Not mine to worry about now, she thought. He has his body now. He will not die, for now. And I have my body, I have the gossamer web among the mothertrees, and somewhere, someday, I will also have my ansibles again. I never knew how limited I was until now, how little and small I was; but now I feel as my friend feels, surprised by how alive I am.
Back in her new body, her new self, she let the thoughts and memories flow again, and this time held back nothing. Her aiua-consciousness was soon overwhelmed by all she sensed and felt and thought and remembered. It would come back to her, the way the Hive Queen noticed her own aiua and her philotic connections; it came back even now, in flashes, like a childhood skill that she had mastered once and then forgotten. She was also aware, vaguely, in the back of her mind, that she was still leaping several times a second to make the circuit of the trees, but did it all so quickly that she missed nothing of the thoughts that passed through her mind as Valentine.
As Val.
As Val who sat weeping, the terrible words that Miro said still ringing in her ears. He never loved me. He wanted Jane. They all want Jane and not me.
But I am Jane. And I am me. I am Val.
She stopped crying. She moved.
Moved! The muscles tautening and relaxing, flex, extend, miraculous cells working their collective way to move great heavy bones and sacs of skin and organs, shift them, balance them so delicately. The joy of it was too great. It erupted from her in--what was this convulsive spasming of her diaphragm? What was this gust of sound erupting from her own throat?
It was laughter. How long had she faked it with computer chips, simulated speech and laughter, and never, never knew what it meant, how it felt. She never wanted to stop.
"Val," said Miro.
Oh, to hear his voice through ears!
"Val, are you all right?"
"Yes," she said. Her tongue moved so, her lips; she breathed, she pushed, all these habits that Val already had, so fresh and new and wonderful to her. "And yes, you must keep on calling me Val. Jane was something else. Someone else. Before I was myself, I was Jane. But now I'm Val."
She looked at him and saw (with eyes!) how tears flowed down his cheeks. She understood at once.
"No," she said. "You don't have to call me Val at all. Because I'm not the Val you knew, and I don't mind if you grieve for her. I know what you said to her. I know how it hurt you to say it; I remember how it hurt her to hear it. But don't regret it, please. It was such a great gift you gave me, you and her both. And it was also a gift you gave to her. I saw her aiua pass into Peter. She isn't dead. And more important, I think--by saying what you said to her, you freed her to do the thing that best expressed who she truly was. You helped her die for you. And now she is at one with herself; he is at one with himself. Grieve for her, but don't regret. And you can always call me Jane."
And then she knew, the Val part of her knew, the memory of the self that Val had been knew what she had to do. She pushed away from the chair, drifted to where Miro sat, enfolded him in her arms (I touch him with these hands!), held his hea
d close to her shoulder, and let his tears soak hot, then cold, into her shirt, onto her skin. It burned. It burned.
11
"YOU CALLED ME BACK
FROM DARKNESS"
"Is there no end to this?
Must it go on and on?
Have I not satisfied
all you could ask
of a woman so weak
and so foolish as I?
When will I hear your sharp voice
in my heart again?
When will I trace
the last line into heaven?"
from The God Whispers of Han Qing-jao