The first one we went to was a large room with about thirty men, and once I’d been fussed over by some of them Kel-Ten was able to put me into a far corner with no one bothering any more about me. The room, I saw, had no windows, and from the flat sounds of voices and such in my ears I decided it was probably shielded in some way. The floor I sat down on had thick white lines painted on it, with numbers on the walls. apparently corresponding to the lines. When a man wearing a black uniform came into the room and closed the door behind him, the Primes who had been milling around joking with one another began moving to different places on various parts of the lines.
Once everyone was arranged in the way they were apparently supposed to be, the man in black stood himself on a short line in front of the room. Rather than being all the way in front himself, Kel-Ten stood on a line farther away from the front than anyone else, and the man in black looked at him and smiled.
“Good afternoon yourself, Prime Kel-Ten,” he said, nodding with what seemed to be satisfaction. “Were any of you in the first line able to feel that greeting? No, of course you weren’t, because despite the strength of the projection, Prime Kel-Ten was using a tight beam to me alone. Your own strength will develop as you go along, but precise control is something you have to practice. This is the place you’ll be practicing it, and at increasingly greater distances. Once you’re able to reach me from the same line Prime Kel-Ten is standing on, you’ll know you’re ready to challenge him. I would not advise trying it before that.”
A ripple of laughter went through the room, and those in the first line stirred in what seemed to be discomfort. I had the impression they were new to the class on control, and the man in black’s joke had somehow been at their expense. For a while the class went silent as the man in black looked at each Prime in turn, nodded as though he were getting something from him, then went on to the next. After the last of them was done and nodded to, the man in black looked around again.
“Now everyone will take the same place one line back and try the greeting again,” he said, giving most of his attention to the front line. “As you can see from the wall the distance between each line is two feet, and those are the increments of extra distance you’ll be trying for. We start newcomers off at a distance short of the twenty to twenty-five feet you’re already capable of covering, and then you work your way up to more and more distance. Please don’t forget that control is the important part here, so when you can reach me from thirty feet away, you won’t really be reaching me until you can reach only me. If the man standing next to you or in front of you feels it too, your control isn’t what it should be.”
He nodded to the members of his class then, a gesture which sent them back the one line he’d asked for, and then everyone went silent again. I noticed that Kel-Ten also stepped back one line even though no one was close enough to crowd him, and out of curiosity looked at the number on the wall of his new line. The numbers were large and bright, a glowing yellow easily read against the dark brown paneling of the wall, and I had to be very careful to keep all expression off my face. The First Prime of that complex, the man everyone was so in awe of or proud of, stood on the line with a 47 beside it, meaning the new range he was trying for was forty-seven feet. Forty-seven whole feet.
I stirred where I sat on the floor in the back corner of the room, momentarily enjoying feelings of ridicule and superiority, but then common sense came along to bat me between the eyes. Kel-Ten had decided to turn me back on the very next morning, but what would happen when he did? I already knew I couldn’t try pressing for memory of what I could do, but wasn’t there something that would show him the difference between our minds? Everything I’d seen and heard about so far had struck me as no more than baby tricks, which logically meant I was capable of doing a good deal better. What would happen when Kel-Ten found out about it? Would he be delighted and decide to move up the date for our escape attempt, or would he feel so threatened and jealous that he would quickly try turning me off again? If he decided against using me to help, could I stop him from making me helpless again? What in hell was I going to do?
I spent the rest of that class time fretting and trying to consider the problem unemotionally, but didn’t have as much of an opportunity as I’d thought I would. It wasn’t very long before the man in black told them that was it for the day, and I looked up to see a group of very wilted men heading for the door out of the room. Kel-Ten was coming to me instead of leaving, and although there was still a lot of spring in his step I could see the sweat on his forehead when he bent to take my hand and pull me to my feet.
“Did you see that?” he asked, satisfaction in the light eyes looking down at me. “Before very long I’ll have that new mark established, and then I’ll only be eight feet away from the all-time record. You have no idea how badly I want to break that record, sweet thing, and every day that passes brings me closer to it. Once I have it it’ll be my name on the golden plaque, me everyone else has to measure up to. There’ll be a celebration the likes of which hasn’t been seen in this place in years, and you’ll be there to share it with me. I have to admit I’ve been letting it slide lately, but now that I’m back to it I’ll be trying harder than ever.”
He put his arm around me and began leading me out of the room, and I almost gave in to the urge to bite my lip. Was he serious about how much he wanted to break that record, or was he simply announcing to our unseen listeners another reason why they’d be stupid to take me away from him? I didn’t know which the truth was and would have immediately started worrying about it, but a question had occurred to me that he should be able to answer.
“Kel-Ten, who set the record you’re trying to break?” I asked, turning my head to look up at him as we walked. “And for that matter, what became of the Prime you won first place from? Was he knocked down to one of the two second places? How many times has he tried getting first place back?”
“Yes, sir, that celebration will really be something,” he said, his grin widening as he shook his head just a little. “All classes will be canceled for the entire day, everybody will dress up in the best they have, and no one will do anything but party. I’d better stop thinking about it, or I’ll be useless in my next class.”
He laughed lightly and squeezed me gently with the arm he had around me, and then fell silent for the rest of our walk up the corridor. For my own part I wanted to shiver violently, because I’d been watching his face when I’d asked my questions. He’d started out listening, I knew he had, but once my first question was out his face had gone slack until I’d finished. Once I was done he’d come alive again and had talked about the celebration, just as though I hadn’t said a word! He wasn’t ignoring me, he’d been-programmed-against hearing or thinking about anything like that! What happened to the First Prime once he was bested was a taboo subject, most probably right along with what happened to every Prime once they’d reached their limit. And I’d been jealous of the men in that place for being free of the conditioning the women were subjected to!
Wondering about what they did with Primes who had reached their full development occupied me until we got into the next room, and then I gave up on the question as a complete waste of time. There was no way of knowing what they did with them, but it was highly unlikely the men were accorded anything as simple as the death given to women who could no longer bear children. I was certain that that was the fate of most women who were beyond being bred, but the same thing wouldn’t be done to men who had been put through that very thorough training. You don’t go to such lengths to train people who are slated for nothing more than death, but what could they possibly . . .