C. Cherryh - Cuckoo's Egg

"He's coming round-he's coming round. Hold the injection. He's coming out of it."

"That jolted him. Something happened."

"Quiet. He can hear. Let's get him out of here."

"Do you hear us, Thorn? Move your hand if you hear us."

"Aaaaaaaaiiiiii!"

It was his voice. Thorn was the one screaming. He came fighting up out of the dark, and dark was about him, stars aglow in giddy distance.

Light blazed, white and awful; he flung himself out of bed blind and hit the wall with his back before he saw Duun in the doorway, against the dark of the hall, Duun naked from his sleep and staring at him. "Are you all right, Thorn?"

Thorn leaned against the cold surface at his back. His limbs began to shake in aborted reaction. "I'm sorry, Duun."

Duun kept on staring at him. Duun's ears were back. Thorn peeled himself off the wall. The windows were sunrise now, sun coming up over grasslands. Duun had disrupted the timer. The air-conditioner wafted grass-scent, dewy and cold. Thorn shivered again, feeling the draft on his skin. Bedclothes made a trail over the side of the bed and onto the sand, the route his flight had taken.

"It was a nightmare," Thorn said. "I dreamed…" (Faces. Sounds.) He began to shake again. "Faces like mine , Duun-they didn't make me up!"

Duun said nothing. His face had that masklike look that it had when he was not going to say anything.

"Did they?" Thorn persisted.

"Who said they didn't make the tapes up?"

"Don't do this to me, Duun!"

"You don't sound sleepy. You want a cup of tea, a bit to eat?"

Thorn surrendered. Duun was being kind. Duun was leading him off again. Thorn knew the tricks. He ripped the sandy bedclothes loose and threw them down on the floor. The bed wanted turning and thumping anyway, and the blankets could use washing. Duun had left the door and left it open. Thorn pulled the bin open in the side of the riser and took out yesterday's clothes, but it was before baths and he had to dress again before class.

Duun was in the kitchen when he came in, setting the teapot on the riser. "Sobasi?"

"It's all right." The microwave was busy. It went off and Thorn pulled the plates out and set them on the table. (Faces. Faces. The station. Ships coming and going. Dots and symbols. Chemistry. The value of pi. Numbers.) Thorn sat down and swung his legs about, crossed; Duun did the same and poured tea for himself. "I drink too much of this stuff," Duun said, "it ruins my sleep."

"So do I. Duun, can we talk about it-once?"

Duun's ears went flat.

"Dammit, please!"

Duun held out the teapot to him with a bland look on his face. "One question. I'll listen to it. Only one, Haras-hatani. You don't have to ask it now if you want to think about it. Snap judgment's never good."

Thorn took the teapot, composed his face and poured. (I hate him. I hate him. He hasn't got a nerve in his body.) "I'll tell you when I ask it: I don't want you taking the first question I ask and claiming that lets you off. Have you got a lover?"

(Got him.) Duun's ears flicked; the eyes dilated and contracted. "Was that the nightmare?"

"No. I'm just curious."

"None now. A companion for a while. I sent her off." Duun filled his mouth and swallowed.

"Why?"

(Another strike. I hadn't thought that.) "She would have wanted marriage eventually. I didn't."

"How old are you?"

"Minnow, when you started this, we were talking about one question. Is this all pertinent?"

"You were onto me yesterday because I always take the defensive; attack sometimes, you said. I realize I do that even outside the gym. So I'm attacking. Do you think you're old?"

Duun grinned. "You'll go too far pretty soon, Haras-hatani, and I'll call this game. Do you think I'm old?"

"What was your solution for the government?"

"To make you hatani. Which I've done."

"Why didn't you want me to learn about the world the way it is?"

"You have now, haven't you?" Duun shrugged. (Gods, not a flicker.) "It never came up; too much of Sheon and too little of the world. When we came here-two years early, and not quite my planning, I might remind you-" (Counterattack and hit.) "You were pretty badly shaken, if you'll recall, and you knew too damn much you were unusual." (Hit again. Gods! he's got no mercy.) "What was I going to do? Throw the world at you in a day? Listen, minnow, I had a problem on my hands, I had a boy to bring up without newscasts, without pictures of cities, without any hint what went on outside Sheon's woods, because any photograph with people in it was going to show a smart young lad that people all look a lot like me and none of them like you. I had to educate you without educating you, if you see the problem, because I didn't want you to suffer with your difference. I wanted to give you a childhood, and I gave you the best one I knew: I gave you mine."

(He's working on me. He's telling the truth. What was the experiment? They're not done with it. It's still going on.) Thorn felt sweat gather in the folds of his knees and beneath his arms.

"You have to admit," Duun said, "the last two years there's been a lot poured into your head. A lot of facts. You've come from the past to the present. I'll tell you: when I started I didn't know what your mental capacity might be, whether it was normal, you understand. I didn't know whether I could do what I planned. I had to know that before I let anyone else set hands on you… whether you could be hatani. Remember Ehonin's daughter."

"Why is it important-to have me be hatani?"

"Is that your question?"

"I told you I would say when it was my question."

"Well, I'll tell you that one someday."

"This is my question: Why do the things they make me see have the station in them and why is the station full of people like me?"

"That's two questions."

"It's one. A hatani ought to see the unity."

"Well, I'll treat it as one. The station isn't, it's full of ordinary people, and I told you the truth, you're unique. Probably the tests are making you dream in strange ways; it's got psychological implications I'm sure the meds are interested in."

"The experiment's still going on, isn't it?" (Gods, he's twisted me up again. Everything. Everything's an illusion, like the windows.) "Isn't it, Duun?"

"That's still another question. I'm not going to answer that. I told you I didn't want to bring the matter through the door; I'd think you'd be glad of a place where people didn't take your mind apart and play games with what you know."

"Gods, tell me where that is!"

Duun smiled; or maybe it was the scar. "Eat. You woke me up. You can damn well eat the breakfast you made me cook."

"It's a language, Sagot. Why don't they just tell me that?"

"Hush. I can't talk about it."

"What are they doing to me?"

"Thorn, there's no way I can discuss it. Please."

"I ache when I get out of there. I feel like someone's taken me and twisted me inside out. I see things in my sleep. I've had the windows changed. It was stars. I'd wake up and not know where I was and I felt like I was falling, like the sleep-falling, only worse. It's woods now, and sometimes Sheon's woods in the rain, I can't sleep without that. I wish they'd change that awful desert picture in the lab."

"It's meant to be restful."

"There's too much sky in it. It's dead. I dream of a place like that and I don't like it."

"I'll ask them to change it. I'm sure they will. They really try to be good to you, you know that."

"They hate me."

"Boy, they're professionals. They have to be cold. Their minds are busy thinking what to do and they're like all professionals, they get to handling people just like they push their buttons and expect things to work. They forget there's a person attached to that leg and that arm because they're looking down into their minds seeing on a different level, like how the veins and nerves run. On that level your body's just a map with pathways going here and there, and I'm afraid they're on those tracks without much thinking that somewhere up that network there's a skull with a brain in it and a very anxious young man living there and watching and listening to what they're saying to each other."