Psion Read Online Free PDF Page B

surfaced-anything at all? Dreams?”
    I nodded. “Dreams. I have a lot of bad dreams. . . .”
    “What are they about?” He leaned forward across the desk.
    “I don’t remember.”
    He sat back again. “Something. There must be something-a setting, a feeling?”
    “Oldcity. They’re always in Oldcity.” He raised his eyebrows. I shrugged. “Where else would they be?”
    “Anything else, then? Close your eyes, remember how you feel just as you’re waking.”
    I shut my eyes, trying to bring it back. . . . “Afraid,” I whispered. I wiped my hands on the knees of my pants. “Somebody’s s-screaming. . . .”
    “What?”
    “S-screams!” I opened my eyes, glaring at him.
    “Whose? Your own?”
    “Yes. N-no!” I pushed up out of my chair. “I d-don’t want to do this.”
    “Sit down,” he said, almost gently. I sat down again. “Do you stutter much?”
    “I don’t stutter!” I remembered what I’d just heard come out of my mouth.
    “All right.” He nodded, looking up through the skylight. “Let’s try something else. How old are you?”
    I took a deep breath. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
    “You must have some idea-sixteen, seventeen?”
    “I guess so.”
    “Have you ever lived anywhere besides Oldcity?”
    “No.”
    “Are you sure? You could have come to Ardattee when you were too young to remember. Did your family-“
    “What family?” My mouth twisted.
    “You’re an orphan, then.” He looked like he was apologizing for it, but there was something almost eager in the words that made me uneasy.
    “I guess so.” I made a sound that wasn’t really a laugh. “And I remember living in Oldcity way back. I wish I could forget it, but I remember.”
    “Before you were, say . . . four years old?” The question wasn’t quite casual. His hands closed over the picture ball; the picture changed again. He looked up, watching me watch it.
    “Yeah,” I said, remembering to answer him. “I got a good memory.”
    “How did your survive, if you were that young, and alone?”
    “I lived off other people’s garbage and junk.” I felt him pushing me, a pressure I could almost see growing in my head. I twisted the hem of my smock between my hands, not understanding why it was happening. “I been a slip, and a beggar, and sometimes I was even- “ I broke off. “What do you want from me! ”
    His face caught somewhere between disgust and pain. “Just-the answers to a few questions.” It was a lie. He kept his voice even, but one question was burning inside him, stronger and deeper than any professional curiosity. I couldn’t read him, but I couldn’t stop feeling it, either. “What happened to your parents?” That wasn’t the one.
    “They’re dead.” I hoped they were; because if they weren’t I wished they were, for what they’d done to me.
    “Do you know which one was Hydran?”
    “What?” I frowned. “What do you mean?”
    “Your eyes and the bone structure of your face look Hydran. Your psionic ability makes it even more likely. . . . Do you know about the Hydrans?” he asked finally, when I just kept staring at him.
    “They’re the aliens.” The word was hard to get out. “They come from Beta Hydrae system. I know some jokes. . . . Are you trying to make a joke outa me? It’s bad enough bein’ a freak. I’m human, I ain’t some kind of monster!” I stood up again.
    He stood up too, and leaned across the desktop, upsetting the picture ball. It rolled toward me. “You don’t understand. My wife was Hydran. I had a son-“
    “I don’t care if your whole lousy family was alien, you devil! I ain’t, I ain’t Hydran! And I ain’t answering any more questions.”
    He pulled back, straightening away from me. I saw his face harden over with anger, felt his anger sink into my bones. He turned his back on me, as if even the sight of me was more than he could stand.
    I looked down from the back of his head at the picture ball lying on the desk in front of me.