Steven Harper - Dreamer

Prasad shook his head. “I’m not explaining it well. The slavers approached Kri and Say first. When they heard the slavers had a baby for…for sale, they agreed to buy.”

“And that makes it better?” Vidya said.

“You’ve changed, Vidya,” Prasad said softly. “You’ve hardened.”

“And your brain has softened. You work for the people who stole our child.”

Anger stiffened Prasad’s jaw. “It was that or live in squalor and let the Unity take Katsu on her tenth birthday. Now our daughter is seventeen years old, and she is still with her father.”

Vidya looked like she wanted to reply, then made her mouth a hard line. Katsu still hadn’t moved. Prasad’s throat thickened.

“I missed you,” he said hoarsely. “I didn’t know if you were living or dead. Every day I watched Katsu grow to look like you and I wondered. Now you are here and we are fighting. Please. What happened?”

Vidya slumped back in her chair. The anger slipped from her face and her chin trembled.

“When you didn’t come back, I became afraid whoever took you and Katsu would next come for me. So I ran,” Vidya said. She reached down and gently stroked a lock of Katsu’s hair. “Where did you go?” Prasad asked.

Vidya barked a short, harsh laugh. “To what I thought would be a safe place. It took me seventeen years to realize it was not. You have a son, my husband.”

“I have two,” Prasad said, confused. “We had to give-”

Vidya cut him off with a gesture. “I was pregnant when you left. I have a daughter named Katsu, and you have a son named Sejal.”

“I do? A son? Where is he?” Prasad found he was on his feet, heart thudding. “What does he look like? Didn’t you bring him?”

“He is no longer on Rust,” Vidya replied.

“But he is Silent,” Katsu put in.

Both Prasad and Vidya turned toward her. “What?” Prasad said.

“How did you know that?” Vidya asked at the same time.

“He reaches people through the Dream,” Katsu said calmly. “He touches them and changes them. And he walks the Dream.”

“How do you know this?” Vidya repeated as Prasad sank back into his chair.

“I have seen him in the Dream,” Katsu said. “But he does not know me.”

“Your daughter is one of the few Silent who can enter the Dream without drugs,” Prasad said proudly. “She is also an expert on Rustic marine biology.”

“I see,” Vidya said. She passed a hand over her face. “This is not how I envisioned meeting you again, my husband.”

“Nor I, my wife.” Impulsively, Prasad leaned forward and took her cool hand in his. He squeezed twice. Vidya’s jaw firmed, then trembled.

“I am so angry at you,” she choked. “But I have also missed you. You and Katsu both.”

“How did you find us?” Prasad asked, still holding her hand.

Vidya took a deep breath. Her back straightened and Prasad released her. “That is a long story as well.” She told what had happened after Katsu and Prasad’s disappearance, how she discovered she was pregnant with Sejal and how she changed her name. Guilt and regret at not having been at his wife’s side washed over Prasad. How hard it must have been for her, while he, her husband, had lived in luxury with the daughter she thought dead.

“I did not wish to have another Silent child,” Vidya said. “I found a genegineer-Max Garinn. He said he could use a retrovirus to make Sejal non-Silent. And it seemed he did. Sejal was tested twice for Silence, once at birth and once at age two. Both tests came back negative. But I have since learned that he is indeed Silent, as Katsu says.”

She continued with the story, and Prasad learned how Vidya had built the neighborhood. He blinked as she related in a dispassionate voice how she had spoken to the Children of Irfan and learned of Sejal’s activities in the market. An irrational bit of anger flashed within him. What kind of mother would allow such a thing?

And, whispered a conflicting voice, what kind of father would abandon his son to do it?

“I sent Sejal to the monastery,” Vidya finished. Katsu remained impassive at her feet. “I stayed behind because I had questions. I have many contacts now, and I used them to track down Max Garinn, though it took many days. When I told him who I was, he brought me here. Dr. Kri was extremely excited to see me.”

Prasad remembered how Kri and Say had talked about Katsu’s mitochondrial DNA and how they wanted to study her and her eggs. He could easily understand the sensation Vidya’s arrival would generate.

“When I asked why he excited,” Vidya continued, “he mentioned you, and I refused to answer any more questions until I saw you.”

Prasad grimaced. “Max Garinn was recruited for the lab only six years ago and he never mentioned you. A pity he didn’t. If our…relationships with him had overlapped more closely, this reunion might have taken place years ago.”

Katsu shifted somewhat but didn’t leave her position at Vidya’s feet. Vidya had once again taken to stroking her hair. “What exactly is the lab doing, my husband?”

“My wife has not changed,” Prasad observed with grave humor. “She always wishes instant information.”

“And my husband has not changed,” Vidya said pointedly. “He is ever slow to deliver it.”

“The lab is exploring the genetics of Silence,” Prasad told her. “It began with an attempt to find a way to let Silent gestate in artificial wombs so they would no longer be ripped away from their parents.”

Vidya’s look became skeptical. “They are trying to end the slavery of the Silent by creating people in laboratories?”

“Not quite.” Prasad squirmed a bit under her steady gaze. “They were attempting to end the slavery of women who can produce Silent children. After all, some places not only enslave the Silent, but also those who can produce them. If the project is successful, that would stop.”

“Have you had any success?” Vidya’s voice was hard and flat.

“Some.” Prasad felt reluctant to explain about the Nursery.

“My husband, you have failed to think. I have been in this place less than an hour, but already I can see the lie in that story.” She gestured at the room. “This place is expensive. It must cost billions to maintain it, not to mention what the research itself must cost. Do you honestly think whoever is paying that much money is doing it for such unselfish reasons?”

“I have thought of that.” Prasad scratched one raspy cheek. He had neither showered nor shaved yet this morning. “The process, if we perfect it, would almost certainly be worth mountains of money.”

“And who pays for all this?”

Prasad looked straight at her. “I don’t know. The doctors refuse to say. But when they offered a haven to me and Katsu, I took it. I could have gone back to Ijhan, but that would have meant giving up Katsu on her tenth birthday. I had already lost you. I did not wish to lose her as well. So I stayed and worked for them.” He traced a finger over the curly pattern in the fabric of his chair. “But now, my wife, I am beginning to have doubts.”

Overcoming his reluctance, he explained about the children in the Nursery and that the lab wanted to begin experimenting with Katu’s eggs. Katsu met this news with her usual composure, but Vidya went white.

“How can you stay in such a place?” she hissed.

The words came without thought or hesitation. “I can’t.”

Prasad paused, startled at himself. He had spoken the truth. Words banged inside his skull, demanding release.

“I can’t stay,” he said again. “I do not believe that those children are not sentient. I do not believe they feel no pain. They are in physical and mental distress, and I have not let myself see this. I think…I know I blinded myself to these facts because I wanted a safe place for Katsu and for me. Can you understand that?”