“Cataran Olden it is,” he answered with a calm nod, reaching down to help me to my feet. “I’ll take you as far as I can go, then turn you over to someone else. Can you make it?”
Obviously I didn’t look all that steady to him, but I was so desperate to get out of the men’s section I would have crawled if I’d had to. I nodded to show I was well enough to walk wherever necessary, fidgeted only on the inside when he stopped to tell the other Sec where he was taking me, and then we were leaving the room.
The fear didn’t start loosening its hold until we reached the low dining room, finding it empty of all obstructions to our crossing it. On the other side of the dining room was a short corridor, and beyond the corridor was the area the null would not be able to reach me in. The Sec holding my arm was moving faster than he had to begin with, the faint urgency I’d brushed him with taking care of the need I’d felt so desperately. It had only just been within the realm of possibility that the null Adjin would appear suddenly to end my escape attempt, but it hadn’t been unlikely at all that Kel-Ten would get back from his jogging to do the exact same thing. He would certainly have made difficulty over my being taken back to the women’s area, and although I could have changed his mind easily enough, doing it would just have added to my problems.
Problems. Mountains ten miles high that needed to be climbed was more like it, hard, cold mountains I was tackling barefoot and practically naked. We had crossed almost half the dining room when my mind refused to let me avoid the major question any longer, the question of what I would do once I got to Cataran Olden. I could tell her I was terrified to go back to the men’s area, could even tell her why, but what good would it do me? She wasn’t in charge of anything but examining people, and had as much as said no one listened to her any more than they did to me. Even if she screamed and demanded that I be left alone and in the women’s area, would that stop one of the low Primes from claiming me for any night he cared to? It sure as hell would be useless if Kel-Ten demanded me back, most especially in view of the new experiment I was supposed to be a part of. No, going to Cataran Olden would only prove to be a temporary escape, and even wasting my breath on that Serdin man wouldn’t
I almost gasped as the answer suddenly came to me, and I knew I had to be looking pale again. I’d said it over and over, the only thing I could do, but my attention had kept shying away from it, as though totally incapable of facing that sort of truth. And I’d been wondering and worrying about how Kel-Ten would respond
I had to escape, and I had to do it right then.
“Just take it easy, we’re almost there,” the Sec holding my arm told me, apparently becoming aware of the way I’d begun trembling. “They’ll find out what’s wrong with you and they’ll fix it fast, and then you’ll be feeling fine again. Just hold on a little longer.”
He increased his pace a bit, anxious to get me turned over to someone else before I passed out or died, I think, but he hadn’t the least idea of the meaning of the word anxious. Bad enough was the fact that I would have to try getting out of that place alone, without any idea of where I was going or what I’d be doing if I did get out. Far worse was the fact that I would at the same time be deserting the man who had made my escape possible, the one whose desperate urge to be free had started the whole thing in the first place. If I could have stopped and gone back for him I would have, but even if I did go back there was no guarantee he would be able to make the try with me. He was at least partially conditioned, and without knowing how far that partial extended meant I couldn’t take the chance he would ruin everything without even knowing he was doing it. No, all I could do was continue on alone, promising both of us that if there was any chance of coming back to help him get out, I’d do it.
If I didn’t die of heart failure first. No more than minutes earlier I’d been deathly afraid I would never make it to the swinging doors leading to the women’s dormitory room, but when the Sec pushed through one of them, helping me along with him, I almost hung back. When the thought of going on is just as terrifying as the thought of retreating, you most often find yourself in the position of wanting to stand absolutely still, moving not an inch in any direction. At that point in time I didn’t have the option of standing still, a truth I hated but couldn’t do anything to change. The male Sec called a female Sec over, explained to her that I was sick and was to be taken to Cataran Olden in Medical, and all I could do was let her take my arm and begin leading me across the crowded floor.
I was too busy trying to find frantic plans to make to notice the trip over to Medical, but suddenly there were quite a few women in smocks around me, all of them apparently waiting on line for attention. Most of them seemed to have no idea they were doing something as boring as waiting on line, and even worse than that none of them laughed at the short, torn shirt I was still wearing. It made me ill to know I would have preferred it if they had laughed, and very happily I wasn’t left to stand around with them. I was taken directly down the hall to one particular door, the Sec holding my arm waved a hand in front of it, and then the door was being opened and I was taken inside.
Cataran Olden looked up when we entered, her mind tired, her expression neutral, but when she saw me she started, her thoughts registering concerned surprise. It was clear she hadn’t expected to see me there, and she put aside the papers shed been reading and moved away from the wall shed been standing near.
“What’s wrong?” she asked the Sec who still had a hand around my arm. “It’s too soon for her next checkup, so why is she here?”
“She was brought in from the men’s area, and you’re the one I was told to take her to,” the Sec answered, her shrug mostly referring to her lack of knowledge. “They’re having a food poisoning problem over there today, I hear, and the guard who brought her thought she ought to be looked over. Do you want me to wait in here?”
“No, outside if you please,” the brown-haired woman answered with a faint frown, her eyes already examining me. She put a hand to my shoulder and began leading me farther into the room as the Sec turned me loose and left; I waited only until I heard the door close, and then I gently but firmly brushed her hand away.
“I don’t have food poisoning,” I said, quickly calming her automatic protest. “What I do have is a problem, and I need your help with it. Are you still willing to help?”
“If there’s anything I can do,” she answered, more hesitant and unsure on the inside than she let the words come out. “You know what I have absolutely no control over; if it’s something other than that, I’ll do my best.”
I nodded as I returned her stare, then began telling her what had happened to me since the last time wed met. I wasn’t talking for any purpose other than to kill time, time I desperately needed to decide what to do. They say stampedes are hard to stop, but when it’s one single female Prime who’s doing the stampeding, the saying doesn’t necessarily hold true. If I could think of something else to do other than panic and run, I’d certainly find myself better off when I finally did get around to escaping. And if I had enough time, I also ought to be able to find out if Kel-Ten was really able to go with me. Two against the odds felt like a much better idea to me, so I pondered my options as I spoke and then tried to find out if there were any I hadn’t yet considered.
“So you can see why I don’t want to take the chance of his coming after me again,” I finished up to a silently listening Cataran Olden, having edited the story just a little to eliminate what could easily be considered nothing but paranoia. “He’s a Sec, one of those in charge, and he told me he would come to hurt me again. When Kel-Ten told me two of his rings were going to be brought to his apartment right after he came back from jogging, all I could think about was what I would do if he was the one who brought them. Not being able to think of anything made me so sick they thought there was something wrong with me, and somehow I managed to talk them into bringing me here. That man Serdin told me to come and see him if I had any problems, but I wasn’t sure if he would consider this a real problem. He isn’t female, so he couldn’t know how I- Will talking to him do any good, or just make things worse?”