Steven Harper - Dreamer

My fingers were twisting my sweater like snakes. I was getting mad and found myself lapsing into my Jesse personality, the one I used with jobbers. “So you’re Silent. Big fucking deal. Everyone around this shithole is Silent. How the hell does that tell you that Moth-that Ara’s supposed to gash me?”

“I have connections,” he said simply. “Mother Araceil Rymar has made a number of reports about you to Empress Kan maja Kalii. Twice Araceil possessed a Silent slave so they could meet in person to talk about you. In person with the Empress, Sejal. What does that tell you?”

“That she’s-” And then I stopped, my Jesse instincts screaming at me to shut up. People love to talk. After I gave a jobber a mind-shattering orgasm, some of them would get weepy and want to blab about this or that. I was always surprised about what they were willing to tell a complete stranger. Why did they want to blather so much? After I broke down and cried in the restaurant with Kendi, I could kind of understand it, but Kendi had saved my life. Twice. This guy was a total stranger I didn’t owe anything. So I shut up.

It didn’t stop my mind from racing, though. Assuming Sufur wasn’t lying-and my gut was said he was telling the truth-what did Mother Ara meeting with the Empress tell me?

It told me that Harenn was right. I was important, everyone wanted a part of me, and they’d rather I was dead than end up with someone else.

When I didn’t say anything, Sufur went on. “If you stay here, Sejal, they’ll kill you.”

The room was quiet. The French doors were still closed, keeping out the sound of breezes in the tree, though I saw green leaves fluttering beyond the glass. Footsteps trotted past my door and faded. I forced myself to think clearly before I said anything.

“You said if Ara decided I was a danger to the Independence Confederation, she was supposed to do it. How do you know she’s decided I’m a danger?”

“Premier Yuganovi is very upset that you slipped away.” Sufur calmly smoothed his trousers, as if he had said the weather would change. “The Unity’s going to declare war.”

“War? Over me?”

Sufur nodded. “You’re the most valuable piece of property in history. You possess the power to topple empires and destroy governments. The Unity wants you to work for them. The Empress wants you to work for the Independence Confederation. Other governments will want you as well. Empress Kalii isn’t stupid. She’ll see-has seen-that that she’ll be fighting wars she can’t possibly win. Sure, after a few years of training you’ll probably be able to wipe out entire civilizations, but the Empress has to deal with the Unity now.”

“You’re exaggerating,” I said. “I couldn’t wipe out a civilization.”

“You could make one person push all the right buttons and easily do the job,” Sufur countered.

“I’d never do something like that!”

“The Empress doesn’t know that. Premiere Yuganovi doesn’t know that. And people change, Sejal. Who knows what you’ll do in six years, or even six months, given the proper conditioning?” He crossed his arms. “No, Sejal. You’re too dangerous for any government to let you live for long.”

I started to protest. Kendi wouldn’t hurt me. The Children of Irfan had saved me, gone through a lot of trouble for me, even died for me. They wouldn’t kill me after all that.

But my Jesse voice was whispering other things. Would they have come for me if it weren’t for my special Silence? Would they have offered to take me off-planet if I were normal? Would Kendi have saved my life if I’d been an ordinary tricker like Jesse? I knew the answer. It wasn’t me they wanted. It was my power.

I was starting to tear up, which made me mad. “Okay, so I believe you. What do you want? And don’t give me any bullshit that you want to save my life.”

Sufur chuckled. “Oh no, young Sejal. Unlike the Children and the Unity, I won’t lie to you or pretend I’m talking to you for anything but selfish reasons. All humans are selfish. I’m just willing to admit it.”

“Okay, then. Talk.”

“Come with me. I’ll give you sanctuary and I’ll pay you well.” He sounded like a jobber again.

“And what do you want me to do?”

Sufur wet his lips as if he were nervous. “I want you to end war.”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “Just like that, huh? You want me to end war?”

“You can do it, Sejal,” Sufur said seriously. “Or at least, we can do it.”

“How?” I asked, deciding to play along.

“What would happen,” he said, “if there was a war and nobody came?”

Now I was getting nervous again. Sufur was starting to sound like a jay-head who’d had too much juice. “I don’t know,” I stalled.

He sighed and shook his head. “It’s a rhetorical question. Look, you can possess people. More than one at a time?”

I nodded despite the earlier advice from my Jesse voice.

“What if you got into a war, possessed the soldiers on both sides, and stopped them from fighting? What if you possessed the commanders and made them give surrender orders? What if you possessed the government leaders and made them sign peace treaties?”

“It’d work at first,” I said, “until I let go. Then everyone would be back to fighting again.”

“Not if they knew that you’d possess them again. And again and again until they gave it up.”

“I’m one person,” I protested. “I couldn’t possibly do all that.”

“You wouldn’t need to.” Sufur grinned like a cat. “It would only take the threat that you might do it. The Unity is willing to go to war over the mere threat that you might do something it doesn’t like, right?”

“That’s what you said.”

“And they’re declaring war because you’re, in theory, aligning yourself with the Independence Confederation.”

“Right,” I said, wondering exactly where this was going.

“I’m not aligned with any government.” He thumped himself on the chest. “If you come with me, the Unity-and everyone else-won’t have a reason to declare war. You’ll be neutral-and in a position to stop other wars from breaking out later.”

I shook my head. This was a lot of information coming at me all at once. I wandered over the French doors, and opened them a crack. Fresh, cool air blew into the room. I poked my head outside. A small group of other students, most of them older than me, were talking a ways up the common balcony. Good. If had to yell for help or make a fast exit, someone would hear me. I felt calmer now. Sufur didn’t seem to be a whack-head, but you can never tell for sure.

“Look,” Sufur said from my bed, “do you know what happened to your mother and father when the Unity invaded Rust?”

I turned. “What do you know about them?”

“I’ve done my research,” he said. “Your parents are Prasad and Vidya Vajhur, though your mother later changed her name to Dasa. They ran a small cattle farm not far from the city of Ijhan. When the Unity invaded, it dropped biological weapons that wiped out Rust’s food supply. Famine spread everywhere. Your parents, like a lot of people, headed for the city, hoping to find relief. There was none. A sea of people starving to death in their own filth and sewage surrounded Ijhan, and your parents were among them. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people died thanks to the Unity’s little war.”

“Where did you hear this?” I demanded, though I wanted to hear more. This was the stuff Mom never talked about.

“Your parents, however,” Sufur continued as if I hadn’t said anything, “did not die. They knew that they carried the genes for Silence, though they weren’t Silent themselves. When their position became hopeless, they signed a contract with Silent Acquisitions, Inc.”