“All right, Terry, why don’t you just say what you have to straight out,” he came back, the annoyance turning his voice into the next thing to a growl. Before all the time he’d spent on Rimilia, he would have reddened; right then he was more angry than embarrassed. “I know you’re dying to show me how wrong I am, so why don’t you just do it.”
“After a lovely invitation like that, I’ll be glad to,” I responded, leaning down to a red cushion as I grinned at him. “You’ve already said you know what I had to go through to develop strength and extra abilities, but there’s one thing you haven’t said. How do you know everyone else will have to go through the same?”
“Why-it stands to reason,” he answered, but more defensively and hesitantly as he frowned. “The people here have tried to go farther ahead, and haven’t been able to do it. You did it, but only after going through the outlying districts of hell. What other conclusion is it possible to draw?”
“Len, when people first started flying, they did more crashing into the ground than staying in the air,” I told him gently, feeling the attentiveness that now surrounded me—and from him as well, which was what I’d been trying for. “Just because the pioneers crashed doesn’t mean we have to accept crashing on a regular basis if we want to fly, all it means is that we have their pain to thank for our present comfort in traveling. I happen to believe that if you crash you’re not doing it right, and history tends to be on my side. When you know something is possible but dangerous you look around for a way to make it safe, and that’s called progress. ”
“I think you almost have me convinced,” he grudged, his mind a good deal happier and freer than his tone, and then his eyes were directly on me again. “I still don’t like the way you got me to listen, but I suppose stubbornness is another thing Primes and ordinary empaths have in common. And now, I’m happy to say, it’s my turn to give you a hand.”
“I’ve had a hand from you before,” I told his grin as I straightened off the cushion again, remembering all too clearly the times he’d touched me when I hadn’t wanted him to. “Since I don’t expect this time to be any better than the others, just do it so I can get back to my room.”
“Terry, you’re not about to be heartlessly violated,” he said, the words strong and direct without any pity or overgentleness to them, his eyes and mind the same. “You’re confused and very hurt over what happened to you, and all we’re going to do is clear the confusion away. Lamdon has already helped by making sure talking about it will be a little easier for you, so let’s get started. This First Prime named Kel-Ten, the man who claimed you; what kind of man was he, and what did he look like?”
“He didn’t look any different than anyone else,” I answered, taking my turn at frowning. “He was a fairly big man, and few of the others were able to match his size. He had’ blond hair and blue eyes, I suppose you would call him handsome. He had a lot of women to take care of due to his being First Prime, but he seemed to be more interested in me than in them, and not only because we were planning to escape together. I don’t know, there was something about the way he looked at me, especially after they told him he would be the first to-to—”
I couldn’t quite bring myself to talk about being bred like an animal, not even when it was fury I was beginning to feel at the thought instead of the desperate sickness I’d felt at the time. I looked away from Len while I tried to think of a more graceful way to get out of going on than simply stopping, but he saved me the trouble. He’d asked his question for a reason, and what answer I’d given was apparently enough.
“So the man was big, blond and blue-eyed, important, and claimed you because he wanted you,” Len summed up, ignoring the ragged ending I’d given him. “You remember everything about him, especially not liking him and not trusting him at all. What you claim you don’t remember is anything about Tammad, even though the rest of us can feel your hostility toward him without half trying. Terry: is it really true that you don’t remember Tammad—or are you remembering him with Kel-Ten imposed on top? Is it really Tammad you don’t want to know—or is it Kel-Ten you’re rejecting in his place?”
By that time I was back to looking at Len, the soberly intense questions he’d asked making me feel even more confused than I had moments earlier. I didn’t even glance at the big Rimilian to his left, but suddenly I became aware of a cloud of calm that was thinning around the edges. Underneath was a thick conglomeration of most of the more violent emotions-rage, fury, the need for vengeance, bloodlust, hatred—but somehow I knew none of that was aimed at me. What was aimed at me was something I had no interest in, something I didn’t even want to try to read.
“Terry, you’re backing away again,” Len said; a faint sound of warning in his voice. “If anyone should know you can’t solve a problem by running away, I’m it. Think about what I’m saying, and consider the possibility that it’s true: you’re blaming Tammad for something Kel-Ten did, but you aren’t doing it consciously. They must have put you through extra conditioning to erase Tammad from your memory, so you’re having a harder time bringing back the truth of him. With just about all of the rest of your memories restored you think you should be remembering him too, but you aren’t. What you’re doing is filling in the gaps with Kel-Ten, reconciling what’s missing that way. You do remember Tammad, but the Tammad you remember isn’t what you should be remembering. Won’t you admit that what I just said makes sense?”
Len’s voice had taken on a coaxing, urging quality, his effort to get me to admit the possibility shared by most of the minds around us. They all believed he was right and wanted me to believe it with them, but my mind had developed a sort of-transparent buffer that let me see the emotions being sent at me even as they were shunted past me. It was almost like what I’d seen that trainer do back in the complex, a trick I seemed to have borrowed to take care of the way other people’s minds influenced mine without my being aware of it. That was a problem Ashton had mentioned to me, one that was now settled. Another was that I was seeing Kel-Ten when I looked at Tammad, but only because they were two of a kind.
“What you said makes a lot of sense, Len,” I conceded, giving no indication that I saw the flash of triumph in his mind. “The only problem I have with it isit isn’t entirely true. I’ll admit I was lying when I said I didn’t remember Tammad; after seeing him a couple of times it all came back in a rush. Insisting I didn’t remember seemed the easiest way of getting everyone to stop pestering me about him, but since it isn’t working I might as well tell you all the truth. I remember everything about him, but I still don’t want to know him. Can I go back to my room now?”
A deafening uproar doesn’t necessarily have to be verbal, not when it’s a bunch of empaths you’re sitting among. The silent torrent of shock and protest and confusion would have come close to drowning me if that buffer hadn’t still been in place, and then the flood was distracted by the expected someone, who managed to put his thoughts into words first-as usual.
“Wenda, I cannot find meaning in what you have said,” Tammad told me, his voice soft and even despite the raging hurt and disappointment boiling around behind his cloud of calm. “You would have me believe you recall the life we had begun together, the deep full love we shared, and still you wish to know naught further of me? Surely must there continue to be confusion within you, a lack of true memory and the sight of another in my place. It cannot . . .”
“You don’t believe it’s you I’m remembering?” I interrupted, finally looking straight at him instead of avoiding it the way I’d been doing. “You still think it’s only Kel-Ten? Well, try this: He saw me and decided he wanted me, and I had no say in the matter. He really enjoyed taking me to bed, but the thought of sharing me with others of the Primes didn’t bother him at all. He forced me to obey him, dressed me the way he pleased, humiliated me any time the mood struck him, and never once doubted he had the right. Does any of that sound familiar to you, l’lenda? Can you never remember being amused over something that shamed me, was there never a time when what I wanted was immediately and absolutely dismissed from your consideration? If that’s your definition of love, I’d rather be hated. Or beaten, which is something else I’m sure you can’t remember ever having done to me. I really would like you to find someone else to love. I’m too tired to go through any more of that. ”