“And how are we feeling this morning, Terry?” he asked, his tone suggesting we were friends of long standing. “The Prime indulged himself rather extensively between last evening and this morning. Are we possibly a bit sore now?”
“Maybe you are,” I answered, trying to ignore the warmth in my cheeks as I folded my arms and looked at the man. “I hadn’t realized he’d indulged himself with you as well as me, but I feel fine. If you’ve developed a problem, though, I’d suggest abstaining for a while.”
The man Gerdoh blinked at me in confusion for a moment while the Sec chuckled, and then he sent me a frown.
“My dear girl, there’s really no need to be insulting,” he said, less in anger than in wounded protest. “We’ve had you brought here to be certain you haven’t been harmed, and will continue to see to your well-being as best we may. It’s a pity the Prime wants to keep you as you are, he has no real idea how difficult he’s making things for you, but he mustn’t be denied. My superiors are delighted with the change in him, and don’t care to see him returned to the-destructive-frame of mind he was previously in. Since you now know my question was far from idle, I would appreciate your answering me.”
“I’ve already answered you,” I said, feeling that strange anger beginning to rise in me again. “As though it really mattered. If it turns out that he did hurt me, will you take me away from him or punish him for doing it? Of course you will, why am I wasting time asking? As concerned as everyone is about me, how can there be any question?”
“Now, now, you have your value just as he has his,” the man tried to soothe me, his properly correct smile meant to be reassuring. “If he’s hurt you he’ll be spoken to, to see that it doesn’t happen again. Come over here and lie down on the table, please. I’m afraid I’ll need to examine you.”
He turned away from me and began moving toward the table he’d mentioned, the same sort of table thered been in the room the woman in yellow had taken me to. Even if I hadn’t been angry I wouldn’t have gone near a thing like that again, but I’d forgotten-about the Sec. As soon as he knew for certain I wasn’t about to move from where I stood on my own, his big hand circled my arm and pulled me forward with no difficulty at all. He was one of the biggest men I’d ever seen, larger even than KelTen, the difference between them enough to be noticed.
“When you’re given an order, pretty girl, you’d better learn to obey it,” he said, his dark eyes looking down at me with something not too different from amusement. “The doctor wants you on the table, so that’s where you’re going to be put.”
“Gently, man, gently,” Gerdoh cautioned him nervously, turning back to watch as the Sec ignored my struggling and lifted me onto the table. “If the Prime returns to find her bruised, there’s no telling what he may do.”
“There isn’t much he can do to me,” the Sec answered with almost total unconcern, paying more attention to holding me down on the table than to the man he was talking to. “If he closes his eyes he can’t see me, which means all he can try using is his hands. If he’s stupid enough to do that, he won’t be in any condition to even look in your direction.”
The arrogance in the Sec’s eyes added to his faint smile as he held me down, and the shudder that had touched Gerdoh earlier came back to see that I had my own turn with it. A Class Zero was a null, and the thought of nulls had always frightened me in a way I couldn’t completely understand. I remembered that nulls couldn’t be touched by empaths, that their emotions were hidden away on a level none of us could reach, which meant even the strongest of us had reason to be wary of them. Wary, yes, but wariness doesn’t account for the presence of fear—and didn’t explain why something he’d said had struck me as strange. If he closes his eyes he can’t see me, he’d said, but does not seeing something mean it isn’t there? If it doesn’t, what does it mean?
“Now, now, you know well enough our superiors don’t want him hurt,” Gerdoh fussed in agitation, sounding as though he were the one who needed the soothing and reassurance. “If we do nothing to antagonize him, it won’t be necessary to concern ourselves with the possibility of official censure. Young woman, if you don’t stop kicking like that, I’m going to have to bind your ankles.
From the sound of his voice Gerdoh was now annoyed with me, but I couldn’t have cared less. The Sec hadn’t let me go once he’d put me on the table, and he was leaning so close I couldn’t even see the Medical man where he stood a few steps behind him. Dark-haired and dark-eyed, the man wasn’t all that unattractive, but the point bothering me was what he was, not what he looked like. I tried telling myself my heart was hammering because of the way I struggled to get free from his arms and hands, an explanation that might also have covered why my mouth was dry, but if I’d said any of that aloud the Sec would have laughed. He knew I was afraid of him, and the knowledge made him grin as he stared down at me. I twisted harder against him, trying to push him away, then had to cry out in protest even though it was already too late.
“Now, now, you were warned, you know.” Gerdoh said distractedly in answer to my wordless shout, undoubtedly watching as the soft cloth he’d looped around my ankles retracted toward the table. “We haven’t all the time in the world, and if you refuse to cooperate like a good girl you’ll just have to pay the price. If you like, Adjin, you can use the wrist bindings instead of having to hold her.”
“It’s no trouble holding her,” the Sec answered sounding casual but showing a wider grin. Then he leaned even closer to me and said in a very low voice, “I’ll bet you’re a good girl even when you don’t cooperate. Oh, yes, a very good girl.”
I refused to shiver where the null could see it, but that doesn’t mean the shiver never happened. He had his left arm around my body and his right hand holding my right wrist, the arm of that hand doing far too much in keeping my left arm down and pinned between us. With my ankles tight to the table I could scarcely move, but I still gasped and tried to jump when Gerdoh began his examination. Those in charge of the facility were anxious to know if their top stud had damaged the little mare with his boyish enthusiasm, but not because they gave a damn about the mare. They were worried about her because they still had to breed her, and if she were damaged they would lose the use of her.
It’s difficult to be angry and frightened and embarrassed all at the same time, but somehow I managed it. Gerdoh’s examination was as far from arousing as you can get, and being held like that by the Sec while it was going on made it worse than any internal I’d ever had. I squirmed as hard as I could in an effort to stop it, and got just as far as one would expect; Gerdoh was ignoring me, and the Sec Adjin was simply enjoying himself. I really believed it was as bad as it could reasonably become, forgetting briefly how unreasonable that place actually was until the Sec’s fingers left my wrist after pushing my arm more nearly under his body. He wanted his hand free so that he could slide it into the tear in my shirt, that tear everyone seemed to find so irresistible. I gasped again as his fingers closed painfully on my breast, trying for the fiftieth time to struggle free, but nothing had changed. The null held me down while he groped me, and Gerdoh never knew anything was happening.
It wasn’t all that long before the examination was over, it only felt like forever. When Gerdoh got off the stool he’d been perched on, Adjin’s hand left its comfortable nest, no abrupt movement, no guilty start, just a calm shifting from one place to another that the medical man never noticed. Very briefly I’d considered telling the man supposedly in charge just what was being done to me while he was so engrossed in his work, but I couldn’t seem to do it. The look in the Sec’s dark eyes really frightened me, a heart-fluttering coldness that said nothing so terrible would happen to him if I told, nothing that would keep him from coming after me later to show how unhappy he was. I didn’t want him coming after me later, didn’t want him near me ever again, and just keeping quiet seemed like the best way to make that happen.