Steven Harper - Nightmare

Pup’s eyes going flat, his body going stiff. Rejection in his eyes to words Kendi hadn’t quite said. What if the same thing happened with Pitr? Kendi didn’t think he could face that.

" …resigned from her post as governor in a cloud of scandal, and the question went unanswered. Did Irfan order the assassination of the governor of Othertown or did he truly commit …"

The room seemed suddenly close and stifling, despite the open window. Kendi abruptly found he couldn’t sit still. He needed to move, to-

" …you think, Kendi?"

Kendi looked up, startled. Bren, Jeren, Willa, and everyone else in the room were staring at him expectantly. He scrambled to remember what Sister Bren had asked but couldn’t do it. "What?"

"Do you think Irfan ordered the assassination of the governor of Othertown?" Bren repeated patiently.

Kendi shrugged. Who cared?

"Well, it’s your homework essay-all of you," Bren said. "There’s half an hour left for class. Log into the system and start your research now. Work with a partner, if you want. I’m really interested in what you come up with, so turn them in tomorrow morning, all right?"

The class groaned but got out their data pads. Holographic screens popped up all over the room. Kendi got out his own pad, and Sister Bren moved among the class, pointing out places to find both information and speculation. Several students teamed up with partners. Kendi’s restlessness grew. It felt like he was back in his slave square, hemmed in on all sides.

"Wannaworktogether?" Kite blurted.

"I have to get out of here," Kendi muttered. And when Sister Bren’s back was turned, he slipped out the door.

Outside, the alternating patches of warm sunlight and cool shade felt much better than the confining classroom. Kendi heaved a sigh of relief in the bright, free air and trotted across the boards. After a moment, he sped up until he was running, all but flying over the walkways. A rope ladder caught his eye and he climbed it to a long balcony that ran the length of the building. Through the windows he saw what appeared to be a series of offices. Brown-clad humans and blond-furred Ched-Balaar worked at desks or reclined on couches and pillows. Kendi assumed the latter were in the Dream.

A set of stairs at the end of the balcony lead downward, and Kendi found himself on a wide platform where a life-sized statue of Irfan carved in gray marble stood on a pedestal. Pots of red and blue flowers had been placed at the base. Kendi paused to examine the statue. Irfan was lifting a hand in front of her as if about to accept a gift, and her face had a determined cast to it. A scroll was carved on the pedestal. At the top were the words "The Wisdom of Irfan," and it was inscribed with a series of sayings:

1. A serene mind is a strong mind.

2. The Dream is no less real than what we call reality.

3. We are but caretakers of the eternal Dream.

4. You must be a person first and Silent second.

5. The greater your knowledge, the smaller your risk.

6. You may gain, but not at someone else’s expense.

7. Your mind should be open, but your mouth should be closed.

8. The universe provides, we distribute.

9. Pay forward, not back.

10. The real world becomes the Dream.

Kendi read the first one aloud. "A serene mind is a strong mind." Then his mind must be weak indeed. The restlessness grew stronger. Despite Mother Ara’s earlier warning, Kendi used a balcony railing to clamber up to the roof of the building and from there climb into the branches of the talltree. His bare feet found easy purchase on the rough bark. The tree flatted as it went up, and eventually Kendi was able to poke his head up out of the green foliage.

The sun shone down gold between fluffy white clouds. Small animals chirped in the leaves around him, and a hawk-like bird coasted overhead. Kendi watched it pass. It felt as if he could take another step upward and fly himself. He grinned. The sky reminded him of the endless Outback, though the sun was considerably kinder. Bellerophon was a good place.

He climbed down a ways and lounged comfortably at the juncture of two thick branches. It was like being in a green cave, cool and leafy. Birds and small lizards chirruped at each other as they darted about hunting insects. A clump of dead twigs and branches had gathered where the wide branch met the talltree trunk, presumably blown or fallen there. Kendi selected a straight piece half as long as his own leg and a few centimeters in diameter. He turned it over in his hands for a moment, then produced a folding knife from his pocket and fell to whittling it. Some of the strangeness of it all washed over him. His birthplace was countless light-years away and almost a thousand years in the past, but here he was, sitting in a giant tree on a planet where humans worked with aliens to enter the Dream.

Were the Dream and the Dreamtime the same thing? Kendi tried to think, wishing he had paid more attention to the stories told by the Real People Reconstructionists. The Dreamtime was the source of everything, a place outside space and time. A part of every living creature was there, and there were those among the original tribes of Real People who had learned to walk its paths. This sounded a bit like the Dream. The original Real People had also used Head Talk-telepathy, Kendi supposed-for communication in a climate where a constantly-open mouth could lead to dehydration, and the Dream as Mother Ara explained it was used for communication among mutants.

The knife continued its work, though Kendi’s mind lay elsewhere. The Real People Reconstructionists had always maintained that Aboriginal culture was the pinnacle of human accomplishment, that the reason mutants could no longer enter the Dreamtime or use Head Talk was because they had left the ancient ways for a more materialistic state. The same had happened to the Real People themselves after being forcibly separated from their ancient way of life until their descendants had forgotten the Dreamtime completely. When people came to realize the foolishness of such a life, they would find it once again.

Kendi snorted. They seemed to have found it just fine without changing one bit. Of course, the Real People hadn’t known about the Ched-Balaar or what could be accomplished through genetic engineering.

The problem was that Kendi couldn’t seem to get the hang of it. He had gone through several meditation exercise sessions with Mother Ara, but it always felt wrong for him, somehow. The couch felt lumpy and strange, and his mind always wandered during the sessions instead of becoming calm and clear. Willa, Jeren, and Kite all said they could calm themselves right down, but Kendi couldn’t seem to get the trick of it. Why?

The knife closed, seemingly of its own accord, and Kendi looked down at the stick. It had become a short spear, complete with sharpened tip. Kendi ran his hands up and down the shaft. A few splinters here and there, but nothing a little sandpaper couldn’t take care of. Why had he made it? It was as if something had guided his hands. Kendi looked at it for a long moment, then gave a little smile of recognition and of happiness.

With a grunt of annoyance, Ara shut down the data pad. Her holographic screen winked out, and she ran a tired hand over her face. The sun had moved away from her home office window and the room had cooled nicely. It was scant comfort.

Ara sighed. There were simply no other clues to be found. She had gone over every report, every image, every fact, and she couldn’t find anything the Guardians might have missed. Somewhere out there was a madman who was killing Silent, and Ara was becoming more and more determined to find him. Part of her said she should leave the hunt to the Guardians, but another part of her, one with a louder voice, yammered that it was her duty to help in whatever way she could. After all, which was more urgent-saving Silent from a slaver or saving Silent from a killer? Not only that, the killer might go after someone Ara knew-her mother or her sister or her niece.