“There’s a good-sized port behind the main administrative building,” he answered, gesturing with his head toward the building we were no longer heading for. “It’s carefully walled and guarded, of course, even more carefully than the rest of the complex. It would hardly do to have one of our-guests-come out of it far enough to decide on an unauthorized trip to somewhere else. There aren’t many in the Amalgation who know about this world, and wed like to keep it like that. Can we stop for a while now?”
“We’ll be stopping soon,” I assured him, giving him the urge to believe along with the words, carefully keeping my own frustration and fear to myself. When they found out I was on the loose they would close and seal that port, making sure it was impossible for me to gain access to it. One single null in the right place would do it, one single mind I couldn’t control and I’d never reach a transport let alone get clear away. I felt trapped and walled in, almost as much as I had before getting out of the complex, and to say I didn’t like it wasn’t telling half the story.
“What the hell are you people doing here?” I demanded, trying to keep down the roiling inside me. “Why are you breeding Primes, and why is it so important that no one find out?”
“We’re getting ready to take over the Amalgamation,” he answered in such a matter-of-fact tone that it didn’t seem real, his eyes busy with watching where he was driving. “Right now Central heads the Amalgamation, but only with the agreement and approval of the other member worlds. Once we have enough trained Primes we’ll take over the other worlds, and there won’t be anything they can do to stop us. How effective will a hastily scraped together volunteer army be against men who can feed them terror at a distance? How dangerous will the Kabras, the only professional fighters in the Amalgamation, turn out to be, when our people can intensify their feelings that to fight an equal force of their own is useless, and that any force of ours they face is just like one of their own? The Kabras won’t lift a single weapon, citizen police forces or armies will spend more time running away than standing and fighting, and no leader of any of the worlds will be able to lie about being loyal to us. After we’ve taken over, our Primes will be everywhere, making sure people do as they’re told, making sure that those who harbor the strongest resentments are arrested and dealt with before they can be troublesome. Our regime, once begun, will go on and on in perpetuity, and no one and nothing can stop it.”
The vehicle slid around a little on the rutted ground as the shock I felt transmitted itself to the man who was driving, and although I cut it off quickly that doesn’t mean I stopped feeling it when he did. They were not only going to take over the Almagamation, they were also going to use empaths to do it, to see that everyone was enslaved as completely as only their pet tools now were! The desire to rule was theirs, but me and mine would be the ones who got them that desire! I felt so sickened I put a hand to my mouth, trying to keep the uneven ride from adding so much to the sickness that it erupted out of me, almost finding I couldn’t do it. Those people were crazy, but their craziness would work unless someone discovered a way to stop them. I had to get free and stay that way, and hope that eventually they relaxed enough to let me sneak or force my way into the port.
“When we reach the edge of the forest you can stop the vehicle,” I said after a moment or two of trying to pull myself together, frantically searching for something I could do right then that would help rather than be useless or harmful. “Is there anything out there it would be especially wise to avoid, anything someone even with my mind strength would have trouble handling?”
“Only the Ejects,” he replied, a faint shadow of annoyed disgust crossing his mind when he spoke the word. “They hate everyone and everything connected with the complex, and don’t even care that we rid this entire area of dangerous predators in order to give them more of a chance to survive. They take the babies we leave out and raise them as their own, but start a riot any time we come by to claim the rare Prime baby they manage to produce, or take some of their number to be targets for our Primes. Way back in the beginning we even gave them people to show them how to live in the wild, but even that means nothing to them. They’re simply and basically incapable of feeling gratitude.”
“You expect them to be grateful for being thrown out instead of killed, don’t you?” I asked, not really requesting an answer. That was exactly what he expected, he and the others like him. They wasted nothing, apparently, not even the empaths who weren’t born Primes, turning them out into the wilderness to live or die as they could. Killing them would have been kinder, but if they’d killed them the occasional Prime they produced would not be produced, so they graciously let them live. The Primes in the complex had no idea what was done with their offspring, and in that way everyone was kept happy.
“You’re-hurting me,” a faint, choked protest came, bringing me back to awareness of how erratic our progress had suddenly grown. Serdin’s hands were clamped to the drive wheel, the knuckles white against the pain he felt, his body trembling with the need to keep on as we were going even though his mind was on the verge of being crushed. I was suddenly feeling more enraged than sickened, more furious than frightened, and the strength of my mind was squeezing at the mind I held, wanting very badly to hurt it the way it had caused others to be hurt. I was very much aware of the pain Serdin was in, could see the sweat beading on his face, but felt nothing in the way of guilt even as I stared at him. Yes, I was hurting him, but no, I wasn’t regretting it.
“It’s really too bad I still need you, I said, a part of me wondering why I wasn’t trembling and confused and unsure of myself. My mind-tool of calm was giving me very little help just then, doing no more than waiting against the possibility of need, so both feelings and actions were mine. I was the one giving pain to someone who most often gave it to others, and I realized it might be wise of me to stop-before I began enjoying it too much.
“Since we’re almost to the forest, you might as well stop here,” I said, releasing the mind I held captive to the extent of eliminating the pain the man was feeling. “As soon as I leave the vehicle you’ll turn around and go back, taking it as slow as you can, thinking about nothing but the fun you’ve had and how right you were to spend a little time on experimentation. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he answered in a breathy whisper, and it was a good thing I’d had him stop the vehicle. I was right then feeding him complete physical satisfaction as I’d taken it from the minds of other men at some other time, and he was shuddering in delight with his eyes half closed, the rapture completely in possession of him. I would have preferred giving him something other than pleasure, but the mind clings to memories of pleasure and tries to hold onto them, while an equal measure of agony and pain is forgotten as soon as it can possibly be managed. The longer he remembered what had been done to please him the longer it would take for him to understand what had really been done, and that extra amount of time was what I needed. The last thing I did was force confusion deep into his mind, a confusion that would not be noticed or felt until after he was well out of my area of influence. It would surface again and again in the hours to come, playing havoc with his ability to remember and reason clearly, and that, too, would help me.
I got out of the vehicle and slammed the door, then watched only long enough to be sure my orders were being obeyed before turning and hurrying into the waiting brush. It felt odd being completely clothed again and shod, odd in a way I couldn’t immediately pin down, but I had very little time to waste thinking about it. I broke into a slow run as I went deeper into the forest, changed direction once I thought I was completely concealed from observation, then tried increasing my pace. I didn’t know how to disguise the trail I was leaving, so I had to do something to destroy it as quickly as possible, before they discovered I was gone. That could happen at any time, and then they would be after me.