Offspring (18 page)

He inhaled. Air burst from his lungs, and water rushed in. His chest felt abruptly heavy and he tried to cough, but the water prevented him. Panic hit. Ben’s eyes popped open and he struggled. Kendi dove underneath him in a flash and pushed him toward the surface. Ben choked and fought to regain his concentration.

I can breathe
, he told himself firmly.
I can breathe
now!

He gasped, and the heaviness in his chest vanished. Water filled his lungs, sweet as air. Ben pushed away from Kendi and dove downward, swimming away from the surface. Kendi rushed after him, obviously afraid Ben had panicked and was heading the wrong way, as drowning victims sometimes do. Ben held up a hand again with a grin and pointedly inhaled. The dolphin’s eyes widened, and a clicking chirpy noise filled the water. Kendi’s words in a dolphin’s voice.

“
How the hell are you doing that?
” he demanded.

Ben shrugged, uncertain whether or not he could talk underwater, and decided not to push his luck. Instead he spun and swam away with a silent laugh. It was glorious! The water supported him, moved with him, let him slide in any direction he wanted. Kendi easily caught up with him, swimming around him, under him, caressing him with his sleek, muscled body. Suddenly even the simple swim trunks felt tight and confining. Ben’s mind flickered, and they vanished. The sensual feel of the warm water and Kendi’s smooth skin on his intensified. He wrapped his arms and legs around Kendi and let him propel both of them forward. It was like sliding through warm silk. Ben tasted salt, felt liquid course over him faster and faster as Kendi’s tail thrashed the water. He was aware they were rising, rushing, flying toward the surface. His breath came faster, his lungs pumped furiously. They broke the surface, man and dolphin, and arced into the sky together, impossibly high, impossibly free. Ben hung in mid-air with Kendi for a tiny moment that lasted an entire day. Then they were falling back toward the ocean. They hit with a great splash that sent up a gout of white water. Bubbles tingled against Ben’s bare skin. Automatically he swam upward and surfaced with a shout. Kendi appeared a moment later.

“That was the greatest!” Ben whooped, shaking his head to fling the hair from his eyes.

Kendi’s dolphin grin stretched wider. “Let’s do it again.”

“Give me a minute to recover first. That was a hell of a ride.” He lay back, tried to float, failed, and went back to treading water. Kendi nuzzled up next to him to help.

“You heard that sound,” he said after a while.

“I did. What was it? You control the Dream better than I do.”

“Not true. Teaching yourself to breathe a foreign atmosphere was a neat trick—difficult for most Silent and impossible for the rest.
I
can’t do it. “ll my animal shapes breathe air.”

“Do you think it’s because I’m Irfan’s son?”

“Could be,” Kendi said. “In any case, I don’t know what the sound was—or where it came from.”

~May I approach?~

Ben jumped. He hadn’t been expecting to anyone to knock. The voice, however, was familiar.

“Martina!” Kendi called. “Come on in—I mean, if it’s okay with Ben.”

“Sure,” Ben said.

The Dream rippled, and Martina Weaver appeared a few meters away. She wore a one-piece blue bathing suit. For a split-second, she appeared to be standing on the surface of the ocean. Then she vanished with a squeak and a splash. She surfaced, sputtering and blowing salt water.

“Sorry!” Ben called. “I forgot there’s no place to stand.”

She splashed him in response, then lay back and stared up at the perfect blue sky. “This is a fine stress reliever. Glad I stopped by.”

“What are you up to?” Kendi asked. “Anything going on?”

“I’m hard at work. Now that you’re on sabbatical, the Children decided to end my training—as if I hadn’t already been doing courier duty for half my life—and they put me on duty. I’ve been making contacts and running messages to the Prism Conglomerate all morning. Their banks are a real mess now that they can only communicate locally. Anyway, I sensed the both of you and decided to pay a visit before my drugs wear off. I wasn’t expecting an ocean dip.”

“Don’t call your brother a dip,” Ben said with mock severity. A gout of water from Kendi caught him in the face.

“How deep is it?” Martina asked, and dove without waiting for an answer. She surfaced a few seconds later. “I’m impressed. Clearest water I’ve seen this side of a swimming pool. Let’s you see everything.” She sniffed. “Including the fact that Kendi isn’t the only one doing a skin swim.”

Ben reflexively jerked his arms down to cover himself, sank, surfaced, and sprayed water. He would be wearing a bathing suit. He would be wearing a bathing suit
now
. And he was. It was yellow. Ben’s face went hot. Martina covered a smile with her hand as she tread water. Kendi gave a chirping dolphin laugh.

“Didn’t mean to embarrass you,” Martina said, then winked. “Actually, I should probably congratulate you. Or maybe I should congratulate Kendi.”

“Thank you,” Kendi smirked. “You’re as bad as I am, sis.”

“Runs in the family. Does he always blush like that?”

“It’s that fair skin. Shows everything.”

“Ah. Like the water did.”

The ocean vanished, leaving the stark, gray plain in its place. Martina fell and landed on her backside with a squawk. Kendi thumped to the ground as well. Ben, who had been ready for the change, landed neatly on his feet. Before anyone could react further, the ocean exploded back into existence. “gain, Ben was ready and tread water. Martina and Kendi surfaced at the same time, looking indignant.

“Oops,” Ben said. He had wanted to say
Sorry
, but no one could lie in the Dream. “Do you think all that embarrassment made me lose my concentration?”

“Ha!” Martina scoffed. “I’m going to have a bruise on my arse when I wake up, I can feel it already.”

“Better offer pax,” Kendi said, “before he calls up an undersea volcano.”

Martina looked down with mock horror. “Pax,” she said.

“Pax,” Ben said.

“I have to go, anyway,” she said. “My drugs are wearing off.”

“Before you leave,” Kendi said, “did you hear anything...strange today?”

“Strange how?” Martina said. “Strange like a rumor at a party or strange like a witch doctor at a cricket match?”

“A strange noise,” Kendi clarified.

“Nothing like that,” Martina said. “Why? What did you hear?”

Kendi hesitated. “I’m not sure. The Dream is so different now.”

“That it is. Hey, didn’t you offer supper yesterday? I wasn’t free then, but I am tonight. I think Keith is, too.”

“Damn,” Kendi said with regret. “This time
I
can’t. Grandma Salman is speaking at a rally and I’m supposed to go. It’ll be scarf and run for supper. Tomorrow?”

“Oops,” Martina said. “Drugs are off. Call!” She vanished. Water swirled in the spot she had occupied.

“We should probably go, too,” Kendi said. “I’m sure Wanda and Lewa will need to talk to us before the rally. Do you want to come?”

“I probably should,” Ben said. “She’s my grandmother, after all. She’ll be a great-grandmother pretty soon.”

“She already is,” Kendi reminded him. “Don’t forget about Zayim’s kid. Did you know about that?”

“That was the first I’d heard of it.” He paused, tried to speak, failed, and tried again. “I wish...Do you think...?”

Kendi slid closer to Ben, who threw an arm around him. “Yes. Your mom knows about our kids, no question.”

“She’ll never see them, though,” Ben said. “And they’ll never know who she is. Was.”

“Then we’ll have to tell them,” Kendi said. “We’ll tell them so many stories about the great Mother Adept Araceil Rymar that by the time they’re teenagers, they’ll roll their eyes at the mention of her name and say, ‘Aw, Dad—not Grandma Ara again.’”

Ben forced himself to laugh. “It’s a plan.” He pushed away from Kendi. “You go on out. I want to wander around a little more.”

“Okay. See you in the real world. Dad.”

“Da.”

Dolphin Kendi closed his eyes and vanished. Ben spun gently in the whirlpool he left behind, then let the ocean disappear. The empty gray plain stretched away in all directions, and the stale air hung motionless around him. Ben was bone dry and clad in his usual loose trousers and tunic. It was like being indoors.

A wave of grief washed over Ben and his throat tightened. The feeling was getting a little easier to deal with, and he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. Did it mean he was starting to forget her? Ben tried to recall his mother’s face, and for a panicky moment his mind stayed blank. Then he remembered dark hair, round face, firm voice. Suddenly he wanted—needed—to see her again, needed it so badly it made his hands shake. He reached out with his mind and touched the Dream. A sketchy, three-dimensional outline took shape before him. Another part of his mind shouted a warning, shrieked at him to back away from this. Everyone knew it was a bad idea to call up the shapes of dead loved ones in the Dream. Ben heard it and ignored it.

The outline was too tall. Ben shortened it, made it round. He topped it with dark hair. It looked like a bad wig. A face took shape. Rounded cheeks, dark skin, a firm mouth. The chin wasn’t coming out right. It was too pointed. And the ears were too big. What had the inner part looked like? Ben tried to remember, but the image wouldn’t come. God—he couldn’t even call up a good memory of his own mother. The shrieking part said this was why you didn’t call up images, that they only made you feel worse. He wasn’t much of an artist, either, and the replica looked blurry. The skin had a single tone, making it appear flat and lifeless. He worked for several minutes, adding a little blush to the cheeks and trying to put highlights into the hair. At last he stepped back. The figure looked like a bad manikin of his mother, dull and lifeless and fake.

It isn’t moving,
he thought.
That’s why it looks so strange
.

He raised his hand. The shrieking part of his mind begged him to stop, not to do this. But Ben ignored it. He gestured. “Speak,” he said.

The new Ara opened her mouth, creating a red hole in the middle of her face. “B-e-e-e-n,” she said. Her voice was thick and gluey. She twitched once, then took a lurching, monstrous step forward. “B-e-e-e-e-n. I m-i-i-i-s-s-s-s-s...m-i-i-i-i-s-s-s-s-s...” The s sound hissed like a snake. Ben backpedaled. Nausea oozed through his stomach.

“B-e-e-e-e-n-n-n-n.” The creature shambled forward. One of its legs didn’t have a knee joint. “B-e-e-e-n-n-n I w-a-a-a-n-n-n-t...”

“Go away!” Ben screamed.

The thing vanished. Air rushed in to the spot it had occupied. Ben went to his hands and knees and retched on the flat, gray ground. The sour taste of bile flooded his mouth, and grief made a cold rock in his chest. What the hell had he been thinking? He’d been so
stupid
. Mom was dead, and there was no way to bring her back. Not even in the Dream. The grief mixed with a rising anger—anger at mom for killing herself during the Despair, himself for not getting home in time to save her, anger at ...

Padric Sufur.

Ben got to his feet. Around him, the Dream formed itself into a high canyon. Boulders were strewn over a rocky ground. The blue sky was diamond-hard and far away. Mesquite clung stubbornly to cracks and crevices. With ease born of practice, Ben put out a hand, palm down. The ground rumbled, and a statue rose from the earth itself. It portrayed an old man with hawk’s nose and a thin, whip-like body. The features were clumsily rendered but recognizable. Ben stared at it, jaw clenched. The Despair had come about because of this man. His mother was dead because of this man. Hatred burned, then blazed. He put out a hand. A ten-pound sledgehammer slapped into his palm, and he raised it high.

Ben always started at the head. A satisfying impact shock traveled up his arm when the hammer struck. He swung again and again. Rock chips flew. Without missing a swing, Ben called up a clear faceplate for himself. Chips pinged off it and he swung the hammer again. In seconds the statue became a wreck from the shoulders up. Ben attacked arms and torso. His hands stung and ached. Sweat broke out on his face and under his arms. The air behind the faceplate grew sweaty and moist. When the statue was half-gone, Ben threw the hammer aside and raised a furious fist. A bolt of lightning cracked down from the empty sky and struck the remains of the statue. It shattered into fine sand. The thunderclap crashed against Ben’s bones as it always did and knocked him backward. He landed hard, but didn’t care. The pain made it real. It was his penance for surviving.

He lay on his back, staring upward. The bright sky was trying to escape the frame created by hard canyon walls. The walls didn’t seem to notice. Ben didn’t feel much better. The grief was getting better, but the anger was getting worse. He should tell Kendi about it, see what—

No. Kendi would only insist Ben see a counselor, and the counselors were all busy with people who had real problems. Ben wouldn’t be able to get an appointment for months, he was sure, and when Kendi heard about that, he would try to pull strings to get Ben in earlier, and the thought only made Ben angrier. Did Kendi think he couldn’t solve his own problems? That Kendi had to step in every time Ben—