Offspring (17 page)

“Ah,” Ben said. “My turf or yours?”

“Mine,” Kendi said. “You’d look sexy in a loincloth.”

Ben blushed, then laughed and lay down on the bed, feeling a little better. He watched Kendi retrieve his own dermospray from a drawer and press it to his forearm. A hiss, a
thump
, and the drug drove home. Kendi took down the spear and fitted the sharp end with a rubber tip. He bent one knee and fitted the spear underneath it, creating a pirate peg-leg for himself. The rubber end of the spear pressed against the floor. If Kendi had been outdoors, the sharp point would push into the earth to give the spear stability, but that wasn’t possible indoors. Once Kendi was sure of his balance, he cupped his hands over his groin and closed his eyes in the traditional meditation pose for the Real People of Australia. No matter how many times he watched Kendi do this, it amazed Ben that he didn’t fall over.

Ben pressed his own dermospray to his arm and felt the small
thump.
With a final glance at Kendi, he shut his eyes and lay back. After a moment, color swirled before his closed eyes, and he felt a warm languor spread through his limbs—the drugs at work. Ben concentrated on his breathing, emptying his mind, reaching upward and
out
.

The colors faded and cleared. Ben opened his eyes. His sling was gone, and he was standing on a white tile floor in the middle of a computer network. Organic data processing units twined up like vines, their DN” matrices glowing green and blue. Keyboards, microphones, and holographic displays made neat rows on gleaming metal surfaces. Lights flashed. Transmission lines and data portals opened in all directions, ready to transmit or receive.

It was the Dream.

Despite a thousand years of study, no one knew exactly what the Dream was, though the prevailing theory held that it was a plane of mental existence created from the collective subconscious of every sentient mind in the universe. The Silent—people like Ben and Kendi—could actually enter the Dream, usually with a boost from a drug cocktail tailored to their individual metabolisms.

In the Dream distance meant nothing. Two Silent who entered the Dream could meet and talk, no matter where in the galaxy their bodies might be. The Silent could also shape the Dream landscape, form it into whatever environment they desired. In Ben’s network, every wire, every matrix, every chip was a sentient mind in the solid world, and they took on those forms because Ben wished it. Or perhaps Ben saw the Dream as a computer network because his own mind wanted him to see it that way. Philosophies differed, even among the Children of Irfan. Ben only knew it gave him a headache to think about it.

Before the Despair, the Dream had been full of whispering voices, the voices of millions upon millions of Silent. These days the Dream was quiet, like death, and a tiny handful of whispers skittered amid the hum of Ben’s ventilation system. The silence was eerie, and it felt like the Dream was in mourning.

Ben shook these thoughts aside. He was supposed to meet Kendi on Kendi’s turf. He concentrated for a moment and banished his network. A rush of Dream energy swirled around him, stirring his hair and clothes like a whirlpool. The network vanished, and an empty gray plain took its place. In the distance, earth merged with sky at an ill-defined horizon. The air was still and just little stale. It was the default condition of the Dream.

Ben shut his eyes and listened to the faint whispers on the air. Practiced Silent could single out individual voices and track them down, and Ben was picking up the trick quickly, almost as if he had been born to it.

Maybe I was
, he thought, unsure whether he was being resolute or wry.

One whisper, close by, felt familiar as his own voice. Ben opened his eyes and trotted toward it. His footsteps were muffled, as if he were surrounded by carpeted walls instead of empty space. Just ahead of him, the landscape changed. Rocks and hills came over the horizon, and Ben caught a whiff of hot, dry air. The sun appeared, a hard gold coin that radiated harsh heat. Sandy soil appeared a few steps away. Ben halted and reached out to touch the place with a mental finger.

~May I approach?~
he asked in the ritual greeting.

~Get in here,~
Kendi replied.

Ben took a step forward and braced himself. When two Silent met in the Dream, they had to decide between them whose mind would shape reality. Unless one Silent were willing to let go, the Dream would warp as both minds pulled at it, sending the landscape into a Dali spiral. The stronger mind would usually win out, but experience had an impact as well. Ben let out a deep breath and released his expectations. Another rush of Dream energy, and Kendi’s turf surrounded him on all sides. Sandy soil peppered with scrubby plant life stretched in all directions around him, and the sun continued to pour down liquid heat. It was the Australian Outback, or Kendi’s Dream interpretation thereof. Ben had never visited the real thing.

A high scream pierced the air overhead. Ben looked up, squinting against the sun. A winged speck described a circle in the clear blue sky. Ben became aware he was wearing nothing but a loincloth. Dream etiquette—the host dressed the visitor in whatever clothing was appropriate for the climate in the host’s turf, and the Real People wore little or nothing in the Outback.

The speck folded its wings and dove straight for Ben. He raised an arm. The little brown falcon pulled up just in time and landed gently on Ben’s bare forearm. Feathers brushed his skin and talons pricked without piercing. A real-world falcon would have laid him open to the bone, but this was the Dream.

“I thought you were kidding about the loincloth,” Ben said. “You’ve never put me one before.”

“Some people,” the falcon leered, “shouldn’t be allowed to wear clothes.”

“And if I get sunburned here, it’ll carry over into my solid body. You remember the term ‘psychosomatic carryover,’ don’t you?”

“I could whip up some sunscreen.”

“Kendi.”

“Oh, all right,” Kendi said, fluffing his feathers in a pretend pout. “Here.” Khaki trousers and a matching shirt grew down Ben’s body, and a pith helmet appeared on his head. Heavy boots encased his feet. The falcon, meanwhile, fluttered to the ground. The moment its talons touched earth, its form shimmered and shifted like muddy water and a kangaroo stood in its place. The animal had a pouch.

“Better?” the kangaroo asked.

“Much.” Ben took a deep breath of spicy desert air and looked around at Kendi’s Outback. The rocks and boulders cast razor-edged shadows. A group of small-leaved trees made a grove around a wide, muddy billabong that looked ideal for hiding crocodiles, though nothing stirred the water. No other animals were in evidence, and the air was devoid of birdsong. The place possessed a stark, primal beauty. “So what are we doing here, anyway?”

Kangaroo Kendi flopped down on the ground in an extravagant sprawl of fur and tail. “Relaxing. Getting the hell away from it all.”

Ben sat down next to the kangaroo. “Any luck with...”

“No,” Kendi said. “I’m still stuck in animal form. I’ll keep trying, but for now it’s kangas, koalas, and camels.”

Ben nodded and stroked the kangaroo’s soft, dusty fur. Before the Despair, Kendi had been one of the more powerful Silent in the Dream. The chief manifestation of his power had been an uncanny knack at tracking other people and the ability to create animals in the Dream. No Silent could create sentient creatures—creating and controlling such complicated reactions was too much for even the subconscious mind—but a few could handle lower life forms. Kendi had gone one step further. His animals had been shards of his own mind, separated from his main consciousness and possessing a certain amount of autonomy. Oddly, all his animals had been—were—female, though Ben had continued to think of Dream Kendi as “he.” The Despair had robbed Kendi of much of his power within the Dream, leaving him able to appear there only as Outback creatures and killing his ability to create independent animals. His tracking skills had also been dulled, but there were also far fewer people to track.

The sun continued to pour down, and suddenly Ben felt itchy and confined in his explorer’s outfit. “Let’s go swimming,” he said.

Kendi cocked an ear. “Swimming?”

“You know how, don’t you?”

“Depends on my shape.”

“So let’s go to the beach,” Ben said.

Kangaroo Kendi thought a moment. “You’re on.”

Ben felt the landscape around him shift and loosen as Kendi’s mind relaxed its hold. Ben reached out and touched the Dream.

The Outback vanished, leaving the flat plain and a puddle of muddy billabong water. Then the puddle expanded, gushing toward the horizon with the sound of a thousand rivers until it met a distant azure sky. White sand faded into existence beneath Ben’s boots. Palm trees grew toward a gentle sun, putting out leaves and coconuts like green fingers and brown knuckles. The ocean roiled and bubbled in its newness until Ben stretched a hand over it. It calmed at once, deepening to a perfect, clear blue. Ben’s explorer outfit melted away, replaced by bathing trunks, sandals, and a yellow gauze shirt.

“Nice,” Kendi said with admiration. “Though the palm trees look a little barmy.”

“I’ve only seen holos,” Ben apologized. “It’s not something I—”

The kangaroo bolted upright, ears pricked, nostrils flared. “What the hell?”

“What?” Ben twisted around, trying to see in all directions at once. “What’s wrong?”

Kendi remained motionless, a furry brown statue. “I thought I heard...something.”

Ben listened. “ll he could hear was his own breathing and the gentle lap of small waves on white sand. The usual murmur of Dream whispers formed a sussurant background. “I don’t hear a thing.”

Kendi listened a moment longer, then gave an oddly human shrug. “Guess I’m jumpier than I thought. Ha! I didn’t even mean the pun.”

“Let’s go in,” Ben said. “The water’s fine—I know.” He started to pull of his shirt, then caught himself. With a flick of his mind, it disappeared, along with his sandals. The soft, golden sun shone pleasantly warm on his bare shoulders, a marked contrast to Kendi’s harsh Outback. With a happy yell, Ben dove into the cool waters and swam several meters out before surfacing. He shook his head and flung water in all directions, treading furiously to keep himself afloat.

The beach was empty, the kangaroo gone. Ben shaded his eyes and kept kicking. What the hell? Where was—

Something bumped his legs from beneath. A stab of panic—

Shark!

—flashed through him before he could remind himself that there would be no sharks in the Dream unless Ben put them there. He was looking down, trying to see what it was, when a dolphin poked its head above the surface and blew water into Ben’s face. Ben spluttered and wiped his eyes.

“You bastard!” he said. “And since when can you do dolphins?”

“Since now,” Kendi chirped. “There are dolphins in the oceans around Australia. My subconscious is letting me count them as workable animal shapes, I guess. Or maybe I’m getting stronger in the Dream. This is
fun!
” He slipped backward into the water, then abruptly burst upward, arcing over Ben’s head and splashing down behind him. Ben laughed, and more of his tension eased.

“I don’t think dolphins are supposed to giggle,” he said when Kendi surfaced.

Kendi presented his dorsal fin. “Grab hold!”

Ben obeyed. The dolphin’s skin was smooth and cool. The moment he got a good grip, Kendi took off. Ben was flying through the water. The ocean washed over his body, sliding under and around him like a liquid lover.

Kendi dove. Ben barely had time to snatch a breath before they were underwater. Sound vanished, and blue depths sank into darkness beneath them. Ben held Kendi’s fin with strong hands, the same ones that had pulled Kendi back from deadly green depths barely an hour ago. Ben tried to push the memory away and only partly succeeded. He concentrated on the feel of Kendi’s muscles pumping smoothly up and down as his muscular tail propelled them forward. It was exhilarating—speed without sound. Normally speed meant rushing air and some kind of roaring motor, but down here it was all silent. Even the whispers were quiet.

~...~

Kendi stopped. Ben let go of him and hung in the water, paddling gently to keep from sinking. This time he had heard it. Down here, in the absolute silence, the sound had been clear. Faint, but clear. Ben couldn’t describe it, even to himself. It was the little pause before a speaker cleared his throat, a tiny intake of breath. He had never heard anything like it before. Kendi floated in the water beside him, and it was clear he had heard the same thing.

Ben’s lungs called for air, but he didn’t want to surface in case he missed the sound again. It occurred to him that he could create a mask and breathing collar for himself, but that would create bubbles and destroy the perfect silence.

You’re not really underwater, you know
, he told himself.
You don’t really need to breathe. This is the Dream, and you’re the son of the most powerful human the Dream has ever known.

Ben’s lungs were shouting now, and Kendi poked him with his snout, urging him to surface. Ben held up a hand. The fine red-gold hairs on his arm waved like kelp in the smooth water. Ben closed his eyes, concentrated.

The water is as good as air
, he thought.
I can breathe the water. I can breathe the water
now.