[Author's Note: Here's some more. Hope you're enjoying the ride. If so, feel free to leave a review! That would be pretty awesome. If you're digging it and hope it never, ever ends, don't worry. There's way more where this came from.]
CHAPTER 12
Alonzo, pleased with their successful rescue, returned to the cockpit, in a hurry to return to New Pacifica, while Julia stayed in the cabin to give John's wounds more attention.
Uly sat next to his mother on the long bench that ran along the inside of the cabin, hardly believing she was truly there. She wouldn't let go of his hand, and it didn't bother him at all. He thought back to when he was young and sick and how she had always been so worried about him. That all seemed like a million years ago to him, but to her it still had to be fresh in her mind. As always, he regretted that he was blocked from the Dreamplane, if only to try to Dream with her and reassure her that that was all in the past.
"You've grown so much. Look at you," she said, caressing his face.
Uly smiled shyly. "Yeah, I guess so. I'm still shorter than True, though."
"True takes after me, so you might never catch up," John laughed, sitting on Devon's other side.
Uly almost asked his mom who he took after, but it always hurt his heart to wonder about such things. And it didn't really matter anyway.
"I'm glad you and Uly will be back in time for the Harvest Party next week. Devon's first New Pacifica special event," Julia stated with a smile.
John shook his head. "Oh, man, I lost all track of time. Is it time for that already? Morgan must be losing his mind."
"Don't worry, Morgan's got it all under control," Julia replied.
"I really owe him one," John sighed. "More than one."
Julia smiled. "You know he loves throwing his weight around when you're gone. And then blaming your absence for anything that goes wrong. Getting to plan the party the way he wants is just gravy for him."
Uly turned to his mother. "You'll love the Harvest Party, mom. Out of the four seasonal celebrations, it's probably the simplest, but the most fun. Just food, drinks, and dancing."
"Drinks. Listen to this kid," John laughed.
"It's your favorite one, too," Uly reminded him.
"Usually. If it's next week, though, I'm not looking forward to it. I'll be hounded by colonists the whole time since I've been gone for so long. Calling for my resignation, most likely."
"But you were saving Uly," Devon stated defensively.
"They've heard that one too many times by now," John replied. Uly felt a wave of guilt at being reminded about the repercussions of John's rescue attempts.
"Well, this is obviously a special situation. If anyone has a problem with it, they can take it up with me," Devon stated, angrily.
John grunted. "You'll probably be the new mayor before Morgan can spin his last track."
Julia interrupted. "Listen, let's focus on getting home and recovering. John, don't be a hero. Ease back into work. Spend some time with True." She turned to Devon. "You don't have to have everything figured out right away, Devon. You'll find your place. Enjoy your son. And just have fun at the Harvest Party, alright? We deserve to let our hair down every once in a while." Julia tried to coax a smile from Devon and was rewarded with a weak one. But it was there nonetheless.
Julia checked John's arm again. "This will take a few days to heal. Please tell me you'll be careful with it."
"Sure, doc," he answered.
Julia looked at him doubtfully and sighed. "I guess it would be too much to ask for you two to rest right now. So, you want to tell us what you've been doing the past few weeks?" she asked, handing each of them a set of gear so they could include Alonzo in the conversation.
Uly started from the beginning with his contact with the sunstones. He cast a nervous glance at John as he tried to describe the vision that had entered his mind. He knew he was downplaying the role his mother had played in the vision. Having her so close, so obviously relieved to have him by her side, he just couldn't express the miserable, mixed feelings about her that the vision had forced upon him.
As he completed that part of the story, Alonzo, Julia, and Devon seemed to accept the theory that Uly had intercepted and misinterpreted a message that had somehow been relayed through the sunstones, just as they had once been confused by Dell Curry's messages.
The solution seemed simple enough, but Uly could tell John wasn't so sure it was true, although he wasn't saying anything. Uly wasn't sure about it either. But after having that vision batting around inside him for so long, he was just glad to know it was gone and that his mind was clear again. He didn't even want to think about what it was or where it came from. He never wanted to think about it again.
Uly sat back as John took over the story, explaining how he had felt pulled to follow Uly. How he had felt a connection to Uly that was palpable even, it turned out, to the Terrians. Uly looked into his mother's face as she listened to John, trying to gauge her reaction to this information. Her brows furrowed and she took a deep breath, but she said nothing. Uly desperately wanted to know what she was thinking. He felt cruel hoping she would feel jealous or upset or even that she would cry, knowing that John Danziger was linked to him in some way while she was sitting and waiting in New Pacifica for days with no such feeling at all. Uly tried to push it down. He knew there was no logical reason to be angry at his mother. Obviously she would never have chosen to get sick and be stuck in cold sleep for four years. Of course she would have wished to stay with him and take care of him. But that anger he'd felt so often over the years still rose up within him. Those feelings he'd had about his mother in that vision…where did he end and the vision begin?
Uly felt his stomach tie up in knots and the all-too-familiar prick of tears begin to form in his eyes. He could almost hear True admonishing him, "Stop feeling sorry for yourself, you big baby." The thought made him laugh softly, which grabbed everyone's attention.
"Something funny, kid?" John asked, not unkindly.
Uly smiled back at him. "Just thinking about the beating I'm gonna get from True when we get home."
Devon looked nervous as everyone else laughed.
"I'm just kidding, mom. But I'll definitely get a smack on the arm or a punch in the shoulder."
Devon gave a half-smile but didn't seem to approve.
John's face grew serious as he reached across Devon to squeeze Uly's knee. "We're glad to have you back, kid. And remember, I've gotta deal with True when we get home, too." As he let go, he turned to face Devon. "Everything's going to be alright now, you'll see."
His mother nodded but she was still silent. It had been years since he'd seen her, and she'd obviously been through a lot lately, but she just didn't seem herself.
John began telling them about the lone Terrian, and Uly listened intently, surprised to learn everything the Terrian had done for them.
"Why was he there? How did he find me?" Uly asked.
"No idea," John answered. "Don't know how long you'd been in the biodome, or how long he'd been there, for that matter."
Alonzo spoke over gear. "He's fascinating. And it sounds like he's making the journey to New Pacifica. Do you think he's just curious about humans? He wasn't too far from the Elder's colony. Think he picked up those gestures from them?"
"I suggested a couple of times that we should get the Elder's help, but either he didn't know what I was talking about, or he wasn't interested."
Alonzo laughed. "Well, if he shows up back home, I'll try to see if I can communicate with him and find out what happened to him. Why he was banished. I bet he's got a helluva story."
"No doubt," John agreed.
Julia, content with the readings she was getting from John and Uly, sat on the bench across the aisle from them and stated, "Danziger, Alonzo seemed impressed by your dream last night."
John rolled his eyes toward the cockpit and spoke into his gear, "Yeah, I noticed. He was starting to really piss me off."
Alonzo laughed, but quickly grew defensive. "But it was so real. More than real. I could feel, see, smell everything."
"So what?" John asked. "What are your dreams like?"
"Dreams are always weird, man," Alonzo responded. "Even the ones that seem real…there's always something funky going on."
"Yeah, I guess I know what you mean. But a lot of mine are just memories. Like that one was just one of those nights on our way to New Pacifica. Nothing special."
"Nothing special? Who has dreams like that? Who even sees like that?"
Julia smiled. "I guess we've been so interested in the Dreamplane and humans with a natural inclination to Dreaming for the past few years, that we didn't think too much about just, well, dreaming. It is pretty amazing, if you think about it. Hallucinating wildly as you sleep. Letting your brain sort out your day while your body rests at night. Some people have a tendency toward very elaborate, surreal stories, while others might be more likely to experience simple, recurring motifs. I suppose we haven't studied the connections between how each of us dreams naturally and whether that affects our connection to the Dreamplane here."
"Well, I wasn't dreaming at all when we crashed into this place," Alonzo noted.
"And that's why the Terrians were drawn to you, right? And maybe they wanted to know more about John's dreams, considering he's so close to Uly."
Uly couldn't help feeling a pang of jealousy listening to Alonzo describe John's dream. How he wished to get a look in there himself. Uly had spent so much time with the Terrians, yet Alonzo was still the most skilled at navigating the Dreamplane. And he wasn't even Changed. It didn't seem fair. And if Alonzo was impressed by John's dreaming, it must truly be something.
"Tell them the other dream you had. Before that one," Uly urged, wondering why John had yet to bring it up himself.
John just shrugged. For some reason, he looked a little embarrassed as he explained his dream of Earth and the scene in his great-great-grandfather's photograph.
Devon finally spoke. "And you're saying that felt just as real as the dream with Alonzo?"
"It was Earth. I don't know how to explain it. I felt like it was a part of me."
"Were the Terrians trying to show you how they feel about their own planet?" Julia wondered.
John considered for a moment before responding. "I don't think it was them trying to show me something. I think they were trying to get me to show them something. It's almost like when that Terrian got me with his lightning, he unlocked something inside me."
Julia thought for a moment, trying to piece things together. "Unlocked? Like some kind of memory of Earth?"
"Yeah, and you know aside from trips to and from, I've never set foot on Earth itself."
Julia thought for a moment. Uly always enjoyed watching her when she was mulling something over. He knew she never failed to offer an interesting idea or solution, even when she was wrong. Finally she said, "But we have been there. Our roots are on that planet. We evolved there. Is it possible we have some kind of genetic memory of Earth itself, deep in our cells? A sense of home that our ancestors held on to so deeply, it can still be passed down in our DNA? This particular memory could have belonged to your ancestors, who might have lived in that area hundreds of years. And then there was this one particular ancestor who was trying so hard to remember his home, hoping to pass that on to his children someday."
"Sounds a little far-fetched, don't you think?" John said, looking at Julia skeptically. "It was just a dream. Even if it seemed real."
"But you said yourself, and Alonzo can corroborate, that you dream mostly in memories. And not just memories, but exquisitely detailed, lifelike memories. Could there be a connection to your particular style of dreaming and the ability to convey that genetic memory to the Terrians?"
Alonzo added, "Right, the Terrians might have sensed that your dreaming is so hyper-real that you could show them this other planet and what it was like."
Devon shook her head sadly. "But do they know what happened to Earth? What we did to it?"
John seemed reluctant to answer. "Yeah, they might have picked up on my own thoughts about that. I don't think they're too thrilled to hear about our track record."
"Could this information about Earth affect our relationship with the Terrians?" Julia wondered.
As much as Uly loved watching Julia try to figure out problems, he enjoyed observing John struggle against her suggestions even more. But this time, John just leaned back and closed his eyes.
"I'm exhausted, Julia. My head hurts enough as it is."
Julia smiled. "Well, we have plenty to think about, that's for sure. How about you all rest." Julia rose to leave for the cockpit.
Over gear, Alonzo added, "The Terrians have been pretty quiet since they cut Uly off, but this is important. I'll try to Dream with them when we get back. See what they think about our theories, and if there's a way to reassure them…"
"Julia?" Uly called out before she could leave the cabin.
She turned to him. "Yes, Uly? Everything alright?"
"Do you think it would be ok if I had some help to get to sleep?" Uly hated asking for a sleep aid, but being so far from the earth always left him feeling unsettled.
"I'm sorry, Uly. With all the excitement, I forgot how you feel about flying. Devon? Is that ok with you?" Julia asked, obviously concerned that Devon hadn't said anything.
"Oh, yes, that would be fine, Julia," Devon said softly.
Julia laid Uly down, his head in Devon's lap. She administered the sleep aid, and he was asleep almost instantly.
She then turned her attention to Devon. "Are you alright, Devon?"
Devon knew that look and noticed that John seemed worried, also.
"I'm fine. It's just… Well, it's a lot," she said, looking down at her son and stroking his hair while he slept. Had Julia been asking for her permission to use the sleep aid? Was that her place again? After being absent four years, was it really for her to say what was best for her son? She didn't even know anything about Uly's apparent aversion to flying.
"You're having trouble adjusting. That's to be expected. Why do you think Alonzo just went from one space jump to the next? It was harder and harder for him to catch up with everything he'd missed." Julia squatted down in front of Devon and placed a hand on her knee. "It'll get better. I promise. Just be patient with yourself, ok? There's no hurry."
Devon smiled at Julia faintly and nodded. "Thanks, Julia. I hope you'll all be patient with me, too."
John, looking half-asleep, took Devon's hand. "We're all here for you. Anything you need. Ok?"
She squeezed his hand and looked him in the eye. "Thanks, John."
John smiled, leaned back again, and closed his eyes, but didn't let go of her hand.
Devon caught Julia smiling to herself as she stood to leave.
"Do you want something to help you sleep, too?" Julia asked.
Devon shook her head. She was looking forward to being able to stare into her son's new face without disturbing him. And even though she didn't want to admit it, John's hand in hers was bringing her much-needed comfort.
Julia left, leaving them alone. Soon, Devon felt John drift to sleep, unconsciously leaning against her. Devon realized she finally felt at peace for the first time since she came out of cold sleep. Everything was going to be alright.
