Khe (24 page)

On the floor, near my foot casing, I draw a half-circle with its opening facing right, the symbol for a question. How, I’m asking her, will we get past the orindles, guardians, and helphands, find the right room, get inside and keep the lumani, if they are watching, from sending someone to stop us? Larta can’t read all my wondering from that one small sign, but I imagine that the same questions are circling in her mind. I hope she has some answers.

Pulling herself to her feet, Larta crooks her finger as a signal for me to follow. I get up and stand next to her, thinking that I don’t know how to get this room’s door open. Pradat had pressed a key on her textbox, or maybe a series of keys, like a code—I can’t remember exactly. I can’t remember at all how the helphands opened the doors to the two rooms I was in.

Larta stares at the door, her eyes roaming over the jambs and wall. Her mouth twitches. She rubs the corner of her eye—a sign, I think that she’s found the sensor—then waves her hand over a hardly noticeable depression in the wall. The door stays closed. The line of Larta’s jaw tenses as she moves her hand in front of the depression again and again, coming at it from different angles and at various distances. Her spots light with frustration colors. The door stays locked.

The room begins to warm. I tap Larta’s shoulder and then don’t know what to say when she turns to me. Several lumani must be in the room, given how hot the air feels. Sweat breaks out on my forehead, but not from the heat. My neck burns. Larta’s spots light up red-blue in alarm. She looks at me wide-eyed.

Nodding, I make myself breathe out slowly, forcing my muscles to relax, and search for the lumani’s’ emotions. I feel disgust. Satisfaction. Relief. Hope. I try to put myself in the lumani’s’ place, to think of Larta and myself as unruly preslets who have gotten loose and caused trouble, but now have been rounded up again. I think that must be how the lumani see us—as domesticated creatures of value only for the use they can make of us.

Emotions come at me from different places in the room. Four lumani are here, spread out—not clustered together. I work at staying calm, to hold onto the empathic connection. It’s hard to keep my breathing level and to soothe my pounding heart. I walk across the seemingly empty room to the place from where I felt hope radiate.

Weast
, I send.
I’ve returned
.

I am aware of that
, Weast sends back. Its familiar voice sounds bland, but I feel desperation in Weast, a longing so strong it makes my eyes sting.

Where is the orindle who took you away
? it asks.

The lumani’s misunderstanding of what happened almost makes me smile. The research center doumanas claim that I stole Pradat, but Weast believes Pradat forced me to leave.

She’s gone
, I answer, and hope that’s enough to quench Weast’s curiosity.

I’d like to question her
, Weast sends.
Spontaneous madness is little known in your species
.

Weast hasn’t materialized. It’s frustrating talking to empty air. At least before I could look at the semblance of a body, see how it moved and reacted to what was said.

All the lumani have stayed invisible. Larta stares at me. Confusion colors light on her neck. I must look absurd, standing near the room’s center, saying nothing, staring at nothing. I send her a quick shrug, to let her know I haven’t completely lost my senses.

What makes you think the orindle went insane
? I ask Weast.

Her willful disobedience to our commands. Her theft of you. The damage she inflicted on us
.

A collective shiver of remembered pain runs through the four lumani. I remember how I felt while Pradat twisted the dials, like I was burning inside. I wouldn’t want to feel that again.

The orindle has returned to the creator
, I send, in hope that this will stop the lumani from looking for her.
She fell and broke her neck outside the kler gates
.

But you did not return directly once the orindle had dissipated
, Weast sends.

There is no accusation in its voice, only a longing to comprehend why I didn’t come running back to the research center the moment I could.

I was too weak to come back
.

I feel Weast’s emotions brighten, its hope rekindling.

You have become lumani enough that the orindle’s treachery harmed you
.
That is good
. Anger wells in the lumani.
The orindle’s treachery also cost us our first chance at combining. It destroyed your offspring
.

I breathe deep, afraid that Weast will see how grateful I am for that destruction.

But that is of no consequence
, Weast sends, its anger lessening.
We will begin again. You are strong. We have adjusted our machines. A new egg will form quickly
.

My stomach lurches. But the lumani’s reliance on me to get what it wants is my protection. If I’m careful and sly, that desire might carry my companions and me safely out of this place.

The orindle said that the doumanas who were with me at Presentation House are here
, I send.

Two of them are here
, Weast replies.
The weakest one dissipated during testing. We are still testing the others
.

Emotions pour from the invisible lumani, a torrent of excitement, rivers of blue and dark lavender flowing from four distinct places in the room.

My chest feels squeezed. Larta takes a step toward me, but I warn her off with a look.

In what ways are you testing them?

I have told you
, Weast sends,
that the corenta-dwellers were left in their natural state. This is a first time—a corenta and a kler doumana side by side to evaluate their differences. We have questions about what physical differences in internal organ size and electrical or chemical makeup may have developed since the two groups separated
.

A wave of fear sweeps over me, wondering how the lumani might be finding the answers to their questions.

Larta opens her mouth to speak, but I shake my head.

Weast flickers into sight for a moment and then disappears again.

Shall
you see the doumanas before you and I begin our joining again?
Weast sends
. I would find of interest your opinion of the information we have gained.

Yes. I would like to see them
, I send.
Will the other doumana come with us
?

Only you and us
, Weast replies.

I don’t let the disappointment I feel take hold. I want Larta with me. I need her help.

She can’t hear us
, I say.
I need to tell her with doumana speech that we are going and she will stay here.

Without waiting for an answer, I turn to Larta and say, “I’m going to see Azlii and Tanez. The Powers will take me. You are to wait here.”

Larta’s shoulders pull up and she shakes her head.

“I don’t like it either,” I say.

The door wheezes open.

Go into the hall and wait
, Weast sends.
I will become visible to lead you to the doumanas
.

In the hall, Weast’s vaporous form twists slowly in the windless space.

Through the third door
, it sends.

The blue-purple door, the color of victory, is in the middle of the long hall. Pradat said that all the stairwells were at the hall-ends. If Tanez and Azlii are on the ground floor, getting them out will be easier than if they are several levels up.

My heart is thumping while I wait for the door to open. Inside, the room is dim, but from the doorway I can make out two figures laying on cots, their faces turned away from the door. I also see several machines on three-legged stands. Three lumani are inside and visible. Weast was behind me, but it slips past me into the room. The millions of tiny bits that make up its form spread apart, flowing over me like a hot mist. My stomach knots in revulsion at Weast’s touch.

I want to call to Tanez and Azlii, but can’t—not if I want Weast to believe that I’ve become lumani enough to be only curious, not concerned, about them. One of the figures moans—Azlii, I think, by her body shape. The other doumana lies quietly. I want to run to her, but don’t. Neither is secured to her cot.

Azlii turns her head toward me. Her face is puffy, her lips cracked and dry. Ugly blue-black circles ring her glazed eyes. I think she recognizes me, but I can’t be sure.

Are they drugged
? I ask Weast.

Yes. But lightly. The small one is sleeping
.

Can you wake the sleeper
? I send.
I’d like to evaluate their states of awareness
.

Awareness?
Weast sends.

To see if they are affected differently by the drugs
.

The thin bands of all four lumani begin swaying. One of them coils in on itself.

A question of interest
, Weast sends.
Yes, let us discover this. I will call an orindle to adjust the medications
.

Could I do it
? I ask quickly. I want control of the machines, and don’t want one of their obliging orindles in here with us.

You wish to learn
, Weast sends.
Good. The sedatives dispense from the machine with green in the tubes. Slide the lever groundward. Do not lessen the dosage quickly or shock will come on their minds.

Next to each cot are two machines, each with a flexible tube no wider than four or five strands of beast fur. One tube from each machine is fixed into a small incision in each doumana’s arm. One set of tubes is blackish green, the other yellow green. I stand over Tanez’s cot and reach for the lever on the machine pumping the yellow green fluid.

The other! The green!
Weast sends. The agitation in its voice makes my heart knock against my ribs. But I’m relieved that Weast also doesn’t want them hurt. At least not until the lumani finish finding out what they want to know.

I close my eyes a moment, then slide the lever down about one quarter of the way. The bluish-red gauge on the machine’s silver face records falling numbers as less liquid is pumped through the tubes. Weast watches me. I’m sure it knows the levels I can set safely, but wants to see what I’ll do on my own. I lower the pressure as far as I’m brave enough to try. Tanez doesn’t respond. When I go to Azlii’s cot, she stares at me. A mix of fear and sorrow show in the colors on her neck. I press down the machine’s lever further than I’d moved Tanez’s.

How long before they are both fully conscious
? I ask Weast.

If we knew that answer
, it sends,
we would not need this experiment. I believe the corentan, in particular, will wake first. She has been stronger and more resilient through all the procedures.
The thin band of Weast contracts then spreads into a small disk
. We suppose that living in one place, which is unnatural to your species, may have weakened the kler doumana. It will take further study to determine if only she is weakened, or if all kler dwellers are
.

I don’t bother reminding Weast that the lumani are the reason kler and commune doumanas live in one place their whole lives.

The drugged dullness in Azlii’s eyes seems to be fading. I push the lever down another quarter distance and do the same to the machine hooked to Tanez.

What are the other machines for
? I ask Weast.

The disk-like form it had taken swells and rounds, becoming a ball floating at my waist-height, not more than an arm-length away.

Such curiosity
, it sends.

I feel its happiness like a finger of pale-green stroking my neck. The color feels pleasant, but my stomach knots up anyway.

Bending my knees to peer at a head-sized silver oval with several small, ridged, black tubes sticking out, I send:
What does this one do?

Worry emanates from all four lumani. The bits that form them move faster. The air grows warmer. Then Weast seems to decide that whatever threat the machine poses is not a serious one. Its whirling pieces slow back to their normal pace.

That machine analyses energy output
.

I can’t grasp why that would make the lumani nervous and think Weast is lying. Mounted on the cube’s face is a black touchpad with twelve white squares arranged in a diamond. The squares are numbered in tens from twenty to one hundred and thirty. Above the diamond’s top point is a blank square. I touch this and the machine begins to hum.

There is no need to use that machine now
, Weast sends, plainly nervous again.

I press the square marked forty. The humming tunes to a higher pitch. The muscles in my stomach cramp. I ball my hands into tight fists and then fling my fingers open, throwing off my tension.

I’d like to know if the doumana’s energy levels rise as they come back to consciousness, and if they do, at what rate
, I send.
How do I make this machine show that?

Pradat weakened Weast by disrupting the balance between the positive and negative bits that form it. She said that only the machine that created the artificial magnetic fields in the room where I was kept could have that effect. The lumani are worried about this “analyzer.” I think that even if I can’t disrupt the lumani with it, I can at least make them uncomfortable. Maybe uncomfortable enough to escape with Tanez and Azlii. I press the button marked sixty. The pitch of the machine’s hum moves higher.

My stomach clenches again and I gag on a sudden rush of bile in my throat. Sweat covers my skin. I push the levers on the drug dispensers lower. Azlii is fully awake now. Do the lumani know that? They seem busy, their bits moving fast. I walk the few steps to the machine by Tanez and push that lever completely down.

You must turn off the analyzer
, Weast sends.
The calibrations will become wrong
.

There’s fear in its tone. I look over my shoulder. Weast is compressed into a ball no bigger than my fist. The other three lumani have contracted in the same way. I step back to the analyzer and push the square marked one hundred—and double over in pain. My head swims. The muscles in my arms and legs cramp. A sizzling sound comes from the lumani, like water dripping onto red-hot logs. A sharp smell fills the air.