Off-Grid
Coosuptik River
Leisure, Padi thought drowsily, was really quite pleasant.
They had eaten a substantial snack of bread, cheese, and nuts, and sampled the wine, which had not, she found with relief, been spoilt by journeying through the ether. In fact, they had been everything that was indolent, and had made a game of asking questions about each other, turnabout, until Tekelia had leaned close, and kissed her.
That had been agreeable, so she kissed Tekelia, and one sweet pleasantry had led to another, until here they lay on the rug under the trees, with the river plashing quite nearby, Tekelia’s head on her shoulder.
There came a soft sigh, and Tekelia murmured, “I am going to miss this.”
“What? Having the afternoon off?”
“Well—yes, but more so, this.”
Tekelia raised their clasped hands, so that she could see brown fingers and gold, interwoven.
Padi felt her breath catch.
“Padi?”
She wriggled, and got herself sitting upright, assisted by firm hands, leaning forward to look into a worried face and eyes that were both dark brown.
“Is there,” she said suddenly—“Tekelia, is there no one else?”
Tekelia sighed. It was no use to pretend misunderstanding. By now, Tekelia knew how to value Padi yos’Galan. A game would be met with scorn; a failure to answer would only have her ask again, less gently. One did not toy with Padi yos’Galan; nor lie to her.
“Why do you sigh?” she asked now. “Have I been inept?”
“I sigh because the truth is melancholy,” Tekelia answered. One hoped that the truth did not make one into an object of pity. “There is no one else, no.”
Lavender eyes grew stormy, and Tekelia felt a shiver in the ambient. Not pitied, no. One had gained a protector.
The realization was—odd, as was the emotion it engendered—not shame, Tekelia thought, but joy, that she cared so much. Also, sadness, because—
“What is, is,” Tekelia said gently to those fierce eyes, and fiercer spirit. “I am a Child of Chaos, Padi. More ambient than physical.”
“Bah,” Padi said decisively, and bent to kiss Tekelia’s brow, laying one cool hand along their cheek.
Leaning back, she shook her head.
“That is not the ambient, my friend. It is Tekelia.”
“And I am proven by history and by testing to be an instance of Chaos itself,” Tekelia said, voice sharper than her care deserved. “This is not whim, but fact.”
Padi’s regard was steady, though Tekelia could not name the emotions that boiled in the ambient between them.
“Are there others?” she asked eventually.
Tekelia frowned.
“Others? The Haosa—”
“Other—instances of Chaos,” Padi interrupted.
“None that I am aware of,” Tekelia said slowly. “In theory, it is possible that there is another—or even two—at a more distant remove, who have not stepped into the fullness of themselves.”
Tekelia paused.
“I had a mentor, when I arrived—another Child of Chaos, who taught me what he could of our condition.”
Padi leaned forward.
“Did you never touch?”
The thought of what might come forth from such a touch made the blood run cold. Tekelia took a deep breath.
“It was not considered . . . wise.”
The ambient crackled with Padi’s anger.
“You were born Civilized, you said. Surely you didn’t—discorporate people—while you lived under the Grid?” She caught her breath on that, her gaze sharp enough to cut. “Was that why you were sent—to the Haosa?”
“Nothing so dire.” Tekelia reached out and lightly traced one high, delicate cheekbone, marveling at the softness of her skin.
She sighed and leaned into the touch.
“Tell me,” she said. “Why were you sent to the Haosa?”
“If I am to do that,” Tekelia said, reluctantly sitting back from her, “I will want another glass of wine, and some cheese.”
Padi turned toward the basket. “Fortunately, we have those to hand.”
* * *
“I was sent to the Haosa for the usual reason: My tools did not work properly. Had I not been able to make tools at all, then I would simply have been pronounced Deaf, or at least Low Talent, and allowed to remain much as I was, save I would no longer be given tool-building lessons. If I was Low Talent, I might have had a curriculum in control, but nothing more dreadful than that.”
Tekelia sipped wine, and looked out over the river.
“No, the difficulty, you see, is that I could make perfectly adequate—even quite beautiful—tools. Only they didn’t work. Also, I could lift any object brought to my attention by my tutor, hold it, spin it, or send it to Metlin, without so much as thinking about building a tool.”
Padi raised an eyebrow.
“Did you send something to Metlin?” she asked seriously.
“I think not,” Tekelia answered, “but that’s not to say I couldn’t have done.” A sigh and a wry look.
“It looked black for me at that point, but it was clinched by my cousin Camafy, who has a rare genius for irritation. I lost my temper, and it could have gone ill for us both. Happily, there was an elder to hand who saw the whole, and was able to deescalate the event.”
A deep breath.
“That, however, did prove me out. Clearly, I was Haosa—noncompliant and a threat to Civilization.”
“And so you were sent away,” Padi finished softly.
“So I was,” Tekelia agreed, “and it was not, in all, a tragedy. Some of my off-Grid cousins weren’t only sent to the Haosa, but cast out of their Civilized families. Contact with my family never lapsed; my birthright still flows into my drawing account every half-year, with the proper increase when I came of age.”
“But you are not Civilized,” Padi pointed, dryly, “and may not live under the Grid.”
“But, then, I don’t want to live under the Grid,” Tekelia countered, and she smiled.
“The children who just came to us are in much worse case,” Tekelia continued. “Far from making certain that they are well cared for and not in want, their kin has made a petition to declare them—the last of their family—a failed Line. They’ve also filed to transfer all of the children’s property to themselves.”
Padi’s eyes narrowed.
“One knows what to think of their kin. Have the children no recourse?”
“Some recourse. A failed Line must be proven, and the proof hasn’t been made. The petition to strip them of their rightful property, as you say, shows us the quality of their kin.”
Tekelia considered the ambient, which was still inclined to be stormy in Padi’s orbit.
“Such petitions have been filed before, and the Council, to its credit, most often disallows them. In particularly egregious cases, a substantial fine has been leveled against the petitioners.”
“Hitting them where it hurts.” Padi sipped her wine, and looked to Tekelia.
“That was a very effective diversion,” she said.
“Thank you,” Tekelia said modestly.
“Did you never try,” Padi said slowly, “to touch someone . . . on-Grid?”
“Until recently, I had no subjects that I was willing to lose for the experiment.”
Padi laughed.
“So the greedy cousins are good for something after all?”
“Unfortunately, the greedy cousins are Civilized, and I don’t care to be the out-of-control Wild Talent who brings Civilized discipline down on the Haosa.”
Padi sighed.
“It’s complicated, isn’t it?”
“Wouldn’t you be bored, if it wasn’t?”
“You know me too well,” Padi said.
“And I would like to know you better,” Tekelia answered. “I believe you owe me a story.”
Padi raised her eyebrows.
“What story?”
“The story of why you locked away your Talent.”
“Oh,” Padi said. “That story.”
She drank off what was left of her wine, and put the glass aside, then turned a critical eye on their arrangements.
“Do you mind sitting with your back against the tree, and your legs before you?”
“Like this?” Tekelia made the necessary adjustments.
“Exactly like that,” Padi said, and stretched out on the rug, resting her head on Tekelia’s thigh.
“If I am going to tell that story,” she said, looking up into Tekelia’s face, “I am going to be comfortable.”
“That seems fair,” Tekelia said gravely.
Padi smiled, and took a deep breath.