sissimi bonded out of necessity. The sissimi was dying with its original host, and Maya took it over and saved it. She had no training at all.”
“Yes,” said Kachik. “One of our Lost. We are all grateful the bond succeeded with someone unprepared. Especially since the Lost was too young to leave the vine when it was taken. It is the good kind of chance-meet. All our longing is to help you learn, grow, and be together.”
Vati’s arm curled and uncurled in an elaborate and graceful dance, its tendrils waving almost hypnotically.
“May we touch now?” Kachik asked.
Maya lifted a hand. “Okay.”
Kachik-Vati glided across the floor somehow. Maya still wasn’t sure if Kachik had feet. She couldn’t even tell if he wore clothes; some kind of skirt hung down to the floor beneath the lowest of his dangling arms, but whether it was part of his skin or an overgarment, Maya didn’t know.
Kachik-Vati stopped when they stood two feet from Maya. She looked up into Kachik’s eyes. He was two heads taller than she, and his face wasn’t very facelike.
“Greetings, small sibling,” Kachik said. This close, his voice sounded soft and furry, and seemed to come from somewhere in the middle of him. “I reach to you.” Vati curled into a tight spiral, then uncurled, slowly, the tentacles at his tip bunched tight into a spearhead. “Will you reach to me?” Kachik said. Vati paused about five inches from the shadow that was Rimi.
Rimi reached her shadow arm toward Vati’s tentacles. As Rimi’s edge touched the tips of Vati’s tentacles, Maya felt a jolt, a crackling shock that traveled from her chest out to the ends of her fingers and toes. Her hair rustled. The flow Maya had felt when Rimi and Kita touched came again, a caress, a flood of information like light, like heat, the flow going outward and coming in, sipping and sipped. She felt it dimly. Clearer was Rimi’s fireworks explosion of joy in the transfer. Oh, yes, tell me more. Oh! That opens worlds. Oh, that makes more sense than what I thought. Oh! Thank you!
Oh! Rimi’s voice vanished into a thrum, joined by another thrum in a different pitch, perfectly harmonizing, both of them ranging up and down but constantly matched. Some of the wonder of the harmonic overtones reached Maya, how the sounds wove into and out of each other, made a song from their mix that belonged to neither voice. Colors stroked parallel tracks across a wide, blank place in Maya’s mind, and she reached in with a mental finger to add another shade to the wash of color that wavered back and forth across the endless landscape, a clear yellow that contrasted with their exuberant stripes of green, gray, orange, coral, lilac. She zigged when they zigged and zagged when they zagged, and then their colors bled into hers, and a great humming, jingling, singing warmth swept her up. She heard songs, words, languages, saw images flashing of other places, people, planets.
Her fingertips sizzled. She so wanted paints and paper right now.
She reached out, felt her fingers lace with soft nests of wriggling things, like stroking her fingers through a bunch of warm, spineless snakes. The sensation was pleasant. The snakes wrapped gently around her hands, caging them in building warmth. She knew this was Kachik, that they were embracing now as their sissimi embraced. The connection magnified until she was riding a river of memories and information with Rimi, Vati, and Kachik. She couldn’t sort it and stopped trying after the initial confusion of the rush. She held on tight to Kachik’s tentacles and opened to the flood, trying to capture images to draw.
The song swelled and grew, and the colors spread out and mixed and formed images and shifted again into new shapes and shades.
A flicker of something else broke the flow, which parted around it and rejoined beyond it. Something like a red-tipped thorn. They tried to pause, to study it, but the conversation, the images, the music moved on, and the
“Yes,” said Kachik. “One of our Lost. We are all grateful the bond succeeded with someone unprepared. Especially since the Lost was too young to leave the vine when it was taken. It is the good kind of chance-meet. All our longing is to help you learn, grow, and be together.”
Vati’s arm curled and uncurled in an elaborate and graceful dance, its tendrils waving almost hypnotically.
“May we touch now?” Kachik asked.
Maya lifted a hand. “Okay.”
Kachik-Vati glided across the floor somehow. Maya still wasn’t sure if Kachik had feet. She couldn’t even tell if he wore clothes; some kind of skirt hung down to the floor beneath the lowest of his dangling arms, but whether it was part of his skin or an overgarment, Maya didn’t know.
Kachik-Vati stopped when they stood two feet from Maya. She looked up into Kachik’s eyes. He was two heads taller than she, and his face wasn’t very facelike.
“Greetings, small sibling,” Kachik said. This close, his voice sounded soft and furry, and seemed to come from somewhere in the middle of him. “I reach to you.” Vati curled into a tight spiral, then uncurled, slowly, the tentacles at his tip bunched tight into a spearhead. “Will you reach to me?” Kachik said. Vati paused about five inches from the shadow that was Rimi.
Rimi reached her shadow arm toward Vati’s tentacles. As Rimi’s edge touched the tips of Vati’s tentacles, Maya felt a jolt, a crackling shock that traveled from her chest out to the ends of her fingers and toes. Her hair rustled. The flow Maya had felt when Rimi and Kita touched came again, a caress, a flood of information like light, like heat, the flow going outward and coming in, sipping and sipped. She felt it dimly. Clearer was Rimi’s fireworks explosion of joy in the transfer. Oh, yes, tell me more. Oh! That opens worlds. Oh, that makes more sense than what I thought. Oh! Thank you!
Oh! Rimi’s voice vanished into a thrum, joined by another thrum in a different pitch, perfectly harmonizing, both of them ranging up and down but constantly matched. Some of the wonder of the harmonic overtones reached Maya, how the sounds wove into and out of each other, made a song from their mix that belonged to neither voice. Colors stroked parallel tracks across a wide, blank place in Maya’s mind, and she reached in with a mental finger to add another shade to the wash of color that wavered back and forth across the endless landscape, a clear yellow that contrasted with their exuberant stripes of green, gray, orange, coral, lilac. She zigged when they zigged and zagged when they zagged, and then their colors bled into hers, and a great humming, jingling, singing warmth swept her up. She heard songs, words, languages, saw images flashing of other places, people, planets.
Her fingertips sizzled. She so wanted paints and paper right now.
She reached out, felt her fingers lace with soft nests of wriggling things, like stroking her fingers through a bunch of warm, spineless snakes. The sensation was pleasant. The snakes wrapped gently around her hands, caging them in building warmth. She knew this was Kachik, that they were embracing now as their sissimi embraced. The connection magnified until she was riding a river of memories and information with Rimi, Vati, and Kachik. She couldn’t sort it and stopped trying after the initial confusion of the rush. She held on tight to Kachik’s tentacles and opened to the flood, trying to capture images to draw.
The song swelled and grew, and the colors spread out and mixed and formed images and shifted again into new shapes and shades.
A flicker of something else broke the flow, which parted around it and rejoined beyond it. Something like a red-tipped thorn. They tried to pause, to study it, but the conversation, the images, the music moved on, and the
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