Chapter Four: A Surfeit of Information

Urgency tears me into consciousness. There is a hand on my shoulder and a voice in my head. This is how I wake up nearly every morning, but something is wrong. Elene owns the hand. Elene's thoughts urging me awake. Where is Nanda? I sit up too fast and the world spins.

She wraps my hands around a mug and rests on the bed next to me. Tea. Everything is fine because she wouldn't bring me tea if something bad had happened. Not like this. Nanda is meeting with his Teacher and asked Elene to wake me up before Desmond came to collect me. He's worried about me being on my own. I'm just worried about being able to pay attention. I feel so hazy here. Its unfamiliarity makes me easily lost.

Elene smiles at me. She has freckles like Keven. I like hers better. They make her look friendly. Her hair is longer than any other girl's I've seen here and feels like discarded silk to my fingers but looks like dying grass to my eyes. Her hair reflects light. It makes her stand out. Only her eyes are dark, brown like Nanda's, and flecked. Her favorite feature is the freckle on her left iris. I like the ones on her shoulders better and wanted to give her one of my shirts so they'd show, but it was too small for her. Being near Elene makes me feel narrow.

The mug in my hands is glossy blue and reflective. Blue reminds me of my eyes which was fine back home because it was so rare to see but here my stomach is constantly turning when I walk around. Everything on this campus shouts at me that I am a bastard but that doesn't make the tea taste any less good. It's dark, floral. It jolts. This is only the third time I have had red tea. She has made it for me every morning since I got here like her mother would to get the family out of bed.

I swing my feet. Elene's are touching the floor, so I feel the carpet and air all at once. Carpet is new too. It seems wrong to put cloth on the floor but my feet like the softness and the warmth and they have machines to suck it clean. They have machines for everything. There is an angry beeping noise coming from the one on my wrist. I learned yesterday that means someone is finding me. Desmond. The screen tells me in Kiranese he'll be here in thirty minutes. Days are too divided here.

Elene takes the mug from my hands and puts it on the desk by my bed. A shirt is there, and pants. Mine. I can smell the leather from here. Nanda spoke to Desmond yesterday about the shirts they gave me because they keep sliding off me and shouldn't. Mine work right and feel familiar and I hope that helps me think. Elene wants me to get dressed and come eat a little breakfast before my Teacher shows up. I slide off the bed and hit the floor so I can get to my clothes. My skin is telling me it's no longer warm, and that gets stronger when I pull the night shirt over my head. It gets tangled in my braid. Everything here gets tangled in my braid. I don't fit. No one here fits. Elene's memories are full of water. She had never seen land, had never walked on solid ground. She hates the dirt, and how it is impossible to stay clean. She cuts her fingernails every day. Diane had never seen trees. Their branches make her worry one will fall and split her scalp open and her blood will drain and pool and spread. Every time she walks to classes her head is filled with the image of her hair, dripping dark and plastered to her face. Only the Kiranese belong, with their blue eyes blending in. I am an imposter. My eyes pretend but my skin betrays.

Oh no. I've gotten dressed without realizing it. I'm down the stairs and Elene is in the kitchen now, but where have I been? My wristband says time has passed. The numbers mean nothing to me. They climb and fall but they don't tell time because they can't speed up or slow down. They just count and life does as it pleases. That's how I got on the stairs.

“Elene? Is he here yet?” My voice is painful from disuse. The Kiranese is cumbersome on my tongue. Its sound startles us both but I am trying to stay where I belong. If I speak, I won't lose time.

“He's walking up the path. You have time for toast.” She has known Desmond longer. She finds him with the ease I locate Nanda. His head is full of blue tile, but his thoughts are faint. We haven't been this far apart since he first found me in the woods. Pinned under a corpse. Almost a corpse. Nostrils full of copper and dirt from the mud around me. The weaker I grew, the more mud there was.

“You've got blood on the mind today, Asha,” Elene says, handing me a slice of bread with honey. The smell is like comfort. I smile at her and take a bite.

“How can you be so sure it is me?”

“Diane and Nanda aren't here, and I am thinking about cupcakes.” Her mind flashes the image of cupcakes iced with blood, and she grimaces. Now we're both seeing blood and we want to stop but can't.

“I am sorry.”

“About what?” asks a voice behind me. Jovial, pleasant, but the mind it belongs to is tired. Desmond.

“All the blood,” I tell him, but then I remember he doesn't know what we're thinking. How can he understand if he can't see? I can feel my pulse in my neck under the scar. I need to sit, so I find the floor, but I let go of the toast and now there is honey on the tile. Elene picks it up and replaces it with another piece wordlessly, but my eyes tear up all the same.

“Why can't I do anything right?” I ask Desmond. His thoughts shift to my tongue. I must have asked in it but why couldn't I tell?

“You can. Things just get in the way right now.”

“I want it to stop.” My head is shaking back and forth. The toast is cold, the honey hard. My tongue is sickly sweet Have I even eaten any of it?

He sits down next to me and touches me under the chin. Our eyes meet and are blue together, and I am enveloped in his empathy even though he has no understanding. “It will. In the meantime, we'll do everything we can to make this easier. I was thinking we'd have our lesson under the trees today. What do you think?”

Elene is jealous and Nanda too. But what do I think?

“Do you think going there is a good idea?”

No one asks what I think. They always just know but he can't know and now I don't either because he asked.

“Asha, you have to answer. Do you like the trees?”

I nod in reply, so I must.

“Do you want to see them today?”

Another nod. He doesn't ask the third question again because I am not ready. I feel ashamed and it must actually be me because Elene is proud of how well I am doing.

“Asha.”

My eyes find him, finally, and I see more than just his eyes. Thick, grey-brown hair. Dark skin compared to Elene-Keven but I am still darker. This is my Teacher. He smiles at me in greeting.

“Yes?”

“Pick something to take with us to help you focus.”

Elene goes to get it before I realize what I have decided on. Desmond frowns but says nothing because it will be faster if Elene gets it and she means well anyway that's one of the reasons why he likes her so much. I want to say something to fill the time while he waits for Elene, but by the time I realize the homework I am worrying about is Diane's she is draping it around me. I run my hands over the spotted fur and smile up at Desmond.

“I am ready.”

He has me walk next to him on the way to the Arboretum—so that's what it's called—and questions me along the way. As we leave the dorms behind, I feel my head clear. The world slides into focus, and I hear my sandals on the cement, smell the leaves as they fall to the ground. It rained while we were sleeping. Desmond's steps sound heavy next to mine, just like anyone who has never had to hunt. No one in my village walked like that.

“Asha. Do you know how many planets are in the Consortium?” He asks in Kiranese.

“Five, counting mine.”

“Can you name them?”

“Old Earth, Newearth, Oceanus, Kiran, and Midbar.”

“Do you know you named them in order of founding?” He wants to know if he is actually speaking to me.

“Yes. My recruiter taught me.”

“I'd like to teach you about one of them today.”

“Which one?”

“I thought I'd let you choose.”

“Think about them again.” This request doesn't confuse him. Images rise to the forefront of his mind, and I absorb them. Newearth. Huge, dirty buildings. Thick air. Reid.

“So that is where he is from,” I say, and Desmond nods. His mind skips instantly to Elene, and water and enormous fish. Oceanus. Another boy's face, but I do not know him. Water is replaced with sand, and Diane's face appears. Of all the people here, her features are the most like mine. Keven, and himself, but a strange image of himself. How he sees himself. The University. Kiran.

“So, Asha? Which is the most interesting?”

I sigh and stare at my feet, trying to think. “Which...”

He waits patiently. My head hurts. “Which...would it be best for me to learn about?”

“That depends on your angle. Do you want to acclimate to modern Kiran faster, or learn more history?” He looks down at me kindly, but he expects me to have no idea how to handle this question. I kick viciously at a stick in the path because my pulse is fast. My throat is thick with worry but my chest is constricting with anger and I feel the familiar haze that comes from feeling too many people's emotions at once. The ground ripples and I fall to my knees beneath the catskin, hitting the ground on four legs.

“Nanda, Elene,” I say to Desmond, but I can't tell if he understands what is wrong. I feel alone and my stomach is heaving like the ground beneath my feet and they won't go away and let me think. My back writhes and I vomit their worry into the grass. It tastes like tea. Desmond waits, completely unconcerned. Nothing I am doing is new. I glare up at him and wipe my mouth.

“Stay focused and they won't be able to confuse you,” he says reasonably, holding out his hand. I take it and am a biped again.

“K-kiran,” I manage. “When we get to the trees. Kiran.”

“I'll take you.” He guides me by the hand so we're both spinning together. I cling to him because my eyes are closed, and time dissolves. My nose tells me there are leaves above me and when my eyes open we are there. Desmond spreads the pelt out on the ground and we sit together. The fur-spots mix with the light-spots and meld together, and we rest on camouflage. The buildings have been replaced by birds.

“How do you feel?” he asks in Kiranese.

“Calm,” I say, and this answer startles me.

“Very good. Now Asha, when we are working together, you may focus on my thoughts, but please do your best to listen to my words and react to those. My voice is your priority, understand?”

I don't understand but I can't think of a way to make him see why, so I agree. Words are wrong. Useless. They make it so hard to communicate.

“Kiran was colonized two hundred Consortium years after most of the human race left for Newearth.” An image of tall, crumbling buildings flashes through his mind, but there is no context. The Newearth in his mind earlier seemed overcrowded, but my planet had no such buildings.

“Oceanus was a centennial colony at this point, but Newearth's population had grown so that most of their arable land was being developed. This is why more settlers were sent over to Kiran—the planet needed food.”

“How...”

“Yes?” He is pleased that I am asking questions. I smile at him.

“How old are Kiran and Oceanus now?”

“Four-hundred and three-hundred years, respectively.”

“Why did this never happen to them?”

Desmond smiles. “Careful planning. Building upkeep on Oceanus is expensive. There is constant salt wear, storm wear. It isn't economically feasible for cities the size of those developed on Newearth to survive. And us Kiranese were able to learn from the mistakes of both planets. Newearth polluted the land, Oceanus the water. And so we maintain a balance.” He is proud of the planet even if the University's buildings are sometimes silly.

“I don't understand Newearth, then. We know how to live with our environment. Didn't they come from us?”

Desmond sighs. “It's complicated, Asha. You are..what was left of the people who remained behind.” His thoughts become guarded, and for a moment he feels like Reid. “Your people re-learned in the years after the Exodus. Those who went to Newearth did not. One thing you will find, Asha, if you have not already, is that the human race is slow to change.”

“Have you ever been to Newearth, Desmond?”

He nods. “Yes, why?”

“I'd like to see it.”

He looks at me for a moment, and then nods. He thinks of the shuttle landing, and the grey landscape as far as the eye can see. Buildings replace trees, grass dies in the heat, soil cascades into the city and coats everything with a dull film. When it rains, the entire planet is coated in a sticky film. Nothing is green. I think again of Reid and his lifeless eyes, and suddenly I understand. But there is something else there. A sense of disgust, of superiority. Desmond keeps it out of his voice, but it taints his memory.

“Desmond, why don't you like them?”

He chuckles. “Very good, Asha. You're keeping me on my toes. You know what war is, I take it?” His mind fills with blood and smoke. I swallow.

“There was a war,” he continues. “A big one. The Kiranese colony became too powerful. The Navy was already recruiting empaths from other planets, who joined us willingly. We wanted control over our own resources, and so we attacked Newearth. We wouldn't have had a chance, but Oceanus joined in. I can't...I can't tell you how many people died.” I feel his horror. It makes me shiver.

“That was 25 years after the colony was founded. Newearth blew through its food stores feeding the troops, and soon we had our freedom. After ten years of shaky peace, the governments decided to form the Consortium. That was a long, long time ago, but we have such good records of all the terrible things we did to one another in the war that, well.” He sighs.

“Like what?” I ask, but his mind has shut down again.

“Asha, I am not sure this is important right now."

“No. I want to know.”

“Well, the Newearth army wiped entire towns off the map overnight, and the Kiranese...well. There were no Type Three empaths then, at least none documented, but the Type Twos were powerful enough. They...they would get into the minds of the pilots of cruisers and transports. Make them wreck the ship or kill the crew.”

His mind roils, and then resumes its blankness. “It's called emotion seeding. Empaths can...suggest emotions to other people. It takes a lot of training, and it has been outlawed since the war, but it can be done.”

I shake my head violently as I feel thousands of people die at my will. “That's terrible.”

He runs his hands along the pelt, using the fur to focus. He feels suddenly familiar. “It gets worse. It is far easier for a non-empath to seed a strong empath. It is what happens to you any time you go out in public, to an extent. But that, even when done maliciously, is not considered a crime in the Consortium.”

“...Why?”

“Because it can't be conclusively proven that the empath was not in control of him or herself.”

“That's not true. Anyone can tell you that. Ask Elene or Nanda!”

“Asha, any empath can tell you that. But let me ask you this. Can you understand why I am so reliant on words?”

I shake my head, and he continues. “Do you think I understand you?”

“No.”

“Then how can you possibly explain to me someone was seeded and make it quantifiable?”

I don't answer, and he doesn't continue. The air is warm and sleepy. I lean onto my back and stare up at the leaves above me. The wind blows gently and the light dazzles me and etches the edges of the leaves in acid green. Their life burns into me.

“All of this...All of this is wrong. Hasn't anything good happened here, Desmond?”

The ground vibrates gently as he falls onto his back. He is genuinely comfortable for the first time since I have met him. “Yes. This University is an oasis of sanity in an insane system, Asha.” His mind has closed again.

“Tell me.”

“It was founded one hundred years after the planet was colonized, by the Navy. Type Three empaths were beginning to be born on Kiran, and it was going...badly. Many of them went insane, or took their own lives. So the Fleet instituted a program that would guarantee tuition and a job for any empath that sought training here. Empaths started flocking in from the other planets, and everyone was given a place by the government, one way or another. The Fleet sent delegates to your planet to learn how to properly train the powerful ones, like you. And now, one hundred years later, here we are. The Fleet is almost entirely empathic, suicide rates are at a historical low, and people such as yourself are learning to lead normal lives.”

“Which is your favorite building?”

“What?” I have taken him completely by surprise.

“Which building do you like the most?”

He almost lies. “There is a biodome at the other end of campus. Some of the professors here maintain it for botanical research. It was designed to mimic the conditions on Old Earth and is, in my opinion, the best place on campus to clear your head.”

“You liked my planet.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Why didn't you stay?”

He sighs and sits up. “Look at me, Asha. They treated me just as badly as they treated you.”

He is wrong, and I want to tell him so, but my vision is swimming and I am too tired to be angry at his assumptions. Everything around me is begging me to fall asleep and meld but Desmond's voice is demanding me to stay myself. There is no energy left for me. I am a shell.

“Something tells me you're tired,” he says with a hint of amusement. “Think you can stay awake until Nanda comes to pick you up?”

“No,” I mutter in my tongue. I've forgotten the Kiranese. Again, he switches flawlessly.

“I'll stay here, then. Go ahead and give in. I've worked you hard today.” He cages his thoughts and shuts down from me, leaving me alone with the leaves and the warmth and the whispers.