Watchstar (12 page)

His shield crumbled. She brushed against his mind. He rumbled like a thunderstorm, his mind at war with itself; he loved her, he was repelled by her, he was afraid.

—Daiya—It was a cry and a curse. Harel spun around and continued toward the mountains. She watched him go. Her vision blurred, distorting the retreating figure.

She turned back toward the bodies of her dead companions. A black bird sat on Peloren's head; another perched on Mausi, tearing at her chest. Still others sat on Tasso. It did not matter, she told herself; they were part of God's thoughts and entitled to their nourishment. Bodies that could not fertilize fields might as well feed birds.

She lifted the earth, swirling dirt and sand in a funnel. The birds cawed as they rose, flapping their long wings. She buried her friends, covering them with stones, wondering how long it would take her to die.

9

Reiho's craft sat at the foot of a mountain, its dome mirroring the dark sky above. A reflection of the comet gleamed on the dome's surface; the comet had been an evil omen after all.

Daiya had walked all night and most of the day. Sometimes she had prayed, and then remembered the graves. Her feet had carried her, not her will; they had trod the ground and carried her with them. The chill of the night air had given way to heat, and she had wondered which would kill her first, the heat or the cold. She had been unsure of where she was bound until she saw the vehicle.

She came up to the craft and peered through the dome. The boy was asleep, sprawled across a reclining seat.

Her nails bit into her palms. She should have killed him when she had the chance; she should kill him now, before he contaminated someone else. He had stepped carelessly into her world and destroyed it, at least for her. She had lost Harel, her parents, her village. If Harel, who had loved her, had turned from her, the others would do the same. She stared at Reiho, hating him. The craft trembled, rocking slightly on the ground. The boy stirred, throwing an arm over his head.

She turned away, sick of death. She walked over to a heap of flat rocks, piled in layers like wheat cakes. She opened her sack and drank some water; she had little food left. She knew she would have died if Reiho had not appeared, showing her what the dark being really was, but as things were, she might just as well be dead. He had left her a body and mind, but no life.

She thought of Harel. He would have to find a path through the mountains; he would not have the energy to float over them. Perhaps she should have gone with him, following, trailing him. The loneliness would be bad for him; he wasn't used to it. Even having her nearby, with her dark spot, would have been better for him. Maybe he would have relented, maybe the part of him which still loved her would have won out. She knew him. He was not hard enough to turn away from her; not indefinitely, not if she had stayed near him.

She sighed. She would probably have returned to her death. The thought surprised her; even now, she still lived, still wanted to live. If she had won Harel over, he would only have suffered more after losing her to the judgment of the Merging Ones. Better to let him construct his mental defenses and forget.

She found herself remembering Sude. The memory stung. If she had let him go, instead of talking him into facing the ordeal, she could have asked Reiho to search for him; she could have saved him. He could have lived—if he could have borne the realization of knowing there were ones like Reiho. She had decided Sude's fate, not God.

She looked out over the desert, the graveyard of her companions, its barrenness blue in the night. She thought of the village, nestling by the river, its inhabitants breeding more children who would be sent out to die. Her insides burned. She curled up on the ground, holding her belly. They spawned like the fish in the river, giving no aid to those thrown up on the rocks or shoals while swimming upstream, letting them die. Even the blind and crippled born to them on occasion were given no dispensation, were sent into the desert; their disabilities did not count, their minds were the same as others. She hated the village, not knowing if she hated it because her friends were dead or because she could no longer be part of it.

She thought of Reiho. She had wished him dead. If she had the chance now, she would trade his life in an instant if it would bring the others back to life. He was the only companion she had left, and he was a thing. He could call himself a human being if he wanted and mimic human feelings, but he was no more human than the dirt under her, with his machines and his altered body and his soulless mind. That was her fate, her punishment, to be condemned to having a monster as a companion. Even that was better than complete loneliness ... or perhaps it was not. She wondered which was worse ... total isolation from others, or a feeble companionship with a being whose mind could not read hers, who could never know her, who would always be apart.

She felt a sudden pang as she thought again of Harel and the village and her dead friends. She drew in a breath sharply as she remembered who and what she had lost.

A shadow fell across her face, making the grayness over her eyes turn black. Daiya opened her eyes and saw the silhouette of a head and upper torso. She blinked. She still lived. Her heart still pumped blood, her lungs continued to draw in air and exhale it; her body went on, still clinging to any kind of existence.

She sat up. Reiho knelt near her. “You came here after all,” he said. “I did not think you would.” A breeze blew, ruffling his black hair; she noticed that silvery threads, as fine as a spider's web, covered his scalp. She drew back. He pushed something in front of her face. She waved it away. “It is food. You must eat.”

She gazed suspiciously at the silvery object. “It doesn't look like food to me.”

“Try it.”

She grabbed it and bit into the silver and spat. He took it from her. “Not like that.” He pulled the silver covering from it and handed it back. She held the orange-brown bar in her hand, then took a small bite. She chewed it slowly, tasting a sour fruity flavor. She swallowed, waiting to see if her stomach would reject it.

At last she bit into the rest, finishing it. The food went down easily. Reiho sat near her. “Why did you come here, Daiya?”

She glared at him bitterly. “I have no place to go now.”

“But why? What about your friends?”

“My friends are dead. Only one lived, besides myself.”

Reiho was very quiet. Then he caught his breath; it sounded like a groan.

“The thing you could not see killed them. They killed themselves. I cannot explain it to you. We had to face a test. They died. One lives, but he has turned from me because...” She waved an arm. She stared at the ground, recalling the bodies, seeing Oren's hand in the dirt. “I did not pass through my ordeal, so I cannot go back. You saw the bones there. Many here died in that place.”

Reiho got up. He walked to his craft and stood with his back to her for a few moments. Then he came back to her and sat down.

“You told me to go away,” he said softly. “You told me I could not help them. I left, and I did not even monitor my shuttle's sensors, because you said you could help the others by yourself. And now you tell me this. I cannot believe it. What are you?”

“I didn't lie to you. You could have done nothing.”

He hit the ground with his fist. “What kind of people are you? You must be mad. Why do you have these useless deaths? Now you have made me part of them, and I feel soiled. You sent me back here, when I could have helped.”

“You could not have helped.” She had screamed the words. She lowered her voice. “How do you think I feel? I watched them die, you didn't.” She was shaking. “I told you to go. You should not have been here at all, you have changed everything for me. You think you can come here as you like, with your separateness and your strange ways ... this isn't your world. You have no right to be here. If you are going to meddle in another's world, then you must take the blame, or part of it, for what happens, and carry the guilt.”

“This was once my people's world.”

“It isn't now.”

“We were driven from it.”

“That makes no difference now. It is our world.”

He looked down at the ground. Her desire to hurt him left her. “I only came because I was curious,” he said softly.

“You have no right to be curious. The world is as it is. If I had not been curious myself, I would have had my life. You have changed it.” Her bitterness seemed to lodge in her throat, threatening to choke her. “I should have killed you.” He gazed at her apprehensively. “I could kill you now. But I think God must be using you to punish me, so I'll let you live.”

Reiho hung his head. “Why did you come back?” she asked.

He watched her cautiously for a moment before answering. “I was curious. I do not have another reason.” He sighed. “Even Homesmind is curious about Earth. When It learned I had come here...”

Daiya grabbed his arm. “So now another will come here, and then another. You will all die if you do.” She trembled with anger and fear.

His mouth twisted into a half-smile. “Homesmind cannot come here, It's not a person like me. It is an intelligence, a being, often I think I do not entirely understand It. It is the mind of our home, of the comet.”

“What are you talking about? Does God speak through it?”

Reiho shook his head. “No ... I am not sure of what you mean. We built Homesmind many ages ago, It began as a computer complex to control our life-support systems and store our knowledge, but It is far more complex now. I have told you.”

Daiya frowned, puzzling over his words. Some of them seemed like gibberish. Twice he had talked of building minds; that had to be a mistake. She fidgeted, wishing it was easier to read him directly; listening to words was not the same. “I came back,” he went on, “because I was curious about these mountains.”

“The mountains! Are they so strange?”

“My sensors, the devices in my craft over there, have detected something, some sort of power source.”

She thought about that for a moment, remembering the visions she had seen before her ordeal. “We have a story,” she said, “a legend of the beginning. These mountains were touched by the Merged One, by God. A web was woven, and people were caught by it. They were no longer solitary selves, and in their fear they tore at one another, almost destroying themselves and the world. I have felt something strange in the mountains.” She watched him. The boy was concentrating. She felt his thoughts tumble about, but could not grasp them. His eyebrows went up and his eyes widened, as if he had seen something, as if an idea was suddenly clear.

Her own thoughts came together, almost making her rise to her feet. She pressed her hands against her cheeks. “Even your machines sensed it,” she cried, the words tumbling from her lips. “You sensed the presence of God. It must be a warning to you. Give up your life of illusions.” She paused, recalling that she had given up her own life of dwelling in the truth.

He said,"I don't believe that.” She gasped. “I'm talking about something physical, something real.”

“Don't talk blasphemy,” she said quickly, recalling the times she had thought it.

He opened his mouth, then closed it. He peered fearfully at her. She could feel him sorting his thoughts, suppressing some, afraid to speak of others to her. “You said something about yourself before,” he said at last, “about your life changing, about not being able to go back to your home.”

Something swelled inside her. She thought of Sude and Mausi and Oren and Harel. Something hard was in her throat. She swallowed and coughed, unable to speak.

“What will you do?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I don't know. I'll probably die.”

“Isn't there anywhere else you can go? There are others on Earth; I could take you to them.”

“You still don't see,” she responded. “It is the same everywhere. I would be cast out, probably killed as you would be also if anyone sensed your presence. If I am not accepted in my own village, a part of it, why would another choose to take me?”

“How do you know that?”

“I know it. At times, some travel from one village to live in another, so that we do not grow separate. And sometimes a very old Merging One can touch a mind elsewhere. It is the same. How could it be different? To be different is to be separate. Only space separates us.”

Reiho seemed bewildered. She touched his mind, sensing his feeling of guilt. You should feel guilty, she thought, trying to penetrate his consciousness, amplifying the feeling. His face contorted; she had made him feel worse. Then she realized that he was reading her face, not her thoughts.

“Will you come with me then?” he asked.

“Where?”

“To the mountains. Up there.” He waved a hand at the nearby peaks. “I want to explore them.”

She sighed impatiently. “I have told you about the mountains. Now you want to climb among them.”

“I do not want to climb. We can go in my shuttle over there, set it down on a ledge.” She glanced at his machine, feeling the sin of curiosity once again, wondering what it would be like to travel in the craft. “Do you want to come along?”

She looked down. She twisted her hands, wishing once more that she could step into the past and change everything. There was nothing she could do now that would make things any worse.

“Very well,” she said.

The shuttle swooped and dipped. The mountainside tilted, replacing the sky. Daiya clung to the sides of her seat, feeling nauseated. On the panels in front of her, lights blinked, symbols scurried across the surfaces like small insects, lines and curves bent and twisted like grass snakes and leafless vines. She closed her eyes. Oddly enough, she could sense no movement of the craft; it did not lurch from side to side as did the village's carts. The shuttle hummed. She opened her eyes, saw the ground spin, and closed them again.

Another hum filled the air, louder and higher than the soft sound of the craft. She glanced at Reiho, careful to focus on him and not the movements outside. He leaned forward, wrinkling his brows. The craft slowed, then hovered near a ledge. She waited. They settled down on it slowly.

She peered through the darkened surface of the dome. Some rocks and stones had been shaken loose by their landing; they bounced and skittered down the slope. She was stiff and still, afraid that if she moved, the vehicle would tumble after the stones.

“You had better get out on this side,” he said. “There's more room to stand.” His door slid open and he got out. She crept carefully over to his side. “Do not worry,” he went on, “it will not move.”

She got out and stood next to him. He put his hand on the flat rocky surface in front of him. He stared at it silently for a few moments. Daiya waited, once again feeling that there was power and strength beneath the rock. She thought of God and the web Jowē had shown her in her vision. God will strike us down, she thought, partly hoping she was right. She sorted her thoughts, trying to pray,
forgive me
. The Merged One would show Its power, would swallow Reiho, would perhaps forgive her and gather her into Its holy communion of minds.