Alien Freak - Calista Skye Page 0,77

breathless. Could it be?

I run both those standoffs with IruBex through my mind. Being that close to an expert Gurandu hunter should have ended with my capture or death. With practically one hundred percent certainty. It was impossible to cheat death like that. But I did it twice.

“So I wonder if you shouldn’t change directions a little,” Grandmother creaks, satisfaction in her voice. “In more ways than one. Because what works one way, can also work the other way. In a mirror image, if you take my meaning.”

Relief and joy are tugging at the edges of my consciousness, but I can’t give them free reins. Not yet. “I think I see what you mean, Grandmother. Worth thinking about, certainly.”

“Worth acting on, I think you’ll find.”

“Maybe.” I take a deep breath. It would be a completely new situation for me. The outcome would change everything, pull the rug out from under me. But that rug is now so threadbare and rotten that I really should try standing directly on the floor underneath. It just might hold. And if it did, it would be beyond glorious.

“Very well. We still need fuel. I will think on the way to the station.”

The computer casing gives a satisfied sigh. “That’s all I ask.”

31

- Averie -

The rock falls to the ground again, completely intact.

“Yes,” the abbot says slowly. “Good try. I do think your focus is in order. With those two eyes of yours, it really should be. Perhaps it’s your intent that’s lacking. We will try something else.”

I sigh and look up for the hundredth time today. I’m getting better – yesterday by this time I’m pretty sure it was a hundred and fifty.

I’m starting to get settled in here at the monastery, and it’s not a bad life. They have good plumbing, but not much electricity and hardly any electronics except for a communications system with the rest of the galaxy. Everything is done the old-fashioned way, and in some ways it’s pleasant enough. The forest is close by with its many natural sounds, the air is fresh, and the night is pretty dark. So I sleep well enough, once I stop tossing and turning, thinking about Earth and my former life, but mostly about Zaroc.

The abbot searches the pockets in his badly worn robe, then takes out a glass marble. “Now. I shall place this on the grass. Right here.” He bends down, then slowly straightens up again.

He looks up at me with his one big, brown eye. “It is a hollow glass orb. Using your two-eyed focus, which should be just about perfect, fill the marble with grass. Without touching it. Don’t think about wanting to destroy it. You just want to see it pleasantly green, like everything around it. Full of grass on the inside. Nothing destructive. Just making it nicer, prettier.”

I follow his basic instructions and empty my mind of everything around us, staring at the marble and wanting it full of grass.

Nothing happens.

“Ah, success!” the abbot cheers and picks the marble back up. “Look!”

He holds it up to the sun. And sure enough, there’s a thin, green strand of grass inside.

“Yeah,” I hesitate. “Not really what I was imagining.”

“Perhaps,” the abbot says. “But this is not what the bracelet was made for. It just shows that you can do it. It’s not the focus, then. Nor is it the intent. Your destructive will lacks intensity. There is, perhaps, not enough sense of self in you. Which is understandable, if you have been a captive of sorts on your own planet for years. Deep down, you might still feel powerless, without a right to act. Without a right to change the world around you. Without a center.”

“I don’t really want to change the world that much,” I confess. “I probably should, but I may not have it in me. It’s hard to want to change a rock.”

“True, true. Yes. But don’t worry, we’ll get there. We’ll practice the whole day— oh, is that the bell? Fourth Lunch of the Empty Hand already? Well, mustn’t make them wait…”

- - -

At the last meal of the day, I’m exhausted from focusing and trying to conjure up my sense of self so that I can break an innocent pebble.

But I notice that the monks are unusually quiet. There is some tension in the air, and about a third of them are missing.

“Something wrong?” I ask. “Where is everyone?”

“Oh, just on patrol,” the abbot says evasively. “Around the monastery. They need the exercise.”

“Bad news?”

“Nothing