A slight vibration tremored under his soles. Kendi instantly halted. The earth was shaking. The kangaroo shifted back into falcon shape and took off screaming for the skies. Tiny stones danced around Kendi’s toes and his bones vibrated. Before he could react further, the ground ahead of him cracked and split with a sound like a hundred thunderstorms. Earth dropped down into the crevice, as if the supporting ground had vanished. Kendi backpedaled, heart pounding, adrenaline singing through his veins. He should leave immediately, but letting go of the Dream took a certain amount of concentration, impossible to achieve when the earth beneath his feet was crumbing into nothing. Kendi managed to spin and sprint. The crumbling ground followed him. Earth loosened beneath his soles, and Kendi forced himself to put on an extra burst of speed.
He felt the minds as he ran.
Thousands of mental voices cried out as the earth shifted and fell away. Each particle of earth, each stone and pebble, was Kendi’s symbol for the minds that made up the Dream, and so many of them plummeted into the cracked ground. Kendi had no time to wonder what was happening to them. He could only run.
The tremors stopped. Kendi slowed his pace and cautiously turned. Earth and air lay perfectly still. The falcon circled in the sky above Kendi’s head. He caught his breath in stunned amazement. About fifty paces behind Kendi stretched a wide canyon, one so wide, Kendi could barely make out the opposite side.
Warily, Kendi crept on hands and knees to the edge of the canyon and peered downward. Nausea rocked him, and he flung himself flat on his stomach so he could feel the solid ground beneath him. The bottom was far away, and it was a seething black. Kendi couldn’t tear his eyes away. The canyon had no floor. Instead, a roiling blackness shifted and quivered. Uncertain tendrils crawled up the canyon walls like hungry tentacles before sliding back down again. The smell of rotting meat and moist graveyard dirt wafted upward. Then a long, low wail made of a hundred voices keened upward. The sound tore across Kendi’s nerves like icy fingernails. Kendi clapped his hands over his ears and forced himself to roll away from the canyon’s edge. The wail and smell faded, but the canyon remained.
Kendi lay panting on his back. The heat pressed down on him, and he let it bake the fear away. He could never cross that canyon, even if he could manage to create a bridge long enough. Not with that reaching, wailing blackness below.
“In the name of all life,” he whispered to the sky, “what is it?”
He rolled to a sitting position at what he hoped was a safe distance from the canyon. This was not good. Travel and distance in the Dream were based completely on the perceptions of the Silent. This meant that Kendi would not be able to talk to any Silent who, in Kendi’s mind, lay on the other side of the canyon. Kendi’s forehead furrowed. The canyon did not exist. There was nothing ahead of him but rough Outback terrain.
The canyon remained.
Voices of other Silent babbled on the breeze, and Kendi knew they were experiencing the same thing he was. He considered trying to contact someone to ask if they knew what had happened and why, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he stretched his senses, searching for signs of the boy.
Nothing. Kendi drummed nervous fingers on his thigh. That didn’t seem right. The canyon was still there, which meant that the person who had created it must still be in the Dream. If the boy-Kendi’s nephew-was causing the problem, he should still be in the Dream, and Kendi should be able to feel his thought patterns. But he felt nothing.
Kendi picked up a handful of dirt and let it trickle hypnotically through his fingers. They had to find the boy and Kendi had to know if he was a relative. The idea that his family was still out there somewhere, treated as property and denied their place as free citizens used to make him frantic with worry. Over time, that had become a part of him, a desire carved into his soul like a stream carving its bed through rock. Kendi reached for another handful of earth, and his hand closed over something hard and cylindrical. Startled, he looked down.
It was an iron bar.
“Tattoos! Color yourself with a tatoo!”
“Come see my dresses! You, madam-I have just the thing for you!”
A crate of chickens clucked passers-by and a baker’s pans clattered as she set out her sweet-smelling wares. A light haze over the sun kept the air balmy and pleasant. In the center of an intersection stood a marble statue of Premier Yuganovi, leader of the Unity. Ara stood out of the flow of traffic, ignoring merchants and scanning faces. Somewhere out in that mess were Trish, Pitr, Gretchen, and Harenn, all armed with Kendi’s composite. She wished they could show the boy’s picture around and make inquiries, but she didn’t want word to reach the kid that someone was looking for him. He’d probably drop into a hole somewhere and they’d never find him.
Ara flicked another glance at the image on her ocular implant. Kendi’s composite was good, and it shouldn’t be hard to miss this kid. On the other hand, they were talking about a city of several million people, thousands of whom were in the marketplace. Ara tried to scan the faces in her immediate vicinity without appearing to stare. Even though there was a good chance the computer would spot the boy before she did, Ara couldn’t help but look. Around her swirled the sounds and smells of the crowded market. Meat sizzled on open-air grills, chains clattered on old-fashioned pedal bicycles, and people shouted to one another in a cacophony Ara would have found delightful if she hadn’t been so worried.
It wasn’t just that the boy’s power had been proven beyond any doubt or that Ara would have to decide whether he should live or die. She was also worried about Kendi. He had spent two weeks in a Unity prison and it was clear the experience had been horrifying. And in behavior that came straight from a psychology textbook, he refused to discuss it.
And as Irfan said, “The real world becomes the Dream,” Ara mused.
Maybe Ben could worm it out of him. She’d have to talk to him later about it. Right now, she had a job to do.
Ara patrolled the market, quickly establishing a pattern. She would find a vantage point and examine passing faces for several minutes, then move on to another spot. After three hours of steady walking, she paused to wolf down something bland and crunchy wrapped in soft bread for supper. Her calves and feet ached from all the walking, and she was sure bruises were forming on various parts of her body from elbows and knees of passers-by. One of the disadvantages of being short was that people tended to run over you if you weren’t careful. It was also damned difficult to get a good look at faces without standing on tiptoe.
Her implant flashed for her attention. Ara jerked her head to the right, and her implant drew a red outline around a figure just up the street. She caught her breath. Facial features, eyes, hair. He was even slouching against a wall like Kendi had reported. Ara tapped her earpiece.
“I’ve found our friend,” she subvocalized. “I’m looking right at him.”
“Where are you, Mother?” Pitr’s voice replied in her ear.
Ara looked around. She had no idea. There were no street signs or landmarks. “Not sure. There are a lot of people selling clothes and cloth around here, and I just passed several electronics merchants. I saw a statue of the Premier a while ago.”
“Hold on,” Pitr said. “Let me link up with Ben so we can figure out where everyone is.”
“I was just down where you are now, Mother,” Trish piped up. “You’re about four blocks from the red light district. I can be there in twenty minutes, if the crowd lets me.”
“I’ve got you all triangulated,” Ben’s voice broke in from the ship. “Gretchen’s closest. Go to your ocular implant, Gretchen, and I’ll overlay directions for you.”
Brief pause.
“Got ‘em” Gretchen said. “Give me ten minutes.”
“Hold it,” Ara said. “He’s moving. Stay linked everyone.”
The boy meandered down the street, hands in his ragged pockets. Ara dodged around an old man with a basket and hurried after him. Her lips pursed with determination. She wasn
’t going to let him out of her sight no matter what.
“You’re moving south, Mother,” Ben reported. “Gretchen, you’re coming in from the east. If you hurry, you might be able to get on the street ahead of him.”
“Dammit!” Gretchen snarled. Ara winced and put a hand to her ear. “One of those passenger bikes collided with a wheelbarrow. A crowd is gathering and I can’t get through.”
Ara twisted and ducked her way through the crowd and up the street. The boy had long legs, and his casual saunter was Ara’s brisk trot.
“You’re almost at the edge of the market, Mother,” Ben said. “You should be seeing regular streets soon.”
Ben was right. Up ahead, Ara made out ground cars zipping through an intersection. The boy reached the corner and stopped there. He took up his customary slouch against a wall. Ara halted as well and scrutinized the boy more closely. No electronic shackles clamped his wrists or ankles and he wore no collar around his neck. Ara cursed silently. Unless his master was extremely permissive, the boy was free. He would have to be persuaded, not bought.
A pair of guard marched by and Ara faded back. The boy seemed to ignore them completely, but she saw he was watching them from under half-closed eyes.
Ara tried to think. How should she approach him? She didn’t want to frighten him off, but she didn’t want to lose him, either. Two tiny transmitters nestled in her pocket and she could probably plant one by “accidentally” bumping into him. On the other hand, if he figured out what she was doing, it would probably destroy all hope of a working relationship. Maybe she should just try to strike up a conversation. But how?
Ara sighed. It was so much easier to do this in a slave market. You pointed, paid, and took the person home. It took a while to convince some slaves that the Children of Irfan were actually setting them free, but all in all it wasn’t that hard.
And how would Irfan have viewed this? she thought tartly. A Mother Adept whining to herself that the job will take some effort.
Chastised, Ara decided to simply watch the boy for a while to see if she could gain any clues about how to approach him. It would also give Gretchen and the others time to catch up.
A long, dark ground car drove up to the curb and one mirrored window lowered itself a few centimeters. The boy sauntered up to it. The window lowered further and he leaned inside. Ara noticed that his ragged clothes were definitely on the tight side and many of the rips seemed strategic.
“Uh oh,” Ara said.
“What happens, Mother?” Harenn asked. “I have met Gretchen and we are coming.”
“Ben,” Ara subvocalized hurriedly, “hack into the nets and find out who owns a ground car with registry number-” she squinted “-H14 dash 35J. Hurry!”
“On it.”
“What is it?” Gretchen asked.
Ara stepped up to the street. The boy was still leaning into the car and couldn’t see her, though she was barely three meters away. For a brief moment she considered trying to plant a transmitter on him and almost instantly decided against it. He might notice. Plant one on the car? No. Any car that expensive had disruption devices for just such an occurrence. She scanned the street instead.
“Ben, are there any cabs in the area?” she asked.
“I can’t check that and find the registration number at the same time, Mother.”
“Mother Adept, what’s happening?” Gretchen demanded.
“I think our boy is a…working lad,” Ara murmured. No cabs were in sight.
Harenn spoke up. “So pick him up and offer to pay for an hour or two. What is such a problem?”
The boy backed out of the window. The car door opened and he climbed inside.
“Shit,” Ara muttered.
“The car is registered to Melvan and Xava Yshidra,” Ben said. “Do you want their address?”
And then, by a miracle, a cab turned a corner and buzzed up the street. Ara waved frantically and it stopped. The other vehicle slid smoothly into traffic as Ara leaped into the cab.
“Glory to the Unity. Stay behind them,” she said, pointing. There was no way in hell she was going to say Follow that car.
The driver, a raw-boned woman with blond dreadlocks, obeyed without a word. As they drove off, Ara caught a glimpse of Gretchen and Harenn emerging breathlessly from the market.
“Do you want the address, Mother?” Ben repeated. “And do you still want me to find a cab?”
“Not yet and no,” she subvocalized. “Gretchen and Harenn, I’m in a cab and I’m following the boy. He’s in another car.”
“We saw,” Gretchen said. “What do you want us to do?”
“Stay where you are,” she ordered.
The electric engine on the cab was nearly silent, meaning the driver could probably tell that Ara was carrying on a quiet, one-sided conversation. However, she gave no sign she heard or understood. Ara liked that. She peered forward, never letting her gaze stray from the car they followed.
The car made a right turn, then another right, and another. Her quarry was going in a big circle. Ara imagined the car had a sound-proof partition between driver and passengers to afford a certain amount of privacy for their…activities. Ara wondered whether it was Melvan or Xava who was in the back seat with the boy. For all she knew, it was both.
They passed the original street corner and Ara resisted the urge to wave at Gretchen and Harenn. Are settled back in her seat to think. The boy was obviously a prostitute. This didn’t bother Ara. It made her job easier. As Harenn had pointed out, she could simply proposition him and use the opportunity to talk. But Kendi had said the local houses didn’t tolerate freelancers. How had he gotten away with it?
Ara drummed her fingers on the gritty handrest. The cab’s interior was worn and dirty. A small sign informed her that a network link was available for a surcharge, and a muted vidscreen set into the back of the driver’s seat showed a local newscast. A second sign said that slaves must prove their owners had granted permission for them to ride in a cab and they must pay in advance. A third sign said, You Are Safe with the Unity.
What if the men in the alley had been enforcers? That would make sense. One of the houses may have gotten wind that the boy was turning tricks and sent a couple of goons. Ara wondered if they were still in prison.
The ground car drove up to the same curb and the boy exited. Ara told the cabbie to pull over and let her out. Ara paid the fare and climbed out just in time to see Gretchen bump heavily into the boy. Harenn, a few steps away, watched from behind her veil.
“I’m so sorry,” Gretchen said with uncharacteristic politeness. “Goodness me, I almost knocked you over. Are you all right? Glory to the Unity.”
“Yeah, yeah, glory,” the boy replied. “Don’t touch me, lady.” And he hurried away.
Ara trotted up to her. “You didn’t touch him flesh-to-flesh, did you? Did you plant a transmitter?”
“No, and what do you think?”
“Got him,” Ben said. “You don’t have to run now.”
Ara gestured to Gretchen and Harenn. “Fan out. Harenn, since he hasn’t seen you, I want you to cross the street and get ahead of him. Gretchen, you stay a little further behind, and I’ll get closer. Pitr, follow as best you can and be ready to stand by. Trish, either grab a hotel room or go back to the ship and get into the Dream. Find us and follow us so you can whisper at people. Watch for the boy there, too, and for anything else that’s strange.”
“On my way, Mother,” Trish said.
“Got it, Mother,” Pitr said.
“Yes, Mother,” Harenn and Gretchen said in chorus. The three of them took up their positions and headed up the street in silent pursuit.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE DREAM
[A] dream taught me this wisdom, and…I still fear I may wake up and find myself once more confined in prison.
— Pedro Calderon de la Barca
“…all right?”
Kendi tore his eyes away from the iron bar in his hand. Trish was
standing above him. She wore a strap of brown cloth across her breasts and another across her loins. The outfit looked strange on her white, stick-like figure. How long had he been staring at the bar? He should have felt Trish’s presence instantly.
“Did you hear me, Kendi?” Trish said. “I asked if you were all right.”
“I’m okay.” He scrambled to his feet, bar in his hand. Where had it come from? He hadn’t called it up. Did it have something to do with the canyon or the kid?
“Mother Ara told me to watch the Dream for signs of the kid,” Trish said. “I think that thing-” she gestured at the canyon “-qualifies. Did it almost open up under your feet too?”
“Yeah. And there’s something in it that screams at you.”
“I heard.” Trish shuddered. “Is it the kid, do you think? Can you sense him?”
Kendi closed his eyes and stretched out his senses. Nothing. The ground showed no further signs of shaking, the scrubby vegetation was alive and healthy, and the tiny tickle that told him his drugs were wearing off began to itch behind his eyes.
“I don’t feel anything,” Kendi admitted.
“What’s the bar for?”
Kendi hefted the bar without answering. It didn’t belong here. It would disappear. One…two…three.
The bar remained, cool and heavy, in his hand. It was just like the bars across his cell in Kendi flung the bar away. It spun off and vanished into the distance.
“What was that about?” Trish asked.
“Nothing,” Kendi said. “Look, my drugs are wearing off. I’d better go, all right?”
Trish gave him an odd look. “Sure. I’ve got scouting to do. See you on the ship later.” And she vanished.
Kendi gathered his concentration. If it is in my best interest and in the best interest of all life everywhere, let me leave the Dream.
His room on board the Post Script snapped into being. Kendi disentangled himself from the spear under his knee and dressed with care, wincing at his bruises and the pain in his ribs. Well, there was no reason not to use painkillers now. After a quick visit to the infirmary, Kendi felt much better and had decided to discuss the situation with someone.
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