

A DISTANT SUN



by M. C. A. Hogarth


Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 M.C.A. Hogarth

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Kellen propped a foot on the arm of a dark green chair and glanced at his teenaged students, seated in various levels of discomfort on the sofas, chairs and ottomans. He loved the first day of class, and the first day of this one in particular. The teacher pointed to a sturdily-built gray Hinichi wolfine: mostly human, with a fine covering of wolf.
"You, my friend. What's your name?"
"Uh, Derrick, sir. Derrick Lombard."
"Very good," Kellen said, "Tell me what class this is?"
Bewildered, the wolfine's eyes sought the others', hoping for support. "Err, it's 'Ethical Perspectives on History’, sir."
Kellen grinned. "Ah! Thank you, Derrick. That's just what I wanted to hear." An uneasy chuckle rose from the others watching, and he folded his arms across his chest. "As you might have guessed, I'm new here. My name is Kellen Grove. I ask that you call me 'Mr. Grove' so we can at least pretend you respect me, but otherwise my rules are as informal as my classroom. I like a lively discussion, so make free with your comments, particularly your jokes. I expect you to answer my questions; in return, I'll answer yours, no matter how hard. Make no mistake: there will be hard questions. This will be far and away the most difficult and interesting elective being offered during your last year of high school, and I'm gratified that you have all chosen to take it."
"History is the most difficult topic we're going to have all year?" a slim black human asked in an arch contralto.
Kellen laughed, his dark ears flipping forward. "What's your name?"
"Rachel Myers, sir!"
He slid off the chair. "Stand up, please, Rachel. I prefer to illustrate my answers concretely. You! The russet Aera there. Name?"
"Madeira, Clan Flait," was the wary reply from the slender girl more vulpine than humanoid.
"Stand up for me, please, Madeira. You? Donegan Unfound? Yes, thank you, just like that. You?" he turned to an ivory Karaka'An feline, her thin legs folded beneath her on the vast dark blue chair. Kellen faltered as he stared at her eyes. They were green? No, only one of them. The other was a yellowish lime color just similar enough to force the viewer to look twice.
"Margeaux Davis," she said in a shy soprano, lifting her odd-colored eyes to meet his.
"Ah, yes, stand for me, please, Margeaux."
Delivering himself a mental shake, he picked out two more students, then folded his arms across his chest again, tossing his black jaw ruffs behind his shoulders.
"Now," Kellen said. "Someone tell me what all these people have in common."
He watched with concealed amusement as they exchanged looks in none-too-covert bafflement. One of the braver ones managed to speak.
"In common, sir? I guess, they're all here?"
Kellen laughed. "That's a good start, but we're in History, not Physics. Any other ideas?"
"They're all two-footed," someone suggested from the back.
"Good!" Kellen said, fox-like ears perking. "Give me more on that track."
"They all have hands," said a male Phoenix, his own wings twitching.
The female human beside him added, "And they're all bilaterally symmetrical!"
A low rustle ran through the classroom as its members stared at the girl.
Kellen grinned. "Budding biologist, eh? She's right, though. These are all good observations, but you're citing the effects of a single root cause. Can you guess what it is?" He waited through the ensuing silence, then stood and walked behind Rachel, the black human. "How about 99% of their genome?"
"I thought this was History, not Biology," another human said, a lopsided smile on his face.
"It is History," Kellen said, finger snaking out to point at him. "Do you know your own? How the Alliance formed? Who formed it . . . and how they evolved?"
"We didn't evolve," a pantherine said. "Everyone knows that. The humans made us centuries ago."
"Precisely," said Kellen, resting against one of the taller chairs. "And the primary things that will engage us this year are the implications, complications and consequences of that decision. An ethical perspective, if you will. You may sit, everyone. Thank you for your patience." He turned to Rachel and said, "Do you understand now what I mean by this class being your most difficult this year?"
"Uh, I'm not sure," she admitted. "What's so hard about figuring out the implications of the first gengineering?"
"Did you know that seventy percent of the individuals who left on the generation ships to colonize the original Core planets couldn't successfully conceive and bear young?" Kellen asked, waited for her to shake her head. The rest of the class was staring at him now. "Do you know why?" Another negative. "Fully sixty-five percent of them had been engineered as sex toys. Because of concern that they would accidentally cause 'complications' when used, most of them were created without generative organs."
Since grim silence had been his intention, Kellen was satisfied with their response. "These are details adults don't share with children, for good reason. The creation of another sapient life form is an event fraught with ethical dilemmas. The solutions originally proposed and implemented for the first gengineered creatures on Terra were not always the best ones, and examining them is often cause for thought...and nightmare. You are no longer children. It's time for you to examine our shared history: its atrocities and tragedies as well as the positive outcomes that have become our birthright. That is why this is a difficult class."
"I see," the human girl said, subdued.
"You will," Kellen promised.

#

A hearty slap against his shoulder-blade jerked Kellen from his reverie at the window.
"Hey!" A scarlet Tam-illee foxine with brilliant gold eyes steadied him, grinning. "Sorry 'bout that, arii." The word for "friend" jarred; Kellen wasn't used to hearing it. "It's quite a view, isn't it?"
"It is," Kellen murmured, glancing back at the waterfall running down the rocks. Silvergate Academy was nestled in the shallow face of a mountain, a virtue that had largely decided Kellen on the move. It was a far cry from the beaches and hardy, water-starved shrubs from which he'd come and he'd needed the change of scenery.
"My name's Joet Starsteps. I teach astronomy here. You'll be sharing a suite with me upstairs." The man grinned amiably. "It'll be nice to have company! Half the faculty live off the premises."
"I'm new to the city," Kellen said. "I thought it would be easier staying here until I got oriented."
"Ah, yes. I heard you were from out of town. They say you came highly recommended!"
Kellen smiled wryly. "So highly recommended I got fired."
Joet snorted. "Ah well. Some schools will do that for teaching things they wouldn't want their kids to know. Silvergate knows better. The administration's been hungering for years for someone who would dust history off and make it a little more palatable to teenagers. Would you like to see your room?"
"Very much," Kellen admitted. "It was a long day."
Joet nodded, waving a hand toward the corridor leading away from the glass wall. "I did wonder," he said. "You could have moved in today and started teaching tomorrow...."
"There's too much material to cover to skip a day, particularly with the seniors," Kellen said, picking up the small bag at his feet. "It throws them off their stride to have a substitute the first day. Besides...first days are always fun."
"Iley Ever-laughing! You pack light. Don't tell me that's your only bag?" Joet shook his head. "Come on, there's a stairwell up the hall and to your right. So, how long have you been teaching?"
"Since a while after I got my second degree. Almost six years now."
"How old are you?
Kellen said, "Thirty-four by Alliance Mean."
Joet nodded. "I'm thirty-seven. Been teaching nine years, and five of them here. It's a god-blessedly good school."
"So I've heard," Kellen said. He padded into the stairwell, his own unshod paws quieter than Joet's booted feet. "Astronomy, ah? We should talk about our schedules. Maybe I can get some of the course work on the diaspora to match with your lectures on the Core worlds."
"You're a driven man, arii," Joet said, his chuckle sounding behind Kellen's shoulder. "I like that in a suite-mate."
They reached the top of the stairs, and the tall, scarlet foxine led Kellen to the end of the hall. A wall of glass like the one downstairs terminated the corridor, providing a view of the water cascading down the rocks, the roar muted by a force-field noticeable only by its two tiny transmitters at the ceiling and floor.
"Joet Starsteps," the foxine said to the ID panel, then grinned down at Kellen. "Here’s home...after you."
Kellen lifted his bag for the last time and walked into the den, a modest room with a clay-gray carpet, half the size of one of the ground-floor classrooms. Its entire southern wall, a sheet of glass set into the mountain, shone with the diffuse light of a coppery sunset. The navy blue sofa against the back wall faced a coffee table. To the right, a long bar marked off the kitchenette, a row of three goldwood stools tucked beneath it. Aside from the wallscreen by the door, the window wall, and one hanging tapestry in bright gold and sienna brown, nothing broke the austerity of the room. Two doors framed the sofa.
"I'm in the one on the left," Joet said. "It has a window onto rock, but I like to count the colored striations when I can't sleep." He winked.
Kellen smiled, black ears swiveling forward, and stepped into his new room. Larger than his last, it held a goldwood bureau, a small night-table and a single-person bed. A full-length mirror and a closed door were the only other decorations. "What's this?" he asked, tapping the wooden door jamb with a knuckle.
"That's the bathroom."
"We're sharing a bathroom?" Kellen asked, the fur along his spine lifting.
Joet chuckled. "Yeah. So I hope you're a neat freak."
"As long as you don't use my grooming tools, we'll be fine," Kellen said, forcing a smile. "By the way, where do you requisition materials for your classroom? There are a couple of things I'd like to pick up."
"On the ground floor, on the opposite side of the building. It's across from the headmaster's office. It should still be open."
"I think I'll check. Thank you, Joet."
Joet waved and grinned. "You're welcome. I'll see you later…?"
"Probably not," Kellen said. "The way I feel, I'll fall right to sleep when I get back."
Joet chuckled. "I've been there. Have a good evening, then."

#

Several hours later, Kellen jerked upright in his new bed, oil-sweat matting the fur on his back. He panted, staring at the wall, then touched his neck, his chest. So much thicker than sweat, but of course the scientists had to cross the genes up somewhere and give the fox-based creatures that would eventually become the Seersa a strange oil-sweat combination that did the job of neither very well.
He rubbed his fingers over his forehead, then glanced at the mirror across from the bed: black body, with only the striking white splash across chest, neck, arms, and the bottom of his mouth floating, pale against the dark. He slid out of bed and padded cautiously to the bathroom, peering inside to ensure its lack of occupancy. A wave of his hand and the tap flared on, spouting a writhing thread of water.
Kellen combed his jaw ruffs with cold, wet fingers, then drew his thumb across the bridge of his nose and dry lips. He tilted his head back and sighed, summoning the images from the nightmare: the usual parade of sticky ropes, obscenely corded like skinned flesh, composed of oily red and viscous white fluid, pulling around him, choking him. He stared at the ceiling and composed himself. The nightmare had not come as a surprise. He only hoped that he could unexpectedly fall back to sleep.

#

"Do you need help with that?" a soft soprano asked behind him.
Kellen glanced over his shoulder wearily, using the wall to steady his precarious perch on the stool. The mirror the supply office had given him hung between his white hands. "I...think I'll be fine." He squinted, trying to place the ivory Karaka'An feline with the delicate limbs. "Margeaux, isn't it? Shouldn't you be home?"
"I signed up for afterschool," she said, smiling.
"Oh!" Kellen sealed the mirror to the strip, then leaned back. "Is that straight?"
The girl stepped away and cocked her head, lank honey-pale hair sliding over one ear. "Yes."
"So what's afterschool?" he asked, climbing off the stool. He glanced up in time to see her odd-colored eyes widen; whipping around, Kellen flung his hands onto the mirror as it slid toward the floor a few seconds before Margeaux's slender hand grasped its edge.
With the mirror steady beneath the pressure of his hands, Kellen let out a sigh, eyes drifting toward the thin, small fingers: almost too thin. They looked like a baby's beside his.
"You have large hands," the girl said, wonderingly. "A musician’s hands. Do you play?"
"I . . . no." Kellen grimaced, tail tightly curled. He pushed the mirror up, sealed it properly and turned his back to it. "So . . . afterschool?"
Margeaux stepped back. "It counts toward your extracurricular points. You sign up to stay after school with a teacher, help him plan lessons or clean up or whatever he needs."
Kellen paused, ears flicking sideways. "That's a good idea," he murmured. "We didn't have that at Barry." He picked up the stool and paused, realizing that the girl was still there, tail curled around her dainty ankles. "Ah . . . let me guess. History fascinates you and you want to be my apprentice."
"Yes," she answered.
Kellen stopped. He'd been joking. "Really?"
"Unless you'd rather not?" Margeaux shifted her weight from one foot to the other. He watched the sway of her hips, mind wandering with fatigue to an assessment inspired by the sight: she had an Attenuated Body Frame A, definitely. Seventy percent more prone to posture and bone problems than the Stockier Nominal Body Frame A like his own.
Reining in his thoughts, Kellen said, "Of course you're welcome. I'm sorry. I'm a little slow today."
"You look tired," Margeaux said, a smile parting her lips. Her gentle and oddly intent bicolored gaze settled on him. "Can I help unpack?"
"There are some blankets and ornaments in those," said Kellen, indicating the row of boxes nearest the door. "You can arrange them around the room."
The girl crouched beside the first and pulled its flap open. She dragged out a thick scarlet afghan. "Mr. Grove, were you always this informal about teaching?"
"Probably," Kellen answered. "Honestly, it's been so long since I started. . . ." He trailed off, then chuckled and sat on one of the large, cushioned chairs. Propping his heavy, animal-jointed feet on the center table, he spread tomorrow’s lesson plans on his data tablet and suppressed a yawn. "I've always believed talking to a person is more effective than talking at them."
A soft wheeze caught Kellen’s attention. He glanced at her: she was smothering a giggle. His dark brows lifted.
"I'm sorry. I wish I'd had more teachers like that. My first school was nothing like Silvergate." The girl folded her long legs to one side and lifted a glazed bowl. "The nicest teacher there was Mrs. Skyeyes. She taught us history, but it was specific to events after the Founding." Her eyes flicked to his face. "She never told us about the roots of things."
"You were probably young," said Kellen, letting his eyes close for just a moment. "As I said yesterday, these are not topics for children."
The cinnamon scent of fresh kerinne roused him, blinking a crust of sleep from his eyes. The afghan draped over the seat had migrated onto his lap. Familiar, carefully collected bowls and paintings adorned the tables and walls, and a large rug dominated the floor with its aggressive palette of earth browns, bright reds and mineral yellows.
"Don't you sleep at night?" Margeaux asked, holding one of the only items he hadn't seen in his cursory sweep of the room, a brass figurine of a twisted, writhing body.
"Occasionally," he said, chagrined. "How long was I unconscious, doctor? Is it terminal?"
She bleated her soft, smothered laugh and said, "Only half an hour." The slim girl shifted uncomfortably, then held out the figurine. "Mr. Grove, what is this?"
The Seersa didn't have to look at it. He'd memorized it long ago with fingertips and eyes. "Jazeen's 'Mortal Coil'."
"It's beautiful," she said in a low, uncertain voice.
Kellen glanced at her sharply. She balanced the figurine’s heavy base against her fragile ribcage and cradled it in both hands, studying it with a face so gentle it almost obscured the horror and fascination written across brows and ears and mouth. She lifted her bicolored gaze to his, self-consciousness abruptly crimping her shoulders, and then ducked her head.
"It is," the girl said again, defiant. She walked to the middle of the circle of chairs and throw-pillows and set it on the table’s naked center.

#

Again that night, Kellen woke gasping, a pillow crushed in his hands. His sodden sheets clung to him and he lurched away, unable to stand their clammy touch. Bodies this time, strangled in ropes, clutching the sky, all helplessly, youthfully female. Angry, he stripped the bed sheets and dumped them in the laundry chute before entering the bathroom. A soft command activated the shower head and a night light. Kellen slipped under the hot water, baring his teeth.
He'd bought 'Mortal Coil' over twelve years ago, motivated by an ambivalence with roots in hatred and need. It had always been displayed in his classroom, but on a tall shelf, far from careless hands and unfocused eyes. To see it affect someone else as it had obviously been meant to. . . .
Kellen sighed, running his fingers through his short head-hair as water slicked his fur to his body. He concentrated on the steam funneled through his demi-muzzle's long nose, the faint odor of the disinfectant soap he favored, the rough tiles beneath the pads on his broad, dish-like feet. When the water ran out, he used a towel instead of the air-dryer to keep from waking Joet.
His ablutions cleaned his thoughts along with his body. Breathing easier, Kellen threw on a robe and padded to the kitchen. The kerinne Margeaux had concocted earlier sounded good. Brewing it the time-consuming way with ground cinnamon and milk in a pot soothed him. He poured the result into a mug and turned to the couch.
"Do you always wake up an hour before dawn?" Joet asked, his voice a hoarse croak.
Kellen jumped back, almost splashing himself. "Joet! I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. . . ."
The taller Tam-illee yawned, his face screwing into a fearful grimace. He tottered into the kitchen and said, "No worries. I couldn't sleep . . ." He paused again to yawn, "but Iley be blessed if I'm not still tired." He peered at Kellen blearily. "You don't look so well yourself."
"Ah, well. Sleeping in a new bed . . . I need time to adjust." Kellen took his mug to the couch, ears splayed.
Joet rummaged in one of the cabinets. "You sure?" he asked again, his voice clearing. "You look a little peaked."
Kellen studied the reflection of stars broken by the falling water. "There are parts of history that keep me up at night," he said, deciding on a piece of the truth. "If you ever grow comfortable with them, you do your students a disservice."
Joet leaned over the counter, hands clasping an empty mug. "There's something to be said for a little academic distance, if only to keep up one's physical health."
The Seersa smiled without humor. "I'd rather be too close to a subject than too far from it."
Joet issued no reply for several minutes, prompting Kellen to look that way. The Tam-illee foxine's gold eyes rested on him, curious, considering. Slowly, Kellen rotated his black ears forward.
The Tam-illee smiled. "You know, Kellen, Silvergate has a reputation for turning out lots of tech people. Engineers, scientists, doctors, that sort. The artists, poets and historians are harder to find . . . probably because they're harder to teach."
Kellen pressed his hands around the walls of his mug. "Artists don't need teaching. They need inspiring."
Joet grinned. "Is that so."
Kellen glanced at him with a crooked smile. "You know. Just an opinion from a soft sciences type."
"Riiiight," Joet said, still grinning. He shook his head and poured himself some coffee. "I'm for a shower and an early start, I guess. I might even catch a few stars left on the horizon when I get out. Enjoy your breakfast, arii."
The smaller man smiled. "Thanks."

#

"Mr. Grove."
Kellen set aside his data tablet and stood, his fingers resting on the edge of the hard-backed chair. "Headmaster. Good morning."
Headmaster Irina Darteriov of Silvergate refused to be called 'headmistress', and no one dared disagree. Black slacks and an ultramarine blouse should have accentuated the length of the Harat-Shar cheetaine's limbs, but the direct, focused orange eyes and black stripes framing her nose and mouth unfailingly pulled the viewer back to her austere face.
Darteriov tapped the data tablet she'd brought against her wrist. "I hope you're finding things satisfactory here at Silvergate, Mr. Grove."
Kellen managed a lopsided grin. "The week I've been here has been pleasant, Headmaster."
"Good." She flashed the data tablet at him. "Perhaps you can explain this extravagant requisition? We're a smaller school than your last. We don't have money to toss to the sands."
The Seersa cleared his throat. "The science departments all have amphitheater-style immersive 3deo viewers. I'm only asking for a projection model."
"The science departments have justified their need for such expenses," said Darteriov. "What would you use such an installation for?"
Kellen's tail flicked once. "To begin, I'd like to broadcast the Touchground festivals on Tam-ley next month. And then there's the archeology summit on Karaka'Ana, and the university-sponsored debate on the artificial creation of the Core languages just after the diaspora, and the gengineered complications conference. . . ."
The headmaster waved her hand, the data tablet sparkling in the early sunlight. "Enough. Write it down and have it ready for me tomorrow."
He met her gaze, determination stretching his mouth into a tight line. "I can have it by the end of today."
"Then do so." She slipped the tablet under an arm and strode out.

#

"All right . . . throw, Richard!"
The class watched with avid interest as the human planted his feet then casually tossed the dart. It struck the flickering board, pegging a vivid red light that flashed twice before settling on a steady glow.
"Sorry!" Kellen said, "I'm afraid you died in vitro from complications."
Rachel, the human girl, rasped an aggravated sound. "No one lived!"
The dark Seersa leaned against one of the chairs. "Is that true? Did anyone make it past the in vitro stage?"
Margeaux and the Phoenix, Cyclone, waved their hands.
"Once each, right?"
They murmured assent, and Kellen lifted two fingers above his head. "That's two. Two out of how many throws? Twenty each, so that's two hundred? Two out of two hundred. Not very good odds, is it."
"What kind of game were those iddlewits playing?" Rachel demanded, crossing her arms. "If this is right, they killed hundreds of babies! It's sick, Mr. Grove!"
"It was just a procedure," Richard said, plucking his dart off the electronic board. Two weeks of classes had acclimated the seniors to the informality of Kellen's teaching, and the human demonstrated their comfort by addressing Rachel directly. "They had to do it over and over to get it right, like they would any other scientific experiment. Would you rather they would have let the things live when they would have been born crippled?"
"And who would have taken care of them?" Margeaux asked, fingers touching her lower lip. She sat on one of the oversized sofa-chairs, her thin limbs tucked gracefully beneath her.
"That's a valid point," Kellen said. "The corporations in charge of this project didn't have the overhead to set up care facilities for their rejects. Or would you have wanted to take care of something so mangled it barely looked alive and couldn't breathe without a machine?"
The students shifted, uncomfortable.
Rachel said, "Still, it's hardly fair. Hardly . . . moral."
Kellen's black brow arched. "Is it?" he asked pointedly.
The students erupted into wild discussion. Kellen listened to as many threads as he could, ears flicking, and measured the passion in the room. He smiled as he lifted his hands.
"Enough! I hear two definite opinions. One is that it's kinder to kill something before it's born than to let it live a short and miserable life. The other is that to kill something you made before it's born, for whatever reason, is immoral, and that you should take responsibility for your actions...that any kind of life, no matter how short or difficult, has the potential for meaning. Is that a reasonable summary?" At their nods, he continued, "So is it safe to say that there are two separate issues to consider, that of the victim's life and that of the responsibility of the creator?"
The class murmured their agreement. Kellen picked up a dart and tossed it at the board, scoring himself a vibrant green light--healthy body, retarded mind. "The game of life is risky enough without your chances being depressed by serving as the test subject for a new scientific process. Tonight, I want you to write three essays for case studies on the two possible outcomes: a life destroyed before its birth and a life allowed to live no matter the complications. Do each point of view: the scientist and the test subject. Then tomorrow, I'll tell you a real story of one man's solution to this particular problem."
Rachel paused, then said, "Uh, Mr. Grove? Just three essays?"
Kellen smiled, eyes dark. "So you caught that, did you, Rachel? You won't have to write an essay for the subject who wasn't allowed to live. But you should probably consider it, don't you think?"

#

Kellen dropped onto a chair and let his head fall back against the cushions. His hand absently caressed the knobby fabric on the chair’s arm as he reviewed the lesson plan for the following day, wondering just where the past three weeks had flown.
"I'm sure you didn't look this tired the first week," Margeaux said, the aroma of hot cocoa accompanying her. Kellen opened his eyes quickly enough for the saucer's clinking to correspond with the sight of her lowering it to the table.
"Sometimes I have difficulty sleeping--," he said, yawning and then leaning over to take the cup. "Thank you, Margeaux--though I have more problems battling the administration than I do my insomnia."
The slender feline peered at him with her one luminous and one dark eye. "What kind of problems?" she asked.
"They won't give me the 3deo platform I asked for, and they balked at the mere mention of the overnight."
"An overnight?" Margeaux glanced over her shoulder from where she stood at the sofa, folding the afghan.
"Sure," Kellen said, fingers curling around the handle of the mug. "Intensive history lessons! Ardent discussions! Games! Food! And stars." He grinned. "It makes the text more meaningful when you can see Sol's light, no matter how faint."
"It sounds wonderful," the girl said, thin tail curling around her ankle. She patted the folded afghan, then sat on the floor in front of the center table. The base of 'Mortal Coil' scraped the table-top as the Karaka'An feline turned it. The hairs on the back of Kellen's neck rose.
"Mr. Grove, what did you study when you were in school?"
He rubbed the back of his neck, smoothing the hairs down. "A few things. Recently, history, with a masters in biomedical ethics."
"Biomedical ethics," Margeaux murmured. "That hardly seems connected with history."
"Think about what you've been learning the past few weeks and see if you can repeat that."
Margeaux's ears sagged and she smiled at him with chagrin. "I don't think I could." Her pale brows furrowed. “I just can’t imagine spending two years talking about biomedical ethics. Is there really that much to say?"
"Oh, you'd be surprised," Kellen said, chuckling. "You could spend years discussing the ethical implications of the gengineering of the Alliance's races. The catalog of diseases alone was enough to set my head spinning, and we had to memorize them all."
"How many of them are there?" the girl asked, eyes widening.
"Oh, enough. Some one hundred and forty three still prevalent."
"How do you memorize that many diseases?" asked Margeaux, openly staring at him.
Recollections of late nights at coffee houses made Kellen grin. "We had a sort of chant that put them in alphabetical order. Aminerrea, Auregh-Rosen Syndrome, Balanatus, Beritt's Disease, Buliat, Cermoniah...."
"Those all sound so funny," she murmured. "Auregh-Rosen almost sounds like a person."
Kellen laughed. "It does, doesn't it? It's an interesting one, too. Auregh-Rosen causes people to be born partially or fully deaf, thanks to the haphazard way some of the engineers handled ears for the early versions of their creations. You remember from your text that we weren't created Seersa and Karaka'An?"
Margeaux nodded, her fingers still caressing the sculpture's base. "Racial distinctions came later, when we segregated on board the ships and that segregation enhanced physical characteristics through artificial selection."
"Very good. You've been doing your reading." Kellen leaned forward, sliding his half-emptied mug onto the table. "The first scientists wanted to give us animal ears and the increased directional sensitivity that came with them, but weren't sure, as they weren't about anything at that point, how to slice the human ears out of the equation. They had to find a way for our essentially human brains to accept and process the information supplied by the abnormal ears. As it fell, they couldn't even figure out how to stop the constructs from being born with two sets of ears. In fact, we all have vestigial human ears."
Margeaux touched the base of her pointed, feline ear self-consciously. "We do?"
"Yes! They're called Auregh-Rosen processes." Kellen waved her over, captured one of her hands as she kneeled at his feet. He felt along his jaw until he found the knob and then pressed her slim fingers to it. "There. Feel it?"
Unfocused, bicolored eyes stared past him as she fumbled along the edge of his jaw until her fingers separated the slight bump from the rest of his skin.
"Oh!" she glanced at him, eyes large and mouth loose. "I didn't know!"
"People with Auregh-Rosen Syndrome are throwbacks to those early constructs. The symptoms range from having a larger cartilaginous lump to having nerves unable to process the augmented information from animal ears. You can be partially deaf or have four fully developed ears. It's an interesting syndrome, and a milder one though often associated with more unpleasant complications."
"Do I have one of those knobs?" Margeaux asked, still touching the tiny lump below his temple.
"Most certainly. Ninety percent of all the Karaka'An and Seersa do. Here, come with me." Kellen strode to the mirror, motioning her in front of him. He placed his hands on her cheeks and gently tilted her head forward and to the side, then brushed through her short, soft hair. "Let's see...ah, yes. Actually, yours is better defined than mine." He ran his fingertip along the outside edge of the lump, then pulled the wisps of pale honey-brown hair back behind it so she could see.
"Oh!" Margeaux's eyes studied herself in the mirror intently, her hand rising. Kellen steadied her head in his right hand, his left holding back her hair as she caressed the bump. "How . . . how strange!"
Kellen chuckled. "The events have passed, but the evidence remains." He watched her fingertips graze the edge of the process, and with a lingering smile lifted his eyes.
His hands, large and white, one with fingers splayed to hold up her head, the other cupping a neck almost as slender as his wrist, in a position as intimate as an embrace . . . . her body only inches from his, defining its slopes with the warmth emitted from beneath a thin tunic . . .
Her tail, at its base, pressed against his hips.
Kellen stiffened.
"So does it mean anything that mine is bigger than yours?" Margeaux asked anxiously, twisting to face him.
Grateful that the black skin on the inside of his ears masked the blush, Kellen replied, "The size of the process is basically random." He grinned. "You haven't noticed being deaf, have you? Unless you have, there's nothing to be worried about."
Margeaux giggled, relieved, before returning to her chores.
An hour later, Kellen sat on the couch in his den, one heavy foot propped against the coffee table. Nervous fingers drummed a beat against the butt of the armrest, and his mouth stretched in a tight line across his demi-muzzle. The thumb and forefinger of his free hand slowly sawed against one another where they rested against his thigh.
Behind his black ruffs, the track of her soft fingertips where they'd rubbed across his jaw burned. He could still feel her neck against his bare palm, the artery that had chafed his skin with its regular pulse.
"Hey!" Joet called cheerfully as the door slid open, and just as quickly, "Ho . . . you look disturbed." The foxine tossed his teaching aides on a nearby chair and dropped onto the sofa next to Kellen. "Why the face, there, arii?"
"The usual dark thoughts," Kellen said, forcing a grin.
"More specifics, please." Joet poked him in the side. "I'm used to the long faces you wear when you're thinking generally dark thoughts. This one looks different."
Kellen grimaced. "Well, there's this student. . . ."
"Mmm-hmmmm . . ."
"And she . . . well, she's a nice girl, but. . ."
"Ohhhhh, the light dawns," Joet said, grinning. "She's got stars for you."
Kellen grimaced; it wasn't quite the truth, but then… he wasn't sure what had happened downstairs, or why it was still affecting him. "So have you had this problem?"
"Who me?" The Tam-illee laughed. "Being so handsome, the girls swoon over me all the time!"
Kellen's glare elicited a chortle from Joet.
"Seriously," said Joet, "Yes, I've had a few. My only advice is to be gentle with them. They usually never see that they're being rejected until they've found some guy their own age to fixate on, and then you can relax."
The black foxine smiled. "Thanks. I’ll try it."
Joet chuckled and stood, clapping a hand on Kellen's shoulder. "You do that. Don't lose any sleep over it, hey?"
Kellen frowned, then spoke quickly, interrupting the smooth motion of the Tam-illee turning from him. "Actually, Joet, there's something more important I needed help with. It's about borrowing the amphitheater . . . "

#

In the utter black of the windowless room, gray eyes opened and Kellen gasped. His chest heaved under the sheets, its rhythm slowing as he focused on the wall. A fleck of pink glinted in the mirror as he licked the salt off his lips before it dripped onto the pillow. He hadn't had the nightmare in two weeks, hadn't dreamed of the obscene ropes, like sickly umbilical cords.
"Margeaux," he muttered. Her fingers, turning the base of the figurine. Her fingers on his jaw. Her neck.
Her vestigial human ears and odd eyes and so-thin tail.
Kellen sat up and drew his legs over the edge of the bed, propping his hands against the mattress. Gingerly he rotated his head until it faced the corner, eyes squeezed shut as the muscles gripped his throat and upper shoulders. Caressing the hollow of his throat against the discomfort, the Seersa levered himself back onto the mattress, staring at the ceiling. His thighs and first calves twitched, too tense to relax. Kellen attempted to compose himself for sleep.
Ten minutes later, he rummaged through his bureau drawers and slipped back onto bed, propping himself up against a mound of pillows. The data tablet in his hand illuminated the contours of his face with a phosphorescent green light that rendered his pupils opaque. The words 'Accessing U-banks' flashed steadily on the upper left hand corner of the screen in response to the swift motions of his fingers, and he waited, ears pressed to the back of his skull. As the search status indicator turned, an awareness of his own body flooded him. Seersa. Primary DNA Source Human, Secondary DNA Source Vulpine, Tertiary DNA Source Feline.  Nominal Body Frame A. Digitigrade, Primary Load-bearing Member Muscular. Four digits, claw bed type 2. Jaw and lower facial structure Demi-Muzzle Stratum 2. Coat Pattern Recessive Feline Bicolor.
So normal on the outside. He met the original specs.
The tiny screen on the data tablet blanked, then filled with images along the left side with text marching down the right. A beautiful Seersa woman, ruddy with black 'socks' and mouth and throat danced in one, cast a startled glance at the viewer in the next, taught a student in a third.
"Valarie," Kellen murmured, his whisper infringing on the silence. The windowless cube of his room suddenly stifled, too insulated.
He could not bring himself to read her current biography. Flicking the data tablet off and dropping it to the floor, Kellen slid deeper into the sheets. He slept poorly.

#

"This way, don't crowd!" Kellen leaned back against the jamb as the class clotted at the door to the science department's 3Deo amphitheater. His ears twitched, tracking his students' mystified whispers. Margeaux was the last to file through the door into the dark and he entered behind her, peripherally aware of the heat of her body and determined, angrily, to ignore it.
The Seersa said, "Spread out . . . there. All right. I'm sure you're wondering why we're here today instead of in class."
"After half the madcap mischief you've chased us on, Mr. Grove, we wouldn't be surprised if you flew us to the moon," Rachel interjected, only her teeth and the whites of her eyes showing in the dark.
Her comment met with low, good-natured laughter and Kellen grinned; he liked the way his class relaxed instantly in his presence. "Why thank you, arii, but I'm afraid we're not due for any such exotica here. As some of you might know, the Tam-illee are celebrating their landing on Tam-ley all this week with festivals. While I can't arrange a field trip, I did manage to get a sop tossed our way . . . so if you'll relax, I'll roll the film."
A few hushed murmurs traveled the room, but Kellen detected no alarm or undue curiosity. They had no idea yet what he'd managed to arrange.
With a grin that showed a little more tooth than usual, Kellen said, "Computer, establish feed." He braced one hand against the wall.
The raucous sounds of thousands of people laughing, talking, singing vaulted from around the room while pipes knit the cacophony together with music spun from breathy stringed instruments. A throng leaped into existence in the chamber, dancing around a squat platform. Wooden poles trailed colorful ribbons braided into stylized helixes as the dancers passed around and through bewildered students whose bodies had suddenly acquired the patina of an alien sun's light.
Above them, in the fullest radiance of that light, a figure on the platform led the merry-makers: a lithe woman splashed in only the softest white light and wearing a silver, footed body-suit. As she pirouetted, the layers of her gauze skirt hugged her ankles as if twirling through water. In one hand, she carried the mask of a true arctic fox, like the one whose blood had endowed her with her beauty despite generations of interbreeding; in the other, the eyeless mask of a human. She danced in a world beyond the music and the noise of the crowd.
Kellen had paid four of his four and a half weeks of salary to buy an hour's live feed from the Touchground Festival on Tam-ley. Watching the complex emotions unraveling on the faces around him, he thought he'd cheated the salesman.

#

"Was it real?" Margeaux asked later, draped on the sofa and hugging one of the afghans to her chest. Her eyes, rounder than usual, fixed dreamily on the wall as her tail tip drew lazy circles on the cushions.
Kellen chuckled as he checked off notes for the sophomores’ upcoming quiz. "If you're talking about the Festival, then yes . . . and if you're talking about the fact that you witnessed a small piece of it, well, yes again. If you're talking about something completely unrelated, I'm afraid you'll have to be a little more specific. Physics . . ."
" 'Isn't your field', I know, I know," the girl said, giggling. "You always say that. Why?"
He shrugged, then grinned at her over his tablet. "It's true." The sudden flop of her tail onto the ground grabbed his attention. "So, are you going to be useful for real work today, or are you going to just lie around?"
Margeaux's pointed ears blushed a delicate coral pink. She buried her nose in the afghan and said, "Mr. Grove, I . . . thank you. I've always wanted to see something like that. I never thought I would."
"You haven't, really. Not yet," said Kellen. "I went to the Touchground on Tam-ley two years ago. It was overwhelming. You'll have to plan to go one day."
"Maybe," Margeaux said, but her reply lacked conviction.
Kellen started to tease her and lost the words when the door slid open for Headmaster Darteriov.
"Mr. Grove! It has come to my attention that you have made illicit use of the science department's resources."
He put aside the data tablet and rose to his feet. "I would hardly call it illicit, lady. I obtained permission from Joet Starsteps, who, as I understand it, is responsible for scheduling the amphitheater's use."
Darteriov stared at him so intently he almost felt dizzy. The relief when she broke off her stare to transfer it to her data tablet almost tumbled Kellen back to his seat. He felt extreme pity for the tablet.
Staring down her broad demi-muzzle, the cheetaine read aloud, " 'Headmaster. My son has just told me about an excellent experience he had in one of your history classes. I've never heard him so interested in history before. Thank you for taking steps to reform your curriculum.' " She redirected that stare at him and said, "That is the second transmission I've received today. Correct me if I am wrong," her voice still clipped, "But we released the students only half an hour ago."
"That is . . . correct, yes, Headmaster."
Darteriov stared at him for another full minute; then she tucked the tablet beneath her arm and said, "Very well, Mr. Grove. You'll find your future requisitions filled. Within reason, of course. Good evening."
Kellen dropped into the chair the moment the door shut behind the Harat-Shar, concentrating so hard on regaining his breath that Margeaux almost stopped his heart when she spoke.
"Is she . . . always that intense?"
Kellen slid his hand over the back of his neck, then chuckled. "Yes."
A shiver rippled down the girl's spine. Her odd-colored eyes peeked at him from over the mounded afghan. "Does this mean we get to have the overnight?"
The thought hadn't even occurred to him. A grin spread over Kellen's mouth. "Why, yes. I suppose it does."

#

"Be careful," he called, one hand grasping the cool rock. "The path crumbles near the top of the fall. Watch your feet!"
A chorus of replies tumbled down to him with the splash of the water. Living in a building insulated from the sound had almost erased the water's music from his memories. Kellen paused, shading his eyes against the setting sun. A bright spark wafted in lazy circles above their destination and he grinned, wishing briefly for wings to match his Phoenix student's.
Tugging the shoulder strap on the sack, the Seersa clambered after his class. The broad wedge of his foot reported the damp give of the autumn soil and the occasional sharp edge of a young pebble. Cool air bit the inside of his nostrils: sharp, clean, and pungent with the scent of moss and earth.
Several minutes later, he arrived at the top of the low, rocky hill. The stream that fed the fall issued from a grass-felted depression, its source lost in the short wall of the mountain. A narrow bridge connected the thin strips of rock that framed the precipice where the foaming waters plunged to the pool beneath Silvergate.
Kellen dropped his sack on a rock near the center of the green bowl. "Remember, if you want to explore, be back in an hour and be careful. The Headmaster won't kill you if someone gets hurt on this trip--she'll kill me."
A few chuckles and the students dispersed; he doubted many of them had been up the short slope. Curious himself, Kellen keyed the shield around the sack to keep inquisitive creatures from their food, then decided on a likely direction.
Half an hour later, he'd decided he'd been missing life in the extreme south of the continent. Kellen crouched on a rock and closed his eyes, steadying himself with large hands as he pulled in a long breath through his nose. He could almost believe he'd preserved the ability to truly smell the way the foxes that comprised some small measure of his genome could. The thin white trees standing beside him curled hooked and spindly fingers into the sky, defining the cool shadows that striped his body. He opened his eyes to add sight to the sensation of the coppery light streaming from the west. A soft smile curved over his mouth, and he hopped off the rock to follow the song of the water.
Several paces down the trail, the stones jutted from the soil in irregular patterns, and several sturdy trees had fallen across the fall. Perched on one of those trees, dangling her feet in the water, was Rachel. He waved to her.
"Are you sure you've got a firm seat?"
"Oh, yeah, Mr. Grove! This is fantastic. Come on out!"
"I'm not sure," he said, eyeing the cold foam, "If I fall in, it'll take me a lot longer to dry off."
She only grinned and waved again, so he shrugged and crawled awkwardly out to join her. The digitigrade jointing of his legs might have served their animals better for such activities, but for someone basically bipedal they were not ideal.
"Oh my," Kellen said when he finally secured his perch. The mountains beyond Silvergate's premises rose through a mysterious brown and forest-green vista, veiled by a fog of water tinted sparkling bronze. "Rachel, this is quite a throne you've found yourself."
"Thanks," she said, grinning. She sat with her back facing his side, straddling the trunk and teasing the crests of the waterfall with her toes. "Say, Mr. Grove . . . there's one thing I can't figure."
"Go ahead," Kellen prompted when she fell silent, her dark eyes studying one of the pools created by a tiny dike of rock.
"See, I really, really believe that what we did was wrong. Really wrong. It's not just that religious thing, you know, playing God. It's . . . well, it's that we were making people, real people with real feelings, without knowing how. And to do that, without being able to give them the same things any normal human is born with . . . it was wrong." Rachel scraped the white bark of the tree with her blunt fingernail. "But, Mr. Grove, I wouldn't want to live in a world where there was no Alliance. No Seersa and Karaka'An and Tam-illee and crazy Harat-Shar and Naysha, and . . . God, look at what we made! I can't imagine life without the Pelted."
Kellen paused, surprised at the vehemence of her words.
Rachel looked at him, distraught as she rarely showed herself to be in class--but honest, as always. "I can't reconcile it, sir. How can I be happy about something that's wrong?"
"I know how you feel," Kellen said. He propped a foot up on a limb that had lost most of its length in the storm that had also deprived it of roots. "After all, if the humans hadn't meddled, I wouldn't be alive." He flicked an ear. "I'll tell you something, Rachel. I shouldn't, since you're supposed to arrive at your own answers, not accept mine. But still. It's a given that people make mistakes, right?"
She nodded.
"Or that people sometimes intend to do horrible things."
Again, she nodded.
"But good sometimes arise from horrible acts. It doesn't make those acts any less reprehensible, but it might, just might redeem them. Why do you think the humans did what they did?"
Rachel paused, then said, "I think they were lonely. Even the ones who bought those first models for… companionship… they could have masturbated or something. So… yeah. I think… we just wanted to be less alone."
Kellen dipped his head. "I think so too. Are they less alone?"
"Yes!"
"And are there billions of people alive today who wouldn't be otherwise?"
"Yeah."
Kellen spread his hands. "That's all I can offer you."
The human returned her gaze to the falling water, wisps of her black curls floating in the cold breeze generated by its motion. "I’m not sure that’s very comforting," said she after a few minutes, "Though I guess there's nothing wrong with being lonely. I only wish . . . well, we'd been more careful about it. More . . . humane."
"You can't change the past."
"No," Rachel said, then turned a lopsided grin on him. "I guess we're the dopey romantics of the galaxy. Not wise enough for the brains in our heads."
"If that's so," Kellen said, grinning back, "Then it must be genetic, because you passed it on to the rest of us."
She chuckled and twisted to throw her arms around him. "Thank you, Mr. Grove. I'll do some more thinking."
"Just so long as you don't accompany the thinking with leg-breaking, I'll be happy. You still have twenty minutes or so."
"I'll be there. I wouldn't miss the talk for anything!"
Kellen climbed off the tree, leaving the girl curled on its center. He stretched his toes across the cool soil and smiled. The trees and rocks had seemed merely welcoming before; now they were positively radiant.
Halfway up the trail he paused to rest, one hand splayed across a rock. When he pulled his fingers away, a non-reflective smear drew his eyes. One glance at his thumb revealed a nick in the skin, welling a bead of blood as smooth and round as a ruby cabochon. One of the sun's dying rays pricked a highlight off its surface.
A curse escaped him. He spent several minutes cleaning the rock, another patching the cut with the pocket medisealer that accompanied him everywhere.

#

The fire cast a ruddy light against the purple twilight. Arranged in an informal circle, Kellen and his students toasted the chunks of meat, vegetables and tangy cheese he'd brought as their light supper. He studied each of them, as accustomed now to their eccentricities as they were to his. It was only natural that Derrick, the Hinichi wolfine, sat so straight his posture seemed affected. Cyclone's metallic feathers reflected both fire and sky where he lounged beside Richard, the human male who rotated his meat with an intent expression. Rachel had returned from her contemplation with a drowsy, thoughtful expression; she rested against a pillow beside Madeira, the reedy Aera girl. Donegan with his good-natured, handsome face reclined beside Julia, the human girl whose interest in biology often pointed classroom discussions in unusual directions. The drowsy Asanii male, Bernard, leaned back on his palms, occasionally poking the Harat-Shar pantherine Una in the side.
Margeaux had claimed the spot nearest him, lying on her stomach on a smooth, long rock, one slim arm folded under her chin, the other stretched to toast her cheese slice.
"I brought games," he began, but Rachel interrupted.
"No games. Tell us stories!"
Madeira nodded vigorously. "I want to know about Joy, and Holly."
"We're not supposed to cover the Revolution in this class," Kellen said, stopping when they groaned.
"Tell us the stories," Donegan said, his eyes flat with reflected firelight.
He could no more deny such a request than he could stop breathing. What was history, save stories? True stories, the best kind? As Kellen leaned forward to weave the words, he realized how precious this role had become to him. It had not been so important in the beginning, when he'd chosen it nearly at random, as flight from pain and denial.
As the sky darkened around the stars, Kellen spun the stories of the Origin. Told of Dr. Shandlin and Joy, the first creation ever to live beyond the test tube, the sweet girl more fox than human whose mind had never ripened past the bewildered happiness of a three-year-old child's...all the tales he'd heard about the first construct, corroborated from Shandlin's journals when Earth had met at last the fruits of her forgotten work.
There could be no justice done to such a being, save to speak only the truth. By the time Kellen ran out of truths to tell about Joy, no blue remained in the sky and the stars provided the only light.
"Okay," he said, rubbing his throat, "Let's look for distant suns while I give my throat a rest."
They shook themselves reluctantly from their trance, following Kellen as he grabbed a canteen of water and trekked to the waterfall’s bridge. Resting against the wooden banister, the Seersa searched the sky, orienting himself, then pointed. "There...see the Almost Star?"
The star almost exactly due north was also the brightest. While they located it, Kellen swallowed a quick mouthful of water, parched tongue poking into the dry recesses of his mouth. He should have known better than to let his mouth get that way, when the smallest cut had to be sealed. "Look just to the right of it. There should be a tiny light between the Almost Star and that rather large reddish blob. It's pretty faint, but if you stare long enough you'll see it."
A soft breeze tugged at his black jaw ruffs. Kellen closed his eyes to enjoy the cool wind's fingers.
Rachel's voice: “Is that it?”
Kellen roused himself, taking a deep breath. "That's it. Terra's sun."
Their murmurs brushed his ears so softly he almost lost them to the song of the falling water; their bodies told a more complete tale, the tension in their limbs, the tilted heads. He felt it himself, a tiny dark of yearning and pain pushing at the base of his ribs.
"It's so small," Una's murmur, twisted by wonder.
"But it's not. Is that what you're trying to say?"
At least three pairs of eyes found his, wide and white.
Born too low in his throat for mirth, Kellen's chuckle sounded closer to a growl. He raised his own eyes. "No matter where we're born," he said, some of that ancient hunger opening his throat, "No matter where we go, or how many generations and light-years separate us from that earth, it is our home. More than our birth planets, more than the Alliance core itself. That is where we were made, and we all know it . . . young and old. There's no denying the call."
"But we left," said Margeaux. She turned her eyes from the sight of Sol. "Holly led us away. Earth might be our birthplace, but we've grown up and moved on."
"How can you ever move on from something like that?" Donegan wondered, his voice hushed. "From the knowledge that you were made? That you and everything you know started so small?"
"Tell us about Holly," Margeaux said, her bicolored eyes fixed on his.
"If I told you all the tales of Holly, we wouldn't be here until dawn. We'd be here until the end of the world," Kellen said, smiling. His hands flexed on the wooden banister behind him. There was something too intense about Margeaux's stare.
"Anything. One story."
"One story." His gaze rose to Sol's light as if drawn. "You know that Holly's diaries didn't survive the diaspora."
"I didn't," said Richard. They were all looking at him now.
"Holly purportedly kept a diary about her life, beginning the day she learned to write," Kellen explained. "On the journey out it was accidentally destroyed, yet we have more documentation about the events leading up to and following the revolution and diaspora than we do about any other part of our origin. When we met humanity some three hundred years ago, they only added to that knowledge." He paused for breath, a dark ache in his chest. "That there are so few of Holly's original words remaining is a shame. But we do have a few of her public speeches and one or two private conversations on record. There's even a song that draws on some of those private conversations where she discussed how she felt."
"Can you sing it, Mr. Grove?" Donegan said.
"There are so many songs about her. Not so many about her feelings," Una murmured.
Margeaux only stared at him with her one bright and one dark eye.
Kellen pushed away the ache and sang.


There are more stars in the sky at night
than Joy was taught to count.
And I must somehow lead our flight
even though it's tantamount
to suicide, they tell me. Suicide.

How can we ride each other's hopes
when so much could go wrong?
When it's on Terra that Wolf lopes,
and Lion sings her eerie song,
to these stars, I've heard her. These stars.

But what greater prize than freedom must we follow to that light?
What greater price than true-home, what ransom more than Right?
What greater love and hunger drives me on despite my fears?
When all I know and touch and change may end with frigid tears…
May end with frigid tears.

I have seen the ships they've built us now
have walked inside their skin.
We'll know them when we fly them, and how
to put to dreams our kin:
Another risk, they tell me. Another risk.

Waking schedules have been fixed and fit
to last the hungry days,
A long and lonely watch to sit
as the months grow long and gray,
and tumble into decades. Into centuries!

But what greater prize than freedom must we follow to that light?
What greater price than true-home, as we spread our wings for flight?
What greater love and hunger drives me on despite the pain,
That drags at me and leeches, leaves me solemn in the rain…
Leaves me crying in the rain.

But I have dreamed the future--who but me can paint those dreams?
I have dreamed the future, and it's nothing like it seems.
It's full of toil, of strife and vice,
of love and joy…and sacrifice.
Oh! I have dreamed the future, and there's freedom in those dreams.

There are more stars in the sky at night
than my naked eyes can see.
And I must absolutely lead our flight,
even if destroying me
is the price. Is part of that price.

What greater prize than freedom must we follow to that light?
What greater price than true-home, in exchange for truthful sight?
What desperation drives me on, nightmares tearing me from sleep,
That claw at me and ride my back and slash me 'til I weep…
And watch me as I sleep.


Kellen faltered, aware again of his surroundings, of ten pairs of eyes fixed on him.
"Those were her words?" Madeira whispered finally.
"Most of them," he said, clearing his throat and rubbing its base with a white thumb. "They were pieced together from separate conversations." He smiled faintly. "I'll go back and brew our hot cocoa. There'll be a pot waiting on the warmer, but feel free to stay here as long as you like. Joet Starsteps lent me his locator . . . ," he dug in his pocket and offered the card to Donegan, "So if you want to know more about the local stars, use it. We're near many of the Core worlds. Their suns should be easy to find."
He left them to star-gaze, rubbing the dark space under his chest. Upon reaching camp, he placed a foot against the flat stone and propped an elbow on a knee, massaging his forehead.
"You wrote it, didn't you," a soft soprano said.
Startled, Kellen glanced into the fire-lit face of Margeaux. "Arii . . . ?"
"You did. You said you weren't a musician." She sounded wistful. "But you sing so well. Like a real singer, a trained singer. And you talked about the song as if you'd written it."
His dark ears burned, but the blush was less embarrassment and more shame, anger. Kellen looked away.
"Why aren't you doing that? Being a musician?" Margeaux stepped closer, her footfalls hardly sounding against the damp ground. She captured the hand dangling over his knee, her tiny fingers rubbing along the edges of his larger ones. Goosebumps ran from his neck to the base of his spine. "You'd turn the worlds over."
"It wasn't that good."
"Yes it was! It was beautiful. It was.  . . eerie." The slim girl shivered, her fur rippling in the reddish light. "Mr. Grove . . . why? Why didn't you do it?"
"The world needed another history teacher." He tried to ignore the sensation of her soft, furless skin chafing against his palm.
"You could have been both. A history teacher and a musician. Everyone remembers songs. I've never heard that one about Holly. No one has heard anything about Holly except that she was brave and strong and sure and fast, and more heroic than anyone ever."
He looked at her. "The world needs heroes."
"Not if it makes everyone believe they could never be one," Margeaux said earnestly, staring up into his eyes. He found it hard to concentrate on just one of them, wanting to switch from the lime-colored side to the dark green. "Mr. Grove! At least do it a little on the side!"
"You're walking in dreams, girl, if you think that teaching doesn't take all my living energy."
"But your hands, your voice were made for it," she insisted, both her tiny hands cupping his. "You could play piano, or wachitvi--"
"Enough!" He jerked his hand from between her palms.
Margeaux stepped back once, her balance precarious, her expression stunned, reflecting back on him the violence of his countenance.
Kellen clenched his hands and then forced them to relax at his sides. More quietly, he said, "Enough, Margeaux."
Another backward step, and then she fled to the bridge to join the others. Kellen watched her go, forced himself to relax the rest of his body, muscle by muscle. When he finished, he almost wept. He bent to the fire instead and began to brew the hot cocoa.

#

The day after the overnight dragged on so long Kellen could hardly believe when it ended. He rested his arms on the top of the sofa-chair and laid his head on them. He hadn't slept the night before; like Holly's, his nightmares had become too vigilant. The data tablet slid from his limp hand to fall with one bounce on the dark green cushion. Just a few more minutes and he'd be upstairs in bed.
"Mr. Grove."
His back stiffened instantly, and he pushed himself upright. "Margeaux," said he, keeping his voice even, "I think I'm too tired for afterschool tod--"
"I wanted to apologize," she said.
The slim Karaka'an feline with the ivory pelt walked to him as he turned from the chair, and Kellen found her under his nose before he could retreat. Tendrils of soft blonde hair framed her face, lashes the same color fringing her eyes, such strange, intent eyes. Her distress marred their shape, brows thin, furrowed. She smelled like strawberries.
"I pushed too hard. It was wrong. I'm sorry. Will you please forgive me? Please."
When he gave no reply, she pressed on, "I can . . . I can drop out of afterschool if you want. Just say you're not angry with me."
"I . . . Of course not," Kellen said when he found his tongue. Worry he could have understood, but the sag of her shoulders, the dead hang of her slender tail, the smell of the oil-sweat rising above the scent of strawberry evoked a far more profound despair. "You didn't mean any harm, Margeaux. I took no harm." A lie, but she needed it so badly. He bent down to kiss her forehead.
She lifted her face and met his lips with her own instead. Her arms wound around his neck, her small body stretching against his. His shock at her audacity left Kellen completely unprepared for her ardor. He could feel her heart beating through her mouth, and she took advantage of his slack jaw to slip her tongue between his teeth and pull his head down to hers.
It took him several breaths to recall himself and jerk away, already searching for words to diffuse the situation, only to realize that her trembling had become sobs. Feeling whiplashed by the sudden shift in her demeanor, he looped his arms around her back.
"Margeaux?" he asked, ears burning beneath their black skin. He certainly hadn't initiated the kiss--he definitely hadn't initiated the kiss!--but nevertheless he said, "I'm sorry. I've obviously overstepped my boun--"
"Why?" she asked him suddenly, her voice muffled by her tears. "Why? Why did they do it? Why did they make us? How could they be so cruel?"
"Margeaux?" Truly bewildered now, Kellen stroked her back, one hand cupping her skull. It fit neatly into his palm. He stared at the sight, an image thrown out of perspective, wildly skewed, preternaturally significant. "I don't understand."
"The humans!" She raised her eyes to his, wet beads clinging to her lashes, clumping them together. "Why did they do it, Mr. Grove? Why? They should have killed us and been done with it!"
"I . . . Margeaux, how could you say such a thing?" Kellen said, shock pushing the words past his internal censor. He shook her gently. "You're young, you're alive, you're beautiful! You have so much, so much that's precious."
"Do . . . do you really think I'm beautiful?" she asked, sniffling.
He could feel the slightness of her frame, the bones of one hip pressing against his leg, the crush of her chest against his, rising and falling unevenly. His hands twitched at a phantom sensation: her neck from the day before the mirror. He thought of stars.
"I think you're very beautiful," Kellen said, wishing it were a little less true.
Margeaux did not reply, quivering against him. Then, softly, "Thank you." She backed away from him without meeting his eyes, her arms wrapped around her chest, and fled the room.

#

"Ohhh, Iley. If that isn't the look to top all looks." Joet flopped onto the couch beside the Seersa. "What happened to you, ah? Did your overnight not go off well?"
"Oh no. The overnight was fine," Kellen said, schooling his nausea. "I don't even know how I got into this one, Joet."
"Let me fix us some coffee and then you tell me what's got you up in knots."
Kellen rubbed his brow. "I don't know if I could stomach anything right now."
The scarlet Tam-illee clicked the roof of his mouth with his tongue. "That bad, huh? Well, trust me. I know just the thing." He padded into the kitchen.
Kellen closed his eyes and concentrated on relaxing. The smell of strawberries and oil had long since become cloying but he couldn't move for fear of losing lunch and breakfast. His own tunic and trousers stank of stress-sweat. He couldn't decide which was worse: the vertigo of closed eyes or the nausea of open ones.
Ginger tea cut a swath through the miasma of odors. The cushion sank as Joet sat beside him. Kellen opened an eye to see the Tam-illee fold one leg over the other, ankle on knee.
"You look really bad, Kellen," Joet said, his voice stripped of its usual cheer.
"Oh, God, Joet, I kissed a student!"
Silence surged into the space created by his outburst. Even the waterfall’s distant hiss forbade to fill it.
"Damn, that's a bad one," said the Tam-illee, the teasing comment somehow more terrible for its lack of gaiety. He scratched behind one soot-colored ear, then handed Kellen the tea. "Drink. You need it, I bet."
Kellen received the saucer, his hands trembling. He managed a sip.
"Tell me it was one of the seniors," Joet said. "Please. At least most of them are legal. That'll make things easier if anyone finds out.”
"I . . . she's a senior. But she's one year under age," Kellen said, then began shaking again. "Joet . . . 'anyone finds out'. . . . "
"What, you think I'm going to tell? You're upset about it, Kellen! If you weren't, I'd be worried. Now tell me the rest."
Kellen fortified himself with another sip, then confessed the entirety of the story to the Tam-illee, leaving none of the chance encounters out. "And then her lips were there, where her forehead was supposed to be, and she was pulling me down and... She wanted it. I . . . I was so surprised I didn't even resist."
The silence this time was contemplative rather than oppressive.
Joet rubbed the handle on his cup and sighed. "This is a nasty piece of work."
"What am I going to do?" Kellen murmured, his hands trembling again. "I feel so dirty. Kissing children!"
"She's hardly a child," Joet answered, voice low. "And from the sound of it, you weren't kissing her. She was kissing you, and being pretty definite about what she wanted. A few more months and no one would have questioned her right, though many would have questioned her timing."
"I'm seventeen years older than she is!"
"Yeah," Joet said, still toying with the cup's handle. "It sounds pretty bad on the face of it. But there's no use whipping yourself for a mistake."
"A mistake," Kellen repeated.
Joet eyed him and said, "A mistake. Or not. Maybe both of you will look back later and be glad of the experience."
Kellen stared at him.
The Tam-illee shook his head. "Look, you need to relax. Why don't you sit under the shower jets for a while, get clean? That will help you calm down."
"Yes. I'll do that," Kellen murmured in reply. His hand wobbled as he transferred the cup to the coffee table.
In the bathroom, he leaned against the sink and stared into the mirror. He hadn't seen that expression since . . . since Valarie. He touched his lips and tensed as a throb prompted him to pull down his lip. The skin on the inside seeped a tiny spider's thread of blood. Kellen stared at it, his eyes gone wild. He slumped to one knee, shaking violently, and vomited until his spittle ran clear.

#

He assigned in-class reading for all his students the following day, unable to rise above his panic. His dreams had strangled him while sleeping; his nausea while awake.
The seniors were scheduled for last period, and between bouts of depression Kellen fretted over how he would handle Margeaux. When the final class change rang, the Seersa stood and faced the door. One by one the students trickled in and he shifted impatiently, finding himself both dreading and anticipating the girl's arrival.
Rachel flew through the door almost before it opened for her. He registered her terror one heartbeat before her frantic words. "Mr. Grove! Mr. Grove, Margeaux's collapsed outside!"
He leaped past the others, hardly seeing them, and almost ran Rachel down as the human sprinted to the end of the hall. Other students, worried or curious, were already gathering around the slender shape twitching helplessly on the ground. Kellen dropped to his knees beside her, horrified, thinking for a moment that he had done it--the blood, the kiss, she'd had an open cut--but the signs were all wrong for Kerriwiht's Disease and it was much, much too soon for it to be manifesting anyway. Old training reasserted itself as he tried to pin Margeaux down with Rachel's help. It looked like she was having a stroke, but why would a young girl…
Attenuated body frame A. The bicolored eyes. The overdeveloped Auregh-Rosen processes. Her hysteria in his arms the day before locked it into place, and Kellen's hands seized her, palpitating the flesh beneath her arms, over her neck.
Joet skidded across the hall. "Kellen!"
"Joet! Go upstairs and look in the bottom drawer of my bureau. There's a special medpack. Bring it!"
The Tam-illee hesitated only long enough to glance at Margeaux's mindless flailing, then he sprang for the nearest stairwell.
"Mr. Grove, what's wrong with her?" Rachel asked, hanging onto Margeaux's legs with Richard's help.
"Later," Kellen said, his fingers feeding him the information beneath the fragile skin of the Karaka'An's neck. "Help me lift her head up. Rachel, how does she eat during lunch?"
"Huh? Not much at all. Lots of vitamins, though."
Vitamins? Or pills? The case in his brain strengthened. Rachel, Richard and Donegan helped him manipulate the Karaka'An into a loose seated position, propped against his body. Her convulsions weakened, and he felt her neck. "Hurry, Joet, hurry," he hissed, closing his eyes. He heard Una and Madeira shooing away curious onlookers, but the racing of Margeaux's heart overwhelmed his awareness.
"Kellen!" Joet dropped to one knee beside him, the pack in his hand. "Kellen, what's going on?"
Ignoring him, the Seersa snatched the pack and flicked it open, hunting. He grabbed an AAP syringe and slid a disk of hemoproxen into it. Switching his fingers on Margeaux's neck for the syringe, the Seersa keyed it, listening to the soft hiss, his body wound into a coil as tortured as Jazeen's statue.
After an eternal moment, the Karaka'An slumped in his arms, her limbs lax. Kellen checked her pulse, fumbled for a medsensor and placed it against her chest. Returning to normal.
"She's okay now," he said to his small audience.
"What happened?" a clipped voice asked, and Kellen glanced up to see his students and Joet had been joined by Headmaster Darteriov. A flood of anger rolled through him.
"What kind of school do you run here anyway?" he snarled, shaking. "If I hadn't had my own medpack, this girl would have died!"
"We have standard packs on every floor," Darteriov replied, ears splaying.
"Standard packs are fine if you have standard kids. One a floor is fine if you don't care if you lose a few while scrambling for it. Damn you to that Harat-Shariin Hell, Darteriov, if this is the kind of school you run because it's certainly not the kind of school you said you ran!"
"I didn't know this young girl had special needs," the cheetaine said, shaken. She didn't even remove her data tablet from under her arm. "If I had, I would have made arrangements...."
"Yes, well, not all people with special needs feel the need to discuss it with the world," Kellen said bitterly.
Darteriov's tail flicked. "If you will instruct us on the appropriate criteria, we will purchase extended medpacks for each classroom."
Mollified, Kellen said, "Fine." He returned his attention pointedly to Margeaux. When he looked up again, Darteriov was gone.
Joet shook his head and stood. "Iley! You've got to be the only person crazy enough to talk to the Headmaster that way, Kellen." The other students looked at the Tam-illee as Madeira knelt next to the group on the floor.
"Mr. Grove can do anything," said she.
"Apparently," Joet said, smiling slightly. "If you need anything, arii . . . "
Kellen nodded, and the Tam-illee left.
"What--"
"Ssh," Kellen said, hushing Derrick.
Margeaux stirred weakly against his arm. Her nose and lips left damp trails against his tunic, and her tongue flicked out, running over her mouth.
"Don't talk yet," Kellen said softly. "You're fine."
She nodded once and let her eyes close, breathing shakily. Her soprano sounded thin when she spoke. "I . . . what . . . "
"You had a partial blood clot blocking your carotid," Kellen said softly. "Fortunately it was only partial, and the medsensor said we took care of it before it could do any damage. Do you feel strange?"
"Can't . . . feel m'fingers."
"Which side?"
"Left."
Kellen nodded. "It'll pass."
Margeaux's eyes focused only minimally on his. Her pupils responded sluggishly to the light. "Tired."
"Rest. Help is on the way."
She nodded and sleep claimed her moments later.
His little class kneeled in a ragged circle around him, wearing pale cheeks or bloodless ears.
Rachel said, "Mr. Grove . . . what's wrong with her?"
His gaze traced the lines of exhaustion leading from Margeaux's closed eyelids, then said quietly, "Yuvett's Syndome."
"Then . . . "
"Then she's got one of the original diseases," Bernard said.
"Yes," Kellen said softly.
They sat on the floor at the end of the corridor until the medics arrived; Kellen released her into their arms, describing the incident to the lead healer-assist while the others pushed her away on an antigrav gurney. By the time the halls had cleared, the bell for day's end had rung; his students had dispersed, leaving him alone.
His climb to the suite felt interminable, but when the door slid open for him Joet was sitting on the couch with two filled shot glasses.
Wordlessly, the Tam-illee handed one to him. Kellen took it, sat beside him, and put his feet on the coffee table. At first sip the liquid scalded his tongue and bit his throat.
"I was eighteen," Kellen said. He saw Joet's ear swivel toward him out of the corner of his eye, a fuzzy, indistinct shape. "I'd been studying harp under a Seersa, Valarie Carsen."
Joet murmured, "I've heard of her."
Kellen smiled mirthlessly. "I imagine you have." He continued. "I went on my birthing day for the full work-up they give you before you head for college. The blood analysis came back a few days later. I don't know how they missed it when I was born." He rubbed his thumbs slowly against the wall of the glass, eyes cast down. "Positive, as a carrier for Kerriwiht's Disease."
The Tam-illee regarded him steadily.
"I didn't know what it meant, but the healer put it all down for me. No children, unless I wanted them to have the disease or be a carrier. No intercourse without specialized surgery or careful protection. My blood could infect others with the non-genetic strain of the disease." His fingers were too cold. "They gave me a medisealer to carry with me in case I cut myself, educated me on the disease in its fully manifested forms, genetic and non-." Kellen closed his eyes. "I was shocked, of course, but . . . a carrier. I could live with it. I would live with it. But during practice a few days later, my calluses broke open. I sealed them immediately and made the mistake of explaining why to Valarie. And… I never saw her again. She never returned my calls, and when I went to her studio I found it locked.
"It wasn't that I loved her. But I admired her. She was brilliant in her music and her intellect, clean and bright like a star above atmosphere. To have her turn away from me because of the blood in my veins . . . "
"So you gave up music," said Joet.
"Yes. 'An unnecessary risk', I think I said to my parents. It had finally become real to me. I wondered how things like Kerriwiht's came about. I started studying history in college, particularly Origin history. Because I could live with it, but others couldn't. There were stories that had to be told, just as I had thought there were songs that had to be sung."
"You actually studied all those diseases?" the Tam-illee asked, brows lifting.
Kellen leaned forward, the glass cupped between his hands and elbows on his knees. "I became a healer's-assist with a specialty in Origin diseases."
"Iley!" Joet exclaimed, eyes widening. "You're practically a doctor. Why didn't you go all the way?"
"I thought about it, but the stories are still there. The music is gone, but the stories remain."
"So you knew how to fix the girl. She's got one of them, does she?"
"Yuvett's."
Joet stared at him. "That one usually kills them before her age, doesn't it?"
"Usually," Kellen agreed. He watched the patterns left on the walls of the shot glass as the alcohol slid down them.
Joet did not reply, and Kellen felt no need to break the silence. A dim, sad satisfaction tugged at him; even after learning about his condition, Joet had not moved away from the couch.
"I'm glad you kissed her."
"What?" Kellen asked, disoriented. The events of the day before hardly registered through the fog of today. "Oh, God, Joet."
"No, I mean it." A limp smile crossed the Tam-illee's mouth. "That poor girl . . . who's going to kiss her, or make love to her, or take her to wife? She's probably going to die before most people are even seriously considering those things. At least this way she got a taste of it . . . and you, too."
"What does this have to do with me?" Kellen asked.
Joet clapped his shoulder with his free hand, but it was a gentler gesture than the first time he'd done it. His fingers squeezed the Seersa's shoulder. "Yeah. Who's going to settle down with a carrier, or kiss someone who could kill her with a drop of blood? At least you know you can't hurt Margeaux any more than she's already hurting."
Kellen stared after Joet as the Tam-illee stood, glass in his hand, and wandered into his room.

#

"She's going to be okay, isn't she, Mr. Grove?" Rachel asked, hugging a pillow to her middle.
The 'Ethical Perspectives on History' class radiated depression. They clumped together on the sofas or on the floor, leaning on one another, wrapped up in afghans, even holding hands. Not an ear stood upright on the heads of the Pelted, nor did any humans' eyes sparkle.
"I think so," Kellen answered. He wished he could join them, glanced at his fingers as he rubbed them together, so smooth, no calluses to give resistance.
"It's all different now," Derrick muttered, his wolfine tail sagging behind him. "I mean, not to make your teaching sound bad, Mr. Grove, but it seemed so faraway. Now . . . "
"Now it's real," Madeira finished.
Kellen sighed. He sat on his sofa-chair, pulling an afghan around his body and propping one foot up on the edge of the table. "I know it's hard right now, arii'sen. But don't let what you've just witnessed skew the balance. Yes, there are still people who suffer today. But there are billions of people alive today who would not have been. Humanity has its companion and its ally in space, a friend of a type uniquely predisposed toward understanding its parent race. As I told you on the first day of class, there are no easy answers."
"Because, even if it did good, it was a mistake," Rachel said.
Kellen nodded.
"Do you know whether or not she's going to come back?" Una asked in a small voice. "Are seizures normal with Yuvett's?"
He rubbed the edge of the sofa-chair's arm. So tempting to lie… but he hadn't become a teacher to shy from speaking the truths his students needed to hear. "Most children born with Yuvett's die before they reach four years of age. Seizures are typical in advanced stages of the disease, but can also occur during earlier periods." Kellen glanced up and, seeing Una's dismay, added, "I'll call her parents tonight and ask after her."
"Maybe we should give her something. Like a get-well gift," Donegan said.
The others nodded, then turned their gazes to him hopefully.
Kellen smiled. "I'll make some kerinne while the rest of you get started."
He watched as they put aside their anxiety and began to talk about cards and presents. Data tablets appeared out of tunic pockets and sashes, and the students bent close together to scan the u-banks for something they could afford with their pooled resources. He managed a wan smile at the ring of subdued concentration, but it faded as he noticed 'Mortal Coil' in the center of their circle, unmoving, standing in for a slim girl who wasn't there.

#

That evening, Kellen walked down the hall of the Bellwater Hospital, holding a box in his hands. He hadn't changed clothes, determined not to waste any time. The muted sounds of the healers and their assists as they paced the corridors, the chirps and sighs of their machinery, the cold, clean scent of the tile and the fixtures only strengthened his resolve. His call to the Davis household had won him the invitation to the hospital; unlike Margeaux's teary, fearful mother, he had no illusions about the doctor's reported prognosis.
He paused outside the closed door to Room 205 and glanced at the name glowing on the placard. Inhaling slowly, he stepped inside.
"Hello?" a weak soprano asked in the semi-darkness of the room. He spied movement on the bed, an arm sliding across a blanketed midriff.
Kellen walked to her side and said softly, "I hope I'm not disturbing you."
"Mr. Grove!"
The breathy weakness of her voice sent a ripple of alarm through him. He pulled a nearby stool to the bed and sat. "The same," he said, smiling despite the sight his adjusting eyes brought him. "The class sent you a little something. They miss you."
Margeaux's head drooped, fine hair falling around it. "I miss them, too." She lifted her chin. "They're sending me away. There's a specialist on Tam-ley who can help me."
"Dr. Cloudtouch," Kellen said, nodding. "I've heard good things about her."
"She'll make me better." Margeaux rolled her bottom lip between her teeth. "She has to. I don't want to miss school. . . . "
"Maybe we can arrange a live 3deo feed to you, if Dr. Cloudtouch thinks it won't interfere with her regimen."
The gratitude in the Karaka'An's eyes sickened Kellen. Reaching onto the bed, he found her hand and squeezed it. He did not look away as she searched his gaze.
In the quiet of the dark hospital room, Margeaux whispered, "Mr. Grove, I'm going to die."
A dozen glib replies rose to the seat of his mouth. Kellen could speak none of them.
Margeaux's fingers clutched his weakly. "I keep thinking about Joy. She only lived five or six years. She could barely hear or see, or even understand her world. I'm so much luckier than she was. I keep telling myself that. But I must be a little deaf after all, sir, because I can’t hear it." She looked down. "I worry about my parents. I hope they won't feel the same kind of pain Dr. Shandlin did. I don't want to hurt them. But . . . " Her chest lifted violently and her voice trembled, tiny in the dark, "But I haven't done anything yet. The festivals, the worlds, Earth, so many things I haven't seen . . . and I haven't even had a chance to decide what I would have done. When I leave, it'll be almost like I was never here at all."
"Margeaux," Kellen said, forcing the words past a closed throat. He tightened his grip on her hand, touched her face with the other. His fingers came away wet. "Margeaux, Dr. Cloudtouch will do everything she can for you. She's had some spectacular successes. There is a chance, no matter how small, but you won't win unless you fight for it."
"I know," she said, her cheek leaning into the curve of his palm. "But I'm so tired of fighting. Of trying to be normal, when I'm just not. I never will be."
"I understand," Kellen whispered.
She released a long, nearly silent breath. Kellen didn't move, his hand around hers, his fingers cradling her head.
When he realized she'd fallen asleep, the Seersa glanced at the chronolog on the wall. Ten minutes in this silence. Gently, he slid his hands from hers. Leaving the gift on her nightstand, he took himself from the hospital, heading back to the rail that had carried him from Silvergate's depot.
The lights bled past him in a teary stream as he leaned, impassive, against the pole in the center of the empty cab. It was a clear night with only a sliver of a moon to accompany the stars. As he studied them, unmoving above the fluid mobility of the city, a sense of disconnection settled deep into his bones. He flexed his fingers against the pole, pressing smooth fingertips against the cold metal. His vision skewed, then steadied one degree off-axis. When the rail stopped at the downtown exit, he disembarked, drawn by a need he no longer could justify denying.

#

Hours later, Kellen sat in the empty darkness of his living room. The water outside the window ran black, reflecting only the brightest of the stars. He'd arrived long past midnight to the quiet of his shared apartment, exhausted but emotionally grounded in a way he hadn't been for years. A mug of kerinne steamed on the table. His expanded data tablet, long neglected, patiently blinked on standby. Beside it, the discarded tuning fork lay with the medisealer and a wad of cotton balls.
Kellen closed his eyes, seeking a place that had been abandoned when the nightmares had come. His palms, his fingertips throbbed, sensitized by the memory of her skin, her pelt, the condensation of her breath on the back of his hand. He steadied the new harp propped between his legs, reached for the strings, and embarked on the arduous task of toughening his fingertips. The calluses were long gone, but the music remained.

***

About the author:

M.C.A. Hogarth has been many things--a web database architect, product manager, technical writer and massage therapist--but is currently a parent, artist, writer and anthropologist to aliens.

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