“Those two oversized men out there are the reason I’m still here,” he hissed, pointing back toward the closed door. “Do you know what that blond one said to me?”
“I can imagine.” I nodded. “If you have to examine someone, examine them. You don’t have my permission to tend me.
“I give up!” the doctor exploded, throwing his hands up and turning toward the door. When he got there he threw the door open and said to the two surprised faces he saw, “There’s nothing I can do. The woman refuses to allow me to examine her, so there’s nothing I can do. May I return to my sick bay now?”
“Just a minute.” Garth frowned, coming back into the cabin past the doctor. Tammad followed him, also wearing a frown, and the two of them stopped near the bed to look down at me. “Terry, this is ridiculous,” Garth said. “You have to let the doctor examine you.”
“No, I don’t,” I answered with a headshake. “Even if there was something wrong with me, which there isn’t, I still have the right to refuse.”
“You have no such right,” Tammad said, interrupting whatever Garth had been about to say. His eyes were hard and displeased, and I could feel the shield thickening to keep his thoughts from me. “You will allow this man called doctor to see to you, for it is my will that you do so.”
“That’s already been settled,” I told him, calmer than I thought I’d be. “You and I are nothing to each other, not even friends. Your will means as little to me as mine means to you. As a Prime of the Centran Amalgamation, I demand that you leave me in peace until this trip is over. Once it is, this transport can take me wherever I have to go.”
I folded my legs under me, watching the barbarian’s face, peripherally aware of the way Garth and the doctor stirred uneasily to either side of him. He had unconsciously straightened himself to his full height, and his arms folded across his chest as his head nodded slowly.
“It is as I have always believed,” he said, his musing tone apparently directed toward the other two men. “Speak to her, each man of your worlds tells me, convince her gently to do as you wish. Do not demand that she obey you, petition her agreement. So have I attempted to do, and now do you see the results before you. My words, clumsily formulated, gave a meaning to my thoughts which I had not intended. My forebearance, shown to the woman against my better judgment, gave her the belief that she might defy me in safety. All these things might easily have been avoided, had I simply commanded her obedience. Is there reason to continue with such foolishness?”
“Tammad, it isn’t foolishness,” Garth tried, running an anxious hand through his hair. “You can’t deny the fact that the woman’s a Prime. You just have to be a little more patient.” Then his eyes turned to me and they were just about pleading. “Terry, you’ve got to understand that this isn’t a situation where you can afford to be stubborn. After the doctor examines you, you, Tammad and I will sit down and try to straighten out the rest of this mess. It’s the only thing we can do.”
“Why, because you say so?” I countered. “First I do everything I’m told to do, and then as a reward I get to listen to why things will continue that way? Sorry, Garth, but I’ve already stated my position. I suggest the rest of you try adapting to me for a change.”
“Terry, please . . .” Garth started, but Tammad’s hand on his shoulder stopped the words.
“It is easier to do battle with the wind and the rain,” he told a Garth who was beginning to grow red-faced. “It is not possible to reason with one who refuses to hear you. Do not ask the woman. Tell her.”
“Damned if I won’t,” Garth muttered, straightening the way Tammad had. “Terry, you’ve had every chance and then some, but you refuse to be reasonable; now we’ll do it without resorting to reason. Doctor, I want this woman examined. Now.”
“Are you out of your mind?” the doctor gasped, paling at the order while I bristled. “You said yourself she’s a Prime. Do you expect me to disregard the desires of a Prime? If we were on Central, you’d be mobbed for the suggestion!”
“And yet, we do not now stand upon your world of Central,” Tammad put in when Garth hesitated. “That we do not do so is a great relief to me, for had the woman been truly hurt, her care would be left to her discretion alone. You have been told to see to her. Do so.”
This time it was the doctor’s turn to hesitate, and Tammad wasn’t pleased. He moved closer to the man, towering over him, his broad, tanned, nearly bare body a striking contrast to the statement of confinement of the doctor’s uniform. The smaller man looked up at him, licking his lips nervously, feeling the entire weight of those hard, light blue eyes.
“I am in command here,” the barbarian said very softly, so softly the doctor shivered. “Do not doubt my word on this. See to the woman.”
“B—b—but her clothing,” the man stammered, pale and likely to stay so. “How can I—With you and that other man here? She won’t—”
“Terril, remove your clothing,” the barbarian directed, interrupting the limping flow of words from the doctor by moving those light eyes to me. The relative calm I’d felt the entire time was touched with shock that he’d dare suggest such a thing, and then the shield was gone, disappearing in the flare of outrage that exploded from my mind. The doctor’s thoughts trembled with deep, uncontrollable fear, Garth’s mind quivered with indecision; only Tammad’s thoughts were as calm and decisive as ever. My fists clenched against the frothing madness that tried to claim me, and I found it almost impossible to speak coherently.
“You dare tell me I—In front of—After what you—Never! I swear it! Never?”
I was trying to verbalize every thought and feeling I had, suddenly rushing at me from every corner of my mind. I was well nigh insane from the frustration of it, from everything that had happened, from everything that was about to happen. I scrabbled about on the bed, pulled the caldin out of my way and got to my knees, then threw myself at the barbarian, beating at him with my fists as I screamed incoherently. I felt the shock in his mind even as his arms came up in reflex protection, keeping me from battering at his face as I so wanted to do. Garth and the doctor were also shocked, so shocked that they stood rooted in place; only Tammad reacted with the reflexes of a cat, catching my arms and forcing me back. I struggled and kicked to keep from being pinned to the bed, but then Garth was helping the barbarian, holding my legs down, and the doctor was at a wall, inserting his key, pressing buttons, removing what a slot in the wall spat out at him. I screamed again, trying to get free, and then a touch of ice at the base of my neck ended it all.
Deep quiet all around, peace and silence and, best of all, no other minds to impose themselves on mine. I took a deep breath and stirred on the bed, then opened my eyes to see that I was still in the same cabin I’d been in earlier. I put a hand to my head and rubbed fretfully, trying to keep a frown from forming. I remembered everything that had happened before the doctor knocked me out; the one thing I couldn’t understand was why it had happened.
I sat up on the wrinkled linen, closed my eyes and put my fingers over them, then carefully examined my mind. The screaming rage I’d felt was gone, flushed out and away like dirty water down a drain. The rage had come so suddenly that I’d been entirely unprepared for it, finding myself buried under the avalanche even before I knew it was on the way. There was no denying how deeply upset I’d been, but a few minutes of thought passed before another, more probable reason for the blow-up occurred to me. I’d been using that shield, the one that had protected me from everyone else’s emotions; could it be it had protected me too far? Not having to receive other people’s emotions may have encouraged my own to run wild, if for no other purpose than to fill the void that felt so unnatural when I was awakened. I took a shuddering breath, feeling my heart beat faster at thought of the shield. I’d used it so casually, without once considering possible consequences, without considering careful experimentation before actual use. Anything could have happened, anything at all, and the thought frightened me more than anything about my talent ever had. It was something entirely new, and it would be a long time before I tried using it again.