Plague of Memory Read online

  “Great.” She glanced back to where the senior site botanist was still pacing back and forth and complaining to another of his colleagues. “Tell me, what did that raving maniac mean when he said I had a black thumb?”

  “He meant you need to be assigned to another project.”

  “Even better.” She sniffed. “What would you recommend that I try next, Chief Linguist?”

  I gave the matter some consideration. “Working with something inanimate.”

  “Very funny.”

  I brushed the loose soil from my hands as I stood and checked the time. “We’re finished.”

  She eyed the flat of seedlings left to one side. “But I—”

  I raised one hand, imitating one of her favorite habitual gestures. “You’ve done enough.”

  “Not yet,” she said. “Hear me out.”

  She went on to explain the unusual circumstances regarding Alun Karas, the patient who had died at the FreeClinic the night before. He had evidently aspirated some resin after a collection device exploded, and she thought the sap might he responsible for the infection that had killed him. I agreed that it might help to visit the site where the botanist had been collecting samples.

  She seemed to have no recollection of the vision we had shared on the day we met, for she showed no hesitation, even when I indicated she would have to enter the gnorra groves with me.

  Her lack of fear would make what I wanted to do easier for both of us.

  “I am familiar with his work assignment. He was over in a section adjoining the south range.” I kept my voice bland. “We can reach it from here on foot.”

  Cherijo was quiet as we made our way into the gnorra groves. I opened my mind, gathering in what I could of her thought images and feelings. Her emotions radiated over everything, and I sensed a distinct division in them—she felt despondency over the loss of her patient, and happiness over something completely unrelated and unidentifiable. She demonstrated little pleasure in sharing my company, so what was creating the warmth behind the sadness?

  Perhaps she would tell me. “Thinking of pleasant memories?”

  “You’re certainly interested in what I’m thinking all the time.”

  “Occupational hazard.”

  By that time we had left the fields and were walking through some dense growth into the uncultivated areas. She wasn’t paying attention to where she was stepping, however, and I had to catch her as she stumbled over a hidden tangle of roots. I stopped until she regained her balance.

  Touching her strengthened the connection between us a hundredfold. I knew what she was thinking, and who had brought her here. Who made her happy and excited. It wasn’t me.

  It was another man. An alien.

  I took hold of her other arm, then brought my hands to her wrists as she raised them in a defensive gesture. Her wrists, in front of my face—it was exactly as it had been in the vision. But I could not think of precognition or the connection we shared, not in that moment.

  She had been busy making new friends. Friends who were male, and made her happy, and excited her. Friends who were not human. Friends who were not like me. I increased my grip.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered.

  I probed her thoughts, determined to know all of it.

  “He was here with you.”

  “What?”

  “The pilot, Torin.” I saw his face in her mind. “He was here with you, wasn’t he?”

  I wanted to know what he had done to her, and what she had given him. If she would not tell me, I would locate the memories myself

  “How do you know—” She wrenched away from my hands, breaking the tentative connection between us. “What was that? What did you do to me?”

  “I linked with you.” And would again, as soon as I could put my hands on her.

  Had she been intimate with the Jorenian? How long had this been going on?

  “Linked?” She stepped back. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “I established a mental link with you, when I touched you. I have tried before, but you did not realize—”

  Her chin sagged for a moment. “You did this before?”

  “The first time we met, at the trading center.” I took hold of her wrists once more and raised them. “This image was one I shared with you.” Before she had met Torin—before she had ever seen him. I had prior claim on her.

  “Reever—you—” Anger reduced her speech capacity significantly. “I never said you could touch me or—or—”

  Didn’t she understand? Couldn’t she feel the connection between us? Did I have to explain everything to her? “I don’t have to touch you.”

  I dropped her wrist, and she swiveled and began to walk away.

  No.

  What happened next was as much a surprise to me as it was to her. I reached out to her mind to link, but determination to stop her changed the probe and allowed me control over her physical body.

  Stop. Her body halted, as if time stood still. She began to cry out, but I stopped that impulse as well. Quiet. Then I went after her.

  I moved around her, holding her mind with mine as I inspected her. She was trying to speak; I could see her throat moving. But I controlled her speech center, and blocked all sound impulses. I could control everything she did. Her thoughts were frantic—she was wondering how I could be doing this, what type of psychic ability I had. Even experiencing my linkhold over her, she could not believe it was possible.

  I looked into her eyes, and attempted a direct thought transfer. Yes, it is.

  Reever? She was even more shocked than before. Can you hear me?

  Yes. I hear you. I moved closer, enjoying my power over her. Who would not wish control such as this over another being? Especially one I wanted so much?

  I felt no guilt. She was my balance. She belonged with me. She belonged to me. And if she did not recognize it now, in time she would understand.

  You are really doing this. She didn’t want to believe it, but her mind was logical, and she was not a coward. Why? Why are you doing this to me?

  How could I explain the needs surging inside me? She would not believe them. I did not myself You’re the only one I’ve never had to touch.

  Her mind was a snarl of contradictions and emotions—curiosity, outrage, fear—and something else, something she wouldn’t reveal to me. She held up barriers there which I could not penetrate. Beyond her emotions, her mind was orderly and ruthlessly organized—her cognitive knowledge of medicine alone was astounding—and I realized that what she had learned during her brief years would have taken another Terran decades, perhaps even a lifetime to comprehend.

  I moved back into what she was unconsciously trying to conceal—her memory center. Everywhere I saw shadows upon shadows, suppressing and obscuring her life before she came to K-2. There was only one, very clear memory I could make out—that of another Terran female, older than Cherijo, with vivid red hair.

  Lighten up, Joey. You do any more studying and your eyes will fall out of your head. Come on, let’s go shopping.

  Joey. Of course, a diminutive of Cherijo. I liked the sound of it very much.

  Jarm.

  Images of my own body, injured and in a hospital berth, pushed me back, trying to force me from her mind. Those were coming from the ensleg ship, from the present. Reever was seeing me. My husband was trying to pull me out of this snarl of memories not my own—

  Reever could not free me, so he took me back to the grove of purple trees, where he and Cherijo had linked for the first time.

  Enough, Reever. Cherijo’s subconscious drew strength from the shadows in her mind, even though I suspected she herself was not aware of them. The combination was quite powerful. Get out of my head!

  My warrior of life. She had yet to recognize that I was her balance.

  Wait. I took her hand in mine, entwined my fingers with hers. I had to make her understand who I was, what I was. She did not understand that she would be safe with me, that I had as
many shadows and dark places inside me. She did not know that I would kill anything that harmed her. There’s more.

  More what?

  I opened my mind to her, sending brief bursts of images from my own past. I had never revealed myself to another with such candor, and I was not sure if she would even comprehend my motive for doing so. I found I did not care—even if it meant nothing to her, I wanted to show her my life, everything about me.

  This is who I am. This is what I was.

  I thought of the first planet on which my parents had left me. There had been no sapient inhabitants, so I had spent several days alone, acting recklessly, injuring myself as I looked for my mother and father, even though I knew they had taken the ship and left me there. If I kept looking, my younger self reasoned that I would find them, and not have to face the prospect of living and dying alone on that barren world.

  My parents had been very disappointed when they returned several days later. I had fallen ill, and nearly died from the fever and an infected wound on my leg. The contempt they had felt as they repaired the damage and brought me back to health had been only too clear.

  I had been even more terrified while enduring my trial of discipline on Tarvasc. I made her see that, watch the first time an examiner had slashed the back of my hand with his blade. The many weeks of hunger and punishment that followed had purged me of my youthful insubordination, and tempered me into an obedient child. My parents had never had cause to complain about my behavior again.

  I wanted to show her everything I had experienced over my lifetime. I began sending a continuous stream of memory, all the worlds and beings I had encountered until the Hsktskt had taken me from Svcita and enslaved me.

  I did not show her everything, however. I kept from her my years in the arena; I did not want her to see that thing that I had become on the killing sands. How I had suffered, and what they had done to me. How it had changed and shaped me into the man I had become. Perhaps someday would tell her, but not now. Not until I was assured of her loyalty to me.

  Let—me—go.

  She still resisted me, and I could feel something growing inside her mind—she was reaching for her own, unused mental resources. That alarmed me, for if she used them incorrectly, one or both of us could end up with brain damage.

  Although it was like tearing a wound in myself, I ended the linkhold.

  And I, finally Jarn again, fell into the shadows past all memories.

  “She’s regaining consciousness. Scanner.”

  I opened my eyes to be momentarily blinded by a piercing light. The familiar odors of antiseptic and sterile solution told me where I was. I tried to shade my face with my hand to see why, but my arms were restrained. So were my legs.

  “Brain wave activity returning to level function,” a female said. “Vitals are stabilizing, Senior Healer.”

  I opened my eyelids to slits until my pupils adjusted to the light. I had been placed on a critical-care berth in the isolation room next to Dapvea Adan’s. The Omorr stood over me and moved a scanner over my head.

  “Am I injured?” I felt no pain, and no sluggishness from drugs.

  “Apparently not.” Squilyp lifted the instrument to study its display screen. He did not appear happy with the results.

  I turned my head to see two nurses and Reever standing beyond them. “Was the ship attacked? How did this happen?”

  “The ship is safe. You’ve just come out of a coma,” the Senior Healer said, founding testy. “We don’t know why it happened.”

  I tucked my chin in to look down at myself. I was in a patient garment and full limb restraints. “How long was I in the coma? Why do you have me tied to the berth?”

  “You were comatose for approximately seventeen hours. We restrained you … for safety reasons.” The Omorr released the straps that had immobilized me. “Tell me what you remember.”

  I easily recalled what had happened between me and Reever, and the unpleasant effects while the ship made the interdimensional jump. The dream of being Reever, and having odd experiences on another world with my former self, also came back to me, so real and vivid that it could not have been a fantasy. Could Reever have made me see those things while I was unconscious? In the midst of it, and immediately after it, came only a jumble of images; too many and too bizarre to make any sense.

  I decided to wait until I could talk to my husband about what had happened before confiding the details to anyone else. Knowing now just how much he could control my body and mind, there was much we had to discuss. “I was talking with Reever. The ship transitioned and I blacked out. Did I strike my head?” That, too, might explain the puzzling interval after the dream/memory.

  “Duncan said he caught you before you hit the deck.” Squilyp looked up and nodded, and my husband came to stand at the side of my berth. “She seems to have recovered, but I want to observe her and perform a full physical exam before discharge,” he warned before he and the nurses left us.

  Reever appeared pale and tense. “How do you feel?”

  “Well. Confused. Ridiculous.” I sat up slowly. My body seemed fine and the room did not spin or change form; my head was clear. It felt as if I had only been asleep. I looked around before I lowered my voice and asked, “Did you put me in a coma?”

  “No. I would never do such a thing.” He took my hand in his. “I may be able to find out why it happened, but I must link with you to do so. May I?”

  Now he asked permission? Perhaps it was because we were not alone here. “Be careful.”

  I experienced the same strange sense of invasion as I had when Reever had taken control of my body, only not as intensely. Feeling my husband’s mind inside my head this time was not unpleasant but rather unnerving.

  I could feel his regret over what had happened. He had only meant to demonstrate what he would not do to me, so that I could know the depth of his regard. Remorse now colored his thoughts with as much sadness as the longing he always carried inside him.

  Since I knew he could hear my thoughts, I directed them at him. Do you see what happened to me?

  Some of it. He seemed to move to the very center of my mind, which made me shiver. So much is—

  I didn’t understand the word he used, but it sounded angry. Maybe he was still expecting to find Cherijo somewhere inside my head. Given the love he felt for her, I almost wished he could. I am sorry.

  Don’t apologize to me. Reever left my thoughts and released my hand so quickly that it was as if he had never touched them in the first place. His eyes had changed to the color of new ice at twilight.

  Squilyp came over. “What is it?”

  “An old problem. It is likely that the stress of being invaded by two telepaths caused the coma.” Reever turned away from me and regarded the Senior Healer. “When will you be finished with the examination?”

  “I am told I can only keep her for another hour, so I want her to wear a cerebral monitor during the briefing with the Adan,” Squilyp said. He gave my husband a hard look. “In the event another telepath attempts to take over her brain.”

  “What other telepath? What briefing?” I asked, starting to feel as I had when I had woken up on the ice, stripped of all knowledge except being.

  “The Ruling Council sent two of HouseClan Adan’s ships to escort us to Vtaga,” my husband told me. “ClanLeader Adan wishes to coordinate their efforts to safeguard you with ours, so there will be a briefing.”

  Why had the council sent more ships? How would the Hsktskt react to such a display of force? “Can it not wait?” I asked, feeling overwhelmed now. I had just been in a coma; surely I could be granted more time to prepare for this.

  “Not much longer,” Squilyp told me. “We will reach Vtaga in three hours.”

  SIX

  Reever returned just after the Senior Healer fitted me with a narrow alloy band that looked like a hair ornament but monitored and transmitted my brain wave activity to a console in Medical.

  “You need not wear it when you
cleanse or sleep,” Squilyp said as he showed me how to switch off and remove the device. “If you feel dizzy or faint, tell Duncan, but don’t link with him. If you’re alone when something happens, sit quietly. I’ll have you on constant monitor.”

  “I do not think Reever’s telepathy caused me to go into a coma,” I told him. “It is more likely some remnant reaction from the head injuries I received on Akkabarr.”

  “I’m not sure.” The Omorr looked disgusted and, oddly, a little ashamed. “You were not like other Terrans before this, and none of your readings match the ones I had on file for the various synaptic episodes you suffered in the past that were not attributed to Reever’s abilities.”

  “This happened to Cherijo?” She had never described it in her journals. Did the woman do nothing but write about Reever and herself?

  “Something like it, yes, several times. We had theories, but we never determined exactly what caused the … incidents.” His dark eyes shifted as he looked over my head at Reever. “They are waiting for you. Go. We will do a follow-up later.”

  As I walked to the lift with my husband, I silently reviewed everything I had read from my chart. Squilyp’s notations were detailed and precise, but my symptoms made little sense. A comatose state was always induced by something; usually an injury or an adverse physical reaction to a drug or chemical. I had experienced neither. The only oddity that had happened before my mishap had been Reever’s possession and control of my mind and body, the memories of seeing myself through his eyes, and …

  Joey.

  Someone else had been there. I remembered the voice that had called me by his pet name. A voice that had been, like Reever’s thought-link, inside my head. Was it the red-haired woman of Cherijo’s memories?

  “Did someone enter our quarters just before I became ill?” I asked him. “This other telepath of whom you spoke in Medical, perhaps?”

  “There are no other telepaths on the ship.” Reever enabled the lift to take us to third level. “We were alone.”

  “Someone spoke to me through my thoughts. Someone who called me Joey.” I frowned, concentrating, trying to recall the voice. “It was not a Jorenian or an Iisleg. The voice was one I have not before heard. Who else uses that name for me?”