Radix

He had seen one on display in the Berth archives. They were very rare and, on the right market, priceless.
"Before you make plans to sell it," Jeanlu said, "consider what it is. Like the stalk charm, its secret is geometry, but it's not designed to extend or ward off influences. Its function is more internal. If you gaze into it long enough, you'll be able to see yourself—your inner self—or the true self of anyone reflected in it. It's necessary, though, to have a clear mind. Any kind of distraction or mental fix will distort what you see. Also, keep in mind that it's extremely fragile. It takes very little to destroy a brood jewel."
Through Sumner's mind flashed all the possible mer-chants he might dare approach with it. Possession of a brood jewel was damning evidence of association with voors, but he knew that there were many who would risk their lives to own such a rarity. Then it occurred to him that the jewel wasn't his yet. He had hardly heard what Jeanlu had said to him, and he looked up at her inquisitively.
"Shall we go meet Corby now?" she asked.
Sumner balked. The gifts were more than tempting— they were provocative. He would do anything for them, yet: Is it a ruse? Unlikely, but there was no way to know. He needed some clear answers to the questions he had come to ask.
Before he could speak, Jeanlu answered him: "No. Yes. No."
"Huh?"
"The answers to your questions," she replied ingenu-ously. "No, I can't tell you what voors are, where we're from, or why we're here. It would take too much time. And yes, you're safe with us. I'm not trying to deceive you. After all, you're the father of my son. Finally, no, a voor wouldn't use deep mind to kill anyone."
"But can a voor kill with deep mind?"
Jeanlu shrugged. "Yes," she said, then added quickly, "but it never happens. Mind is too sacred."
"Even if you were threatened?"
"We have other ways to defend ourselves."
"But what if—"
"Sumner, please." Jeanlu's face darkened. "You're safe here. Believe me." Her eyes locked on his, and they soft-ened. "Let's go see our son."
Sumner nodded. He folded the chamois cloth over the brood jewel and handed it back to her. When she reached for it, the wide sleeves of her dress rode up on her arms. For an instant Sumner glimpsed the crusty scales on her elbows that he had seen once on her belly. He looked away quickly.
"Don't be disturbed," she told him, getting to her feet. She put the three chamois parcels back in the crushed leather wrap, folded it, and returned it to the lacquered shelf. "I told you the last time you were here that I have a deformity. Not much to do about it. Voors sometimes have trouble shaping their bodies."
She went out the door and led Sumner around to the back. When they got to the edge of the crater pool they stopped, facing toward the hut with the blue tile roof. Sum-ner looked into the west above the hut where the sky was threaded with clouds. He was charged with nervous energy, not sure what to expect. My son. The thought was unreal to him. He wet his lips with his tongue, wondering what they were waiting for, and how weird the kid might be, and just what was going to happen, and how long it was going to take.
Then the hut door opened, and he glimpsed a com-pletely vacant interior before a small boy in white baggy pants and a green collarless shirt stepped out. His face was white as wax and his eyes colorless. As he approached, Sum-ner thought he heard a sighing in his ears like the whispering draw of the tides. Closer now, the boy's small features seemed luminous. His hair was white-gold, tousled like Sumner's, but unlike Sumner he was slender, a mere sliver of life.
When he was an arm's length away, looking up with eyes pale as glass, he spoke, and his voice was soft and almost deep: "I'm glad you're here, Father. I have a lot to show you. And"—his small features moved with a gentle, scarcely per-ceptible smile—"there's so much more I want you to show me."
Sumner shuffled from foot to foot, his hands jammed into his pockets. The dim noise he had heard was gone, and all his attention was on the calm, seemingly mindless face before him—the skin marble-white.
Sumner tried to force a smile, but it wavered on his face only an instant before slipping off. There was a long awkward silence during which the boy just stared at him blankly. An ugly feeling squeezed down his throat and into his stomach, and he wanted to scream in his mind: You stink-pissy little distort. What do you want me to do? Fart? But he remem-bered the brood jewel and the kiutl waiting for him back in the cottage, and he throttled his inner voice.
The boy's eyes glittered, cold as stone. "My name's Corby."
Sumner nodded and looked to Jeanlu for some kind of cue. A smile flicked at the corners of her mouth. "Why don't you show your father who you are."
A sense of alarm trilled through Sumner. "What do you mean?" he asked, his hands squirming in his pockets.
"Don't worry," the boy said, stepping closer. "I'm going to show you wonderful things. It'll be easiest to do that out there because it's so open." He nodded toward the tract of broken ground that started near the cottage and limped off into the Flats. "It's empty, so we can fill it."
Sumner's confusion clouded his eyes.
Jeanlu laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "Just go with him," she urged. "Everything will be all right."
"It looks dangerous out there," he said, wanting to kick himself for having said it.
"There's always danger," she replied. "Everywhere. But here there's no threat."
Sumner swallowed his anxiety. He turned to face his son, who was reaching out to him. He overrode his fear and took the boy's six-fingered hand. It was radiantly cold, almost electric, and he pulled away with a ridiculous whoop and careened clumsily into Jeanlu.
"Easy." Jeanlu steadied him, then gently veered him toward Corby, who was watching emotionlessly.
"I'm sorry—I'm different," the boy said in a bruised voice. He led Sumner toward the desert. "I don't want to frighten you."
"I'm okay." Sumner tried to swallow but his throat was tacky. "It's my fault. I'm edgy. We're family, right?" His words sounded frail, and he tried to swallow again.
"No, you're not to blame. You can't feel—I mean, not the way a voor does. So you really don't know if I'm going to hurt you. I understand."
Sumner had both his hands in his pockets, afraid to touch the boy again. He gazed up at the sky to calm himself and watched a strong wind fanning a sheet of stratus clouds across the east. "Why do we have to go out there?" he asked, looking ahead to where the gray shattered rocks ended and the green sand began. There was a rise a few hundred meters off. On the other side of it was a steep incline that dropped into the Flats.
"Because there's no life there," Corby answered. "It's hard for me to feel you with all this going on." He waved at the clumps of sparse scrag-grass withering among the ashy gravel.
"Oh." Sumner kicked a dried clump of dirt out of his way.
"When you first got here I tried to reach you, but it was impossible with all the stalk charms Jeanlu's got racked in her house. Then, just now by the pool, I tried again. It was better but not clear enough, because I want you to see me as well."
"I see you."
"No you don't. But you wouldn't know."
They came to the rise, and Corby reached out for Sum-ner's hand. Sumner took it reluctantly and felt his skin crawl and his insides jump when the bright iciness coursed through him. Corby guided him up a footpath that curled along the curve of the rise toward the top. At the ridge-peak, Sumner looked back toward the cottage. Jeanlu was still standing where they had left her, watching after them. The wind dropped down to nothing, and the leaf-shadows of the tama-rind trees smoothed out to sheets of blue haze at her feet. Turning about, Sumner could see the weird expanse of Rigalu Flats—a huge, tumbling plain rising here and there to clumps of withered ruins, wind-eaten husks of stone—all of it glim-mering a hysterical green in the sunlight. Mutra, it's hell, he thought, feeling his dread turning inside him. He wanted to dash back to his car, and it took all his strength to stand still and listen to what the boy was saying.