Dreamer (26 page)

Ara had said space meant nothing in the Dream, and this was normally true. Where she was depended on where she wanted to be. If Ara thought she and her garden were worlds away from, say, Gretchen’s ship, so it was. If Ara thought the ship was so close that the mast was visible over the garden wall, so it would be. If two Silent had contradictory ideas of what reality looked like, for example if Gretchen felt Ara was far away and Ara was sure Gretchen was near by, the strongest will won out.

All this meant nothing when it came to the distant darkness. No matter how hard Ara concentrated, it stubbornly loomed on the horizon, perhaps two kilometers away. She could get closer if she wanted, but not farther.

“Ara!” Melthine grabbed her arm and pointed. “Look!”

The dark chaos, pulsing with its scarlet anger, was growing. It moved like a thundercloud, engulfing the plain of the Dream. The whispers around Ara went silent for a moment, then leaped into hysterical babble.

“We should leave the Dream,” Ara urged. “Before—”

The ground rumbled beneath them. Lightning arced from the spreading darkness, stabbing the ground ahead of it like the antennae of a hungry insect. The darkness swirled like a red-cracked thundercloud. Melthine stared at it.

“Go!” Ara said, giving him a small push.

A scarlet lightning bolt smashed into Melthine’s chest. Thunder blasted Ara off her feet and knocked her several meters away. She landed hard and for a moment she couldn’t breathe. Her ears rang and her nose was bleeding. The ground shook again. Stunned, Ara stared stupidly upward, unable to move or think. Then she remembered Melthine. Panic jigged in her mind like a frightened frog. Ara forced herself to roll over. Melthine lay in a boneless heap perhaps ten meters away. She got up and ran toward him, ignoring the pain in her ears and her head. This was the Dream. There would be no pain.

The pain remained with her as she knelt beside Melthine. His eyes were closed and his skin was clammy. He was still breathing, though the breaths came fast and shallow. A black hole had been burnt in his chest. Horrified, Ara felt for his pulse. But even as she did so, the breath hissed heavily from his lungs. He went still and vanished beneath Ara’s fingertips.

“No!” she cried. “Melthine!”

But the plain was empty.

Another bolt of lightning struck the ground and thunder crashed close enough to make Ara’s ears ring anew. The darkness was still expanding, rolling toward Ara like a juggernaut. Swiftly Ara quashed her grief and gathered together her concentration. At the last moment, the words of the Empress echoed in her mind.

You and I are much alike, Mother Araceil Rymar. People of our kind see what must be done, and we do it.

Ara opened her eyes. The familiar ceiling of her own house was above her. Quickly she sat up.

“Bruna,” she said frantically, “call emergency services.”

Wordlessly the house computer made the connection. In hurried tones, Ara started to tell the operator what had happened, but the woman interrupted.

“Emergency services are with him now, Mother Adept,” the operator’s disembodied voice said through the computer speakers. “Grandfather Melthine wears a wristband monitor when he enters the Dream and we were alerted. He will be transported to the medical center.”

Ara disconnected and called the medical center. Melthine hadn’t arrived yet, of course, so she made herself to wait an agonizing half hour. There was no point in going down there—they wouldn’t let a non-relative see him in the emergency room.

Ara called the medical center again. Melthine was alive but comatose. Only close family members would be allowed to visit. Ara disconnected and passed a hand over her eyes, not sure whether she should be relieved that Melthine was still alive or upset over what had happened.

The house around her was quiet, and now it felt eerie, as if something were waiting to jump out of the Dream straight at her. There was plenty of empty space. In addition to several guest rooms, a dining room, living room, and computer playroom, the house contained Ara’s office and her Dream Temple. The latter was merely Ara’s fanciful term for the comfortably-furnished room she liked to use when she entered the Dream.

The house was, like most Bellerophon houses, done in glass and brown wood, and it was located only a short walk from the monastery. A wraparound balcony looked out over the misty leaves and branches, and flower boxes full of colorful blooms brightened the balcony rail. A walkway connected her the balcony to the main thoroughfares, and neighbors had similar houses above and below her in the talltree. Ara shamelessly enjoyed the place. After everything she went through—was still going through—as a Mother Adept, she deserved every penny of the generous stipend that had allowed her to buy the house ten-odd years ago.

“Attention! Attention!” Bruna said. “Emergency-level newscasts located.”

Ara stiffened. Most house computers constantly scanned the news services for stories that might be of interest to their owners. Bruna was no exception. An emergency-level cast coming right now could only be related to the Dream incident that had nearly killed Melthine.

“Bruna, put recent newscasts on screen,” she ordered. “Text and video. No holograms.”

One wall flashed with videos and words. Ara watched and read. So far over two hundred Silent had been on the receiving end of some sort of Dream onslaught, and the numbers were still coming in. They had been swallowed by pits, struck by lightning, ripped apart by tornados. Some had been attacked by their own Dream furnishings. Half of the two hundred were dead. The disturbance had expanded to engulf another nine planets—twenty-eight now in all. The Silent on those worlds were unreachable through the Dream.

Ara’s blood chilled. These were just reports from the Independence Confederation and the worlds friendly to it. How many Silent had been attacked on worlds that didn’t report such things? What was going on?

A link to a related story caught Ara’s eye, and she followed it, partly to get the frightening words and pictures off her wall. She could have disconnected, but the house was empty and Ara didn’t want silent rooms right now.

After a moment’s reading the new story, Ara’s forehead crinkled. A new study showed rates of depression on three separate worlds had risen sharply in the last six months, as were incidents of domestic violence, violent crime, and suicide. Each of the three worlds was unrelated, except for the fact that a pair of them were two of the nineteen worlds originally swallowed by the black chaos. The third world was close by. The report had been released just before the engulfment, but with the recent attacks on Silent, someone had dug it up and re-released it.

An increase in domestic violence, violent crime, and suicide. Related? The Dream was, according to some theorists, made of all sentient minds in the universe. Would a world-wide increase in depression have an impact on the Dream?

Or would it be the other way around?

Ara got up to pace the hardwood floors of her bedroom. There had to be a relationship. The chaos. Depression rates. Sejal. It was frustrating. A piece of this was missing, and Ara was sure if she had it, she would know what was going on. And the longer it remained a mystery, the more difficult everything would become. The Dream was getting more and more dangerous by the minute. If this kept up, communication between planets would die, or at least be dealt a severe blow. Governments, corporations, law enforcement agencies, and millions of individuals depended on the Dream. Messages and information that had once been instantaneous would take weeks or months if they were relegated to slipspace courier.

“Bruna,” she said, “access economic and market news databases. Analyze overall trends in trading over the last three months and compare with previous decade. Answer question: are overall market values up, down, or steady? Answer question: is inflation up, down, or steady? Answer question: is selling of stock up, down, or steady?”

“Please specify governments or planets.”

“All governments and planets in database.”

“Working.” Pause. “Analysis complete. Question: are market values overall up, down, or steady? Answer: markets in all reporting governments are down. Question: is inflation up, down, or steady? Answer: inflation in all reporting governments is up. Question: is selling of stock up, down, or steady? Answer: selling of stock in all reporting governments is up.”

Ara nodded grimly. She was no economist and only had a vague idea of how buying, selling, and investing worked. However, it was easy to see that the markets were already showing a strain.  Some investors and companies were getting worried enough to send early ripples through the economies of several interplanetary governments.

Ara wandered over to a low table with a wooden incence holder on it and lit a stick. Sweet, lightly-scented smoke floated about the room. At one time, governments and companies had functioned amazingly well with slow communication. On early Earth, it had taken weeks or even months for messages to cross the ocean, yet several countries had ruled colonies thousands of miles away. Modern governments and corporations, however, were another matter entirely. They had been created with and were maintained by instant communication. Rulers and executive officers were used to making hands-on decisions for branches and worlds that lay months away by slipship. All that would disappear if the Dream were disrupted. Even the small delays caused by the current situation were causing markets to dip.

The coal at the tip of the incense stick glowed red, and gray smoke continued to trickle upward like a tiny reverse waterfall. Other thoughts Ara had been putting off crowded her mind, now that she knew Melthine was safe.

Thoughts about war.

The Empress had said a war was brewing between the Unity and the Confederaton, a war that would probably never happen if Ara killed Sejal. The Empress hadn’t said so, but Ara knew she was thinking it. Giving Sejal back to the Unity was not a possibility—that would cause more problems than it solved. Wouldn’t it be better just to kill Sejal? What if war broke out and Ben were killed? He would be dead because Ara couldn’t bring herself to raise a simple knife in his defense. The thought was unbearable.

But it wasn’t Sejal’s fault he could do what he could do. He had done nothing wrong. And Ara had seen nothing to indicate that Sejal would abuse his power.

Ara waved the incense stick through the air. Smoke trailed after it, leaving fuzzy gray streaks in the air. Unfortunately, the universe—and the Unity—didn’t care about intentions. The fact that Sejal existed was enough to start a war. Her decision came down to simple mathematics. The death of Sejal versus the death of thousands. The death of Sejal versus the death of Ben.

People of our kind see what must be done, and we do it.

A tear trickled down Ara’s cheek. Deep down, she had known there was only one answer. She had known it from the moment the Empress had spoken those dreadful words on that dreadful day.

You are but the scalpel that does the bidding of the doctor.

Slowly, as if hypnotized, Ara set the incense down and left the Dream Temple. She went to her study and lifted a small trapdoor cunningly concealed to look like part of the wooden floor. Beneath was the door to a safe. She let the lock scan her retina, fingerprints, and voice. The locks released with a firm thump. From the safe, Ara removed a snub-nosed pistol and checked the charge. Full.

Ara knew how to use the pistol. All Children received at least basic instruction in energy weapons. When fired, this one disrupted electrochemical processes in nerve cells. At lower power, it stunned. At high power, it killed. Ara set the power as high as it would go. She put the pistol into her pocket and headed out the front door.

People of our kind see what must be done, and we do it.

Ara checked her ocular implant. It was still early morning of the day after the
Post Script
had landed and Kendi had taken Sejal down to the dormitory. If the pattern for new arrivals from poor backgrounds held true, Sejal had first gone shopping yesterday, probably with Kendi. Today, Sejal would register for classes and be given time to explore and settle in. Tomorrow would be his first day of formal instruction. Since it was still early, Sejal was doubtless in his room sleeping.

The walk to the monastery students’ dormitory took half an hour. Ara knew she was walking to put off the inevitable, but she couldn’t bring herself to snag a gondola or take the monorail. The time passed as if in a dream. A few early-rising students saluted her as she passed them on the swaying walkways, but Ara barely noticed.

In the dormitory foyer, she asked for and received directions to Sejal’s room. As she walked the hallway, Ara put her hand on the pistol in her pocket. No doubt there would be a public outcry. No doubt Ara would be ostracized despite interference from the Empress. At the Imperial Majesty’s insistence, Ara might retain her position as Mother Adept, but that wouldn’t stop the whispers and pointed fingers.

At least the whisperers would be alive to point.

Ara found herself at Sejal’s door. Blood pounded in her ears and her hand shook as she raised her fist to knock.

The door swung open at her touch. It hadn’t been locked, or even closed all the way. Puzzled, Ara stepped into the room. No one was inside.

The built-up tension vanished so quickly, it left Ara weak and shaky. She sat down on the unmade bed. The place was still austere and spartan, with nothing to indicate the personality of the room’s inhabitant. Not surprising. Sejal had come to the monastery with almost nothing, and he’d only been there for two days. Hardly enough time to accumulate more possessions than a few clothes. The bed hadn’t even been made up—the linens still sat neatly folded on the mattress. Odd.

At that moment the significance of the door came to her. It hadn’t been just unlocked. It had been open a crack. Hard to believe someone who had grown up in a slum would leave his door unlocked, let alone standing open. Ara fumbled for a moment, trying to remember the name of the dormitory’s computer.