Chapter 29 - Kryslie’s Gift
The interview was brief and impersonal. For breaking curfew, they received a penalty of three days loss of personal freedom. Or as Stenn put it, they were ‘grounded’. They already knew that meant they would be without their personal transmitters for that time.
Reslic detailed other aspects. “One of the palace guards will transmit you to and from your lessons. Except for lessons, you will spend you time in your separate apartments. You will have your meals there, and undertake the extra work you will complete. However, you may continue to sleep in Ty’s suite as you are doing.”
He received two nods, and both Tymos and Kryslie accepted the restrictions.
“One final stipulation,” Reslic remarked, fixing them both with a sharp gaze. “The extra work must be completed individually. In particular, the meditation exercises. I do not want you collaborating on them – mentally or verbally. I would like to hear your individual thoughts on those subjects.”
Tymos nodded. “Fine, Sir.”
Kryslie almost shrugged to avoid answering, but quickly thought again. She was in enough trouble and didn’t want to add being disrespectful to the list. Although Reslic had not commented on the formal dress, she knew he had interpreted their meaning.
“If that is what you require, Sir,” she agreed evenly. In her own mind, she told herself that she didn’t need to be in telepathic contact with Tymos to know what he thought.
They had to go directly from seeing Reslic to their lessons. The appointed guards awaited them in the anteroom when Reslic dismissed them.
On their arrival in the large lyceum, Stenn saw them arrive and his eyebrows went up into his shaggy hair. He knew what the escorts meant. He gave them a faint smile and saw it returned.
The morning’s instructor placed Tymos and Kryslie apart from each other and the rest of their group. Stenn whispered an explanation to Jonko and Keleb. Each of the other members of level epsilon, at various times when they were not being observed, either winked or smiled sympathetically – tacitly giving them support and encouragement.
In their apartments during the lunch break, Delia and Morov brought a solid meal without being asked, and spoke as little as possible to their charges. Neither attendant knew exactly what trouble they had got into – only that they had been ‘grounded’. Delia’s pursed lips made her disapproval quite plain; she expected better from her charge. However, her disapproval eased when Kryslie made a start on the extra work.
Morov merely hid a faint smile of sympathy. He knew what it was like to be grounded.
At least, the afternoon’s instructors treated them as usual, and some quiet conversation was possible. Stenn asked what they had done, but was only told they broke curfew. Stenn gave them a look of pained patience.
“I suppose you had to try it,” he muttered before his uncle glared at him.
Tymoros had not been in the suite the evening before when they had been ‘delivered’ by Yeven. Tanya had seen them arrive, had guessed the reason, but made no reference to the cause. This evening, Kryslie had asked Delia to bring her to the High King’s suite when she was ready for bed. Her attendant was less disapproving, for she had heard that she had helped save Sacul. Tymos came in with Morov a few moments later.
Tymoros was sitting in his favourite padded chair, waiting for them.
“Good night, Father,” Kryslie said quietly as she went to walk past him to her sleeping room.
“Wait a moment,” Tymoros directed, and she stopped but did not look around. When Tymos walked closer, he said, “Come and sit with me.
Tentatively, they took seats either side of him.
“Jono tells me that you saved young Sacul’s life. Well done,” Tymoros commended. Then he asked, “Why didn’t you come to me? And why did you go rushing out on your own?”
Kryslie sighed, “There didn’t seem enough time.”
“Do you not recall that I said I trusted your instincts?” Tymoros chided gently. “I have not changed my mind.”
“We didn’t know where to find you, either,” Tymos added in support of his sister. “You have been very busy this past week.”
“Is that what is bothering you? That I wasn’t around to help you?”
“No,” Kryslie protested. “We did what we felt we needed to do. The rest…having restrictions…isn’t important.”
“Then what is?” Tymoros asked. He felt his daughter had just confirmed Reslic’s contention that she would break curfew again if she felt it justified.
Tymos found the words for what Kryslie wanted to say. “It’s the ‘what if’ we were wrong, and we were tricked out into the garden,” he explained. “Like those others were. We don’t want to cause you more grief.”
“I see,” Tymoros admitted. He put his arms around both of them and drew them close.
“What did happen to them?” Kryslie asked quietly. “I know they died and they were still very young.”
She nestled closer to her foster father, as he recalled that time of grief.
“We don’t know, exactly. Even in hindsight. Perhaps it was like you last night, or perhaps they were lured out there into the garden. We found them, dead, near the boundary fence, hands locked together. There was no sign of violence.”
“What killed them?” Tymos asked. “Cold? Like Sacul?”
“No. When they were examined, it was as if their bodies had mutated. Oh, they looked as they had, but their cells were…like they had received a massive dose of radiation.”
Tymoros’s voice was unsteady as he added, “Jassi was eleven and Verdi was ten. They had both just reached, second stage – both had tremendous potential.”
“And then Isana and Manon died,” Tymos thought at his sister. “And we were conceived.”
Kryslie pulled away from Tymoros a bit and said, deliberately, “Well, we are not that innocent and not so virtuous. And if people can’t accept that - too bad. We know the world isn’t perfect. We know aliens exist and they don’t know us, even if they think they do.”
Tymoros looked at Kryslie in a new light. She saw his interest and stated, “Even if we don’t remember it, we grew up as humans. That means we have instincts that are not like those who grew up here.”
Or as Reslic had described them to his fellow Governor, “Two stubborn and determined young mavericks.”
Tymos finished Kryslie’s thought. “That makes us somewhat unpredictable, and they won’t realise that there are two of us that think like one.”
Llaimos chose that moment to wake again. “My turn,” Tymos remarked, rising.
Kryslie hugged Tymoros again. “They won’t get the better of us, and we won’t let them harm Llaimos,” she vowed. She pulled free and stood up. “I’d better get some sleep.”
Tymoros let her go, and watched Tymos with his youngest son. This time, he didn’t go over to hold Llaimos. He was thinking of what Tymos had said to Reslic - the statement that they wouldn’t be children much longer. He recognised it as a foretelling. It was quite true that Tymos and his sister were not like any of his dead children. Oh, the resemblance was there, but they were not as compliant, obedient or as naïve as his own children had been. Reslic found them a challenge. Fortunately, they were not aware of how powerful they had become, and they were still respectful of their elders – except for occasional clashes. They were compassionate and had good sense, and those traits governed them and restrained them from greater clashes of will.
After the end of the second day, Tymos and Kryslie had both realised that even such a short period of restriction was not as easy to tolerate as they had thought. They had not realized how much they appreciated and needed the social interaction during the day and evening. Without it, they felt like they had non-stop lessons and their minds were going fuzzy. The additional lessons their teachers had set for them to complete were time consuming and required a great deal of thought.
Tymos found faint amusement in an admission Stenn had made. He claimed that occasional ‘grounding’ events gave him a break from his ten siblings. But he didn’t feel that way about Kryslie. She was a part of him, and he was aware of her even when they were not in physical or mental contact with each other. It was an effort to keep shielded against her. He likened it to being in a room full of mirrors and being forbidden to look at his reflection.
Still, he didn’t resent the restrictions, even that one. With the need to hurry to pass level delta, the teachers were going to give them extra work anyway. Having a reason to avoid distractions was an advantage to getting it done.
By the third evening, despite his resolve and seeing usefulness in the restrictions, he felt like rebelling. He had finished the work, but not yet put enough thought into the meditation subject Reslic had proposed for him. He was alone in his apartment, and his talk with Reslic was only two hours off.
He was trying to meditate, but his mind was still drifting to his sister. He wanted to discuss ideas with her, even if it were forbidden. To his deepest senses, what he privately called the ‘twin bond’, he felt Kryslie was unsettled and he made an effort to calm himself, and hoped she would calm as well.
The calm lasted only five minutes, until Kryslie’s agitation broke through, and he was echoing it. Deliberately, he lowered his mental shields and reached out for her mind.
She wasn’t thinking of him, or her work, but she was concentrating on something. Tymos had an overpowering need to go to her, but the guard outside his door would stop him and he did not have his transmitter. He might be able to convince the guard that something was wrong - but not while he was under restrictions. It made the guard seem like a gaoler.
Kryslie had conscientiously applied herself to the tasks she had been set, and finished the lesson work by the second day. The meditation exercise she saved for the last day, as she usually found such exercises relaxing. This time though, it seemed tedious and she couldn’t concentrate. Nor could she sit still. She felt the need to pace around her apartment and jumped at the slightest sounds. Above all that, she felt the need to be elsewhere.
At first, she thought it was a reaction to being restricted, and having to keep out of her brother’s mental contact.
No doubt, she decided, Reslic wanted to emphasise his belief that they needed to be less dependent on each other.
After a while, she recognised the growing uneasiness within herself as reminiscent of the urgent need she had felt three nights ago that had led her to Sacul. Having made that connection, she analysed the feeling and became sure. Sacul was wordlessly crying out for help again, but she could not go to him. It was as if his precious life force was ebbing away.
Unconsciously her fingers went to her temples in a gesture of concentration. When she closed her eyes a vision came to her of Sacul, awake but growing weaker. Instinctively, she directed her mind to the mind of the child, knowing somehow that she could help him.
Madame Teena sent an urgent message summoning Professor Governor Xyron. When he arrived, she led him to Sacul. The child was pale, his skin clammy and his dull eyes stared up at the roof. His breathing was so shallow it had almost stopped.
Xyron drew out a portable diagnostic tool and scanned Sacul from head to toe. He looked at the read- out and then back at the child. His free hand went to the child’s forehead and in that contact, he could feel the child’s life energy ebbing away.
“Bring him to the critical care section,” Xyron instructed, hiding his feeling of helplessness.
His assistants connected Sacul to the life supporting machines, which would only delay the inevitable. This had happened before. Seven times in the past decade, children with no detectable signs of illness had gone from normal and healthy to dead in a few days. Each had been on the verge of the power’s second stage. Each death was inexplicable.
Xyron activated the more sensitive scanning equipment, and listened to the muted hums and beeps of the life-signs monitors. When the brainwave monitor changed its tone, Xyron placed his hand on Sacul’s forehead again. He felt power at work; power that lacked training, was tentative in its action and was feeling its way.
Then he checked the monitors again and saw that Sacul’s condition had stopped worsening.
“Summon Reslic and Tymoros,” Xyron instructed his assistant. He continued to watch the monitors and sense the action of the power in Sacul’s mind.
The two other Governors arrived within moments and listened to Xyron’s terse report.
“Another one, and still no reason why?” Tymoros asked grimly.
“Yes, but something has stopped this one. Sacul is getting no worse.”
Reslic placed his hand where Xyron’s had been.
“Kryslie!” Reslic said suddenly. “She heard the child call out and found him in the zekon.”
He glanced at Tymoros and they transmitted to Kryslie’s suite.
Kryslie was oblivious to everything around her. Her hands, balled into fists and pressed against her forehead, were glowing purple as she fought from a distance the compulsion that made Sacul want to die.
Even when Tymoros transmitted Kryslie to the infirmary, she did not move. Her mind was focussed on the child. In that moment of contact, he felt the power in Kryslie, building up but still controlled. She was struggling to maintain control of the power and to direct it to her will.
Reslic gently took one of Kryslie’s hands, opened it from the balled fist and placed it on Sacul’s forehead. Tymoros did the same with her other hand, but placed his hand over hers to provide a regulating effect. He could sense what Kryslie was doing, and the results were visible on the monitors. She was manipulating, very delicately, Sacul’s brainwaves. Too much power would kill the child, too little and the child would continue to will himself dead.
Kryslie concentrated on Sacul for a long time, fighting for every minute improvement.
“I know I can do this,” Kryslie said desperately. “But he is fighting me.”
Tymoros spoke softly into her ear. “Have you told him who you are and what you are doing?”
Kryslie thought about that and suddenly knew what was happening.
“Sacul, I am Kryslie, remember me? You are one of my first and best friends and you helped Tymos plan ambushes on me with the children in the nursery, remember?”
Kryslie felt a flash of interest and kept thinking at the child.
“I can help you Sacul. I know how to free you from the alien taint, but you have to trust me – will you?”
A tentative sense of reaching out – a wild creature, ready to flee.
“Remember, Sacul? I helped you call your parents on your 13th birthday. They are so proud of you.”
There followed an intense swirl of emotion and a wave of suicidal despair.
“Sacul, I will not let them win! They could not control me – I will not let them control you!”
Tentative hope.
“Take my hand,” Kryslie directed, taking one of Sacul’s limp hands in her own.
Reslic spoke quietly so Kryslie could hear.
“His power is rising; you need to draw it from him.” In his mind was they way to do it.
Kryslie followed the advice, picturing Sacul’s power as a trickle of water, but in her mind, it changed to a writhing green serpent.
“Allow it to flow through you and back into the child,” Reslic advised. “You have the will to cleanse it.”
The writhing serpent image, tried to overcome her, but she imaged a glowing purple serpent, twisting with it, strangling it. The green tinged power kept coming, wanting her for her greater life force.
Kryslie eased her grip on the imaged serpent and it writhed faster, thinking that she was weakening. When the power flowing from Sacul seemed purple, Kryslie lifted her hand from the boy and shook both hands free of the Governor’s. She heard the power buzzing in her head and let the sound grow to be like a swarm of wild bees then grounded out the power through the image of the writhing green serpent. In her mind, it blazed in a flare of incandescent purple flame, blackened and became ash.
Kryslie opened her eyes and looked at Reslic.
“All is well,” she said.
Kryslie looked then at Sacul, saw colour returning to his face and heard him take a deep breath.
“Sacul, wake up. You do not need to be afraid any more.”
She saw the child close his eyes more tightly.
“No one is angry with you,” she assured him in a gentle voice. “That which you feared, is gone.”
Tears leaked from the closed eyes.
Kryslie embraced the child and helped him into a sitting position. “The taint is gone.”
“I wanted to die,” Sacul whispered. “I didn’t want to do what the voice said.”
“You could have asked for help,” Kryslie told him.
“I didn’t want to be punished,” Sacul admitted still very quietly. “The voices started after I crept out one night when there was a really big storm. Titus dared me. I thought I was going crazy. The voices wanted me to do bad things. I said, no, but I found myself doing them.”
“What things?” Kryslie asked.
“Taking things, lying about it, hurting little ones and scaring them so they wouldn’t tell on me. I’d sneak into places where I wasn’t meant to be.” Sacul whispered, but Kryslie sensed this wasn’t all and not the worst of it.
“Go on,” Kryslie encouraged.
“You’ll hate me…”
“We need to know…”
“The voice told me to…to…to go to the nursery and put a pillow over Llaimos. I found myself there with a pillow in my hand…I threw it down and ran. I wanted to die…”
Sacul’s sobs increased as Kryslie held him.
“You are free of the voices now, Sacul. You broke their control.”
“What if they come back?” he sobbed.
“If they do, or if you see your friends acting strange – come and talk to me, or the Governors or even an older student,” Kryslie advised.
“Will I be punished?” Sacul asked. “I should be…”
Kryslie looked at the Governors. They waited, letting her answer.
“Governor Xyron or Governor Reslic will need to have someone talk to you about this, Sacul. They will want to try to work out how to stop this happening to any one else. You will need to be very honest and if need be they will recommend special training for you.”
“Will it hurt?”
“Did the voices say that?”
Sacul nodded.
Kryslie grinned wryly. “For you – I don’t think so. You have a very good reason to make your mind stronger. Me, however, I was a lot more stubborn. My lesson needed to be more forceful.”
“You, Princess?” Sacul’s eyes widened as he realised what she meant.
“Yes, me. Even I can make a bad judgement. The important thing is to learn from them and become stronger.”
Sacul nodded solemnly.
“Now, I suggest that you have the drink Madame Teena is preparing for you and get a good night’s sleep.”
Kryslie released Sacul when the drink arrived and walked over to the High King.
“I’m ready to return to my room now.”
Jono Reslic spoke softly in response to her comment.
“Let us talk together for a time.”
Kryslie was surprised to see her brother waiting in Reslic’s private office. She met his gaze as he leant forward to look at her and then she felt the touch of his mind. She gave him a slight smile so he knew she was fine.
Tymos relaxed back in the chair. He had feared the worst when he had been sent to wait in this room where the walls somehow blocked contact with his sister.
“It was Sacul again, Tym. He wanted to die…”
Kryslie told her brother what had occurred. She paced the room as she related all the details of what she had sensed and done.
Reslic leant back in his chair behind his desk and listened without interrupting. His attitude, whilst not casual, was not as formal as during their other visits to this office.
“An excellent summation,” Reslic commented when Kryslie had finished speaking. “So, do you understand now why the curfew is so important?” He looked at both children.
“I understand the reason,” Kryslie admitted, not giving any indication of whether she agreed with it or not.
“It didn’t help Sacul, Sir,” Tymos pointed out. “And he is normally a very earnest child.”
“He admitted sneaking out at night,” Kryslie told her brother and from Reslic’s nod, she knew he had also heard that admission. “That little demon, Titus, dared him.”
“He went no more that two steps out of the door and then only for a very short time. A step further and he would have been spoken to,” Reslic stated.
“I find it difficult to believe that such a brief time would be enough to influence him,” Kryslie told Reslic. “And there was Zacary. He was probably vulnerable because he was nursing resentments.”
Tymos thought on that. “It might be that Zacary’s teasing gave Sacul a low sense of self esteem. I know he seemed better with us, but that might have made him vulnerable.”
“Zacary tried that on us, but we ignored him,” Kryslie said.
“Perhaps you both might offer to help psychologist Rogert to treat him,” Reslic suggested. “It seems there might be merit in your opinionated, stubborn, human upbringing.”
Kryslie tried to read Reslic’s expression, but it seemed perfectly serious. She smiled faintly. If it had been Stenn, and not his father saying that, she would have known it was teasing. The President, however, had never teased them yet, but she did know he had a wickedly acute sense of humour.
She actually found pride in that description and with her own expression perfectly sober, suggested, “We could spread some of that opinionated stubbornness around.” She thought privately to Tymos, “Two can play with barbed comments.”
She continued for Reslic’s ears, “We could try to teach all the older pre-transition children.”
The lack of a barbed rejoinder proved that Reslic had been serious.
“The days before transition are particularly perilous. The power usually rises with the onset of adolescence,” Reslic told them. “When the child was born off world, the usual indications of transition are often masked. Children born here are taught to recognise the changes, but off world children find so many other differences.”
“Well, I am glad we found Sacul.” Kryslie tried to keep her voice level and not sound defiant.
“And if such a situation happens again…?” Reslic prompted.
“I’d act again,” Kryslie felt compelled to admit. She saw Reslic watching her, waiting for her to continue. “Perhaps by telling Father, or one of the guards – or by insisting on joining the search. I won’t promise not to.”
Reslic’s gaze became harder.
Kryslie tried to verbalise her thoughts. “I accept that until we are fully trained we must accept many restrictions, including curfew for our own protection – and that we are safer at night when we are with others. But, when it comes to susceptibility to alien influences, are we really so much safer by day?”
“We don’t have much free time during the day,” Tymos pointed out. “Though, Sacul had not yet graduated to the large lyceum, so he would have had more free time. Same as Zacary.”
Kryslie had a sudden thought. “There have been others, like Sacul?”
Reslic nodded.
“Were they all born elsewhere?”
“Most, not all. They were all adolescent, some pre-transition, some just past transition.”
“Sir, you may not be convinced of this,” Kryslie spoke quietly. “But I knew that the call I heard was not a ruse to get us alone so that we could be influenced.”
“I agree, that in this instance, your instincts were correct,” Reslic said guardedly.
Kryslie walked over to the clear wall panel where she could look down over the dark gardens.
“I know you are trying to teach us wisdom. So that we know what is right and true and what isn’t. So we can understand our instincts and the reasons why we are what we are,” Kryslie seemed to be speaking more to herself. “With all those meditation sessions, I have come to realise how totally ignorant we were when we first came here. I can see the changes in myself. Just as Sacul realised the changes in his mind. I knew I could help him. Even if the action was little more than instinct.”
Kryslie fell silent.
“So you guide us until we understand our instincts,” Tymos spoke into the silence. “I guess you know us better than we know ourselves. You always seem to know what we are capable of and what we are not. You must have known, when you told me to ponder the subject of time that I was impatient for the time when I would know everything.