Recognition Read Online Free Page A

soft way of speaking made
her sarcasm all the sharper, nor could it be answered in kind.
    The Terran officials conferred. I read some
of their thoughts, but learned only that they were considering what
lie would go over best. They didn’t want to stop this trade, the
sort of thing that went on without protest on every other Terran
outpost. They had no mechanism to prevent it, never having needed
one.
    While the rest of the room waited for a
reply, I entertained myself by listening in on the ‘Graven, who
were no longer shutting in their thoughts but were sharing them
silently, as the Terrans had just done in whispers. My cube was
making a holographic recording of the meeting, and I decided to key
in some commentary. Entering each mind in turn, I described the
various personalities, paraphrasing their views, and, engrossed in
the work, was oblivious to any reciprocal interest.
    Suddenly a hand closed over mine as I pressed
the buttons of my cube, and that same deep voice I had admired
announced, “Yes, she’s the one.” Lord Aranyi had seized me, but he
let go again at once with a yelp. “That doesn’t work with me,” he
snarled.
    “But it just did,” I said. I had felt the
same thing he had, a kind of buzz, like a jolt of electricity only
milder—enjoyable if one is prepared for it. Despite the shock of
events, I was smiling.
    We looked at each other,
into
each
other.
    “
You!
” he said, so softly I didn’t
know if he spoke or thought.
    We had joined in
communion
, a
merging of consciousness, thoughts and feelings exchanged in an
intimate occupation of the other’s being. It had happened so easily
that, with no experience of communion, I knew only that here was my
“lover,” the man I’d been conversing with mentally since my
arrival. I couldn’t connect it at first, the sense of love and
comfort I had received from that formless presence and this tall
Eclipsian nobleman with a cold, proud face and an ingrained
distrust of Terrans that was almost tangible.
    And the Evil Eye. Even in the dim light, his
eyes were now covered with a third lid of silver—as were mine. I
could see my face reflected in the mirrors of his eyes.
    He was as disoriented as I was, and we spent
a few moments adjusting to the unusual perspective, seeing
ourselves through the other’s mind and vision. He took in with
something like amusement my alarm at his formidable appearance. But
his reaction to my physical being flowed through me, reviving my
demoralized spirit like a healing massage on overworked muscles.
When he looked at me he saw, not the genetic aberration I am on
Terra, but a woman who, in his society, was an aristocrat by birth.
My inner eyelids, descended and turned opaque silver, as happens
only in sunlight—or with strong emotion—marked me as noble, and
beautiful, desirable. I had gone, in what I would always remember
as the Twinkling of an Eye, from Damnation to Resurrection.
    It was my Terran clothes, my cropped hair,
shorter than his or the other ‘Graven’s, and, most of all, my
Terran memories and thought patterns, that confused him, just as
his outward fierceness contradicted my emotional response to
him.
    Already I hated to think I made him
uncomfortable.
Not uncomfortable
, cherie, he thought to
me.
Just—different
. That word didn’t sound so bad when he
said it. And he had called me
cherie
, a term of endearment
a man uses with his lover.
    What do I call you?
I asked.
    Dominic
, he told me his given name.
Dominic-Leandro
. I sighed with pleasure at the rightness
of it, the elegance.
    Amelia
, I answered his unspoken
request in turn.
Amelia Katherine Herzog
, I added, in case
he hadn’t registered the Terran surname during the
introductions.
    Amalie
, he repeated, finding the
Eclipsian equivalent.
Amalie-Katrin
. The ordinary names
sounded glamorous and exotic, transformed by the language and his
voice.
    What’s Aranyi up to now? The Terrans must
be crazy to try that.
Our communion ended abruptly as the