Pathways - Jeri Taylor [128]
Tom opened his eyes. Lissine lay beside him, breathing softly, body moist with bliss. She turned toward him, satiated, and took his hand. “Well?” she asked.
“That was amazing.”
She lifted herself on one elbow and looked down at him solemnly. “Tom, there’s something dark inside your mind. Something you’ve locked away so it won’t hurt you. It frightened me.”
He was silent. He hadn’t anticipated that an erotic telepathic intrusion into his mind might also graze on the secrets held there. “I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “I guess we all have a few demons inside us. But it’s nothing that could ever hurt you, I swear.”
Her black eyes burned into him. “It hurts you terribly,” she said simply. “I must warn you—after this, you might not be able to keep it shut away so easily.”
A cold lancet of fear pierced him. What did she mean? Would his awful secret now rise up like a serpent, coiled and ready to strike? His stomach tensed and nausea flooded his throat with bile. He couldn’t talk.
“If you’d let me, I might be able to help. But first we’d have to talk about it.” Her voice was warm, nurturing. She was offering to be his friend. For a moment he wanted desperately to clutch at this proffered intimacy, hold on to its calm steadiness, pour out everything, all the black truth, and feel the sweet balm of relief soothe his tortured soul. All he had to do was tell her.
“There’s nothing to talk about, really,” he heard himself saying, and he forced a casual smile. “Maybe you’re seeing monsters where they don’t exist.”
She didn’t answer, but put her hand on his cheek, staring into his eyes. Fearful that she was trying to invade his mind again, he focused on shutting her out. After a moment, she dropped her hand and looked away. “I’m sorry for you, Tom,” she said in a whisper so soft he could hardly hear her. “I’m so sorry.”
And then she was moving away, a rustle of clothing brushing through the flowers, until she was gone and he could hear nothing.
The distant song had ceased. A stillness pervaded the garden, a silence as vast as the reaches of space. He felt more alone than he had ever felt in his life.
They came to him in his quarters aboard the Copernicus. He had followed his usual routine, serving his watch, working out in the gym, and then stopping by the officers’ mess for a few bottles of ale, finally returning to his quarters and falling into bed. He had eschewed synthehol for genuine alcohol, finding that he fell asleep more easily if his senses were truly deadened.
The sleep hadn’t been dreamless lately, which bothered him. He had succumbed to a kind of nocturnal mania, pursued by dreams that were vivid and charged. He would wake with his heart thudding in his chest, gasping for breath, flooded with some anchorless anxiety whose underpinnings had vaporized the instant he woke up. He knew he had dreamed, but he couldn’t remember what. He considered going to the ship’s physician, but didn’t want to undergo questioning as to the possible causes of his anxiety.
It had been like this since his experience with Lissine, and her ominous portent echoed in his mind. She was right: some sleeping giant had been wakened in his mind, and was stirring restlessly, massive limbs flexing, preparing to break free. The thought filled him with dread.
On this particular night he had drunk enough that he fell asleep—passed out—as soon as he lay down. Later he would realize that he hadn’t dreamed before he woke, the first