The Dreamtrails (88 page)

I saw a glimmering bubble detach itself from the mindstream and float toward me with dreamy, unerring accuracy.

I found myself within a passage so white and shining that it could only have existed in the Beforetime. I heard footsteps and when I looked behind me, I saw Cassy Duprey coming along it. Her expression was blandly pleasant, but there was a hint of sorrow that made me certain I was seeing her after the death of her Tiban lover, which meant she had already met Hannah Seraphim.

Without warning, a door in the corridor opened and a white-coated man with very short gray hair stepped out in front of Cassy.

“Who are you?” he asked, but it was the voice of a woman, for all the mannish attire and bearing.

“I’m Cassandra Duprey,” Cassy said, smiling guilelessly, but a flinty gleam in her eyes made me sure she was up to something.

“Duprey?” The woman sounded taken aback.

“Director Duprey is my father,” Cassy said lightly. “I am staying with him for the summer. But who are you?”

“Ruth Everhart. But you shouldn’t be here, you know. This wing is out of bounds to visitors.”

“Isn’t this the way to the garden cafeteria?” Cassy looked concerned, and the woman’s expression softened, though she seemed irritated as well.

“You missed a turn in the last corridor,” she said.

“I did? Oh, this place is such a labyrinth. You know, I was here last summer, and I could have sworn I knew my way around. Then my father tells me about this garden cafeteria that I have never even heard of. Now I find this whole wing
I didn’t even know was here. I guess you never go over to the main restaurant or my father would have introduced us.”

The older woman laughed without humor. “I doubt it. My project is only one of hundreds here, and it’s considered a minor one at that. I doubt that Director Duprey would even remember my name.”

“Of course he would,” Cassy said with wide-eyed earnestness. “My father says it’s his job to know all the people here, though I don’t know how he can manage that when he does not even remember my birthday.” Abruptly, her smile vanished as if it had been wiped away. The older woman did not appear to notice. She was tilting her head as if she were straining to hear some barely audible music. Puzzled, I entered Cassy’s mind and found her probing the other woman. The probe was better honed than the one she had thrust into her mother’s mind, but it was still a novice’s effort, and it did not explain why the woman was standing and staring into space as if she had been coerced.

Curiosity made me flow into the woman’s mind, and I was shocked to find that she was indeed being coerced, but not by Cassy. By
another
mind! Cassy was merely a witness to what the othermind was doing.

“That wasn’t too bright,” said the othermind to Cassy so smoothly that it could only belong to a Misfit with both farseeking and coercive Talents. “She’ll remember you said that.”

“It was a joke, and she thinks I’m a kid. All kids criticize their parents. It doesn’t mean anything. Besides, she won’t remember anything I said to her.”

“She’ll remember all right. She has that sort of mind that works at niggles. She’ll wonder why you were so friendly unless you keep it up. Now let me work.” The othermind began to ransack the woman’s mind with a ruthlessness that
shocked me. Almost as an afterthought, it erased a little node of puzzlement in the woman’s mind, roused by Cassy’s last words. It was replaced with the feeling that the girl was a nice dim kid of no real consequence despite her father. “All right, I’m finished. She doesn’t know any more about Sentinel than Joe Public, because her project isn’t connected.”

“What is her project?” Cassy asked.

“She said herself it’s unimportant,” the other said impatiently.

“She didn’t say it was unimportant,” Cassy argued. “She said it was considered to be minor. But she obviously doesn’t think so.”

“Hannah would not want us wasting time on this.”

“Hannah wasn’t interested in Sentinel until I sent that stuff you had stumbled on,” Cassy said. “And if there are other people here showing an interest in Sentinel …”

“That’s just Abel being paranoid about random thoughts. It goes with the territory.” Cassy made no response and the othermind sighed. “All right. Wait.” A moment passed during which Cassy looked up and down the shining hall anxiously before the othermind spoke to her again. “Okay, it’s nothing; just something to do with cryogenics.”

“Cryogenics? Wasn’t that some sort of dark-age research that involved chopping people’s heads off and freezing them?”

“That’s the one,” the other mind said, sounding amused.

“But wasn’t it totally discredited?”

“Of course. But this is some new version. Look, we have to let her go. She’s starting to get antsy, and I don’t want to do a major rewire of her brain. But get ready because I’ve prodded her mind to think about Sentinel. Give her half a chance and she’ll spill.”

“I’m ready.” Cassy withdrew from the other woman’s
mind and summoned up a bright smile. The woman blinked and looked slightly dazed. “Is … something wrong?” Cassy asked gently.

“I … I don’t know. I thought …” The gray-haired woman broke off and gave an awkward laugh. “It’s nothing. What did you say?”

Cassy gave her a dazzling, self-deprecating smile. “I was just saying I’m still a little awed by all of this.”

The woman rubbed at her temple as if she was developing a headache. “It’s understandable. Now you’d better—”

“You know what amazes me most?” Cassy interrupted confidingly. “It’s how many different nationalities you see here. Chinon, Gadfian, Tipodan.” She shook her head. “Somehow I never expected that much cooperation.”

The woman laughed dryly. “There is not that much cooperation. The mix is mostly due to the Sentinel project. I’m sure you’ve heard about it. All five powers are involved, so there are scientists from every country here to work on the project, as well as a lot of suits and bean counters from those places whose job it is to observe everyone else doing their jobs and then report to their various governments. But there are a few other projects where scientists from different powers are cooperating. Mine is one. That’s one of the things I love about science. The fact that it’s possible to work across those invisible boundaries.” She glanced at her watch. “I’ll walk you back to where you went wrong. You must have missed the sign. It doesn’t exactly leap out at you.”

I saw Cassy scowl as the mind now probing her said with a languid sneer, “If you had just gone the other way like I suggested, this wouldn’t have happened.”

I caught the probe as it withdrew and followed it back to a girl sitting slumped in a chair in a distant corner of the
complex. I withdrew to look at her and was astonished. For all the cynical feel of her mindvoice, she was no older than Cassy, and she was extraordinary looking. Her skin was as pale as if it had been powdered with flour, her lips were black, and she had smeared something glittering and purple around her eyes. Her hair was short like the older woman in the hall, but it had been oiled and pressed into quills that stuck up as stiffly as if they had been lacquered. Finally, a silver bead of metal gleamed in the tuck of her chin, and a little silver arrow pierced the exaggerated arch of one black brow.

“Well?” she said aloud in an insolent, rasping voice.

The people around the chair had been standing still. I looked at them and realized with some astonishment that each wore the same sort of heavy blue trousers with pockets and soft short-sleeved white shirts as I had worn in the ruins complex. I studied each in turn, realizing with awe that these must be the Beforetime Misfits stolen from the original Reichler Clinic. There was a frail-looking woman with wispy blond hair and anxious eyes; a handsome man with a belligerent expression; a worried-looking older man whose face seemed familiar, and a heavy older woman with gray streaks in her hair. All of them save the girl in the chair had skin like Cassy’s: Twentyfamilies dark. The only other person in the room was a younger boy with yellowish hair and a wheezing way of breathing. He was fair-skinned, too, but I was struck by his dual-colored eyes of green and blue, for they were like Iriny’s. He was the only one other than the pale girl with the porcupine-quill hair who appeared calm. The rest wore expressions ranging from frightened to apprehensive.

“Well?” asked the big woman eagerly.

The girl with the spiked hair stretched luxuriantly and then shook her head. “She didn’t get anything. She let herself
get sidetracked by one of the geeks.”

Without warning, a sharp pain broke the bubble of dream material open, and silver drops shuddered back into the mindstream as I was drawn rapidly up and away.

Maruman was watching me when I opened my eyes, flexing his claws. I glared at him. “Did you do that?”

“Your stomach woke me,” he answered coolly.

I glanced across at the windows and saw by the hue of the sunlight striping the sill that it was late afternoon. I got up, stripped off the rumpled silk clothes that I had slept in, and splashed my face with water. Feeling more alert, I found a heavier silk shirt and trousers in vivid violet-blues and a long quilted gray vest that had been worked in blue and silver thread. The cloth would keep Maruman’s claws from digging too deep. When I invited him to come with me, he stretched and yawned, showing his teeth, before climbing lightly over onto my shoulders. I padded barefoot out onto the deck and stopped to make sure Rushton was not in sight; then I made my way swiftly toward the front of the ship. I wanted to find Brydda or Jakoby so I could seek their advice about Rushton, but the enticing scent of cooking led me to the galley, where a large, powerfully built woman swooped on Maruman, saying she had been saving something special for him. To my amused disgust, Maruman shamelessly endured her crooning and petting for the tidbits she offered.

“Food is being served in the saloon,” the cook said when I asked if she had something for me. Guessing she must mean the main chamber where I had eaten earlier, I thanked her, not wanting to explain why I did not want to go there. Maruman languidly bade me go, saying he would seek me out later. I decided to see if I could find out where Brydda’s cabin
was, but before I had taken two steps, Gilbert stepped out of the gathering shadows of dusk.

“I thought you looked beautiful as a gypsy, but you look truly ravishing in Sadorian clothes,” he said. “I was just coming to escort you to the saloon for the meeting.”

“I am perfectly capable of finding my own way from one end of the deck to the other,” I snapped, and marched past him, wondering how to get rid of him. Moments later, I ran into Gwynedd.

“Can it be Elspeth Gordie?” he asked, squinting down at me, for despite my height, he was taller by far.

“It is good to see you, Chieftain Gwynedd,” I said. “I wanted to say how well you spoke in the meeting yesterday.”

“You were there? But, yes, Merret mentioned that you sat a while in the gallery with Blyss. Come into the saloon. We should have a little while before everyone is assembled.”

Seeing no way to avoid it, I allowed him to take my arm, hoping I could slip away without encountering Rushton. A number of lanterns now swung from hooks on the beams, shedding an inconstant, honeyed light over the saloon, which was empty but for Dardelan and Rushton. Both looked up at our arrival, and there was no time to withdraw, even if I could have come up with a reason to do so, for Dardelan lifted his hand in greeting.

Gwynedd firmly steered me across the room to the seat alongside Rushton’s, and I forced myself to look at him and nod a greeting. I expected coolness in response, but his expression was icy. Before I could utter a word, Rushton stood up abruptly, saying that he would go and waken Brydda. He assayed a jerky, general bow and departed.

I felt the blood burn in my cheeks, but to my relief, after an awkward pause, Gwynedd only said, “I wonder if you would
tell me some more about your time on Herder Isle. Merret told me what she knew, but I feel sure there was much more to be told. In particular, I am interested in these shadows that serve the Faction. You see, the goddesses worshipped by the Norse forbade slavery as unspeakably base. Am I correct in thinking the slaves were all taken from the Westland?”

I nodded, striving to control my roiling emotions and desperate to leave the saloon before Rushton returned. It was bad enough that Dardelan had seen how he snubbed me, but what if he treated me badly in front of the others? It would be painful and humiliating, but I was more afraid that someone might upbraid him for it and precipitate what I most feared.

Gwynedd was still looking at me expectantly, so I took a steadying breath and told Gwynedd of the shadows, and he said that he would offer homes in Murmroth to any who wished to return to the Westland. He would also see that they had work or were given funds that would allow them to establish a trade or business for themselves, if they wished it.

“You are kind. I am sure many will be glad to take up your offer,” I said, unable to keep from stealing glances at the doors each time they swung open. So far, a number of Gwynedd’s men had entered, and now another group entered with Brydda. He came to join us while they took a table near the door and began a noisy game of dice.

As Brydda dropped into the seat beside him, Dardelan asked if he had seen Rushton. “He went looking for you,” he added.

“I saw him, but I did not need waking,” Brydda said, reaching for a jug of fement and pouring himself a mug. “He has gone to fetch our good shipmistress, but he says to begin the discussion without him. I fear he is in a black mood.”

I felt Dardelan and Gwynedd look at me, and the
sympathy in their eyes made my eyes prick with tears. I blinked hard to stem the flow, but to my mortification, two slid down my cheeks. I brushed them away and would have risen save that Brydda very deliberately pushed an empty mug across to me and poured into it a dram of ruby red fement, bidding me firmly to drink. Then he filled his own mug and tapped mine with it gently, saying, “To courage in the great dice game that is life.”

Dardelan reached out to lay a hand over mine, saying softly, “He is not himself, Elspeth.”