Dark Genesis: The Birth of the Psi Corps (19 page)

“I said carry him. Carry.” Which she did, from there on out. If the fellow regained consciousness , he was smart enough not to reveal it this time. Fiona finished her bowl of rice and cast a longing glance at the one on the ground, a few feet from the unconscious man. She had, after all, carried him for almost ten kilometers. She had burned her calories and his, too. But that would be what they wanted, and she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction, even to fill her still-growling stomach. Instead she sighed and took a look at his wounds. None of the burns looked particularly serious. At her touch, though, he stirred and hesitantly opened his eyes. They focused on her, and for a moment he looked at her without recognition.

“Oh,” he mumbled. “You. Sorry.”

“You probably saved my life. No reason to be sorry for that.”

“Yes, but you had to carry me.” She shrugged. “What’s your name?”

“Fiona.”

“Irish name. Good name.”

“Hasn’t brought any luck with it that I can see.” She considered him for a moment. “On the other hand, maybe it has. I could be dead now. Been here long?”

“A few weeks, I think. Time flies when you’re having fun.” He held out his hand. “Stephen Walters.” She took it. His handshake was weak, the fingers still trembling .

“Nice to meet you, Stephen Walters. “

“And you? You just got here, right? I never saw you before last week.”

“I was here. They just had me in a hole.”

He managed a weak whistle.

“What did you do to deserve a hole?”

“I’ve no idea, but I’m going to try not to do it again.” She shifted on her haunches. “Better eat that. They’ll take up the bowls soon.”

“Thanks for saving it for me.” He lifted the bowl and began pawing the rice out, first gingerly, then with greater gusto.

“Where did they catch you?” she asked quietly.

“Angola, in the CAB. The Corps came in the same day they changed the laws. I thought I could slip past ‘em. I heard there was some sort of underground, but I didn’t have time to make the connection . You?”

“Not far from here, I think. Kuantan.” He seemed to expect a little more, but she left it at that. He finished his rice, and then glanced back at her.

“Maybe I should’ve gone to Psi Corps.” He sighed.

She bit off a harsh laugh.

“Well, it’s gotta be better than this.” She frowned. “Is this a recruitment speech?”

He snuffled out what may have been a chuckle and pushed himself , hissing, into a sitting position.

“Not hardly. That’s not my style either. Not that they would take me now, anyway. You, on the other hand-“

“Yes, you said something about that. What did you mean?”

“I was in another camp, somewhere in the CAB. We had a P12, guy named Tycho. They put him in a hole for a while-then the Psi Cops came and took him. Maybe that’s why they put you in a hole-to break you down, get you to join the Corps. That was my guess, anyway, and I saw your rating tattoo, and-“

“Not from where you were standing, you didn’t. The rating’s too small. How did you know?”

He flashed her a reluctant smile.

“I’ve been watching you, I guess.”

“Really?” Her voice sounded a trifle cold, and she was glad.

“Not-not what you think. I mean, you’ve got a nice face and a sweet smile, but that outfit has to go. And you could use more than a little cleaning up.”

“Look who’s talking. Look, vacbrain, I appreciate what you did, but-“

“Hey, hey. I’m just kidding. That’s not why I’ve been watching you. Well, maybe it’s what got my attention, but it’s not what kept it.”

“What then?”

“Fire, that’s what. You’ve got some real fire in you. Enough, maybe-maybe to …” He trailed off. “Never mind. Guards are coming anyway, and there may be teep-snitches out there. Some people’ll do anything for a little extra food, even sell out their own kind.”

She nodded.

“Yep. Well. Be seeing you around, Stephen Walters.”

“Abacus.”

Over the next few days, as they cut ditches to flood several new paddies, she began to feel stronger. The viscous, clinging heat of the Malaysian day was no stranger to her, and her muscles were finally adjusting to being used again. She saw Steve for a few minutes each day, but they mostly just exchanged pleasantries. She searched more for Matthew, but if he was out there, he wasn’t letting on. She held on to the images-the sunrise, the house where he grew up, the beach at Santa Cruz. None of it real, of course, and yet somehow more real than what she was going through now. Monkey was dead. She had tried not to think about it in the hole, but it had come at her in nightmares. Back out here, in the world where he died, she could no longer deny it. He had gone out like she always knew he would, in a big fat blaze of glory. She hated him for it. More, she hated herself, because it had been her fault. She had led them there.

She jammed her shovel into the ground. My fault. My fault. My fault. A thousand spades of dirt like that. She could fill the world and it would still be true. Sweat stung her eyes, but not tears. Two days later she burst out laughing, because “my fault my fault my fault” had somehow become maaf farad, Malay for “forgiveness heart.” Just the kind of stupid pun Monkey would have loved to make. For that matter, it could be mrzya faud, “illusory heart”; or, better, mawa faud, “monkey heart”; or mawa foti, “monkey photograph” … Now she was crying, but the tears held something of joy in them.

What would her grandpa Monkey say? “Fine, you feel guilty. Makes you feel all moral, right? Kid, there’s nothin’ less moral than guilt. You screwed up? Okay. You want to do something about it or just shoot yourself in the head? Because for a thinking being, there are no other choices.”

She came to with cold water on her face, thinking that there seemed to be a damn lot of coming to in concentration camps. She opened her eyes to Stephen’s grey ones.

“Water break,” he said. “You went out, but I don’t think anyone noticed. The heat?”

“No. Epiphonic shock.”

He blinked.

“You say the damndest things, sometimes.”

“So do you. What did you mean about me having fire the other day?”

“‘This isn’t a good time-“

“Because if you mean you want help getting out of here, let’s do it.”

He grinned. “Now?”

“Now.”

The grin faded.

“You’re serious.”

“Yep.”

He gave her the water cup.

“Okay. We’ll talk tonight.”

They left the food line, moving toward the village “square.” The camp was an old kampung village-tin and concrete buildings , a few old-style houses up on stilts. Beyond that were the fences, … three rows of them, stunfences with concertina wire strung along the top. There were supposed to be mines in between.

“I do have a plan,” Stephen said. “But I figured-“

“You need a P12 to do it.”

“You aren’t scanning me, are you?”

“You’d know. No, it’s just obvious.”

He shook his head.

“No. You’ve got what it takes to escape, and most of these don’t, sorry to say. I need a P12-1 need someone like you even more.”

“I’m listening.”

“Just be ready. Stay on your toes. You’ll know when the time comes.”

CHAPTER 6

Ambassador Vitari grinned his sharp-toothed grin and took a drink of the Evan Williams. He made a face.

“Director, that is a most unfortunate substance.”

Kevin nodded.

“An old friend of mine used to favor it. I don’t drink, myself.”

“I am sorry to hear that. Is it serious, this medical condition? It sounds quite serious to me, not being able to drink.”

“It’s a matter of perspective, I suppose.” He watched as the Centauri downed the rest of the drink, his backswept hair briefly replaced by his several chins. Vitari’s face was somewhat less contorted when it reappeared.

“I begin to warm to it,” he allowed. “Now, then. You wished to speak about telepaths. Nasty creatures, I think. Always at your back, you know, helping your enemies to plot your downfall. Still, a great house cannot hope to succeed without at least a few. And the women can do quite interesting things when they put their minds to it.” He cackled, slapping Kevin’s shoulder. “Did you hear what I said? Put their minds to it.”

“That’s very funny, Ambassador.” He tried to sound as if he really meant it, but that sort of thing had never really been his forte. It didn’t seem to matter. The Centauri, still delighted by his own remark, was pouring himself a full snifter of the bourbon.

“Yes, telepaths,” he mused. “What is it you want to know?”

“Well. Ambassador-I was wondering if you can tell me something of the history of telepaths in the Centaurum. Have you always had them?”

“Aha! You ask a very interesting question. The answer, of course, is no. When we were less evolved as a race, no significant part of our population was telepathic.”

‘They are the product of evolution then?”

“Not as such. They are an indicator of evolution. I will tell you a peculiar thing, Director. It is a little known-but not particularly secret-fact that all of the more advanced races have telepaths. The lower ones do not. And so, in the not too distant past, it occurred to us to wonder why this might be so. And do you know something?” He sloshed a little of the bourbon from the overfilled glass, gesturing obscurely. “We found a sort of marker in the DNA of telepaths, quite remarkably the same among the various higher races. Now, you understand, of course, I mean among races that evolved from quite different sorts of creatures.”

Kevin blinked, but otherwise did not show his surprise.

“That’s interesting,” he said. “I wonder that I’ve never heard that.”

“I presume because you’ve never asked, Director.”

“What do you make of this peculiarity, Ambassador?”

“Well, it’s quite obvious, isn’t it”’

“Not to me.”

“As I said, it’s a sign of favor-from the Great Maker or the gods if you wish, or the universe itself if you don’t. Once a race reaches a certain point in its evolution, telepaths inevitably appear. It is a law of the universe!” He emphasized this by half draining the glass.

“Is there any proof for this-spontaneous process?”

“Proof, proof. Always you Human people desire proof. The Nam have no telepaths! That is proof enough! Nam are a primitive , underevolved, childlike race. What further proof do you need?”

“I understood that the Nam once had telepaths.”

“Yes, I’m sure. And your Earth-dogs once had wings and built amazing statues of glass bricks on mountaintops and destroyed them all to the last molecule of silica that you should never, never know. Director, the Nam will say anything to create the impression that they are anything other than what they aresemisapients who are happiest when laboring for their betters. I give their so-called civilization another decade on its own before the inertia of the Centauri presence among them dissipates itself. Then they will beg to have us back. So you see? The Nam have no telepaths. They are not evolved enough to have them. What further proof do you need of my thesis?”

“None, I suppose.”

“Now you sound skeptical, Director. What hypothesis do you propose, eh?”

“I have no hypothesis, Ambassador-“

“Come. You have something on your mind. Please, tell me.”

Kevin frowned. How far did he want to go with this? But the Centauri, despite some rather-exaggerated-claims in the past, had known other races for a long time. This one was drunk, and from what he could tell, only partially believed what he was saying about telepaths.

“Suppose … Is it possible that some more ancient spacefaring race might have-tinkered-with all of our evolutions?”

A brief look of displeasure crossed the Centauri’s face, an indefinable sense of some unsettling emotion that lay behind it. Then the alien bared his teeth in simulated humor.

“Director. As well ask if the fairies from your folktales were responsible. We Centauri are the oldest, most evolved race in the galaxy. There are, perhaps, a few others who approach us in age, but none who surpass us. I’m aware that some rather unpleasant incident occurred because of a paranoid belief that we had somehow saddled your people with telepaths. Surely you are not bringing this up again, now that it has all finally quieted down?”

“No, Ambassador,” Kevin replied. “That would be a terrible mistake, and I thank you for pointing it out to me. It was only, after all, an idle thought.”

“Well, idle thoughts are better than none at all, Director, so long as we learn not to speak them.” He patted his hand upon Kevin’s. “I will see to it that all of our information on telepaths reaches your hands, Director.”

“That would be most kind.”

Natasha Alexander was waiting in the hall outside. He shook his head, a silent no.

“Do we proceed to Yucatan then, sir?”

“Yes. And Ms. Alexander-“

“Sir?”

“I’m going with you. I’ve seen to the arrangements.” The daylight behind them had thinned to a pearly film, and the darkness ahead exhaled a peculiar scent, resiny, pinelike.

“What is that?” Kevin asked their guide, a spindly little man named Roberto.

“Copal,” he said. “It’s what they burn to please God.”

“It comes from a tree,” Natasha added. “Legend says that, once, the lords of death craved human hearts, but the hero twins tricked them into feeding on the smoke of copal, instead.”

Kevin nodded absently. He was remembering a time when he was very young, before his mother died. When they lived in the ancient, sprawling Zuni pueblo, filled with the scent of sage burning , of pinon crackling in the horno ovens. The clarity of the memory startled him. It had been a very long time since he had thought about that time in his life.

“Did Blood ever come here? Your great-grandmother?”

Natasha shook her head.

“I don’t think so. She didn’t believe in this stuff.”

Kevin nodded to the Psi Cops with them.

“I think it’s time for the torches,” he told them.

Harsh electric light flooded the cave, and now he could see the faint curls of smoke, the faded paintings on the walls. He made out a creature with the body of a man but the head of a crawfish, something that might have been a serpent, rows of glyphs he recognized as Mayan writing. The rest was patchier-a hand here, part of a headdress there, a goggling eye that did not look remotely Human. He wondered how old the paintings were-if they dated to pre-Columbian times or if they were the product of more recent cultists.