Finders-Seekers Page 9

  Mem’now orchestrated, responded, directed round after round of response and answer as ghatti confidence built and swelled. “Now, a mindmeld of three for distance, please. Are we up to it? We have to know if we’ve attained fall reception, please. Volunteers ? Myself plus two more.”

  T’ss’s mindvoice speared through the quickest, followed by another familiar voice. “Me, as well, Mem,” he heard Khar say from Myllard’s.

  “Let it be for now, Khar. You’re due a little more rest.” T‘ss could hear the hesitancy in Mem’now’s voice, overlaid with its usual courtliness. III at ease, he groomed. Khar had been the last out of the link with Mr‘rhah when Saam’s exploding distress had overwhelmed, overburdened them all to breaking. No one had yet heard from Mr’rhah, did not know whether she had lived or died.

  “No! Now, Mem, I have to know now, have to know I’m ready, that I won’t be caught wanting again.” There was no quaver, no indecision to her voice, just a tired steadfastness.

  “Fine, then. Three exhalations, then meld by seniority. Outreach as far as you can, starting in sunrise direction, then sweeping north and through the points. And begin.”

  As youngest, T’s waited, tasted the blending of voice-strengths, then added his own. Easiest for him first as they explored east where he was stationed, then began the counterclockwise sweep around, not knowing when or where they’d find an answer. That was the whole point of the exercise. Extend, extend, he counseled himself, buoyed by the two voices around him, knowing his own buoyed the others. Extend, search! Search, listen! They’d swept north, swung toward the west, heard a glimmering, a teasing light of mindvoice, turned smoothly and hovered, testing again, hawklike on an imaginary updraft.

  “Hello!” “Hello!” M‘wa and P’wa’s response overlapped, sounded like one word with an echo. “Good! We’ve been waiting! Thought it might take four of you this soon.”

  Mem’now’s voice boomed like distant thunder. “Greetings! Not bad odds, three of us to two of you. And your precise location?”

  The duo answered, “Out beyond the Ring Wall, about a thousand meters out. Figured that was the best you could do, the best we could manage right now.”

  “Well done. Make your way back now, don’t want Bard and Byrta missing you when they rise.” Mem‘now began reeling in the mindmeld, a little warning chirrup sounding as he shooed first Khar, then T’ss free of the triple meld.

  Khar’s voice sounded faint to T‘ss’s mind, but he overheard her ask Mem’now, “May we attempt one final exercise before dawn? We have to try to reach Saam.”

  A breathy exhalation of dismay escaped Mem’now. “Not wise, my lovely ghatta. Best to wait, let him rest. Let us all rest.”

  “No, Mem, now may be the best time of all, while he’s asleep, relaxed from the medication, not fighting and straining to mindspeak.” Khar, quietly insistent, pressed home her point. “We can’t leave him like that, we have to reach through to him.”

  “And if he does not, cannot respond?” Mem’now waited for her answer.

  “Then we’ll try again, today, and the next day, and the next and the next until someday ...” her voice trailed off.

  “And if that ‘someday’ never comes? Face the truth, Khar, face it now. There is a very real possibility he’ll never mindwalk again.” T’ss cringed at the response, but knew that Mem’now spoke the truth. He could do nothing else. Still, to give Saam up so soon angered the white ghatt with the black stripings, impetuous with youth.

  He surprised himself into speaking. “Mem‘now, T’ss here. Not trying is accepting. We may have to accept, but not without trying first. I’m willing.” Other voices belled around him, some near, some faint and far. “And I.” “I, too.” “Willing.”

  Mem’now’s voice rumbled, “Then let the seeking begin. Seek high, seek low, check for any mindspeech pattern you can’t identify, that seems wavering, lost. Ready? Begin.”

  Mindvoices crisscrossed the city, searched high, searched low, sought for the lost, the lamed, the bewildered. Sought and found nothing, not a shred of mindvoice of an old, familiar friend, not a remnant of a mindpatterning forlornly waiting to be found and twined into the collective consciousness of their minds. One by one they faltered, bewildered at the lack.

  “It’s as if ...” Mem’now hesitated, searching for the words. “As if his pattern is locked tight away within him. He’s not wavering, wandering lost in search of Oriel, he’s constrained. Just as one traps a bluebottle fly under an overturned goblet, watches it bumble and crash against the dear sides. He’s totally locked away from us. And locked within himself. He can’t get out any more than we can get in.” He paused, considering an idea. “Unless we can repattern him.... It’s never been done before, relearning the spirals.... Could it... ?”

  But Khar, eyes stinging, murmuring apologies, took frantic exit from the conversation. “It’s Doyce. She’s dreaming wrongly again! I must go, now!” And torn between thoughts of Saam and her concern for Doyce, she broke the mindlink, hurtling herself into Doyce’s dream.

  Effortlessly inserting herself into the sleep tale, Khar paused to find her bearings, but the dream flowed new, and she had no idea where she was, what was wrong. Except that something was wrong, or was going to be wrong; she could sense it. She poised herself for action, watched the dream unfold within Doyce’s sleeping mind, pummeled by waves of pain and joy.

  Oriel strode down a dirt road, more a cart track, really, dust puffing from his quick steps, clouding around his knees, rising to settle on his sweat-slicked skin. Clearly he was hot and tired, but his footsteps were eager. Khar heard Doyce cry out to him in her mind, but the dream-Oriel seemed not to hear, for he did not stop. He swung along, reached to scoop some pebbles from the roadside, and dusted one on his tunic, popped it into his mouth. The rest he scattered with an overarm throw, watching as they pattered down, one pinging off the trunk of a nearby tree.

  “So thirsty,” Doyce moaned in her sleep. “Poor Oriel, Oriel, my love.” Khar’s own tongue rasped against her dry mouth in sympathy.

  A boy of perhaps twelve stepped into the roadway, wooden bucket of water sloshing on bare feet, and flung a full dipper of water in a circling crescent, rainbow scintillations of water droplets sparkling in the hot, bright sunlight. The boy wore an oversized man’s carpenter’s smock, sleeves rolled and rolled up thin forearms, shoulder seams hanging nearly to his elbows. He waved the dipper, beckoning an invitation.

  “May I ease you on your way, sir?” the boy shouted courteously in Oriel’s direction. Khar stiffened, hackles rising, as Doyce cried out, “Vesey? Vesey, lad, what are you ... ?” Vesey? Khar growled low in her throat. Vesey wasn’t supposed to be in this dream; he didn’t belong here. Untruth! Not possible, Oriel and Vesey had never met, had never shared any part of each other’s lives. She debated which one to expunge from the dream ... they did not belong together like this!

  A smile broke out on Oriel’s face and he began to trot toward the boy, hands outstretched for the waiting dipper. Hating herself for doing it, hating to see even the dream-Oriel go thirsty, Khar gently paw-dabbed Vesey from the dream, tumbled him back to his own plane of truth within Doyce’s mind, refused to allow him to mingle in this new sleep tale. She concentrated hard and Vesey disembodied, no. trace of him left except for the droplets of water, dark disks on the dry baked earth.

  Oriel looked around puzzled, then continued to walk on and on down the road, his bulk growing fainter as the distance grew. Doyce sobbed, brought the back of her wrist to her mouth for comfort, then settled into restless sleep, tossing and turning, sighing.

  Propping her chin against Doyce’s shoulder, Khar stared at her steadily, watched the sleeping face, tracked the thoughts in the sleeping mind. Disoriented, so tired, so confused. But not while Khar was there to guard her, to keep her safe, to make sure each part of her life stayed precisely as it was supposed to, not a fantasy world where various past lives improbably mingled. Now that she knew what to watch for, she’d make su
re that Vesey never appeared in another Oriel dream, nor Oriel in a dream about Varon, Briony, and Vesey.

  PART TWO

  Some lingered under the thick, sheltering cypress, glad for the shade; others perched on stone benches, some alone in their Pairs, other Bond-pairs together, talking in undertones or sharing their thoughts. Oriel had been buried but not forgotten, not as long as there were Seekers and Bondmates to remember.

  All were attired in formal Seeker garb: midnight blue pantaloons, green tunic, black tabard with red sash, the only difference being in the colors edging the tabard. Gold for Senior Circuit Riders, those with an octad or more of seniority; silver for the Junior Riders, those with less than eight years’ service in the field; crimson bordered for those semiretired and working out of Headquarters ; white for those fully retired and back into the world again; pale green for the Novies. And one, edged with purple and gold, the head of the Seekers, Swan Maclough, at the far side of the cemetery, causing a ripple amongst the Seekers as she paused here and there to lift a hand in greeting or exchange a word or two as she headed back to her offices. Mourning was done, but administrative details continued. The bitter reality and practicality choked at Doyce.

  She swung her scabbard out of the way and rested her forearms on her knees, glowering at the pebbled pathway, white-marbled chips framed by the close-cropped grass. Rolf perched at the other end of the bench, back to her, Chak at his feet. The twins, Bard and Byrta, slouched on the late-summer lawn, back to back, supporting each other, ghatti sprawled beside them. Parcellus wrestled Per’la from his lap, muttering “ghatta-hair” in a subdued voice. Clustered close enough to talk, no one bothered. Little left to say, or Doyce didn’t feel there was anything worth saying. Their silence deferred to her silence. Khar coiled at her feet, indulging in some desultory mindspeech with the other ghatti, but she resolutely tuned it out.

  “Now what?” At first she thought she had spoken aloud, words mimicking her thoughts, then realized Khar had spoken.

  “Why should I know?” she asked with asperity.

  “No?” Khar narrowed her eyes. “Now what’s going on? Sarrett and T‘ss are coming, and they don’t look well pleased. Hmmpf, T’ss isn’t sending, either.” Doyce turned and her scabbard splayed out from her side, catching Khar’s shoulder. The ghatta sprang away in dismay and swatted back at the scabbard vindictively, as if wishing she dared administer the same punishment to Doyce.

  “Seeker General wants us all in her office in five,” Sarrett halted, breathless, in front of the group.

  “Can’t mean us all,” Parcellus worried, ticking off names on his fingers. “Doyce and Khar, most likely. Bard and M‘wa, Byrta and P’wa, maybe.” He began toying with Per’la’s tail, waggling the tip between his fingers, tickling her nose with it.

  “I repeat: Seeker General wants us all in her office on the double. All meaning specifically Rolf/Chak, Bard/- M’ wa, Byrta/P‘wa, Doyce/Khar’pern, Sarrett/T‘ss, and last and definitely least, Parcellus/Per’la.” Sarrett relented the metronomic precision of her recitation. “Sorry, Per‘la, you’re never ‘least,’ just your Bondmate sometimes.”

  “Up, then, ladies and gentlemen.” Rolf stood and settled his tabard into place with a sharp tug, shifted sash and scabbarded sword into precise position. Chak inspected his white feet with care, tidy-licked his ruff. Crossing the path, Rolf extended his hands, one each to Bard and Byrta, who took hold and sprang up lightly, nothing disarranged. Not to be outdone, Sarrett offered a hand to Parcellus who blushed as he set Per’la on her feet and then looked up, unable to ignore the small hand reaching toward him. He rose with far less grace, mortification making him clumsy, stumble-footed, and Sarrett sidestepped his lunge, reached out and smoothed a wisp of his flyaway carroty hair into place with more care than the occasion demanded. They formed a semicircle around Doyce and the bench, Khar at its center. Rolf strained, cleared his throat. “Come along, Doyce. You know when the Seeker General says now, she means now.”

  Doyce kicked a polished boot toe at the pebbles in the path, picked up one and threw it as hard as she could. Charted its flight to just short of the newly filled grave. Why speak? There was nothing to say. But she’d go, no choice to it. How much choice did she have? If she had, she wouldn’t like anyone, including Khar, including herself. Guilt spasmed the muscles between her shoulder blades when she tried to throw her shoulders back. Apologize, she commanded herself, but couldn’t bring herself to do it.

  They stood in an uneasy cluster outside the Seeker General’s windowless interior office, feet shuffling, debating whether to enter ahead of Swan Maclough. Rolfs finger traced and retraced part of the inlaid pattern that ran unbroken around the door and all along the outer walls, both at ceiling height and floor level, a line of coppery inset metal bent and notched in a repetitive cubic design. Funny that he’d never paid much attention to it before. Now he relished any distraction from the matter at hand. “Enough.” He clapped his hands once, drew their attention. “Let’s enter, get settled. Tight quarters, to say the least.” He led the way inside.

  The Seeker General’s office had no business holding seven Seeker Pairs plus an extra ghatt, Saam, occupying the office alone and looking bleak and worn as he curled atop a folded blanket on the Seeker General’s paper-strewn desk. The others found space through anxious, subtle compromises in position as they fit themselves in as best they could. Rolf wondered if it were incumbent on each Seeker General to add a piece of furniture to the office without removing anything that had gone before. Who had been responsible, for instance, for wasting needed space with those four pillars, one in each corner of the room and each topped with an innocuous free-form shaping in polished marble? Not exactly unattractive, just terribly dated.

  The ghatti had the advantage: more out-of-the-way spots, high and low, designed for the fluid fit of a ghatt. The twins sat cross-legged on a low metal map cabinet, Sarrett and Doyce in the two straight-backed wooden chairs in front of the desk, though Rolf had to cuff Parcellus’s shoulder to make him relinquish one. He scrambled out, miming silent apology with flashing hands, and perched on a leather hassock. Rolf leaned his thin frame against the wall to the right of the desk. He made a self-deprecating face in Doyce’s direction as he pocketed a sweat-dampened handkerchief, and crossed his arms over his chest to wait.

  At last the seventh and final pair arrived, the Seeker General and her ghatt Koom pausing at the door, then threading the maze of obstacles of people and ghatti until they reached the desk. She tugged her straining tabard over her short, no-nonsense broad form and sat, hands clasped across her stomach. Koom sprang up beside Saam, giving him a quick, friendly rub across the back with his chin.

  “Tight quarters, but more private than one of the regular meeting rooms,” Swan Maclough commented. “Too many young Seekers and young ghatti who haven’t quite learned discretion.”

  Koom’s yellow-green eyes swept the room, lingering on Parse, though the broad ghatt face remained impassive. “And some older ones who still haven’t learned,” he capped her. “Now, mindwalk if ye will.”

  It gave them pause to hear him do that because the rules clearly stated that he should have denied himself such intimate access to her mind; he was not her Bondmate. Like Saam, newly bereft of his Seeker earrings, buried with Oriel, neither Koom nor Swan Maclough wore the gold hoop and ball, not any longer. Koom had never ‘Printed on Swan Maclough, a souce of wonder and some small, quiet controversy to those who questioned Swan’s continuation as Seeker General after the death of her Bondmate, A’rah. The rules were explicit: when a Bondmate died, the other retired from the company of Seekers. It explained one facet of their concern: without Oriel, what place did Saam have?

  Swan had been forty-two and A’rah twenty-two when the ghatt had died, the same oct that Koom’s Bondmate Callan had slipped away from a wasting lung disease that the eumedicos had slowed but had not been able to halt. In his prime at only eight, the placid, russet-hued Koom finished each assignment wit
hout hurry—until it dawned on his naysayers that the ghatt had premeditated every move to position himself two paces ahead of anyone else.

  Legend had it that both Swan and Koom had sat in the burial ground near the graves of their Bondmates, thoughts swirling, unguarded in grief, but no invitation given to mindwalk with the other. Except that they were mindwalking, sharing the pain and loss, consoling each other without volition. They returned together to face the Tribune and convince them that they had meshed, even without benefit of ’Printing. To their minds that would prove the ultimate disloyalty to their departed Bonds, but they had joined just as closely as some men and women do without benefit of marriage ceremony. And perhaps more closely than many legally married, for they both envisioned the mutual loss if they left the Seekers. Too much to do, too many projects to organize and plan, administer, advise on, for them to be shut out, for nothing superseded their implacable dedication to the Seekers. Nothing came before it. That had been ten years ago, and it seemed possible that the Seeker General and Koom could serve yet another ten years.

  “If this thing doesn’t blow wide open in our faces, destroy the Seekers’ credibility and the Seekers themselves,” Koom reminded Swan in private.

  “We have a problem,” Swan announced to the waiting group. “A serious one, very serious, far more than you may all realize.” She anticipated their glances sliding by over her shoulders, her ears, her lobes naked of earrings since A’rah’s death—ah, how she still missed him! and with no disloyalty to Koom—any place but her eyes. They weren’t ready for this, but then she wasn’t either, and she had no choice. And very little hope. Neither would they once they knew. Inaction meant the very probable destruction of the Seekers. And without the Seekers, who knew how much else might change if the Truth were no longer the Truth with no one there to read it right? But still, how much of the Truth to tell them? Was it better and fairer to let them search it out of her on their own terms? They were Seekers, after all.