Dulling the Pain

Manuel followed the trail of crushed flowers, and halfway up a steep hill, he found Maria.

"Off exploring?" he asked.

Her tone was neutral, but he somehow knew that she was inwardly cursing. "The types of plants found vary quite a bit with even a small change in altitude."

"Did you know that your suit radio wasn't working? The plants you stepped on were starting to stand back up, so I thought I ought to come check on you while I could still find the trail. It seems to be working fine now, though--I'm not sure what the problem was."

"You don't need to worry. There's nothing dangerous here." She spoke with absolute certainty.

"By the way, did you see another of the bird things? I thought I saw a big one when I was walking here. From a distance, it looked almost like . . ."

"Like what?"

"I'm not sure," he said, and he knew he'd spoken a little too quickly.

She gazed at his eyes through the faceplate of his suit, and he could swear he felt her fingers reaching into his skull.

"I have a headache," she said at last, and together they walked silently back to camp.

He did not tell her what he had seen--what he knew he could not have seen.

-- -- -- --

The next day, Maria watched Isaac as he knelt to collect a soil sample, and barely within earshot, Manuel watched Maria.

"We're being silly," Maria said. "The Procne virus was a zillion-to-one chance--we've never found another alien microbe that crossed to humans like that."

Isaac bothered neither to look up, nor to turn on his suit radio, and Manuel strained to hear his muffled response. "Are you volunteering yourself to test the air?"

"As a matter of fact, I am. It'll be a pain to go a week without entering the ship, but at the end of it, none of us will have to wear those stupid environmental suits."

At this, Isaac finally met her eyes. "You're the biologist. You should know about incubation periods."

"The Procne virus incubated for five seconds flat. There's not much risk here."

She unscrewed her helmet before he could respond.

It was Manuel who broke the resulting silence. "I wasn't kidding about no kisses for a week."

Maria was much more surprised than Manuel expected. "How long have you been there?"

"Not very long. But you've been acting funny lately, and it's starting to weird me out."

It took Maria several seconds to formulate a response. "Okay, I admit it. I've got ulterior motives in this. Meet me tomorrow, same time and place that we saw the big bird. And as for you, Isaac, if Manuel approves my scheme, I'll be talking to you in a week." With that, she walked off.

Isaac turned to Manuel. "And how are you mixed up in all this?"

"I don't know, but I think I'm about to find out."

Isaac put his hand to his cross. "Take it from the church boy--the girl's possessed."

-- -- -- --

"I didn't imagine it, did I?" Manuel asked as they stood on the edge of the cliff.

"Didn't imagine what?" Maria was wearing her environmental suit again, and he had no idea why.

"You. 'Light as a feather, soaring the skies.'"

"Light as . . . You read my notebook?"

"I needed to figure out what was going on. For what it's worth, I liked the 'petals of scarlet' poem." Manuel never lied, though sometimes the truth hurt.

Like now. "Damn it, that was private! You had no business going through it!" He could feel her anger as if it were his own, and there was a sudden ache--not so much physical as mental--around the metal in his head.

Manuel was well aware that Maria was smarter than him, but he'd also grown aware that she was easily distracted. "You felt that, didn't you?" she asked him. "It hurt, but you felt that."

"You're psychic," Manuel said, half to himself, and the world seemed to lurch under him.

"I can't read your mind, if that's what you're afraid of," she told him. "But I think this is about souls. I can feel them, share them--I think I can trade them, too." She started to talk faster and faster. "A few days ago, I didn't even believe in souls. I never thought I had so much left to learn. But I've met someone here, and she's taught me so much."

"You got inside a bird's head?" What was he saying? How was this possible?

"No, I . . . Let me show you." She began to remove her environmental suit, and he realized that the back of her shirt was torn almost to shreds. "I can't force my way in--the metal hurts too much. But I think it won't hurt if you don't fight back. I can come into your head if you let me, and then I can bring you into mine. Take off that helmet, and try to relax."

Manuel tried and failed to think of a joke. Panic had always hampered him at that. Instead, he simply did as he was told.

It was like his mind was the surface of a pool, and she tested the water with a toe--then cannonballed right in. Her body stood slack while her mind flowed through him. He felt the full force of her hopes and fears, and she knew all his shame at this sudden intimacy.

Her voice echoed in his head.

Don't worry about it. I wasn't expecting it to feel this way, but it's quite an icebreaker for a slow-moving relationship--and you have a beautiful soul.

He felt her shifting inside him, pushing him aside to make room.

Let's trade places.

There was no gradual shift--he was looking into her eyes, and suddenly he was looking through them instead, gazing at his own face. He staggered, and nearly fell off the cliff, but strong arms caught him. This body was so much lighter than his own!

"Maria . . ." He didn't even know what he was going to say, speaking with her voice. He was her, and she was him, and this was all

wrong

.

She smiled at him with what had been his own lips, and asked him, "Don't you want my body?" Then she looked out over the cliff. "Before you chicken out, let me introduce you to a friend. I call her Flora."

He could feel a third mind surrounding him, something vast and alien. It reached inside his chest, and followed his veins. He had no words for the feeling that spread throughout him--not for the first few seconds, at least. But then it reached a place between his legs that he'd tried not to think about, and he struggled not to cry out.

It was beyond anything he'd ever imagined, and he found himself stroking a nipple through the thin fabric of the shirt. A pressure built up in his shoulderblades, crying for release. And through it all, that third mind, feeling everything he felt, playing him like an instrument and delighting in it--

He fled under the onslaught. With a high-pitched scream and a sudden pain, he found himself in his own body again, both Maria and the third mind driven out.

Maria opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again.

"I don't know what just happened," he told her, "and I'm not going to ask."

At last, she found her voice. "Please, don't tell the others. Not yet."

"I'll tell them it was something personal," he said. "Something that shouldn't be shared with someone you don't trust."

"I thought you'd trust

me

, even if you didn't trust Flora," she said. "I thought you'd understand."

He almost laughed. "The funny thing is, I do trust you. I believe that you think you're doing the right thing." His tone darkened. "You're not keeping this a secret forever, are you? You're going to try to get Cap and Isaac to do what I refused to do. To meet with that

thing

."

"All she wants to do is help us."

This time, he did laugh. "Then give them its help, and when you're done, we'll talk again."