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(No, stop, I don't want to die--)
Rubiy's last words flooded my mind and broke and faded as his life did, taking half of my soul with him. Jeezu. I struggled awake into a still-unfamiliar, darkened room, drenched in sweat and remembered horror, and I hoped I hadn't woken up any of the 'paths who might be in the Center. Because, for all my bold words in the hospital, I'd still ended up back here, working for Jule and Siebeling. As a deadhead.
Quicksilver. If it hadn't been for him, I'd never be like this. If he hadn't been plotting to choke off the FTA's supply of telhassium, if Siebeling hadn't wanted to stop him -- the Center would never have taken me and made me into a psion. Made me into myself, the self I'd kept hidden for years, the self even I didn't know about. And if I hadn't killed him, then I wouldn't have unmade myself again. I was human enough to do it, Hydran enough to suffer. But I was also human enough not to die from it, and that was going to have to be enough. I'd had few brief months of glory in exchange for reliving his death whenever a psion so much as smiled at me in their mind now. If I could have done it again, I would have done the exact same thing (and all for my telepathy, I'd led Dere Cortelyou to his death, walked into the blue flames, killed Rubiy--), and maybe that was the worst part of it.
And then Ineh happened, and I knew I had to leave Ardattee. I had to find-- Hydrans, maybe. Someone. Anyone. Get the hell out of Quarro and off this planet. Take the eidetic memory, the only part of my -- Gift, Doc would have called it (freak, screamed Stryger, and Daric taMing, and so many anonymous faces before them) -- that was left to me anymore, and use it for something. I couldn't forget who I'd been, and if I could just somehow be better than I was, maybe it would be like having my mind back.
So I went to the Floating University, and for a while there lost myself in the information, the entire galaxy that existed outside of Oldcity. And then the mess with Centauri Transport happened, and I ended up on Earth. Cinder had showed me psions could fuck me over. Earth showed me deadheads could too. You might have thought I'd have learned that lesson on Ardattee a long time ago, but there was always more to learn.
###
I had been planning to go directly back to the University but after the hell that was the drug withdrawal, I thought maybe I needed to go somewhere more familiar first. At the spaceport I watched the funds transfer out of my databand like they were nothing, just numbers, and maybe they were, now that I knew the trick of it.
One ticket to Ardattee, please.
And that was how I ended up here again, in Siebeling's office, shifting anxiously and trying not to feel like the kid from the gutter who'd done something wrong just by showing up and existing.
"Jule's not in yet," he said, frowning, as soon as he saw me. Like he knew why I was here. Not even a hello first. Like I could have just come in from the other room instead of half the galaxy away.
I stuck the end of a camph in my mouth, mostly out of habit. "Yeah. No. I just thought if, if I was around anyway." For some reason the rest of the sentence rang hollow and I didn't bother finishing it. I was always here to see Jule, wasn't I?
"So," Siebeling said, sounding like it wasn't the way he'd wanted to start the conversation, "you were on the threedy."
It wasn't really a question, and then I remembered. I'd seen them on the threedy too. I'd been going on and on about how we were psion heroes to the hypers, and they'd come and interviewed Jule and Siebeling. Torn them away from work to ask about their worst student. Probably jeopardized whatever of their funding wasn't coming from Centauri -- and they had to know that even the Centauri money was only coming because I'd extorted it from Braedee. Was Siebeling mad about that? Did he resent me? What did Jule think about any of this? His face gave nothing away. Three years ago I could have looked at him and known his mind with all the perfect, pure certainty of my senses, even before the Hydrans untangled me. Three weeks ago I would have stuck a drug patch behind my ear and done the same thing, but now I was as blind as before.
"Mm."
"Your eyes--"
I realized what he must have noticed on the threedy, and what he saw now. "Yeah. Centauri fixed them up to look more human. Didn't want anyone with Hydran eyes as a bodyguard. I had them changed back after."
Siebeling stepped forward then, like he was going to hug me, and started to smile. "As I hear, you did a good job protecting Elnear taMing." He said it like it was something he'd wanted to say to his own son. He'd been like that to me sometimes, ever since Cinder. Since that joining in the tunnels, we three of us couldn't very well be strangers. "And you used your Gift to discredit Sojourner Stryger--"
He stopped and frowned, like something didn't quite make sense. I knew, then, why he'd been happy for me just now and where it had gone wrong. He thought I had my telepathy back. I could almost imagine his mind snarling in the tangles of mine, but I felt only the void where Quicksilver's life had been.
"I don't have it anymore, Doc," I said, and I knew I'd failed him. "They put me on drugs to block out the pain, so I didn't have to feel Rubiy's-- didn't have to--" I choked and couldn't finish. "It doesn't work without the drugs. I had it and it's gone again."
He moved forward again, and this time hugged me, hard. The only noise in the office was his slow, shaky, breath. Behind him, the moving sculpture tangled on the desk.
"It's going to be all right, Cat."
I tried not to cry.
There was a sudden, soft whoosh of air behind my right shoulder. I didn't have to turn to know who it was, but it wasn't because I needed telepathy. I would never have mistaken her for anyone else. My mind filled with a hundred things to say to her, a hundred thoughts to put into her head, not that I could, not that I should. Lady Elnear is wonderful. I understand why you left your family. I know your brother's a 'teek. Lazuli only reminded me of you. Your father coded psi into your genes on purpose.
"Jule."
She pulled me away from Siebeling and hugged me just as hard. Siebeling had probably given her the facts before she teleported in. "So do you want to stay?"
No, no, I shouldn't--
"Yes," I said, and Jule smiled at me.
###
I had a message from Kissindre about some project she wanted my help on, out on some planet called Refuge. I'd never heard it. I told her I'd think about it.
So I went back to my old room above the Center, and in the morning I scheduled the incoming psions for testing, and in the afternoon Siebeling and Jule took a precious hour out of their schedule to work me over. Just like old times. But at least now I didn't walk into the room expecting him to telekinetically pull the chair out from under me and I was pathetically thankful for that courtesy.
"Tell me about the drug Centauri put you on," he said. It was almost the first thing he said to me, after we'd both sat down with no incident.
No, no, don't give it to me and then snatch it away, you don't understand-- my mind said, but somehow my mouth opened. "Topalase-AC. I don't know anything else about it." I remembered what DeAth had said as he handed it over: Wants to be a mass-murderer, but hasn't got the nerve? Jeezu. In a way, kinda, yeah.
Siebeling looked off to the side and his eyes unfocused a little. That was when I knew I'd spent too much time with the taMings -- the other taMings, anyway -- because my first thought was that he was wired and accessing it. Then I remembered the laws about psions and socketwork and figured out he was just remembering it the old-fashioned way. And I considered Deadeye's secret. Doc, you and Jule, a 'teek and a 'path... you could make a killing and no one would ever know. But they'd never do it. And maybe that was why I kept coming back.
"Interesting," he said, finally, and his eyebrows raised, like he was excited. I had to remember to start paying attention to people's faces, again, to judge their moods. "I hadn't considered a drug regimen as a treatment modality. Of course, you're an unusual case, Cat, you know that." Meaning that I was the only half-Hydran around, and certainly the only one who'd blown his psi out. Everyone else the Center worked with at least had some accessible ability, however unreliable. I used to be unreliable, but at least I was there. Damn it.
But-- "You don't get it, Doc," I tried. "My psi works with the drugs, but only with the drugs. Without it, it's gone."
But he still looked excited. "But that was without any therapy, Cat. It's possible that, with a small amount of Topalase, we can access your mind directly, and thereby begin treating the problem at its source. All we need to do is open you up a little--"
Everything in me hungered for more Topalase. I'd never needed a hit of bliss, or nightmare, or anything else anyone dealt on the streets of Oldcity, but I craved this one. I swallowed. "Just don't-- don't give me too much."
Siebeling smiled. "Small steps."
###
A week later, the small package that Jule carried in bore a Centauri Transport logo, and I didn't want to think about the favors she might have called in to get it.
There had been another message from Kissindre that morning. There are Hydrans on Refuge, the message said. A whole city of them. I still hadn't replied to that one.
Making a show of using his hands to do it, Siebeling unwrapped the package and a sheet of familiar drug-dots slid onto the desk. "Now, Cat--" he looked up, and though his voice was stern, the corners of his eyes crinkled in a kind of joy-- "I don't want you to get your hopes up. We'll be starting with very small doses. About half the dose you had from Centauri."
I almost opened my mouth to ask how he knew that, but then decided that I was better off not knowing.
"I mean your initial dose," he continued. "Not whatever you had yourself on by the end."
Whoever his contacts were, they were good. I might have suspected Mikah of letting something slip, but the guy took his vows too seriously for that. No point in lying to Siebeling or Jule -- not that any 'path could tell, because my unreadability went both ways -- so I sat there and nodded numbly.
Siebeling smiled and picked a dot off the page, holding it out to me on a fingertip. "Here."
I jumped back, like he'd shocked me. The idea had shocked me. "Jeezu! Right now?"
"Why not?"
"Come on, Cat," Jule said from behind me, and my heart surged at the encouragement.
Jule came around the side of the desk, and I looked from one face to the other. They both looked equally... intent. Hopeful. They wanted this to work. I wanted this to work -- but I remembered coming off the patches all too vividly. And here they were again, offering me my mind.
Without giving myself any more time to think about it, I grabbed the patch and stuck it behind my ear, just like old times.
Two pairs of tense eyes stared at me in the silence as we waited, and I tried not to think about them working their way past the tangles of Quicksilver. Open. Lie open. Be open. Then I started to feel it.
(--hear me? Cat, can you hear me?)
It was Jule, unmistakably Jule for the first time in years, but the sound of her mind was reedy and faint, whispering. A ripple of concern-worry-questioning lapped at me, like the smallest trickle of creeks I had seen on Earth. From the inside of her head, to judge by the look on her face, she was probably sending it in crashing waves.
I had my power back. It wasn't enough.
I smiled weakly. Siebeling and Jule smiled back.
(I. Can. Hear. You,) I tried to send back, again and again. But it wasn't loud enough, and they didn't give any indication they'd heard me until the last try.
Jule was just as faint. (...Cat?)
(ICANHEARYOU!) I sent, like screaming through a gag, and Siebeling's head snapped back, abruptly, and I felt the fuzzy sense of his mind dim even more. I didn't even know if he'd heard me.
"Cat?"
It was the only sound anyone in the room had made for at least half an hour. Jeezu. I couldn't do this. It couldn't work like this. It was all wrong. Somewhere, bone-deep, I knew that the only thing that could ever work would be like what had been done to me, for me, on Cinder. A circle of Hydrans, joined. And maybe not even that. I ripped the patch off and stood up as their minds blacked out already.
"I can't do this," I said, balancing unsteadily. "It won't work."
"All right." Siebeling's voice was the calm, professional, therapeutic one. "What do you want to do instead?"
"I have to go offworld." The same thing I'd told them after Ineh. "I have to-- I have to see what's out there. More of it."
Jule sounded honestly curious. "Where will you go?"
I shrugged. "One of my classmates wants my help researching on someplace called Refuge. She says-- she told me there's a city of Hydrans there. I want to--"
Siebeling nodded, his eyes shadowed. He understood that. He would. And Jule would too. She always understood.
###
My trip out left from the spaceport so early in the morning that I hadn't expected anyone to be awake to join me, even if they'd wanted to. So I was shocked when the two familiar figures met me in the departure lounge.
"Good luck, Cat," said Jule, smiling like she wanted to cry and hugging me one last time.
Siebeling held out his hand, and I shook it. "Hope you find what you're looking for."
I grinned. "Me too. And if I find anything you're looking for, I'll let you know."
"I'd appreciate that." He nodded, and I knew he was thinking of his lost son. There were a lot of Hydrans on Refuge, Kissindre'd said. Maybe some of them knew something.
And maybe it would all work out. That's the thing about cats: we're lucky like that. And if we're on the hunt for something, we usually find it. I only hoped it would be what I wanted.