She sat down opposite him on a ragged hassock and stared up at his face. She nodded slowly. “You’ve changed, Chan. Just like they said.”
“We’ve all changed.” He sat stiffly, hands on knees.
“I heard the rumors. The Gallimaufries are full of them. How you and Leah went out to the far stars, with Esro Mondrian and Luther Brachis and the aliens. How you were changed, and caught a super-being, and it killed to save itself. They say it will make everything different, out there and back here, too.” She rubbed at her eyes.
“We’re not sure of that, Tatty. At first it seemed we were dealing with something superior, something that had us beat in every way. Now, we’re not so sure. We can sometimes do things, us humans, that the super-beings don’t seem able to do.”
It was equally true, whether he was talking of the mentalities or the Morgan Constructs. And not only humans. The Pipe-Rillas and the Angels had their own special powers, their own reservations about the mind pool mentalities. Only the Tinkers, advocates of all forms of Composites, were unreservedly in favor.
“Any way,” he went on, “the Stellar Group ambassadors have laid down the rules. There will be no risks taken. The new beings will be kept in a protected environment, along with the captured Construct, until they are completely understood.’
“Are they dangerous?”
“I don’t know. There were casualties on Travancore, but I’m not sure who was to blame.”
“I heard.” Her eyes were glassy. She was bottoming out after a Paradox high. “Esro, and Luther Brachis, and Godiva.”
“You heard the … other thing about her?”
“Oh, yes. So sad.” Turning to hide it from Chan, Tatty pressed a tiny bulb against her forearm. “I should have guessed, long ago. She came from nowhere, and she was too good to be true. Poor, poor Godiva. The perfect woman, the perfect partner … and one of Fujitsu’s Artefacts. What made you suspect it?”
“I didn’t. About her. But I wondered for a while after the Stimulator treatment if I might be an Artefact myself. I was twenty years old, with an undamaged brain. And I had been a moron. I had to wonder if I was really human.”
“Mondrian never told you?” She was frowning at him, suddenly more alert. “He wanted to know where you came from as much as you did yourself. When I came back to Earth he asked me to find out everything I could about you. But I guess he didn’t tell you.’
“Not a word.”
“You’re not a moron, Chan, you never were. And you’re not an Artefact. But you are an experiment. One of the Needler labs — not the Margrave’s, he would never have tolerated such incompetence — was trying to make a superman, a physically and mentally perfect person. They failed, but only because they messed up and didn’t provide a final set of neural linkages. They didn’t realize that, and they dumped the result down in the warrens.” Tatty gave Chan a sad but fond smile. “Welcome to the cast-offs’ club. But you’re one hundred percent human. Like me. Isn’t it a rotten group to belong to?”
She leaned back on the hassock and closed her eyes. Her face was lively now, but grey and bony, no more than an aging specter of the woman Chan had known so well on Horus.
“I can’t believe he is gone,” she said at last. “Were you there when it happened?”
“Right to the very end. I saw his mind, in the last few moments. He was never at peace, you know.”
“Better than you ever will.” Tatty turned her head away. “I would have helped him. Once, I would have done anything for him. But he would never tell me what it was that gnawed away inside him.”
“He could not tell. But I know.”
Chan paused. He did know, in dreadful detail. And he could not speak of what he had found in Mondrian’s mind. Even at second-hand, the terror was too strong.
He felt the impact of that dark memory taking him again, as it took him every day …
The grass was three times as high as his head. It grew all the way around, like the walls of a big circular room, with the blue sky above as a domed ceiling that held in the heat. It was much too hot, and he was sweating.
He bent down, staring curiously at the little bugs running fast and squiggly among the stems of the dusty grey plants.
“Come on. We don’t have time for you to dawdle around.”
He straightened at the shouted words and hurried after the others. Mummy was still walking next to Uncle Darren, holding his hand and not looking back. He came up behind them and impulsively reached out to clutch her around the knees. He could smell her sweat and see the beads of perspiration on her legs.
Was she still mad?
“Mummy, pick me up.” He peered up and around her body, trying to see her face. It had been a long time since she held him without being asked. “Mummy?”
She did not look down. “We’ve no time for that now. Can’t you see we’re in a big hurry?”
The man laughed, but it was not like a real laugh. “Damn right, we’re in a hurry. But maybe this is as good as any place. Let’s get on with it.”
Mummy stopped, and finally glanced down at him. “All right, Essy. Uncle Darren and I are going to be busy for a little while. I want you to sit down right here, and wait quietly until we come back.”
“I want to go with you.” He held her tighter around the legs. “I don’t want to stay here.”
“Sorry, Big-boy, but we can’t do it that way.” Uncle Darren crouched down. He was smiling. “We won’t be long. You just wait here until me and your Mom get back. Look, if you’re good you can have this to play with while we’re gone. See?”
Uncle Darren was holding up the little electric lamp, the one they had used in camp the previous night. It had been a fun time, the three of them all safe and cozy in the tent, and Mummy laughing a lot. She wouldn’t let him crawl in with her, but she sounded all warm and giggly and happy, especially when she was snuggled under a blanket and Uncle Darren was telling a bedtime story.
He reached out his hand for the little lamp.
“Wait a minute, watch me do it.” Uncle Darren worked the control. “See? Switch on — switch off. Switch on — switch off Think you can do it by yourself?”
He nodded, took the lamp, and set it down on the hard earth. He squatted beside it, and turned it on. “That’s my Big-boy.” Uncle Darren stood up and began to walk away. “Come on, Lucy, he’s settled. He’ll be fine now.”
He stared after them as they moved into the long grass. They had their heads together, and they were talking quietly again as they had talked the previous night. He bent down to the lamp, wanting to please Mummy by doing whatever would make her happy with him.
The little light flickered on and off as he pressed the switch. It seemed brighter than when Uncle Darren had worked it.
He looked up and all around. The sky was a darker blue, and he could see a few stars. They were creeping out, one by one. They were just like tiny lamps themselves, but they did not give any real light.
He felt the urge to run after Mummy and Uncle Darren. But he must not do that. Mummy would get mad. He would get another beating, from her or from Uncle Darren.
He stared the way that they had gone. Darker now. If only the tent were here, to crawl inside. Last night he had felt so safe and snug, even when the light was turned way low. He could hear them, whispering in the darkness. It made him so warm and contented.