John Adams - Federations

“No one else could do what they did so they… preserved the gene-line. And thus was the origin of the convents. Purity of thought, word, and deed. You must not know the words you Hear, you must only repeat them perfectly, and only to the one you are tuned to.”

Her face is dry but she smells like crying. I want to press against her, but I stay still.

“I am impure.” Her voice grows softer, deeper. “Perhaps my DNA has betrayed me, but my mind betrayed me first. Making me wonder why. Why can we not know history? Why can we not know the world outside the dome? Why can we not simply Speak when we choose? To whom we choose? Why only here, only the words that are given us, without understanding what those words mean?”

She smells angry again now. And I flick my ears forward and back, fighting an urge to crouch low.

“The convents exist on every inhabited planet.” Her face looks strange and tight. “And there are no Speakers other than at the convents. Communication is… valuable.”

I don’t understand, but her angry smell makes my neck fur rise, wanting to protect her.

“How can I think such thoughts?” She clenches both her pale hands now. “No wonder my DNA betrayed me. My impure thoughts must have warped it. Where will I go now? What can I do if I cannot Speak to the stars? Who will I Speak to?”

The howl knotted in my gut nearly escapes, but I flatten my ears and crouch in spite of myself, forcing it down. Even when she uses my eyes she cannot see me without a mirror, and for that I am now grateful. There are no mirrors here and if she looked in my eyes she would see the truth.

“Perhaps I’ll end up a servant like you.” Her shoulders droop. “Cleaning the gardens or cooking in the kitchen. I’ve never seen one of our type as a servant before. Not many fail, I suppose.”

Not many fail.

I shiver, glad that she is not touching me to feel my crouch, my shiver, glad that she can not smell.

I am old, but the Speakers that smell old tell me that I am a good puppy raiser. Will they give me a new small one tomorrow? Next week? Then I will sit at the table nearest the door with my small puppy while she learns how to eat, and walk, and Speak. Will I ever need to slip onto her bed at night? Will she ever wet my neck fur with warm snow-melt tears?

Will I ever speak with my litter-brother again, nested in our dreams?

Perhaps she is right and she is impure.

We are all impure, us servants here. We cannot Speak and we know far too much for purity. Perhaps my dreams have made her impure.

“We’ve missed dinner.” She gropes for me finally and I place myself beneath her palm. “Take me to the garden and then you can go to the kitchen and get food. I’m not hungry but I want you to eat.”

They are waiting for her, in her room or in the garden. I smell the traces of tension in the air circulating through the room, the smell of distress like bitter smoke in my nose. We always know. She starts forward, knowing the way to the garden without my eyes. I step in front of her and she bumps into me, smelling surprised, stumbling back a step.

“Siri, what happened? What’s wrong?”

“Not to the garden,” I tell her.

“Why not?”

They will be gentle. They will be kind. The way they are when we grow too old for our duties. That gentleness will come to me sooner rather than later. I am gray now; I have traveled the room many times from back to front. “No Speaker leaves the convent, except to a new world,” I say and the howl in my gut thickens the words.

“What do you mean? That I’ll be servant here?”

I do not answer and I do not need to. She knows that none of her kind serve here. I smell her sharpening fear.

“There’s no way out.” Her eyes are round now, reflecting the dim light in the room. “Where would I go if I could escape? What would I do?”

I take her hand, firmly. The corridor on the far side of the statue smells like old air and long-dead small things. We know everything, we who serve. She shuffles after me, clinging to my hand and I hurry, because if I go slowly, the fear will fill her and she will stop. At the end of the corridor is a narrow space, one that brought air, perhaps, or heat, or some kind of small cargo. We have to crawl and she can only touch me briefly so she loses her sight. But she hurries, perhaps afraid that I might leave her. If she could smell, she would know that I would never leave her. But she cannot smell, so I harden my heart against her fear and hurry. Fear of being left behind will keep her moving.

At the far end of the small corridor, an old, corroded screen gives way reluctantly, tangled in green vines that fill the air with the sweet-sharp scent of their injuries, a shout that fills the night air. But the Speakers have no nose and none of us will tell. I emerge and stand, helping her up. The two moons of this world—small and strange, one blue, one reddish—float against a blazing ceiling of stars.

“Where are we?” she gasps.

I take her hand, pull her. The door is small, not one for cargo, but for the people who must come and go. No one can get in. But the Speakers see no need to lock it from this side. You only go through a door if you have permission.

I do not have permission.

Terror rises up out of my bowels like a black snake, filling me as I place my palm against the door, and I reek into the night air. I wet myself and almost, almost turn and flee, releasing that knotted howl into the safe darkness of the convent.

But she has shared my dreams and brought me to my brother. I place both palms against the door, although pain sears me as if it is red hot. It swings open, silent, and I stumble through, falling to my knees. I feel her hands on me and I smell her worry. She is afraid for me. Not for herself.

“I am all right,” I tell her, standing up. My whole body shivers with reaction. But her arms around me, her worry for me fills me with strength. None of my pups have ever worried about me.

The convent sits in the middle of the city. It has many needs and many of us fill those needs every day. And we all share. So I know the city even though I have never walked it. And it frightens me, how easily we left it. But then, none of them try to leave. Only this one, the puppy who shares my dreams. It is warm this night but her clothes—the white coverall of a Speaker-in-Training—seem to shine like the midday sun. The narrow alley that leads to this door opens into a wide street. I see lights and shops and eating places and smell people, happy and angry and hungry and full. I smell my own kind, too. We servants are everywhere. People have always had servants.

Garden grows along the wall surrounding the convent, like the garden within, but smelling of people and city and no vanilla orchids. I take her to a bench in the deeper darkness against the wall. Her clothes still shine like the moon I remember or the snow my litter-brother and I rolled in. But she will be hard to see from the street. She smells fear, but more than that she smells curious.

“I hear things. I smell food. What is it like—let me see?”

But I am afraid. “I have to find you clothes. So that people don’t see you and know what you are.”

“What are we going to do, Siri?” The fear smell gets briefly stronger.

I don’t know. But I don’t want to say that. “I will be back. Stay here and be quiet and you will be safe.”

I hurry down the narrow alley to the main street, but there I stroll, sorting the thick woven fabric of scent for what I need. People don’t see me, they don’t really see any of our kind. Their eyes skate over us and past, as if we live on the other side of an invisible wall, as if we all live within a convent.

I smell my kind, a strong home smell, and I follow it, unraveling it from the tapestry of food and people-lust, of happy smells, and sad smells. It leads me to an alley that opens to another like it, a courtyard of clean paving surrounded by the back side of tall house-buildings and shops. Small apartments line the walls of this small courtyard along with shops lit dimly or not at all, unlike the shops on the main street.