—which she was—
—because they had made her that way.
“It’s a matter of self-discipline,” he said. “As I just said, you are going to have to do better, which means, in short, your exerting a greater effort.”
Azia wiped her sleeve over her face. The tears just would not stop. She pointed at her bonder. “Less than a standard hour ago, it changed my brain. You say I’m not controlling myself. Well, that’s the whole point of bonding, isn’t it—to take control of myself away from me. Why couldn’t it have waited to touch me until you’d taught me all these things?” John Shea Velikovsky’s lips practically disappeared with disapproval. Despite her anger, despite her pride, her voice, now hoarse from crying, rose into a pleading wail. “Or why can’t you give me a chance to try to learn how to get at least some kind of control over myself before expecting me to do this stuff?” There was no understanding in his face, only distance. She became frantic to make him—if not it—comprehend. “It’s taken me away from myself I don’t know who I am now, I can’t find any part of myself that feels like me, I’m so lost in feeling like, like, a thing.” His eyebrows went up, as if to say she was speaking garbage. “Shit, shit, shit! What kind of jerk are you that you can’t understand?”
John Shea Velikovsky’s hands balled into white-knuckled fists. He spoke slowly, testily, through his teeth. “We don’t have time for this. It’s easier, certainly, to be trained before the bonding is triggered, but Pluummuluum is on a tight schedule and simply doesn’t have the time to give you the luxury of getting used to the bond. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s waiting to get on with the lesson.”
Getting on with the lesson meant another touch. The thought of another touch so soon made Azia hysterical. It didn’t care; the trainer didn’t care. No one cared. Azia wrapped her arms around her body and sagged to the floor. The trickle of tears became a flood. “Mommy,” she whispered, rocking herself back and forth, back and forth. “I want Mommy.”
3.
Azia discovered something about the cargo of feathers she had dreamed about when Pluummuluum took one of her hands, opened it, pressed one such feather into her palm and closed her fingers around it. Though she had been wholly absorbed in her paroxysm of loss, a detached part of herself had registered a “conversation” between the Corollian and the trainer. The trainer had spoken, the Corollian had touched his forehead for the merest instant, the trainer had spoken again, the Corollian had touched his forehead a second time. And the result had been Pluummuluum’s taking a feather from beneath the loose garment it wore and giving it to her.
Her bonder’s touch acted on her as it had before, of course; but something else happened, too, when the feather was pressed into her palm. The warmth and fullness of knowing she was loved replaced the hollowness of abandonment. For a few seconds she thought it was because her bonder was now feeling affection for her, and that this affection was reflected in its chemical emissions. She barely noticed that her tears stopped flowing. She stared at its face and searched for some kind of facial sign, something to mark a difference from her prevailing perception of blankness.
“The feather is a comforter,” John Shea Velikovsky said.
The words hurt her—but in a detached sort of way, as a mild disappointment. Without thinking, she opened her fingers and stared at the soft, lush flurry of white.
“Careful. It’s not really a feather, but a living entity.”
Azia took a second look and saw that its structure was nothing like that of a feather. Ordinary feathers had cilia radiating bilaterally from a central spine; this “feather” had a thick, prominent cartilage-like ridge running its length, making an edge from which a lush sheaf of long, soft cilia grew not bi- but monolaterally, like the teeth of a comb. As she watched, the long, thin cilia lifted and wafted in graceful ripples of movement. “What is it, then?” she said, wondering if the movement was due to air currents or the agency of the organism.
“They’re known as ‘feathers’ to humans, but they’re symbiotes that live on the heat and bacteria of a variety of humanoid species, while generating in their hosts, in return, ‘good’—which is to say, tranquil—feehngs. Their effect is rather greater on humans than on most other species. That one is Pluummuluum’s personal property. They’re enormously expensive. Among humans, only the very rich and the desperately ill can afford to acquire one.” Azia looked at Pluummuluum and saw that it was watching her. She noted with detachment that though she continued to feel powerfully drawn to it, she felt the attraction with a difference. She said, “Thank you. I’m still not myself, but it doesn’t seem to matter now. Thank you.”
“It is letting you use the feather only for the time it takes us to finish the lesson,” John Shea Velikovsky said.
Azia looked for a few seconds longer at the “feather,” then closed her fingers back over it. “All right,” she said to her bonder. “Everything’s cool.”
4.
The lesson lasted late into the night. Finally, though, John Shea Velikovsky said that he had done the best he could in one session, and that Azia’s and his own fatigue made further effort pointless. Though her ability to “converse with” (much less take instruction from) Pluummuluum still required several repetitions to get reasonably correct, Azia felt deeply gratified by the trainer’s departure. She resented him for having robbed her of her bonder’s full attention. Once they were alone, she believed, it would be different—meaning better.
As soon as the door slid shut, Pluummuluum indicated that it wanted to converse with her. Though her knees ached, Azia re-assumed the Reception position gladly. Briefly it touched her forehead. Given the likelihood of her making mistakes in Reception, the rule was that after each dream it sent her she must relate to Pluummuluum what she understood it to be telling her. As soon, therefore, as she finished dreaming, she looked into its face and told it what she understood of the dream. Pluummuluum then touched her and sent her the dream again; and again she told it what she understood. Only on the third try did she satisfy it, when she said, “The reason you do not employ a consultant like John Shea Velikovsky as your mediator but have acquired me is because you need to be assured of the absolute confidentiality of your negotiations. The only humans who can be trusted in this way are those who are bonded. I am never to repeat to anyone but yourself what you have communicated to me. And I am never to repeat to a third party anything that has been said or implied or referred to in the course of negotiations. In short, I am never to give any information about you or your business to anyone.” Azia drew a deep breath. “We will now rest for a few hours and then take the shuttle to the station. When we have arrived at the station you will explain to me your purpose in the negotiations and how I’m to help you achieve it. And then, later, we will meet the party and begin the process itself.”
Pluummuluum touched her forehead for less than a second. The resulting dream took less than a half-minute. She handed it the “feather” and said, regretfully, “Thank you for its use.” She did not repeat what she understood of the dream, because it had told her that she needn’t do so.