Distant Friends and Other Stories Read online

  Looking at Green's grim expression, I realized that he'd already figured out what we would have to do. I almost felt sorry for him, but decided to save my sympathy for Gordy instead. "I suppose you're right," I said. "Do whatever you have to."

  The three of them left a few minutes later. Standing together by the van, Colleen and I watched their tail-lights disappear among the trees. The sound of crunching gravel had been swallowed up by the rustling of leaves before she spoke. "We realty don't have to leave here right away, you know," she pointed out. "Now that Green's gone, perhaps we could stay here for a few days."

  "And try to repair the damage that's been done to my dreams?" I shook my head. "No. It's too late for that."

  "I'm sorry." Her murmur was barely audible.

  "Don't be," I said quickly. "It wasn't your fault. It's just that... we were like two cardboard cutouts in there. All of what makes you you was missing."

  The words were hopelessly inadequate, and I knew it; but even as I groped for better ones I felt her nod.

  "I know," she said, and there was no mistaking the note of relief in her voice. "Your telepath shield made us normal people for two days... but we can't be normal people; not really. Maybe with enough time and effort we could learn some of the techniques, but it wouldn't be the same. I think perhaps we've been spoiled by our ability, even while taking it for granted. Even if the machines could somehow be made foolproof..." She shook her head.

  "I understand." I sighed. "I'm sorry, Colleen-sorry for everything. It seems sometimes like everything I've done the past five months has gone wrong."

  "I understand." I sighed. "I'm sorry, Colleen-sorry for everything. It seems sometimes like everything I've done the past five months has gone wrong."

  I snorted. "Even there I didn't have any choice. I couldn't let you die like that. It was how Amos died...

  how Nelson killed him."

  She shuddered. "I guess we'd better go," she said, her voice dark again.

  I nodded silently and we climbed into the van. It was strange, I thought, how dreams so seldom live up to their expectations. I'd wanted to be able to hold Colleen, to talk to her, and-yes, admit it-to make love to her. Now, all I could think about was getting a hundred miles away from her as fast as I could... so that we could be together again.

  I was tired of being alone.

  BLACK THOUGHTS AT MIDNIGHT

  One by one, the last few cars and trucks vanished from the interstate, disappearing down exits to their homes, or-in the case of the trucks-pulled off into rest stop parking lots or entrance ramp shoulders by their drivers for a few hours of sleep. By midnight, new headlights were showing up only once every ten or fifteen minutes, in either direction. By one o'clock, even those stragglers were gone.

  And I was alone. Alone, with a lopsided island of rolling pavement in my van's misaligned headlights the only barrier between me and the darkness outside.

  I had forgotten, or perhaps never fully known, just how dark the night was.

  An absence of light, my educated mind told me; nothing more or less than that. But that was a civilized definition, created by civilized city dwellers for whom darkness was merely not enough light to read by.

  Out here, driving through North Dakota under a starless November sky, things were far different. The night had a life and a reality of its own; a malevolent life, stirring ancient fears deep within me. Beyond the range of my headlights the world ceased to exist; to my left, I could all but visualize ethereal hands pressing blackly against the side window. Half an hour yet to the Canadian border. Border crossing formalities, time unknown, particularly if they decided to give me grief over the bulky apparatus strapped down behind my seat. Six more hours after that to Regina.

  Seven hours, plus or minus. Seven hours before I could get to Colleen.

  I shouldn't have thought her name-Dale? her thought brushed sleepily across my mind.

  I clenched my teeth. Damn it all-I'd woken her up. It's all right, Colleen, I told her, burying my own tension as best I could and working hard at being soothing. If she came fully awake again-It's all right. Go back to sleep.

  I held my breath; but even as the first flickers of pain began to show through her fogged mind the codeine-laced medicine she'd taken three hours ago glazed it over again. Okay, she said, already slipping back down. The word faded into vague, non-verbal sensations, then disappeared entirely.

  I took a careful breath, hearing my teeth rattle together with the strain as I did so. Seven more hours to go. Seven more hours of utter helplessness, piled on top of two weeks' worth of steadily growing fears and frustrations. Fears, frustrations, and questions... and the horrifying revelation that had driven me onto this road eleven hours ago.

  I took a careful breath, hearing my teeth rattle together with the strain as I did so. Seven more hours to go. Seven more hours of utter helplessness, piled on top of two weeks' worth of steadily growing fears and frustrations. Fears, frustrations, and questions... and the horrifying revelation that had driven me onto this road eleven hours ago.

  I gritted my teeth. Damn it all, Calvin-no one invited you to listen in.

  He didn't reply, but just stayed there, quietly radiating calm and patience and strength... and my anger evaporated, leaving me feeling like a rat. As he no doubt knew I would. I'm sorry, I apologized grudgingly. I know you're just trying to help.

  I didn't notice until after I'd said them how easily my words could be construed as a backhanded insult. I hadn't meant them to come out that way, or at least I didn't think I had. It hardly mattered, though, not with Calvin Wolfe. Even when he noticed insults, he had the kind of overdeveloped patience and secure self-image that let him shrug such things off without even thinking about it.

  As he did now. That's okay, he assured me, the patience and calm and strength undiminished. I know you've been under a lot of pressure lately. Where are you?

  I tried to remember the towns that had been on the last exit sign, but it was a futile effort. I'd passed far too many exit signs since leaving Des Moines. Thirty-odd miles south of Canada.

  You're making good time, he said, and I caught just a hint of uneasy disapproval as he made a quick estimate of the speed I'd been doing. About due for another break, aren't you?

  I snorted gently to myself. Who are you, my mother?

  Some of the patience cracked, just a little. Come on, Dale-you're not going to do Colleen and her migraines any good at all if you conk out at the wheel doing seventy.

  I gritted my teeth, fighting against the swirling emotions with me. He was right, of course; I wouldn't do them any good that way. Not Colleen, not her headaches, not-I won't fall asleep, I growled, pushing the thought aside and reaching down for the two-liter bottle of cola wedged beside my seat. Working the cap off one-handed, I took a good swig. If you're worried about it, you always can tell me stories to keep me awake.

  The patience cracked a little further. Instead of that, he countered, why don't you tell me one? Like, for instance, just what exactly is wrong with Colleen?

  You know what's wrong, I said, the words coming out with the easy glibness of two weeks' practice.

  She's suddenly started developing migraine headaches. The doctors don't know yet what's causing them.

  But she knows. It was a statement, not a question, without a whisper of doubt behind the words. And so do you.

  I could have denied it-had denied it, in fact, several times in the past twelve hours, vehemently and with a fair imitation of wounded dignity. But it was the Nelson part of me that was the consummate liar... and after eleven hours on the road, that part was as weary as the rest of me. You're right, I conceded. She figured it out yesterday evening, and I-well, sort of bullied her into telling me this morning.

  And you responded by loading the telepath shields into a rented van and charging hell-for-leather to her rescue.

  And you responded by loading the telepath shields into a rented van and charging hell-for-leather to her rescue.

&
nbsp; Is it? he countered. Is it really?

  There was something in his tone. Something that told me he had figured it out. Calvin. Please-just let it alone.

  I can't do that, Dale, he said, almost gently. This is going to impact on all of us. He hesitated. Colleen's pregnant, isn't she?

  I sighed. Yes.

  There was a short silence, and even through my fatigue and worry I found it blackly amusing to watch the three different directions Calvin's thoughts went skittering off in. On one hand were the mainly scientific questions of dominant versus recessive genes, and what the odds were that the child Colleen was carrying might not have been a telepath at all. Beneath that line of thought was another, more worried set as he considered what would happen to both of them as the fetus continued to develop, putting dangerous close-approach pressure on both minds.

  And buried almost invisibly behind both of those was the really worrisome question: whether I had known the woman I loved had been sleeping with another man. How I was feeling about the whole thing, whether what I was really doing was charging to Regina to confront her with it....

  You misunderstand, Calvin, I told him. It's my child Colleen's pregnant with.

  Close-approach distance-the distance at which two telepaths had surface-thought communications with each other whether they wanted it or not-was supposed to be around a hundred miles. Off-hand, I couldn't remember if any of us had ever close-approached a sleeping person before, but with my own fatigue already tugging at my eyes-and with Colleen's mental patterns being heavily damped by the codeine-it didn't seem like a good time to experiment. As Calvin had pointed out, wrapping my van around a tree wouldn't do anyone any good.

  So, just outside Brandon-maybe two hundred crow-wise miles from Regina-I pulled off the road, revved up the portable generator in the rear of the van, and switched on both of the telepath shields.

  And a portion of my world went black.

  It was an eerie and decidedly scary feeling, made all the worse by the lonely darkness around me. Ever since my early teens, when my telepathy had first begun to develop, there'd been a sort of permanent haze of thought-clutter that added an unobtrusive background to every waking minute. Most of it came from normals out beyond my twenty-foot sensitivity range, and I'd long since gotten so used to it that I had to stop and concentrate before I could even hear it. But with the shields on, all that was gone.

  Three of us-Colleen, Gordy Sears, and I-had spent varying amounts of time in the shield a month earlier, and we had yet to come up with an adequate verbal description of the experience. The gap where a tooth used to be had been Colleen's best attempt; growing up next to a waterfall and then going deaf had been Gordy's.

  Three of us-Colleen, Gordy Sears, and I-had spent varying amounts of time in the shield a month earlier, and we had yet to come up with an adequate verbal description of the experience. The gap where a tooth used to be had been Colleen's best attempt; growing up next to a waterfall and then going deaf had been Gordy's.

  And now here I was heading back into that loneliness again. The loneliness, and the risk of horrible death if both shields should somehow fail at the same time.

  Perhaps Calvin was right to be worried. Perhaps the ghost of Nelson Follstadt I carried within me was still trying to kill Colleen and me.

  Maybe this time it would succeed.

  I reached Colleen's house a little after eight in the morning; and had just about decided to break down the door when she finally answered the bell.

  My first look at her as she fumbled with the storm door latch was a shock. Her face was pale and drawn, with lines etched into the skin that hadn't been there five weeks ago, and her shoulders seemed rounded with fatigue.

  And then the storm door came open, and she was in my arms. "Dale," she said into my shoulder. Her body trembled against me; and yet, even as I winced at the tiredness and memory of pain in her voice, I could tell that the pain itself was gone. The telepath shields, blocking the deadly searchlight-strength blazes of our two minds, had also wiped out Colleen's headaches.

  We got in out of the doorway-it was just above freezing outside and all Colleen was wearing was a thin robe-and she led me to the living room. "You made good time," she said, sinking onto a well-worn couch and rubbing at her eyes.

  "I was inspired," I told her, carefully setting down the briefcase containing the portable telepath shield before collapsing next to her. At the outskirts of Regina, with the end of the long road in sight, I'd experienced a small adrenaline rush, but most of that had already faded away. "How are you feeling?" I asked, slipping my arm around her shoulders and holding her against me.

  "Better than I have in weeks. She sighed. "My head hurts a little, but I think it's just left-over muscle tension. Nothing like the migraines." She paused, as if listening. "It's so quiet."

  I looked down at her, a shiver running up my back. "You don't mean... you weren't getting any actual thoughts from the baby, were you?"

  She shook her head, her hair swishing across my nose and cheek with the movement. "Oh, no. I just meant... you know. Outside."

  The background thought-clutter. "Yeah," I nodded understanding. And it wasn't just the clutter that was gone; so too was the effortless communication with the rest of our group. A communication and friendship that all of us had grown accustomed to-for most of us, the only real friendships we had.

  Slowly, it was starting to percolate through my numbed brain just how much Colleen was going to have to give up here. "I'll be right here with you, I assured her. "The whole eight months, if you need me."

  Slowly, it was starting to percolate through my numbed brain just how much Colleen was going to have to give up here. "I'll be right here with you, I assured her. "The whole eight months, if you need me."

  I yawned, too. "We'd better get you back to bed before we both collapse right here," I said. Gathering my strength, I stood up and took her hands. "Come on; let's go."

  She was practically sleepwalking by the time I got her to her bedroom. My original plan had been to go back outside and unload the other, bulkier telepath shield from the van before sacking out myself; but seeing Colleen stretched across the bed was too much for me. There would be plenty of time for such details, I told myself as I took off my shoes, after I'd caught up a little on my sleep.

  It was four-thirty in the afternoon when I finally awoke, reasonably rested but with that stiff feeling I always get when I sleep in my clothes. Colleen didn't stir as I eased carefully out of bed and tiptoed out of the room. In the living room I put on my shoes and coat and headed out to check the van.

  The gasoline generator had run out of fuel while we slept, shutting down current to the floor-model telepath shield that had been running off of it. The shield itself was probably still operating-Rob Peterson had installed a battery backup system just two weeks ago-but the silent generator still gave me an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach. Our limited experiments with the backup had showed that even fully charged batteries faded in a matter of hours, as opposed to the seven to ten days of power a similar pack provided to the more efficient portable model sitting inside by the couch.

  Not that we could afford to trust either shield by itself, which was why I'd brought both of them with me.

  Later this evening I would manhandle the larger model into Colleen's house and plug it into regular line current. But with sundown only another half hour away I decided I might as well hold off until full darkness, when any nosy neighbors who happened to be watching would have less to see.

  It took only a minute to drive outside the house shield's half-mile range and pull over to the curb.

  Switching off the ignition, I stretched back against the cold van seat, and for a moment just listened to the background thought-clutter that once again filled the corners of my mind. Gordy's old inadequate image of living by a waterfall flicked to mind....

  Dale?

  With an effort, I forced my mind from the quiet exhilaration of just being normal again
. I'm here, Gordy, I acknowledged.

  You all right? Calvin's thought joined in. We've been trying to reach you all day.

  I'm fine, I told him. Sorry, about that-I lay down for a short nap that stretched out a bit.

  Yeah, we thought that might be it, Gordy said.

  Not that it stopped us from worrying, Calvin added dryly. Do remind Colleen to turn her phone back on when you get back to the house, too. He paused, and I could sense him brace himself. So... how is she doing?

  The pain's gone, I told them. When I left a few minutes ago she was still sleeping like a baby.

  Ah. Gordy's reaction to the simile was brief and low-key, but it was enough to confirm that Calvin had filled him in. As I'd rather expected he would. It was a close-approach problem, then, he added.

  Ah. Gordy's reaction to the simile was brief and low-key, but it was enough to confirm that Calvin had filled him in. As I'd rather expected he would. It was a close-approach problem, then, he added.

  Not really. Gordy hesitated. We didn't tell anyone else, by the way. We thought that timing should be up to you and Colleen.

  Though such considerations hadn't stopped Calvin from spilling the beans to Gordy.... Shaking my head sharply, I cut the thought off. Calvin, Gordy, and I were the only ones of our group Colleen could regularly reach from Regina. It was only fair that her best friends be let in on what had happened, and to hell with Nelson's paranoic tendencies. Thanks, I appreciate that, I said. I take it, then, that you think we should tell everyone?

  I don't see how you can avoid it, Calvin said. Colleen's going to have to stay in the telepath shield for the next eight months, minimum, and someone's bound to notice in all that time that she's disappeared from sight.

  Besides, why would you want to keep something like this secret? Gordy added. The first child born to anyone in our group, let alone to two of us? It ought to be something to cheer about.

  I grimaced. And what about the telepath shield? Should we cheer about that, too?

  There was a slight pause, and I felt Gordy's enthusiasm deflate a bit. Ouch, he said.