Joined in Mind and Body - Chapter 6
#6 of Joined in Mind and Body
Deeper meanings, tearful endings, and new beginnings... Looks like things are getting complex.
Joined in Mind and Body
Chapter 6
His sleep was uninterrupted finally, and long enough, but he still woke feeling groggy at around 1.15 ship time. He just didn't have much energy, and sleep didn't seem to have helped. He thought about the time for a moment. No clue why the ship used weird time indicators. Shift point hour of the shift and fraction of the hour afterwards. First shift 0800 to 1600. Second shift 1600 to 0000. Third shift 0000 to 0800. So 1.15 was 9:30 am... 1.5 hours into the first shift. He had overslept, and couldn't even justify it with the interruptions. Nor could he figure out why he still felt tired.
He got up and pulled some clothing on, picking up his prior night's clothing to set in the wash. He paused when he felt an odd object in the pants, and extracted the mysterious blue envelope from the pocket. Shrugging, he placed the envelope in his currently-worn pocket before tossing the clothes at the washing unit.
He froze as he heard a mewl of dismay coming from inside his quarters, and spun around to see Serina sleeping in the Kathari bowl bed. He had almost forgotten that she was there. He walked over and noticed that she was hugging several pillows tightly, her face buried in one as her hind leg kicked a bit. She whimpered as he watched.
"Serina?" he called softly. "Serina, are you okay?" She started awake at the sound of his voice and looked around in a panic. She noted where she was, and slowly began to calm down as her gaze fell on him.
"Bad dream..." she mumbled blearily, resting her head back down on the pillow. "Sorry, Andrew-l'es. Can I please sleep more? Maybe about three more hours..."
Andrew smiled. "Go ahead and rest. I'm going to go out and look around the area. I'll come back in about two hours. If you need me sooner, just call my wrist com from the room, okay?"
She nodded and mumbled an unintelligible affirmative before settling to snooze again. Andrew watched her for a short while to make sure she didn't go directly back into a bad dream again, and then went to pull on his shoes. Finally he buckled on his wrist com and headed out the door.
The hallway had a number of occupants, mostly Kathari. They all smiled and waved to Andrew as he passed, greeting him happily. It seemed that every single Kathari in the place already knew precisely who he was. Guess that was a side effect of being a psionic race. Andrew took his headset from its storage space in the wrist com (The darn things were more like bracers than watches anyway) and put it on, then began listening to the messages that had been left while it was in DND mode.
He frowned as a number of requests for him to fix various items filtered by, and deleted them with a sigh. The next message was from Tyrin. The Kathari said in the message that they had heard he was being bugged to fix things, and had put out a general notice that he was NOT to be bothered about such things, and anybody caught doing so would be reprimanded. And the final message was indeed a basic news broadcast that apparently went to everybody who had security clearance to know about him, and indicated that he was not to be bothered.
Andrew nodded. That should help at least. He left the hallway and headed down the ramp outside to street level. The block was bustling now. It was about an hour after third shift let out, and all the third shift people were doing chores, running errands, and socializing before bed.
Walking down the street, he took in all the sights and sounds. Humans and Kathari in both segregated and mixed groups were in abundance. The whole place seemed almost surrealistically happy, but he realized this was an effect of the Kathari aboard the ship. They really did take the whole ship's happiness seriously.
He stopped at a small corner café and got a bite to eat for breakfast. Sitting at one of the little tables, he munched on his food and watched the world go by. The humans he had seen plenty of, so he paid more attention to the Kats.
The Kathari were definitely big. Even the smaller ones still stood over nine feet tall. He saw many body types, from stocky Kathari that looked like they were all muscle, similar to tigers back home, to lean a lithe Kats whose forms resembled cheetahs. Fur ranged from fine-looking sheen to thick coats, and patterns ran the gamut of just about every possible pattern or combination thereof that he could imagine. Spotted Kats, striped Kats, blotchy Kats, Kats in tan, brown, orange, black, grey, red, and white. Some were strikingly patterned, while others resembled housecats almost.
The only real way to tell which ones were in female phase versus male phase was to look at their upper body's chest. Female phase caused a swelling in their breasts, similar to humans. A male phase Kat was quite flat-chested, while female phase left noticeable but not too large breasts evident beneath the fur there.
He also noticed that the Kathari were quite tactile. They would hold hands with others that they stopped to talk to, or lean against each other lightly. They occasionally petted each other while chatting even. Friends were greeted with hugs and licks on the cheek. He even got to see a double-hug; two Kats rear up on hind legs and hug with both their upper bodies and their forelegs. The general happiness seemed to be contagious too, and he couldn't help but smile as he watched life go on here.
Finishing up his breakfast, he began to wander along the streets, looking at storefronts and service offices. Kats were constantly greeting him warmly as if he were an old friend. Quite a few went out of their way to drop to their lowbellies and hug him at his own level before continuing on. Andrew was flabbergasted at the whole thing for a while, but it seemed to meld into comfort for him quickly. Almost as if he had been called Andrew-k'is by Kathari for years.
In a section of town with small, independently-owned shops, he paused to pick up a snack that smelled delicious. Sure enough, the small pastries in the bag were extremely good. Licking some powdered substance off his fingers after tossing the container in the trash, he looked around. His gaze lingered after a dark grey Kathari who had just vanished into a shop across the street. He glanced at the sign above the shop. "Fortunes" it simply said.
Andrew was not one to believe in superstition. He considered palm readers and such in the human world a major fraud. But for some reason, he felt himself drawn towards this small shop. What went for fortune telling in a Kathari world, where liars and cheats would be revealed instantly? Curiosity overcame him, and he crossed the street to the shop.
He peered around the dimly-lit room as he entered. It was a small sitting room, with a few humans present and sitting on plush cushions. Two of them glanced at him as he came in, and returned their attention to the curtain-obstructed doorway at the back of the room. A holo display above the doorway showed swirling patterns. Andrew noticed a sign making an obvious presence in the room. The sign simply read: "Make yourself comfortable. You will be admitted when you need to be, not when you want to be, and not necessarily in order of arrival."
Andrew tilted his head curiously and looked around for anything to sign in on. He frowned as he noticed nothing apparent. A large hand on his shoulder startled him, and he spun around to look up at the dark grey Kat that he had seen in the doorway earlier. Where had she been hiding?
"There is no need to sign in here, Andrew-k'is." Her voice was feminine, but very deep and sultry. "This way please." She gestured towards the curtained doorway. Andrew felt himself pushed along gently by her hand on his back, and she pulled the curtain aside and gave him a small push through a pitch-black privacy field.
The sounds and light from the street that had been filtering into the lobby did not make it through the privacy field. Almost complete silence met Andrew's ears as he looked down the dim hallway to another set of curtains just ahead. Not sure what to make of what was going on, he turned around to leave. But again, curiosity got the better of him. He slowly turned back to hallway, and walked down it, pushing the curtain at the end aside.
A fragrant, musky scent met his nostrils. It was very pleasant, and if nothing else came of this little event, the smell was worth it. He blinked as he looked around at the proliferation of black furs in the room beyond the curtain. Full body pelts, very large, with extremities still attached. He reached out to touch one gingerly, and drew his hand back in shock when he realized it was a Kathari pelt. He swallowed loudly. What was this?
"Open the blue envelope," came a low male voice from across the room. Andrew looked back into the shadows and saw two glowing eyes peering back at him. He almost turned to bolt and run, but he steeled himself and extracted the envelope from his pocket. The rip of the paper as he tore through it was strangely loud in the silence of the room. He could hear his own breath as he extracted a folded full sheet of normal paper, and another thick envelope, this time apparently green in color, from the blue outer envelope.
"Read it," the occupant at the back told him. Andrew thought it was likely a Kat.
He unfolded the paper carefully and moved to the side a little for enough light to read by. The paper read, "Yes, I am a Kathari, Andrew-k'is. You are reading this, so you just made the choice not to bolt when you felt like it. You came here from curiosity, almost left in the hallway, and continued on even then. And you chose to read this under the light with the tree stars on the shade." Andrew blinked and looked at the small dim lights around him. Sure enough, the light he was using had three small stars in a pattern on the lampshade.
"What...?" Andrew asked, feeling suddenly out of his league. He knew electronic paper when he saw it... the stuff that could change its writing at will. This was plain paper, written by hand.
"Not all Kathari psionic gifts are the same," said the Kat at the back of the room. "I happen to be gifted with the ability to view the future. And before you ask, no, the future is not set in stone. Many paths... Many branches... Many possibilities... all based on the choices that people make. Come here, Andrew-k'is."
Andrew's eyes widened, and he began walking slowly towards the Kat in the shadows. He was gradually making out form around the eye reflections. A black Kathari, curled up in a bowl chair that was draped with more black Kathari pelts.
"These are the pelts of my family line of seers, for many generations back," the Kathari told him. "Kept by each member of the seer line, and handed down to the next when the time comes." The Kathari smiled slightly. "Some time in the future, one of my offspring will rest upon my pelt as well."
Andrew relaxed more. That helped him not be quite as nervous.
"You already think little of seers, based on your experiences on Terra," the Kat murmured. "When I saw of you, I knew I had to arrange things carefully. To convince you I am genuine, and for other reasons. I do not tell people the future. I give them nudges in the proper directions to do things that will benefit their future. Not always what they want. But always what they need, and what will benefit them the most. With the restriction that my hints may not help them at the expense of others."
Andrew's brow creased. "So you give out information like winning contest numbers...?"
The Kathari chuckled warmly. "Never anything like that. That would not be fair to anybody else, now would it? No... My help goes much deeper. My direction gives people a proper path at a major crossroads, and yet the major crossroads may be something extremely simple-seeming to them." The Kat took him by the shoulders and peered at him. Andrew had not realized that he had walked so close.
"You have no simple crossroads, Andrew. You have many winding and splitting paths, and so many ends that can lead to disaster. You require much direction along these paths to reach a good destination. And were your destination to affect only you, I would never be able to assist you. But your destiny touches so many others... I cannot ignore it." The Kat released Andrew's shoulders and hung his head. "Though it means the end of my business here."
Andrew opened his mouth to ask the Kat what he meant, but stopped as the Kat's amber eyes flicked opened and stared at him. He felt a presence behind him, and spun around to see the grey Kat standing there. She looked stoic, but her jaw trembled and her eyes were wet. Andrew was not sure what was going on, but he had an idea that it was something major.
"I have sent the rest of the customers away, and locked the outer door. I..." She made a face, her eyes squeezing closed, and burst into tears. "I am ready, my love, my dear ..." she choked, and couldn't continue.
The black Kat was obviously saddened, his voice wavering. "Do not fret, trus. You know we'll be together again soon enough. I am the tenth. You know we saw this coming."
"But did it have to come so soon?!" she wailed. Andrew was growing more concerned by the moment. He strongly considered bolting again, but the grey Kat caught his arm as he turned to do so. She sucked up her fear, and shivered, "No... Andrew, stay... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you." She looked at her pairmate. "I will be strong. And I will love you always, trus. We will be together soon."
Andrew searched his extra knowledge for that term... Trus... it was what one called their true love. It was a release to the one so named. A way for the speaker to say that they belonged, heart, body, and soul, to the one named such. It also made a suffix, t'rus added to a name, to indicate to third parties the same. It was used between Kats who were life-paired and bond linked.
"You must leave now, love," the black Kat was telling his beloved. "Return in ten minutes and this will be done."
Andrew looked from Kat to Kat. From the trembling, heart-stricken grey one to the stoic black one. Something big was about to go down, and he wasn't sure he wanted to be involved in this. He just wanted to get back to home and normal work as soon as possible.
"You are already past the point where you can avoid getting involved, Andrew-l'es. Your path has branched to this point. You cannot change the past. We can only hope you make the best of the future," the black Kat murmured to him, standing up slowly and climbing off the chair. The grey Kat turned and vanished behind a curtain at the side of the room, one last little choking sob coming back before she was gone.
The black Kat took Andrew's shoulder and led him to another curtain that draped across another side door. The door slid open, revealing a plain white room. The lights came on as the door opened, and the air in the room smelled stale, as if this room had not been opened in a long time. The Kat stepped in, his pitch black fur a stark contrast against the white in the room. Andrew followed, very nervous now.
The door slid shut and the Kat accessed an inset panel beside it, tapping a single control. A field formed just inside the walls of the room as the panel slid shut and the Kat walked to the center of the room. "That is an exceptionally strong psionic isolation field. Come here, Andrew," the Kat said. Andrew fought back his fear and approached the Kat, who spun to face him.
"Andrew-l'es, I am Karistin," the Kat told him. "I am doing this in male phase, so there is less interference with some branches. And this is a first for all recorded seer history." He paused, looking at Andrew in concern. "Normally you must face me for this... Given that you are human, I will understand if you do not want to. It is powerfully disturbing. It would take a lot of strength on your part to share this event with me. I am prepared to go alone. You can have your back to me."
Andrew looked at the black Kat. He realized that the feline was purely terrified. He knew what being alone meant to a Kat. It meant being psionicly dead. Never to have another mind touch them again. He didn't know this Kathari well, but what the Kat was about to do was obviously very serious.
He couldn't bear to see such a majestic creature shaking in such pure fright. "I will face you, if it helps," he offered in a meek voice.
Karistin bowed his head and looked instantly relieved, but also concerned. "Are you sure? It will be very disturbing for you. You won't remember any of it at the end, but you might not want to go through it to begin with."
Andrew nodded decisively, and as he realized the issue of the field, he reached down and unclasped his PPDU, "I'll even take that off. You all call me k'is. Friend to Kats. I want to make sure I deserve that honor. I get psionic background noise. I'll share yours, so I can try to understand better." He dropped the PPDU on the floor beside him.
Andrew's mind was instantly washed in the psionic leakage from Karistin. Relief, admiration... and still fear. Andrew was about to ask him what he was afraid of, but all the hair on his body suddenly began to stand on end. Karistin sat his back end down fully and two dinner plate sized front paws came up to rest lightly on Andrew's shoulders.
Andrew staggered. Even lightly, the paws were huge. Karistin threw his arms and head back as power continued to build, tiny crackles of energy zipping along the Kat's fur. Andrew saw the concentration on the Kat's features high above him, and felt the paws on his shoulders slipping. He got another wash of fear in response to the slipping paws, so he reached up and curled his arms around them, holding them against his shoulders. The relief from the Kat was apparent.
Suddenly, the paws clenched, huge claw tips touching against Andrew's back. A bright focus of light formed between Andrew and the Kat, and Andrew blanched as he realized it was a Psibeam origin. He stood frozen, unable to pull away both from the shock of the idea of such a powerful psibeam origin forming so close to him, and also the claws against his back. He stared up at the Kat, fear building in him quickly now.
Karistin suddenly brought his head forward again, gazing down at the human. His hands came slowly forward, reaching down to rest on the human's arms that held his paws stable. Andrew stared into eyes that now glowed from their own light inside. Tendrils of bright energy around the Kat's eyes made them hard to look at.
A last wave of fear from the Kat, and then only calm acceptance as Karistin recited loudly, "I, Seer Karistin Artelles, give myself mind and soul into your service, Andrew Foster. May you take strength from my guidance. Arowlow ssrethi ar kthht nrell!" His last words were in Katharin.
There was a burst of energy as the Psibeam fired. Andrew yelled, at first fearing he was about to be atomized. Pain flooded over his mind, but it was not his. His yell turned into a scream of terror and dismay as he realized that Karistin had turned the psibeam on himself, and he watched the Kat's front split open in a bright flash.
Blinded by the light, Andrew staggered, still screaming, and fell to his knees with the sudden weight of the paws on his shoulders. Then the unshielded psionic leakage became a feeling of dissolution, then of nothingness. The pain ended, and the Kat was no more.
Andrew collapsed into a sobbing, blubbering, incoherent pile on the floor as something fell towards him. It was Karistin's pelt. Then a mind that no longer had physical form grasped his powerfully. He screamed again as an unoccupied section of his own mind was partitioned off, closed away, and filled by this other presence.
The presence did not remain entirely. Soon it withdrew again, leaving only an anchor there, a link by which it could always reach the human. The partition was strengthened, the walls of it fortified. Andrew sobbed still in reaction. And then in mid-cry, his mind was grasped again, and every memory since just after he arrived in the white room was obliterated and he was pushed into unconsciousness.
* **
Andrew came to only a few minutes later. His hair was being stroked softly, and he was held against a large furry body. He realized he was also covered by one of the black fur pelts, apparently brought in to keep him warm. He looked up to see the grey Kat looking down at him. She was holding him and waiting for him to awaken.
"What... what happened?" he asked her.
"Karistin brought you in here to perform a Seer's ritual, to gain a better view of the overall picture so he could guide you properly," she said softly. "The ritual involved a lot of energy, so you passed out. Karistin finished the ritual though, and has gone off the ship by special arrangement to where he may observe the branches of the future with no distractions. He will contact you to guide you when you need it. You still have your own free will. You will not be forced to do what he says, but it's a good idea to."
She lifted the pelt off him and folded it with great reverence, and a hint of sadness. She helped him to stand, then got to her own feet. Andrew adjusted the clasp of the PPDU on his wrist. It had gotten spun around his wrist a bit. "I'll do as much as I can to do what he says, so he can finish with me and come back from where he has to be alone to work. It must be hard on you if you have to be away from him for so long," Andrew told her solemnly.
The Kat gazed down at the human admiringly as she hugged the black pelt to herself, and smiled hauntingly. "Don't fret, Andrew-l'es. I have only a few things I must take care of here, and then I'll join him. We'll be together again long before you are done. Let me show you out. You probably have a lot to do."
"Oh, yes! Serina will be waking up soon! I promised I'd be back!" Andrew exclaimed. The grey Kat led him through the inner room, where he noticed all the black pelts were stacked inside a single large ornate box. Out to the lobby, and out of the stark silence afforded by the privacy field. She opened the outer door for him, and he smiled to her before he stepped out.
He turned to see her bury her face in the black pelt she carried as the door slid closed. He didn't know why, but he was feeling a strong attachment to all the Kats on this ship already, and especially to these two that he had just met. He realized that if she was leaving the ship too, to join her mate, he might not ever see her again. And he didn't even get her name!
He walked back to the door and touched the call button. He waited a short while, but there was no answer from inside. He sighed softly and turned to leave, hoping that he would be able to find out her name sometime. Turning his mind back to Serina, he began to head home, unaware of anything that had just transpired.
* * *
Inside the small shop, Faria paused to catch her breath. She had to work swiftly, as her mate's departure was taking an instant toll on her. She placed his pelt lovingly in the box and closed the lid, sealing it carefully, then recorded the final information on her wrist com. Unstrapping the wrist com from her arm, she placed it atop the box, and worked to drag herself into the white room, within its psionic isolation field, so she would spare the rest of the ship.
She and her mate had lived a century and a half. As with all Kats, their pair bond supported their bodies and made them ageless and immortal. With her beloved now gone, her body was falling apart from the inside.
She collapsed to the floor inside the room as the door slid shut and the isolation field activated. A last tear fell from her eye. "Karistin-t'rus... I am coming my love..." she murmured quietly as her heart faltered, and her last breath drifted from her body with a sigh.
Her vision faded to black, and her psionic existence detached from her dead body, at once fading to the alternate mean of being that all Kathari found when they died: The Shadows. Her being would go on and she would be with her beloved again, though without a body to ever share pleasures again.
She expanded her new awareness to cover the whole universe, to find her love. She was quickly greeted by Karistin and recollapsed her awareness near his. All is done, Karistin-t'rus. She sent to him, still grieving over their deaths. But she sensed a strange happiness from him.
He stayed with me, Karistin told her. He stayed with me even until past the very end. I have looked as far as I can along his branches. He may be the one to end the Cycles of the Ten.
She felt his hope, and his determination, and she strengthened them with her own. This would bring hope to all Kathari once it was known. They would need to work hard to get a message back through to a living Kathari. She would begin to gather others who had faded to this realm to garner the power to send the news. So much work to do for a dead Kathari. With a new hope for those she left behind, she began to search.
* * *
Aboard the ship, a timed function activated on the wrist com that was sitting atop the box of pelts. A secure message was transmitted to the Kathari consulate on the ship. The Tenth was freed, the message said. Four names were given. Four people to be kept completely unaware of the events.
The Kats who received the message scratched their heads in puzzlement at both the fact that there were four names instead of two, and at the nature of one of the names. This was not what they had been prepared for. Did this bode well, or bode ill? With hope mingled with misgiving, they began securing the information. They passed it only to those who had the need to know, and ensured that it stayed in impenetrable sections of all minds involved.
Once the information was passed on, they sent a team to take care of the shop, the pelts, and the body. May The Shadows keep them both safe.
Recommended Next Steps
If you enjoyed the story, please feel encouraged to comment below, fave the story, and vote on it.