by Karen Haber
“No!” Byrne pushed her away. “Stay out of my head if you value your own sanity.”
“But our studies, Paula. We’ve already contacted the mother. She’s promised full cooperation.”
“And the father?”
“She’s promised his as well.”
“But you haven’t spoken to him yet?”
“No.”
Byrne pursed her lips. “Then you must go. Demand a plenary session of the Western Council.”
“Now? It’s not even midyear.”
“The timing can’t be helped.” Byrne’s gaze was suddenly harsh, unrelenting. “Rita, this is urgent. Urgent! Soon Rick Akimura will seek to test the limits of his talents. All of our people must he warned.”
“And the nonmutants? What about them?”
Byrne sighed. “Yes. Yes, of course. Warn them as well. Warn everyone.”
***
Rick t-jumped into the corridor near airlock three. Too late, he saw Hawkins standing by a large observation window watching the Moon. He barely avoided colliding with him.
“Sorry!”
The colonel whipped around, fists clenched defensively. “Rick, I didn’t see you.” He relaxed and stretched. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.”
“Yeah.” Good thing Hawkins had been looking out the window instead of down the hall. Have to be more careful.
“The pressure suits are in that room next door, behind the web doors. Let me check your suit seals before we step out into the vasty deep of space.”
“You’re looking forward to this, aren’t you?”
Hawkins’s eyes twinkled. “Why not? A little jaunt into the void. I don’t do it often enough.” He patted Rick on the shoulder. “Don’t forget those seals.”
Rick shrugged into an orange pressure suit, and then put a white space-shielded wrapper over it. A moment later Hawkins joined him, his wrapper already in place.
“Tighten that third seam by your throat,” Hawkins said. “Otherwise you’ll be gulping vacuum.”
“Right.” Rick wondered if he could set a t-field in place strong enough to withstand the rigors of space. Maybe he’d experiment once they were out there.
The suit fit as though it were a second skin—snug, yet with enough give to allow him to turn a somersault if necessary. Rick saw the jetpack leaning against the door, and its twin, to be used in case of a problem.
“Can you pinpoint your telekinesis if I need an assist in fusing the casing?” Hawkins asked.
“No problem. Just holler.”
“Very good. Are you ready?”
Rick looked out the porthole window at the velvety blackness of space, the blue curve of the Earth, and gave Hawkins the thumbs-up sign.
The airlock slid open with a gentle whisper. Rick stepped into the vestibule, where Hawkins hooked him to the tensor steel cord, his umbilicus to the ship. Hawkins then hooked himself up. And with a gentle flex of the leg muscles, they were off, out into the vacuum surrounding the Pavilion, high above Earth and moon.
Earth was a big blue marble at Rick’s feet. Above and around him on every side were stars. He felt gloriously disoriented, almost goofy. He made slow breaststroke motions as he floated in zero-g. The sun was a small glowing white ball that looked as though it would fit neatly in his pocket.
“How does it feel, Rick?” Hawkins’s voice was a deep murmur over the pressure-suit radio.
“Unreal! Better than rad.”
“See that shuttle approaching?” Hawkins said. “It’s one of mine.”
Rick watched a sleek silver bird come around the curve of the Earth. It climbed through the darkness and headed silently and swiftly for the docking platform on the Pavilion.
A movement beside him caught his attention: Hawkins slowly turning to watch the shuttle’s passage. His pressure suit flashed as it reflected the sun’s light directly. Rick sensed Hawkins’s excitement about the shuttle shipment. Why not? Hawkins should be excited about everything he saw here. It was his kingdom.
For the first time, Rick felt the prickling of envy. How had Hawkins achieved this domain? He probed gently. Saw a loving mother who indulged her bright, talented son, and a strict father disappointed that Ethan had not followed him into the family law practice. Later had come the overweening ambition, the military discipline and danger. First, a love of knowledge, of music, had burned as brightly in Hawkins as the need for power did now. When had that changed? Rick probed deeper. Saw it: the accident that had cost Hawkins his arm. Of course. Hawkins had never really stopped mourning the loss, had never truly felt whole again. And so, all else he had done since then was a kind of compensation. A colossal funeral dirge for that lost part of him.
The shuttle approached Hawkins’s Pavilion and for a moment, Rick’s focus shifted to it. Lovely space bird, he thought. Wish you were mine.
The stars seemed to flutter and quake, casting odd shadows. But that wasn’t possible, was it? Rick was suddenly in two places, his perception divided. One tiny portion of him floated, tethered, in space, in real time, responding to Hawkins’s genial comments, observing his efficient repair work. But the greater part of his awareness shifted and escaped, sliding down a shining link toward the strange visions of unexpected futures.
There: he was accepting the mantle of Book Keeper for the Unified Councils. And there was the abolition of the genetics labs. Here, people knelt at the door to the Council room, awaiting him and his blessing. Here he opened all Council meetings to mutant and nonmutant. And there he was with Alanna, making love to her during a warm, dark night while the image of shooting stars played over the walls of their chamber. And he saw her, belly swelling with life, waiting peacefully for her time. Giving birth to his son. It would all be as he saw it. He would unify the Councils, dismiss the crackpots and fundamentalists, make room for any who cared to join. Any who were needy would find comfort. Those who were hungry would be fed.
He was sitting at the head of a huge table, looking out at the sea of expectant faces, and his throat felt dry. What to say? How to say it? What did they want from him?
He knew—oh, he knew too well. He had seen their hunger, their greed, and it frightened him more than anything ever had before in his short life. But he had no choice. He must do what he could to ease their pain.
He wet his lips and spoke. “I know you have heard many things about me. And I know you have many expectations. I can’t answer for them. All I can tell you is that I have been able to reach out and feel your concerns. In that I may be gifted. But in terms of feeling, I am no different from any of you. Any of you. I feel what every other man or woman feels. I have been alone and lonely. Felt myself an outcast in the warmest crowd. I have hungered for love and understanding. And I have been cruel, cold, aloof, uninvolved. Withholding.”
A murmur of disbelief ran through the crowd. Rick held up his hands. “Yes, I have turned away. Because of my own fears. Because I thought I could not help.”
“But you’re the supermutant!” a voice cried from the audience.
“I am a supernothing,” Rick snapped. “That’s a name some reporter hung on me. I am not some strange, superpowered being. I am a man. A human.”
“You’re a mutant,” a woman cried.
“Yes, a mutant,” Rick said. “And until recently, a dysfunctional mutant. These talents have only lately appeared. I am no savior, no ubermensch, no answer to anybody’s prayer! All I am is a man who has felt the things you have all felt. I have known the darkness of depression—we all have spent time there, I think. I have felt the fire of rage. The ice of disdain. The sorrow of loneliness. In that, I am not one bit different from you—I am exactly like you. Your pain is my pain. Your joys are my joys. Your fears are my fears. We share all this by virtue of a common heritage: that of the human race.
“And because of that heritage, that linkage, we have a responsibility. We owe it to ourselves, to one another, to recognize our isolation, our differences, our needs and our fears. And to bridge them. To reach across the chas
ms of disagreement, aloofness, terror, and provide community. We have been alone for too long. If there is one thing I can do and will do, it will be this: to provide a linkage, a circle, a fellowship. I feel your pain because it is mine. Together, let us summon the joy of the circle.”
And he knew that the symbol of a circle would become the symbol of welcome. His sign. It would be painted on every Council chamber wall and on the doors of those who believed.
Believe in what? a small voice in his head whispered.
Believe in me, he thought. I am the bond, the one who will bring us together.
His mind reached out, toward the Earth, toward the Moon and beyond, to distant Mars. Even here in the cold void of space he could feel the pulse beat of humanity. Could feel the busy, humming synapses of so many different brains working. Sensed the alienation and fears that kept humanity isolated when those very qualities could provide a linkage, a commonality of need that could be met. Would be. Rick caught up humanity in the cradle of his mind’s embrace.
That woman in the four A.M. cold outside a truck stop in Omaha, dizzy with bad wine, banging her head against the hard concrete pavement. He reached in and stopped her. And the man beating his wife in a hotel room near Douala. He stopped him, too. The frightened young mother in Prague rocking her wailing baby was rocked in the warmth of his understanding. And the frail old man sitting up, staring out the window in Edinburgh, was eased into sleep.
You are all mine.
Rick was amazed and humbled by the thought. He had never felt this sense of connection before. Never desired to give in this way. To heal. But now I know, he thought. I know what you all feel, because I feel it. Share. Sharing is the only way to freedom.
He was just about to link, to free them all, when a tug at his waist brought his attention firmly and completely back to the jarring present.
He was floating in the vastness of space, connected only by a slender cord to Hawkins’s Pavilion. Dizziness swept over him. Rick shook his head. What had he been dreaming? Thinking? The stars around him were white pinpricks in the darkness, burning their light into him.
Hawkins beckoned with the slow-motion balletic movements of weightlessness. He had finished his work alone. It was time to return to the Pavilion. How long had they been out here?
Rick hesitated as his vision cleared. He wanted to stay, hanging between the stars, feeling the pulse of mankind in his head. But no. Those were just dreams and visions. Wisps of some improbable future in which everybody wanted a piece of him, wanted to use his powers, from the Mutant Councils to greedy space industrialists like Hawkins. Ridiculous. Pretentious. He was never going to become Chief Book Keeper. Link the clans? Why would he do that? How could he have been thinking such absurd do-good bullshit? Besides, what could he heal? Who could he help? And why should he, even if he could? He was no saint.
He saw clearly the colonel’s plan to sell his cloned genes for splicing. Saw, too, the plan’s ultimate failure. Heard the ricochet of lawsuits and bad press. If Hawkins was determined to have that future, Rick would not stop him. In fact, it might make it easier. There just might be a different future in store for Aria Corp., one that didn’t include Ethan Hawkins.
Rick looked down at the huge blue globe of the Earth, and he could almost see all the ravenous minds, the open mouths—millions of baby birds waiting for him to feed their hungry, primal needs.
Well, he would surprise them all. He didn’t know what he was, but he sure as hell would be owned by no one but himself.
He shouted back at the Earth: Hey! What about me?
What he most wanted was to be with Alanna. The hell with biology, with genealogy, with taboos. He wanted to live with her in a place beyond the reach of badgering mutants, industrialists, disapproving family. What good were his powers if he couldn’t have what he wanted?
He felt the tug again, and saw that he was being reeled in. All right, he thought. I’ll play by your rules. For just a little bit longer. With new determination, he turned his back on the void and returned to the realm of artificial gravity and real time.
***
“I hope you enjoyed it,” Hawkins said. “You were very quiet out there.”
They stood in the changing room just off the lock. Hawkins sealed the tabs of his business-styled stretch suit and placed his pressure suit on a hook.
“Just taking in the view,” Rick said.
“Impressive, isn’t it? Even after all this time, I still marvel at it. Nothing like a spacewalk to show you the wonders of the solar system,” Hawkins said. “Maybe we’ll do it again, sometime. But right now, business calls.”
Rick shook his head mockingly. “All this wealth, and even you aren’t free, Ethan.”
A wolfish smile lit Hawkins’s dark features. “If you’re lucky, Rick, you’ll discover that wealth only creates additional responsibility. If you’re lucky.” And with a nod, he was gone.
***
Vincent Guindelle, the Western Book Keeper, gave Rita Saiken an impatient look that infuriated her. “Dr. Saiken, I understand you wished me to close the meeting to all nonmutants.”
“That’s correct. I assumed you’d done as I asked.”
“It’s impossible. We will not close the meeting to anybody who desires to participate.” He frowned. “Besides, you told me you had news of the gravest urgency. News that would affect humankind. That includes nonmutants, doesn’t it?”
“I thought we would consult the nonmutants later.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “When word got out that you’d requested this gathering there was quite a demand for participation. You’re a respected authority, Rita. Many people are anxious to hear what you’ve got to say.”
Saiken gripped the antique wooden lectern until her knuckles were white. A sea of faces stared up at her, golden eyes, brown, blue, and green. All must be made aware of the threat that Rick Akimura’s presence presented. They must be warned. She had promised Paula Byrne. She would not shirk her responsibility.
But stage fright gripped her suddenly, unexpectedly. She fought the rising desire to rush from the room, away from the expectant faces. No, she had a duty.
The audience shifted restlessly.
“Dr. Saiken?” Guindelle prompted.
She cleared her throat. Calm, she thought. Be calm. Now begin.
“I have come to tell you that we are all at great risk.”
People murmured quietly to one another and a few faces grew pale.
Saiken’s voice strengthened. “It is a risk none of us anticipated. Some of you may have difficulty accepting it.”
The murmurs grew louder.
“At risk? From whom?”
“Rita, what danger are we facing? Tell us.”
“The enhanced mutant,” she said. “The one who may lead us or destroy us. He has come.”
The hall was silent.
“He is strong,” she said. Her voice echoed in the stillness, and when she nodded a dozen Ritas nodded back from the row of wallscreens lining the rear of the hall. “Very strong. We must work together for our own protection. Plan. Proceed carefully. Perhaps he will listen if we speak with one voice.”
An old man with wisps of white hair and bright golden eyes stood up.
“Who poses this threat?” he asked.
Saiken took a deep breath. Let it out.
“Rick Akimura.”
“Akimura, Akimura, Akimura,” the wallscreens whispered.
“I know the Akimuras,” said the man. “That boy is a null. You say a null is threatening the mutant community? But how is that possible?”
“He’s become a multitalent,” Saiken said. “His skills outstrip those of the strongest among us.”
Around the hall, mutants and nonmutants were looking at one another with perplexity and confusion.
A voice rang out: “A null has become a multitalent? I don’t believe it.”
“But it’s true,” Saiken said. “He is wild, uncontrollable. Just beginning to test his strengths
. It is urgent that we prepare ourselves now.”
Again, the room was silent. Then a tall, red-haired man in work clothes stood. His golden eyes gleamed.
“How can we control him?”
“A group of telepaths working in concert with telekinetics,” Saiken said.
“But we would tire eventually. What then?” the redhead asked.
“Neural dampers could be applied,” Saiken said. “We could use a combination of medication and group telepathy.”
“But you’re not certain that will work.”
Saiken hesitated. “No. But we feel reasonably certain—”
“Reasonably certain against some sort of supermutant?”
“There are no guarantees. Even we don’t know the limit of his strength,” Saiken said. “And that is why we must act. Once he is neutralized, he’ll see reason. Work with us. Lead us.”
“And in return we’ll worship him?” a woman cried. “Is that what you’ve brought us? A supermutant to be captured, then worshiped? What do you think we are, some primitive tribe?”
The room filled with laughter. Other voices called out in sudden relieved glee.
“It’s that old supermutant rag. Sing a few more choruses and we might start dancing.”
“A supermutant? Not again. Is that what she called us here for?”
“Help. Somebody save me. It’s the supermutant.”
I thought Melanie Akimura got rid of the last so-called supermutant who showed up around here. Maybe you should talk to her about Rick. Maybe she’ll give him a good spanking.
Rita, have you been using too many joy sticks? I thought that was strictly against the healers’ regime.
“Please,” Saiken said. “Listen before it’s too late. He is here. Rick Akimura is the true enhanced mutant we’ve been waiting for.”
“Rita, go back to Mendocino. Look for mutant boojums there.”
Save your fairy tales for children. We stopped believing in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the supermutant long ago.
A supermutant to lead us? Who asked for one? Anybody here send out for a supermutant?
“Listen to me,” Saiken cried. “You must listen to me! There really is danger. He is young, reckless. He must be controlled until he has grown into his talents.” Her voice was lost in the din. Even Vincent Guindelle was laughing and shaking his head. Her image on the wallscreens went unheeded.