Nightmare

'Mom!' he protested. 'Geez.'

'Think of it as your room and board payment,' she told him, stepping back. 'How was school?'

'Fine.' He crunched a handful of crackers. 'You look tired. Something wrong?'

Ara hadn’t told him she was consulting with the Guardians, though she was pretty sure he’d heard about the murders. Almost everyone on Bellerophon had heard, despite the Guardians’ attempt to keep things quiet. She had been reluctant to mention it to him-no point in making him worry.

'I’m a little overworked,' she admitted. 'I need a break.'

'So what are we doing for Festival tonight?' Ben asked.

'I thought the usual,' she said. 'Dinner here, then down to the games and the fireworks.'

Ben made a face. 'Does that mean you’ve invited them?'

'Attention! Attention!' said the house computer. 'Incoming call for Mother Araceil Rymar.'

'Put it through to the office,' Ara replied as always, and left Ben to his crackers. In her office, the wall screen showed Sister Bren, one of the teachers at the monastery.

'I hate to bother you so close to Festival,' Bren said, 'but I wanted to talk to you about Kendi. He slipped out of class half an hour early today, and one of the other teachers saw him climbing down from a talltree a while later. I’ve also noticed him daydreaming a great deal during lessons. I’m afraid he’s shaping up to be a difficult one. Freed slave syndrome, I expect.'

Ara puffed out her cheeks in mute agreement. 'He shows a lot of the signs, doesn’t he? Just this morning he climbed onto the dorm roof and broke a gutter. Considering what he went through, though, I’m surprised it’s not a lot worse.'

'He doesn’t cause disruption in class,' Bren agreed. 'But he won’t pass history if he makes this a habit.'

'He has a lesson with me in a few minutes. I’ll talk to him then,' Ara promised. 'He’s going to need counseling, I think, but you know how touchy suggesting it can be, especially at that age.'

'Don’t I just. Look, I won’t write him up this time, but if he does it again, he’ll end up with extra work detail.'

Ara signed off with a grimace. Well, she should have been expecting it. Ex-slaves, especially young ones, tended to run in one of two directions-acting in or acting out. The ones who acted in stayed very quiet, tiptoeing around the monastery as if they were afraid of being noticed and sold back into servitude. Willa struck Ara as one of these. The ones who acted out went in the other direction, taking out suppressed rage and hidden fears on their teachers and fellow students. Jeren Drew was clearly one of these, and now Kendi seemed to be joining him. A precious few seemed to come through slavery relatively unscathed. Kite looked to fall into this category, but it was too early to know for sure. Maybe his strange speech was a symptom of a deeper issue.

In any case, Kendi was Ara’s special problem, since he had been assigned to Ara-at her request-for one-on- one instruction, making her a surrogate parent in many ways. Jeren, Kite, and Willa had all been matched with other teachers. Although it was certainly possible to take on more than one student at a time, the monastery frowned on the practice, especially when it came to teaching ex-slaves. It often helped a slave’s damaged self- esteem to know that the current teacher was focused on him or her alone.

A now-familiar clanking issued from behind Ben’s closed door. Ara knocked, then poked her head inside. Ben was pressed into a chair, shoving at a stack of weights with his legs.

'Your aunt and uncle are coming over for dinner,' she said. 'We’ll be eating late.'

'I figured,' Ben grunted, face red with exertion. 'Are the jerks coming too?'

Ara put her hands on her hips. 'I wish you would try to get along with your cousins. You don’t have any brothers or sisters, and it would be nice if-'

'The hell it would.' Clank. Clank.

'Watch your-oh, never mind.' There were some battles not worth fighting. 'Just wear something nice, and try to be polite. Clear?'

Ben shrugged, and Ara decided to take that for agreement.

'I have to go give a lesson,' she continued. 'I’ll be back in time to start supper.'

Clank. The weights stopped, and Ben wiped his face with his shirt, revealing a flash of pale, flat stomach. 'You’re not ordering out and telling everyone you made it? What happened-Maureen’s go out of business?'

'Ha ha. Just for that, wise guy, you can peel the shrimp for me.'

Kendi Weaver made a sound of exasperation and got up from the couch. 'It still doesn’t work.'

'Kendi, meditation and breathing exercises are very important,' Mother Ara explained patiently from her chair. Their voices were deadened by the soundproofed walls of the tiny, windowless meditation cubicle. 'You have to ready both mind and body. Otherwise you’ll never enter the Dream.'

'I’m not saying I shouldn’t meditate. I’m just saying I can’t do it lying down like that. It doesn’t feel right. I can’t concentrate.'

'Well, some Silent prefer leaning back or even-'

'I made this today.' Kendi reached under his couch and pulled out the short spear. He had skipped the rest of his morning classes to sand it, and the wood was smooth and solid in his hand. After helping the custodian repair the gutter, he had wheedled some red paint and a rubber tip out of her. The rubber was to cover the spear’s point.

'What is it?' Mother Ara asked.

'A meditation spear. The Real People use them to …commune with the Dreamtime. I’m willing to bet the Dream is really the same thing.'

Mother Ara cocked her head. 'Why do you-they-call themselves the Real People?'

'The Real People-Australian Aborigines-consider ourselves to be the original human race,' Kendi explained. 'My ancestors lived in the proper way, recognizing themselves as part of the world and universe around them, no more or less important than any other living thing. Mutants-other tribes of humans-try to separate themselves from the universe. They build houses and cars and ships. When that happens, they lose contact with each other and lose their connection with the Dreamtime. As a result, they fight and kill and enslave one another.'

As Kendi spoke, he realized that he was mostly parroting a lecture he had heard Neluuketelardin give many times. Back then, he had barely listened, wanted nothing more than to get out of the hot sun and go home. But now the words took on a new meaning. Kendi had fully experienced the contrast between Real People and mutant societies. Despite the boredom and harsh weather on walkabout, everyone in the group had watched out for everyone else and built a strong sense of community. Every single person had value, every single person counted the same as every other. A far cry from mutant slave auctions.

'What’s the Dreamtime, then?' Mother Ara asked.

'It’s kind of hard to describe,' Kendi said. 'Time and place have no meaning there. It’s the beginning of everything, of all things and all traditions. This world got started there and is sort of an extension of it. Lots of powerful creatures live in it, and the Real People can walk there. Or we could until the mutants destroyed our society. After a few generations, we forgot how to do it. We forgot how to do a lot of things.'

'So the Real People are Silent, then,' Mother Ara mused.

Kendi shrugged and sat down again, still holding the spear. 'Maybe. We were around a long time before Irfan Qasad genegineered people for it. Anyway, I can’t sit when I meditate. That’s not how we do it.'

'There are lots of ways to meditate, Kendi,' Mother Ara said. 'You can use any method you want as long as it works for you.'

'Then I want to try this.'

Mother Ara gestured at him to continue. Kendi got up. Around his wrist he wore the medical bracelet which monitored pulse rate, respiration, brainwave activity, and blood pressure. It was slaved to Mother Ara’s data pad so she could keep an eye on him with it. Kendi took a deep breath. He had spent a little time practicing his balance, but he wasn’t perfect yet. He bent his left knee and fitted the short spear under it like a peg-leg. The rubber tip kept the spear from skidding on the smooth floor. Then he held his hands over his groin. At first this had made him feel uncomfortable, but he had found it easier to keep his balance when his arms and hands weren’t allowed to dangle loosely. He was a bit wobbly, but steady enough, and it definitely felt better than lying down.

'Hm,' Mother Ara said. 'Well then-let’s try it. Do you want the drumming?'

'Yeah. The rhythm helps.'