“Many years.” Her voice was suddenly small and dreary.
“And so you come here, trying to hold onto the memories.” I twisted my hands on the stone seat. “Doesn’t it make you sad?”
She turned toward me abruptly. “Yes. Yes—” turning away again. “It makes me sad. But still I come ... I don’t know why.”
‘“Because you think someday you’ll find what you’re looking for here. What you lost.”
She stared at me, and out of the comer of my eye I could see that she was afraid.
“No. I’m not reading your mind. Just my own.” I shrugged. She didn’t speak but I knew she was asking. My hands hung onto each other in the space between my knees. “I—I miss a place, a life, a right, a—a—” hating my stupid, clumsy words, ‘“—belonging. Me, too.”
“How long are you gone?”
“A long time. A lifetime.”
She frowned her confusion. “Where is your home?”
“I don’t know.” My hands fisted. “Here: Oldcity! I mean, I was born here. I lived my whole life here . . . thinking I was only human, and wondering why people kicked my ass all the time. But I went away, to the Colonies, and I met—some of our relatives. And they made me proud of what I really am—half Hydran.” I looked back at her finally, letting her see my eyes that were as green as emeralds, as grass, as her own. “But that half of my life, I lost it before I ever had a chance to learn…And now I’ve come back to Oldcity, and I keep waiting for some kind of magic to show me the way home. Only it never happens. Because it’s not Oldcity I’m looking for, and it won’t ever give me what I want.” Every word of it was true, and I wondered why I’d never seen the truth before. “But it’s all I’ve got.”
She nodded, her face pinched, her eyes shimmering, drowning. I noticed something wrong with the eyes then—the pupils were open almost halfway, black depths pooling in the green. We were sitting in bright sunlight, and they should have been no more than slits, barely visible.
What are you on? I almost asked it ... but no matter where either of us thought we belonged, we belonged to Oldcity now, and in Oldcity you didn’t ask. Instead I said, “Why? Why did you come here, why do you stay?”
“Relocation.” The smallness, the dullness, the loss came back; the single word hit me like a fist.
Relocation. One indifferent, empty word that held a world of rage and suffering and loss—the grief of a life and a whole people torn apart. Once Koss Tefirah had been her people’s world; the way Earth had been home to humans. But Earth hadn’t been enough for humanity; like roaches, like flies, they’d spread out across the galaxy to other worlds. Some of the worlds already belonged to another people, the ones the humans called Hydran; naming them for the system Beta Hydrae where first contact was made—and for an ancient Terran monster with a hundred heads.
The Hydrans were humanoid enough that they could even interbreed with humans; their only real difference was in having psi talents that made most humans deaf and blind by comparison. Some early xenobiologists even called the human race a world of defective Hydrans, psi mutes. It wasn’t a very popular idea with the rest of humanity, especially when some empire-building combine wanted to strip the resources of a Hydran world. The FTA would oblige them, one way or another, and because the Hydrans’ psionic ability had made them nonviolent, getting rid of them was easy. They lost their lives, their rights, their homes . . . they lost everything. And they couldn’t—wouldn’t—fight back. I took a deep breath, and another, before I could say anything more. “I’m sorry.” Something stupid. “At least—at least you’re the Dreamweaver. At least you make them come to you hungry for the dreams they’ve lost themselves, and willing to pay. Even if it’ll never be enough.”
She didn’t say anything. Her fingers traced the folds of her smock over and over. Twitchy. Mindless. Not in peaceful silence, any more. Birds were calling somewhere far below us. I noticed again that she didn’t wear a data bracelet. Without a data bracelet, you didn’t exist on this world.
“How do you get here on your own?”
“I teleport.” Her lips barely moved.
“Oh.” Pure-blooded Hydrans could do nearly any form of psionics there was a name for. Most human psions couldn’t. I couldn’t. All I’d ever been any good at was telepathy. But once I’d been good . . . better ... the best.
“What happened to you?”
“What?” I looked up.
“Why is your mind like that? What have they done to you?”
I felt my own eyes drowning suddenly, blinked them clear. ‘‘Somebody made me see myself without illusions, once. I killed him for it.’’
“Murder?” Her voice filled with thick horror.
I shook my head. “Self-defense.” I made myself go on looking at her, knowing that no true Hydran could kill another being and survive. Their own empathy destroyed them. “I’m human enough to kill. But I was Hydran enough to pay for it.” And pay, and pay…knowing I would never forget the white agony of death that had burned out my senses and left my mind a wound that would never completely heal. “Scar tissue. That’s all I have now . . . except when you send your dreams out to me. I’ve been trying for so long just to ... thank you.” It died in whispers. “Why . . . how . . . all those others and still you knew, you touched me.” I almost touched her, but only with a hand. “Why?”
“You were different, you and the woman. Not like the rest—” I heard her disgust. “I looked at you, and I felt you different from all the rest, even from her, and so alone, more alone than anyone could be.”
“It’s not so bad,” lying.
“But you came back, over and over. I felt you thanking me, and calling me, and asking me things I could not answer. Until you stopped coming.”
“You heard me—” I straightened, feeling the stone grate against my back, “and I heard you. Could we be that way now—talk mind to mind, not words?” Please, please.
“No.” She shut her eyes. “You aren’t like the guests, the empty minds. You focus sharply, clearly. But then your own mind’s hand covers its mouth, and you make less than a whisper. And your mind’s hands cover its ears, even though I am shouting. . . . Even to talk like humans with you is easier. Forgive me.”
“It’s all right ... I shouldn’t have asked.” My hope curdled, and I was glad then that it wasn’t easy for her to see my thoughts. We sat together without thoughts or words, listening to the wind speak and the leaves answer.
“You are called Cat. Why?” Change of subject.
“It’s my name.” I relaxed finally, smiled a little, settling into the seat.
“Is that all?” She bent her head; beaten-gold earrings winked at me. “Cat?”
“It’s all I need.” I shrugged.
“But it is an animal.” Curiosity and protest.
“Have you ever looked at a cat, at their eyes? They see in the dark. Their eyes are green, and the pupils are long slits. Like mine; like ours.” I laughed once. “I picked it up on the streets. It fits.”
She nodded slightly to herself. “I see. You keep your real name hidden. The humans don’t do that, because their minds are hidden already.”