The Echo wasn't a ghost but a stain, like a smudge.
It was everywhere in the Low Nutrient Zone, even in the dirty Karu paste from the public taps. It was in the trembling fingers of the Nutrified people holding their food and in the vacant looks of the children who had only seen this dark, gray place. Officially, they called it The Touch of Aethelrex—a blessing, sharing the god's memory.
However, what Benny Rhodes understood was just one huge scream in every language.
He was at home on his bed in the tiny, moss-covered room he shared with his mother and was trying to block the noise with his fingers in his ears. It didn't help. The screams were not sounds. They were intensities, emotions, and crazy stuff that was directly entering his brain.
…cold rock where a star should be…
…the breaking of my first thought…
…they're stealing the colors from my dreams…
He was pulling the rocking motion on and off, which was his way of fighting the madness. His mother, Joan, was hanging some muffling charms—small official amulets made of pumice—from the ceiling. They were emitting a buzzing sound, useless, like flies in a flood trying to fight it.
The door was opened by Captain Rhodes who came in taking off her helmet. She changed a bit her stern mother look when she saw him and then quickly put back her face of a woman of duty. She absorbed the fresh oxygen and metals while she was taking off her gear and could be smelled by the people around her.
Benny, were you supposed to eat your food in the afternoon?
He nodded his head but didn't look at her. The Karu was a thick, gray paste that tasted like nothing and everything. It was like a very faint hint of flavors that he could never have come up with the names for. Sometimes it quieted the screams for an hour or two; they would then become mere whispers.
Nice. She got down on one knee and supported her hand on his thigh bending her armor with her movement. Her contact was firm, genuine. As if holding on to a real thing. Hear me out, I will be away for a few days. A big count of supplies. In the... in the Maw.
Benny stopped his rocking motion and looked up at the ceiling with his eyes wide open and a bit too mature for a sixteen-year-old. The Maw? You are definitely not allowed to. The Breath... it is known for causing people to be mentally destabilized.
I have the best dampeners. And it's my responsibility. She was not giving an argument but her thumb was making little circles on his knee. While I'm away, you with Quartermaster Adler will be. He has a safe apartment in the Mid-Levels with stronger dampeners.
Benny was feeling an immense dread which was even worse than the Echo. Adler's gaze was like that of a calculator, constantly figuring out how much he is worth and coming to the conclusion that he is lacking. I am not fond of him.
It's not a matter of liking, it is a matter of being safe. She was sounding like a business person when she stood up. Get ready. Just with what you need and your medicine.
The medicine was made of Ambrosia stuff and water, given by a Cult doctor. It was a downer. It would make the world quiet as if he was hearing everything from under the water. At the same time, it made him slow and stupid. He didn't like it.
While she was turning to get her stuff, Benny murmured, It keeps on getting louder, Mom.
She halted.
The... Touch? she queried, not looking at him.
It's not a touch. It's a wound, and it's leaking, he said quickly, something he usually kept to himself. It's constantly asking why. Why?
Joan Rhodes clasped her hands together and closed her eyes. For a moment, she wasn't the Captain, only a mother frightened for her offbeat son. Her belief was like a castle, but his sensitivity was tearing it down. What if those insane people were right? What if it was pain rather than a gift?
She rejected the idea. Such kind of thinking would lead to huge problems. Problems would lead to no supplies. No supplies mean that children will starve and scream in a manner that is not related to gods. Being able to keep things in order was the only way she could prove that she was a mother who cared.
She turned her face away, her features stiff. The doctrines have answers, Benny. Difficult to grasp, cool answers about giving and taking. We'll go through them when I get back. Now, trust the medicine. Trust the system. It keeps us alive.
She placed a kiss on his head, her lips feeling cool and fast on his heated skin. Then she exited, the door shutting with a gentle sound.
Benny was left with the screaming silence.
He looked at a small bottle of medicine on the shelf.
He looked at his bag.
Slowly, he left the bottle where it was.
He went under his bed and brought out a piece of smooth, stolen bonestone and a charcoal stick. He started to draw. Not the crazy screams of the Echo, but what he saw in between. The shapes. The hurting, breathing map. A map of pain with the center being the still-beating heart and hurt spreading out to every farm. And one thin, weak line—line of quiet, something completely different—coming from the Ribcage, going out into the Mushroom Wastelands. A whisper in the screaming.
A Quiet Voice.
He was not sure if it was real, but it was the only thing that did not sound like it wanted to eat him from the inside.