Steven Harper - Dreamer

“What do you mean?”

Gretchen shrugged. “I hated being different when I was kid, so after a while, I turned it into a badge of courage. ‘Look how strong I am, everyone. I’m different. I’m special.’ But at the monastery, I’m not different or special at all.” She gave Ben an idle, heavy-lidded glance. “It was hard to give up being special, even though it made my early life hell. Really hard. Happens to a lot of people, I guess.”

Ben didn’t respond.

“Well,” Gretchen said, rising, “I’d better let you work in peace. Give me a call when the drive’s done, all right? You’re a doll.”

And she left.

Ben stared down at the drive in his hands for a long time before he picked up a soldering iron and set to work.

PLANET RUST MIDDLE OCEAN

Prasad rose later than usual, feeling sandy-eyed and groggy. He hadn’t slept well ever since he had received the news about Dr. Kri and Dr. Say wanting to experiment with his daughter’s eggs. So far he’d managed to stall them for two days, but now they were likely to become more insistent, and he didn’t know what to do next.

The sweet smell of frying honey bread filled the air, and Prasad inhaled deeply, trying to wake himself up. He belted on his robe and shuffled into the kitchen, where Katsu gave him a half-smile from the stove. Before he could greet her, however, the door chime sounded.

“Who in the world…?” Prasad muttered. He opened the door — and froze. Standing in the corridor was Max Garinn, the blond virologist. He was twirling his mustache with fast, furious twists of the fingers. Prasad staggered, his knees weak.

Behind Garinn stood Vidya Vajhur.

Prasad stared. Vidya stared back. Her clothes were scuffed and dirty, and she wore a wide scarf around her neck. A battered carryall hung from her shoulder. Her expression was shocked.

“So you do know each other,” Max Garinn said, still twirling his mustache.

“Vidya,” Prasad managed to croak.

“I thought you were dead,” Vidya said, her voice just as strained.

“Father?” came Katsu’s voice behind him. “Who is at the door?”

“Your mother,” Prasad murmured.

“Perhaps we should go inside and talk?” Garinn offered.

Vidya rounded on him, eyes flashing in exactly the way Prasad remembered. “Perhaps you should leave us in private.”

Garinn took a startled step backward and Vidya strode into the apartment. Prasad made way for her, and she shoved the door shut in Garinn’s face. Katsu backed into the living room, a confused look on her face. Prasad faced Vidya in the entryway and found himself unable to do anything but stare. She had changed. His memory had preserved Vidya in her youth, with night-black hair and smooth, oval face. A part of him knew that this was ridiculous. Of course she would age, just as he had. Her dark hair had wide white streaks in it and lines were etched in her face and neck. Her eyes, however, were the same deep brown. Those eyes stared at him, and he wondered if she was thinking the same thing, that he had aged.

What a ridiculous thing it was to be thinking! He hadn’t laid eyes on his Vidya in seventeen years, and all that crossed his mind was how she looked? Emotions churned inside him. He wanted to snatch her into his arms and hold her. He wanted to run away, and that surprised him. He wanted to introduce her to Katsu, but wasn’t sure how to go about it. In the end, he did nothing.

Vidya slapped his face. “Bastard!” she snarled.

Prasad still didn’t move. His cheek stung, and he silently raised a hand to it.

“You’re my mother?” Katsu said from the living room.

Vidya turned to look at her. “Katsu?” she whispered. “My little Katsu?”

She staggered to a chair and sat down with her hands over her face. The carryall fell to the floor beside her. As if in a trance, Prasad sat as well. A fruit fish floated past the pale red oval of the room’s tiny window and the soft hum of water filters trickled in from Katsu’ bedroom aquariums. Katsu knelt at Vidya’s feet. Vidya uncovered her face, and Prasad was struck at the resemblance between the two of them.

“Mother?” Katsu said.

Vidya cautiously reached out a trembling hand to touch Katsu’s face. “My baby Katsu. No longer a baby.”

Katsu’s face was impassive, unreadable as always. Prasad opened his mouth to speak and found he had to force the words out.

“Vidya, what happened to you? Where did you go?”

Vidya looked up at him, anger still hard in her eyes. “I should ask the same. You disappeared. I looked everywhere for you, but I couldn’t find you even after seven days. Why didn’t you come back? You left me to raise-”

“It was you who disappeared,” Prasad interrupted. “I came back after I found Katsu, but the apartment was empty.”

Vidya’s face had gone an unhealthy ashen. “You came back after I left? How did you find Katsu? Have you been here all this time? How did you get here?”

“That is a story.”

“Then tell it!” Vidya commanded.

Prasad licked dry lips and shot Katsu a glance. It occurred to him that Katsu had never asked to know how the two of them had come here. He would tell the story for mother and daughter both.

“You remember when we found Katsu’s cradle empty,” Prasad began. “I was frantic after losing our other children to the Unity. I couldn’t sit and wait for the guard to try to find her, so I went out.”

“This I know,” Vidya said impatiently. “Tell me what I do not know.”

“I am trying,” Prasad said, a bit annoyed. “You must have patience. You remember also I was working as a garbage collector. Many people owed me favors for looking the other way while they dumped…things into my truck. I called in every one I had until someone gave me an address.”

“Why did you not come to get me?” Vidya demanded.

“I was too angry to think of it,” Prasad admitted. “I went to the place-a warehouse-and heard Katsu crying inside it. I did not think. I smashed through one of the doors like one of our kine would have done. Five men were there with Katsu.”

Katsu, still kneeling at Vidya’s feet, did not react.

“I fought them like a rabid dog, but they beat me senseless. I woke here, in this base.”

“They did not kill you?” Vidya said.

“Obviously not,” Prasad replied. “The men figured out I was Katsu’s father and they thought I might be valuable to their buyer as well, so they brought me here with her. Dr. Say told me-have you met her yet?”

Vidya shook her head. “I met the man named Max Garinn and I met the man with pale hair and a deep voice.”

“Dr. Kri,” Prasad supplied. “He and Dr. Say are in charge of the base and the project. At any rate, when I woke, Dr. Say told me I had been unconscious for ten days. Katsu was fine.”

“And who were the men who kidnapped Katsu?” Vidya’s hand had trailed down to Katsu’s hair again. Katsu sat like statue.

“Black market slavers,” Prasad said. “Kri told me he and Say had originally arranged to buy Katsu because they were told she was an orphan and because they needed Silent. The slavers brought me along, too, hoping to get more money. Kri said I was almost dead.”

“So you were rescued by people who buy infants on the black market,” Vidya spat.

This reunion wasn’t going as Prasad had imagined it. He could hear the anger in Vidya’s voice, see it in her rigid posture. “It wasn’t like that,” he replied uneasily. “They saved my life.”

“Your life,” Vidya pointed out, “wouldn’t have been in jeopardy if they hadn’t wanted to buy Katsu in the first place. These people hired thugs to kidnap our daughter, and you’re living with them!”