Then they were there. It was a grassy yard. Colene threw herself down on it, kissing the turf. "I never dreamed I'd be so glad to see home!"
"The monster is gone," Pussy said, half in wonder.
"That is the way of it," Darius said. "It has power only on the Virtual Mode. But now that it has found her again, it will be lurking when we go on it again. This is mischief."
Burgess knew it was. He had carried Colene during her prior siege, and felt some of her pain. That pain had returned. How was she going to travel the Virtual Mode again?
Colene got up and hugged Pussy. "I love you," she said. "You made it bearable."
"I must do all I can for you," the Feline female replied. "I would take it all, if I could."
"You can't. But you helped." Colene looked around. "You have your magic?" she asked Nona.
Nona experimented, generating a small flame in air, then lifting a stone without touching it. "Yes, increasingly. Seqiro knows this location. But my powers remain relatively slight. There are a number of things I can't yet do."
"But can do you do illusion?" Darius asked.
"Yes. That is very easy magic."
"Then you can conceal Burgess. And the rest of us. Make your illusion of nothing."
They all disappeared, unable to see themselves or each other. "But that won't last when I'm not here to invoke it," Nona's voice came.
"Make us be of no interest, then," Colene said. "So passing folk won't notice us."
"That is easier yet," Nona agreed. They all reappeared, looking the same. "I believe that spell will last for a time after I depart the scene."
"Come on," Colene said, heading for the house. "Time to meet my parents."
Her parents had problems of their own, Burgess remembered. Her mother was addicted to a liquid beverage, and her father was often away from home with other females. But they had been shocked by their daughter's disappearance, and had done their best to improve. They had come to understand the reality of the Virtual Mode, and to support her ventures on it.
They walked as a group to the house. "I'll have to introduce you Felines," Colene said. "But they'll accept you too. Mom will cook up a big meal for us. We'll have to rustle up some money, though; they don't have a lot."
"I could conjure some," Nona said.
"Nuh-uh. It has to be legitimate. Maybe Amos can help."
"Who is Amos?" Cat asked.
"He was my science teacher. He helped save Burgess, last time we were here. He's a good man. I had a crush on him once. But we'll have to earn whatever he gives us."
"Earn?"
"We'll have to do something for him in return for the money. He's almost as honest as Darius. We don't want to go public about the Virtual Mode. He's already seen Nona's magic. So I'm not sure what we can offer."
"Should I offer?" Pussy asked.
"No. He's not into temptation."
They had stopped at the back door to the house. "We must first meet your family," Darius said.
"Yeah. I'll figure something out for Amos." Colene put her hand on the doorknob. "Let me do the talking at first, okay? They're not much used to travelers like us." Then she opened the door.
The travelers entered, but Burgess was too large to fit, so he waited outside. However, Colene's power of mind reading was still increasing, and Seqiro's larger compass was with them, so Burgess was aware of what was happening.
The house was empty. But not unoccupied. Colene's parents were merely away at this hour.
"Okay," Colene said. "Maybe it's easier this way. Let's make a shed in back for us to camp in, and Darius and I will meet them when they come back and break them in easy. They'll help as well as they can, I know. They're not bad people, just fouled up." She smiled. "Like me."
They rejoined Burgess outside, and set about making a shelter. Nona used her returning magic to form planks and boards from clods of earth, transforming them, and Darius and Tom pounded them into the ground and fastened them together in workmanlike fashion. The males worked well together, and knew what they were doing; the edifice was soundly constructed. Then it was female time, and Nona transformed other clods into what Colene called foam plastic for Colene and Pussy to shape into pillows and blankets. By the time they added a chamber for Burgess, the structure filled a fair portion of the yard. But Nona's spell of unnoticeability kept it private.
"Know something?" Colene asked rhetorically. "We make a nice family group. I could be happy like this, if I could be happy."
"My little vessel of dolor," Darius said affectionately, squeezing her hand.
There was a flare of rapture from her that suffused them all, like a fire starting up and fading. She loved him, and now it showed mentally as well as physically.
"Oh, God, Darius," she said. "I've got to find a way to be with you."
"In time," he said, with an involuntary mental image of her shedding her clothing. Burgess knew that these folk, who habitually wore covering, tended to regard the removal of it as an invitation to copulate, or at least to consider that process.
"That too," she said. "I mean as a vessel of joy."
"That too," he agreed. "Yet there is that about your dolor that appeals."
"Because it's part of me." She paused, her feeling swirling like a multicolored cloud. "Awful thought: suppose I could get rid of it, and it turned out that I wasn't me anymore? That I am made of dolor, like that woman in Edgar Allan Poe's story who was made of poison?"
"What happened to her?"
"Her boyfriend gave her a potion to nullify the poison, so he could kiss her without dying. But then she died, because the potion nullified her. She just couldn't be what she wasn't, even for love."
"The first Chip oriented on you, from all the Modes," he said seriously. "That meant that you were the woman I needed."
"Except for one teensy detail," she said. "My joy setting was wrong. You should have gotten a more accurate reading."
"It does seem to have been mistaken. I don't see how that could have happened."
She looked around. "Here we are musing about it, yet again, while the others wait. We need to get them comfortable."
But the others were already comfortable. The hive had come together, with the joining of Seqiro's mind. Burgess loved the feeling of belonging, and knew that the others did too. Because now their feelings were one.
"Well, at least we should eat," Colene said.
"I will conjure food," Nona said.
That alarmed Cat. "Isn't that the same as Virtual Mode food? We need to obtain food from an anchor."
"This is an anchor," Nona said. "What I conjure here is substance of this Mode. It will endure."
They shared Cat's process of assimilating that clarification and filing it in its orderly memory. That was one of the things Burgess liked about Cat: its rational organization. It was much easier to understand human events when they were filtered through Cat's perspective. The neuter null liked to make sense of things. "Thank you."
"What would you like?" Nona asked the others collectively.
"Perhaps it is best not to tax your magic unnecessarily," Darius said. "If you focus unduly on inconsequential things, the important ones might be diluted. You do not as yet possess your full powers."
"True. I'll conjure undifferentiated edible solid and liquid."
Colene laughed. "That sounds like garbage!"
"Garbage is merely the unused residue of wholesome food," Cat said. "It is a stage in the development of alternative processes."
Exactly. Now Burgess understood what garbage was. He himself had none.
The food appeared in the form of a brown lump and a bucket of yellow liquid.
"That's worse," Colene said with a giggle. Her mental image was of one of their defecation trenches.
"I thought it was chocolate and orange juice," Pussy said.
"You have such a clean mind."
Nona smiled. The lump turned green, and the liquid turned blue.
"Now it's like cabbage and deterge
nt," Colene said, unable to stop laughing. But she reached out and pulled off a chunk of solid. She bit into it. "Like hominy—not much flavor."
Nona concentrated again. Burgess tasted the substance in Colene's mouth, because of the shared sensation. It turned sweet. Burgess did not eat in that fashion, but it was interesting sharing her experience.
They all ate of the solid, and drank of the liquid, using cups Nona transformed from more dirt. It was what Colene pronounced a vanilla meal: bland but satisfying. Cat even sprinkled some crumbs and poured a few drops into Burgess' trunk tip so that he could taste the food directly. That enabled him to align the received mental tastes with the chemical reality.
They shared company, enjoying the freedom from the dangers of the Virtual Mode. Here they could relax without being concerned about straying across a boundary. Colene was right: they were a compatible hive.
Darius stretched out and slept. Colene lay beside him, reviewing in her mind what she should say to her parents when they returned. It should be all right, but such things could never be taken entirely for granted. She was also concerned about how long they would have to remain here. It was her fault that they had to interrupt their travel, because of the mind predator.
"It is not your fault," Pussy said, receiving the thought as they all did. "No more than it is the fault of any victim of any predator."
"You always take my side," Colene retorted. But she wasn't annoyed. "By the way, thanks for shielding me from that predator. You really helped. I know it was painful for you."
"I will help you in any way I can, to any extent I can," Pussy said. But there was looming horror in her mind; she had felt the dreadful power of the mind monster, and was terrified of it.
"Maybe if all three Felines joined with you, we could shield you more completely," Tom said.
"You shouldn't have to shield me at all! It's my own problem."
"It is our problem," Cat said. "We are here to facilitate Darius' delivery of the Chip, and understand that your safety and well-being are integral to his functioning."
Colene nodded mentally. "I hate to say it, but you may have to help, as Burgess did before. Because once the mind monster latches on to me, it doesn't let go. We tried to escape it on Nona's Mode of Julia before, but then it came back again and Seqiro had to free his anchor to change the pattern and lose it. Now it's found me again, and maybe the only way to lose it again is to free another anchor. And we don't have any left to free."
"We will do what we can," Cat said.
Then they heard something. "My folks!" Colene cried. "They're coming back!" She squeezed Darius' arm, and he woke. "Come on, Nominal Husband. We have to make a call."
Darius sat up, and she brushed him off. They stood and walked to the house as one of the mechanical things rolled up to the front. The others waited in the shelter.
"Mom! Dad!" Colene called as the two older humans emerged from their vehicle. "We're back!"
The mother was closer. She stared at the two without moving. Her feelings were a peculiar mix of hope and dread.
The father came to stand beside her. "It's them!" he exclaimed.
Now the concern and joy of the parents flared. Colene's mother hugged her, and her father eagerly shook Darius' hand. "We were afraid we would never see you again," the mother said.
"Almost, Mom. Maybe not after this. But we're here for now. With some new company."
They walked as a party around the house. "I don't think I remember that shed," the father said.
"We just made it, for a camp," Colene said eagerly. "Nona's here."
Nona stepped out of the shelter, and the mother hugged her. "I remember you! The magic woman."
"Yes. I said we would visit again."
"Where is the horse?"
"Seqiro couldn't make it this time," Colene said. "But he's with us in mind."
"In spirit," the father said, not properly understanding the allusion.
"And Burgess is here. I don't think you ever quite met him, before, but he was with us."
Burgess floated out. Both parents stared at him, astonished. But Colene put a vague thought into their heads, that they took as a memory, and they nodded. They found him very strange, but familiar.
"And three new ones," Colene said. "The Felines: Tom, Pussy, and Cat." The three came out.
"Why you're in costumes," the mother said.
"Permanent ones," Colene agreed with a smile. "They are good people too. We'll be staying here a while, but then we'll have to move on. No one else will notice them."
"Perhaps not," the father said a bit doubtfully.
"You must come inside," the mother said. "Your room is still as you left it. You—" She hesitated. "And your young man. You are married."
"Yes, mother, we are," Colene said with mixed feelings. Her mother naturally assumed they had been sexually active, and Colene wished that was true. Burgess had learned that these human folk set great store by the state of their reproductive activity, even though they often took much trouble to see that the activity was not effective. He did not quite understand that aspect, but accepted it. He wondered what it would be like to have human drives and participate in human sexuality. But that was something he would never know, except vicariously.
They entered the house. "It is better that the rest of us be forgotten," Nona said to the others. "This is not our Mode."
"Her parents seem nice," Pussy said. "Did they adopt her at age eight, to form a trio?"
"No, they did it the human way," Nona said. "They conceived her through sexual activity, birthed her, and raised her from babyhood. But they had problems. The father was interested in other women, and the mother was alcoholic."
"Alcoholic?"
"She imbibed too much intoxicant, and became bad company. So Colene's father was usually away, and her mother was in no state to take care of her. Colene became independent, of necessity. But also very unhappy. Since she left, her parents have done their best to restore their marriage, but Colene remains independent. That may be one reason she so resents her dependence on us when the mind predator attacks her."
"But we exist to help her," Pussy said.
"She prefers to need no help. She learned to survive by being independent, hiding her true feelings. So this is a difficult adjustment."
"We will nevertheless do our best for her," Cat said.
"Perhaps we should just listen to her dialogue with her parents, so she does not have to repeat the details later to us."
Cat nodded. "We will listen."
The people inside the house were just settling down. It was apparent that the parents simply wanted their daughter in their presence for a time, on any pretext, so as to become accustomed to her return. They were in their fashion strangers to her. Burgess had not realized this during the prior stay in this Mode, but he had been very ill, and hardly aware of anything around him. Colene had stayed with him, though that caused her to miss her own marriage ceremony, and her friend Amos Forell had finally discovered the nutrient Burgess required for recovery. So he hardly knew more of Colene's family than the Felines did.
There was an awkward silence. Burgess realized that the family members wished to converse, but were uncertain what to say. There was much they wanted to share with each other, but they were having trouble formulating it. Their lines of family communication, Nona understood, had never been good.
"So how have things been with you, Mom?" Colene asked, trying to establish the dialogue.
The mother had much she wished to convey, but couldn't organize it. So she fixed on the most recent detail. "You know I—I have a problem with the—the—"
"You're alcoholic," Colene said. Her statement was followed by a wash of regret: she was being brutal, and she hadn't come here for that. But it was too late to take it back.
"Yes. But I am on medication for it. I have not—not—not as long as I take those pills. But they have—have—"
"Side effects," the father said.
"Yes," the mot
her said gratefully. "Side effects."
There was another silence. "What side effects?" Colene finally asked.
"They make her hallucinate," the father said. "That's why she wasn't sure she really saw you, until I saw you too."
"Hallucinate!" Colene repeated. "Delirium tremens?"
"No, I never had those," the mother said. "I just got—got drunk and passed out. Eventually. Before. But the medicine stopped that. I can't stand to touch a drink; it makes me violently sick. So I'm sober all the time. It's hard. But Garret has been a big help."
"We have a deal," the father said. So he did have a name, like others of his species. "She stays sober, I stay home. We both gave up what was destroying us."
"Because of you," the mother said to Colene. "When you left, we—we—"
"We lost it," Garret said. "We realized that the biggest thing in our lives was gone. So we made a bargain with God, Morna and I, and swore to reform if only we got you back."
"Or at least knew that you were safe," the mother said. So her name was Morna. "We never dreamed that—what happened—this Visual Model—"
"Virtual Mode," Colene said. She was having trouble maintaining her composure. She had thought for years that her parents hardly cared about her. Now she knew they did, and this evidence of their sacrifice made her want to cry. She had misjudged them so badly, she was ashamed. But what could she say?
"Yes, that's it," Morna agreed. "That place you disappear—at least you are happy there. So we stay reformed, to keep you safe."
Colene believed them. It was painfully touching. They thought she was happy as she traveled, and how could she disillusion them? So she changed the subject back to them. "What about hallucinating?"
"I see things. I hear things. Sometimes I feel things. But they aren't there. Sometimes they make me so—so—I just want to die."
An ugly shock ran through Colene; Burgess felt it right through his carapace. "To die?"
"I've had to hide the knives," Garret said. "So she won't cut herself."
The shock was worse. Colene had cut her wrists to make the pain of her existence go away; a little physical pain banished the emotional pain, to a degree, for a while. That had been her guilty secret. But her mother was doing that too? "Mom, you're depressive!"