Spherical Harmonic Read Online Free Page B

civilian, had military bodyguards I didn't recall. And I was a civilian, I was certain. I had long mourned the man who died. My other guard had almost died as well, from hypothermia, before a rescue team dug us out of the snow.
     
     
I could see now why that situation recalled this one. It wasn't only the fear. Both times I had been trapped in a small place with someone I didn't know well. It was an occurrence so rare, it brought on the memory despite the otherwise different circumstances.
     
     
"Why stare you at me?" the treeman asked.
     
     
I swallowed. "I'm scared."
     
     
"Should be." He used a matter-of-fact tone.
     
     
"What you—" I stumbled over the idiosyncratic Shay grammar. "What you me do?"
     
     
"Say again?"
     
     
"What do you to me?"
     
     
"Tithe, to me, you with yourself pay."
     
     
Even understanding his words, I couldn't follow them. So I sent a thought to my language libraries: change his Shay grammar to a form I understand. It translated his words as, "You are the tithe."
     
     
Did he mean a tax? Or tyth, the Shay word for thief? My memory said tyth derived from the Iotic verb ti'. Ancient Iotic was a precursor to most of our languages, including the modern Iotic I spoke. In ancient Iotic, ti' meant "eat plants or the meat of animals," but in Shay it had come to mean "feed oneself by stealing food." Did he believe I had filched his dinner?
     
     
"I rob not," I said, trying to sound trustworthy.
     
     
He said something about my life. A loan? It wasn't clear. "I owe a debt?" I asked. "This debt to you?"
     
     
"Manq owe." The intensity of his gaze burned. "Your life pays this debt."
     
     
I didn't like the direction our conversations kept taking. "No kill me."
     
     
"Then tithe." As he spoke, one of his memories broke past his guarded thoughts. Normally I had trouble picking up clear images from his mind, but this one exploded with painful clarity. Rugged stick figures were destroying the forest, mutilating roots. I had to fortify my barriers, muting the brutal intensity of that image. This memory had great power over him. His grief filled the cavity. Stick figures maiming roots. Did he see that as a form of murder? I questioned my perception of his memory, though. It could be skewed, like my perception of him. Sometimes I saw him as human and other times as a treeman, a creature created by the forest to exact its revenge.
     
     
Then I realized both were true. His human body matched his physical appearance. His treeman aspect was how my mind interpreted his self-image, at least what I managed to pick up from his guarded thoughts. Yes, I remembered. I had long seen this way, in more than one mode. Normally I had a better ability to process my perceptions, but right now I was incomplete. Partial waves continued to come in from another reality and fine-tune my existence.
     
     
Fatigue, dazing, hazing, dazing…
     
Fatigue and hunger, dazing, hazing, dazing…
     
Untether my mind, drift, drifting into psiberspace…
     
Or what had been psiberspace, before the implosion…
     
Untether my mind, drift, drifting into psiberspace…
     
Afloat, afloat, afloat, floating in a forever sea…
     
Floating, dazing, hazing, dazing…
     
     
"—speak!" He sounded frightened.
     
     
Fade away…
     
     
"…come back!"
     
     
With an effort, I pulled into focus. The treeman was crouched in front of me, his body rippling. No, he wasn't rippling; reality was rippling. The cavity ebbed and flowed.
     
     
"Say again?" My voice sounded like distant leaves blowing over a plain.
     
     
He blanched. "What ****?"
     
     
"Understand not," I whispered.
     
     
"You started to vanish. " Sweat trickled down his temple. "Manq trick."
     
     
"No trick." My voice was a lost wind.
     
     
"Manq cruelty." He stated it flat and hard, as if to fend off whatever I had become.
     
     
"Not Manq."
     
     
"Did the Manq tell you?" His voice cracked. "Did it make a good telling?"
     
     
"Tell me