I discovered a copy of Tanner’s Extracts from Tulisofala, and picked it up. It was a hefty volume, the sort you lay out as eyewash, but never expect to open.
I was paging through it when the sensation that I was not alone in the room, that I was indeed being watched, settled over me. I peered carefully from desk to cabinet to terminal to the entrance to another door that led (I presumed) to an inner office.
Nothing that I could see had changed.
Still, something that was not me moved.
I felt it. In the office. In the still warm air.
Back behind my eyes.
Simultaneously, I heard footsteps in the adjoining room. The connecting door opened, away from me. Whoever had hold of it did not immediately enter, but hung back as though in conversation with someone. There was no sound.
I began to sweat. My vision darkened, and white blossoms expanded in the gauzy light. I must have retreated to a chair. Someone entered the office, but I was too busy trying not to be sick to worry much about it. A hand touched my wrist, and a cool cloth was pressed against my forehead.
The thing that I had sensed stirred in measured cadence to the visitor’s movements.
"It’s all right, Mr. Benedict," he said. (It was a male. I had glimpsed that much.) "How do you feel?"
"Okay," I said, shakily. Something turned in my head, twisted away from the light, burrowed deep. Another wave of nausea swept over me.
"I’m sorry," he said. "Perhaps it would have been best to attempt the commlink after all."
That’s what I was thinking. And of course he knew that. Still, I tried to look on the positive side: chance to meet an Ashiyyurean. How the hell could I forego that? And of course I’d heard the stories. But I’d dismissed them as hysterical.
I tried to concentrate on externals: desk and lamp. Sunlight. The creature’s long, curiously human hand.
"My name," he said, "is S’Kalian. And if it’s any consolation, you should know that your reaction is common." I couldn’t see where the words came from: undoubtedly a device concealed within his loose sleeves.
I was able to sit up now. He placed the cool cloth he’d been using in my hand. "If you wish, I can withdraw, and have someone, a human, come and help you back to the street."
"No," I said. "I’m all right." S’Kalian retreated a few steps, and leaned casually against the desk. He dwarfed the furniture. You’ve seen holos of the Ashiyyur, but you have no idea of the presence they project until you’ve been in a room with one. I felt overwhelmed.
He wore a plain, long garment, belted round the waist; and a skullcap. His face, which deviated from a human’s just enough to be unsettling (particularly, the large, arched eyes, and the canines that always chilled the smile), registered concern.
There was a sense of serene ferocity about those eyes. I pulled free of them, and tried to collect my wits. He looked young. And his appearance had just the correct strain of the exotic to render him attractive. In an unnerving sort of way.
"I’m grateful," I said, "that you agreed to talk to me."
He bowed, and I felt all the secrets of my life spill out into plain view. He is a telepath! I’d believed I could control myself, ask my few questions, and get out. His face showed no reaction. But I knew, knew, he was reading everything.
What was there for him to see?
The tilt and flow of Quinda Arm’s breasts.
My God! Where had that come from?
I fastened on the Hrinwhar raid, the Corsarius, that magnificent plunge into the Ashiyyurean fleet.
No. That wasn’t so good either. I squirmed.
More women drifted into mind. In compromising positions.
How does one converse with a creature who seizes the newborn thought?
"You seemed so insistent," he said, joining his hands beneath the folds of his robe, and giving no indication he was aware of any mental turmoil in the room. "How may I be of service?"
It would be incorrect to say that I was frightened, even though I knew that some people had suffered psychological damage from encounters with the Ashiyyur. Fear would come later, when I was safe. For the moment I was only ashamed, humiliated, that nothing I knew or felt was concealed from this other self, from the incurious eyes that casually glanced over my shoulder and focused somewhere behind me.
"Need I speak?" I asked. "You know why I am here." I looked for a fleeting smile, a nod, a physical sign that he understood my discomfort.
"I am sorry, Mr. Benedict," he said, "but I am no more able to avoid penetrating your coelix, than you would be to avoid hearing an orchestra playing in the next room. However, you should be happy to know that it is not at all easy to sort out." His lips never moved. But there was animation in the eyes. Interest. A trace of compassion. "Try to ignore the penetration, and speak as you would normally."
My God, how the rubble of a lifetime boiled to the surface: an act of cowardice committed long before in a schoolyard; a failure to speak honestly to a woman for whom all passion had expired; an unspoken satisfaction taken, for no discernible reason, in a friend’s misfortune. Small, contemptible things. The baggage that one hauls through a lifetime, the acts that one would change—
"If it is of any assistance to you, please be aware that the experience is even more difficult for me."
"Why?"
"Are you sure you wish to know?"
It struck me that he possessed remarkably poor insight into human psychology to put the question that way. I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to hear the answer. Nevertheless: "Of course."
"You have evolved without telepathic abilities. Consequently, you —your species—has never seen a direct need for imposing order, and very little for restraining the more violent passions. The intensity of your hates and fears, the sudden gales of emotion that may erupt without warning in a human mind, the dominance of your appetites: all of these create discomfort." He inclined his head slightly, and the wisp of a sad smile played about his lips. "I’m sorry, but you are greatly handicapped by the conditions of your environment."
"S’Kalian, do you know why I’m here?"
Apparently confident now that he would not have to come to my rescue, S’Kalian slipped off the desk, and dropped into an armchair. "I’m not sure you know, Mr. Benedict."
"Christopher Sim," I said.
"Yes. A great man. Your people are right to hold him in reverence."
"Our records on the war are incomplete and contradictory. I would like to clarify some points, if it would be possible."
"I am not a historian."
Quinda popped back into my mind. Quinda’s shoulders, soft and naked in candlelight. I cringed, and tried to concentrate on the Corsarius, on the Tanner volume that lay on the table.
S’Kalian remained quietly attentive.
What would sex be like with a female Ashiyyurean? What happens to mating habits when minds are completely open?
"It’s all right, Mr. Benedict," said S’Kalian. "This sort of thing invariably happens. There’s no need to be embarrassed. Thought is, by its nature, unpredictable and, even among us, perverse. You and I can bring anything into each other’s mind, in glittering color and full animation, merely by mentioning it."
"You’re not a retired officer, are you?" I asked, close to panic.
He inclined his head. "Thank you. No. My function is to assist in communications, and to act as a cultural advisor. I’m trained to conduct conversations with humans. But not very effectively, I fear." Again he smiled, reassuringly. I wondered whether that particular gesture might turn out to be universal among intelligent species. At least, among those physically equipped to produce it.