Choices (2 page)

Not here
, someone thought at me.
In La Sapienza we judge by intent, not by words that can be
misinterpreted
.

I was being tested already, before breakfast,
on my first day. I looked for the speaker, or rather, the thinker,
and identified him easily, a pleasant-looking young man of medium
height, about twenty-five. He had wavy dark red hair much like
mine, and liquid brown eyes. When he saw I had received the thought
as intended, and had placed the source, he smiled and introduced
himself with speech.

“Tomasz Liang, at your service,” he said,
bowing and using a phrase of courtly etiquette, much like the
speech that Lord Zichmni had used in the ‘Graven Assembly.

I could not respond in kind, not knowing what
the response should be. This elaborate form of the language, highly
inflected and with many complex verb formations, was far more
difficult to learn than the everyday speech I had been using. I
introduced myself simply, giving my name in its Eclipsian form.
“Amalie,” I said, feeling a blush coming despite all efforts to
control it. “Amalie Herzog.” I had been Amelia three days ago, but
that was a person who no longer existed.

Saying the name out loud brought back the
moment when I had met Dominic, Margrave Aranyi, when he had
christened me and I had been reborn. I relived the sensations, the
touch of his hand, the sudden plunge into communion and the
recognition of each other as “lovers.” His deep voice sounded in my
mind, telling me his name and repeating mine as
Amalie
. I
stood transfixed by the images in my mind, lost in my delicious
memories.

Most of the others could see that I was in
the grip of a strong emotion and untrained in any skills of
concealment. Out of kindness they refrained from any reaction that
would increase my discomfort.

I didn’t mean to test you
. Tomasz
broke in on my reverie.
It comes naturally here, to speak mind
to mind
. He switched back, as before, to voiced speech,
addressing my thoughts, but avoiding any hint that he had sensed
the intimate ones. “In a seminary,” he said, “all that courtly
formality is unnecessary. I introduced myself that way because you
look so much like a ‘Gravina I couldn’t help myself.” He grinned at
my suspicious look.

A girl spoke up. “It’s true! You look just
like one of my Ndoko cousins in that dress.”

Someone else in the room thought,
Yes, a
‘Gravina whore, if there is such a thing
. It was another girl
who thought this, but it was becoming difficult to identify
individuals with everybody talking and thinking at once.

A young woman interrupted. “Trust you,
Drusilla, to remind us all that you have ‘Graven cousins.” The
woman was laughing, teasing in the mild but authoritative way of
all natural leaders, from camp counselors to prime ministers. She
spoke to the second girl. “There’s no need to be rude, Rosalie.
Fashions are different on Terra. What did you expect?”

The woman turned to me. “Welcome to La
Sapienza, Amalie. On behalf of the more childish among us I
apologize for any inconsiderate remarks, spoken or thought.” Like
all of them, she could read my thoughts as easily as if I was
speaking out loud. “Your hair,” she explained to my mystification
about the second girl’s comment. “On Eclipsis, only professional
women—soldiers and the like—cut their hair short like yours.”

I knew I had not misheard. Whatever Rosalie
had been thinking, it was not about soldiers. But I’d gain nothing
by contradicting my first friend. Either way, the comparison
conjured up visions of muscular warriors or sad, prepubescent sex
workers so different from my own soft, mature, feminine look I had
to laugh. Later I learned that the word “professional” covers a
range of occupations, all outside the constricted role appropriate
for ‘Graven or gifted women. While some “professional” Eclipsian
women do indeed work as mercenary soldiers or as prostitutes, many
more are artisans, shopkeepers or merchants. In fact, they are more
like Terran women than any other women on Eclipsis are free to be.
For now, in my ignorance, I gaped at Rosalie in astonishment.

My champion, the young woman, smiled in
sympathy. “That’s the first thing you’ll learn,” she said, “to keep
your private thoughts to yourself, something even those two ninnies
should know by now.” She raised her voice to reach the rest of the
room. “Amalie is a guest here, in a way, although we hope she’ll
soon be one of us. She can’t help broadcasting, but she reads us
all well enough, so let’s do the decent thing and speak aloud.”

With that she introduced herself, “Matilda
Stranyak, at your service,” using Tomasz’s phrase but with a comic
wink, then introduced the others. There were only three men, and
one boy about fourteen. The rest, apart from the two girls and a
third one, were women, ranging in age from their late teens to what
I estimated as their middle fifties. I couldn’t retain all the
names at first, but I hoped that my
crypta
would help me
associate the faces and the personalities with the names as we
became acquainted.

Matilda, like most of the people here, was
from the gentry, not ‘Graven. I thought of what Edwige had told me
as we traveled, elaborating on what Dominic had already explained.
The twelve ‘Graven families of the Eclipsian aristocracy had for
centuries married only with each other, breeding for specific
telepathic gifts. Now the inbreeding had exhausted their fertility,
and few of these families had children. Edwige herself, Ertegun by
birth as well as marriage, had married a cousin; some said her
half-brother. All her children had been stillborn. No seminary
could continue to operate, to provide the vital functions of
communication, technology and training, if it had to rely only on
purebred ‘Graven for staff.

It was the gentry, families like the Liangs
and the Stranyaks, who were keeping the traditional Eclipsian gifts
alive. These families had interbred with the ‘Graven for
generations, occasionally marrying daughters and younger sons, more
often bearing half-’Graven children without benefit of marriage.
The gentry were still fertile and were producing many telepaths. La
Sapienza was training and employing the more gifted members,
finding that the old
crypta
powers were still viable,
wherever they manifested themselves.

Tomasz had stayed by my side throughout
Matilda’s introductions. He seemed amiable and unthreatening,
staring more at the back of my neck than anywhere else, but Matilda
glared at him until he looked up, caught her eye and flushed. Now
he showed me to the sideboard, loaded with all kinds of hot and
cold dishes in a mouth-watering breakfast buffet. I took a plate,
glad to focus on something as uncomplicated as food for a
while.

The tables were long and narrow, the seats
backless benches that held two or three people. The girl with the
Ndoko cousins, Drusilla Ladakh, sat next to me. “I didn’t mean to
boast about my relatives,” she confided, “only you do look like
‘Graven.” She glanced surreptitiously at my eyes with the sliver of
third eyelid that always shows at the inner corners. “Are you
really from Terra?”

I felt another blush coming on, this time of
anger, until I received Drusilla’s surprised, apologetic thoughts
and calmed down. On Terra, my nictitating membranes had been a
deformity, concealed through the constant use of sunglasses,
indoors and out. Here they were a mark of status, suggesting that I
was of ‘Graven stock, if unacknowledged. Even my red hair and pale
skin, while not exactly defects, had set me apart on Terra. It was
going to take time to adjust to the fact that here these anomalies
were considered to be assets.

“Yes,” I said, “I really am from Terra.
Although it does seem like another life.”

Drusilla shook her head. “For an outsider,
you look more like a seminarian than most of us.” She laughed. “And
my dress suits you very well.” She wanted appreciation for her
gift, something I was glad to provide.

“These are yours?” I felt regret at having to
give up my new clothes so soon. “I thank you for the loan. After
breakfast my clothes should be dry—”

Drusilla made a face. “I didn’t mean I wanted
my things back.” She was embarrassed again, with a teenager’s
ability to find everything potentially shameful. “They’re too small
for me, and old. You’re welcome to them.”

She could be no more than thirteen, I
thought, and still growing. I was thirty-five and small—small
enough to wear a girl’s dress. The thought bothered me, although I
wasn’t sure why. Being small wasn’t good or bad, it just was. I
needed to think about something else.

“Let me pay you for them at least,” I said. I
still had my credits registered in Eclipsia City—a good many of
them, in fact—and my cube was upstairs. It never crossed my mind to
wonder how to transfer the credits, or whether Drusilla had an
account or any use for this intangible currency. Dominic’s speech
at our first meeting should have made me more cautious, for I had
at last violated an Eclipsian taboo.

Drusilla jumped up at my words and glowered
at me. “I don’t want any of your filthy credits,” she said. “And I
certainly don’t want my ratty old clothes back, not after you’ve
worn them.”

I had insulted her, I realized too late, by
implying that she wanted to be paid for a gift.
How do I get
out of this?
I wondered, looking around for guidance.

Drusilla was thinking to her friend, Rosalie
Ormonde.
Terran … probably stupid … Thinks because she looks
like ‘Graven she can get away with anything…

It was impossible for me not to catch most of
it. I felt about thirteen myself. Inevitably I thought back a few
days, to when I had been an adult with a responsible position,
supervising people and earning a good salary.
And you threw it
all away. You threw away years of experience and hard work to start
over again with these junior high school kids
.

Matilda interrupted my despairing train of
thought. “What’s going on here?” She stared at Drusilla and
Rosalie.

Matilda wasn’t a high-school girl, I reminded
myself, nor were most of the people here. I tried to appear
unconcerned.

“Amalie came here from Terra, the gods alone
know how far away,” Matilda said in a loud voice so everyone would
hear. “Now she is in a foreign land, with customs she cannot know.
Yet she speaks our language and she has a gift that many of us
might envy.” She paused while the two girls looked at their laps.
“Only children would insult such a person, or take offense where
none was intended.” She beckoned to me. “Please, Amalie, come sit
with the adults.”

I had finished eating by now, as had
everyone, but I stood up automatically at Matilda’s words just as
Edwige entered the room, seeming to have chosen her moment. She
ignored the unpleasant vibrations that were all around, accepting
them as the inevitable result of bringing in an alien, and waited
for the room’s attention. She didn’t have to wait long.

“I’m glad to see you’ve settled in, Amalie,”
she said. It was impossible to know whether she was being
facetious. “If you’ve finished breakfast, please come with me.”
If I hadn’t finished, too bad
, I thought, both awed and
resentful of Edwige’s assumption of instant obedience. But I
followed her, relieved to escape the awkward situation. The rest of
the seminary’s inhabitants were also leaving, trooping upstairs on
their way to the day’s activities.

Edwige, for all her air of authority and
strict manner, was fundamentally kind, and she missed very little
that took place in her domain. “I know it’s going to be difficult
at first,” she said once we were alone in her study. It was obvious
that Edwige was the
sibyl
, the headmistress and chancellor
of this strange academy. She knew exactly what had gone on at the
breakfast table, and the thoughts that were tormenting me, and she
made no disingenuous attempts to pretend she did not understand.
“At your age, when many of us would be expecting our first
grandchild, it’s humiliating to be in a class with children.”

The sadness in Edwige’s voice was so unlike
her usual brisk, unsentimental self that I was momentarily taken
out of my first outraged response:
Grandchildren? At
thirty-five?
On Terra, if I had stayed, I would have just
begun contemplating whether to have the one untaxed child permitted
each woman. I felt a sense of regret that I attributed to my
unconscious empathy with Edwige’s years of loss. There would have
been no one to father my child, I told myself, no one except the
plastic insemination tube from an anonymous donor, as most women
used.

Edwige was waiting for me to come back to
Eclipsis. I tried to clear my mind of pointless doubts and
questions. “You have a powerful gift,” Edwige repeated what she had
said after the test before ‘Graven Assembly. “But your lack of
control will limit you. The sooner you learn, the sooner you’ll be
out of what you call ‘high school’ and in with the adults.” She
smiled, once more her old domineering self. “And I suspect you’re a
fast learner, when you want to be.”

At my agreement, Edwige led me along the
corridor and downstairs. We entered a room that, although it lacked
workstations or hologram equipment, had the unmistakable feel of a
classroom. The four adolescents—Drusilla, Rosalie, the third girl
and the one sullen boy—sat in chairs arranged in a semicircle. They
were silent, and there was no indication that Edwige’s sudden
entrance had disturbed any earlier conversation.

“As you know,” Edwige said, “Amalie is a
gifted individual who had no opportunity for training when she was
your age.” She looked at each person in the room in turn, and I
could feel it in my own mind as she impressed her thoughts on them
one by one. “Every time Amalie makes a mistake, I want you to
remember your own first days here. Then I want you to imagine
yourselves with no family at home waiting for you, with no home at
all.”