Chapter 9

The next morning I awoke eager to go out, more eager than I'd even been in my life.

As soon as I'd "heard" Zuri's voice I'd immediately made him speak to me more -- and more and more! Late as it was, I'd wanted to go into town and find groups of people to "listen" to. I wasn't able to make sense of more than his surface emotions or, as we experimented, his projections, but I could sense something that I thought must be words and I wanted to go to town to get some more experience. Countering my strong urgings, Zuri told me to wait until morning and took me back down to the bedroom, which as it turned out wasn't such a bad alternative, aruna being another wonderful benefit of being har.

The morning breakfast was quick mainly because I wanted it quick. I wanted to go down and be around other hara and find out what I could do with my new gifts. Zuri was more than merely tolerant of this desire but actively encouraged me, just as he had all along. In the bedroom, in between bouts of aruna, he'd used pens and paper to experiment with me, writing out words and saying them into my head as he spoke them. I'd been able to sense the connection! With training, Zuri told me, I'd be able to recognize and understand the word forms in my head and then I'd really understand. Maybe someday I'd be able to speak right back!

It amazed me, it truly did, and what's more, I could tell it amazed Zuri as well. He explained to me on paper that it was virtually unheard of for the newly incepted to tap into such telepathic abilities as I was describing to him. True, in aruna they often were able to share in the exchange of essences and in general practice, they could pick up on emotions and moods, but the sort of signals I was receiving were the sort that a normal har would require caste training to reach. I might reach the higher castes very quickly, he speculated.

In any case that morning we rushed into town, which was called Nova, Zuri told me. After my long years in isolation and days being cooped up in Thiede's house -- for three days completely insensible -- I was eager to be around others and be a part of life. Zuri introduced me to various hara on the street and in buildings throughout the town. Most everyone appeared to be working, putting together some semblance of a true town along with a farm to grown food for sustenance and sale. This was all in great contrast to the city, which for many years had been a place lacking in any economy or trace of ambition, of building, of the need to move forward. Hope was in the air.

Adjacent to the nayati there huddled a cluster of buildings dedicated exclusively to Wraeththu caste training. According to Zuri, who was still using his pen and paper, all the hara were there because they'd been drawn together my Thiede to create a strong new wave of Wraeththu, and caste training was very much a part of that. Thiede had been har for a long time (only I seemed to know just how long, although I kept that knowledge to myself) and it seemed he knew much of what Wraeththu were capable, but that knowledge had been gained haphazardly. Now Thiede wanted to approach it more systematically. Sometime that week I would be brought to the complex to begin my formal training. In the meantime, I was free to explore.

After a couple of hours, much of which was taken up by long chats between Zuri and various residents, we visited the house of his friends Anaka and Keome. We enjoyed our lunch and as ever, I was fascinated by my ability to follow along in conversations. I didn't necessarily hear the words in my head, since that required speakers to be focusing on forming the words, but I could sense the drift of things.

It was actually during that visit that I was first faced with the dilemma I've faced over and over since then. I was, in short, told by Anaka to "get out" of his head, since he sensed me there and felt I was intruding. Zuri had of course told him I was deaf but to Anaka that didn't matter. Many hara have no problem with it but some are like Anaka and are bothered, feeling a lack of privacy even though it my means of communication. That first protest was a bit of discouragement but eventually the general good mood of the group buoyed me up to a state of contentment that lasted for the rest of the afternoon.

In fact it wasn't until we'd returned to Thiede's house for dinner that I started to feel any additional disappointment. We went to the dining room and found Genron and Varan and a servant. There was no sign of Thiede. I hadn't seen him since before my inception, I suddenly realized. I had to thank him! I had to show him what I could do! I took out my paper and asked where he was. I was told that he had been busy, out of sight, for a couple of days, as was his way. Thiede was often busy exploring the higher realms, Genron explained; he had reached the highest caste level and no one was exactly sure what he did there.

After dinner I was shown up to the bedroom I'd had the first night of my stay. I told Zuri I wanted to be left alone for the evening. Given the fact that I'd slept very little the night before and had spent the day exercising my brain trying to read minds, it had been a long day and overall quite a strain on me. I went to the bed and tossed off my shoes before lying down to reflect on all that had happened. Within a few minutes I fell asleep.

My nap must have lasted two or three hours. When I opened my eyes the sun had set and the room had fallen into shadow. I blinked and then noticed something out of the corner of my eye: Thiede. He immediately turned up the lamp and came to sit at the edge of the bed.

I'd found him magnificent from the very first but at that moment, having been around other hara all day, I realized he was quite above and beyond all of them -- which only made sense since he was, by his own admission, the first of us all. I had become Wraeththu but he was Wraeththu.

"So, did you learn much?" he asked slowly.

He was not writing it out.

Neither was he simply speaking the words into my head -- a futile gesture given that my brain had no idea how to process such messages.

No, instead of this Thiede was engaging in an entirely new form of communication: He was speaking the words into my head and projecting images of the letters! He was writing straight into my mind!

I later learned that it normally requires a great deal of caste training and concentration to send such messages. Of course receiving them is just as difficult, or at least it's supposed to be. It took me a long time to realize how blessed I was -- I got it on the first try, and I even managed to reply. "Yes, much. It is as you promised."

Slowly, using a combination of words, picture images, gestures and, still, the pen and paper (telepathic writing is rather taxing!) I told him of what I'd learned and of my day in town. At the end of the day, I told him, I'd missed him.

"And what of Zuri?" he asked. "Did you miss him?"

"I saw him enough last night and today. Now I want you." Filled with sudden unspent longing, I projected an image of exactly how wanted him -- naked on my bed.

Thiede eyed me speculatively and then, abruptly, laughed, not harshly, I guessed, but amusedly. "You certainly know what you want," he wrote out in my head, very slowly.

My reply was to spread my legs and smile.