I was attempting to make. What few empaths were placed on Central itself we kept in touch with, and none of those were Primes. Should you accept our contention that you were, indeed, born in our community, then your first question must be obvious.”
“Overly obvious,” I agreed, but only to the comment he’d made. I still wasn’t anywhere near convinced that what they thought was true really was the truth, but to continue the discussion the point had to be conceded. “If everyone placed on Central was kept in touch with and wasn’t a Prime, then what was I doing there without a friend on the world?”
“Exactly,” Murdock said, a totally unnecessary counteragreement—which had been forced on him by all that reluctance. “In order for you to have been placed there in virtual-abandonment-someone must have caused standard practice to be discarded in your case, someone whose opinion carried enough weight to override any objections made. There were objections aplenty, I can tell you, and the debate raged on for quite a while, but in the end the needs of everyone in the Amalgamation had to come first. You were taken away from your real parents, placed with people who could pass you off as theirs, then were left to grow up without ever being told what had been done.”
“A heinous crime if there ever was one,” I muttered, really beginning to be worried about the state of his mind. “Murdock, I’m more than willing to admit how lonely I’ve been most of my life, and I’m also willing to bitterly accuse anyone who was responsible for making that happen to me. What I’m not quite up to is making it the absolute tragedy of the ages, especially since I have no idea what growing up among my ‘own’ would have been like. I was dissatisfied on Central and very alone, but Central isn’t the only world I’ve ever seen and I’ve never found one I thought I’d like better. If you want the complete truth, I’d rather believe I’ve been lonely all this time because my true companionship was callously and heartlessly stolen from me-not because there’s no one anywhere I’d get along with and like, a concept I’ve toyed with a few times over the years. I’m at this moment willing to bet even the deck plates of this transport have figured out that you’re the one who caused me to be put where I was, so can’t we stop the bush-beating and get on to whatever’s rattling your mind like a shack in a windstorm?”
“You’re not believing any of this,” Murdock said, really looking at me for the first time in many minutes, his light eyes narrowed. “No one could be so cold-bloodedly reasonable after being told their entire life was the result of someone else’s manipulation, most especially not when they’re also an empath. Damn it, Terrilian, I will not have you humoring me!”
“You prefer the thought of being accused?” I asked, blinking just a little at the way he’d nearly raised his voice. I’d also rarely heard him swear like that before, and found it disconcerting. “Yes, I can see you would prefer being accused, to help bleed off all that guilt you’re feeling. It’s fairly clear you think you’re telling me the truth, Murdock, and for all I know it might be true. My only problem right now is that I’m not accepting any of this, not the least, smallest part. I feel as though I’m walking through a very clear dream, parts of my past just as uncertain as most of my future. When and if I get my memories back that might change, but your best bet would be to get every painful confession off your chest right now, while I’m still unlikely to get hysterical. And if a time comes when I am prepared to believe, having heard it earlier just might make it easier to accept.”
“I hadn’t thought of that, and you may very well be correct,” Murdock said with faint surprise, now more thoughtful than upset. “There’s a saying about even the darkest of days being brighter than the lightest of nights, and this may be a prime example of the brightness in the dark. ”
“Did you say a Prime example, Murdock?” I asked, sipping my kimla in relief at seeing the awful agonizing loosening its hold on him just a little. “Most people would be ashamed, but I don’t think diplomats are really considered people.”
“That was most inappropriate, young woman,” he came back with lowered brows while Ashton half groaned and half chuckled. “You will do me the courtesy of waiting until I’m free of distractions before offering a bout of verbal fencing. As you stated, I am indeed the one who caused you to be done as none before you, but that’s no more than a part of my-concern over the matter. You were a lovely infant full of a great deal of promise, but the moment I first looked at you I knew you must be sent away from us-without being told, like the others, that you did indeed belong somewhere. Considering who you were that in itself would have been bad enough, but the fact of the matter is—I wasn’t able to give any concrete reasons for doing such a thing. The need for it was so overwhelming I was able to argue down anyone who disagreed, but Terrilian-to this day I have no real idea whether or not I was correct. The possibility remains that you were severed from your rightful heritage for no good reason at all, and that’s what I felt you should know. What was done to you was my fault, but worse than thatI can’t justify it.”
The cold gray eyes were looking at me with no attempt on his part to move them, no attempt on his part to avoid seeing whatever condemnation I felt it necessary to show. It’s possible for some people to do terribly heartless and low things without feeling guilty, but only if they have a really good reason to justify, at least to themselves, having done those things. What was causing Murdock’s agonizing was the fact that he had no such reason, and to an odd, strangely detached way, I was almost beginning to believe his story.
“But Murdock, didn’t we find New Dawn because of her?” Ashton asked, reaching over to put a hand on his arm in an attempt to ease the pain. “If shed known about us like the others, we would have brought her home before she could be taken, leaving us knowing nothing more than we knew then. Couldn’t that be the reason you did what you did?”
“I wish it were,” the man answered with a sigh, patting the hand on his arm without looking at the woman the hand belonged to. “We were almost to the point of using a volunteer, one properly conditioned to forget all about us, of course, but when Terrilian was taken while we were in a position to follow immediately-as we’d hoped we would be—we did that instead. Ever since the possibility first came up I’ve been sniffing around it hoping to find that it was the reason I hadn’t been able to discover earlier, but I’m afraid it isn’t. When you come across the real reason behind something you did while acting blindly, you know it without any doubt. This, my dear, unfortunately isn’t it.”
“What did you mean when you said, ‘considering who I was’?” I asked, finding the phrase standing out in my memory. I’d been very detached from the whole thing at the beginning of our discussion, but I felt myself being drawn more and more deeply inward with every new thing I heard. I was starting to believe I’d be much better off all alone in my cabin, but the part of me I’d been having so much trouble with lately had asked a question I couldn’t escape having answered.
“Terrilian, child, this all started only moments after you were born,” Murdock said, the gentle words an odd contrast to his usual expressionless ness. “The reason I was there to see you at all, let alone that quickly, was because you were the firstborn of my youngest sister. I knew your mother better than any of my other brothers and sisters because, unlike the rest of us, she wasn’t gone very long from the settlement. From the moment she first began walking and talking, she also began fighting against life in a creche, finally making it necessary for her ‘parents’ to take her back. No planet ever releases an empathetic child unless he or she is considered not only incorrigible, but also unable to learn what’s being taught. Your mother flatly refused to learn, flatly refused to let them force her to learn, and therefore ended up back in the community before she was ten years old. She spent a day or so looking around and getting acquainted with our real parents, then settled in without argument or fuss. It seems she approved of the settlement a good deal more than she did the creche, but that doesn’t mean she never argued or fussed again.”