Salene's Secrets (44 page)

“We can choose?” Mali asked.

“Yes honey, you can choose.  We don’t get to choose a lot of the things that happen to us, like your parents dying when you were so young, or what happened to your grandfather, or the kind of person Lei was and the things she did to you.  Those things hurt us, or make us angry, or sad, and we don’t really get to choose that, either.  But after you’ve cried or yelled or stomped your feet, whatever it is you need to do to express your feelings and get them out, then it’s up to you to choose what comes next.  What is it you want, Mali?  Happiness, or hate?”

“I want to be happy,” Mali said, not stopping to think for once.  “I have a Mom now and I never had that before and it makes me happy and I
like
feeling happy.  I don’t want to be mad or scared anymore and I don’t want to be like Aunt Lei,
ever
.”

“How about you, Tab?  Do you want to be happy?” 

Tab grinned, patted her on the face and then clapped his hands again while nodding enthusiastically.  “What smart children I have,” Salene said, beaming down at him.  “You make such good choices!”

“Brilliant children,” Talus said, earning surprised looks from the three of them.  “Not just smart,
brilliant
.  And breakfast is ready for whoever’s hungry.”

“I’m hungry,” Mali said, giving him a tentative smile while Tab clapped his hands again and bounced up and down on Salene’s leg.  Mali glanced at him for a moment, then looked back at Talus, lifting her chin just a little at her own daring while at the same time squeezing Salene’s hand very tightly.  “Tab’s hungry too, and he wants to sit with the boys.”

“Well then come on over here, Tab,” Talus said happily.  “The boys would love to have you.”  Tab patted Salene on the cheek one last time, then got up and toddled over to Talus where he plopped down in his lap with a gleeful grin and shining eyes. 

Salene smiled at Mali when she released the pressure on her hand, then gave her a gentle squeeze back.  “I’m so proud of you, honey.”

“You are?” Mali asked, her eyes round with surprise. 

“Oh yes,” Salene said, hugging her again.  “I’m
very
proud of you.”

“Thank you,” Mali said, returning the hug.  Then she leaned back and grinned up at Salene.  “I’m proud of you, too, Mom.”

“Thank you,” Salene said.  “I think we should get some breakfast now before the boys eat all of it.”

A few minutes later everyone was sitting around the fire eating.  Mali sat beside Salene, and Tab sat on Talus’s lap, happily scarfing up scrambled eggs with bacon.  When they were about half way through, Salene decided to try approaching the subject of Mali’s psychic talent again. 

“Mali, when Tab talks to you, do you hear a voice in your mind?”

Mali didn’t even hesitate, proving to Salene that the girl took her words to heart.  She’d said it wasn’t bad, and Mali was trusting her.  “No, I don’t hear a voice like when Tonka talks,” she said thoughtfully.  “The words are just there, in my mind, and I know it’s from him.”

“Do you feel his emotions?” Salene asked.  “If he’s scared, do you feel that?”

Mali nodded.  “Yes, I feel it.  It feels different from when I’m scared myself, but almost the same.”  She paused, frowning.  “I’m not good at explaining.”

“You’re very good at explaining,” Salene said.  “Psychic abilities aren’t easy to explain for anyone who has them.  Do you mind my questions?”

“No,” Mali said, shaking her head before taking a bite of her eggs.

“Good,” Salene said.  “Can you hear other people that way?  Or is it just Tab?”

“Sometimes I can hear other people,” Mali said.  “Feelings are easier.  I felt Au…,” she paused.  “Do I have to call her
aunt
Lei?”

“No, honey, you don’t,” Salene replied. 

“Thank you,” Mali said.  “I felt
her
feelings a lot so I know she didn’t mean the things she said in front of other people.  I could feel Grandfather’s feelings sometimes if he was very sad or very angry.  But nobody as good as Tab.”

“That makes sense,” Salene said.  “You were so young, barely more than a baby yourself when you started taking care of him.  Your ability to feel and hear him was practically a necessity.”

“When you get older, your ability will probably get stronger,” Talus said, venturing into the conversation carefully.  He wanted Mali to become more comfortable with them, and that wouldn’t happen if she didn’t get to know them a little.

“It will?” Mali asked in surprise.

“Most of the time that’s what happens, yes,” Talus said, pleased at her response to him.  “It helps if you work at it.”

“Work at it how?”

“By practicing,” Talus said.  “You can hear Tab when he talks to you, so if you encourage him to talk to you more, you can get more practice hearing him.  Can you talk to him in his mind, too?”

“No,” Mali said.  “We tried lots of times cause
she
always got mad when we made noise, even if I was whispering to Tab.  But he can’t hear me.”  Mali’s eyes went to Tab who was now staring at her.  It was clear to everyone that he was telling her something, but they waited patiently and didn’t interrupt until Salene saw Mali’s face grow sad.

“What’s the matter, honey?” Salene asked quietly.

“Tab wants to know if he’ll ever get to talk to people himself.”

“In one way or another, yes,” Talus said, surprising both children. 

“Really?” Mali asked.  “How?”

“Yes, really,” Talus replied.  “
How
is a much harder question to answer because we don’t yet know why he can’t talk.  When we get home we’ll have a good friend of ours, Doc, take a look and find out.  If it’s something that can be fixed, then we’ll get it fixed and he’ll be able to talk like we do.  If it’s something that can’t be fixed, there are other options that will allow him to either talk, or to communicate without having to talk.”

“Like what?” Mali asked, so fascinated that she’d forgotten her food.

Jon looked at Talus, who nodded, so he turned toward Mali, mentally crossed his fingers in hopes that she wouldn’t retreat from him, and answered her question.  “There’s something called sign language that’s used universally by people who have hearing or speech problems,” he said.  “You use your hands and fingers to make signs and signals for words.” 

Mali frowned, shaking her head.  “I don’t understand.  How can you talk with your hands?”

Jon smiled, then held his hand up, palm toward Mali.  “Tell me what you think this means, Mali.”

“Stop,” she said.

Jon lowered his hand, then placed a finger to his lips and arched his brows at her.  “Be quiet,” she said, smiling happily.  “I get it.”  She frowned again.  “How would he tell someone his name, though?  Or where he lives?”

“There’s one sign for each letter of the Standard alphabet.  He’d use those signs to spell out words that don’t have signs of their own.”

“We don’t know how to read,” Mali said worriedly.

“You will,” Salene said. 

“We get to learn how to read?” Mali asked, her eyes wide.

“Of course, honey,” Salene said, smiling.  “You’ll learn to read, and write, and all the other things they teach in school.”

“Wow,” Mali said softly.  “Grandfather told us about school sometimes.  He said when he was a little boy he went to school, and he was sad that we couldn’t go to school, too.”  She took a bite of her breakfast, then looked up at Jon again.  “Talus said there were other ways for Tab to talk.  What are they?”

“Well, there are voice synthesizers, little things that can give him a substitute voice,” Jon said.  “There are also computer translators, and cerebro-syntactic implants.  I’m sure there are lots of things I don’t know about, but different things work for different people.  A doctor will tell us which things will work for Tab, and then we’ll all discuss it and help him decide what’s best for him.”

Tab’s eyes hadn’t left Jon, though Salene wasn’t sure how much of what he said was understood.  When Jon was finished speaking Tab held his plate up until Talus took it from him.  Then he got to his feet, walked over to Jon and gave him a hug.  Jon was startled to tears as he carefully wrapped his arms around the tiny boy and hugged him back. 

***

After breakfast they packed up and set out, making much better time than they had the day before since the closer they got to the bottom of the mountain, the less snow they had to deal with.  They reached the flatlands well before mid-morning, sooner than Tonka had predicted.  Even though the ground was wet and a little slippery, the lack of snow made it much easier to keep up a brisk pace.  It was late in the afternoon when Jon’s hand terminal began to beep softly.  He removed it from his belt and accessed the incoming message from the
Aegl
.  “Damn,” he muttered, then looked up to see everyone watching him.  He looked at Mali and Tab, wishing they didn’t have to hear this, but there was no sense in trying to keep it from them.

“Captain Royce is tracking a small spaceplane.  He can’t identify it save to say that based on its small size and high speed it’s probably a fighter.  It’s headed directly toward our position.  ETA:  thirty minutes.”

“How’s it tracking us?” Talus asked. 

“He doesn’t know,” Jon said, looking back down at the message. 

“How is the
Aegl
tracking us?” Salene asked.

“Via secure, encrypted signal that looks like background noise to anyone who doesn’t have the encryption key,” Jon said.  Salene looked at Mali and saw the fear in her eyes though she was trying her best to hide it.  She walked over to Tonka and reached up to hug both children. 

“Don’t worry, we’ll be all right.”

“Will you burn it with your eyes again?” Mali asked. 

“If I have to, yes.  I’ll do whatever I have to do to keep both of you safe.” 

Mali’s relief was palpable.  “What should we do?”

“Do you remember how to turn on the camo in your suit?”

“Yes,” Mali said, one hand going to the pocket in the middle of her chest. 

“Good girl,” Salene said.  “If any one of us asks you to turn it on, do it right away, and turn on Tab’s too.”

“Should I turn them on now?”

“No, honey, not yet,” Salene said.  “There’s no danger right now and we don’t want to waste the batteries.  Just be ready.  And don’t worry.  We won’t let anything happen to either of you again.”

“Okay,” Mali said, one arm tightening just a little around Tab. 

“Tonka,” Talus said after scanning their surroundings and finding nothing but rain flattened grass and a few bare trees in the distance, “you know the area.  We need to find shelter, and we need to be able to reach it in less than thirty minutes.”

“I thought they couldn’t find us with this fabric,”
Tonka said.

“They can’t pick up our body heat,” Talus said.  “But there are other ways to spot people.  Motion detection is the one thing I’m most concerned about at the moment--it’s a nearly universal technology and it’s very difficult to defeat.  Then there’s tachyon emission spectroscopy which reads our material composition and that of everything we’re carrying--so whoever scans us with it will know you’re a Brun, and that we’re humanoids carrying provisions and survival gear.  It shows a lot of detail, but it’s blocked by as little as a half inch of any dense material, like stone or refined metal.”

Tonka lowered his head as he thought frantically, trying to think of a place they could reach in the limited time they had.  There were many places he could have hidden if he’d been alone, but he wasn’t alone.  Only one place came to mind, but he wasn’t sure it was possible to reach it.  Since he couldn’t think of anything else, he decided to mention it. 
“There is a place that I could reach if I were able to run, but I don’t know if it’s possible for all of us to get there in the time you mentioned.”

“Tell us about this place,” Talus said.

“There’s a river that has a grove of trees on this side.  On the other side is a solitary tree that’s bigger than the others, and so old it’s as if it’s made of stone.  The trunk is hollow, but from a distance you can’t see that.  It just looks dead.  We can hide inside of it.”

“All of us?” Salene asked doubtfully.

“Yes, all of us,”
Tonka said
.  “It’s quite large.  Oberto and I stayed in it once, but it was difficult for him to cross the river because it’s so wide there, so we didn’t use it again.”

“Maybe you and Jon or Kar should shift, then fly the children there,” Salene suggested.  “Jinjie can go with you, and Tonka and I can run.”

“We will not leave you,” Talus said, his tone brooking no argument. 

“Me not do be leaving Princess Salene,” Jinjie said flatly.

“You could carry Salene as well,”
Tonka suggested. 
“I can run quite fast on my own, but the children would not fare well if I did so with them on my back.”

“It do be not good to shift,” Jinjie objected.  “Gryphon alter forms do be having no heat suits.  If they do be searching this area they do be spotting you fast.”