“Don’t be afraid to believe, Terry,” he said, the sober words soft as he put a hand on my arm. “I know how much hurt there is in believing the wrong thing, but there are times when you have to trust your instincts and take the risk. I knew I belonged on this world as soon as I got here, and now you have the chance of finding out the same thing. Just remember who told you that first, way back at the beginning.”
His faint smile was warm and friendly, but remembering when he and Len had tried to get me to commit myself to the Rimilian cause didn’t make me feel the way he did. It made me feel strangely-empty instead, which meant it was time for a change of subject.
“Well, I’m ready to get started,” I said, looking around toward where the others stood. “Anybody else in the mood to discuss our enemy?”
The immediate agreement I got showed just how much in the mood they were, so we all sat down on the floor fur with cushions handy, getting comfortable before getting down to it. I saw Rissim where he stood to one side of the room, his arms folded and his mind concerned despite the firm hold he had on his emotions, and was surprised that he wasn’t joining us. It almost seemed as though he were standing guard against something while the rest of us worked, but what he might be guarding against I couldn’t imagine.
The man who had first spoken to me was Lamdon, and he was the one who chaired—or floored—the discussion. He questioned me about the complex, and saw to it that the others took turns with the questions they had instead of all talking at once and drowning each other out. Those men were avid for anything and everything I could tell them, knowing that each bit of information put them closer to the doing and farther from the waiting. They’d waited long enough, and now they wanted to do.
“And the guards, you say, were unarmed,” Garth recapped when it was his turn, his expression all frown, his mind not far different. “How can they be considered guards, if they don’t even have so much as a calm-down spreader? Or could they have been carrying spreaders without your knowing it? Do you know what a spreader looks like?”
“I would venture to say they indeed carried naught,” Lamdon put in before I could admit I wouldn’t have known a spreader if it had been dropped in my lap. “You must recall, friend Garth, that those who must most be guarded against are within rather than without, and those within may not be allowed close proximity to weapons. With sufficient mind strength one may gain such a weapon for oneself, a happening those of the complex would scarcely be eager to allow. The wenda has told us that those without the dwellings bore weapons, while those within did not. From this we must allow for the possibility of hidden weapons within, weapons which would quell an outbreak of strength, yet do naught of permanent harm to those they touched. Does this seem likely to you?”
“Very likely,” Garth answered, nodding slowly as his mind worked furiously. “Within those parameters there are only a small number of devices they might possibly have in use, and they’re not hard to guard against if you know they’re there. We’ll have to take precautions just in case they also have actual weapons, but crash teams going in first should be able to handle the possibility. We neutralize the outer defenses, hold the entrances while the crash teams go in and knock out their central monitoring stations, then we take the place down one section at a time. Those inside guards have to be specialists in hand-to-hand, they’d be useless decorations if they weren’t, so wed better make sure we don’t forget the point.”
“I think they are better than average with their hands,” I put in, fascinated with the way everyone spoke the language he felt most comfortable with, then listened in whatever language was being spoken to him. “One of their nulls made a comment about not being afraid of what Kel-Ten might do to him with his hands, saying there would be nothing he could do. Kel-Ten is too big to dismiss that lightly, even by someone the null’s size, unless there’s more involved than size.”
I still felt a shiver pass through me at thought of that null Adjin, a touch of terror I couldn’t seem to shake even though I knew I’d never see him again. I fought with the feeling while everyone considered what I’d said, then let myself be distracted when Lamdon stirred where he sat and smiled at me.
“Such information as that is precisely what we seek, and yet was it nearly unmentioned by cause of your not having sooner realized its value,” he said, making a comment which was in no way a condemnation, his light eyes mild. “I wonder if we might ask a favor of you, wenda, one which would benefit us a great deal. Should you agree, I have the ability to merge minds with you in a manner which is likely unfamiliar to you. You would have little or no knowledge of that which was said by you, for I alone would direct the path of your memory, touching all things in detail or merely in passing. Naught would be forgotten nor overlooked, and still you would have no need to relive that which continues to bring you pain. Would you permit a merging such as that?”
Every man there sat quietly waiting for my answer, and only then did I understand that they hadn’t missed what discussing the complex made me feel. Being completely unshielded had its drawbacks as well as its benefits, and I nearly called up my curtain before realizing that hiding would not help. If I was ever going to be one of those people I had to be one of them without anything to hide behind, and forcing myself to cooperate right then might make it easier the next time I had to do it. My first, most immediate reaction would have been to refuse, but I pushed the refusal away with a shrug.
“If I can help without having to scratch at wounds which haven’t yet healed, of course I’ll do it,” I said, trying for an encouraging smile to give all those gentle, worrying minds. “I want to get those people at the complex at least as badly as you do, so we can at least try this mind merging. Will my not being familiar with it make it harder to do?”
“No, wenda, only I need know what must be done,” Lamdon said, his voice as soothing as his smile. “Also would I have you realize that it shall not be we alone who benefit from the effort. You, too, will have an easing for your striving, an easing which should have been given you many days earlier. A pity there were none with Murdock McKenzie who possessed the ability, a great pity, a great pity, a great . . .”
His voice droned on and on without meaning, his lovely blue eyes growing larger and larger as his gentle mind came closer to mine. I had never seen eyes grow that big before, and before I knew it I was bathing in them, bathing in them, bathing . . .
And then I was taking a deep breath and blinking, needing to stretch a little where I sat on the carpet fur, but otherwise feeling better than I had in quite a while. I had an immediate sense of time having passed from the minds around me, so that meant whatever had been tried had worked even if I didn’t remember it. Lamdon wasn’t within inches of me as I seemed to remember him being so I was able to look around at the other men, but once I did the smile I had begun faded to nothing. The people in the room weren’t the same ones who had been there before that-merging, and I didn’t much care for most of the substitutions..
“Please don’t be angry, Terry,” Irin said as she moved. closer to me, her long skirt making the shift awkward. “You have a problem that needs to be solved for everyone’s sake, most especially yours. Lamdon helped us all understand what it was,. and now we have to make you understand. Will you let us do that?”
Her mind and eyes were filled with compassion and a very great need to help, but it was still all I could do to keep my anger from reaching out to her and everyone in the room. They were all desperate to help-Irin and Rissim and Lamdon and Garth and Len and Dallan and Hestin and that one called Tammad-whether or not I wanted to be helped. I sat silently for a moment, working to control myself, then nodded curtly.