"I couldn't." He had closed in on himself so far that she could no longer sense him, even as his usual deep and quiet presence. She had grown used to his stability; he was very different from other people, with their changing moods and feelings. It was the changes that disturbed her.
"I thought—there was something wrong." It was a crippled excuse.
"There is something wrong," Jan said, "but I don't know what. I was. thinking. trying to understand what I said that upset you so."
She sat down in front of him. "It isn't you, it's me."
"You're doing fine," he said. "Beautifully."
"No."
"Do you want to do something else?"
"It isn't that at all—" She cut herself off, hesitated, took a deep breath, and plunged ahead. "It's too easy. It's because of this. this trick I can do. I didn't mean to, I didn't know I could use it this way. I didn't know that must be what was happening until something you said a couple minutes ago." She tried to explain what she thought she was doing, and Jan's frown deepened.
"No," he said. "No, that's not what's going on at all."
"But I really do know when people are near, I can feel them. I—"
"Wait, I believe you about that." He smiled. "I can accept it—that's easier than trying to pretend you're nothing but a data-processing machine."
"What other explanation is there?"
"Tell me what you like most."
"Mathematics. You know that."
"I always hated it. Well—I didn't really hate it, but I never had any ability at it. You're farther along than I ever was before. I've been keeping half a step ahead of you for a week and I really can't do it any longer."
"So?"
"It seems to me, if you were lifting anything out of my mind, it would be something I'm passably good at."
She rested her chin on her fist, thinking. What he said made sense, and she wanted to believe it. "Then how do I do what I do? I get from one idea to another and sometimes I don't even know how."
"With a very few subjects—and math is one of them—a few people can do that. It's a rare ability, and a valuable one. No one has ever quite figured out how it happens. Gods, don't worry about it—accept it and use it."
"Maybe I don't get it from you. Maybe I get it from somebody else."
"Such as?"
"Subtwo?"
Jan laughed. "He has talents, but intuitive mathematics isn't one of them. He's intelligent and he has an encyclopedic memory, but he's essentially methodical. He takes one step at a time—very fast, but it's still plodding."
"You're sure? Whatever I'm doing, I'm doing myself?"
"Yes. You're much too consistent to be dragging this gift out of other people's minds. As consistent as intuition ever is, anyway."
Mischa chewed on her thumbnail, distractedly, feeling her self-confidence renew itself from Jan's assurance. "There's one thing. what I told you—"
"That you can sense what people feel? I'd like to talk about it sometime."
"All right. But only with you. Don't tell anyone else, will you? Please?"
"If you'd rather I didn't."
"Maybe it wouldn't matter in the Sphere, but it does in Center."
"Okay."
"Thanks."
Jan Hikaru's Journaclass="underline"
Mischa's one of those rare, strange prodigies, who know music or
mathematics without being taught, and need only tools—an
instrument, or an introduction to notation—with which to express their talent. Because there are concepts that can't be expressed otherwise. Once we were talking about rotation—lines around points, planes around lines, n dimensions as a pivot for n+I. "And a solid around a plane," she said. I agreed, and said that of course that situation couldn't be visualized.
"But it can—!"
She tried to explain to me what she could see in her mind, but finally shrugged and spread her hands. "There aren't any words." I think she really can visualize a situation in four dimensions. I've heard of people who could, but never met anyone before.
I used to wonder what it was about music and math, why they're so integral to the human system that a few people know them instinctively. I'm no closer to understanding.
I can still help her with other subjects, and the teaching is a delight. But though she can continue beyond me by herself, I think it would be better for her to have some direction. Even more now, I wish my friend were still alive, because I think she would have gotten great joy from working with Mischa. She would have been able to help, but the navigator of the pseudosibs' ship knows barely more than I do. I think Subtwo gives out titles to make people happy and does all the real work himself. He's the only one left to ask.
Subtwo made an error, stopped, and reached toward the pressure-sensitive display screen. Placing the side of his palm hard against the plastic, until he could feel the material give against the force, he dragged his hand from one edge to the other, very slowly, obliterating delicate lines and numerals in a bright green glow. Ashamed of his outburst, he touched a control and cleared the screen more conventionally.
This was the second time he had erred in as many hours, and he was disturbed by his lack of concentration. He sat back in his chair and allowed the reactions of his body to impinge upon his consciousness. Fatigue (lactic acid excess). Hunger (hypoglycemia). Tension, muscle strain, impeded circulation. And a deep feeling of unease that he could neither analyze nor dispel. He looked at the chronometer, and would have thought it faulty had he not known better. There was no excuse for mistreating his body; he had not rested nor fed it for two days, and for days before that he had acted in a similar irresponsible manner. He had not left his suite nor spoken to another human being for ten days, fifteen days. The isolation did not disturb him, but its effect on his attempts to live like other people did.
He doubted he would ever succeed completely, but such withdrawals would make his differences all the more obvious, preventing even the appearance of normalcy. Now he should get up, leave his comfortable quarters, go to gym or common room or cafeteria, and play or work or eat with his people, instead of by himself as he pleased.
He did not want to do any of those things. He wanted to stay all alone, unreminded of his loneliness. Never before had he been jealous of anything, of anyone, especially of his outcast followers. They had always seemed pitiful to him; they were running from what would find them eventually, or toward what they would never find. They could not adjust, they could not adapt, they could not survive anywhere but in the exile-world they made for themselves. They would not try, because of some flaw of intellect or character, Subtwo did not know which. Yet they were content. He resented their trivial happinesses.
Though recognizing his body's need for food, if only concentrates here in his suite, he remained before his console. There was a great frustration inside him—that for all his own intellect, for all his dedication, he had found no path to contentment or happiness.
He keyed the records of the entrance hallway and watched Madame, the last time she had come to his rooms. He took comfort in her grace and poise, but felt distress that her image of perfection remained flawless even when she was alone. Of course she knew of the cameras. But Subtwo wondered if she ever allowed herself to relax, if she had any place where she knew she would not be watched.
In the spring, when they left again—perhaps a little before, if he could convince Subone to make the early departure—he could ask Madame to go with him. He would steal her away and give her her freedom. Steal her. he did not like to think of human beings as stealable, and therefore property; he did not like to think of Madame subject to the whims of Blaisse's cruelty, her fate, even her survival, in his hands, a saleable commodity.
A saleable commodity.