Steven Harper - Dreamer

Sejal didn’t want to think about that. Instead he worked on simple walking. After a while, he found he was able to forget the drop and walk a little more briskly if he didn’t look over the side.

As they walked, Kendi stopped several times to exchange greetings with other pedestrians, both human and alien. Kendi shook hands, exchanged hugs, and slapped palms with at least a people. Although he introduced Sejal as his student, he didn’t let anyone touch him, explaining that a Silent greeting would only add to Sejal’s vertigo. Sejal merely nodded, suddenly shy under the blur of names and faces. Back in the neighborhood, he had known everyone by sight and name. Here, he knew no one, and it was disconcerting. He felt like a balloon anchored by the thinnest of threads.

Eventually, they reached what Kendi said was the student dormitory. Sejal, engrossed in watching the boards as they went by beneath his feet, looked up and gasped.

The place was enormous, several stories high with balconies jutting out like dozens of cupped hands. Warm brown wood and clinging green ivy made the place seem friendly and home-like despite its size. Stairs, ramps, and even climbing ropes and sliding poles ran every which way. Even as Sejal watched, a teenage boy dropped from one balcony to the one below.

“They’re not supposed to do that,” Kendi said wryly. “But everyone does. Just don’t get caught, all right?”

Sejal could only nod. He wouldn’t get caught, largely because there was no way in hell he was going to do that

A great curving balcony held the main entrance of the dormitory. Kendi took Sejal inside. Sejal’s thin shoes came down on freshly-scoured wooden floors. The ceiling of the entry area was high, with bare beams and a great many windows. Two humans staffed a wide desk near the front door. Kendi introduced Sejal, and they registered his thumb- and voice prints. Kendi had apparently sent word ahead that Sejal was coming, for there was no hemming or fumbling for paperwork.

“Linens and such are already in the room,” one of the clerks said. “The computer will let you in. Its name is Baran.”

Sejal’s room was on the third floor. On the way up, they passed other students, all human. They nodded at Sejal and pressed fingertips to forehead at Kendi. When Sejal looked at Kendi in surprise, Kendi explained that it was a ritual salute from any student to any Child. Sejal would be expected to do the same except when it came to Kendi.

“Your fingers would eventually fall off if you saluted every time you saw me,” Kendi said.

They came upon a corridor faced with several doors. Kendi gestured at one, and Sejal pressed his thumb to the lock plate. The lock clicked and Sejal opened the door. The room beyond was cozily small, with the same scrubbed wood floor as the dorm lobby. A bed piled with white linens sat across from a desk which had a computer terminal set into it. An easy chair sat next to the closet. The room’s white walls had been freshly painted and a pair of French doors opened onto a wide, sweeping balcony. Beyond the balcony was the by-now standard view of heavy branches and thick foliage.

Sejal stared. He had been expecting a dark, closet-sized room with bunk beds and half a dozen roommates. He poked his head out the French doors. The balcony, it turned out, serviced several rooms, like an outdoor hallway.

“Bathroom’s up the hall,” Kendi said. “You’d think with all the billions brought in by our Dream communication work, they’d spring for individual facilities.”

“This is great,” Sejal said. “It’s a lot better than my room back on Rust.”

“We also need to take you clothes shopping,” Kendi said. “Then we’ll get you enrolled in classes.”

“I don’t have any money.” Sejal tested the bed by sitting down hard. It was springy but firm. “How do I pay for stuff?”

“The monastery gives all its students a small stipend. A lot of people get here with little or nothing, especially Silent who used to be slaves, so you also get a little bonus when you first arrive. Don’t get excited, though-you have to pay it all back when you graduate and start working for the Children.”

“It beats…other work,” Sejal said.

“That it does,” Kendi agreed. “Let’s go.”

PLANET BELLEROPHON BLESSED AND MOST BEAUTIFUL MONASTERY OF THE CHILDREN OF IRFAN

Benjamin Rymar flung himself back on his bed and stared at familar beams of his raw wood ceiling. The floor around him was littered with bag and baggage. He should unpack. He should check his messages and his mail. But instead he stared at the ceiling.

Outside the French doors leading to the balcony lay the talltree forest. Green leaves and strong branches cupped themselves around Ben’s tiny house, and the breeze carried the welcome fragrant scent of talltree bark. He wondered what Sejal thought of the place.

Sejal. Ben got up and strode into the living room toward the weight machine in the corner. The room was uncharacteristically tidy. Book disks were neatly shelved, the carpets were vacuumed, the furniture dust-free. The second-year student Ben had temporarily hired to keep the place up was actually responsible for the cleanliness. Now that Ben was back, he gave it a week.

Other doors lead to Ben’s study and to the kitchen. The study was crammed with computer equipment in various stages of repair, but the kitchen was mostly empty. It was a running joke with Ara that if Ben wanted to cook he had to dust the stove first.

Ben lay back on one of the benches for some presses. Although a gravity enhancement machine took up less space, Ben preferred to exercise with bulkier metal weights. He found greater satisfaction in adding another chunk of metal to the pile than in tapping a keypad. To his consternation, however, he could barely move the current stack. Ben grimaced. He should have realized. There had been no weight machine aboard the Post Script, and Ben gone without lifting for weeks.

He reset the machine to a lower weight and went to work. Arms, then chest, then back, then legs. Weights clanked and thumped. Sweat trickled down Ben’s face and back. He hated lifting. It was boring, it was sweaty, and sometimes it hurt. But Ben liked having a well-defined frame, and he wasn’t likely to get it sitting in front of a computer all day.

Ben let the weights thud to the floor and sat up. That was enough for the day. His arms, legs, back, and chest burned with the good feeling that always followed a satisfactory weight session. He went through a few stretches, then headed for the bathroom, peeling off sweaty clothes as he went. After weeks of enforced closeness on the Post Script, it was a luxury to drop his clothes wherever they fell and walk naked to the shower. The practiced annoyed Kendi, who was always Ben scrubbed harder with the soap and ended the shower with his customary blast of cold water. He wandered into the bedroom, leaving a damp trail on the carpet. Droplets glistened on his skin and the chilly air raised goosebumps. He rummaged through the tangle of unpacked luggage, searching for a towel.

Sejal had yanked Kendi into the Dream. All the questions Ben had been avoiding came crowding into his head. Would it work for any Silent? Would it work for non-Silent? Would it work for Ben?

Ben gave up the search and sat on the bed instead. It was a large bed, one he had bought at Kendi’s insistence back when they had been together. Ben liked to sprawl in his sleep, and he had a tendency to crowd Kendi even after Dammit. He was not going to think about Kendi. He was not.

A cool draft wafted through the open window and across Ben’s wet, bare skin. In response he grabbed up the bedspread and wrapped it around himself like a giant cloak. Pillows tumbled unheeded to the floor. Kendi’s logic had been flawless. If Ben’s lack of Silence was the reason Ben couldn’t stay with Kendi, then making Ben Silent was the obvious solution.