Shadows of the Mind

Chapter Eleven

Aren was sullen on the trip back to Croyus Four. Luke left the flying of the ship to Griffin, and divided his time between Elaan and Aren, showing both the simplest of computer tools. Elaan took to it readily enough—perhaps some vestige of Briande helped her accept the inexplicable workings of the technology with less questioning—but Aren had a lot more difficulty adapting. Luke tried limiting Aren's use to reading simple histories of various societies, but Aren was frequently distracted by the technology of the readers rather than the content. By the time they arrived at Croyus Four, however, he was feeling a bit more comfortable with it, and could actually call up some of the readings without Luke's help.

As for the content, Elaan was able to understand more of it than her son, and her comprehension, limited as it was, helped Aren.

At one point Aren complained about having to read the relatively difficult material, but Luke explained, "If you want to change a society, you have to know what you want to change it to. You have to know what works, and what doesn't. Otherwise you leave a chaotic void, and what comes out of it may be worse than what you had to begin with. The first step in reaching a goal is knowing what the goal is. By studying the past and mistakes made in the past, you may avoid making them in the future. If you want to be a leader for your world, a good leader, this is the first step."

After that, Aren was more cooperative, but Luke could still sense the disapproval in the boy's eyes every time Luke drew near to his mother.

Well, some things just couldn't be helped.

Brenna met them when they docked, and Luke was relieved to learn that there had been no problems with DC.

"In fact," Brenna said, waggling her eyebrows once, "I know what our young patient's Force-talent is—figured it out while you were gone."

"What, beyond telekinesis?" Luke asked.

"Yup."

"Well, don't keep me in suspense."

Brenna grinned. "She's a memorist. I played some memory games with her, and she beat me soundly."

It was Luke's turn to raise his eyebrows. "Really?"

"Yeah. She remembers everything. Everything she sees, everything she hears—everything!"

"Hmmm," Luke said.

"So be careful what you say to her. She'll know if you contradict yourself."

Luke gave his head a small shake. "Well, that either makes things a whole lot easier, or a whole lot more difficult."

"How so?"

"She'll remember everything that was done to her, every image and sound from the implants—at least while she was conscious, and possibly while she was hibernating, too." He blew out a breath. "Well, we'll just have to make sure she has enough positive experience to counteract whatever was done to her. She could just tell us what was done to her."

"Or it might be too painful for her."

"Or that," Luke agreed. "But if she's a memorist, she's going to remember every detail even if it's too painful to put into words. Poor kid."

"What do you want to do?"

"Talk to Tibbik. Get his opinion."

Brenna breathed in and out deeply. "Well, whatever you decide, remember that she's just a little girl, and none of this is her fault."

"Yeah."

"And I've been thinking…about why the original Brenna Brellis might do all that to such a young child."

"And?"

"And I'm thinking…what if the original Brenna Brellis was trying to create an assassin? I mean, who would suspect a little girl of something like that."

"I'll keep your theory in mind," Luke promised.

"Be careful, Dad," Brenna warned.

.

.

.

Luke's living situation changed. With Elaan and Aren moving in, even with their meager possessions, his simple apartment was too small, and Brenna arranged for him to have the larger residence right next door to her own. Aren wasn't too happy about the arrangement, but aside from his sullen expression and surreptious looks, he kept his unhappiness to himself. Luke assigned him various readings, non-fiction dealing mostly with understanding different forms of government and their strengths and weaknesses and a few literary works dealing with the futility of revenge, tried to open discussions with him on the readings, but otherwise gave Aren time to digest, assimilate, and grieve. He had the feeling that the swimming lessons Brenna arranged for him were more effective in taking the boy's mind off his father's death and the alien-ness of his new environment, than anything Luke did himself.

The remainder of Luke's time was spent with DC and Elaan. A few simple tests confirmed Brenna's conclusion that DC was a memorist in addition to being a telekin, which gave Luke some goals in helping to develop her Force-talents. But the fact that she was a memorist also meant that whatever trauma had afflicted her so terribly would not be readily overcome, would always be as fresh as if it had just happened—and would never be forgotten.

Now that DC had demonstrated that she could work with someone besides Luke, he arranged for her to have sessions with Tibbik while he observed from the next room—mostly to ensure Tibbik's safety. Tibbik attempted, without success, to draw some speech from her. Otherwise he had her draw pictures, of herself, of Luke, of Maggie, of anything she wanted. Most were completed as quickly as she could manage, with a child's undeveloped artwork. Tibbik noted privately to Luke that her self-portraits were always small in size and invariably drawn in black. Her portraits of Luke were somewhat larger, but also drawn in black. Her portraits of Maggie, however, practically filled the page and were drawn in colors that reflected the mortu's coat, and were the only pictures she spent any real amount of time to complete. As Tibbik noted, "Her whole universe is that mortu." Anytime she was given free rein to draw what she wanted, she drew Maggie.

Tibbik also tried to work with her on expressing emotion appropriately. Since DC still wouldn't speak, he tried nonverbal symbols, drawings of faces showing different emotions of anger, fear, sadness, surprise, joy, and neutral. Invariably she chose the angry face. When Tibbik tried to refine that by degree of anger, using facial drawings ranging from neutral to mildly annoyed, to extreme fury, she usually pointed to the space between very angry and extreme fury. When Maggie was present, however, her finger moved up on the scale to somewhere between annoyed and angry.

Whatever else the mortu did, it was evident that it provided some measure of relief from whatever turmoil was happening inside her.

Luke dared not introduce Elaan to DC yet. He had no idea what effect coming face to face with the identical twin of Brenna Brellis would do to her. Granted, the holo-image had made DC's progress possible, but the unknown factor of an in-person meeting with the two of them made him hesitate.

So for the time being, he kept them apart, despite Elaan's desire to "do something." So instead of working with DC, which was his eventual plan, he had Elaan reading the same materials he gave to Aren, had her extend her physical therapy, and pressed her into babysitting service for little Han. What time he spent directly with Elaan was mostly for his own benefit, a few minutes to a half hour when he could just be with her. He didn't pressure or even ask for anything more than just to be in her presence or maybe have a little conversation. It was a relief just to have some time away from DC and Aren, to be…in a warm place that offered a comforting light to balance the Darkness in which he seemed to find himself with Aren and DC.

Deities only knew how much the two of them needed some sort of relief.

And then there was the breakthrough with DC.

It happened when Luke was "cashing in" DC's reward points. As expected, the girl paid little or no attention to the toys and crafts, but zeroed in on Maggie's picture.

"All right," Luke said. "I'll arrange to have Maggie brought in for a visit this afternoon."

But DC shook her head.

"No?" Luke said, surprised. "You mean tomorrow?"

No, again.

"I don't understand," Luke told her.

DC pointed at Maggie's picture, then pointed down to the floor."

"Yes," Luke said. "You want a visit with Maggie."

She shook her head again, and pointed back down to the floor, then made a noise of frustration, got up on the bed, moved to one side, mimed going to sleep, and pointed to the empty space next to her.

"You want Maggie to have a sleep-over?" Luke asked, confused.

DC made another noise, rose from the bed, walked to the monitor to touch Maggie's picture, then touched her own chest, pointed to the bed, and pointed to the floor.

"You want Maggie to stay here, with you," Luke said, finally getting the message.

DC nodded vigorously.

"I don't know," Luke said, thinking how he could use this request. "Maggie belongs to my friend Rupert. He might not want her to stay here overnight."

DC shook her head, pointed again to the mortu's image, and then to her own chest.

"You want Maggie for your very own?"

DC nodded.

Luke leaned against the wall , folded his arms, and hid a smile. "Well," he said, "I'll certainly have a talk with Rupert and see what he says, but I can't guarantee anything. I expect Maggie will cost a lot, which means it will take a lot of points to earn her, but I'll see what he says."

DC pointed to the door.

"You want me to go now?"

DC nodded.

"Okay. Eat your lunch and work on those math problems while I'm gone."

DC practically ran to the lunch tray and started shoving food into her mouth. Luke kept his face neutral as he crossed to the door and exited. Only when the door had shut behind him, did he allow himself to break into a huge grin and page Tibbik on his com-link.

I think, he said to himself, that it's time for DC and Elaan to meet each other.