Vivulonj Prosperu
Daav yos’Phelium drifted toward wakefulness, comfortably entangled, a smaller, cooler hand resting in his. For a moment, or an hour, he remained at half-drowse, more cat than man, questioning nothing, comfort least of all. Eventually, however, the drowse lightened, and he began to think about his circumstances.
This delightful entanglement, for instance. It scarcely did him honor, that he did not…quite…seem to know who his sleeping partner was. Not Kamele, certainly. Kamele did not like to sleep encumbered by another’s arms, legs entwined, holding hands. Very occasionally, she would curl ’round and, being the longer, hold him tucked against breast and belly, which was comfort of another kind.
Have you forgotten me already, van’chela?
It was a whisper heard only within the confines of his skull, the tone amused, yet carrying an edge. In that moment, the matter was made clear to him, and he took care to keep his eyes closed and to exert no additional pressure against the hand that…seemed…to lie in his.
“Aelliana,” he murmured. “I will remember you past death.”
And so you have done.
Her voice—the voice that only he could hear—was abruptly gentle. He felt the leg across his hip press more firmly, even as her hand slipped away from his—and came to rest along his cheek.
“Daav, will you open your eyes?”
That was no thought whispered inside his head, but spoken words, amused again, as they struck his ear, bringing him fully awake, to recall—
That he had died.
Moreover, he had been reborn; as Aelliana his lifemate—who had preceded him in death by twenty-five Standard Years—had also been reborn. They had the Uncle himself to thank—or blame—for this and the fact that they—their personalities, intellects, souls…essences—were residing in bodies created by that same Uncle, who was not, let it be known, entirely trustworthy.
“Daav?”
“Forgive me,” he murmured, “It is a habit long formed. I had taught myself not to look when you spoke to me, because it was too much to bear—to hear, but never to see you.”
“I know,” she whispered, and it was her lips he felt now against his cheek. Of course she knew, who had lived as a ghost inside of his head since her murder. How could it have been otherwise?
“But you must commence upon a new habit, van’chela—unless you still fear that you will not see Aelliana Caylon when you look at me?”
That was unjust—no, he corrected himself, his memory of the hours preceding this tardy awakening abruptly returning. No, it was perfectly just. He had doubted her—and himself, as well. That had been before the seed pods, and the Uncle’s very apparent chagrin at the changes that had been made to his handiwork. Very soon after those events, they had been brought back to their cabin. They had eaten the meal that had been waiting for them and—exhausted with everything that had gone forth on their first day reborn—sought their bed and sleep.
He turned his cheek more closely into her palm and sighed.
“Has the Tree returned all our counters, do you think?” he asked. “And removed the Uncle’s points?”
“I think that we must believe so,” Aelliana said slowly, “else we shall go mad with doubting each other and ourselves. I feel no doubt of you, and I will tell you plainly, Daav, that I am of no mind to die again.”
“No,” he said, his voice low and rough, “nor I.”
“Well, then, since we are in agreement, will you indeed open your eyes?” Her fingers tensed against his cheek. “Unless you find this new body the Uncle has so generously given me insupportable?”
There was a quiver of wistful dismay there. She considered it possible that he would find her offensive.
Well, and that would never do.
He took a careful breath, opened his eyes, and smiled into hers—green and, in the instant, slightly foggy, which in her…previous…body had been a sign that she stood in some small distress.
“I think,” he said lightly, “that we have not yet performed thorough inspections. Perhaps, now that we are rested, we should begin.”
She laughed and he kissed her. Her mouth was sweet and pliant; knowing and…familiar. Death and rebirth had not changed her kiss, nor the fire of her passion. He felt her quicken; felt his blood heat in response. She put her hands against his shoulders, urging him back onto his pillow, her breasts pressing against him. The kiss deepened. He slid a hand down her slender back to her buttocks, urging her closer and—
A klaxon sounded.
It was gratifying, Daav thought a moment later, as he stood naked and poised on one side of the bed, Aelliana likewise on the other, to learn that their reaction times were so quick.
“One gathers that the audience finds us inept,” he murmured.
“Overexertion alert!” a mechanical voice stated, hard on the heels of this sally. “Monitoring now at second level. Third level invoked if condition uncorrected in two Standard Minutes.”
Daav raised an eyebrow and looked to Aelliana, but her eyes were already closed. Shadowy colors flowed over him, warm and cool by turns, as she ran the Scout’s Rainbow. Excellent choice; the first and best relaxation and focusing technique taught to hopeful scouts, which he once had been, who then taught it to everyone they deemed in need. As he had taught it to Aelliana.
The first time, it had taken that hopeful scoutling an hour or more to go through all the colors and levels in turn. Over time, with practice, it had come more and more quickly, until now, all he need do was bring to mind a spinning, multicolored wheel, and the exercise was complete.
His blood cooled, his heartbeat steadied, tight muscles relaxed, even as he felt his focus sharpen. There ought to be no cause in any of that for the robot watcher to invoke the next level and call the Uncle or his comrade, Pilot Dulsey.
Daav opened his eyes. Across the disordered bed, Aelliana stood cool and poised, her eyes brilliantly green.
“I suppose that we ought to have recalled the stricture against overexercise,” she said wryly. “I received the impression, van’chela, that these blanks, as the Uncle has them, come dear, even for a man of his resources. Having taken the decision to spend two for our benefit, he would not like to see them misused. Certainly, it would have seemed merely prudent to him to safeguard his investment.”
“Fair enough,” he said, because they had received instructions regarding exercise, and rest, and proper nutrition during a…recovery period. Those had come, of course, before the pods and what changes the Tree had thereby wrought, but one could not expect automated systems to be aware of such things.
“Well, and we have also had a stringent test of our nervous and pulmonary systems, which must be counted a win.”
She grinned, somewhat lopsidedly.
“Help me, Daav—shall we say that the Tree has interfered with or rescued us?”
“I see no reason why we cannot say both, and with equal alarm,” he replied. “Furthermore, I suggest that we speedily set ourselves to finding how the Tree knew we would need those pods, and precisely in what peril we stood.”
“Well, but it might not have known, after all,” she said reasonably. “If we never had the need, the pods would have merely gone unripened.”
“That satisfies you, does it?” he asked interestedly, watching her face, which was not quite Aelliana’s face, and the eyes, which were so very like.
She wrinkled her nose.
“No, it doesn’t,” she admitted. “But until we may confront it…”
“Very true. We shall compose ourselves and put the matter from our minds until it may be usefully addressed. But I warn you, van’chela, it will go badly with me if the Tree is proved a god.”
“I understand,” she said. “However, I do not believe that Miri will accept any such condition. She seemed to enjoy a very healthy disrespect for the Tree.”
“Nor did Val Con appear the least in thrall. Well. We shall leave it in their hands for the moment. What next for us, then, my lady?”
She sighed and shook her head.
“I think next must be a meal, then a session of exercise, following the Uncle’s known and approved schedule. It will, perhaps, return us to a…less fraught position with our host, if we are seen to be biddable.”
“Certainly, we do not wish to alarm him into an indiscretion. I agree: We shall break our fast and exercise. And then?”
“And then,” Aelliana said, turning toward the bench where she had folded her clothes, “I would very much like to find a mirror. Perhaps it was reasonable to shield us from our own faces when we were just awakened and confronted with so many impossibilities. But we are informed now and ought to know ourselves as we stand.”
Pants in hand, she turned, showing him the high breasts and flat belly of a woman barely beyond halfling. Aelliana had been two years short of her thirty-sixth Name Day when she had been murdered; they had only eight years together…in the flesh. He had not known her when she was as young as this woman appeared to be.
Still, it seemed to him that there was something of Aelliana’s body language in the stance, which had, prior to the Tree’s meddling, been so very uncertain. It also seemed that her face was more nearly Aelliana’s…former…face, now, or perhaps it was, rather, something in the expression. The Uncle had said that she would, eventually, come to look more like herself, as body memory informed the new…shell.
And there was the question of how his perceptions were informed by the functioning lifemate link the Tree had provided them, among its other gifts. In their previous…incarnation, Aelliana had been able to feel his emotions—his signal, as she had it—while he had relied upon the body-reading skills taught to scouts and a very high degree of natural empathy. Aelliana had been traumatized, before they had found each other, and her…transmitter had been damaged beyond even the Tree’s repair.
This new body, however…
Pants on, sweater in hand, she raised her eyebrows at him.
“Well, sir? Will you stare all day?”
“May I?” he returned, opening his eyes wide.
The frown she awarded him was not entirely without humor, though she managed to make her voice stern.
“No, you may not. I want tea and something to eat.”
She paused, then added pointedly, “I find it somewhat chilly, also. Don’t you?”
Daav bowed slightly, accepting the hit, and turned to find his own clothes.
* * * * *
The exercise room was in use when they arrived. The Uncle himself was running on the track which, according to the schedule, they were to engage at nothing brisker than a stroll during this present session. Running…Aelliana reached to the screen on which their routines were displayed and moved forward twelve sessions until she found Run, 10 minute, easy.
She sighed, scrolled back to the present schedule, and dutifully moved to the weight station.
She put her hand against the plate so her work would be properly recorded by the machine; positioned herself behind the bar, feet flat, body centered. The weight slid into place, and she put her palms against it, pushing it easily away from her on the track with the strength of her arms alone. Slowly, the weight’s resistance increased. She pushed harder. Resistance increased again; she pushed harder, engaging shoulder and back muscles now…
Another increase and she was finally able to lean in seriously, pushing strongly, feeling the weight ease back. She smiled, anticipating the next increase in resistance, digging her heels into the mat in anticipation.
A bell sounded. The weight froze.
“Session ends,” the machine told her. “Move to the next station, please.”
Aelliana grit her teeth, wanting the next level of resistance, wanting to feel her muscles work hard, to sweat with effort…
“Session ends,” the machine repeated. “Move to the next station, please.”
Compliance with the Uncle’s schedule was going to be more difficult than she had thought.
“You find the exercises too tame, Pilot?”
Daav had just completed his six sit-ups. He rolled to his feet, his dissatisfaction with the exercise flickering through her awareness like distant heat lightning.
But it had not been Daav who had spoken.
She turned to find the Uncle descended from the track to the deck, blotting face, neck, and hair with a towel.
“It does leave one wanting more,” she said.
He inclined his head.
“I understand. All of us feel…stinted at this juncture in the process. There are mind-body connections that have not yet been completed and which cannot be completed without physical work. The birth euphoria is persuasive; we believe ourselves to be strong—able, as one of my long-time colleagues would have it, to leap tall buildings and to move mountains. This is precisely why it is so important to proceed with care. An injury now, while the body is yet open to suggestion, could trigger a serious malfunction or result in an unequal balance among the systems.”
“We, however,” Daav murmured, “have already undergone tampering.”
The Uncle sighed.
“As you say. I will, of course, make the argument that it is thus even more important to proceed with care, given the trauma already received.”
“Naturally,” Daav said. “May one inquire?”
“Certainly. Has there been a problem?”
“Not so much a problem as a concern. When I woke this morning, it was…several minutes, and only with assistance from my lady, before I recalled my precise circumstances. One wonders if rebirth is known to affect short-term memory.”
“Ah. In—shall we say—uncompromised rebirths, there are frequently small gaps in short-term memory. It is notable that these small gaps are more frequently observed in those experiencing their first rebirth, and also in those who had not been given the opportunity to prepare for the process. I suggest that you partake of both situations. We believe that the memory gaps are produced by the stresses of adjusting to the new situation, and also, perhaps, from the trauma of death itself.
“We usually find that short-term recall returns to normal operation within forty-eight Standard Hours of full awakening. If you find the condition is worsening, inform me immediately. There are therapies, proven, again in uncompromised rebirths. In your particular situation, I cannot predict success with complete confidence, but I do not believe any of our therapies to be…harmful.”
“Thank you,” Daav said, inclining his head.
“Not at all; you are my guests. Of course, I will do everything in my power to ensure your safety and well-being.”
He turned his head.
“Pilot Caylon, are you well?”
“Well,” she said. “Indeed, I might say too well. How long might we expect the euphoria of living to inform us?”
He smiled.
“In your situation, Pilot, I venture to predict that it will be many years before ennui finds you. Surely, we must take into our accounting that you are not merely reborn, but reborn from an existence that few have experienced. You are informed by birth euphoria, and also by…novelty.”
“Yes, of course. I have shared Daav’s body for so long; now that I have my own, I feel that I might easily leap those buildings your colleague conjures with.” She hesitated and added, “This is all, of course, without properly understanding what the Tree has wrought.”
The Uncle sighed. It was perhaps to his credit that he did not frown.
“Precisely. I fear, Pilot, that you may be…beyond me. My expertise has heretofore been limited to rebirths that were…”
He hesitated.
“Innocent of tampering?” Daav offered, and when the Uncle still hesitated, added, “I beg you, do not be shy of calling down whatever imprecations you would upon the Tree. You will not surpass anything that has already been said of it, or to it, by those of us who have it in our care.”
“It scarcely becomes me to speak ill of the intelligence that alone held a planet against the Great Enemy.”
“Certainly, the Tree is a hero. However, it also meddles, which can be very trying to those of us who value reproducible results. I say this as one who has been both a scout and a delm of Korval.”
The Uncle was seen to smile.
“At the moment, and at the risk of seeming fainthearted, I merely hope, most fervently, that its natural wish to protect those it considers kin has not produced…untoward circumstances.”
Aelliana laughed.
“Do you consider it likely that the Tree’s action has produced untoward circumstances, Pilot Caylon?” the Uncle inquired politely.
“It could hardly be otherwise,” she said. “But I think that Daav and I will be safe enough”—she inclined her head, matching him for politeness—“though it must be admitted that we willingly eat of the Tree’s fruit and may therefore harbor all manner of delusions concerning it.”
“Pilot yos’Phelium had told me, while you were indisposed, that the Tree rarely kills those of Korval. If you are satisfied with these terms upon your life, it is hardly my place to speak against them.”
“Except that the Tree has acted upon your handiwork; you cannot know what it has done, and altogether it has put you on a wrong foot,” Aelliana said kindly. “Truly, sir, if I stood in your place, I would be extremely cross. The Tree has been less than apt, and wounded an ally besides. I find it possible to be cross in your stead, and I mean to deliver it a ringing scold when next we meet.”
The Uncle eyed her.
“That is very good of you. I am certain that a scold from you will be met with more equanimity than a complaint from me.”
“That is difficult to predict,” Daav said. “The Tree is generally patient. However, I believe it may have achieved a sense of humor since the last time it was in your ken.”
“That,” said the Uncle, after a moment, “may be one of the most terrifying statements I have heard in years.”
Daav smiled.
“I wonder,” Aelliana said, drawing the Uncle’s attention once more. “I wonder if you might tell us when we will be fit to find our way home.”
“Assuming,” Daav added, “that the Tree’s efforts on our behalf have only been complementary to your own.”
The Uncle sent him a slightly harried glance.
“In the circumstance of uncompromised procedures, I ask the reborn to remain in my care until the exercise regimen has been completed and the final measurements taken. This not only provides me with more information, which may be helpful in improving the final outcome for those reborn in future, but also furnishes hard, accurate data regarding strength, reaction times, autonomous system and higher brain functions.”
He drew a breath.
“Upon occasion, it has been necessary to send the newly born back out into the field before they had completed the regimen. The greater number of those fell and were forever lost. Of interest to yourselves is the information that not all who fell were in their first rebirth. There is a plateau period that varies with the individual, but occurs between the one-half and two-thirds points of the program. At this juncture, it seems as if all the work done has been for nothing. The muscles forget the lessons learned and, for a period of approximately thirty hours, the subject is as vulnerable as when they first left the birthing unit.”
He paused, brows contracted as if he were examining that last assertion. He folded his towel and draped it neatly over his shoulder.
“I should say, more vulnerable because progress has been made, and the loss of function is counterintuitive. Many simply push onward—and those fall as well.”
“You would counsel us to remain in your care until we have completed the entire program, then?” Aelliana said when he paused and seemed disinclined to speak further.
“Pilot, yes, I do. The conservative course will prove best in this instance. All of my experience has shown so.”
“I thank you for your care,” Aelliana said gravely. “I regret that necessity requires me to ask—may we have the use of your pinbeam in order to assure our delm that we are well and in the care of an ally?”
“Pilot, I have informed your delm that you are safe with me. I have also informed them, as I now inform you, that I am presently embarked upon urgent business of my own, which must be resolved before I may lay in a course for Surebleak.”
Aelliana looked to Daav; Daav looked to Aelliana. Daav spoke.
“Perhaps you will not need to inconvenience yourself by so much. There are resources available to those of Korval.”
“You speak of the ghost ships?”
Daav sighed.
“You might at least leave us the illusion of secrecy,” he said mildly.
Surprisingly, the Uncle inclined his head.
“Forgive me. Information is my business, and I am less often in society than perhaps I ought to be. The niceties occasionally slip past me.”
“Completely understandable,” Aelliana said. “Daav is sometimes impatient of the niceties as well. But yes; it is not impossible that your course as presently configured will come near enough to one of our berths that we will not be ashamed to ask you to put us down.”
“It may be the best solution. I suggest that we return to it when you have completed the program and we have made the last tests.”
“Certainly,” Aelliana said. “Please, allow me to thank you for your patience. We have doubtless kept you overlong from your business with these questions.”
“I had supposed you would have questions,” the Uncle said. “It is why I took care to meet you here. However, you are correct; I have other business to tend—as you do. We will speak again, of course.”
“Of course,” Daav murmured, stepping to one side, so that the Uncle’s path to the door was clear.
He inclined his head and moved forward, pausing with his hand on the plate.
“Pilot Caylon,” he said, “you had wanted a mirror. There is one in the ’fresher—over there.” He used his chin to point briefly to the back of the room, then left them, the door closing behind him with a sigh.
* * * * *
“Jump ends in three-point-eight-five units,” Dulsey said.
The Uncle took the empty chair and webbed in. While he was not a pilot, as Dulsey was, and continued to be, in every rebirth, the ship had been built to accommodate his shortcomings. He was, in this environment, a very able copilot, and a competent pilot when the need arose.
At the moment, neither the ship nor Dulsey required his participation. Very soon, however, he would become comm officer and second board. He put his palm against the pad, waking his instruments—and Vivulonj Prosperu broke out of Jump, into normal space.
* * * * *
The mirror was full-length; it gave back the reflection of a smooth-skinned halfling—a stranger with pale brown hair barely two fingers long, and a smooth, unformed face; cheeks flushed slightly with the aftermath of exercise. Only the eyes were familiar in that face, foggy green with distress. For a moment, she stared into them, taking what comfort she might from their gaze.
She had taken off her sweater, in anticipation of this confrontation, and stood now, clutching it against her breasts.
“It was you who had wanted a mirror,” she said to her reflected gaze. “Do you lack the courage of your curiosity, after all?”
In the mirror, the thin face tensed. The foggy gaze remained steady but, above them, slim brows lifted.
Yes, of course.
She dropped the sweater and let her arms fall to her sides.
The woman in the mirror inclined her head; the green eyes swept downward, taking in tight breasts, small waist, and flat belly.
Deliberately, she turned sideways, examining her silhouette. When she had first met Daav yos’Phelium at Binjali Repair Shop more than thirty Standard Years ago, she had been desperately thin and scarcely able to eat for the fear that filled her belly.
After her lifemating, she had begun to take those exercises that befit a pilot, and she had grown strong and supple—lean, rather than desperately thin.
The…she in the mirror had a young person’s natural slenderness, angular and oddly graceful. Even at halfling, she had not appeared so—so ethereal, as if nothing of worry or the world had touched her. Indeed, it was during her halfling years that she had gained a crease between her brows, in combined grief at her grandmother’s death and the concentration required to reform the ven’Tura Tables.
The Uncle had said that she would eventually come to more closely resemble the she-who-had-been. Looking at the smooth stranger in the mirror, she wondered if the process could be accelerated.
“Aelliana?” Daav said, from behind her. “Is all—”
For a moment she was adrift in the clammy swell of his horror. Her gaze leapt upward, to the reflection of his face, beyond her shoulder. Black eyes widened, mouth tightening as his face took on the expression of forbidding politeness that meant he was in extreme distress.
Very gently, Aelliana went one step to the left, so that his reflection was revealed completely.
The last time Daav yos’Phelium had seen his own reflection, he had been an elder: dark hair interleaved with grey, lines around mouth and eyes, chin soft. His hands had shown their years of use, and while he had been fit for a man who spent most of his time in front of a classroom or behind a desk, his waist had thickened.
The mirror, now, gave him a youth, tough and wiry, with a strong nose and decidedly pointed chin, mouth hard and eyes hooded, every softness closed away.
Aelliana made no sound, watching him, feeling his horror recede into mere consternation.
“Well,” he said at last, his voice not entirely steady. “This is scarcely the mode to which I have become accustomed.”
She took a careful breath.
“You will be able to…grow accustomed, won’t you, Daav?” she asked, and made no effort to lighten her voice, knowing that he would feel her concern for him as clearly as she felt his distress.
“The choice seems to have been made for us,” he said, meeting her eyes. “And you, my lady?”
She rocked a hand in the pilot’s sign for seeking equilibrium. “I admit to dismay, but I believe it will pass, with familiarity.”
The fox-faced young man in the glass lifted an eyebrow. “Shall we seek out additional mirrors?”
She sighed. “Eventually, perhaps. But enough, I think, of this one, just now.”
“I agree.”
He stepped away, vanishing back into the gym. Aelliana bent to take up her sweater, pulled it on…and paused to send one more earnest look deep into her own eyes. The reflection of her smile was wistful, which, she thought, exiting the ’fresher in the wake of her lifemate, was not in the least inconsistent with their situation.
In the exercise room, Daav was contemplating the punching bag with a certain air, though, to Aelliana’s certain knowledge, there was no such activity on their list of approved exercises so far as session twelve.
“I think it would set off alarms,” she murmured, stepping to his side and slipping her hand into his.
His fingers gripped hers tightly.
“Doubtless so.”
He sighed.
Aelliana. She heard him then, speaking to her directly as she had been accustomed to speaking to him, during all the years of her death. Do you hear me?
I do hear you, van’chela, and most gladly.
Excellent. Did you note that you received no answer to your request to contact our delm?
Yes. It was well done, that side step. The Uncle is not so inept as he would have us believe. Shall I ask again, or shall you?
I think perhaps we might let it rest where it lies at the moment, he said, removing his regard at last from the punching bag and looking down into her face.
“It does,” he said aloud, “lead one to wonder how we will go on, when I appear younger than Val Con, and you Theo’s halfling sister!”
Yes, she thought; that was wise. They did not wish the Uncle to hear all of what they said to each other, but they must speak aloud on less important topics, or he would suspect—something.
“Perhaps we will need to disguise ourselves to seem older,” she said, moving with him toward the door. “Or! We might be introduced to Surebleak as random yos’Phelium pilots, who have only just completed employment contracts and come to join the clan at our new base.”
“Entirely proper,” Daav murmured. “Perhaps we might set up a courier business and thus ensure that we are often away.”
“I would like that,” she said, as they walked down the hallway toward their quarters, “very much. We shall have to apply to the delm for a ship, however, I having been so careless as to have lost mine.”
“That death was no fault of yours. Treachery killed your ship, Pilot. Treachery and overwhelming force. The delm will likely find it possible to cede you another, in such a case. Unless you would rather win your own?”
“One does so dislike repeating oneself,” she said loftily, putting her palm against the plate of their door.
Behind her, Daav laughed.