“I just found out why Ank-Soh wasn’t waiting at the schedule board to try taking you over for the day,” he said, beginning to lead me out of the room. “He’d originally been scheduled to be in this class too, to work with me giving the former lows a demonstration, but at the last minute they canceled him so the trainer canceled the demo. What he was told is that Ank-Soh suddenly got very sick after eating breakfast this morning and they think it was food poisoning of some kind. Right now they’re busy sample-checking all the dishes in the main facility chef, especially what Ank-Soh ate. He’s not going to be answering challenges for a few days, or covering rings, or attending classes.”
“Or asking about standing in for somebody with a heavy schedule,” I added, wondering why the information was giving me such a funny feeling. It was relieving to know I would not have to take the risk of manipulating him, but there was something-“He must have been the only one to be affected, or they’d know if it was one specific dish or an entire line of meals. That’s really strange, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of something like that happening in. a carefully run establishment. Does it happen here very often?”
“Only once before that I heard of, nearly five years ago,” Kel-Ten answered with a shrug, leading me up the corridor in a new direction. “It turned out to be an isolated case, only that one dish being affected, and the man, a rather high Prime, nearly died. He was never quite right after that, and lost his position on the very first challenge.”
His face briefly went blank then, showing me- again that he wasn’t permitted to think about what happened to high Primes who lost, and when the blankness faded the subject was over with and closed. We were simply walking along the corridor going somewhere, saying nothing at the moment, no unanswered questions hanging in the air. Rather than shivering I just felt sick, and took my own opportunity to find something else to talk about.
“Your having a practice class instead of the relaxing class surprised me,” I said, making sure my voice was steady and unconcerned. “Are they just trying to confuse you, or don’t you ever follow the same program every day?”
“If I had to do the same thing every day, I’d be crazy in no time,” he answered with a snort of faint ridicule, glancing down at me. “I might have two days that are almost the same, but never more than two and never exactly alike. Today I get to do heavy ex in the afternoon with breathing ex after it, and they’ve thrown in some light ex for now. I won’t be working up too heavy a sweat, not with two of my rings waiting to be taken to my apartment, and after that are more practice classes. If you’re a good girl I may let you into the bedroom for your own turn before we go on to the classes, but only if you come up with a really pretty please. I’ve got you around to break up the boredom, after all, and if you like you can even look at it as practicing before we get to the real thing. ”
He grinned as his arm tightened around me, and then we were turning into a room that was a smaller version of that physical exercise room. I was glad getting to the room kept me from commenting, but that was just about the only thing I was glad about. The room held two fully uniformed Secs and one who wore a short outfit of white, and after I’d been left in charge of one of the uniformed ones, Kel-Ten and half a dozen other Primes jogged out of the building behind the one with short clothes. I ignored the grinning inspection I was getting from the one in whose charge I’d been left and sat down on the floor, then tried to understand what was going on inside my head.
For some reason I didn’t understand at all, it felt as though a heavy alarm was going off in my mind, insisting on so much of my attention that I couldn’t pick up the emotions around me without putting effort into it. I couldn’t remember ever having experienced something like that before and it bothered me, so much so that I leaned back against the wall with a hand in my hair, trying to force myself to understand. I had the definite impression that something was terribly wrong, and that if I didn’t figure out what the something was fast, I might as well not bother. Maybe starting from the beginning, when I’d first felt the feeling, would help to clear away the murk.
The beginning wasn’t very far away, only a matter of a minute or two, just before Kel-Ten and I had reached the room. It had been about the time he’d told me wed be practicing for the real thing, a comment that had upset me, but certainly not nearly as much as the first time the subject had come up. I’d have to be there for Kel-Ten to be able to “cover” me, and if things went my way even a little, that would never happen. No, it wasn’t the practicing or even the covering that had started it, it had to be something else, something said at just about the same time
The breath caught in my throat as I straightened away from the wall, and I found it impossible to keep myself from shuddering. Kel-Ten had said his rings would be “brought to his apartment,” and that was the phrase that had done it. I suddenly knew beyond all doubt that it would be the Sec Adjin who brought them, and once again Kel-Ten would be occupied while I wasn’t. He had a really heavy schedule that day, so heavy he’d never be able to pay more than token attention to me, and the man who would have “looked after me” during that time had suddenly come down sick that very morning. Accidentally sick!
I put a hand to my middle as I felt worse than Ank-Soh possibly could, wasting not a single moment trying to tell myself I was imagining things. In a place like that, where everything was so carefully controlled, someone who wanted to do his own controlling would have very little trouble slipping his machinations in between those of everyone else’s, especially if he was one whose job it was to guard it all. The null Adjin wanted me again, and even if I didn’t know why his interest was so high, that didn’t make it untrue—or avoidable. My being awake meant nothing when it came to a null; I couldn’t touch him any more than any of the others could, and if I panicked and asked Kel-Ten to intercede for me he could very well end up like that high Prime he’d mentioned, the one who had nearly died and afterward was never the same. If I learned that the Sec was responsible for that as well, it would hardly come as a surprise.
To hell with surprises, what was I going to do? I sat bent over with my hand to my mouth, trying to keep the terror inside, trying to think of something to escape what was coming. I hadn’t been able to face the null even before he’d hurt me; right then the thought of trying to cope with him made me want to run and run and run and
“Are you all right, girl?” a voice suddenly asked, a properly dutiful concern behind the words. It took me a minute to understand it was the Sec in whose charge I’d been left who was talking, the man leaning down a little trying to get a better look at me. Since I undoubtedly looked as pale as I felt, his frown deepened, and then he said, “Maybe you ought to be checked over by someone in Medical. We already have a Prime down sick, and there’s no sense in taking any chances.”
I instantly panicked at the thought of being taken to the man in Medical whose guard was Adjin, but just before I could babble out a refusal a different thought came to me. If I could get myself to the women’s area and the female doctor I’d seen when I first got there, maybe something could be done to protect me. Male Sees weren’t allowed in the women’s areas, Mera had told me, and although it felt like ages since I’d heard it I immediately got to work on the only out I had.
“Yes, please, I do need to go to Medical,” I said weakly as I rocked back and forth a little, but there was nothing weak about the total agreement I fed him. The man was a Sec but not a null, a bit of luck I didn’t mind taking full advantage of. “Cataran Olden is the doctor I want to see, back in the women’s section.”