'Damn,' Mischa said. 'Damn you, you're so crazy. Why do you let me hurt you? How can you—'
This time he stopped her; he reached out, slowly, and she fell silent. 'How did he feel when he died? What did he think of?'
She tried to re-create the scene so she could answer. 'He didn't think of anything. I thought he was afraid, but that was me. He was tired, and he was calm. His mind started breaking. Or tearing. In pieces, again and again, until the pieces were too small to be part of him anymore.' The memories were very strong.
'Maybe it's true.'
'What?'
'Oblivion after death. Nirvana. I never understood exactly what it was. I always thought there must be some awareness of condition. Even if it wasn't self-awareness.'
'There's supposed to be something after,' Mischa said. 'All the crazies say so, the ones who think about it. I never thought I wanted to believe any of that before.'
'Neither did I.' He unclenched his fingers. In the blue light, his palm looked black.
Mischa cupped his hand in hers, then untied the newly bloodied bandages. She wondered if she had solved anything by telling Jan what she thought had happened. He seemed to understand much better than she did herself; or he was making himself believe he did, in self-protection. She almost wished she had lied. 'I'm sorry.'
'You don't have to be sorry, for anything. After. my friend died, I had to break with Subtwo. You speeded it up, or you slowed it down. This'—he lifted his hand, and Mischa knew he meant much more than his wounds—'all this was an accident.'
Mischa rebandaged the deep cuts roughly. 'You talk like nothing was ever anybody's fault.'
'I don't think it is, the way you mean it. Not when another person can make decisions too.'
Jan Hikaru's Journal:
Since I came to, my body has wanted little more than rest, though I find it difficult to sleep. Whatever incredible crystal garbage dump it was I fell through, the chemicals have affected me. First it was a fever that only I could feel, then a chill I did not notice until I regained consciousness, warmed on one side by Simon, on the other by Mischa, to overcome the hypothermia. When they took the glass out of my back, they could not get all the smallest pieces, the bits the size of grains of sand, or I would have bled to death. What's left is dissolving gradually, in quick flashes like showers of electric sparks. Unpredictably.
It might be only the interminable darkness that's so depressing; it might be that I tried to understand and accept what Mischa told me, and couldn't, except in the most superficial way. Is it 'understanding' to realize that other people have used up their lives trying to explain what one philosophy or another said about death, and life?
And I'm homesick. I miss Koen. Green grass, sunlight, thunder, rain. I'd even be glad to see Ichiri, fraudulent old man that he is.
Once Mischa knew Jan would live, she did not stay with him so much. He slept most of the time, and watching him sleep made her want to cry. The peace in his face was interrupted by his wounds, by his dreams, so when he slept, she would go away; but she did not stay away long.
She explored the nearby tunnels with Crab, who knew most of them well. Though he was very strong and could move with great speed for a short time, he had little endurance. His deformities pained him under extended physical stress. So they did not go too far, and they rested often. After a while they communicated quite well. Beyond Mischa's gratitude for Crab's having saved her mind, and her life and Jan's as well, beyond Crab's joy at having someone who could understand him, they became good friends.
Once, dirty and tired, returning slowly from an unusually distant place, they came on Val sitting alone by the edge of a small rivulet. Crab scuttled stiffly toward her. Mischa had not seen her for several days. She was bloody and grim, and the body of a cave panther lay beside her on the bank.
'Val, what happened? Are you all right?'
'Yes.'
Mischa sat on her heels and touched the panther's side, where the ribs showed sharp beneath dark, soft skin.
Val dipped her hand in the water and scrubbed at the dried blood clotting her short soft fur. 'I hate to kill them. We have to, sometimes. They come in during the storms, and there isn't enough for them to eat. They get dangerous.'
Mischa had never been so close to one before. 'I always thought they lived in the underground.'
'They hunt outside in summer.'
'There's a way out? Without going through Center?'
'Several. But not now. Not until the storms are over.'
Mischa pushed the new information here and there, trying to make it work for her, but it was as Val said: exits or not, there was no way outside until spring.
'I'll show you how to get to one, if you like, sometime.'
'Thanks,' Mischa said. 'Do you ever use them?'
Mischa felt Val fold away from her. She always grew defensive when Mischa tried to turn a conversation to anything but survival in the lower caves. 'We never go outside.'
'Why not?'
'People live out there.' It was obvious that she did not even feel the question deserved an answer.
'The traders come. But they live on the other side of the desert.'
'They come to this side. That's enough.'
'They're not like people in Center,' Mischa said, remembering days and nights in their encampments, among the market booths and the storytellers. 'They don't care much if somebody's different.'
'Mischa, the desert's theirs, and the caves are ours. We accept that. It's no use trying to find us a better place.'
'I don't see why you're scared of them, you're not scared of anything else in the world—'
'We won't speak of it anymore,' Val said in the tone that always put Mischa on her guard.
'Who are you?' Mischa asked abruptly.
Val frowned.
'I mean—who were you? In Center?'
'You never saw me. You'd hardly have been born when I was driven out.'
'I finally remembered who you look like.'
Val remained silent.
'They hardly ever come out of their dome, but I've seen a couple of them. Your Family runs the reactor.'
'Yes,' Val said. 'I was a great embarrassment to them.'
Mischa had never heard of any of the Families' abandoning their children; she had assumed, like everyone else, that they were somehow immune to changes. 'You don't act like them.'
'I used to.' She touched the bright, fine hair on the top of her shoulders; it grew down her arms, across her back, and tapered to a point at the base of her spine. 'When this started to grow I was frightened, but I thought I could hide it. I pulled out the hair, but it always grew back. That's when I began to understand what it was like to be powerless.'
'How did they find out?'
'My shoulders bled, and stained my clothes. They tied me down until the hair came in again, and they were sure. I suppose I was lucky.'
'Lucky!' Mischa imagined days of being tied immobile, waiting, being cursed by people who had been friends.
'It was my cousins who noticed first. If my Family had discovered me, they could have arranged an accident. But all the cousins knew, so I couldn't be got rid of gracefully. My people would have lost face if they'd allowed one of their children to be murdered. Their firstborn, no less.'
Val's voice was almost steady. She had gone from highest to lowest, and survived. It was not death she was afraid of when she drew back from discussing Center, but humiliation.
'Come on,' Val said. 'Help me get this beast home.'
