I ask Deirdre for a good elevated spot with a view of the bay and the countryside. Rather than take me atop a building, she directs our path to a hilltop park on the edge of the city. There we sit on a bench, looking out at the dim landscape. I slip into miasma-vision, and it glows to me, beautiful rivers of xenofungus, bioluminescent currents of kelp, the small islands sparkling like diamonds, purples, reds, indigos. A lot can go wrong when you play with resonance fields, and I can feel that I’m bleeding energy, but that just makes what I want to do easier, since I’m not looking to keep this to myself.
“I’m tuned into the planet,” I tell Deirdre. “We’ve done some research on Progenitor science and taken bioscanner readings of me, various things like that. There’s this resonance energy given off, something sciencey that I don’t understand. But I can interact with it and I can see it when I concentrate. So, I just want to show you what Chiron looks like to me.”
Deirdre’s hands are folded on her lap. I reach one of mine out and lay it on hers. I see the indigo halos spring to life in her brown irises. She gasps and then looks around, startled at how the world has changed. “How is this possible? Oh, Mariah, it’s wondrous that you get to see this world for what it really is!”
“You know, you also see the world for what it is. This is how I see the world, but it’s just like how on Earth a hummingbird or a bumblebee saw something completely different from what a human did. These are all legitimate ways of viewing the world. How you and other… ‘unchanged’ people see the world is still a valid way of interacting with it. I’m not suggesting that everybody one day be like I am, but how I am might be of use for getting other people to survive better.”
“If other people could see like you can, Mariah, we wouldn’t have to fight to protect this world. Its value would be apparent.”
“No, some of them would be terrified,” I say sorrowfully, shaking my head. “Morgan would be terrified.” And he’s not the only one. Bingyi Khan, Bianca Horvath… my conversations with them in the dome were not reassuring.
“Terrified? Of light and life?”
“This isn’t a cure-all, and it’s not a shortcut. It’s not going to make everything all right, right away. I wanted you to see it, but it’s not going to solve all the problems.”
“No,” she agrees, “but it’s an important step. Coming to Chiron didn’t solve all our problems either. But without that step, we wouldn’t have gotten to the next one.” She lets out a long breath, then turns to me and smiles. “I still can’t believe you’re here—Er, I mean, I do believe you’re here.” I chuckle and she grows fake-indignant. “And you were stringing me along that you were a hallucination!”
“You wouldn’t listen to me!”
“I didn’t think there’d be any way you could possibly be here, Mariah.”
My smile fades, and I grow earnest. “I know. And I wasn’t stringing you along on Earth. I might have benefitted from the information you shared, but our friendship was real.”
She looks away from me, out over the landscape, pensive. “We have a wall,” she says slowly, “in the Earth memorial to all those who contributed to the project but couldn’t come.” Turning back to me, she says, “Your name is on that wall, Mariah, and I walk by it almost every day. I’d feel weird taking your name off there now that you’re here, though.” The last rays of the setting suns drop below the horizon, and Deirdre shakes herself out of this reflective mood. “It’s late, and we’re going to have a lot to talk about tomorrow. I still don’t know what to do about this army. You’re going to be there, I assume?”
“Yeah, the plus one. Cleve’s aide. I didn’t want to distract from the topic tomorrow.”
“Well, you kind of failed at that,” she says, gesturing all around us.
“I meant, that meeting needs to happen.”
“It does, it does. And as much as I’m personally glad to see you, I have a lot of things going on, actually. So…” I withdraw my hand from hers, and the light dims from her eyes and from her vision. She releases a long sigh and gathers her purse close to her. “I will see you tomorrow, Mariah, but a little earlier than lunch.”
I chuckle at that, and we say our goodbyes. It’s so peaceful here that I linger on the bench. The suns are now completely set, but the full moons tonight lend a bright glow to everything, even without miasma-vision. The wondrous moment is broken by the tangy smell of spilt blood and rusting iron and the warm heat of turmeric on my tongue. I recognize immediately what must be going on. This is similar to the pheromones Marina used on the briar beast and the craws, but not the same formulation. No, definitely not the same—this particular blend doesn’t just make its presence known to me, it actually works on me. All my muscles seize up in a paralyzing cramp, like I’m one big charley horse.
And so there’s nothing I can do when a hood gets yanked over my head, replacing the pheromone scents with something sickly sweet that knocks me out.