I just asked Vari to meet us up there.”
“All right.” Ria might have argued against interrupting Vari in whatever she was doing, but she really wanted to know what she was seeing. So she turned around and, using the cane, made her way out of the guestroom and up the corridor to the elevator.
“Pandora says you can see something outside of infrared,” Vari greeted her the moment the elevator doors opened.
“Yeah, I just don’t know what it is. Oh, and hello, Vari.”
Vari laughed, a sound that Ria still wasn’t used to hearing. “Hi, Ria. Now tell me what you see.” Ria explained as Vari guided her up the corridor to the bridge.
“A ring of light?” Vari asked, her tone thoughtful. “Is it a solid ring?”
“No, it’s long feathery tendrils, like rays coming off the sun except that they surround a black circle.”
“Which direction?” Vari asked.
Ria pointed to the right, so Vari led her down a short set of steps, then across the bridge and right up to the viewport on the right. “The colors are a lot brighter from here, though it’s still mostly white.”
“Hang on,” Vari said. “Nia?”
Ria continued to stare at the strange rays of light while Vari spoke with the woman no one else could see or hear.
“Nia says it’s a planet, but I can’t see it,” Vari said, frowning. “Declan?”
“We’re on it, Miraku, give us just a moment please,” he said, then bent over a vid terminal and spoke softly to the man working there. “How big does it appear to be, Ria?”
Ria thought a moment. “About as big as a full moon looks from Jasan. Maybe a little bigger.”
Declan turned back to the vid screen for a few moments, then straightened. “Our sensors show nothing of that size, in that direction, anywhere close to our position.”
“Rajne,” Vari hissed.
“We’re all under Blind Sight,” Declan said. “Don’t worry.”
Ria felt her sister go still for a long moment. “Why?”
“Because we picked up signals consistent with Doftle transmissions a couple of hours ago.”
“That’s a Doftle planet hidden with Blind Sight,” Vari said.
“So it would seem,” Declan said.
“Not that this is the most important issue at hand, but does anyone know what it means that I can see light coming off that planet?” Ria asked.
“I think gravity is causing the light you see,” Vari replied.
“Gravity?” Ria asked in surprise. “How? I didn’t know gravity gave off light.”
“It doesn’t,” Vari said. “Put simply, “Put simply, what you’re seeing is the quantum fluctuations caused by deflection of light waves by the gravity of that planet. You know, as in Sarin, Sorin, and Sabin Vulpiran’s Theory of Special Relativity that we all had to learn about when we were children. A man of Earth named Einstein worked it out, too.”
“Huh,” Ria said, unable to think of a single way that could possibly be helpful. “Well, at least it’s pretty.”
“It’s more than just pretty,” Vari said. “Between you and Nia I think we’ll be able to see any planet the Doftles try to hide.”
“Nia sees through Blind Sight,” Ria said. “How does my ability to see this weird gravity deflecting light help?”
“When Nia sees a planet hidden by Blind Sight, she can’t tell that it’s hidden from the rest of us. To her, it looks like any other planet. There’s no way for her to know she’s seeing something we can’t see unless there’s something unusual about it, like that Doftle ship sitting in one place, waiting. She and I would have to compare everything we both see as we travel in order to spot something hidden by Blind Sight, and that’s just not possible.
“But, the Doftles need worlds that have gravity, and you can pick those out. When you see one, Nia can confirm if it’s a planet, and if the rest of us can’t see it, we know we’ve found something that the Doftles are attempting to hide.”
“That’s not a bad thing,” Ria said, nodding.
“No, it’s not,” Vari agreed. “Declan, I think we need to get a closer look at that planet.”
“I agree,” Declan said. “The question is, how? We can’t risk detection. Our mission is too critical.”
“We can send the location of this planet back to Jasan,” Jay said. “They can use the third Key to send out a battleship to investigate.”
“That’s a long journey to make without a hint of what they’ll find,” Vari said. “We have to know what’s there before we can do anything else.” Vari looked at Declan steadily. “This is important, Declan. We need to discover what’s going on there.”
Declan nodded, understanding perfectly. Vari was in possession of information the rest of them didn't have, and she’d just let him know this was important. This was no longer a matter of whether they should investigate this planet. It was just a matter of how.
“The Hilgaria carries cutters, doesn’t it?” Vari asked.
“Yes, three, and they’re equipped with Blind Sight too,” Declan replied. “But cutters aren’t surveyors.”
“I understand that, but I don’t want to explore, I just want to know what the Doftles are hiding on that planet.”
Declan stared at Vari for a long moment. “You think there’re factories there. Doftle factories.”
“I think it’s a possibility.”
“If there are factories, we can’t do anything about it ourselves. But we can tell Jasan and, as Jay suggested, they can use the extra Key to send one ship, at least.” Declan fell silent for a long moment. “It’s better than nothing.”
Ria stood silently in front of the viewport watching the rays of light flare out around the planet while the relative silence on the bridge rose to a controlled roar. An hour later it seemed everything was set.
She felt a light touch on her arm and knew it was Vari before her sister spoke. “All three ships are now hiding behind a large moon with Blind Sight activated. We should be safe here. The Hilgaria is launching a cutter. It’ll go just inside the outer range of that planet’s Blind Sight, but it won’t enter the planet’s atmosphere. That’s close enough to scan the planet for life forms, cities, and factories, and transmit visuals.”
Ria nodded, glad Vari was explaining what was happening as she didn't have a clue. She’d started to leave a few times, knowing she had no place here, but something had held her back.
They waited in silence for several minutes. Ria decided she’d stared at the unchanging image of darkness and light long enough and switched her vision to infrared. It wouldn’t allow her to
see the images on the vid screen, but at least she could see her surroundings, after a fashion.
“Factories,” Vari hissed suddenly.
“Zerua gainetik,” Declan exclaimed. “I’ve never seen factories that big, not even in the Mach System.”
“What are they making?” Vari wondered.
“Ships,” Jay said suddenly. “Look, right there.”
“Those are ships all right,” Vari agreed. “Fighters?”
“It’s hard to say for certain from this angle, but that would be my guess,” Jay agreed.
Silence fell for a few minutes. “What are those?” Vari asked.
“Domes,” Declan replied. “Housing, perhaps?”
“There’re tens of thousands of them,” Vari said. “If they’re housing, then they must be for the factory workers. If we destroy this planet, we’ll be killing a lot of people.”
“Talon, ask the pilot to descend to a lower altitude. I’d like to see the lifeforms down there if he can track any.”
It took all of Ria’s will not to react when Declan mentioned Talon’s name since Vari was holding one of her hands. She hoped it was a voice link only, then told herself firmly that it didn’t matter.
“There’s a storm moving into the area,” an unfamiliar voice said.
“It’s a big one, too,” Kai said. “And it’s moving in fast.”
“We’ll have time for him to finish this pass,” Declan said. “Then he can move to the other side of the planet if we need more data.”
“Agreed,” Talon said, his voice a little tinny through the speakers.
“The pilot passed the domes completely,” Vari said after another long silence. “He went in low enough that we can see the trees of a forest. Good images, too. He’ll have to loop back around to the domes.”
“What’s that?” another unfamiliar voice asked.
“Men,” Vari said. “Big men, and they’re chasing something. Or someone.”
“Talon,” Declan said, “we’d like to know who or what those men are chasing down there.”
Ria's Visions (Hearts of ICARUS Book 6) Page 19