“How can you call that a starting point?” I demanded, sick to my stomach as I tried to push away from him. “Is it totally impossible for you to understand what they want me to do’? I don’t want to be covered at somebody else’s direction, bred like an animal over and over and over! I can’t let them do that to me, and I won’t!”
“You can’t stop it,” he told me bluntly, the patience gone from his eyes as he refused to let me go. “You can do as they ask and be a part of the program, or you can try fighting them and be made a part of the program. The second way you haven’t any chance at all of ever stopping it; the first way you can cooperate with me as well, without them knowing it, and together we might just find some way out of this. If you don’t understand yet that I want out as badly as you do, you may not be the one I’ve been waiting for after all.”
The look in his light eyes had hardened so far I wished fleetingly that I could move back from him, and then I really heard what he’d said. He thought I might be the one he’d been “waiting” for, that he and I might do-something-together. Irrationally bright hope flashed briefly inside me, then dimmed fast when it found nothing in the way of fuel to feed on.
“Of course you’ve been waiting for someone like me,” I said, finding disbelief easier to deal with than a hope that would almost certainly be betrayed. “I’m so very special that even those who run this place were waiting breathlessly for my arrival. What sort of reward do they give you, I wonder, if you manage to talk one of the animals into being good? I believe that they’re not very anxious to burn my mind away, probably for the same reason they got such bad results from their in vitro experiment, but what do you get out of helping them? What do they give someone already so burdened with privilege and luxury?”
“What in hell was done to you to make you so full of distrust?” he asked in turn, narrowing his eyes as he ignored everything I’d said. “You can’t be reacting just to this place alone, not with only a single day behind you. After what you went through you should be confused, frightened, unsure, maybe even bitter—but not so completely unwilling to trust anyone. What were you involved in before they brought you here?”
“I-don’t remember,” I said, finding his stare uncomfortable. “For some reason they don’t want me remembering, so they took the memory away. But that doesn’t change anything at all. Since there’s absolutely nothing I can do to help you, your wanting me to ‘cooperate’ can mean only one thing: you let them buy you, just the way you let them convince you to be good. I won’t . . .”
“You won’t keep your mouth closed long enough to let anybody disagree with your flawless logic,” he interrupted, now looking annoyed. “And if I hear you tell me one more time that I sold out my humanity for comfort and reward- Well, you won’t like what happens. For now let’s talk about all that nothing you can do to help me. What makes you think there’s nothing you can do?”
“Only the admittedly obscure fact that I’m still right where they want me,” I answered, unable to understand what point he could possibly be trying to make. “And if you wonderful male Primes, with all your secret training and experience meeting challenges, can’t do anything to get out, what do you expect me to be able to do?”
“Nobody said we couldn’t get out,” he returned with a headshake and a faint grin. “We wonderful male Primes slip out of the complex all the time as a joke, but that’s all the others see it as: a joke. None of them would ever seriously try to leave, most of them enjoy it here too much. The ones who don’t enjoy it also don’t have the guts to try making a break, so that leaves me as one of a kind. I know what’s necessary to get out of here, but I can’t do it alone. I need another Prime to do it with me.”
I opened my mouth to say. something else, but suddenly the words refused to come. His expression had turned serious and the least bit strained, as though waiting for my reaction to what I’d been told. For a moment or two I had no reaction, and then I slowly shook my head.
“But I’m not whole,” I said, knowing it for a fact even though I wouldn’t have been able to explain the statement. “They’ve-done something to me, and I’m not whole. I can’t be of help to you like this, and you should know it. And if you’ve already learned what’s necessary to get out of here, you shouldn’t need anyone else. A trained Prime shouldn’t need anyone else.”
“I wish that were true,” he said with a smile, raising one hand to smooth back my still-damp hair. He didn’t seem to believe what I’d said, but I somehow knew it was the absolute truth. A trained Prime who was complete should be able to do anything she wanted to do. Had been able to do anything she wanted to do. My arms tightened the towel against my body as my mind searched for the basis of that conviction, but I simply couldn’t reach it. It was with the rest of my memories, locked away out of prodding range, closed behind a door I still battered uselessly against.
“It might be true under other circumstances that a Prime doesn’t need any help, but not when it comes to getting out of here,” Kel-Ten went on, still with an indulgent smile on his face. “This complex has the highest number of Class Zeroes ever assembled, and just about all of them are in male Prime territory. It takes a minimum of two active minds to slide around enough to avoid them, but you won’t understand that until you can see and feel the situation for yourself. Which you will when I key you awake.”
“But how can you possibly do that?” I demanded, only his hold on me keeping me from straightening indignantly. “I may not remember much about it, but one thing I can bring back is that empaths don’t have that sort of information, not even First Prime empaths.”
“You can thank the boyish high spirits this place breeds for the fact that this First Prime does have it,” he said, deep satisfaction brightening in his eyes. “A couple of years ago some of us cornered one of the medical staff, and forced a bottle of wine down his throat. We didn’t like the man, and had decided to turn him loose drunk among some high girls after telling them he was a newly-arrived Prime. That would have gotten him fried for sure, only we made the mistake of doing our own drinking while we poured his into him. Instead of setting him up, we all ended up laughing and joking like old friends, and when we mentioned our secret about what wed intended doing with the girls, he was so touched he began to cry. No one had ever told him a secret before, and after he’d heard ours he thought it was only fair if he told us one. The only secret he knew was the keying word to awaken female empaths, so he told it to us. By the next day no one could remember anything that had happened-except for one Prime who stopped drinking after getting this idea about escape . . . . ”
“Awake,” I said, feeling an oddness deep inside. “You can key me awake, and then I’ll be whole. But I don’t understand what you mean by Class Zeroes. What are they? ”
“If you’re an empath, you know them,” he answered, making something of a face. “They call them Class Zeroes around here, but out in the worlds they’re known as nulls. It was explained to us that they don’t like that name, so it’s never used. But you’d better take it slower, because you’re getting ahead of yourself. I can key you awake, but that won’t make you entirely whole. Before we can get ourselves out of here I’m going to have to give you some training, the sort of training we’ve been given. How fast you pick up on it will depend on your inborn abilities, but it has to be done. That’s why I told you you’d better get used to accepting what they have you scheduled for. Even the most basic sort of training will take time, and we can’t get along on basics. We’ll need more than that if we’re going to get out, and into a ship, and away. If you still think I’m working for the enemy you’d better say so now, and I’ll send you back to try out the plan you were talking about earlier. If you decide to go along with me you have to trust me completely and do everything I say, otherwise we’re both wasting our time. I need a decision from you now, but you can have a minute to think it over.”