Mindship (v1.0), page 9
The Cork remembered his father, a Centaurian of average height who’d managed to dominate a room by his presence and bearing. He recalled his father’s manner, the bunching of muscles in his upper arms as he lifted his son and sat bim on a chair, and the laughter in his voice when he spoke to the young Ty’ger.
He remembered his mother, a stern woman who always ended a conversation, demanding the final word. He remembered also her moments of softness, when she’d sing to him in the morning hours when the others were out working in the mines. He remembered the last he saw of her alive, a gray-haired fighter who’d taken two men with her before the Company agents had tom her face away.
His brothers. Big men, taller than he, wider and broader in their humor than he would ever be. He remembered the way they walked beside him when he was a child, careful to keep him in view and always dragging him back when he wandered away. His sisters. Like his mother, stem; each of them as strong as his brothers—except Eiline, who was the changeling of the family, golden and gentle, the one he loved most.
He remembered what they did to her, and his mind shut off the scene of her tears.
Kilgarin remembered the past of another man, and as he did that past became his own.
You loved your brother, Kilgarin?
I hardly knew him.
But you loved him.
I suppose.
Then you understand how 1 feel.
Yes, thought Kilgarin. Then, a moment later: No.
Ty’ger shifted himself to look at Kilgarin more closely. They were seated on the stoop of a moderately well-kept building within the fringe of the District. A dear street-lamp lit the scene, yellow light washing over the gray stones of the stoop, touching the blue material of Kilgarin's jump suit and the darker blue of Ty’ger’s. The two men sat at opposite ends of the steps. Kilgarin had his knees up, arms around his legs, his back braced against the stone railing where it joined the building.
The Centaurian frowned. What do you mean—you don’t understand?
Your view is too simple. It doesn’t leave room for judgment.
And your view does?
At least I want to find out the reason why something happened, Ty’ger. I don’t want blind revenge. I want to know a man’s motivation.
Is that what you think it is? Is that how you see yourself?
The Centaurian slipped to his feet and stood with his arms hanging straight from his sides. His face was contorted and his eyes were bright.
Let me tell you about yourself, Kilgarin. You haven’t faced the truth once in all your life. You’re afraid to let someone get close to you—you’re afraid you’ll become dependent on them—see—see? Ty’ger laughed triumphantly. You’re closing me out! You don’t want to listen to that, do you? All right. Then listen to this, Kilgarin—perhaps it won’t hurt quite so much.
The only truth is what happens, in plain and simple reality. I’ve seen the inside of too many minds to think any man’s intentions can be good. We’re evil inside ourselves, Kilgarin. We’re sick and foul and filthy. The only ones who come close to being pure are those too stupid to be anything else. You won’t admit it, Kilgarin, but ifs true. Look at yourself: you hate. I’ve seen it inside you. You can’t face what this woman Marka’s done to you, you can’t admit your pain. But is that your so-called motivation? No, because your conscious mind thinks it’s something else. So what is truth, Kilgarin? What truth do you hope to find in the Captain—what truth do you expect me to find in J’kar? They’re guilty, both of them. The only difference between you and me is you don’t have the guts to-
The thought snapped off in mid-pulse.
“Maybe we’d better go,” Kilgarin said quietly. ““I’ve got things to attend to at the brothel.”
When he returned to his town house, taking the long route to work out the kinks in his body and to allow himself time for thought, Kilgarin found Whyte and J’kar waiting for him in the bordello’s brightly lit anteroom. The two broken Sensitives rose as Kilgarin entered. Whyte held a folder in his hands, and bent it back and forth as he faced Kilgarin. greeting him. “Your man said we could wait. J’kar wanted to talk with you. asked me along.”
“Friend of yours, Raymond,” J’kar said. “Told me this afternoon. About ship, you. Felt you needed help.” He paused, a ridge forming between his brows as he wrinkled his forehead in thought. “Checked ship. They need Physicals.”
“You’ve signed aboard,” Kilgarin said flatly. J’kar ducked his head in a rod, smiling. Whyte held the folder out to Kilgarin.
“He hasn’t had the Contracts filed yet, Kilgarin, but they’re all legal and holding. He wants you to keep them for him, have them made into a disk.”
Kilgarin took the file and glanced within. He felt a cold weight lodged in his middle, but could do nothing to get rid of it “Why aren’t you coming along, Whyte?”
The ex-Sensitive indicated his bad eye, smiling wryly. “Two reasons. That, and the fact J’kar wants to do this himself. He felt you needed help.”
J’kar was frowning, and the frown deepened as he studied Kilgarin’s unmoving expression. “You want me along, Killy? Right? Like you wanted me here?”
Kilgarin’s grin was forced. “Of course I do, J’kar.”
“Wanted to thank you for that, asking me here.” The Centaurian grinned back and jerked his arms in an expansive wave. “1 knew you’d want me on Charter. Whyte said no, but I knew. You, me, mates, right, Killy? Like before, Killy?”
“That’s right, J’kar,” Kilgarin said, glancing at Whyte and then turning away. “Just like before.”
Two days later, after taking on its cargo of absinthe for trade to the Outworld planets, the Company ship Charter lifted from the Endrim port. Kilgarin stayed at the air lock until the last moment, watching the field gates and the window of the massive observation tower.
Marka never came.
It wasn’t until the next day that be found out why.
Chapter Four
Eighth month, eighth day, anno Domini 3146
She was in the recreation room with Raymond when KILGARIN entered. She glanced at him from behind her disarrayed hair and smiled wryly as he sat down. “You don’t seem very pleased to see me, Killy,” she said. Raymond twisted around to face both of them, shifting awkwardly on Kilgarin’s side of the narrow game table. Kilgarin motioned him back.
“The Cook told me you were here,” he told her. “I didn’t believe it.”
“We tried to catch you before the ship took off, Kilgarin,” Raymond said, “but you were already in Sensitive, and the Cook said we weren’t supposed to disturb you until the Charter was on course and you came out of it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming along, Marka?”
“I didn’t know until the ship was ready to leave.”
“She caught me at your place and asked me to take her down to the port,” Raymond said. He looked nervously from Marka to Kilgarin. “She said you’d want me to.”
“I appreciate it, Raymond. I’m just a little stunned.”
“That’s obvious,” Marka replied. She lifted her cigarette to her lips, drew on it. “When you feel like talking, please let us know.” She returned her gaze to the game board.
Kilgarin pursed his lips, frowning. He stared at Marka, his hand tapping lightly on his left leg where it crossed his right. Raymond pushed the pieces on the board about aimlessly, starting when Kilgarin abruptly got to his feet. “I’ll speak with you later,” Kilgarin said to him. Raymond watched as the Cork walked out of the room.
“Why is he like that? I thought he’d be happy the Cook signed you on board.”
“Then you don’t know him very well, my friend.” Her hand dipped as she ground out the ash of her cigarette on the small tray set into the tabletop. “Shall we play?”
The Cook shrugged his shoulders. “The boy said you wanted her. He said it was OK to take her on. Her foot wasn’t as bad as some. Another ship might have said no, bill here”—he spread his hands—“it doesn’t matter. Why? What’s wrong? Isn’t she your woman?”
“It’s not that,” Kilgarin said. “I just didn’t expect her. I don’t know how to handle it. It doesn’t seem right, her coming here without telling me.”
“Did you ask her to come?”
“In a way. I thought she’d said no. When she didn’t come to see the ship off, 1 decided to forget her…but now…”
“Now you can’t?”
“How can I?” Kilgarin asked.
The Cook scratched a thick hand over the gray shadow on his chin. “Do you want to?” the Cook asked.
“I don’t know. This is the second time around. I just don’t know.”
“Then see her,” The Cook said, “and find out.”
Kilgarin followed the corridor around the inside shell of the ship to one of the main cross-paths. He bent, ducking under the low hatch, and came up in the area of the ship set off for the Physical crew. Elsewhere on board the Charter the walls were colored a neutral tan. Here, the colors varied from section to section, first a bright red, then a pastel blue, followed by a gold, and so on. Each bay had its own color. There were psychological reasons for this, Kilgarin had been told, reasons that dealt with creating a strong sense of identity in the Physical members of a mindship crew. One of the hazards of the psi-ship class structure was the gradual dissolution of individual identity, something that affected the Physicals far less than it did Sensitives, but still affected them enough to destroy their efficiency as psi fuel. The Company’s concern was not with the problems of the individual but with the effectiveness of the ship: thus, the colored walls were less noble than they appeared to be at first. Perhaps this was why so many of them had been repainted with a layer of concealing white.
The rest of the ship was tomblike in its quiet. Here, however, the halls were filled with sound, from the distant clatter of footsteps to the light music of static harps—the latest product of the earth artisan guild—and other less distinct instruments. Kilgarin traced the music to a pod bay, which grew out of the vessel’s “eastern” wing. He’d been told he could find “the cripple woman” there.
As he moved he became aware, once again, of the aura of violence permeating the ship. It chilled him, and it took a moment for him to shrug the sensation off before he could proceed through the hatch and into the pod bay.
The bay was dark, the blackness irregularly broken by the glow of cigarettes and the winking lights of several ship’s indicators. Kilgarin recognized the pod’s lines. It was a lifeboat, minimally connected to the ship, designed for quick ejection in the event of the mindship’s destruction. According to Company regulations the pods were to be kept in proper working order and inviolate until shipwide emergency. Kilgarin wasn’t surprised to find the lifeboat serving as a recreation room, however; it was done on every ship. It was tradition.
Marka was seated in a comer under a softly throbbing light screen display. She glanced at him as he settled beside her. “Are you ready to talk now, Kilgarin?” she asked him.
Kilgarin drew his legs up and wrapped his arms around his knees. He found the callus on his thumb and worked at it nervously. “I didn’t expect to find you here,” he said.
“We’ve been through that already,” she answered. “I’m here. Let’s go from there, Kilgarin. I think I’m making my feelings fairly plain. Isn’t it up to you to do something about it?’
“Marka, why are you here? Really?”
Her eye caught a flicker of light from the display screen over her. “I’m not the sort of person who thinks in terms of ‘whys,’ Killy. That’s for you to do. I do what I think is right and important. I do as much as I can. and no more. That’s the way I’ve always been, even before you left on your last run. You act, I react; you hurt me, I hurt you. You love me…I love you. You’re the one who’s suspicious, not me. I know what I want, Kilgarin. For now, at any rate.”
“I know what you’re trying to say,” Kilgarin said.
“Then do something, Killy. I can’t go back to Endrim now. Do something.”
He reached forward and touched the skin of her arm, ran his hand along the tight muscle to her shoulder, and felt the crisp material of her ship tunic lift as his fingers and palm cupped the jut of muscle and bone. “I’ll try,” he said. “For now.”
The Charter’s schedule demanded a maximum of speed for the run to Rylon, and because of it the ship’s psychic field was strained to its limits by the demands of the Engineering sector. Kilgarin found himself Corking during most of his waking hours? including the small amount of time Company regulation allowed for the rest of the Sensitives. There were hours “on” and hours “off” ordinarily, and the latter hours were intended for rest and a form of gentle “coasting” through the Back Region. However, with the agreement of the crew—many of whom were eager to reach the Rylon pleasure port—the Captain shortens! the breaks to three-fourths of their normal length. Kilgarin found the strain almost unbearable at first, but gradually, as he grew to understand the structure of the psychic field peculiar to the Charter, Kilgarin gained control over the situation. Occasional outbreaks of anger and violence were usual for a ship of the Charter’s reputation, and aside from these minor upsets, the early days went well. Kilgarin soon found himself enjoying his work once more; apparently, it relieved an unrecognized pressure within him. He tried to explain this to Raymond on an evening three days after they left Endrim.
“You aren’t aware of being a Sensitive until you reach puberty,” Kilgarin told the young Physical. They were sitting in the lounge, drinking from mugs of coffee laced with absinthe. “And even then, you don’t recognize it for what it is. There are too many other feelings, sensations, emotions—and each of them is strange and new, each struggling for domination. The Sensitivity is obscured. Gradually your conscious mind shoves it into a comer of your unconscious. If it isn’t discovered by a mind-probe, or by accident, it can go unused and slowly deteriorates the more subtle instincts—such as intelligence. You go mad. That’s what happened to my father. A Sensitive who suppresses his talent decays mentally. It may takes years, but it happens…eventually.
“There’s something else. If a Sensitive learns about his ability and trains it, he becomes bound to it. Like a man who builds his muscles; he must keep working them all his life or the muscles will go to fat and kill him. It’s the same with Sensitivity.”
Raymond nodded, the comers of his mouth drawn in a tight, intent frown.
“I tried to ignore my Sensitivity, Raymond,” Kilgarin told him. “Worse, I tried to suppress it. That was a mistake. I could never have kept it up. I need this”—he gestured with his mug—“even this ship, even the men here. I need it.”
“I hope you’re right,” the Physical said. The creases in his forehead vanished as he smiled. “Will you be at dinner tonight, not to change the subject?”
“I should be,” Kilgarin said. “We’ll be in mind-drive for only another hour or two.”
“Another hour or two? You’re in drive now?”
Kilgarin laughed. “Talking doesn’t take much concentration,” he said. “1 had a certain reputation for storytelling once, and I’m afraid all that talking got to be an unconscious habit. But why dinner?” he asked, rising. “Is the Cook planning something?”
“No. But Marka is.”
“Oh?”
“The four of us from Endrim. Well be sitting together, at the same mess.” At the Cork’s expression of concern, Raymond said anxiously, “Just for tonight. She and J’kar and I were tired of eating with the other Physicals. You don’t mind, do you? You don’t have to sit with the Sensitives, do you?”
“I don’t think it’s wise,” Kilgarin said, “but there’s no reason why I have to—”
“Then it’s all right,” Raymond said happily. “Marka seemed to think it was important.”
“She would,” Kilgarin said.
Mind-drive:
Kilgarin strolled down the corridors of the ship. His gaze traveled over the squares of flooring that stretched ahead of him, touched the seams where the floor joined the walls and rose to the ceiling that glowed overhead. His head tilted as though he were listening to a distant sound. His eyes went out of focus, and he paused. For several seconds he remained motionless. At last he shook himself, glanced around the corridor, brow furrowing. He whispered something to himself, shook himself again, and continued down the corridor, strolling.
Mind-drive:
His room was small as far as quarters for Sensitives go.
There was barely enough room for him to stand upright He keyed the heat-sensitiye tab on the wall next to his door and the desk and chair folded out of their wall shelf with a nearly silent hum. Kilgarin sat down,, zipping open the sleeves of his jump suit and rolling them back, detaching them from the shoulders and placing them on the desk. Bare armed, he flicked a switch on the wall and accepted the tidy transparent pouch that dropped into the open slot below the controls.
Wood and metal fell from the pouch onto the desk as Kilgarin peeled it open. He picked up the knife and the half-worked block of wood, and began carving.
As he worked, he hummed softly to himself. Twice the knife nicked the underside of a finger. He never noticed.
Kilgarin passed the Captain on his way into the cafeteria lounge. The older man saw him, paused to grip the Cork’s shoulder, and smile vacantly. “Glad you’re with us, Kilgarin,” the Captain told him. “If you ever have any problems, anything you want to discuss, be sure to let me know.” The grip tightened a moment and then dropped away. Kilgarin thanked the older man and went inside the lounge.
Marka was already seated behind a table that was tucked in a comer by the hatches to the lifeboat bay. Her arms were folded on the tabletop, but she stretched as Kilgarin came up, ending the stretch with her fingers knit together behind her neck. “Raymond is getting us food,” she said. “He tried very hard, doesn’t he, Kilgarin?”
