But Alea’s mind had jumped to the next conclusion. “If you can push dreams into people’s minds, you’ can pull thoughts out! You really are a mindreader, a genuine mindreader!”
“Yes,” Gar said gravely.
“That’s how you escaped, isn’t it? That’s why the bandits ran, all except Zimu! That’s why we were able to fight off the dogs, why they ran in fear! That’s how you were sure we could beat off the pigs!”
“Yes,” Gar said again.
“That’s how you knew when hunters were coming! You could read their thoughts a mile away!”
“Yes.”
“And that’s how you calmed me when we met! That’s how you knew what to say! You’ve been reading my thoughts, too!”
“Only when we met,” Gar said, “and only surface thoughts, the things you would have spoken aloud. I did that because I felt sure you would have wanted me to, if you had known me, known that I wanted to help you.”
“Never since then?” Alea asked, with ferocious intensity. “Never since,” Gar repeated, very firmly. “I don’t read friends’ minds—unless they want me to, or would want me to if they knew the need. I don’t even read enemies’ minds unless there’s a good reason.”
“How can you say that, when you always knew exactly what to say, how to reassure me, how to comfort me?”
“Because other people have been hurt as badly as you,” Gar said, “and wise people have taught me how to care for the wounded heart.”
Alea started another denunciation, but caught herself and looked more closely at his eyes. She bit back the retort—that he was one of the wounded ones, too, that he had known how to treat her because he had needed the same care as she, perhaps still did.
But no one had given it to him…
She vowed that she would, that she would think of what she needed and give the same care and compassion to him that he had shown her. The anger vanished, but she remembered something else. “You said I could learn to work magic, too.” Her voice quavered.
“You can,” Gar assured her. “It will take hard work, and a lot of it, but you have the talent. You can learn it.”
To read other people’s minds! For a moment, Alea went dizzy with the thought, so dizzy that she stumbled, leaned against something hard. That made her push the dizziness aside, and she looked up to see that the hard thing was Gar’s side, and his arm was around her shoulders, his face anxious. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I should have warned you.”
She looked up into his eyes, feeling both drained and filled at once, knew her own eyes were wide as she said, “No. You shouldn’t have. You did have to know if I would turn away.”
She gathered her nerve and pushed past him, on up the ramp. “Come, then. Let’s see these wonders that you say are happening all over the world.”
She felt his eyes on her back, felt the heat of his admiration, the depth of his gratitude, but told herself it was just her imagination, that she couldn’t be reading his mind yet, he hadn’t told her a thing about how to do it, and she went on up into the doorway.
She emerged into luxury she could not believe.
The room was circular, thirty feet across, with one huge window and several smaller ones. Her feet sank into a thick rug that almost seemed to embrace them. It was a deep wine-red, and the more satin on the walls was rose. The ceiling was an even darker red, almost black, pierced by holes that bathed the individual pieces of furniture in soft, mellow light, but left the spaces between them dim. There were two chairs with reading lamps next to them on small tables, lamps that wore flat, circular hats with holes in the tops to let the light out above as well as below—but no smoke arose from them! Alea wondered what kind of oil they burned.
The furniture was all large and padded, far more heavily than any she had ever seen. In fact, the whole piece was padded, not just the seat or the back! There were five of them, and another that was long enough to seat three people at once without crowding. Every chair had a table beside it, and a long low table stood in front of the long chair.
There were pictures on the walls, actual oils by the look of them—but even as she watched, one of them changed. It was a landscape of autumn woods, but the leaves were falling from the trees. She could actually see them flutter down, and wondered if, when the branches were bare, there would be snow.
She stood at the doorway, frozen by both the richness of the place and the magic of it.
“Don’t be afraid,” Gar said at her shoulder. “It isn’t magic, not really, and it’s certainly something you can learn to understand in a few days.”
Alea looked about her and saw that the other pictures were moving, too. One showed fish swimming by, another showed a shepherd watching his flock in a summer meadow !and the sheep were moving as they grazed), and a fourth showed brightly costumed people moving about among huge buildings covered with marvelous and colorful decorations. A boat drifted in the foreground, and the city seemed to have rivers instead of streets.
“It’s beautiful,” she said.
“Thank you,” Gar said gravely. He stepped past her, set his heels one by one in a boot jack and yanked off his boots, then slipped his feet into soft, backless slippers and went to stand by one of the armchairs. “Come, rest yourself.”
“I’m not that tired.” But Alea did kick off her own boots and came in slowly, looking about her wide-eyed. She did sit, slowly and at length.
“The chair will adjust to fit you,” Gar told her. “Don’t be alarmed.”
She squealed, for the chair felt like a living thing as it moved under and about her. Then she laughed with delight and stroked the arm. “Is it a pet? Does it have a name?”
“No, it’s not alive.” Gar grinned. Then that grin vanished and he said, quite seriously, “But this ship does have a name, and a sort of guardian spirit to go with it.”
Alea went rigid.
“It isn’t really a spirit,” Gar said quickly, “only a machine, like the computers you saw the dwarves building, though much, much more complex. But it does take care of us, and watches over us.”
“What is its name?” Alea asked through stiff lips. “Herkimer,” Gar told her, then lifted his head. “Herkimer, may I introduce you to Alea Larsdatter.”
“I am pleased to meet you, Miz Larsdatter,” the voice said, from everywhere and nowhere.
Alea jumped, then grew angry with herself and tried not to let either the fear or anger show. She said, very evenly, “And I am pleased to meet you, Herkimer. Are you really the spirit of this … it seems so strange to call such a thing as this a ship!”
“It is like a ship, at least,” Herkimer told her, “for it flies between planets—worlds—as a ship sails between islands. As Magnus told you, I am not really a spirit, only the computer that sails the ship for him.”
“And cooks my breakfast, and keeps the ship warm inside, and does the laundry and the dusting.” Gar smiled, amused. “But I will not pick up after you, Magnus,” the ship reproved. “I wouldn’t know what to keep and what to throw away, after all.”
“Magnus?” Alea stared at him. “Is your name really Magnus?”
“It is,” Gar told her. “I apologize for having introduced myself to you as Gar Pike—but when I step onto the surface of a world, I use the nickname someone else gave me.”
Alea gave him a stony look. “Gar you were when I met you, and Gar you will remain, at least to me. Why bother using a false name, anyway?”
“Enemies who know my real name may be watching for me.”
“But you hadn’t been to our world when you first used that name, had you?” Alea said suspiciously. “After all, you said you use it whenever you set foot on a new world.”