Mind Over Psyche (16 page)

Rest, human
, the power sang.
Rest and know you have done well. Your purpose reaches fulfillment. You will be home s
oon, soon…

*

Half asleep, Joshua stirred uneasily in the muggy heat. Sweat made his shirt and shorts cling to his body. The mechanical roar of his window fans invaded his slumber, but barely made
a breeze.

Fans?

Joshua opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling fan of his Rhode Island flat in mute disbelief. Was he really
back home?

He sat up, saw his laptop on the end table, his synthesizer in its spot between the two windows. He turned his head toward
the door.

“'KO!”

Sachiko, bent over her backpack, stood up with a yelp of surprise. “Jeez! You scared the life o
ut of me!”

He bounded over the coffee table and wrapped his arms around her, kissing her with a week's worth of pent u
p passion.

“What was that all about?” She asked when he'd finally stopped kissing her mouth to press his lips against her nec
k and ear.

“I've missed you so much!” He
whispered.

She laughed. “That's what you get for sleeping the
day away.”

He backed away from he
r. “What?”

She held up the motorcycle helmet she'd been pulling out of her backpack. “I stuck around because I was worried, but you were sleeping normally, and I need to stop falling asleep at your place. Engaged or not, your landlady's going to get some funny ideas, and I wouldn't put it past her to call your parents about us, ya know what I mean? But seriously, you've got to get up for work in a couple of hours. I mean, if you're up to it. Edith said—Joshua, hon, wh
at is it?”

He'd sat down hard on the coffee table. It felt real enough. “What d
ay is it?”

“Tuesday, about 2 a.m.” She sat down next to h
im. “Why?”

“This is going to sound stupid, but which Tuesday? Did Deryl do anyt
hing…odd?”

Sachiko set her hand on his arm. “Deryl…took you somewhere. We don't know how. Then, half an hour later, you showed up in an empty conference room. You were pretty dazed, so I brought you home. You said you wanted to sleep for a week. I thought maybe the co
ncussion—”

“Yes!” Joshua jumped up, cheering. He pulled Sachiko into his arms again and kissed her. “Have I got a story
for you!”

“Well, that's good, because Malachai and th
e police—”

“Uh-uh. As far as they're concerned, I have no memory of what happened between Deryl and me disappearing and me reappearing half an hour later. This is for your e
ars only.”

“Now, I'm intrigued.” She settled herself on the couch, helmet at
her feet.

He sat down next to her, cross-legged and facing her. He couldn't keep back a grin. “It may have only been less than an hour here, but it was nearly a week we were gone. Remember Tasmae, the Miscria? She and her world are as real as Deryl's abilities, and he took
us there.”

She leaned back on one hand and cocked an eyebrow at him. His heart skipped as he gazed into her eyes, exotic like her Japanese mother's, and the smirk that was all-too-much her father's. Her blouse, damp with humidity, clung to her body. Just enough buttons were undone that he could see the curve of her breasts. Below her skort, her legs were shapely and tan. One of them pressed lightly ag
ainst his.

He forgot all about the adventure. “I didn't think I was ever going to see you again,” he
whispered.

“Know what I think? I think you'll say anything to get me to stay t
he night.”

“Do I really have to say anything?” He leaned toward her, and soon they were settled against the pillows of the couch he forced himself not to think of as a bed. Their kisses grew more passionate, their caresses more eager, until he found himself wishing it was a dream so he could follow through on hi
s desires.

As if summoned by his silent wish, someone grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him roughly. “Hey!
Wake up!”

Startled, Joshua pulled back and had one last look at Sachiko smiling with irony before the scene around
him faded.

“No!”

“Wake up!”

“No,” Joshua moaned and pulled the light sheet over his head, desperately trying to find his way back to
his dream.

Someone ripped the sheet off him. “Quit goofing around and wake up!” Der
yl yelled.

White-hot anger shot through him, and he threw himself into a sitting position and whirled on his friend. “What? What could possibly be so frickin' important that it couldn't wait another h
alf hour?”

Deryl flinched, but he set his jaw and demanded. “Tell me y
our name.”

“What? Are you out of y
our mind?”

“No, but you may be. Now tell me your name. Your f
ull name.”

Joshua opened his mouth to say, “What?” Again, realized that would be redundant, closed his mouth, and looked around. Deryl still wore the clothes he'd had on yesterday, and his long blond hair pulled back from his face in a tangled mess, as if he'd tried to tear it out again. His eyes searched Joshua's face. At the foot of the bed, Terry, too, was watching him expectantly. Four of the five other healers crowded around the bed and even the fifth watched curiously from where she sat beside
a patient.

“Well?” Deryl
demanded.

The tremor in his voice melted some of Joshua's anger, but he still answered with poor grace. “It's Joshua Abraham Lawson, named after my great-great grandfather. Goo
d enough?”

Without answering, Deryl looked at Terry, w
ho nodded.

“Joshua,” he said grimly, “the Barins have attacked early. They are at the g
ates now.”

“What!” Joshua yelped. “What
do we do?”

To his amazement, everyon
e grinned.

Deryl sighed. “Never mind. Relax
. I lied.”

Terry added, “I'm sorry, but we had to test your
response.”

“My…response?” The sudden change from anger to panic to confusion left him weak. He leaned against the wall and tried to sigh instead of whimper. “Would someone please tell me what's
going on?”

“You healed twenty-seven people in a row—did you know that?” Deryl accused. For some reason, he was still v
ery angry.

“I wasn't counting. Besides, I didn't heal them, really. I was more like a—I don't know—maybe a conduit for the healing power. They did the healing.” He waved his arms at the healers a
round him.

Terry smiled at his modesty. “Perhaps so, but we were able to heal better and faster with your aid. In several cases, that save
d a life.”

“Really? Cool. But I wasn't really doing anything—
you guys—”

“
If
the mutual appreciation society is over,” Deryl snapped sarcastically, “the fact remains that you healed twenty-seven people—
aliens
—
in a row.”

“So?” Joshua felt himself grinning like he had after the first time he'd kissed Sachiko. Could he have really done something so incredible? He knew later he would probably be struck dumb with awe—this was something
saints
did!—but right now, he felt like laughing and
cheering.

Deryl, however, growled. “So? Didn't you listen to anything Terry's said about healing—or what Tasmae's said for that matter?” His voice rose
in volume.

Terry stopped him with a look and took up the explanation more calmly. “When a Kanaan healer does his work, he has to share the person's essence—his spirit, personality, memories, what makes him individual. Even when the healing is done, the healer may still retain some of that person's
essence.”

“I remember,” Joshua said with a dirty look at Deryl. “Holding on to too many or too strong an essence can make you go crazy. So you have to expel them or ‘cleanse yourself' peri
odically.”

“Except,” Deryl now interrupted heatedly, “no one saw fit to remind you about it today, when you're doing real healing work. No, and when one dropped out to take care of his own psyche, they just passed you on to someone else, never mind what danger they put
yours in!”

“It is second nature to a healer to know his limits,” Terry explained. “Each of us assumed you would kn
ow yours.”

Deryl snorted. “Not you, though. You just kept going until you pa
ssed out.”

“Okay. First off, I didn't ‘pass out.' I ‘sacked out.' There's a difference. In the second place, I'm not a healer. I was a conduit. I was no more involved in someone's psyche than a power cord is in a computer's program, okay? Third, I am neither Kanaan nor psychic. Could someone's essence get tangled up in mine? I don't think so. As far as I can tell, my turning into a warrior from bumping minds with one is as likely as my turning white from bumping
into you.”

But Deryl wasn't ready to concede. “What's ‘frick
in' mean?”

Joshua made an impatient sound with his teeth. “It's a nicer way of saying something else. Frick-in. Think
about it.”

“It's not a Barin s
wearword?”

“How would I know? It's a British evil genius swear word.” Then he changed to a nasal English accent and quoted, “‘You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!'
Austin Powers
. No one's ever quoted that around you? You can't be that out
of touch!”

Deryl relaxed slightly. “Now that's the Joshu
a I know.”

Joshua's stomach gave a great growl. “Well, the Joshua you know is
starving.”

“Come on then.” Deryl headed for the door without waiting for Joshua. Cochise flew in over the young psychic's head and landed on Jos
hua's bed.

Joshua huffed and rolled his eyes, but as soon as the door folded shut behind Deryl, Terry helped him to his feet, keeping hold of him until a moment of dizziness passed. Then he handed him what looked like a couple of tortilla wraps. “Something has happened between him and the Miscria,” he said. “We found him in his room, shielded against everything. No one has see
n Tasmae.”

“What now?” Joshua groaned, and taking the everyn onto his shoulder, set out after h
is friend.

“Took you long enough,” Deryl snapped at him as he entered. He glared at Cochise. With an indignant squawk, the ev
eryn left.

Joshua had no intention of getting goaded into a fight; at least, not until he knew what they were fighting about. He held up his sandwich as he perched himself on the table. “I hate to eat and run, so I walked. You camping out here awhile?” He asked as he eyed the pile of food dumped on the table. He helped himself to one of the “coconu
t” drinks.

“This isn't the time to be funny! I need you to help me, to do your, your N
LP stuff.”

“My NLP stuff?” Joshua rubbed his forehead wearily. His nap had only taken the edge off his exhaustion, and his nerves were fried both from the events of the day and the dreams of Sachiko. “Look, Deryl, it's been a long day. I've been through earthquakes, a wild experience with the healers, and some pretty intense dreams. So if you want my help, you're going to have to be a little more specific than my ‘NL
P stuff.'”

“Dammit, Joshua, you have to
help me!”

“Then chill. Sit down, look at me, and start at the beginning.” He waited to look up until he heard Deryl stop pacing and flop into a bean-bag type chair. Then he rid himself of all thoughts and concentrated
on Deryl.

Neuro Linguistic Programming worked around the simple principle of studying your patients, discovering their thinking process, then using their own tools to help them find their own cures. Much of it involved learning to track someone's thought processes through the motion of their eyes as well as other visual and verbal cues. Naturally observant, he'd quickly mastered the art. It was part of the reason he'd gotten the job at SK-Mental—and why he didn't get on well with the chief psychiatrist there. Dr. Malachai did not approve of his “NLP tricks;” whether because he truly didn't feel they were sound psychiatry or simply because Joshua had applied his “tricks” Successfully, especially w
ith Deryl.

Even now, looking at his friend's distressed face, and the way his eyes were twitching and pinning, he had a fair idea what was
going on.

“There are these voices in my head, not just voices. Images and feel
ings and—”

“Deryl, check your
shields.”

“There's nothing wrong with my shields! Besides, these ‘voices,' they're familiar to me. I've know them from before, from when I…” He choked off whatever else he planned to say. “Please, Josh, help me! I can't lose control now. There's too much
at stake.”

“Then check your shields,” he repeat
ed calmly.

“There's nothing wrong with my shields. My shields are fine! They're tighter than they've ever been,
and
we're in a shielded room. So think of something else! Or is that the best yo
u can do?”