“Please, wait a minute, I don’t understand,” I protested as some of them started toward me, finding myself taking an involuntary step back. “The people there don’t ignore you because they want to, but because the ones in charge make them do it! And what do you mean, they’re going to get me like they got the others? If I hide well enough they won’t be able to find me; didn’t the others try to hide?”
“Hidin’ don’ do none a ya no good,” he said with another snort, now close enough to wrap a filthy hand around my arm. “They’s got boxes t’ tell ’em whur y’all’s hidin’, an’ them boxes don’ miss nothin’. Whin they find ya they ain’t gonna find us, that’s fer damn spittin’ sure. We’s gonna run ya far’s we gotta.”
The hand on my arm pulled me away from the tree and shoved me toward the center of the group that had closed in, but my mind was so numb I barely noticed it happening. The people from the complex used tracking devices, which meant there had to be a fix thread or a spot dot somewhere on or in me. I’d never find it soon enough to get rid of it, especially if it was under some part of my skin as they usually were, and I didn’t know what to
“Git outen here!” a woman’s voice shrilled from behind me, and the next instant I screamed at the pain from the sharp blow of a stick across my back. I halfjumped, half-fell forward, trying to keep from being hit again, trying to merge with my mind-tool so that I could drop my shield and protect myself, but there were too many of them. Blows struck at me from all sides, some even landing on my head to make me dizzy, and then they were all screaming and shouting and beating at me with mindless fury. As though from a great distance I noticed that only the women were using their sticks, the men using no more than hands and fists, and then I was running with my arms wrapped around my head, running in an attempt to get away from the pain of those blows. I whimpered as I ran, fear adding to the flame of agony as they kept hitting me over and over, and I couldn’t seem to get away from them. They were running with me, still beating me as they kept up, which made me run even faster. I had to get away from them, had to escape that terrible pain, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t, I couldn’t . . .
Just how long a time passed I have no idea, but it was still full daylight out when I again became aware of the forest around me. I was on my knees beside a tree, holding to it and trying to hide myself in it, and it came to me that I hadn’t been unconscious, only separated from all awareness of self. It felt as though I’d been trying to bury myself in the tree for quite some time, and hadn’t managed it because of the utter exhaustion and raging pain I burned in. That didn’t sound exactly right for some reason I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but it didn’t matter in the least. I knew where I was, knew the people called Ejects were gone without a trace, and knew it was only a matter of time before those from the complex came and captured me again. They would find me no matter how far or how fast I ran, find me easily, and there was nothing I could do to stop it or them. Matter, matter, matter, no matter what it didn’t matter.
I scraped my cheek against the rough bark of the tree, but something inside me refused to allow me to let go. I needed endless strength to lean on, endless gentle caring to help me past the pain, endless love to warm me against the chill starting in the air. Where I was supposed to get those things I didn’t know, but it was almost as though the tree was- connected in some way, reminding me of-something—or someone-no longer there and maybe never there—I didn’t know and I was so confused—
Distantly I was surprised at the tears running down my cheeks, tears from a source other than the flaring pain I felt. If I hadn’t been using pain control I would have been unconscious from the terrible beating I’d been given, the beating that had driven me away from people who were too bitter to give up what little they had for a stranger. I didn’t blame them for that, it wasn’t their fault, but giving things up—and giving people up-there was something about that that brought me tears-tears I didn’t understand—
I froze where I knelt beside the tree, everything forgotten but the sound Iii thought I’d heard all my senses trying to flare out in an attempt to search and pinpoint what it was. Most of my strength was going toward supporting the pain control, the possibility of broken ribs making it more a necessity than a luxury, but when I touched human minds I knew it. Male alone, distant but coming closer, a strong sense of searching and an even stronger sense of confirmed anticipation. Whoever it was knew I was there, knew they would find me very shortly, knew I couldn’t hide from them. They were already there, already on the verge of recapturing me, and although I knew more running would be as useless as what I’d already done, I still used the tree to help me drag myself to my feet. If I just sat there waiting for them I would be helping them, and as long as there was life and awareness left in my body helping them was the last thing I would do.
Standing up made me dizzier than I had been, but I held to the tree until the dizziness went away and then I went stumbling off into the forest. I couldn’t move very fast, couldn’t even walk straight, but I wasn’t going to help them catch me. I waited for the panic to come to add to my lost strength a little, but the panic refused to cooperate. It didn’t come, not even a shadow of it, and I discovered I was muttering curses at it under my breath. Never there when you need it, that’s what a waste panic was, never there, not even nulls there, stupid not sending nulls, why are the trees blurring, the ground getting mushy without any water around, everything going in slow circles, that strange sound in my ears, getting dark fast, too fast, not late enough, not—
9
I was awake instantly, faster than I could ever remember waking up before, faster than I knew it was possible to wake up. I raised up on my left side on the bed, using a slightly sore elbow to brace me, confused not so much about what had happened before I’d lost consciousness, but about what was then going on. The plain metal room I lay in wasn’t anything like what they had in the complex, and in fact looked most like a cabin aboard a transport, which didn’t make any sense. I hadn’t been anywhere near the complex port when the last of my strength went, and couldn’t quite believe I’d found it and gotten into a transport while still unconscious. And those men I’d felt in the forest, the ones coming after me; if they hadn’t been there to take me back to the complex, then what—
I was just about to put a hand to my head when I heard a sound at the cabin door, a sound that meant the door was being unlocked. I forced myself to sit up all the way, paying scant attention to the sheet that covered my otherwise bare body, banishing the light shield that covered my mind and leaving only my curtain. I didn’t know whose hands I was in that time, but whoever they were they would learn what it meant to be in a fight if they thought I was going to let myself be taken advantage of again. I’d had enough of being pushed around to last ten people a lifetime, and I’d be damned if I took any more at all.
The door in the wall opposite the foot of my bed opened with no special hurry, and by then I knew there were four people outside, three male and one female. There were other minds farther away, quite a few minds, but two of the nearest four clearly intended entering. The other two minds were concerned with nothing but waiting—which made them guards for my door—but the third man and the woman were coming in. I couldn’t reach the woman’s mind without moving through her shield, but the man’s mind was unshielded, and there was something familiar about the rigidly controlled worry in it. As the door opened I was sure I knew that mind, and then the woman walked in and quickly turned to help the man