Watchstar (3 page)

Harel nodded. When they were both younger, they had gone northwest to see the wild horses. They had crept up on two horses near the edge of the herd, holding the minds of the animals while trying to slip on their backs. Daiya had been thrown. Harel had managed to stay on for a time, clinging to the horse's mane, his hair flying as it galloped, until his control slipped and he landed on the ground with a loud grunt.

Harel shook his head at the image.—Not this time—he thought. His mind rippled, amused as he remembered his sore rump. He was to travel with Oren part of the way; then the two would split up.

He held up a hand and they parted. She watched as the boys wandered off together. Her mind brushed Harel's briefly, then withdrew. Harel was confident now, his anxiety gone. She would be with him when the ordeal was over, so he had to survive.

She turned and began to move toward the grassy plains that led to the foothills. She thought of Harel. With him, she could almost forget her doubts, the feelings that threatened to make her separate. She had shared those doubts with him, asking him the same questions that had made her friend Mausi throw up her wall. Harel had not retreated. His mind, clear and steady, had taken her doubts and made them a fine mist like a fog, dispersing them with warmth and light.

When she saw things through his eyes, the questions seemed meaningless abstractions, ideas of no importance. She saw the village, existing as it would until the end of the world, pieces of God's mind replacing those that had rejoined the Merged One. Harel had no doubts and rarely put up his barrier. He lived in the world, accepting it, sure of its rightness, looking forward to the day when he would be a Merging One. He seemed older than fourteen, almost a man. Her doubts could not affect him; they were like bad weather, and they would pass. That was probably one of the reasons she loved him. She wished she were more like him.

She emptied her mind of thoughts. A warm breeze ruffled her hair. The grass of the plains rippled, becoming dappled waves of green and yellow. She walked quickly in the direction of the foothills.

The evening sky glowed red; the sun was an orange disk on the horizon. Daiya was thousands of paces from the village, as far away from it as she had ever been. She had gone southeast, keeping the foothills to her left. She had jogged part of the distance, occasionally floating over obstacles along the way. Her mind was drained and her feet ached.

The Net still bound her to the village, one barely perceptible strand lying gently against her mind. She stood still for a moment and opened her senses. A part of her seemed to float overhead as she surveyed the area. The region was unfamiliar. She saw a creek between two hills; she could camp near it for the night. She drew her mind inside herself and began to climb the small hill in front of her. She stumbled over a rock and wished she had enough strength left to float over the hill. The shrubs leaned away from her as she passed.

She reached the top and paused. The creek was in a hollow below. She scrambled down toward it, clutching tree limbs and releasing them as she went. As she came nearer, she heard the creek gurgle as it flowed over rocks, cutting through the earth.

She knelt on a flat rock at the edge of the brook, splashing her face with the cold water. She cupped her hands and drank. Then she folded her legs and sat down, back straight, hands on her thighs.

Again her doubts and questions returned, after being held off all day by her concentration on the landscape. This time they were practical questions, shared by others, even by Harel. Why did so many die during their passage in the desert? The Net would be with them, after all; why couldn't they summon aid? Or wasn't the village allowed to help? Daiya could not imagine a parent willingly neglecting to answer an anguished mental plea from a child. She had asked her friend Nenla about all this, but Nenla had given her no answer, telling her only that she would find out when she faced her own ordeal.

Daiya rose. Lengthening shadows cast by the trees alongside the creek covered the ground. The sky was growing darker. She shivered. She warmed the air around herself while clearing a space for a fire, making a hollow in the ground, then surrounding it with small rocks. As she moved away to look for firewood, a distant shriek made her look up at the purple sky.

Something was coming over the black mountains, something she had never seen before. It fell from the sky, a blurred solid object, glowing faintly. It hovered for a moment over the hills to the southeast, then disappeared among them.

Daiya stood still, fists clenched, trying to understand what it could be. The Merging Ones sometimes told stories about large stones which had fallen from the sky long ago. But this thing could not be a stone. Stones did not hover before falling to the ground. She waited, expecting to sense a shock wave after the thing hit. She felt nothing.

She thought of pulling the Net, alerting the village, summoning adults to aid her in an investigation. She rejected the notion. She was older now; Cerwen would be disappointed in her if she asked for help to explore something which might be unimportant. He had, after all, told her to come out alone. She would find out what it was by herself; she could always call someone later if necessary.

She steadied her mind, not wanting to disturb the Net with her thoughts, and began to walk in the direction of the fallen object.

3

Daiya crept over the side of a hill, sensing something ahead. She was far from the creek now, and sure she did not have the strength to return; she would have to spend the night somewhere else. Her mouth was dry. She reached for the water sack she had carried with her from the village and drank. Her mouth still felt dry. She was beginning to wish she had paid no attention to the falling object. She took a deep breath, summoning all her energy, then sent her mind ahead, keeping her senses alert in case her body was threatened and she had to depart quickly.

She probed the area below, sensing a thing without life, a thing as inanimate as the stones pressing against her feet. She probed around it, then stiffened in terror. A mind was there, without walls, and completely unlike those in the village. Incomprehensible ideas raced across it, glistening like the colored stones of Anra's necklace and Brun's belt, hard and solid. She could not grasp them. Her mind pulled away, fleeing back to her.

Daiya waited, crouching near a bush. Her toes curled inside her moccasins. She had touched the mind; it must have sensed her. She waited for it to reach out to her, but it did not. Tentatively, she sent out part of her mind once more. She caught flashes of brightness, and below them, trapped in a turbulent mass of grey and black clouds, a pulsing light, a tiny speck inside the mind but not of it. She brushed against the thoughts and again received no response.

She withdrew and sat down quietly, trying to understand. Afraid of disturbing the Net, she tightened her wall. Either the mind was choosing to ignore her or it had not sensed her at all, and that was not possible unless it was a solitary, a separate self. And that was impossible.

Daiya trembled. She stood up slowly, ready to creep away. Her feet slid against the stones, loosening them. She fell, sliding down the hill toward the strange being below. She threw out her mind and stopped herself, holding her body still until she found a branch. She clung to it. Something below was moving; she realized she had disturbed it. She stood up straight and slipped again, sending a shower of dirt and small pebbles down the hillside toward the being. She thrust out her hands and seized another branch. She waited, too tired to do anything else. She could now see the clearing below.

A vehicle was there, large enough to hold several people. She assumed it was a means of transport; she could not imagine what other purpose it might have. Unlike the wagons the villagers sometimes used to bring in produce from the fields, it had runners, long flat pieces of metal which curved at the ends, instead of wheels, and there were no tame horses to pull it. Inside the vehicle, a light shone, illuminating part of the area around it. Something moved near the craft. She had the feeling that it could see her in spite of the darkness. The thing moved closer to the light. Daiya cleared her mind and gazed at it with her eyes.

At first she thought she saw a human face looking up at her, its dark eyes wide; she sensed a ripple of curiosity and fear. Her mind reached toward it again. It blurred and changed. She saw a metal cylinder; it stood on two rounded metallic limbs while two other limbs, attached to its torso, waved at her. It was like a machine, yet it had a mind. Something alien had entered her world.

It began to move toward the hill. Terrified, Daiya lifted herself from the ground with all her strength. She soared swiftly over the hill, back in the direction from which she had come. She dipped toward a cluster of trees, knowing she would have to land before her strength gave out. She circled one tree and alighted on a thick branch. Too tired to build a fire, and afraid to stay on the ground, she settled herself in the hollow connecting the branch to the trunk and curled up to await morning.

Daiya awoke feeling stronger. She concentrated on her muscles, removing the aches, then looked up at the sky through the leafy limbs overhead. It was already growing light; she had slept a long time.

She sat up and dangled her legs over the branch. She knew what she had to do. She knew she should contact the village and let the Merging Ones explore the meaning of this intruder. Something welled up inside her at the thought, tightening the barrier around her mind. She had seen it first; she had a right to find out what it was and what it was doing here before she informed the others.

She trembled as she realized the implications of her thought. This was no longer a matter of hiding behind a wall with inconsequential youthful notions and doubts. She would be keeping something important from the village, making herself separate in a fundamental sense. She hugged the tree trunk, certain that the horror of the notion would shake the Net, but it did not; her wall was too tight.

She searched frantically for rationalizations. She would have to face the unknown during her ordeal, so she might as well explore this new thing now. It would be good training for her; if she did not survive it, she probably was not ready for her ordeal anyway. Besides, she thought, it's not as if I'm going to keep it from the others forever, it's just for a while.

She drifted toward the ground and landed lightly. She straightened her clothes and took a sip of water. Then she turned and started to walk back toward the intruder.

Daiya stood behind a tree on the hillside, concealing herself as well as she could. It was a simple enough trick; she had used it on Silla, pressing herself against the side of a hut, masking herself mentally and physically so her sister could barely see her. The trick worked with younger children who were not as skilled in mental disciplines, but she did not know if it would work with this strange being below her.

The clearing was barren and dusty, unlike the dell where she had planned to sleep the night before until terror had driven her to a tree. A few thorny bushes grew at the bottom of the hill; the land below was strewn with stones and flat gray rocks. A few patches of green weeds were managing to survive, along with some of the bright red wildflowers called earthflames because they looked like fires from a distance.

The creature stood near its vehicle, moving its limbs over the shiny surface. Cautiously, Daiya reached out, trying to grasp its surface thoughts. She caught diagrams, pictures, symbols, concepts she could not comprehend. She concentrated on its feelings, trying to ignore the alien thoughts. She realized it, too, was frightened and worried.

She withdrew her mind and considered what to do next. She could try to communicate with it, but how? Its mind was that of a solitary. It could not read her thoughts or even sense the presence of her mind. That meant it had to rely only on sight and sound and other senses. Perhaps it had a voice and could speak, though she was not sure how she would understand it even if it did. She would have to wall up her mind and approach it only through its body, its physical senses.

Daiya built her wall, closing her eyes and ears as she did so. She opened her eyes.

The cylinder was gone. She saw only a boy, a human being like herself. At least she thought he was a boy. He had thickset shoulders under his tight silver garb, a flat chest, narrow hips, and a bulge at his crotch; he looked too young to be a man. He moved away from the vehicle and circled it on legs, not cylindrical limbs, turning his head as he gazed around the area.

But her mind had sensed a machine, something mechanical. Shocked and confused, she let her control slip. He looked toward her and she knew he had seen her. His mouth opened; it was a black gap in his light brown face. He drew back his lips, showing his teeth. Sounds reached her ears. He was speaking, but she could not understand his words.

He held out his hands, palms up.

She waited. He stood perfectly still, then let his hands drop. He said other words, more guttural than the ones he had spoken before, but she still did not understand. He motioned with one arm, as if drawing her to him.

Daiya reached out with a mental feeler and skimmed his mind again quickly. The figure below blurred again, flesh becoming metal; the eyes glittered and shone. She sensed curiosity and some apprehension. She withdrew, realizing he would not hurt her.

She sat on her heels, showing the palms of her hands to him. He was still and silent. She had peered into his mind enough to realize he did not have mental powers, which meant he was incapable of fooling her with an illusion, showing her eyes the shape of a boy when in fact he was something else. Then why did her eyes sense one thing and her mind another?

He lifted a hand and spoke again in a more musical way. The syllables seemed to rise and fall and for a moment she felt she could grasp a word here and there. Then he stopped. She still had not understood a thing.

She climbed to her feet, and went down the hill slowly, moving closer to him. She stopped several paces away and waited. He stepped toward her. She took a step back.

He spoke again, pointing up at the sky with a finger. As he spoke, she reached out carefully and grasped only his unvoiced surface thoughts. Then she saw the meaning of the sounds he was making. She saw his face, then his body in the vehicle as the craft moved toward the foothills. He was saying he was from the sky, or from above, or from heaven; she was not sure which. He said another word, and pointed to her; she realized it was a question. He was asking who she was.

She did not answer. Instead, in her own language, she said, “You are from the sky.”

He seemed startled. His surface thoughts rushed together, blurred and incoherent, so she concentrated on his feelings. He had recognized some of her words and that had surprised him. Haltingly, he answered her in her language, though the words were so badly accented she could never have grasped them without reading his mind. “I am from above,” he said, and then a thought reached her,
ancient language, very old
. She waited for him to say more before realizing that he only recognized the words, had heard her speech before, but did not know more than a few phrases in the language.

He went over to the craft and reached inside. He took out a small object wrapped in a shiny substance. He held it out to her. She caught the thought.

“Food,” she said, pointing to it.

“Food,” he repeated.

Daiya was hungry. Her stomach gurgled. She suppressed the hunger and shook her head, waving the food away with a hand. She had to remember her training. Anyway, she thought suspiciously, the food could be poisoned or made of dangerous herbs; she had to guard herself.

The boy peeled away the shiny covering and stuffed the food into his mouth, chewing it quickly. Then he pointed at the ground. He thrust out his hands, motioning downward. He seemed to be telling her to sit down.

Daiya sat, folding her legs. He sat down across from her and motioned again, but she could not tell what he meant this time. He closed his eyes.

She watched him. He seemed to be in a trance. For a moment, she thought of touching his mind again, but she did not want to intrude—not that he would notice even if she did. She felt that he did not want to be disturbed. It was almost as if he was communicating with another mind. But that was impossible; he did not have the ability.

Daiya fidgeted, unfolding her legs, then tucking them in again. The boy was being very foolish, trusting that she would not harm him while he sat entranced. She knew what she should do now. She had only to pull the Net, call the Merging Ones, tell them about this strange boy. They could decide what to do. It would be out of her hands, and she would be free to continue with her training.

She got up and walked over to the boy's vehicle. She touched the metal and pulled her hand back quickly; it had been warmed by the sunlight. He said he had traveled in this machine. If he had been from another part of Earth, he would have come here on foot or on horseback. But she had known he was not from another village. The ways of other towns were like those of her own community. Her father's own great-grandparents had come from a village several days’ travel to the south; they had been part of a group following an ancient custom which decreed that, every few generations, a number of young people past their ordeal must leave their own home and settle in another, so that human settlements did not grow apart from one another. So the boy had probably been speaking the truth when he said he came from the sky, unbelievable as it seemed. She thought of the comet; it had been a sign after all.

A dark translucent dome covered the top of the boy's craft. Daiya touched it gently. Unlike the metal of the machine's body, it was cool. Puzzled, she peered at it. The night before, when she had first seen the craft, the dome had been transparent, not dark.

She retreated from the vehicle and stood over the boy. His eyes were still closed. She knew she had to call the village.

Something seemed to grip her mind. Her muscles tensed; she felt the skin of her face tighten. Something inside her was keeping the wall in front of the Net. She did not want to call the village. She had found the boy, she had a right to find out more before telling anyone about him. She had seen him first. She shook; her skin prickled. She was keeping something from the others, she had a secret, she was acting like a solitary. She tried to push the thought away. It isn't like that, she told herself. She only wanted to find out more about him first, discover whether or not he had weapons or might be dangerous. She was protecting the village. She would tell them later.

She looked down at the boy. His blue-black hair was straight and thick. His light brown skin glistened. There must be others like him, she thought. She tried to imagine it, a group of separate minds like his; how could they possibly live together, able to speak to one another only with words? How could they feel love? How could the Merged One allow such beings to survive? She remembered her own doubts about God and shuddered. Perhaps the boy was a sign to her that the Merged One did not exist. Perhaps there was another Great Force in the world, one who sought to separate what God tried to unite, and this boy was one of its worshippers.

Thinking such things was blasphemous. The air was cold around her. She hugged herself with her arms, feeling as though she was trapped in a dark abyss. If this boy's presence brought on such thoughts, he was dangerous, as dangerous to the village as the solitaries, perhaps even more dangerous. Her hand was on her knife. Separate selves could not be allowed to live.