Mei-Li? Mentally he reached for her. Can you hear me? Can you feel me?
I can hear you, came the reply. But I feel nothing.
Not even this? Squeezing his eyes even more tightly closed, he tried to project everything he was feeling—all his hope that this would work, the sorrow and anger he felt over what had happened to her, his intense desire to fix what had been harmed, but most of all the caring and desire he felt for her.
He pushed these emotions at her as hard as he could, straining with the effort. It was like physical work—he could feel the tension in his neck and shoulder muscles as he struggled to get even the slightest feeling past the barrier that separated them and into Mei-Li’s consciousness. Because there was a barrier—a wall he couldn’t find a single chink in, as though it was made from a solid sheet of steel.
At last he relaxed, panting. He wasn’t sure if he had managed to do any good or not but he had to take a break or he was going to burst a vessel.
Mei-Li? he sent hopefully, when he had gotten his mental breath back. Did you feel any of that?
I felt…something. Her mental voice was hesitant. I am not sure what. A faint…something. I cannot even think what to call it. A sensation, maybe?
I’ll try again.
Six redoubled his efforts. Over and over he pushed the feelings at her until he felt like his brain or his heart or both were going to explode. But no matter how hard or fast he sent his emotions at her, Mei-Li never seemed to feel more than a hint of them. Six felt like he was yelling as loudly as he could, shouting until he was hoarse, and she could only hear the faintest whisper.
Finally, he felt a tap on his shoulder. He opened his eyes to see Yipper looking at him anxiously.
“Six, you must stop. Yes you must, yes you must,” the little Tolleg said earnestly.
Six shook his head. “I cannot. Have to keep trying. She can feel a little of what I’m sending, Yipper. Only a tiny bit but still—”
“Look at your sensor light.” Yipper indicated the little disk curled around Six’s neck. It had changed from green to a glowing, ominous red. As he watched, the red faded slightly until it was orange and then it switched to a dark yellow.
Sylvan stepped forward. “What do the colors indicate?”
“Mental effort and distress,” Yipper said. “A moment ago Six’s light was bright red. Yes it was, yes it was. He could injure himself permanently if he’s not careful. Yes he could, yes he could.”
“I don’t care if I hurt myself—we don’t have much time left,” Six exploded. “Don’t you understand? I can feel the barrier between us. If I can just force my emotions through it so that she can experience them…”
But Yipper was shaking his head.
“I’m sorry, Six, but either the barrier is too set in place already or your emotions are not strong enough. No they aren’t, no they aren’t.”
“How can they not be strong enough? I feel for her as I have never felt for anyone. Anyone except—” Six stopped abruptly but a little voice in his head finished for him. For anyone except Mere and Pere and Kaylee.
Suddenly he knew what he had to do.
“Yipper,” he said, looking at the anxious little Tolleg. “I want you to take out my implant. Take it out right now.”
Chapter Thirty
Mei-Li could not understand all the excitement and agitation going on around her. Six was arguing with Yipper about something passionately—something he insisted the Tolleg do. Only Yipper didn’t want to do it for some reason.
“I tell you, Six, I do not think your mind could bear the stress without breaking,” he argued in his shrill little voice. “It has been too long and the pain is too great. You will experience three times the agony you were having when I first put the implant in. I know you do not remember it now but you were in a desperate situation. If you had not been, I never would have agreed to put in the implant in the first place. No I wouldn’t, no I wouldn’t.”
“I don’t care. I don’t care about any of that,” Six insisted. “I only care about Mei-Li. You said I need stronger emotions than what I have now to break through the barrier between us—to break through the block that has grown in her brain. I know of no stronger emotions than these—I can feel them just under the surface of my mind but I cannot access them—not until you remove this Goddess damned implant.”
“But Six, you know you won’t just feel the emotions, you’ll remember all the memories that go with them. Yes you will, yes you will.”
Mei-Li thought Six looked pale but he only nodded.
“Yes, I know.”
“Here is something you do not know, Six: because of the length of time you’ve had the implant, when the memories come back they will be akin to a whole body experience. In other words, you won’t just remember them—you’ll relive them,” Yipper emphasized. “You will be going through everything that happened to you all over again. And you will be unable to stop the experience until you come to the end.”
“I…I must relive the memories?” Six’s deep voice was hoarse and uncertain.
Solemnly, Yipper nodded. “Do you see now why I do not wish to remove the implant? I truly do not think your mind could bear the stress without breaking. You would have to go through everything bad in your past again and the agony you would endure would be three times as great as it was the first time. Stronger males than you would snap under the strain, Six. Please do not ask me to do this—I consider you a friend and I do not wish to drive you insane.”
“I’m already driven halfway mad by the way I feel for her.” Six nodded down at Mei-Li and she looked up at him, still not quite comprehending why he was so upset. “I cannot bear this—having these feelings for her and knowing she has none for me.”
“But Six, in time…”
“No.” With a sudden movement, Six was holding an evil-looking snub-nosed weapon in his hand. He pointed it at the little Tolleg who jumped back.
“Six, please!”
“Now wait a minute, Six,” Commander Sylvan said in a reasonable tone.
“No,” Six said again. “I am through waiting. Every moment we delay the block in Mei-Li’s mind is getting more and more solid. Yipper, either take the implant out now or make a batch of the emotion blocker serum for me.”
“Neither option is a good one. No it isn’t, no it isn’t,” Yipper protested unhappily. “Please, Six, there must be another way.”
“There is.” Six reversed the weapon and pointed it at his own temple. “I cannot live like this. Make your choice but do it quickly. I will give you to the count of five to decide. One…two…”
Mei-Li looked up wonderingly as he counted. Was he really threatening to end his own existence because of her? Because of the way she felt nothing? But…why? She knew that she had once thought emotions were very important, but they seemed like nothing to her now. Still, Six seemed very disturbed about them. In fact, the wild, grimly determined look on his face caused a very small, strange sensation somewhere in the vicinity of her heart. For some reason it began beating harder.
Six? whispered a small voice in her brain. Six, why are you doing this? Don’t…please don’t.
“Four…five,” Six finished. Mei-Li felt his muscles tensing as his finger tightened on the trigger. “Very well, you have made your choice and now I will make mine,” he told Yipper.
“Wait!” the Tolleg shouted. “Wait, Six please—I will do it, yes I will, yes I will! I will remove the implant!”
“Do you swear it?” Six still hadn’t lowered the weapon.
“I swear it. I do, I do!” Yipper chattered. “Though I am sure I will regret it, I cannot watch you take your own life.”
“Good.” At last Six lowered the weapon. “Then get to it.”
“All right, all right…” The little Tolleg was already pawing through his pouch of instruments and supplies. “I’ll just need to get a few things to ease the transition…”
“No,” Six said flatly. “Don’t worry about numbing the area or
anything like that. Just take it out. Now.”
“Is this advisable?” Mei-Li heard Sylvan murmured to Yipper.
“No.” The Tolleg sounded miserable. “But if you are asking if Six will be a danger to anyone, the answer is no he won’t, no he won’t. Not to anyone but himself.”
“Then proceed,” Sylvan said gravely. “If he is willing to give everything for the female he loves, he ought to be allowed to take the risk. The Goddess respects such acts of extreme self-sacrifice—it may be she will bless his efforts.”
“It may also be that he will be driven mad. Yes he will, yes he will,” Yipper said sharply. “But it seems I have no choice. No I don’t, no I don’t.”
He was behind the two of them now, balancing precariously on the back of the headboard and bending over Six’s neck. The big Kindred bent his head obligingly, to give the Tolleg better access.
Mei-Li craned her neck around, the better to see what was happening. She saw Yipper looking closely at the silver and black button embedded at the base of Six’s neck, just below his hairline.
“I am sorry, Six—this will hurt,” he said softly. “Yes it will, yes it will.”
“I don’t give a Goddess damn if it hurts,” Six growled. “Just do i—”
His words were cut off suddenly as, in a move that was only a blur to Mei-Li’s eyes, Yipper’s long tongue yanked out the black and silver button and the long, thin tube attached to it.
Six’s growl became a grunt of pain. Then his arm tightened around her shoulders and she felt him take in a deep, shuttering breath. Then, suddenly, the room around her melted away and she was someplace else entirely.
Chapter Thirty-one
Mei-Li looked around herself uncertainly. Hadn’t she just been sitting in a hospital bed a moment ago with Six’s arm wrapped around her shoulders? If so, how had she gotten here? Someplace in time and space that seemed vaguely familiar though she somehow knew she had never actually been here before.
She was in some kind of a spaceship, that much was clear from the view of stars she saw out one of the thick windows. In another window she could see a vast metal shape. Space station, a voice whispered in her head. Ligex Station. How she knew that or the name of the station, Mei-Li couldn’t understand. It seemed like something from her past. But not her past exactly, someone else’s…
“All right, now Jax, remember what we said—look but don’t touch anything in the station.”
The voice belonged to a tall woman with long, dark hair and gray eyes very much like Six’s.
Isla, whispered the same voice in Mei-Li’s head. Six’s…mother?
That felt right—like the truth. She looked around to find Six and ask him if it was but she didn’t see him. Or not the way she remembered him, anyway. Instead she saw a boy of about thirteen or fourteen—tall and good looking thought he clearly hadn’t reached his full growth yet. Beside him was a little girl of nine or ten with long blondish hair and green eyes.
Kaylee, the voice whispered. That’s Kaylee… And with that, Mei-Li finally remembered where she had seen these people before. Six’s Memory Cache—the one on the emulator. This is what he got so angry with me for watching. And yet, she somehow sensed that he knew she was watching this time—and that he was watching with her.
I should leave. He’ll be angry. She didn’t care about or experience emotions anymore but she had no wish to be shouted at—it was…unpleasant. And she had a sensation of unease when she realized she was watching something forbidden. It was a sensation she might once have called guilt, though it wasn’t strong enough to really label now.
Mei-Li closed her eyes and concentrated, trying to extricate herself from the memory. But when she opened them, she was still in the spaceship with the people that had once been Six’s family.
Why can’t I leave? I’m stuck! The thought brought a strange quickening of her heart—an unpleasant sensation she seemed powerless to stop.
Then she became aware that while Six knew she was watching, he wasn’t saying anything about it. Why didn’t he yell at her again? Why didn’t he shout and grow cold as he had before?
Because he can’t, whispered the little voice. He’s as stuck in this memory as much you are—more so. He isn’t just watching—he’s reliving it. That’s why you don’t see him here—he’s in the boy. He is the boy.
The thought felt right but Mei-Li didn’t understand one thing—why was she able to see Six along with the other family members instead of looking out of his eyes and riding along in his head as she had while she was viewing his memory cache? She didn’t know. Maybe it was some kind of mental distortion that allowed her to watch but for whatever the reason, she was glad to be apart from the actual action. Something told her that this happy family scene wasn’t going to remain happy for long…
It did, though. The family walked through the airlock and into Ligex Station which looked like a giant floating tin can to Mei-Li. There were various metal corridors curving in all different directions with signs pointing every which way. Temp cloning shed, read one. Pickled Spinker meat! Exotic L’boon wines, read another. Extra teeth, grown while you wait! Tusks extra, proclaimed a third. Bots serviced, inspected and upgraded…Homemade fungus jam…A.I. reprogramming—fast service!…And there were too many more to count, all advertising different services and products.
“We’ll split up here,” the father, a big Kindred warrior said. “Touch nothing and especially don’t eat anything. If you find something you want, we’ll come back to it and scan it for pathogens before deciding if it’s a good buy or not.”
“Yes Pere,” Jax—or rather, the young Six—and his sister chorused.
“Have you got your microbe light?” their mother asked.
In answer, the young Six pulled out a small device that looked like a white wand. Holding it by the silver metal handle, he flipped the switch and the white tube suddenly glowed a fierce, brilliant yellow. He ran it over one hand and then the other. “See?”
“Good.” His father nodded approvingly. “See that you use it if you need to. Public stations like Ligex are crawling with germs but the light should kill just about anything that might be out here.”
“Yes Pere.” The young Six nodded gravely.
“Good. Have fun you two! We’ll meet you back here at the ship in two solar hours.”
Then they split up, with the kids going down one corridor while their parents set off down another. Mei-Li found herself following along behind Six and his sister, who were looking with big eyes at everything around them.
There was plenty to see. Ligex Station was a large, crowded, noisy maze of twisting corridors that led off to smaller stalls and rooms along the way and every spare inch seemed to be packed with colorful merchandize and shouting vendors. It reminded Mei-Li of the Wagon Wheel—a flea market she sometimes visited on the weekends with Claudia back home. Except the Wagon Wheel didn’t have any vendors who advertised while-you-wait cloning services.
“Fresh pods, get your fresh pino pods here!”
“Lapberry strundel! Fresh made and flakey!”
“Never be lonely or overworked again—get cloned in a day! Have half the work and twice the leisure. A bargain at twice the price!”
Six and his sister wandered through the crowds, their eyes wide. Six had his sister’s hand clasped firmly in his and he made sure she stayed close, keeping a watchful eye on her like a good big brother should. Mei-Li could see the necessity of this because Kaylee seemed to have problems with impulse control. Despite the stern warning of her parents, she kept tugging Six from one booth to the next, eager to examine what everyone was selling.
“Oh look, Jax—a phoodle!” she cried, running to a cage filled with pink and purple creatures with wildly curly corkscrew hair. They were long and thin, rather like a ferret in shape, with pink twitching noses and long curly whiskers. They had big, glowing eyes and they hummed gently when the children got near their cage.
“Would you care to hold one, my dear?” as
ked the old man standing over the cage. “Make lovely pets, they do. And they’re tasty enough to fill your stewpot in a pinch—though most can’t bear to eat them once they’ve had them a little while. Get real attached to them, they do.”
“Thank you, but our parents told us not to touch anything,” Six said firmly, grabbing his sister’s free hand just as she was about to stick it through the bars of the cage.
“Well, that’s wise, that is.” The old man nodded sagely. “Heard tell there’s been a new outbreak of some kind of plague a few systems over. But you’ll find my animals are clean. Have your parents come check them out themselves if they like.”
“Thanks, maybe we will.” Six nodded and smiled politely as they moved on.
“C’mon, Jax,” Kaylee begged. “They were so cute! And the man said they were clean!”
“People will say anything to sell. Mere says that and you know it’s true,” Six said.
“Well I want a phoodle for a pet! Why don’t you ask Mere and Pere to check them out so we can get one?”
The young Six smiled. “We’re supposed to be here shopping for my nameday present, remember? You don’t even turn nine cycles until six solar months from now.”
Mei-Li, who was still watching invisibly, frowned. She had thought the girl must be nine or ten but maybe she was just tall for her age. That might explain some of the impulse control issues she seemed to have going on. And she certainly had them—already she was pulling Six in another direction, babbling about a toy she wanted. He followed her indulgently and once again kept her from touching the display of brightly colored objects that were somehow floating in mid air in front of the vendor’s stall.
Trailing them through the teeming space station, Mei-Li began to wonder what could have possibly happened to Six’s family. So far everything seemed routine. Then Six finally saw something that interested him.
“Look at that—an interactive adventure helmet!” He motioned to a small stall crammed with electronic looking devices. It was right against another that seemed to be some kind of bakery, judging from the delicious smells wafting from inside. But Six wasn’t interested in the mouthwatering aromas or the kindly old lady who ran the baked goods stall. He only had eyes for the steel gray helmet which appeared made to cover the entire head, rather like a metal fishbowl with wires coming out of it.