Steven Harper - Dreamer

The last two weeks had been filled with anxiety. When Kendi had failed to check in, Ara had waited twelve tense hours before initiating a search. Trish and Pitr tried scouring the Dream for his presence on Rust, but an active search through the Dream for Kendi’s real-world mind and body ran the risk of alerting Unity Silent to their presence-a bad idea for a group of undercover monks trying to snatch up a Unity citizen-and the need for stealth hindered their movements. In the end, Ben and his hacking skills had met with success. Even so, it had taken ten days to locate Kendi in jail and six more to negotiate the Unity’s bureaucracy and arrange to pay Kendi’s fines. Chin Fen and the connections he had made over the years had been a great help, Ara had to admit, and she had lied her way through several lunches with him. Now Kendi sat before her, bruised and beaten. His hand was cold in hers.

They sat like that for a long time, wordless, teacher and student, until the door finally ground upward.

“Let’s go,” boomed the guard.

Kendi got up and shuffled toward the door, head down. Ara followed, gritting her teeth and trying not to glare at the guard.

Don’t get anyone angry, she told herself. You’re getting what you want. That’s all that counts.

They made their way through the chilly prison. The corridor was windowless and only dimly lit by heavily-shielded bulbs in the ceiling. Ara kept her eyes resolutely ahead. She refused to glance at the tiny cells crammed with people or acknowledge the heavy smell of poor sanitation of men, women, and children all thrown in together. There was nothing she could do for these people. There was no point in looking at them. But she couldn’t block out the heart-rending sounds they made, the pleading cries that filtered between the bars.

Another door lead them out of the prison area and into the office area, a huge open place filled with regimented rows of gray metal desks. A constant rumble of voices, clattering keys, and metallic-voiced computers pervaded the background, and the air smelled of disinfectant and body odor.

At one of the desks, Ara thumbed more paperwork and listened grimly as an official informed them that as a convicted criminal, Kendi would be assigned a spot on a work detail list for the Unity as part of his sentence. Two hundred kesh ensured that Kendi’s name would be mysteriously absent from the work list.

At last they reached the main desk. Four receptionists directed traffic, and on a long row of benches sat various people in emotional states ranging from agitation to apathy. Ara’s jaw was sore from grinding her teeth and biting back harsh words. A familiar figure waited on one of the benches for them, and Kendi’s bruised face brightened immediately.

“Ben!” he said, and Ara laid a hand on his arm.

“Wait,” she murmured. “We aren’t out of this until we’ve cleared the building.”

Kendi checked himself, but Ara didn’t miss the look he shot at Ben, as if the young man were a rescue pod in hard vacuum. Part of Ara bristled. Although Ben had tracked Kendi down on the nets, Ara had arranged for his release, and now Kendi was all but ignoring her.

On the other hand, I don’t feel about Ben the same way Kendi does, she thought wryly. I wonder if Kendi knows how transparent he is?

Ben gave Kendi a small smile and patted his shoulder as the three of them exited the patrol station.

Outside, hazy clouds covered the sun, but the air, as usual, was mild. The sidewalk was crowded. A pair of slaves washed windows near a pile of broken concrete. Another group of slaves dug into the exposed earth beneath the cement. They did not, Ara noticed, have power tools, and their clothes were ragged and filthy. An overseer in a red uniform watched them, energy whip in hand.

The little group trotted quickly up the street. After they turned a corner, Ara ran a small scanner over all three of them.

“No bugs,” she said. “We can talk.”

“Thank all life!” Kendi burst out, ignoring the odd stares he gathered from passers-by.

“Are you hungry?” Ben asked.

“Starving.”

Ara looked at him, and then, with a glance at the crowded street, drew him into an empty doorway. “You’re looking awfully cheerful for someone who was so depressed a minute ago.”

“That was an act,” Kendi replied. “Mostly. In order to keep other…people off my back, I acted crazy. Manic-depressive. Most of the people in there are afraid of lunatics. You showed up during my depressive phase.”

“And now you’re manic?” Ben commented dryly.

Ara shook her head, still worried. Despite his explanation, she didn’t like Kendi’s cheerfulness. It was too sudden, even for him. Kendi was a child of open spaces, someone who coped with extended voyages by spending long hours in the Dream. A fortnight in a Unity prison must have been a nightmare of the worst kind.

“Let’s get you something to eat,” she said. “And you can tell us what happened.”

“I found him,” Kendi said.

“Who?” Ara asked.

“The kid. The one we’re looking for. I found him.”

Ara caught her breath. “How? Where is he? What’s he-”

“Mother,” Ben interrupted firmly. “You just said that Kendi needs to eat. I agree.”

Ara’s first impulse was still to ignore Ben and ask Kendi more questions. A glance at Kendi’s ashen face, however, destroyed that idea.

“You’re right,” she said. “I got carried away. Food first, questions later.”

“Back at the ship?” Ben asked.

Ara nodded. “Safest place to talk.”

An hour later, Kendi, newly showered and in clean clothes, sat on his bed. Harenn sat next to him, methodically probing his wounds with fingers and medical scanner. Ara occupied the room’s only chair and watched intently. Kendi winced under Harenn’s ministrations but didn’t cry out.

“You’re barbaric,” he growled.

“The Australian aboriginal tribes,” Harenn said, “are reputed to have a superhuman ability to withstand pain. I assumed this is why you refused painkillers. You do not have this ability?”

“That was before the whites tainted us,” Kendi said. His voice was still too cheerful for Ara’s taste.

Harenn ignored him. “Your concussion has healed, as have the bruises and the cut. You have cracked no ribs. There is really nothing for me to do except give you pain medication, and you do not wish this.”

“What about the boy?” Ara said from her chair. Her worries about Kendi would have to wait.

Kendi explained about the alley, the fight, and the Unity patrol. “So I was arrested,” he finished. “The kid must have taken the time to search my pockets and grab the drugs. Otherwise I would’ve been in really deep cabbage.”

“And you were not before?” Harenn muttered.

“I want to be clear on this,” Ara said. “The boy possessed you.”

Kendi nodded. “I felt that little shift you always get after someone else leaves your mind, but I hadn’t let him in. It was a possession-or something very close to it. What’s amazing is that he must have hit the patrol at the same time. Otherwise he wouldn’t have gotten away. That’s three people all at once, and two of them weren’t Silent.”

Ara gnawed her lower lip. The situation frightened her more with every passing moment. There was someone out there who could take over the mind of an unwilling person-more than one person, in fact. There was no recorded instance of a person with such an ability in the entire history of the Dream. How many people could this boy control? Six? A dozen? An army?

If, in your opinion, this child would pose a threat to the Confederation…

“Why did he not possess the men who attacked him?” Harenn asked. Her dark eyes were half-closed above her opaque blue veil. It made her look sleepy.