“I can’t say I really trusted Kel-Ten, but he was offering the only option I could accept aside from suicide—which everyone in that place would have done everything they could to prevent. When I agreed he took advantage of the situation to treat me like a slave, using me to ease some of the pressure all those drugs they fed him caused him to feel, but he also kept his promise. He awakened me when he said he would, and I hid the condition behind a shield. The great Primes in the complex don’t know how to shield-not through their own choice, anyway—and after that everything should have gone smoothly.”
“Only it didn’t,” Ashton said, still helping me out while I looked at no one at all. “You were all alone in those woods where we found you, so either you two escaped together and then separated, or the man never went with you. From some of the other things you’ve said, I would guess you escaped alone.”
“I wouldn’t have left him behind if I’d been certain he could go with me,” I said in little more than a whisper, closing my eyes against the nagging guilt I continued to feel. “The male Primes all thought they were so free and well-treated, but they were just as conditioned as the women, only in different ways. When I asked Kel-Ten what happened to a First Prime who was defeated, the question never registered in his mind because they didn’t want him thinking about that. He told me that at one time he’d tried refusing to cooperate with them, and they’d forced him to change his mind. They knew he still disliked being there so they gave him everything he wanted just to keep him satisfied. It occurred to me that they might have also given him the hope of escape-just to keep him going—but had conditioned him against ever really trying it- I couldn’t take the chance, I just couldn’t! ”
“No, taking a chance like that wouldn’t have been very smart,” Ashton said with gentle reassurance from very near, and then her arm was around me. I didn’t realize until then that I was trembling, but didn’t try to pull away even though I had no need of her support.
“It would have been worse than not very smart,” I said more calmly, sitting unmoving against the arm around my shoulders, my eyes open again but staring down at the carpet fur. “They have nulls as guards in that place, and one of them decided he wanted me. While Kel-Ten was busy covering the female Primes he’d been assigned to, the nullused the opportunity to enjoy himself. That happened the night before I was awakened, but the next day I found out he planned on doing it again that very day, and my being awakened would have been no use at all. I wouldn’t have been able to stop him from hurting me again, so I-ran. I had myself sent to Serdin’s office, found out that the null was too important a man to be denied a little thing like-what he’d done to me—and would do again-so I took over Serdin’s mind and had him get me out of the complex—and when I got into the woods the Ejects told me I’d be found no matter how well I tried to hide—which meant there was a tracer under my skin somewhere—and then they drove me off to keep me from leading the complex people to them when I was found—they get used as targets for the male Primes in their training—and then- I don’t remember much after that besides running.”
“Treda, be calm, you are safe now among friends,” a soothing voice said from my right, and I almost told it not to be silly, that I was calm, but then I realized how hard I was breathing. It also came to me that my eyes were closed again and that Hestin, the one who had just spoken, had a hand wrapped around my right arm as his other hand stroked my hair. I didn’t know how he could have understood what I’d said since I’d been speaking in Centran, but there was no doubt he had because he was speaking in Centran. And then there was someone to my left, someone who wasn’t Ashton.
“Hama, you have my word that I will seek out the ones who gave you pain and will end their lives!” that deep voice said, the tone so full of fury that I nearly cringed to think of what the mind behind it must be like. “Not again shall I allow you to be taken from my side, no matter that in this last instance the choice was not mine. Not again will it be allowed to occur.”
The words were almost all growl, the sworn oath behind them so clear even someone without hearing couldn’t have missed it. I shuddered without being able to stop it, only beginning to realize how ill I felt, then quickly leaned away from the wide arms that were starting to go around me. I didn’t want those arms around me, and when I moved against Hestin his grip on my own arm tightened just a little.
“Tammad, my friend, the woman is not well,” he said, surprisingly with a frown in his usually even voice. “Pain lingers in her on too many levels, and for some reason she has done no more than merely begin the healing of herself. Also, she must surely continue to have no memory of you, for the spirit within her retreats in haste from the touch of your hands. Clearly must you exercise patience in regard to . . . ”
“What do you mean, ‘the healing of herself’?” Ashton suddenly demanded of Hestin, no apology in her tone for having interrupted him. “Is that what you call her use of pain control, or is there something . . . ”
“Part of that pain has to be my fault,” Len said, his voice filled with misery and guilt. “Terry, please, you have to believe I didn’t mean to hurt you like . . _”
“Don’t let what they did to you bother you any more, Terry,” Garth said, sounding utterly savage. “I’ll be designing a good number of the attack plans against them, and when I’m through there won’t be anything left of . . .”
I sat there staring at the cup of kimla in my hands, surrounded by noise that was climbing higher and higher in its level of strength. Murdock’s voice added itself to the others and so did Dallan’s, both of them merging into the rising explosion that was making me want to put my hands over my ears and race out of there. In one way or another all those people were trying to make me believe they cared about me, but all I felt like was a rock in a river, something the violently swirling current was forced to go around. I couldn’t . . .
“Silence!” a deafening shout suddenly came, a very deep voice that had used sheer lung power to overcome the cacaphony that was about to split the walls. It had come from behind me, in the direction of the door hanging, and quickly got the silence it had demanded. When I realized everyone was looking that way I twisted around to do my own looking, and saw the man and woman who had evidently just come in. The man was in haddin and swordbelt and was just as large and blond as all Rimilian l’lendaa, but the pretty woman was more my size, with dark hair and light eyes. She wore a long, full skirt that was almost a caldin but made of sturdier material, and her long-sleeved blouse was more tunic than imad. She also stood in a pair of plain but well-made sandals, and for some reason she was staring directly at me.
“Well, doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun?” Ashton commented from behind me in a drawl. “Is it sundown already, Irin?”
Irin. The woman didn’t answer Ashton but she also didn’t stop staring, and suddenly I felt very hollow inside. Those two standing at the door, the man now joining the woman in her stare—they had to, be-my real parents
12
“Why does she look so pale?” the woman suddenly demanded, taking a step forward. “What have you all done to her? And why does she think she has to shield here, back where she belongs? Damn you, Murdock, if you’ve made things even worse-!”