Steven Harper - Dreamer

And then Kendi knew what to say.

“What if you could go into the Dream?” he said.

Ben halted and turned. “What?”

“Sejal pulled me into the Dream,” Kendi said. “What if he could do the same for you?”

“I’m not Silent, Kendi.” But a haunted look stole over Ben’s handsome face. Excitement rose. Kendi scooted to the edge of the bed and got to his feet. His legs were steady now. It was going to be all right. Sejal would take Ben into the Dream, and Ben would finally see what it was like. His family problems would be over, and he could move back in with Kendi. They would be together again. Kendi’s heart sang with joy.

“Genetically you are Silent,” Kendi reminded him urgently. “What if all you need to reach the Dream is a jump-start? I’ll bet Sejal could do it. You could start training, even be a Brother. What about that?”

Ben stared wide-eyed, like a deer frozen in a spotlight. Then he turned and fled the room.

FROM SEJAL’S JOURNAL DAY 5, MONTH 11, COMMON YEAR 987

After Mother Ara got me out of the Dream, Harenn showed up at my room to examine me. I could hardly sit still for her on the bed. I had entered the Dream! I was pumped full of energy and I wanted to do it again and I didn’t want Harenn around spoiling the feeling for me. I hadn’t forgotten that she was the bitch who’d told Mom about me tricking, and now she was sitting on the chair in my room with Kendi’s readout unit on her lap.

“You have done something unprecedented,” she said. “There will be much excitement when we arrive at Bellerophon. You must be ready for that.”

That set off an alarm bell. I saw myself standing in front of a big crowd of Silent who all stared at me like some kind of freak.

“What kind of excitement?” I asked, angry at her. “Are you going to tell them about the tricking? You sure couldn’t keep your mouth shut around my mom.”

“Your mother was being uncooperative,” Harenn said. “We had little time, and I took the route that would convince her most quickly that you needed to come with us.”

“It was none of your damn business,” I snapped.

Her hand moved so fast I didn’t even see it. Suddenly my wrist was trapped in a hard grip. It hurt. “Don’t be a fool,” she hissed behind her veil. “You are everyone’s damned business.”

I didn’t like her hand on me. I was going to reach out with my mind and force her to let go when suddenly my empathy talent switched on and I flashed on her. A mix of emotion washed over me, and the topmost one was fear. I gasped. Harenn was afraid of me? Under that I noticed a sorrow and pain so deep and penetrating I was afraid I’d be sucked in. And she was also eager, so eager I was surprised she wasn’t climbing the walls.

“You can possess the non-Silent,” she said, still hissing. “Do you know what that means?”

Still awash in her emotions, I couldn’t do anything but stare at her and shake my head.

“You could assassinate any ruler you choose by making him jump off a building or swallow poison. You could take the mind of any official and use her to spy on her own government. How much do you think anyone will care that you traded simple sex for mere money?”

The emotions switched off as abruptly as they’d switched on. Harenn let go of my hand.

“The Empire of Human Unity knows of you,” Harenn continued, “and they sent a squadron of battle cruisers to take you back. Do you think a backwater gigolo rates that sort of attention?”

“I’m not a gigolo,” I snarled at her, angry again.

“No,” she returned, still calm. “You are far more than that. The problem is, you have been thinking as one.”

“That’s not true!” I snapped.

“Is it not? Tell me, then, why you left the planet that birthed you.”

I felt like my head was blowing up like a balloon. “It was a backwater slimehole,” I yelled. “We lived in a slum and there was no way out of it.”

“You lived in a clean, safe neighborhood,” she countered. “You lived in wealth and comfort compared to many of those around you. But you wanted more. So you sold your body.”

“You’re twisting it. You’re making it sound-”

“And then, when we Children of Irfan arrived and offered to take you away, you accepted without hesitation because we promised to give you what you wanted. How is this different from what you did on the streets?”

“It’s completely different!” I yelled. “It’s not the same at all. I wanted to get Mom off Rust too. I did it to help her!”

She stayed so calm I wanted to slap her. “If we had offered to take your mother off-planet on the sole condition that you remain in your slum on Rust, would you have accepted?”

“I-” I halted, unable to say anything. I should have said yes, but I wasn’t able to Okay. I’ll say it: I wasn’t able to lie that fast.

Harenn nodded. “You were selfish. And it is easy to take advantage of selfish people, Sejal. You are fortunate that the first ones to do so to you were the Children of Irfan.”

My thoughts were swirling around like a pinwheel and I couldn’t do anything but nod.

“Many people will want you,” she continued. “They will seek you out and try to use you. They will tempt you and entice you, and if you continue to think only in terms of a prostitute-and by that I mean in terms of what you can gain-then they will use you indeed, just as they would use a whore. And then they will cast you aside.”

Harenn fiddled the readout unit on her lap, the first fidgeting I had seen her do. Her words rang through my skull like a headache and it occurred to me that I had never asked why Kendi and the others had come to Rust in the first place. Everything had happened so fast, and I had just sort of assumed that Kendi had first found me by accident. A cold finger crept up my back.

“Did all of you go through all that shit on Rust just to find me?” I asked.

Harenn nodded. “Kendi was the first to feel you in the Dream, but the Unity Silent sensed you as well. Even before we found you, we knew you could perform impossible feats. Now you have pulled someone else into the Dream, and this too was thought impossible.”

“Why is it impossible?” I said. “It wasn’t hard.”

“For you, perhaps.” She paused. “Could you do such a thing for a non-Silent?”

Her eyes looked like hard brown glass. I wanted to squirm. It felt like she was examining me under a microscope. I remembered her eagerness.

“I’m not sure,” I said.

“This is my selfishness, then,” she said, as if to herself. Then she took a deep breath. “Could you do it for me?”

I blinked. After her long lecture about my thinking-and I have to admit she hit close-I wasn’t sure how to react.

“You want to enter the Dream,” I stalled.

She closed her eyes briefly. “I am not Silent, but my husband is. I wish to find him.”

“You’re married?” I blurted stupidly.

“I am. I was. My husband visited a Silent son on my body ten years ago. One day I arrived home and saw he and my son Bedj-ka were gone. I have since learned many things about the husband I thought I knew. He was a criminal who hadn’t even told me his real name. I am his fourth wife and his fourth victim.”

“Victim?”

“Yes. My husband carries strong Silent genes. He marries non-Silent women, beds them until pregnancy, then steals the child away for sale into slavery.” Her voice was soft and poisonously calm. “I wish to find him. Other Silent have not been able to trace him in the Dream, but I am certain if I could do it if I could only find a way there. I know his mind. I could track him. And then-”

She made a gesture at my crotch that made me cringe.