Maelstrom
by Sean M. Murphy

Elora saw the cat in the street, screamed and slammed the door to the unit, then slumped to the floor. She heard other cries, far away, as the darkness swallowed her.

***

Elora woke as she did most mornings, with her mother leaning in at her bedroom door. “Elora, honey, it’s time to get up. You’ve got to get ready for school.”

She groaned and rolled over. “Do I have to?”

“You know you do, sweetie.”

“Why do we still have to go? It’s not like I can’t just send there.”

“Honey, just because you can send your mind there now doesn’t mean that you’re getting the full experience of being in school. You need to socialize with the other kids.”

“But I can do that from here! That’s the point of having an open mind!”

“All of the other kids.”

“Oh,” Elora said, sitting up. “You mean the zombies, too.” Déjà vu.

“That’s not nice, dear. Just because they didn’t eat the fruit doesn’t mean they aren’t worth knowing. Some of them haven’t been allowed to eat it. Their parents won’t let them.”

“I know,” sighed Elora. “They’re just so out of touch. We have all these conversations all the time, you know? But they don’t know what’s going on or what we’re talking about. It just makes it hard to talk to them.”

Her mother smiled down at her and pushed a loose bang back behind her ear. “Bed head,” she said, and they both smiled. “I know it’s tough, Elora, but when we first arrived on this world you were the same as them. You all got along fine then, and that was only six months ago. Give them a chance. You might be surprised.”

“Okay, Mom.”

“That’s my girl. Now, no more stalling. Up and dressed—your father’s got breakfast going already.”
As her mother left, Elora slid out of bed and pulled on her pants. The zipper got stuck halfway up. Déjà vu again. Strange how it was the little things that made that happen, how the world could seem to be an echo of itself. She shook off the feeling, mostly, yanked the zipper up, and finished getting dressed.

Breakfast was on the table by the time she made it to the kitchen. “Hey, kiddo,” said her father, slipping the last pancakes onto the stack in the middle of the table. “Sleep well?”

“Yeah, Dad.”

“Good. Eat up. There’s plenty.”

She pulled a pile of the steaming cakes onto her plate, then heard a familiar mental voice.

I suppose I’ll have to wait until you’re done eating before we can get on with this chess game, then?

Captain Travis. Elora smiled, cut a huge slice of pancake, and stuffed it in her mouth. “Yup,” she managed to get out around the pancake. Unless you’re trying to divide my attention to get an advantage, she thought.

Good morning, Captain Travis, thought her father. How’s the colony this morning?

We’re moving along as normal, Andre. Anything special happening today?

Nothing to speak of. Guiding a short field trip at the quarry, then we’re looking at more of those soil samples from the hills to the north. It’s all excitement in Applied Geology, you know?

More fun than a jail cell, thought the captain.

Hey, at least you have time to play chess, offered Elora. Dad doesn’t get to do that.

Against you? asked her father. No thanks. How about if I admit that my eleven-year-old daughter can already outthink me, and we let it go at that? he added, pride in his thoughts.

Speaking of thinking, continued the captain, hadn’t you better finish breakfast, young lady? The school transport’s nearly here.

Elora swallowed the last of her pancakes and jumped up. “Thanks for breaks, Dad. Gotta go. Love you!” She grabbed her school bag and ran out the front door of their housing unit.

Elora! came her mother’s thought a second later. Your lunch?

Oops! Elora ran back inside to where her mother was now standing, holding her lunch bag. “Thanks, Mom. See you tonight!” She hugged her mother, then ran out again. “Bye, honey,” she heard as the door closed. The transport was already waiting for her when she got to the intersection. She jumped aboard and took a seat.

Queen to C-5, came the captain’s mental voice. I take your Rook.

Nothing like giving a girl a chance to sit down.

Like you need it.

Fine, she replied, considering for a moment, remembering the game they had been playing. Queen’s Knight to E-6. Check.

Forked again. Three ways! Damned amazing, girl. Alright, King to E-8. Go ahead and take my Queen.

Like I didn’t notice the Bishop waiting for that.

Again with the déjà vu? What was going on?

King’s Knight to G-7. Check.

They continued the game as the transport roved through the residential area picking up more students on its preprogrammed circuit. Elora and the captain didn’t get to spend much time together anymore, not since they’d arrived on Mendari and colony setup had really begun. Even less with the captain in jail.

He wouldn’t talk about it, but Elora knew it had something to do with Governor Yarek thinking Captain Travis was a threat to the governor’s authority. But what the charges really were and how long the captain would be in jail she hadn’t been able to find out.

It would be too easy for a curious girl like you to get into trouble with Yarek, Elora, he’d say whenever she asked. I’ll tell you about it at some point, but not while I’m stuck here in jail and can’t keep you out of trouble.

It’s because of the Trees of Knowledge, isn’t it? she’d asked, and though he refused to answer, she could tell that it was.

The Trees had been discovered shortly after the colonists had arrived on Mendari, in a wide valley just south of the landing. Elora had been the first to sneak away to the diminutive forest, each of the trees standing no taller than her chin. She’d been the first to eat the little orange fruit and to feel that shocking pulse from the trees. That energy, they’d since discovered, came from the entire forest and would grow the fruit’s seed into a full-size tree in a single day.

It had an entirely different effect on humans, shattering the eggshell that bound the mind within the body. Elora was shocked when it happened, shocked to feel so exposed to the world, shocked to suddenly feel Governor Yarek spying on her from a hilltop two kilometers away. She’d waved at him, she thought. How stupid. Like telling someone you’d have checkmate in three before it was a sure thing. Fortunately, Yarek hadn’t figured out what had happened.

Captain Travis had. As soon as she’d gotten home, she’d talked to him—even before telling her parents. He’d cautioned her against telling anyone else, then had gone to investigate, making sure no one followed him. But the fruit he’d brought back had no effect. Not until he snuck down again and ate the fruit near the forest’s edge did he experience an opening of mind like Elora had--and only then did they realize that they could communicate with each other this way. Elora, ever curious, had mentally followed him down to the trees, so she was right there when his mind broke free of its eggshell (“Its chrysalis,” he’d insisted). The sense of mental connection was immediate, and for a while they had trouble interacting normally with other people.

As more and more people found out about the fruit and tried it for themselves, a debate grew up in the colony over whether the Trees of Knowledge, as they now became known, should be placed off limits. Some even argued that the forest should be destroyed, that the colonists were repeating the sin of Adam and Eve and eating of forbidden fruit. If God had wanted them to eat of the fruit of the Trees of Knowledge, he would not have hidden them away on a planet so far from humanity’s birth world. Others, though, claimed that they must explore every aspect of their new world (“With an open mind,” they’d said), and how could they ignore this most amazing of Mendari’s natural inhabitants?

The two main factions had been led by Captain Travis and Governor Yarek. As had happened before, the captain outmaneuvered Yarek, and in the end a small majority of colonists voted to allow access to the Trees. But nearly half the colonists had voted against, and they would not eat the fruit, so in the subsequent days the colony became divided between those who could move beyond their bodies and those who couldn’t.
Eventually, an incident had occurred between the groups, and afterward the captain had been thrown in jail. “Incitement to Riot” was the official charge, but few believed that, even among Yarek’s supporters. Even so, jail couldn’t restrain the captain’s mind.

Does Yarek understand that you can still interact with all of us? asked Elora, interrupting their game. That there’s no point in keeping you in jail?

That doesn’t necessarily follow, Elora. Don’t assume that Governor Yarek doesn’t know what he’s doing. Someone may try to get me out. He’s watching anyone he knows is a friend of mine. Understand?

Clear as a solar wind.

Now, stop trying to distract me, he added. I have a chess game to win.

They played several more moves before the transport pulled up to the school, then Elora said good-bye and went in to begin school for the day.
School was more fun now, at least. Most of the teachers had refused to eat the fruit, so they couldn’t stop the students from cheating or having mental conversations. To regain some sense of control, they’d switched the curriculum to more advanced topics and used small groups with “out loud” verbal discussions to limit the mental chatter. Principal Werner, though, who had eaten the fruit, had taken to sending her mind around the classrooms to make sure the students were paying attention. It was hard to tell jokes behind Ms. Frio’s back when you could feel the principal right behind you. Most of the students were sure Principal Werner had eaten the fruit just to keep an eye on them.

The morning passed quickly and without note. The second graders left for their field trip to the quarry with Elora’s father, Andre, who was the colony’s chief geologist. It was always great when there was a field trip, because Principal Werner would leave the classroom for longer periods of time to send her mind across the colony to wherever the field trip had gone, and the kids in Elora’s class had figured out a rotation so that they could look as if they were constantly participating out loud, while having all kinds of mental conversations on the side. What the teacher didn’t know . . .

As they got nearer to lunch, Elora began to feel a sense of tension, of waiting, as if she didn’t want to be in school, didn’t want . . . what? Not that she wanted to be anywhere else, either. Or not any place specifically. Just not there, not then. She would have fidgeted in her seat, but found she couldn’t. Strange. Ms. Frio’s voice droned on about the tendency for destabilization in hydroponic environments when plant species of a certain pH range were introduced, and again Elora felt that touch of déjà vu, now compounded by the odd tension between what she wanted to do and what she could.

A glance at the clock told her it was nearly noon, and she felt the anxiety ratchet up, though she couldn’t understand why.

Did Janel just think about dunking Brenan in the town water collector to get back at him? Hadn’t she thought that before, recently? Why did it sound so new, then, as if Janel had just come up with the idea? And why did lunchtime seem so important?

For the first time in months, Elora didn’t want lunch to arrive, didn’t want to walk home alone. Karlin told Sam that Janel really wanted to get Brenan up to the water collector because she had a crush on him and was planning to kiss him, and Elora found herself laughing along with all the other girls, feeling giggly and afraid and happy and confused, as if she was standing beside herself waiting for lunch break to come and hoping it would never arrive.

The dissonance struck hard when the lunch bell rang, but still she jumped up with the rest of her class to rush out into the fresh air. Part of her wanted to stay, to have class go on and on, not to get up, not for time to pass. She left the classroom anyway, her mind skipping ahead of her body toward home and . . . and what? She didn’t know, but she knew it would come soon. Too soon, now. She cringed inside herself.

Inside herself, she realized.

And then she realized that what was about to happen had already happened and that she didn’t want it to come again, that if she let it happen again it could be worse. She couldn’t think about it. So many people would be hurt if she thought about it, if she let herself remember what was coming. She didn’t want to know. Didn’t. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t. What would she find? Don’t ask. Go back—remember the morning.

***

Elora woke as she did most mornings, with her mother leaning in at her bedroom door. “Elora, honey, it’s time to get up. You’ve got to get ready for school.”

Elora groaned and—

The sense of déjà vu was immediate and intense. The memory didn’t have time to take hold, to give her mind a refuge, not this time. Instantly she was back at lunchtime, rushing home to lunch and a disaster she knew she couldn’t avert and feared she wouldn’t survive.

People would die, she knew. Their minds. Somehow she had survived the first time, but she might not be as lucky if she faced it again.

It was a wound, though, cut deep in her mind, and she couldn’t stop herself from going back to it again, knowing that the pain would come but rushing at it anyway. She resisted—she turned from it in every way she could think of—but still time moved forward and her body moved on toward home and the coming moment, reaching her residential area, taking the first turn—

She felt the scream, high and thin and desperate, coming from the quarry.

She barely thought about the quarry and her mind was there, staring at the stone and gravel pit. That had been surprising enough, shifting places so abruptly, but she didn’t have time to consider it. Every open mind was there in an instant, all who had eaten the fruit of the Trees, utterly interconnected and focused by the very real desperation in that scream. She could feel her mother arrive, her father’s surprised concern, Captain Travis’s discomfort at this loss of control. They reached out to each other mentally, drawing each other tighter, as a part of the quarry wall slid toward the ground so far below, taking one small boy with it. Every mind was filled with his scream, with the boy’s animal desperation to live, as he looked up to his world falling up and away.

Paul, she thought. His name was Paul.

It was the longest two seconds Elora had ever lived. It felt as if her nerves were being sawed in half lengthwise, adrenaline and terror cutting too exactly.

She tried to shake it off. Look at this thing logically, like Captain Travis would say. Analyze it. What was happening? Had happened? Would happen? Look at it from the outside.

The rocks hit bottom. There was a popping noise, like a punctured balloon. The boy’s mind wasn’t there anymore.

But she wasn’t outside, looking in, she was inside trying to get out. And it wasn’t over now and it might still kill her and she just couldn’t stand there and watch and she couldn’t move. Get out now, dummy! she yelled at herself, but she wasn’t in control, damn it, she couldn’t move.

Paul died like a stone striking through the surface of a pond, and the first ripple of tension passed through the colonists as they tried to absorb what had happened. Shaken, they made the mistake of waiting, of remaining open to what would follow.

Damn it damn it please get out NOW.

Then came the inevitable wave trough, a collapsing sense of absence that crushed those too near its center, a sudden oscillation of emotions striving for equilibrium. Paul’s parents were screaming now, too, unable or unwilling to let go of their son so absolutely, so fast. The pain they absorbed from Paul now echoed from both of them, twice amplified and pouring uncontrollably out, overwhelming and beyond endurance. Somewhere near home, Elora’s body collapsed to the street.

Fuck oh fuck please leave please please please GET OUT!

Paul’s mother died first, pop, then his father, pop. Ripples expanded and moved outward from the center. Their daughter died next, then the woman’s research partner and the man’s boss, pop pop pop.

NOW NOW NOW GOD DAMN IT!

With each death the waves grew exponentially, a mental riptide dragging more and more under the surface, metaphor turned fatally real in a place where thought was existence, or the mind ceased to be. With what little will she could muster, Elora turned away from the quarry and fled toward her body, vaguely aware of others turning too, trying to escape the vacuum building behind them, unable to hear anything but the screams and that sickening pop each time another mind was extinguished, another person died.

Her mental movement across the colony was far slower than she’d ever thought before, swimming heavily against the sucking, consuming tide of emotion, trying to focus on her goal, aching to turn back to look at the destruction but knowing she would die if she did.

Pop.

She flung herself forward in despair, pulling up out of the undertow. She shaped the landmarks of the colony into mental handholds to pull her mind toward its goal, jumping along from one to the next rather than traversing the space between, a stone skipping above the waves.

As soon as Elora reached her body, lying in the street near her residential area, she stood up and began running, not knowing where or why, but driven to run anyway. Her head hurt and she could barely see out of her sobbing eyes. Somehow she took the proper turnings toward home, still feeling the waves behind her rising and falling, crushing everyone in their path, each death amplifying the anguish as it built toward something much larger.

She had pushed open the door to her family’s unit when she was stopped by a voice screaming her name, clutching at her. NOT THIS NOT THIS!

Somewhere far behind, her mother’s cry was instantly recognizable and undeniable, seizing Elora’s attention. DON’T THINK IT DON’T LET IT!Shaking violently, Elora grabbed the doorknob and forced her body not to turn, not to look as the scream tore through her mind and shredded her nerves, not to fall as she felt the thunderous pop in her mind. Her breath gave out, the emotional bond she had shared with her mother severed unwillingly and absolutely. The connection snapped back on her mind, striking her with a force that numbed all thought.

She felt the undertow cease abruptly.

She heard her father’s wail over her own desperate sobs. She was struck again as he died, and her knees buckled and smashed against the floor.
She pulled herself up, but the effort seemed a waste. She couldn’t struggle anymore. Her legs turned of their own volition, her mind watched out the doorway as the final wave mounted above her, reaching the crest toward which it had been building. Her eyes stared numbly at the empty street while the wave towered in her mind, beginning now to curl at the top, starting its ultimate fatal descent. She could vaguely feel her connection to Captain Travis, though it didn’t seem to matter anymore.

A cat in the street stopped to look at her, its complete lack of concern made evident in preening feline fashion, ignoring the impending devastation. Elora’s eyes widened suddenly and she found her breath.

There was no wave for the cat. Only for her. Only in her mind.

Only in their minds.

Elora gasped with understanding almost too late as the wave rushed down on her, wiping out the edges of her thought.

IT ISN’T REAL!she screamed into the maelstrom, focusing on the captain, on the strength of that first mental connection. GET INSIDE YOURSELF!

Then she stepped backward into the house and into herself, slamming the door to keep the world at bay, cutting herself off.

The wave disappeared.

She cringed, shutting her eyes against the moment of death, but it didn’t come.

Then the meaning of what she’d endured struck her brain and she slumped to the floor, unconscious.

***

That first time, anyway. This time, more conscious than she wanted to be, tears squeezing out of her clenched eyes, Elora waited until she was sure it was over, until finally she had to breathe, had to live. With the sound of her own first shaky breath, her memory merged with her experience, and she found herself in the present, alive, but filled with a sense of death and its proximity.

Slowly, allowing the outside world in again, she became aware of a gentle knocking sound. “Who is it?” she called to the door, straining to hear a familiar voice from the other side. Nothing. “Is someone there?” Perhaps whoever it was hadn’t heard her the first time.

The knock came again. Whoever it was either couldn’t hear her or chose not to reply.

Should she go out?

Could she afford not to? At some point she would have to face what had happened outside.

Again came the knocking, more insistent this time.

She walked over to the front door and put her ear against it, trying to hear any movement on the other side, but heard nothing. Taking a deep breath, she stood behind the door and opened it a crack. Hearing nothing except a light wind, she peeked out.

No one was there. The street lay empty, what she could see of it. She opened the door a bit wider and stuck her head out.

Again the knocking, sounding as if it was right in front of her. And different this time, in a distinct rhythm. She knew that pattern. She waited, listening carefully, until it repeated again.

Captain Travis! It was the code she had used, back on the ship, to let him know she wanted to talk to him.

“Hello? Captain Travis?” she called, running out into the street. Why wouldn’t he talk to her? Was he hiding? How had he gotten out of the jail?

Then came the signature knock again, and finally Elora understood. He hadn’t gotten out. He was sitting in his cell now, reaching out to her, somehow knocking to let her know he had lived.

She closed her eyes and saw the door. Somewhat like the one she had just opened, but different, more personal than the stock residential unit doors of the colony. It was wood, like their front door back on Earth. This one had a brass handle and hinges, though, with a richly polished finish. It was as comforting a door as Elora had ever seen. Solid.

It also had, apparently, a heavy knocker, which now rapped against the door again, in that same staccato pattern. Slowly Elora rapped the return code, How many noses are there? and waited for their coded response. Only Captain Travis would know she meant the nose of the ship that had brought them here.

One, pointed upward. Right. Elora turned the knob and opened the door, peering around as it swung open.

Captain Travis smiled grimly at her.

Are we safe now? she asked.

It seems to be over, he replied. Thank you, he added.

For what?

For understanding. For showing us what to do, how to save ourselves. What you sent right before you closed the door was more than words, Elora. It was survival. It showed us not only what to do, but how to do it. I survived because you understood and broadcast that understanding.

Oh, she thought. Are all the others . . . ?

Most. I’m sorry, Elora.

Elora looked down, silent, feeling her parents’ absence, not wanting to think about it.

Captain Travis gestured at the house behind her. Nice place you’ve got here.

I’m not sure where it came from, Elora said, glad for the change of subject. I think I made it. I needed somewhere to get away from the tidal wave. I just slammed the door, trying to keep the wave out.

You saw a tidal wave? For me, it was a supernova. Pretty much the same idea, though. Something building up and then rushing toward you. I think you’re right—you created this idea in your mind as a safe place to get away. That’s how you disconnected. I sealed my ship and turned on the radiation shielding. I’m sure others came up with their own way of closing off, their own metaphor.

How many? Elora asked. How many survived? She didn’t want to know, and needed to just as badly.

Not many, Captain Travis replied after a moment. And we need to get moving, too.

Why?

Put it this way: Yarek has me in jail, and now the colonists who are opposed to the Trees are very much the majority, to say nothing of how these deaths will strengthen their argument. We’re in check. Yarek won’t waste any time taking advantage of the new dynamic. He may arrest every one of us who ate the fruit, jail or worse. He may try to move against the forest, too. If we don’t play it smart, he’ll run the board. We have to get out of the colony.

What do you need me to do?

Others are already packing supplies and whatever tools they can get their hands on. I need you to get me out of jail so we can take the ship. The guards have gone to help collect the bodies, and you’re small enough to slip into the building without setting off the alarms. But you’ve got to hurry, he added.

Elora ran.