Federations

I don’t understand, but her angry smell makes my neck fur rise, wanting to protect her.

“How can I think such thoughts?” She clenches both her pale hands now. “No wonder my DNA betrayed me. My impure thoughts must have warped it. Where will I go now? What can I do if I cannot Speak to the stars? Who will I Speak to?”

The howl knotted in my gut nearly escapes, but I flatten my ears and crouch in spite of myself, forcing it down. Even when she uses my eyes she cannot see me without a mirror, and for that I am now grateful. There are no mirrors here and if she looked in my eyes she would see the truth.

“Perhaps I’ll end up a servant like you.” Her shoulders droop. “Cleaning the gardens or cooking in the kitchen. I’ve never seen one of our type as a servant before. Not many fail, I suppose.”

Not many fail.

I shiver, glad that she is not touching me to feel my crouch, my shiver, glad that she can not smell.

I am old, but the Speakers that smell old tell me that I am a good puppy raiser. Will they give me a new small one tomorrow? Next week? Then I will sit at the table nearest the door with my small puppy while she learns how to eat, and walk, and Speak. Will I ever need to slip onto her bed at night? Will she ever wet my neck fur with warm snow-melt tears?

Will I ever speak with my litter-brother again, nested in our dreams?

Perhaps she is right and she is impure.

We are all impure, us servants here. We cannot Speak and we know far too much for purity. Perhaps my dreams have made her impure.

“We’ve missed dinner.” She gropes for me finally and I place myself beneath her palm. “Take me to the garden and then you can go to the kitchen and get food. I’m not hungry but I want you to eat.”

They are waiting for her, in her room or in the garden. I smell the traces of tension in the air circulating through the room, the smell of distress like bitter smoke in my nose. We always know. She starts forward, knowing the way to the garden without my eyes. I step in front of her and she bumps into me, smelling surprised, stumbling back a step.

“Siri, what happened? What’s wrong?”

“Not to the garden,” I tell her.

“Why not?”

They will be gentle. They will be kind. The way they are when we grow too old for our duties. That gentleness will come to me sooner rather than later. I am gray now; I have traveled the room many times from back to front. “No Speaker leaves the convent, except to a new world,” I say and the howl in my gut thickens the words.

“What do you mean? That I’ll be servant here?”

I do not answer and I do not need to. She knows that none of her kind serve here. I smell her sharpening fear.

“There’s no way out.” Her eyes are round now, reflecting the dim light in the room. “Where would I go if I could escape? What would I do?”

I take her hand, firmly. The corridor on the far side of the statue smells like old air and long-dead small things. We know everything, we who serve. She shuffles after me, clinging to my hand and I hurry, because if I go slowly, the fear will fill her and she will stop. At the end of the corridor is a narrow space, one that brought air, perhaps, or heat, or some kind of small cargo. We have to crawl and she can only touch me briefly so she loses her sight. But she hurries, perhaps afraid that I might leave her. If she could smell, she would know that I would never leave her. But she cannot smell, so I harden my heart against her fear and hurry. Fear of being left behind will keep her moving.

At the far end of the small corridor, an old, corroded screen gives way reluctantly, tangled in green vines that fill the air with the sweet-sharp scent of their injuries, a shout that fills the night air. But the Speakers have no nose and none of us will tell. I emerge and stand, helping her up. The two moons of this world—small and strange, one blue, one reddish—float against a blazing ceiling of stars.

“Where are we?” she gasps.

I take her hand, pull her. The door is small, not one for cargo, but for the people who must come and go. No one can get in. But the Speakers see no need to lock it from this side. You only go through a door if you have permission.

I do not have permission.

Terror rises up out of my bowels like a black snake, filling me as I place my palm against the door, and I reek into the night air. I wet myself and almost, almost turn and flee, releasing that knotted howl into the safe darkness of the convent.

But she has shared my dreams and brought me to my brother. I place both palms against the door, although pain sears me as if it is red hot. It swings open, silent, and I stumble through, falling to my knees. I feel her hands on me and I smell her worry. She is afraid for me. Not for herself.

“I am all right,” I tell her, standing up. My whole body shivers with reaction. But her arms around me, her worry for me fills me with strength. None of my pups have ever worried about me.