“You don’t have to be afraid of me,” he called while projecting heavy fear, his mind. steady and confident. “You’d be very wise if you were, but you don’t have to.”
The man had moderate strength in his range, but just as the trainer had said, he wasn’t one of the best. I shunted the spread-out fear past me, then sent back a little gift of my own.
“You don’t have to be sorry for what you did, but somehow I think you are,” I called back, playing the game while I sent him grief instead of sorrow. His mind blotted up the emotion like a dry towel dropped in a puddle, his frantic efforts to resist proving absolutely worthless. His eyes widened as he began to tremble, and then he was on his knees sobbing with heartbreak, his face buried in his hands. There was shock in the minds behind him, and then two of his friends came forward to help, while that second trainer I’d seen moved out of the crowd and came forward. By then the first one in black was standing beside me again, and he was the one the second trainer spoke to.
“Nothing,” he said as he came up, his face on the pale side. “If there was any spread I couldn’t detect it, and neither could the Primes in front of me. I was watching them at the same time.”
“Why should there have been any spread?” I asked innocently, just as though I didn’t know what the problem was. “I was taught to keep my projections tight. Weren’t the rest of you taught the same?”
The two men stared at me without answering, knowing damned well that everyone’s projections spread at least a little at the edge of their range. Since twenty feet should have been close to my limit they didn’t understand what was happening, but standing there guessing wasn’t getting them anywhere.
“We’ll go on to the next one,” the first trainer who was obviously in charge decided, ignoring me in favor of his coworker. “Get back in position.”
The second man nodded then turned and trotted back to where he’d been, passing another great Prime who had stepped out of the crowd to claim a line. This one wasn’t laughing or making clever comments, and the line he stood on was thirty feet away. As soon as I was alone again he launched his attack, which proved to be a little stronger than the previous one. Increasing your range also increases your strength, of course, and the scathing, belittling contempt should have sent me shuddering back in shame and inadequacy, firmly believing I had no chance against him. He also held the projection longer, which meant I had to work around what he was sending in order to reach him, but reach him I did. His projection began wavering when the insecurity touched him, and only seconds later he was also down on hands and knees, but not crying like his predecessor. His problem was that he was so unsure of himself he didn’t dare trust himself to stand without falling, and wasn’t even certain he could keep the floor under him with the help of his hands. This time there was a thick faintly frightened silence before anyone came forward to help him, and after that the muttering began.
“You’re playing some kind of game with us, aren’t you?” the first trainer said from his place to my left, having already gotten a headshake from his second in command in the crowd. “You’re showing nothing like enough power to do all that, but you’re still doing it. Who the hell are you, or better yet, what are you?”
“I’m a Prime of the Centran Amalgamation,” I answered, turning my head to look him in the eye. “Did you think they gave that calling just to superior men, and simply let the women use it to soothe their delicate little egos? Did it never occur to you that you might have done better training the girls?”
Again he simply stared at me, trying not to believe I was telling him women were potentially more powerful than men, an outright lie I was hoping they would all start to believe. They deserved to be driven wild for what they’d done to the women in that place, even if that wildness lasted only a little while. The ones who survived would learn the truth—but first they had to survive.
“You’re still playing games,” he said flatly after a moment, not really believing his supposed decision. “I don’t know what you’re after, but whatever it is, you won’t be getting it. Those who win their challenges also win the right to face the best, and that’s where you’ve managed to get yourself. They’ve already been sent for, so why don’t you spend the next five minutes getting your strength back?”
He gave me a very small, very cold smile and turned away, leaving me to stand on my line all alone. He couldn’t get through my curtain to really touch my mind, but after facing two challenges he knew I had to be very tired and almost to the end of my strength. If I had been tired five minutes wouldn’t have been long enough to rest even if I used trance, especially not with the big guns coming. Happily for me I hadn’t expended much in the way of strength so I didn’t have to rest, but there was no sense in sharing that piece of information, even though it would have made them all feel worse. Let them think I was tired but stubbornly refusing to admit it; their eventual enlightening and disappointment would only be that much sharper.
Anyone watching me should have concluded I was waiting deep in worried thought, but instead of worrying I was looking around for some indication that the attack was starting. The crash teams were scheduled to come in first and disable the outer defense weapons, and then they were to do the same with the inner ones if they could. No one wanted them setting off alarms or cutting off the lighting system to warn the inhabitants our fighters were on the way, but once those fighters were inside, the defenses would go no matter what went with them. Our fighting force consisted of those of Central stock with sophisticated hand weapons, those of Rimilian stock with swords, and everyone with a mind shield for defense and Prime strength for offense. The w’wendaa with us hadn’t been trained to community-level ability, but they’d been paired with mind warriors as a protection, and also to give them a chance to see what it was possible to accomplish. The community had a large number of l’lendaa but only a few w’wendaa, and they’d been invited to join the attack in an effort to recruit some of them. The community wanted them to join and train, but believed more in enticement than in coercion.
I touched a number of minds around the building, finding nothing out of the ordinary, and then I caught just a trace of extreme pain before the mind winked out. Unconscious or dead I couldn’t tell, but I was definitely able to detect a number of shields around the place that mind had turned off in.- It had to mean at least one of the crash teams had made it inside the building, which also meant it would only be a matter of minutes before everyone else joined them. I found myself flooded with vast relief even as I pulled my mind back, finally able to admit I’d been starting to feel very alone again. Just being in the complex made my hands want to shake, but knowing I would soon have my own there helped to keep them as steady as I needed them to be.
“Rest time is over, girl,” the trainer’s voice came suddenly, a lot of satisfaction in it. “Open your eyes and turn around, you have very special visitors waiting to get a look at their challenger.”
I opened my eyes and turned as he’d suggested, but the newcomers weren’t in any way surprising. The crowd had separated and moved left and right in the room, leaving a broad aisle that framed three men who stood at the other end. Two were in red shorts and top, one of them Ank-Soh and the other most probably his co-holder of second place, they two in turn framing the man who stood between them. That one was dressed in the gold he alone was permitted to wear, and even at that distance I could tell his eyes were on me. His emotions were being held rigidly in check, and someone who didn’t know better would think Kel-Ten was only faintly interested in answering my challenge.