Chapter 52: Guidance

Chloe pictured Rudy in her mind's eye.

His arm was bandaged and slathered with nanopaste and he had dark circles under his eyes and his shirt was off, showing hard, lean muscles that seemed so much more noticeable without his familiar red flight suit. Since all she was trying to do was sense him, she imagined the plainest surroundings she could rather than the rich wood, leather and velvet he probably sat amidst. She wondered if that would make the viewing more difficult.

As she thought, however, the scene did change to a definite, and familiar, location.

The bandersnatch's body lay frozen at Rudy's image's feet, half-covered in snow. More snow surrounded him, even though he seemed unperturbed by the cold on his bare flesh. He stood in the woods once more, red-haired, red-smeared and half-naked, like some kind of groundling barbarian. Or perhaps one of those barbarians' gods of trickery and war.

At first, Chloe thought she'd succeeded and was seeing Rudy as he actually was, but no, it was half imagination, half memory. A mix of fear and resentment and other feelings she didn't want to face associated Rudy with the woods of New Kyrillopolis.

She blinked away the view and her mental picture was back in his flight suit and back in the void she'd first pictured him in.

She was no closer to seeing anything outside her imagination.

"This doesn't seem right," Chloe said.

Stephan stood behind her on the balcony. She didn't dare open her eyes when he answered. She had to at least look focused. "What do you mean, Highness? You wanted to check on Mr. Algreil's condition, despite all assurances that he and my sister are quite fine – moreso than last week, perhaps less than next, but quite fine – and you want to learn to use your powers. This accomplishes both."

"What if he's busy, though?" Or showering or dressing? Chloe fought back a blush.

"I'm sure he won't mind."

Stephan was probably right.

Chloe still felt embarrassed, voyeuristic. She should have asked Rudy to help by being her test subject. He surely would have agreed. He'd just as surely forgive her. He'd probably ask if she'd liked the view, and then she'd lose the fight against her blush and probably snap at him, too.

At the moment, she found herself about to laugh. She clamped her jaws tightly shut.

Why feel bad about something that wouldn't happen anyway?

She'd tried three times to view Rudy remotely. The third had not been the charm. Neither had the first or second.

The fourth wouldn't be, either.

Chloe kept trying because Stephan insisted, because she owed her host that much and because she retained at least a little hope. And, ultimately, because she didn't know what else to do.

She scrunched her eyes shut, braced herself against the railing, and took a long, deep breath. The crisp afternoon air reminded her of the woods outside the estate. Rudy and Milissa had nearly died there.

Together.

Chloe's grip on the railing tightened.

It wasn't like that.

Rudy had lost his shirt in the fight. Milissa had torn her dress the same way.

They'd been together in the woods, a three minute run from earshot even with Chloe and Stephan's long legs, because…

Stephan sighed behind her. "You're too tense, Highness," he said. His long fingers closed over her shoulders. She'd seen them suck the heat from the air fast enough to kill a gigantic predator, but now they felt warm and surprisingly gentle. Somewhere along the line, he'd dispensed with his usual gloves. "You can't focus your power unless you relax and let it flow through you."

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"Sorry," Chloe said. She glanced over her shoulder. "I haven't been much of a pupil, have I?"

Stephan shrugged. "You have so much to forget before you can even hope to learn. It's not your fault you didn't start training until you were far past the ideal age."

"How old should I have been?"

"For these earliest lessons?" Stephan smiled down at her. "You shouldn't have been born yet."

Then why wasn't I trained, Chloe wondered. She'd been with her birth mother until she was five or six years old. Presumably, she hadn't been trained for the same reason she didn't remember a thing about her life before waking on the Mother Goose.

She didn't know why that was, either.

She didn't want to think about it.

Stephan's gentle massage and his rare smile relaxed her, let her exhale, let her forget.

What she really needed was to remember.

"How do you teach an unborn baby, Stephan?" Chloe asked. She peeked up into the face still smiling down at her.

He said, "Telepathically. An aristocratic mother does it almost without prompting. Her mind nurtures her child's as her body does, just by the use of her powers."

"Huh." Chloe tried to picture the sort of telepathic conversations a mother could have with her unborn child. Her understanding of telepathy could at best be described as spotty. She knew plenty more about pregnancy, but only in the abstract. Most spacer girls her age would have assisted their mothers in childbirth if they hadn't already married and had kids themselves, but because of her familial arrangements she had only academic knowledge of the subject.

All she could imagine was a baby thinking how the arrangements were altogether too wet, and mightn't the inertial dampeners be improved?

As much to stifle an inappropriate giggle as anything else, she said, "Why don't you teach me telepathically?"

"For the same reason I don't teach you anything destructive. If I were to go into your mind to wake your powers, I might not survive the experience."

Chloe winced. "I wish I didn't have that kind of power. People just suspecting I might has been nothing but trouble for everyone who's ever done me any good."

"Your power is not a curse, Highness."

"It could sure pass for one. From what you're saying, just teaching me puts you and maybe your whole estate at risk."

"A risk we are all willing to take, considering what you can achieve."

Stephan, Chloe knew, was not referring to rescuing her parents.

She didn't like to think about what her noble – but also, Rudy's voice reminded her, criminal – host planned for her powers. She figured he'd let her rescue her parents. Anything else would put her on too hostile a footing with him. After that, though?

Did Stephan see her as a person who needed help and could repay her debts? As the monarch he addressed her as, to whom he owed fealty?

Or as a weapon?

His surprisingly gentle touch said 'person,' but she knew how skillfully he lied.

She pulled away.

"Highness," Stephan said, "if you don't want to learn, I neither can nor will force you to do so."

"I have to," Chloe whispered. Even obliquely thinking of her family drew all her thoughts to them. Her dad would be itching to pick a fight with somebody, anybody, all nerves and anger and fear over her. Even more nervous and mad because he thought he couldn't show the fear to her mom, even though her mom would know it and share it, and share the rest, too. They'd want to save her, but for once she needed to save them.

She needed the power, pure and simple.

"I have to," she repeated, louder this time. She turned to face Stephan. He wore a grim smile. Maybe he'd wanted to push her thoughts down this path. Maybe he had, more directly than with his words.

She didn't even care.

"Forget seeing Rudy," Chloe said. "I'll see my parents."

Stephan raised an eyebrow. "Distance is no object to remote viewing, save in your mind, but for someone new to the practice, it may make things more difficult."

"I don't care," Chloe said. She balled her fists and closed her eyes and calmed herself. She felt more confident and concentrated than ever before. This was just a hunch she could control, nothing more, nothing less.

She didn't know where to look.

She didn't know if that mattered.

She asked Stephan.

"It doesn't, technically," he said, "but it may help your mind to focus."

"Do you know where they are now?"

"My sources have yet to pinpoint your adoptive mother's location," Stephan said. "Your adoptive father may still be on Algreil Prime, although he's probably left by now."

"I'll start with Algreil Prime, then," Chloe said. The image of the world appeared to her. She'd never seen it in person, but she knew from her father's stories how it looked, all swirling red and blue like a planetary-scale logo for the company that called it home.

Her eyes shot open.

She said, "Algreil Prime?"