because Robert needs to learn some manners, and because it’s no one else’s business.”
I swung my bag to my shoulder and headed for the door. She stayed right beside me, rushing to keep up
with my longer legs. We walked down the hallway in silence. It wasn’t until we were outside, where the
afternoon sun lit the dust motes in the salty air, that she spoke again.
“Do you think you’ll ever settle, Wanderer? On this planet, maybe? You seem to have an affinity for
their… feelings.”
I bridled at the implied insult in her tone. I wasn’t even sure how she meant to insult me, but it was clear
that she did. Melanie stirred resentfully.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Tell me something, Wanderer. Do you pity them?”
“Who?” I asked blankly. “The Walking Flowers?”
“No, the humans.”
I stopped walking, and she skidded to a halt beside me. We were only a few blocks from my apartment,
“The humans?”
“Yes. Do you pity them?”
“Don’t you?”
“No. They were quite the brutal race. They were lucky to survive each other as long as they did.”
“Not every one of them was bad.”
“It was a predilection of their genetics. Brutality was part of their species. Butyou pity them, it seems.”
“It’s a lot to lose, don’t you think?” I gestured around us. We stood in a parklike space between two
ivy-covered dormitories. The deep green of the ivy was pleasing to the eye, especially in contrast to the
faded red of the old bricks. The air was golden and soft, and the smell of the ocean gave a briny edge to
the honey sweet fragrance of the flowers in the bushes. The breeze caressed the bare skin of my arms.
“In your other lives, you can’t have felt anything so vivid. Wouldn’t you pity anyone who had this taken
from them?” Her expression stayed flat, unmoved. I made an attempt to draw her in, to make her
consider another viewpoint. “Which other worlds have you lived on?”
She hesitated, then squared her shoulders. “None. I’ve only lived on Earth.”
That surprised me. She was as much a child as Robert. “Only one planet? And you chose to be a
Seeker in your first life?”
She nodded once, her chin set.
“Well. Well, that’s your business.” I started walking again. Maybe if I respected her privacy, she would
return the favor.
“I spoke to your Comforter.”
And maybe not,Melanie thought sourly.
“What?” I gasped.
“I gather you’ve been having more trouble than just accessing the information I need. Have you
considered trying another, more pliable host? She suggested that, did she not?”
“Kathy wouldn’t tellyou anything!”
The Seeker’s face was smug. “She didn’t have to answer. I’m very good at reading human expressions.
I could tell when my questions struck a nerve.”
“How dare you? The relationship between a soul and her Comforter —”
“Is sacrosanct, yes; I know the theory. But the acceptable means of investigation don’t seem to be
working with your case. I have to get creative.”
My anger didn’t faze her. Perhaps, given her strange personality, she was used to such reactions.
“No. I think you’re telling me what you know.… But I don’t think you’re looking as hard as you could.
I’ve seen it before. You’re growing sympathetic to your host. You’re letting her memories unconsciously
direct your own desires. It’s probably too late at this point. I think you’d be more comfortable moving
on, and maybe someone else will have better luck with her.”
“Hah!” I shouted. “Melanie would eat them alive!”
Her expression froze in place.
She’d had no idea, no matter what she thought she’d discerned from Kathy. She’d thought Melanie’s
influence was from memories, that it was unconscious.
“I find it very interesting that you speak of her in the present tense.”
I ignored that, trying to pretend I hadn’t made a slip. “If you think someone else would have better luck
breaking into her secrets, you’re wrong.”
“Only one way to find out.”
“Did you have someone in mind?” I asked, my voice frigid with aversion.
She grinned. “I’vegotten permission to give it a try. Shouldn’t take long. They’re going to hold my host
for me.”
I had to breathe deeply. I was shaking, and Melanie was so full of hate that she was past words. The
idea of having the Seeker inside me, even though I knew that I would not be here, was so repugnant that
I felt a return of last week’s nausea.
“It’s too bad for your investigation that I’m not a skipper.”
The Seeker’s eyes narrowed. “Well, it does certainly make this assignment drag on. History was never
of much interest to me, but it looks like I’m in for a full course now.”
“You just said that it was probably too late to get any more from her memories,” I reminded her,
struggling to make my voice calm. “Why don’t you go back to wherever you belong?”
She shrugged and smiled a tight smile. “I’m sure itis too late… for voluntary information. But if you don’t
cooperate, she might just lead me to them yet.”
“Leadyou?”
“When she takes full control, and you’re no better than that weakling, once Racing Song, now Kevin.
Remember him? The one who attacked the Healer?”
I stared at her, eyes wide, nostrils flared.
I hadn’t moved an inch or relaxed a muscle. The Seeker leaned in, stretched up on her toes to put her
face closer to mine. Her voice turned low and smooth in an attempt to sound persuasive.
“Is that what you want, Wanderer? To lose? To fade away, erased by another awareness? To be no
better than a host body?”
I couldn’t breathe.
“It only gets worse. You won’t beyou anymore. She’ll beat you, and you’ll disappear. Maybe someone
will intervene.… Maybe they’ll move you like they did Kevin. And you’ll become some child named
Melanie who likes to tinker with cars rather than compose music. Or whatever it is she does.”
“The success rate is under twenty percent?” I whispered.
She nodded, trying to suppress a smile. “You’re losing yourself, Wanderer. All the worlds you’ve seen,
all the experiences you’ve collected—they’ll be for nothing. I saw in your file that you have the potential
for Motherhood. If you gave yourself to be a Mother, at least all that would not be entirely wasted. Why
throw yourself away? Have you considered Motherhood?”
I jerked away from her, my face flushing.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered, her face darkening, too. “That was impolite. Forget I said that.”
“I’m going home. Don’t follow.”
“I have to, Wanderer. It’s my job.”
“Why do you care so much about a few spare humans? Why? How do you justify yourjob anymore?
We’ve won! It’s time for you to join society and do something productive!”
My questions, my implied accusations, did not ruffle her.
“Wherever the fringes of their world touch ours there is death.” She spoke the words peacefully, and for
a moment I glimpsed a different person in her face. It surprised me to realize that she deeply believed in
what she did. Part of me had supposed that she only chose to seek because she illicitly craved the
violence. “If even one soul is lost to your Jared or your Jamie, that is one soul too many. Until there is
total peace on this planet, my job will be justified. As long as there are Jareds surviving, I am needed to
protect our kind. As long as there are Melanies leading souls around by the nose…”
I turned my back on her and headed for my apartment with long strides that would force her to run if she
wanted to keep up.
“Don’t lose yourself, Wanderer!” she called after me. “Time is running out for you!” She paused, then
Her voice faded as the space between us grew. I knew she would follow at her own pace. This last
uncomfortable week—seeing her face in the back of every class, hearing her footsteps behind me on the
sidewalk every day—was nothing compared to what was coming. She was going to make my life a
misery.
It felt as if Melanie were bouncing violently against the inner walls of my skull.
Let’s get her canned. Tell her higher-ups that she did something unacceptable. Assaulted us. It’s
our word against hers —
In a human world,I reminded her, almost sad that I didn’t have access to that sort of recourse.There
are no higher-ups, in that sense. Everyone works together as equals. There are those whom many
report to, in order to keep the information organized, and councils who make decisions about that
information, but they won’t remove her from an assignment she wants. You see, it works like —
Who cares how it works if it doesn’t help us? I know—let’s kill her!A gratuitous image of my hands
tightening around the Seeker’s neck filled my head.
That sort of thing isexactlywhy my kind is better left in charge of this place.
Get off your high horse. You’d enjoy it as much as I would.The image returned, the Seeker’s face
turning blue in our imagination, but this time it was accompanied by a fierce wave of pleasure.
That’s you, not me.My statement was true; the image sickened me. But it was also perilously close to
false—in that I would very much enjoy never seeing the Seeker again.
What do we do now? I’m not giving up. You’re not giving up. And that wretched Seeker is sure as
hell not giving up!
I didn’t answer her. I didn’t have a ready answer.
It was quiet in my head for a brief moment. That was nice. I wished the silence could last. But there was
only one way to buy my peace. Was I willing to pay the price? Did I have a choice anymore?
Melanie slowly calmed. By the time I was through the front door, locking behind me the bolts that I had
never before turned—human artifacts that had no place in a peaceful world—her thoughts were
contemplative.
I’d never thought about how you all carry on your species. I didn’t know it was likethat.
We take it very seriously, as you can imagine. Thanks for your concern.She wasn’t bothered by the
thick edge of irony in the thought.
She was still musing over this discovery while I turned on my computer and began to look for shuttle
flights. It was a moment before she was aware of what I was doing.
Where are we going?The thought held a flicker of panic. I felt her awareness begin to rifle through my
head, her touch like the soft brush of feathers, searching for anything I might be keeping from her.
The panic was more than a flicker now.Why?
I’m going to see the Healer. I don’t trusther.I want to talk to him before I make my decision.
There was a brief silence before she spoke again.
The decision to kill me?
Yes, that one.
CHAPTER 8
Loved
You’reafraid to fly?” The Seeker’s voice was full of disbelief edging toward mockery. “You’ve traveled
through deep space eight times and you’re afraid to take a shuttle to Tucson, Arizona?”
“First of all, I’m not afraid. Second, when I traveled through deep space I wasn’t exactly aware of
where I was, what with being stored in a hibernation chamber. And third, this host gets motion sickness
on shuttles.”
The Seeker rolled her eyes in disgust. “So take medication! What would you have done if Healer Fords
hadn’t relocated to Saint Mary’s? Would you be driving to Chicago?”
“No. But since the option of driving is now reasonable, I will take it. It will be nice to see a bit more of
this world. The desert can be stunning —”
“The desert is dead boring.”
“—and I’m not in any hurry. I have many things to think through, and I will appreciate some timealone. ”
I looked pointedly at her as I emphasized the last word.
“I don’t understand the point of visiting your old Healer anyway. There are many competent Healers
here.”
“I’m comfortable with Healer Fords. He has experience with this, and I don’t trust that I have all the
information I need.” I gave her another significant look.
“You don’t have time tonot hurry, Wanderer. I recognize the signs.”
“Forgive me if I don’t consider your information impartial. I know enough of human behavior to
recognize the signs of manipulation.”
She glowered at me.
I was packing my rental car with the few things I planned to take with me. I had enough clothes to go a
week between washing, and the basic hygiene necessities. Though I wasn’t bringing much, I was leaving
even less behind. I’d accumulated very little in the way of personal belongings. After all these months in
my small apartment, the walls were still bare, the shelves empty. Perhaps I’d never meant to settle here.
I had another choice, too. I could abandon this entire world as a failure and move on to a tenth planet. I
could work to forget this whole experience. Earth could be just a short blip in my otherwise spotless
record.
But where would I go? A planet I’d already experienced? The Singing World had been one of my
favorites, but to give up sight for blindness? The Planet of the Flowers was lovely.… Yet
chlorophyll-based life-forms had so little range of emotion. It would feel unbearably slow after the tempo
of this human place.
A new planet? Therewas a recent acquisition—here on Earth, they were calling the new hosts Dolphins
for lack of a better comparison, though they resembled dragonflies more than marine mammals. A highly
developed species, and certainly mobile, but after my long stay with the See Weeds, the thought of
another water planet was repugnant to me.
No, there was still so much tothis planet that I hadn’t experienced. Nowhere else in the known universe
called to me as strongly as this shady little green yard on this quiet street. Or held the lure of the empty
desert sky, which I’d seen only in Melanie’s memories.
Melanie did not share her opinion on my options. She had been very quiet since my decision to find
Fords Deep Waters, my first Healer. I wasn’t sure what the detachment meant. Was she trying to seem
less dangerous, less of a burden? Was she preparing herself for the invasion of the Seeker? For death?
Or was she preparing to fight me? To try to take over?
Whatever her plan, she kept herself distant. She was just a faint, watchful presence in the back of my
head.
I made my last trip inside, searching for anything forgotten. The apartment looked empty. There were
only the basic furnishings that had been left by the last tenant. The same plates were still in the cupboards,
the pillows on the bed, the lamps on the tables; if I didn’t come back, there would be little for the next
tenant to clear out.
The phone rang as I was stepping out the door, and I turned back to get it, but I was too late. I’d
