No Life But This (2 page)

‘Seriously?’ Bren asked, his eyebrows raised.

Tristan nodded, grinning wickedly.

‘Oh, you are
so
on,’ Bren said, snatching up Tristan’s hand and pulling her towards the tennis courts. ‘I’ll
bring her pieces back in a bag for you, shall I?’ he called over his shoulder.

I grinned. Bren was in for a surprise. True, Tristan wasn’t a trophy-winning tennis player, but she was a highly accomplished athlete all around. She had cherished dreams of competing in the Olympics in track and field, until she was informed she didn’t qualify. If enhancement drugs and bionic implants were banned
from sporting events, genetic modification disqualified her also, even if that modification was not aimed at increasing her athletic abilities. There was also some question about what country she would have competed for. Technically, she wasn’t a citizen of any country. She had human rights, but she wasn’t actually human. She was number 32, Tristan Twice, an alien hybrid, and her DNA was still property
of UniCorp. UniCorp was an international, even interplanetary, corporation. I remembered Tristan’s fury when she realized her genetic status basically segregated her from normal society. We were probably the last humans on earth still discriminated against solely based on our ‘race’. Still, Tristan didn’t plan on giving up. She trained daily, hoping to compete in any sporting events that didn’t
disqualify her, and she hoped one day to be an Olympic coach. She would give Bren a run for his money on the tennis court.

Penny stripped down to her swimsuit – purple, to complement her skin – and dove deftly into the pool. She laughed, sounding infantile and odd. She couldn’t control her voice as well as Tristan or I could. Kayin joined her with a splash.

I caught Quin watching furtively as
Nabiki peeled off layers of clothes to a thin black bikini. I averted my eyes. I knew something about Quin that no one else did: he’d been in love with Nabiki almost since I started dating her. I think others suspected that he fancied her, but he was so cynical and hard to read that no one else had realized the depth of his feelings. I wasn’t even sure he knew himself. But I couldn’t tell anyone.
Telling anyone what I saw in anyone else’s mind was against my code of ethics. Even telling someone what I saw in their own mind was touchy. Much like a psychologist, if I told people truths they themselves denied, it usually went badly for me. Rose, for instance, had no idea exactly how lopsided her subconscious was compared to her consciousness, and I had no intention of telling her.

Nabiki
stretched before she went to dive in, and Quin seized the opportunity to touch her. He tackled her violently and fell into the pool with her. Nabiki sputtered to the surface, furious. Her highlights had gone blue and wavery in the water. ‘You sped!’ she snapped, splashing him.

‘Only on alternate Thursdays, bank holidays, and whenever I have a math test,’ Quin retorted, splashing her back.

Nabiki
went under the water and swam to the other side of the pool. I wished I could tell Quin this was the wrong way to handle Nabiki, but he would have hit me for it.

Jamal screamed ‘Cannon ball!’ and leaped from the diving board, half splashing Molly. ‘Come on, Callisto, move your butt!’ he called when he resurfaced. I shook my head. Europa had a very strange relationship with other colonies – particularly
other Jovian colonies. Europa was the only place besides Earth on which indigenous life had been discovered. They also had ample water, so they were much wealthier than the other colonies. Even though Jamal didn’t think of himself as prejudiced, he was rather scornful of Molly and even Anastasia, who was from the Saturn colonies and should have been beyond his arrogance.

Fortunately, Molly was
used to other people’s disdain. Scholarship students at UniPrep need to develop very thick skins – a fact I knew personally very well. ‘Very funny!’ Molly called out, and turned to remove her shirt. Molly was hesitant in removing her outer clothes. Her parents hadn’t been able to afford gravity mats for their home on Callisto, and they certainly couldn’t afford the full exo-surgery kit once she
got to Earth, so her body had rebelled shortly after she’d arrived at school. She’d gained massive amounts of weight and her muscles had been forced to develop all at once, so she was an odd, squat shape. None of us really cared – after all, my siblings and I were blue, and Rose had been a skeleton until a few months ago – but Molly was self-conscious about it. Her swimsuit, when she finally revealed
it, was almost a sundress. Everyone was careful not to stare at her, and she slipped into the water quickly after Hilary. Rose waited until everyone seemed settled before she pulled off her sarong – distracting me severely – and climbed down the ladder. Quin and Molly started a pool-volleyball game, and most of the others joined in.

Rose slipped under the water and then surfaced like a mermaid,
the water turning her golden hair to bronze. It was some minutes before she realized I hadn’t joined the others in the water.
‘Coming in?’
she signed to me. She’d been studying sign for the last four months, mostly so we could share jokes across the room. She wasn’t very skilled yet, but she was trying.

I shook my head, throwing her a careful smile.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I don’t swim,’
I signed
slowly.

Rose looked horrified.
‘I’m sorry! Come in, I’ll teach you.’

‘No.’

She frowned.
‘Why not?’

I shook my head again, avoiding the answer. Rose looked concerned, but she had other guests to attend to, and Penny looked like she needed help on her team. I pulled out my notescreen and glanced at a book, but mostly I watched Rose in the water. I wished I
could
swim with her. I let myself daydream
about floating in the clear blue water beside her, letting my hands touch her skin, caress the bronze wave of her hair.

Eventually, Bren and Tristan came back. Bren was scowling. ‘You didn’t tell me she was a ringer!’ he told me angrily.

I chuckled at Tristan’s broad grin. I touched Bren’s arm. I rarely hesitated at touching Bren – his mind was so clear and concise, there were almost never any
thoughts I didn’t want to read.
‘Did she win?’
I asked.

‘No,’ Bren said. ‘But it was close.’ He glared at her. ‘Too close.’ Tristan’s face twitched in challenge. Bren stripped off his shirt and dove into the pool, shaking his head with relief at the cool water. Then he tackled Quin with a roar, at which Nabiki cheered.

Rose had frozen, and was staring at the rippling muscles under Bren’s mahogany
skin. Bren’s body seemed to do much the same things to Rose that Rose’s body did to me. I swallowed, but I couldn’t turn my head away. Finally, she shook her head and turned back to Penny, who was trying to sign something at her. I finally pulled my gaze from her, to find Tristan staring at me. She reached out for my hand.
‘I wish you’d just tell her.’

Tristan was the only one of my surviving
siblings with even a hint of my gift. Hers was limited. She could ‘send’, but she couldn’t ‘receive’, so fortunately thunder storms and faulty wiring never caused her any discomfort, and she didn’t have to worry about absorbing a thought or memory she didn’t want to. Even so, she was the only person still living who had any idea what it was like to be me.

I shook my head.
‘I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s complicated.’

‘I don’t think it’s half as complicated as you make it out to be.’

I kept my thoughts still. Only Bren and myself knew about Rose’s former relationship with Xavier, and Rose wanted it kept that way. Even the rest of Bren’s family only knew that the two of them had been acquainted when Xavier was young – they had no idea how deep that relationship had gone.

Eventually, Xavier
himself came down, and the swimmers climbed dripping out of the pool to eat. The food, of course, was fabulous, prepared by the gourmet chefs of Unicorn Estates, and served by liveried servitors. Nabiki and Bren, of course, knew how to handle it. My family and Molly were a bit more awkward with the fine dining, but no one seemed to notice. Finally, a birthday cake redolent with candied roses
was presented.

Xavier opened a bottle of champagne and poured half a glass for everyone seventeen or older. This included everyone but Hilary and Kayin – except for Penny, who took one sip and put it down hastily. Then, holding up his own glass, Xavier sang a song to Rose in Swedish. Tears brimmed in Rose’s eyes, and the hand holding the champagne glass trembled. ‘Happy birthday, sweetheart,’
Xavier said softly, and raised the glass. ‘To Rose.’

‘To Rose!’ everyone who could speak called out.

Rose’s trembling was harder to conceal, now. She looked over at Bren, who was still shirtless and gleaming. Clearly he was too daunting a figure in his current state of undress. Finally, she turned to me. I opened my arm to her gladly as she came over and rested her head on my shoulder.

‘You
okay?’
I asked silently.

She was fine, it was only that Xavier and her old maid – really more a godmother – had sung that song for her at her last birthday, more than half a century before.
‘I didn’t realize he was going to do that.’

‘I’m sorry,’
I whispered into her mind, and tried to smooth some of the sharper thorns from her emotional briars. She shuddered, but she let me. I try not to control
people’s thoughts or emotions, but Rose was one of the few people I would make an exception for. For one thing, I knew her subconscious was strong enough to erase anything if I made a mistake. For another, hers was the only mind outside of my sisters’ I was willing to be responsible for.

Over Rose’s shoulder I caught a glimpse of Nabiki. She stared at me, and then set down her plate of cake.
Quietly, Nabiki went up to Tristan and gave her a hug. I frowned, but Rose was there in my mind, and I had to concentrate on throwing up shields. I didn’t want Rose reading my confusion over Nabiki. Rose already – rightly – blamed herself for my breakup with Nabiki. She didn’t need to know how torn I was over it.

One of Rose’s birthday presents suddenly filed into the area around the pool. It
was the band
Overwrought
, the members carrying their instruments and calling out a greeting. The band was a favourite of Hilary’s, and she suddenly squealed. ‘Oh my god, this is so sky!’ She jumped up and hugged Mr Zellwegger. ‘Thank you Granddad!’

‘This is Rose’s present, remember,’ Mr Zellwegger said, laughing.

Rose pulled a little away from me, but I could still hear her thoughts from her
hand on my arm. She was just as happy getting a present for Hilary, and the fact that Xavier knew that pleased her.

Personally I was a little shocked by
Overwrought
’s appearance. After all, they played to sold-out stadiums across the planet; there was no reason why they’d play a special set at a teenager’s birthday party of no more than a dozen guests. But UniCorp had money, there was no denying
that!

Overwrought
greeted Rose, and then started by playing their hit song,
Dead To Me
. I thought it actually the best version of that song I’d ever heard. It wasn’t blared loudly enough to shatter my eardrums, and it wasn’t twisted through a thousand sound systems. I was enjoying it, but as soon as Rose headed out to dance I looked around after Nabiki. She was gone. I looked left and right,
and noticed her bright pink jacket was gone, too. I slipped out the gate and away from the party.

Nabiki was there, heading for the driveway, already tapping her cell to call her skiff out of the garage. I whistled behind her. She hesitated, and then continued walking, even faster now. She had to know I was behind her.
‘Nabiki, stop!’
I signed at her, but she wasn’t looking at me.

I did something
I don’t like to do. I squawked. I sound like a dolphin when I speak, or a monstrous infant. It sounds so silly and freakish that I very rarely do it, and usually only in play. Nabiki knew this. She stopped and turned. ‘What?’ she asked. ‘What do you want?’

‘You’re leaving?
’ I signed.

Nabiki shrugged. ‘I told Tristan to say goodbye for me.’

‘But … why go?’

‘I’m just done.’

I wanted her to
come back to the party with me, but I wasn’t sure how to ask. It wasn’t as if I could point out that Rose’s embrace had more to do with the fact that she loved Xavier than it had to do with fondness for me.
‘I don’t want you to go
,’ I signed to her.

Nabiki’s face clouded.
‘You don’t care
,’ she signed back at me.

‘Look, I’m sorry
,’ I signed.
‘What do you want me to do?
’

‘Nothing. Don’t you understand?
It’s already been done. There’s nothing you can do to fix it, so you might as well go back to Rose.’

I was exasperated as I signed,
‘I’m not
with
Rose!’

Nabiki seemed to lose her temper then. ‘Why not? She’s not dating anyone. And you’re single.’

‘That was your idea,’
I signed.
‘You broke up with me, remember?
I was trying to make it work. I knew I couldn’t …’
I let my hands fall to my side.
The idea that I couldn’t do anything with Rose, and that therefore I was taking Nabiki as second best, wasn’t accurate, but that’s what it would have sounded like. That headache was still pulsing behind my temples. I rubbed them gently, trying to put my thoughts back together.
‘I miss you, okay? I do.’

‘But you still love her, don’t you.’ It wasn’t a question.

I shook my head.
‘I can’t help
it. That doesn’t mean I don’t …’
I stopped. This kind of thing was always easier to convey with my mind, rather than my hands. The feeling I was looking for wasn’t ‘like,’ or ‘love,’ or ‘want,’ or ‘need.’ It was an all encompassing ‘wish-to-still-have-you-with-me-in-some-way-or-another-just-because-you’re-Nabiki-and-I’m-used-to-having-you-around.’ I clenched my fists, grunting with the frustration
of having to find words for things I usually didn’t have to try and find words for. I was brilliant at communicating, except when I so completely wasn’t.