Gillian Anderson - A Dream of Ice

Oh, Ben—he overexplained his thought process for each linguistic discovery, and second- and third-guessed himself for nearly every translated word. On the one hand, his linguistic mapping of Galderkhaan had confidently identified the two main groups: Priests and Technologists. The Technologists were largely scientists, though the words “faith” and “myth creation” appeared frequently in connection with both groups—a puzzle that suggested they came from the same root beliefs and had somehow diverged.

Ben had other discoveries to share, but all of them had the proverbial asterisk since a diacritical hand gesture could skew the interpretation one way or the other. Maanik had made similar hand gestures when she was under the control of the Galderkhaani soul.

Caitlin lifted her eyes from the phone as the train stopped at a station with a jolt. Several passengers entered the car, looking for places to sit. When they swung into seats, their eyes found hers.

A fresh wash of ice cascaded down her spine. The departure bell sounded but the train stayed in the station. Caitlin looked around, shocked that the fear had found her again and determined not to let it get the better of her.

She then did what she had done with Odilon: turned her right hand down and emptied herself, raised her left hand palm-up to receive, and let her fingers guide her mind. Away from herself, through the car, outward, farther—

In the car ahead, Caitlin noticed a woman with black hair and a deep suntan. She was the reason for the train’s delay: her backpack was between the doors, preventing them from closing, and she was looking at Caitlin. Suddenly the woman, in a small gesture, wiped the air with her fingertips.

Images flooded Caitlin’s mind. Unfamiliar faces, all bronzed, all frozen as if in snapshots—some laughing, some crying, some screaming. They came rapidly, one after the other, faster and faster until they seemed to move: one body with hundreds of expressive faces. Caitlin’s body felt overcome with turbulence, white-water rapids. She tried to raise a hand and couldn’t. Effectively blind, suddenly nauseated, and panicking, Caitlin struggled to shut her eyes, to shut out the images.

And despite those unwanted images she realized she still had some control, her mind still worked, and she thought to herself: You are here, now, in the train, going home . When it starts again you will feel the car swaying, hear the wheels on the tracks. Picture it. Anticipate it.

What was it she heard Jacob’s art instructor say once, the phrase that stuck with her? “If you can visualize it, you own it”?

And suddenly, it worked. Caitlin felt as if the visual aura of a migraine had suddenly dissipated. When she opened her eyes again the doors were closed, the train was rolling forward, and the woman was gone.

That’s what it was , she told herself. The onset of a migraine from the stress of what you did with Odilon. That’s all.

But though normalcy had reasserted itself, something of the assault remained: an unsettled, bordering-on-urgent feeling deep inside her that was somehow familiar. It had all the earmarks of mild anxiety but with a difference:

Caitlin felt the woman’s eyes still upon her, still very near, invisible, somehow watching her.

“Senator Cooper, we don’t have to represent it that way to your constituents.”

Flora Davies forced her voice to stay pleasant and charming on the phone as she pried the Control key from her laptop with a fingernail. An aggravated Flora always meant damage to the nearest object in her office.

“But,” the senator started in his infantilized lilt, “what if the other side finds out about my support for the increased funding you’ve requested and starts spreading rumors that I now believe in global warming or climate change—or whatever they’re calling it now?”

Flora calmly countered, “Then our colleagues, who are numerous and well connected, will simply answer back in the media that the funds you want to study the Antarctic ice melt have nothing to do with the environment. It doesn’t have to do with dying polar bears or rising sea levels. It has to do with your fear, the Group’s fear, that the Russians or the Chinese can expand their presence there and pose a threat to our nation from this new and wide-open platform.”

“I see,” he said. “I like it.”

“Everything is a public relations battle these days,” she said.

The senator sighed. “It is a muddle,” he agreed. “I liked it better when we either did or did not support abortion, without all the debate about this month, that trimester, or which state you are physically in. When we supported human rights across the board, not this for gays or that for women or something else for some other group.”

“You are a true humanitarian.”

“Thank you,” the senator said.

“Which is why it’s important to let your colleagues and constituents know that supporting and supervising the expenditures for our work will allow you to make sure less money is spent on faux science, like whale massage and meditation for schizophrenics.”

“Faux science,” he said. “Yes, I like that phrase. It sounds like ‘foe,’ as in ‘enemy.’”

“Yes, Senator,” Flora said, rolling her eyes. She popped the Control key.

This, thankfully, would be the last phone call she’d have to make this morning. Well, early afternoon—she surmised the time when she heard mail drop through the slot in the front door of the Group’s mansion on Fifth Avenue. Three new senators supporting her publicly acknowledged Antarctic research. Every dollar helped. That was quite an accomplishment, almost as impressive as getting her Berkeley colleague and Group member, Peter, to send her a new science associate even after telling him about the dicey experiment now taking place below her in the mansion’s heavily secured basement.

With Senator Cooper happily burbling away about press releases and news spots, she let her mind wander back to that experiment until it was necessary to answer a question.

“Say, Dr. Davies,” said the senator, “does this mean I can get a trip to Antarctica? My daughter would love to see penguins.”

“Yes,” Flora said, “the Group Science Foundation will be thrilled to give you a junket in Antarctica.” She did not mention that half the continent’s penguins had left due to the ice event that only her aide had witnessed.

They ended the call convivially. Flora used both hands to massage her face out of its scowl, then headed downstairs to the basement corridor, now crammed full of destroyed deep freezers. She really had to figure out a way to dump those unobtrusively. Opening the door to the smallest lab, she encountered the glare of what had turned out to be the best and worst part of the bargain with Berkeley: Adrienne Dowman, a reportedly brilliant if contrary young scientist, newly arrived the day before, who refused to exhibit even a veneer of social grace, from manners to lip balm to deodorant. She looked as if her lips bled every night.

“How’s it coming?” Flora asked as pleasantly as she could.

“It’s not going to work,” Adrienne barked.

“Well, Peter sent me quite the optimist, didn’t he?” Flora whipped back.

“You asked for my opinion.”

“I did not,” Flora replied. “I asked for a progress report. Let’s be clear. While you’re working with me, which will be for the rest of your career, you have an ‘on’ button but not an ‘opinion’ button. Got it?”

“It’s never been done at this scale,” Adrienne said, undeterred. “That’s informational, not an opinion.”

Flora gave up, for now. “When are we starting?”