feel about you, or the way you feel about me.”
They didn’t betray relief, or rise from the cot to hug me. Instead, recognizing that they’d merely misconstrued the problem, they did something I now realized I’d never seen them do before: something beings sharing the same mind, who didn’t need to exchange visual cues, would of course never need to do. They turned to look at each other, sharing a moment of eye contact before turning toward me again. “Then what’s wrong?”
There was a bottle of drinking water on the table. I took a sip before continuing.
“I’m just…not sure a lover was ever what you were actually looking for.”
Their hands moved as one, finding each other, linking with a tight squeeze.
“There was a certain expectant quality to the way you spoke to me, from the very beginning. Almost as if you were told I was coming, and what I would mean to you. At first I was too dense to think it meant anything. Later on, I thought it was just attraction. After that, when it became mutual, I wasn’t in any mood to question it. But as I’ve started running it through my head, again and again…I’ve begun to understand that there’s a little more to it. There always was.”
They didn’t answer. But they leaned against each other, their faces drawn, their eyes sad as they searched mine for signs of anger.
“It’s like that story you told,” I murmured. “Times two. Two people carrying a weight too heavy for one. Making themselves one person so strong that the burden becomes nothing. But still wanting to be more than they are, wanting to grow the way every other living thing grows, petitioning the powers that joined them for a chance to make it happen. And then one day they’re told that they’re about to meet someone carrying even more pain than they carried individually, and so bowed by it that she can hardly manage to stand upright. A person who, they’re told, will be suitable for linkage, if that turns out to be what you want.” I looked at one face, then the other, begging for confirmation. “A linked trio? Is that even possible?”
They didn’t tell me I was being stupid.
After a moment, they left the opposite cot and sat down beside me, one to a side.
As always, in moments of exceptional candor, one member of the pair spoke alone. This time it was Skye. “It’s just a possibility, Andrea. One we might explore, someday. We’re not ready for it ourselves. We weren’t even going to bring it up for a long time. And even then, we don’t ever have to travel that road unless you decide you want it too. It’s probably years away.”
The floodgates opened. Her face, and Oscin’s face, both blurred, and I blinked furiously, hating myself for being so weak. “That’s the thing. I do want it. I envied it, a little, the very first time I met you. But, you have to understand, if that’s what you want, you’re going to be waiting a long time. Because I don’t know if I’m ever going to be ready for it. I’m only just beginning to work out how to be myself. I can’t just drop that because it’s easier to just become p-part of someone else. I c-can’t…”
“Shhhh,” they said.
Skye leaned in close to kiss away my tears. Oscin wrapped his arms around me, and performed the same service for my opposite cheek. Speaking in one voice, almost impossible to separate into its component parts, they rested twin foreheads against my temples and laughed their way through the necessary reassurances. “It’s all right, Counselor. This is more than enough for now.”
I sniffed, took each of them by a hand, and closed my eyes, wondering just why the hell life had to be so goddamned complicated.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Has anyone, ever in the history of novels, read this page if they didn’t have some specific reason to consider themselves likely to be mentioned? (Voice of random reader: “Boy, that Joe Schmo, his third-grade English composition teacher, sure sounds like a nice guy!”) Just wondering.
In the meantime, various moments in the creation of this book were rendered easier thanks to the members of the South Florida Science Fiction Society writer’s workshop, including George Peterson, Chris Negelein, Wade Brown, Dave Dunn, Cliff Dunbar, Mitch Silverman, Brad Aiken, and the late Meir Pann, all of whom had helpful things to say about its composition. Thanks also to Michael Burstein, who tolerates being immortalized as the alien race Bursteeni. Thanks to Stanley Schmidt, who published the first appearance of Andrea Cort in
Love again to my lovely wife, Judi, who for some odd reason persists in believing in me. I dunno why. But I sure as hell hope she never stops.
About the Author
ADAM-TROY CASTRO’s short stories have been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker awards. He lives in Florida with his wife, Judi, and their four cats.
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By Adam-Troy Castro
EMISSARIES FROM THE DEAD
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
EMISSARIES FROM THE DEAD. Copyright © 2008 by Adam-Troy Castro. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Microsoft Reader January 2008 ISBN 978-0-06-165827-3
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