DISCIPLE

© Dana W. Paxson 2005

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DISCIPLE

1560 4D

A warm hand on my shoulder emerges from the suss of sensi like a living creature from the sea. I start and fling up a hand, defending.

Ferdinand?” I don’t know this voice.

An andro. His face is oddly familiar, vibrating with the strobe of the sensi broadcast. I rub my eyes to see him better. A name surfaces from the incoming sea and vanishes again. “Who are you?”

He laughs. “Come with me from here,” he says. We walk out of Bujilla‘s place, out of Dolltown, into the corridor that leads away to the understreets. Here the noise fades; we stand underneath the corridor’s long ceiling lamp and its gray glow.

“You are a complete surprise to me, Fer di n’And. A joy.”

“Who are you?” I try again.

His face seems to shine, and I recoil a little. “Who are you looking for?” he asks, smiling.

“I… don’t know.”

“You know. You have come from death to find someone. Who is it whose name carries you through death?”

I look down – I can’t meet his dark eyes so shining full. “He sent me to do a task for him,” I say. “I failed, and he died. I killed him.”

He laughs again, softly, as if small flowers are filling his voice. “No,” he says. “You can’t kill him. Everyone can kill him, and no one can kill him. All you can kill is the echo of his passing.”

“He’s alive?” A hope scuttles through me. “Tell me, who is he? I can’t remember anything.”

A frown passes over the andro‘s face. His expression turns from elation to puzzlement, as if one person left and another arrived in him. “My name is Jeddin. Have we been talking here for a while?”

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