Inheritance (38 page)

Eres Tilhar began the day’s lesson by walking David and Reese through the mapping practice again. Reese was beginning to be able to shape her own consciousness into more of a contained presence; she was no longer a mass of conflicting emotions.

When they finished, Eres said, “There is much improvement. I am very glad to see that. At this point we can continue with the same practice—that is what we would normally do—but because you’ll be meeting with Akiya Deyir this afternoon, I want to ask you: Is there anything you’d like to tell me?”

Reese tucked her hands beneath her thighs and glanced sideways at David. They had discussed this earlier; today was the day.
Go ahead
, she told him.

“We know you’ve already guessed,” David said to Eres. “Today we’re ready to talk about it.”

Eres nodded. “Good.”

They took turns explaining to Eres about their ability to speak to each other telepathically. They told the teacher how crowds affected them, how sometimes they sensed not only waves of emotion but snatches of thought, and how their abilities had developed differently in each of them.

“To be clear: Reese, first you only sensed emotions, while David, you only heard broken thoughts?” Eres asked.

“Right,” David said. “But we can do both now.”

“Why do you think it happened that way?” Reese asked.

“It may simply be the way the adaptation affected you. We didn’t think it had been completely effective in David at first. We’d have to do more testing before we know for sure. Tell me more about how it feels when you sense a crowd’s emotions or thoughts.”

“It can be really confusing and overwhelming,” Reese said. “These lessons have helped. I try to block them out now—the crowds.”

“And how close to the crowd are you when this happens?” Eres asked.

“I think we have to be pretty close,” David said.

“Yeah,” Reese said. “I couldn’t sense them when I was inside my house and they were in the street.”

“What about your telepathic communication? You said you
first discovered this when you were at Project Plato, separated. Have you communicated that way since then?”

“No,” David said. “We tried, but it hasn’t worked.”

“We’ve had to be able to see each other to communicate that way,” Reese said.

The teacher regarded the two of them thoughtfully. “I see. Perhaps it has something to do with your level of mental focus. You may have been more desperate to reach out to each other when you were at Plato. That situation could have forced you to focus your consciousness in a way you haven’t done since then.”

“Maybe,” Reese said. “It was a pretty intense experience.”

“Do you think we could do it again?” David asked.

“There’s no reason why not. If you could communicate from a distance before, I think you’ll be able to do it again. I do believe it will require practice on your part. Have you been able to hear the thoughts of any other humans? Or Imria?”

“No,” Reese said.

“Only in crowds, and that’s not the same at all,” David said.

“David and I are the only two humans who have gone through the adaptation procedure, so maybe that’s why?” Reese said. “Maybe if you adapted other humans, we’d be able to hear their thoughts too.”

“Perhaps,” Eres said. “The crowd sensing is interesting. How big do the crowds need to be?”

“I’m not sure,” Reese said. She and David had never formally tested their abilities; they had only muddled through on their own, trying to avoid becoming overwhelmed.

“These things occur when you are not touching another
person, right?” Eres asked. “This is not
susum’urda
—not the way I’ve been teaching you.”

“No, it’s not
susum’urda
,” David said. “That sort of makes sense to me now. But this other stuff… it still feels random. Like I don’t really know how it works.”

“Why do you think we can do it?” Reese asked. “You can’t do it, can you?”

“No. None of the Imria have this ability.
Susum’urda
is predicated on physical connection. This is certainly different.”

“So this wasn’t meant to be part of the adaptation,” David said.

“No.” Eres looked pensive. “I suppose we could have suspected this was possible. There have always been humans who exhibited signs of being able to do things like this. You’ve called them psychics or mystics. And telepathy has always been a source of fascination for your people. It would make sense that humans were fascinated by it because some of you have been able to do it.”

Reese was skeptical. “So the adaptation procedure has turned us into psychics?”

“Not exactly. For a long time, we attempted to analyze the DNA of so-called psychic humans and compare it to our own, to determine why certain genes were turned on and others weren’t, but it was very slow, painstaking work. Those psychic abilities turned out to be mutations that were usually irreproducible in offspring—or at least so random in occurrence that it was impossible to predict. Our scientists stopped testing psychics decades ago, believing that those psychic skills were side effects of the fact that humans did have the ability to share consciousness in their genes, but that ability was never properly developed. The
adaptation procedure was supposed to correct that. It was supposed to awaken your latent abilities and to make them heritable so that they will be passed on to your descendants. Apparently the adaptation procedure has awakened abilities we did not expect.” Eres leaned forward. “Will you show me how it works?” The teacher extended a hand to Reese.

“How?” Reese asked, confused.

“Take my hand, and David can send you a thought. Allow me to experience it as it happens to you.”

Reese glanced at David, who nodded. She took Eres’s hand and immediately felt the focus of the teacher’s attention like a lens trained on her. Reese took a breath.
David?
She sensed Eres in the background of her consciousness like a shadow presence.

Yes
, David thought.
I’m right here.

Eres’s consciousness seemed to flash in surprise.
Again
, Eres told her.

Got any other thoughts?
Reese asked David.

What should I say? Testing, testing?

Reese smiled.
Ten four.

Eres dropped Reese’s hand and said, “I have never encountered that before.” The teacher sounded unusually breathless. “This afternoon when we meet with Akiya Deyir and the others—you will tell them, won’t you?”

“We were planning to,” David said.

“Good. They should know. It is right that they learn it from the two of you.” Eres studied them, as if seeing them for the first time.

Reese shifted uncomfortably. “Is it totally weird?” she asked.

The teacher looked astonished. “It is not weird. It is… beyond what we had ever dreamed of. I only hope that Akiya agrees.”

Akiya Deyir’s offices were on the second level of the
ship, and as Reese stepped into the foyer, she felt as if she were truly entering another world. The wall screens depicted a landscape that Reese knew must be Kurra. There was a cliff of red-and-purple rocks angling over an aquamarine sea. Buildings that resembled crystal formations clung to the top of the cliff, some of them secured by steel wires that looked like cobwebs. The ocean waves moved below, licking against the base of the cliffs, and as the water turned, it changed color, showing a flash of gold beneath the aquamarine.

The door slid shut behind them and someone called, “Please come in.”

Reese and David followed the sound of the voice through the open doorway in the foyer and into the main office. It was a wide
room with screens that ran the length of the longest wall, showing a forest of trees with black trunks and moving, bluish-green leaves. At one end of the room was a curved, glossy black desk, behind which a display cabinet held various items suspended on wires. Reese saw stones or jewels of different colors; a sphere that looked like a miniature planet; and a black statue that resembled the fertility goddesses that had been carved by ancient humans, with a round belly and heavy breasts. In the center of the room was a long, oval table made of the same glossy black material as the desk. Four people were seated already: Akiya Deyir, Dr. Brand, Eres Tilhar, and Amber. Two black chairs, carved to resemble waves like the ones in Eres’s room, remained empty.

Akiya Deyir gestured to the chairs. “Please sit,” he said. He was as elegant as Reese remembered from the press conference, but today he was dressed in clothing that was clearly not from Earth. He wore a jacket made of deep violet cloth; it had narrow lapels and long, billowing tails, almost like a gown. He had dark blue trousers on that made Reese think of jodhpurs, tucked into shiny boots of the same color with a stripe of silver running up the side. It was an ensemble that Reese might expect on a Japanese pop star, but there was nothing frivolous about the ambassador. As Reese sat down, she surreptitiously studied Deyir’s dark, smooth skin. He was so extraordinary looking, like a film star from the 1930s, all cheekbones and shadows. She wondered if his beauty was natural, or if he—or his parents—had engineered it.

“I’ve been informed that you both know about our long history with your people,” Deyir said. “And that you are concerned about the fact that we have not yet revealed this. While I
understand your concern, the two of you are not qualified to make that decision. You do not have the benefit of the full context of our situation.” Deyir’s tone was mild, but there was an authority to his presence that did not invite challenge. “Your people—humanity—are our greatest concern. We did not always feel that way, it is true. Many hundreds of thousands of years ago, my people were careless. We had great scientific knowledge and we had great ambition, and that combination resulted in many mistakes. We were never violent; that was not our pleasure. We have been, always, connected to each other through
susum’urda
. What we wanted was to create life. To create intelligence. Unfortunately, our eagerness to create life was not tempered by consideration for the responsibility that would bestow upon us.”

There was a hypnotic quality to Deyir’s voice, and though dozens of questions raced through Reese’s mind, she did not ask them. She watched him speak, transfixed by the movements of his mouth and the fluid gestures of his long-fingered hands.

“We were much younger then, and less experienced. We only thought: Look at this new world—Earth—and see how similar it is to ours. Look at these creatures here; they could become us. We were enraptured with that idea. Our science, however, was not perfect. We had not created humans from nothing; we changed what already existed. That meant that humans did not turn out exactly the way we had hoped. Your people could not share consciousness. You were fixated on violence, on war. We did not know what to do, and to our great disgrace, we simply abandoned you. We thought: Humans can find their way out of this on their own; we have interfered too much.

“But we could not entirely leave you behind. We watched as
your populations grew and your technology developed. We came to understand that you are our greatest responsibility. We were poor creators; poor guardians of what we made. We cannot allow you to destroy your planet and to destroy yourselves. That is why we have returned. We have come here to correct the mistakes we made before it is too late. The adaptation procedure, which Evelyn developed with her team, is finally a success. Our goal is to adapt all of humanity, bit by bit, using this procedure. There are many of you now, and we cannot adapt all of you; that is why the adaptation is heritable. Your children will inherit the same abilities, and your children’s children will as well. Over several generations, humanity will become what we had initially intended. You will become true Imrians.”

That is exactly what Charles Lovick told us
, David thought to Reese.
Akiya Deyir is just putting a different spin on it.

The ambassador sat back, crossing his legs. The silver on his boots gleamed. “In order to implement our plan we have moved cautiously. That is why we haven’t yet revealed all of this to your people. The two of you are different now. Because you’ve been adapted, you are more like us. You are better able to understand us. Humans who haven’t been adapted will not have your ability to empathize with us. They need to be adapted first; that’s why we haven’t told them.” He paused, his eyes flickering toward Dr. Brand. “I understand that Evelyn has given a sample of Imrian DNA to your human scientists, and they have questioned how closely we are related.”

“It’s not a question,” David said. “They know.”

Deyir nodded. “You will need to ask them to refrain from
sharing their knowledge. It is in your best interests to delay this. To give your fellow humans time to accept us.”

Reese finally spoke out loud: “But you’re wrong.” Deyir’s gaze turned to her, and she straightened up, clutching the edges of the slippery black chair as she faced him. “We aren’t true Imrians. What you’ve done to me and David—it’s not what you expected.”

“What do you mean?” Dr. Brand asked. Both she and Amber looked startled.

Reese suddenly felt the weight of what she and David were about to do. There was no one else here to speak for humanity. It was their responsibility: hers and David’s. At that moment, she saw her future stretching out before her. She had never given much thought to what she would do with her life; maybe she’d go to journalism school, or maybe she’d become a lawyer. She hadn’t had to decide yet, and now she knew she never would. The decision had been made for her.

She remembered her conversation with Amber about coincidence.
Choice has nothing to do with it
, Amber had told her, and Reese hadn’t understood then. Now she did. She was in this position, and it was a privileged one. She had told her mother that she wasn’t a child anymore. The only option was to take the responsibility that had been given to her, even if she hadn’t wanted it to begin with. To refuse would be an insult not only to humanity but to herself.

“What you did to us changed us, but not into Imrians,” she said to the ambassador. “We have other abilities now.” She looked at David, and he began to explain what they could do.