Mutant Star (23 page)

Flash!

He was watching as two of his boyhood friends crept up upon the mayor’s calèche. In the shadows of dusk they floated easily behind the carriage, removing the brass fittings and ornaments. Later, these boyish pranks gave way to serious theft, and more than one of his friends was killed in attempts to steal from the grand houses of the town.

Flash!

He was sitting at a table with ten others while an eleventh kept watch by the door of the cabin. In whispers, they conducted a ceremony in which hands were grasped, minds were linked, and a Book Keeper was elected to keep the history of their people.

Flash!

He was walking into a voting booth and pressing the lever beside the name of Eleanor Jacobsen. He saw her that evening acknowledging her election as the first mutant senator in the history of the United States of America. And then he watched, with horror, as a man shot her down and a crowd of people screamed. But another took her place. And another.

Flash!

Rick was sitting at the side of a trail in a redwood forest, alone, and yet not alone. His mind reached out to touch the thoughts and emotions of nearby hikers, and while still connected to them he ranged wider into the closest city, where he linked with the inhabitants there, and beyond that, throughout the state, across the country, around the world, building webs of contact in ever widening circles. Gathering all, male and female, mutant and non, in tender mental embrace. He reached out, and up, into space, to the fairy-tale platforms and spinning man-made satellites, to the cold and cratered surface of the Moon, into Moonstation and beyond, onward to red Mars and the lonely inhabitants of Marsbase.

You are not alone
, he thought.
Never again.

Rick stretched further, flowing, completing the enormous circuit inside and outside himself, returning continuously to the source and then spinning outward once again.

He felt vibrant and strong, elated and unafraid.

Flash!

He sank deeper into the radiant void. Colors flashed and popped, almost sizzling with life. Silver, blue, green, gold, orange, yellow, then gold and silver, gold and black, golden eyes staring, staring at him, at them, hundreds, thousands, glinting like jewels, relentless, demanding, unblinking mutant eyes.

A crowd of mutants, somber, dressed in dark colors, were staring at him. Each wore a sparkling pendant—a golden circle in which a smaller circlet had been set. Within that smaller circle was the old-fashioned mutant unity symbol—the eye surrounded by hands grasped in fellowship. Rick remembered seeing old Charmat wearing one at a Council meeting, years ago. But these were different.

The crowd shifted, arms raising to point accusingly at him.

We have been waiting.

The voice was deep and resonant, spanning octaves, the combination of a hundred, a thousand voices. It stretched along the centuries, echoing, demanding. Rick wanted to cover his ears, his eyes. But he felt compelled to keep watching.

All waiting ends.

And the crowd smiled in unison. A sea of mouths, of sharp, white teeth. Rick felt himself pitching forward into those grasping hands, those dangerous teeth. He would be torn apart, consumed. No, no, no.

He felt a hand on his shoulder.

Julian.

His brother, yes. But oddly transformed, larger, eyes glowing with weird light. Smiling the way that crowd of strange fanatics was, all lips and teeth. Julian mind-spoke him again.

Don’t be afraid. Nothing will harm you.

“Julian, what are you talking about? Where’d you get that robe?”

Julian’s answer was lost as the crowd began a rhythmic chant: “We will summon the joy of the circle. We will summon the joy of the circle.”

Their golden circlets gleamed. Hands formed arches.

“The circle,” they cried. “The circle.”

They pursued him down the cold stone streets, voices ringing, faces blank and terrible.

And at the head of the crowd was Alanna. She had the same intent, abstracted expression on her face as the others. The same horrid smile.

Rick tried to stay ahead of them, moving faster, faster, until he was running, pounding down the pavement, gasping for air, the mob right behind him. Just when he thought they’d catch him, he turned a corner, darted into a doorway, down a long alley, and out onto the street. The mob had vanished.

He had left the strange city behind. Here were familiar blond hills topped by green oaks, neat houses, and well-manicured yards. In the distance he saw the gentle curve of blue water, the spires of bright buildings glittering whenever sunlight broke through the fog. He knew this place. Berkeley. The campus was serene, untouched by earthquake. The town was in its perpetual half spring, the morning fog draining color from the foliage and houses, muffling sounds, leaving condensation beading the long, gray-green leaves of eucalyptus trees. The cool air felt good. Rick walked down Hearst Street until he reached Oxford and turned right, away from campus. The houses were smaller here, dating back a hundred years or more. The yards were filled with pink-flowered fruit trees and early wisteria sending up white and purple blooms.

He turned and walked toward University Avenue. At the corner of University and Shattuck, he paused. Around him, all around him, were people hurrying by, caught up in their own concerns, heads down, eyes averted. Busy. Giggling students, grim-faced professors in blue university-issue stretch suits, hustlers and beggars, lawyers on their lunch hours. One moment, they were anonymous and unknown. Then an opening, the subtle vibration that signaled the parting of veils, of defenses, and they were strangers no more. Every quirk, every human fallacy, every hope and fear, were open to him, as readable as a line on a screen.

That old woman in the green sack suit over there still mourned her son, dead twenty years. This middle-aged, scholarly-looking man worried about attaining tenure, this woman wondered what had become of her childhood sweetheart, this pimply-faced teenager was afraid that he’d never be able to find a place in the world, that he would always be alone.

But their fears were all the same. Rick gasped at the thought. An old woman walking past him drew herself deeper into the safety of her coat and hurried away. He looked around, fascinated. These people, distinct in the privacy of their obsessive fretting, were nevertheless drenched with commonality of concern, of emotion. Their many voices joined in a strange mental harmony that he could hear: dissonant, so many varying keys, but harmonic just the same—the thousand upon thousand nuances of personal tone moving up the scale and down, the notes blurring here and there in a rousing chorus, a symphony of humanity. All were alone, and none were alone. He could see this where they could not. He could move between and among them. Witness their triumphs, their pains, their fears. Their unique and unifying humanity. He could love them, yes. He could love them, for a moment.

He wanted to grab the guy eating a choba roll on the corner and hug him. And the small blond woman over there with her two-year-old daughter standing in the doorway of the university day-care center. And the thin man in the low-g wheelchair. To grab hands and blurt out what he knew—what they all could know. To ease their pain. Yes. Do it. Do it.

He was shaking with exultation and fear. He reached out eager arms to the nearest stranger. But his hands weren’t steady. His entire body was vibrating. The scene disintegrated. He was lying on his back looking up at the ceiling. Ethan Hawkins was holding his shoulder, shaking him. Alanna stood behind him, pale-faced. And in the corner of the room, a strange woman with golden eyes and a cloud of white hair smiled at him strangely.

“Rick, can you hear me?” Hawkins said. “Are you all right?”

“Fine.” He sat up slowly. “Fine, Colonel. In fact, I feel better than that. I feel bloody damn wonderful.”

.

******************

11

“Mrs. Akimura? My name is Rita Saiken.”

A tall woman in blue healer’s garb stood in the doorway of Melanie’s office. Melanie hit the pause button on her editing screen. The image froze: a thin, black-haired woman in purple body paint, suspended midair, midleap.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” she said. “I’m right in the middle of cutting a tape.”

“This concerns your son.”

“Julian? I just spoke to him. He’s fine.”

“The other.”

“You know where Rick is?” Melanie’s eyebrows shot upward. “Julian thought he might have signed on with the merchant shuttle corps.”

“He is in space. On Ethan Hawkins’s Pavilion.”

“But when I called, Hawkins said he hadn’t seen him.” Melanie gave her a suspicious look. “How do you know this?”

“One of my sisters tended him there.”

“Rick was hurt?”

“He’s fine now,” the healer said. “Apparently he overextended his new talents.”

Melanie leaned toward her. “It’s true then? He’s become a functional mutant?”

“Yes. Your son is quite an unusual multitalent.”

“That isn’t exactly easy for me to believe.”

Saiken’s expression was faintly condescending. “We’ve done a full tissue analysis and partial mental probe. As far as we can tell, he is unique. You, of course, are a full null.” The healer’s voice was flat, dismissive. “On the other hand, his father is fully operant. You understand that we’re anxious to study this thoroughly. I hope both biological parents will cooperate. The father’s genes must have specific qualities that when coupled with yours created this delayed operancy in your son. Possibly the null state is merely a latency period that when combined with certain aspects …”

“His father?” Melanie’s heart pounded. “You mean you know who the biological father is? I thought those records were lost years ago.”

Saiken’s smile grew deeper. “Yes, of course they were. But now we’ve run enough tests and blood analyses to be fairly certain of the match.”

“My God. I never thought I’d have to face this.” Melanie leaned back in her chair and turned away from the healer.

“May I?” Saiken brandished a memory cube.

Numbly, Melanie took it and inserted it into her deskscreen.

“See? Here and here, the genetic maps are almost identical.”

An orange file marked Rick Akimura took up the left side of the screen. In the middle was a sandwich of genetic charts, nearly twinned. And on the right was a green chart. The name atop it was one she knew all too well.

Melanie stared in disbelief. No. It couldn’t be.

“Skerry?”

No, no. Impossible.

Strange, volatile Skerry the father of Rick and Julian? The walls seemed to dance in and out around Melanie. She felt strange, giddy, even dizzy.
Rick was Skerry’s son. And he was in love with Alanna. His sister.

“There must be some mistake,” Melanie said. Her voice sounded faint and unfamiliar, as though someone else had spoken.

“No mistake,” Saiken said. “We’ll notify the father next.”

“Wait,” Melanie said. “You can’t do that!”

“He has a right to know. And we’d like a fresh tissue sample from him as well.”

“Please. Let me do it. I’ll tell him.”

“But the tissue sample. It’s crucial for complete identification purposes. We can’t begin to understand a genetic phenomenon of this magnitude unless we’re absolutely certain who the parents are. And of course we’ll need to test Rick, too. At our facilities, preferably.” Saiken smiled at her oddly.

“I’ll talk to him. Ask him to see you. He’ll listen to me.

“That would be best.” The healer rose. “Well, then, I leave it to you.”

Melanie heard the door close. She was alone in her office. Slowly, with shaking hands, she reached for her intercom.

“No calls, Jeannine. No calls. For the rest of the day.”

***

Yosh looked across the table at his wife, shock numbing him.

“I know this is hard,” Melanie said. Her eyes were glassy. “I’m sorry. I hate telling you.”

Yosh tried to pretend that nothing had changed. There she sat in the warm crylight of their kitchen, chic in her red silk, his wife of almost thirty years. Her words chilled him to his soul.

His sons were Skerry’s children.

It couldn’t be, could it?

To his surprise and dismay he felt anger, jealousy, every atavistic emotion he could name. If Yosh had been asked to translate these feelings into music, he would have created a score filled with crashing chords and high, atonal screeches: Schoenberg meets Wagner. Akimura’s Folly, the new symphony.

“Are you sure?”

“You’ve asked me that three times,” Melanie said. Her face was pale but composed. She sipped meditatively from a self-heating flask of sake. From time to time she pressed two fingers against the opalescent biofeedback pendant pulsing at her throat. Composure maintenance—Mel was so good at that. Yosh had teased her in the past about her “talismans against anxiety.” Now he envied them.

“Is Skerry going to be told about this?”