Chapter Eight - Adami

     Domine Eugenius Illdoro answered the knock at his office door himself. “Good thought, young Michael. Please come in,” he greeted the dark-haired adolescent. He placed his hands palms-down on the turned-up hands of his young client, taking in his pallor, drawn mouth and uneasy finger-twitching. Illdoro, slightly past middle-age, with greying hair cut short and a bit of a belly, caught the anxiety. A sympathetic knot formed in the pit of his stomach. He gestured the boy to a couch, and then drew the drapes against the intrusive afternoon sun. Taking his place on the couch, he sat near him, but not unseemly close, and asked, “What’s wrong, Mica?”

      Michael Rossignol laid his hand on Illdoro’s sleeve, a trusting touch. “I uh...well...I’ll have to go back to the day after the last big snow. Remember?  It came down like summer rain. When I got back to school on Luneris, Bran and I talked about what we wanted to do during the Spring Thinking holidays. We decided to get some weights to lift and some wrestling mats, and invite friends over for a bit of fun. Dom’s having strike-ball courts built in the staff courtyard. When it’s warm and dry we’ll play out there, but...anyhow we asked Dom to get weights and mats before we came home again."

      “Five other guys who live in Pericopia came over the day after the Thinking. We asked staff to set up our exercise stuff in the atrium.  Dom doesn’t mind as long as we try not to break anything. We do sometimes, though.

      “After the others went home, Bran and I did more lifting,  then started to wrestle again. The house was warm. We took off our shirts, got down on the mat, and went to it. Bran’s still heavier than I, so most of the time he pins me. That day he was either tire, or didn’t really try, because after a while I had him pinned.

      “His skin felt hot. He smelled good. I love his mouth, his eyes, his ears, every bit of him. While I was on top of him, he reached up, pulled my head down, and kissed me on the forehead. It made me hard. I pulled that gorgeous blonde hair out from under his shoulders and fanned it out around his head like a halo. He closed his eyes. I could see little blue veins in his eyelids. 

      “I kissed him on the mouth for a long time. I felt him getting hard too, and put my hand in his shorts. All of a sudden I felt what you might call “a touch” from someone else. I lifted my head and looked around. Dom was on the gallery, watching us with a terrible expression. I guess he realized I saw him, because he hurried away down the hall.”

      “What did you do then?”    

      “I whispered to Bran, ‘let’s go up to my room’, and that’s what we did. I didn’t tell him his father saw us. I didn’t want to, or I knew I shouldn’t without thinking first.  I’m not sure which.”  

      “There might be several reasons....”

      “Yes, of course.”  Michael cut him short. “I didn’t see Dom that evening, but later that night I thought he might still be up, and went down to his office, thinking to.....well, I don’t know, make things right I guess, try to undo the wrongness of what he saw. He was at his desk, not doing anything, just sitting there. I said, ‘Papa, I’m sorry...’, and put my hand on his shoulder. I’m a Mind; I should know better.  

      “Why do you say that?  What happened?”

      “He jumped up, turned on me with this awful expression on his face again, and yelled, ‘Is this what you want? Is it? Must you seduce everybody who comes into your orbit? Very well, I’ll give you what you came for...’  He grabbed my shoulders and kissed me so hard it hurt my mouth, then pushed me away against the wall. He went into his sitting room and locked the door.”

      “Dreadful. Did you know how he felt before this?” 

      Michael shrugged. “I don’t know. Not consciously. I had no idea he’d react violently to me touching him. I should have known, but I didn’t think about him that way or pay attention to what I unconsciously picked up. Mi Domine, you should have seen how he looked at me; contemptuous, scornful, like a stranger. In all the years I’ve known him, I’ve never been afraid of him until then.”

      “And?”  

      “I knocked at his door and begged him to let me in, but he wouldn’t answer. I started to be scared of what he might do to himself, so I unlocked the door in the Mind way. You know what I mean.”

      “Yes, I know.”

      “He was facing away from me toward the window, sitting in his big chair. ‘Get the hell out of here. I don’t want any more to do with you,’ he said so angrily I felt terrified I might lose him. I said, ‘no, no’, ran over and put my hands on either side of his head before he could stop me. I forced him quiet, and then I went inside his mind and fixed things as well as I knew how  I had no choice, Domine Illdoro, I didn’t.  He was going to leave me and Bran and our house, and go live somewhere all alone. I couldn’t let him.”

      Illdoro said nothing for a few minutes.  “Most would say you shouldn’t have done what you did.  I do understand you didn’t want anyone else to know. You couldn’t send him to a professional Mind without talking to him about what happened.”

      “That would change the situation. What people know does that.”

      “Correct. Knowledge can change things irrevocably. Did you consider maybe he’d go away for a little while, get over it and come back.  Did you?” 

      Michael shook his head. “He would never have come back, and he might have taken his own life. Letting him go was too much of a risk.”

      “Maybe so, maybe so. However, you do recognize you changed him, for the most part, to stop him being ‘contemptuous and scornful’ of you. You know that, don’t you?”

      Michael dropped his eyes and squirmed on the couch. “Uh, did I? I’m not sure.”

      Illdoro sighed. “Tell me briefly what you did to him.”

      “Why?”

      “In case there are adverse consequences. And because I order you to.”

      “Oh.” Alarmed, Michael said, “I made him forget everything that happened from the time he started out onto the gallery until I left his room. I replaced some memories, like dinner, with memories of past dinners.  I made him mildly unattracted to me and built the father-son bond stronger. I hope it works. Even if it does, Bran and I have to be very discreet from now on.”  He shifted position, wincing.

      “Yes, and more aware of how other people feel about you. You made an untrue assumption about Dom. You ignored or misinterpreted his body language, facial expressions, tone of voice; all that might have warned you of his vulnerability.  How is your Bond with him now?” 

      “He’s more authoritarian, lays down rules, wants me to do as he says, maybe acting the stern father instead of a friend because of what he saw and what I did, to protect himself from sexual feelings...you know, for me. I don’t complain about it. It’s the right thing to do.”

      “I agree. What about Bran?”

      “I know I’m young to be doing...making love, I mean, and I’m not physically adult, but I feel Bran’s desire and I want him and can’t resist. I need the nearness, the touching, the warmth.” He defended against anticipated criticism.

      “Dom betrayed you.”

    Michael sighed. “Did he?  He didn’t want to. He fought it. Why do people feel that way about me?” 

      “Something you transmit without knowing it. I sense it myself sometimes.” Illdoro paused, frowning a little. “Perhaps it’s a result of your isolation as a small child, a need that can never been satisfied because you can’t go back in time.”

      “Then it’ll always be a part of me, won’t it?” A grimace of pain contorted his face. “Being a Mind means you can never let anyone who isn’t one see who you really are, or tell him everything you think and feel, doesn’t it? No one should know as much about everyone else as we do. We’re different; not entirely human.”

      “I disagree with that,” Illdoro replied, “but I know how alienated and different a Mind can feel. I will work with you on that, Michael, if you’ll come to see me again. But look, are you quite all right? You seem to be in pain?”

      “Yes. No. A while ago I started having a stabbing pain here.”  He put a hand on his lower abdomen. “I feel like throwing up, too.”  He rose and held out his hands palms-up. “My driver’s waiting. I’d better get home. Until later, Domine Illdoro.

      “Until later, Michael Rossignol. See to that pain right away, won't you.”

      As the car rose above the Focus, Michael said, “Hurry home, Franc. I feel sick. My belly hurts.” He vomited into one of the car sickness containers.

      Franc protested, “Siu Mich’, please let me take you to a hospital. If you give me permission to do that, I won’t have to disobey you.”

      “No, I don’t need a hospital, just to lie down for a bit.”

      “If you will permit me, Siu Mich’, you are twelve going on thirteen. I am fifty-nine going on sixty. The green look of you worries me.  I cannot allow...”

      Michael interrupted. “I don’t need...oh, yes, I see, you’re going to do it anyhow, aren’t you?” 

      “Yes, Siu Mich’, I must. We will go to the hospital your company uses, and I will call Siu Dom to come there.”

      “Do as you think best. I’m too sick to argue. Just hurry.” He fell down on the seat with a groan.

      “Well, well, what have we here? A genuine Rossignol, of all things,” the doctor said as she came into the room.

      The patient, doubled up in distress, managed to retort, “I hope you aren’t my doctor. If you are, I’m as good as dead.”

      The doctor chuckled. “Demita Dottora Adami Vara, in service to your heath...” She held out a hand and Michael took it.  “...and a sick little Rossignol if I’m not mistaken.”

      Michael grinned weakly. “Is red hair really unlucky? I’m a goner. I know it.”  Why the joking?

      “Next time I’ll wear my blonde wig just for you. Show me where it hurts, little Rossignol. Ah, right lower quadrant of the abdomen. Does it hurt when I do this?”

      “Owwww! Damn, yes it hurts!  Stop, please!”

      She smiled. “Off with those clothes. Can you do it yourself?  I’ll step out. Cover with a sheet.”

      “All my clothes?”

      “All.” She went out, closing the door behind her. Five minutes later, she returned to take his temperature and complete her examination, sprinkling some scanning virtuals over his abdomen, squinting at the result on a reader. “Little Rossignol, you have got a hot appendix. It’ll have to come out.”

      “What’s an ‘appendix’ and why do you say it’s ‘hot’?” 

      “A useless organ about the size of my little finger that hangs onto your cecum–that’s the lower part of the large intestine where the small intestine joins it. When it gets infected, we medical types say it’s ‘hot’. If it bursts, you could die.  That’s why it has to come out this very day.”

      “You’re going to cut me open?” 

      “Good grief!  That’d be scary.”  She grinned. “Don’t worry. Rich kids like you get Mind surgeons. They take the thing out through a tiny cut.”

      “Will it hurt?”

      “Yeah, if you want to stay awake and witness the fascinating procedure, it’ll hurt worse than hell. On the other hand, if you’re asleep when it happens, you’ll miss the whole thing and never know what happened. Hey, maybe you’ll wake up with an extra dangler sewn on.”

      “Ha, ha, I’d love that. Damn, it hurts to laugh...”  All of a sudden, he loved the dottara.

      “Sorry.  I shouldn’t play the joker. Now, do you have parents around somewhere?  In the waiting room, maybe?” She peered through the door. “Are you Siu Rossignol?” she asked the man who stood and came toward her.

      “Dominic Levec, Michael’s guardian,” he replied, offering the greeting of equals. “And you are?”

      “Oh, sorry, I’m Demita Dottora Adami Vara. Siu Levec, our boy needs his appendix out. Will you sign a permission paper?”

      He studied her closely, seeing a petite, very fem demi with green eyes, freckles, and flaming red hair pinned up on her head with a blue clip shaped like a flower. She wore a short white-on-green print dress under her blue medical apron.  Frilly white pantalets covered her legs. A stethoscope hung around her neck.

      “Will you be doing the surgery yourself, Mi Dottora?”

    “No. Not my field. We’ll have a Mind surgeon and anesthetist. The very best. He can afford it.”  She in turn studied him, a tall dark-haired Unlike in an old brown jacket. Nice eyes, nice mouth, good skin, gold earrings set with amber.

      “Indeed he can. Where do I sign my agreement to this procedure?”

      Adami kept quiet while this took place. “I assume the surgery will be done tonight?” Dom asked, handing her the agreement.

      “Yes, in an hour or so. I’m going to take Michael to his room. Want to come along and stay with him a while?”

      “Definitely.”   

      In the examining room, Michael lay drowsy from preliminary anesthesia.

      “Hello, Mica. Are you hurting, my boy?”

      “Ummm...no, not too much, Papa.”

      “Good, good.  I’m going to stay with you until after the surgery. Allow me to push that trolley, Mi Dottora. Why don’t you lead the way and I’ll follow?”

      “That’s a very good idea, Siu Levec.” She smiled and fluttered off, all skirts and flounces and stray wisps of hair.

      Bran, an individual, possessed himself.  Except for Michael, to whom he gave unhesitatingly, he made no close emotional connections

  and kept his thoughts and feelings to himself. His father lived in near orbit, his aunt and cousins farther out; friends at school circled the periphery. Having minimal telepsychic ability, the pains and buffetings of other psyches barely touched him. He held to his straight and steady path. Unlike telepsychically sensitive Michael, Bran maintained an emotional steadiness, and took things as they came. He neither dwelt in the past nor tried to look too far ahead.

      Michael and he were connected by an unseverable Bond which he knew and accepted as part of himself, a redemption from loneliness and unworthiness. An assiduous student with a big tenor voice, who loved to sing and wanted a “martellus” for his seventeenth birthday, he could comfortably wear his father’s clothes.

      Business fascinated him. He already had access to the RTC—plants, offices, personnel—and Michael had offered him a job there when he finished school. Company men liked him, answered his questions, let him try his hand at welding and driving the ground cars that transported ore and baulks of iron. He hung around when he could, observing and learning.

      On an occasional night he looked for adventure in “the Bonds”, a district where men with no other home or family clustered  in “Bond houses”, making connections as they could. Most, but not all, were poor. The Focus ran the houses, assigning residents as it saw fit. Many suffered from low intelligence or a physical deformity, and couldn’t manage life on their own.   

      Taking a car and driver while the house slept, leaving the former on a parking bracket and the latter to his own devices, he often returned only a little drunk, but more frequently needed help getting to his room. If challenged in some dive, he fought joyfully, arriving home in the small hours, shirt torn, nose bloody, an eye blackened on occasion, but triumphant nonetheless. After sleeping it off, he rose and breakfasted in his rooms, avoiding everyone but Michael, that healer of bruises, who once asked him, “Why?” 

       “For excitement,” he replied, coolly matter-of-fact. If Dom noticed the injuries, he said nothing.

       News of the appendectomy amused rather than alarmed Bran. He came home to Pericopia the weekend after, inspected the tiny scar, and said, “Doesn’t look like much. Does it hurt?”

      “Don’t press on it!!” Michael screeched. “The cut goes all the way down inside of me!”

      “Oh. Sorry. What’ve you been doing?  Reading, huh?” He indicated the stacks of books within easy reach. “I thought Siu Fermer came out here to tutor you.”

      “Yeah, he did, but he isn’t. He broke his hip.”

      “Damn! How’d that happen?”

      “He went to walk in the front garden and fell coming back up the steps. The doctors fixed the bone, then we set him up with nurses over in the east wing.”

      “Poor guy. Probably never be able to walk again. Or teach.”

      “Maybe not. He can stay here the rest of his life if he wants. I’ll visit him often. We can talk about history. That’d be great.”

      “I’ll go by and say ‘hello’ before dinner. Is that what these books are? History?”

      Michael launched into a description of what he'd learned so far during his convalescence. “Nearly every major scientific advance we’ve made as a people originated in a Centennial Message. We’ve used them, built on them, extended them, innovated based on them, but we haven’t done much original research or made our own discoveries. Why do we always sit back and wait for happenstance to dump what we need in our laps?”

      “Dunno. Never thought about it myself.”

      “Neither did I until now. If we had any idea what causes our gender problem, we might be able to fix it, but we can’t even guess where

  to start. We suppose it’s inherited, but how is anything inherited? We do know acquired traits aren’t passed along. We understand the pattern of eye-color inheritance, but not why that pattern exists. Nobody knows. We’re scientifically backward.”

      “Backward compared to whom?” Bran demanded. “I don’t think you can judge like that. You have no basis for comparison.”

      “I know, I know. That’s just how I feel.”

      “You know how I feel about feelings, don’t you?”

      Michael laughed. “Sure, I know, but listen to this.” He picked up one of the books. “Only one educated person came with the Ancestors, Père Denys, a man called a ‘cleric’ and he’s the one who wrote the ‘Arrival Diaries’. Have you read those?” Bran shook his head. “Well, people from three villages on Earth in a place called ‘Charente’ were herded into ships—called ‘iron barns’—but only healthy men and women of childbearing age. The old, the weak, the sick were left behind with things called ‘cows’ and ‘chickens’ and ‘pigs’.  Now, since Père Denys says the old ones would care for these ‘cows’ and so forth, they had to be alive but not human, like flappers and rollers and mice, right?

      “After the ships took off, the Charente people wanted to eat meat from these creatures, but there weren’t any on board. Evidently Earth people killed cows and pigs and chickens and ate them. Everyone got angry and upset. Some wanted to attack the Bringers, but most thought they were ‘angels’, spirit people. Père Denys called them ‘bright angels of God’, so nobody tried to hurt them, but people still craved meat. After a while the Bringers made the stuff we call 'meat' from nuts and sap. That stopped the complaining about that.”  

      “Barbarous,” Bran commented. “Our ancestors were filthy barbarians. Savages.”

      “I think so, too; still, that’s how people lived then. We have to find Earth, Bran.”

      “Why? So we can kill things and eat them?  Not me!”

      “No! So we can find out who we really are, and...well, get some women and bring them here. That’d help, wouldn’t it?”

      “Why do I think it wouldn’t be that easy?” Bran kissed Michael, who tried to pull him down. “No, no, not now, not with that cut in your belly. Stop it!  Let go!  I need to change for dinner.”

      Siu Fermer stayed to become a permanent resident of the household. Taking to a floating chair, he spent his time drowsing in garden and atrium, or discussing history with Michael or arguing with whichever old fellows visited him. He ate with Dom and the staff, claiming he felt more comfortable there, but, like Dom, agreed to become part of the family on holidays.

      Michael never stopped reading history. He spent hours in the Focus library, and the archives where rare and ancient documents were kept. Earth became his obsession.