The Secret Sharer

8.

It was just like any other jacking: an electrochemical mind-to-mind bond, a linkage by way of the implant socket at the base of my spine. The sort of thing that any two people who wanted to make communion might do. There was just one difference, which was that we didn’t use a jack. We skipped the whole intricate business of checking bandwiths and voltages and selecting the right transformer-adapter. She could do it all, simply by matching evoked potentials. I felt a momentary sharp sensation and then she was with me.

“Breathe,” she said. “Breathe real deep. Fill your lungs. Rub your hands together. Touch your cheeks. Scratch behind your left ear. Please. Please. It’s been so long for me since I’ve felt anything.”

Her voice sounded the same as before, both real and unreal. There was no substance to it, no density of timbre, no sense that it was produced by the vibrations of vocal cords atop a column of air. Yet it was clear, firm, substantial in some essential way, a true voice in all respects except that there was no speaker to utter it. I suppose that while she was outside me she had needed to extend some strand of herself into my neural system in order to generate it. Now that was unnecessary. But I still perceived the voice as originating outside me, even though she had taken up residence within.

She overflowed with needs.

“Take a drink of water,” she urged. “Eat something. Can you make your knuckles crack? Do it, oh, do it! Put your hand between your legs and squeeze. There’s so much I want to feel. Do you have music here? Give me some music, will you? Something loud, something really hard.”

I did the things she wanted. Gradually she grew more calm.

I was strangely calm myself. I had no special awareness then of her presence within me, no unfamiliar pressure in my skull, no slitherings along my spine. There was no mingling of her thoughtstream and mine. She seemed not to have any way of controlling the movements or responses of my body. In these respects our contact was less intimate than any ordinary human jacking communion would have been. But that, I would soon discover, was by her choice. We would not remain so carefully compartmentalized for long.

“Is it better for you now?” I asked.

“I thought I was going to go crazy. If I didn’t start feeling something again soon.”

“You can feel things now?”

“Through you, yes. Whatever you touch, I touch.”

“You know I can’t hide you for long. They’ll take my command away if I’m caught harboring a fugitive. Or worse.”

“You don’t have to speak out loud to me any more,” she said.

“I don’t understand.”

“Just send it. We have the same nervous system now.”

“You can read my thoughts?” I said, still aloud.

“Not really. I’m not hooked into the higher cerebral centers. But I pick up motor, sensory stuff. And I get subvocalizations. You know what those are? I can hear your thoughts if you want me to. It’s like being in communion. You’ve been in communion, haven’t you?”

“Once in a while.”

“Then you know. Just open the channel to me. You can’t go around the ship talking out loud to somebody invisible, you know. Send me something. It isn’t hard.”

“Like this?” I said, visualizing a packet of verbal information sliding through the channels of my mind.

“You see? You can do it!”

“Even so,” I told her. “You still can’t stay like this with me for long. You have to realize that.”

She laughed. It was unmistakable, a silent but definite laugh. “You sound so serious. I bet you’re still surprised you took me in in the first place.”

“I certainly am. Did you think I would?”

“Sure I did. From the first moment. You’re basically a very kind person.”

“Am I, Vox?”

“Of course. You just have to let yourself do it.” Again the silent laughter. “I don’t even know your name. Here I am right inside your head and I don’t know your name.”

“Adam.”

“That’s a nice name. Is that an Earth name?”

“An old Earth name, yes. Very old.”

“And are you from Earth?” she asked.

“No. Except in the sense that we’re all from Earth.”

“Where, then?”

“I’d just as soon not talk about it,” I said.

She thought about that. “You hated the place where you grew up that much?”

“Please, Vox—”

“Of course you hated it. Just like I hated Kansas Four. We’re two of a kind, you and me. We’re one and the same. You got all the caution and I got all the impulsiveness. But otherwise we’re the same person. That’s why we share so well. I’m glad I’m sharing with you, Adam. You won’t make me leave, will you? We belong with each other. You’ll let me stay until we reach Cul-de-Sac. I know you will.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” I wasn’t at all sure, either way.

“Oh, you will. You will, Adam. I know you better than you know yourself.”