The Warrior Victorious

15

I sat on the bed with the top of my brown uniform open and the cloth shoved down to the middle of my arms, bared to the sight and touch of the null. His left hand fondled my breast just as any man’s hand would, but he wasn’t just any man. He’d already hurt me once for being too slow in getting the uniform open, and my flesh still ached under the hand that now gently stroked and caressed it. He was deliberately giving himself enjoyment without giving any to me, and I didn’t know how long I could take being treated like that without going insane.

“Most people would have trouble believing how really easy it is to train a woman,” he said as he touched me, the words not only casual but downright lazy. “First thing you do is teach her what pain is, and then, once she learns, you give her a very small amount of pleasure or even kindness. After a while you find she’ll do anything to get that small amount of pleasure, anything to get even one kind word. At that point she’s completely yours, and you’ll never have trouble with her again.”

Or you can give her all the love and understanding you have, and give her pain only when she forces you to it, I thought. That’s the way Tammad had done it, and his way had also made me completely his. That was the difference between Tammad and Kel-Ten, I realized, the difference that had brought me to love one while I hated the other. Tammad had done what he had for my sake rather than his own, and would never have done even half of it if I hadn’t forced him to it. I’d tried to reach the mind of my beloved for one last touch, but even though the room wasn’t shielded I hadn’t been able to find him. I hadn’t, in fact, been able to reach anyone in twenty minutes of trying, which had told me I really was lost for good.

“You know, if I didn’t know better I’d think you were ignoring me,” the null said, the gentleness of his stroking unchanged. “Are you telling yourself that if you close your eyes I’ll just go away?”

I shook my head and then did close my eyes, finding the truth of what he’d once said to a doctor in that place. With my eyes closed he wasn’t there even if I did still feel his hand, a hand without a mind behind it and of someone who wasn’t there. But of course he was there, I knew he was there, I just couldn’t see him with my mind. He was hidden away and out of sight somewhere, on another frequency or in another dimension . . . .

“Don’t!” I screamed, trying to bend forward with the pain his fingers were giving me, his hands keeping me from pulling away. “Don’t hurt me like that!”

“In what way would you like me to hurt you?” he asked in the same lazy tone, not easing up at all. “You won’t ever be allowed to ignore me, you know, and closing your eyes will never make me go away. You can’t see me any more than those imbeciles could see you were awake, but that only means you’ll never be able to touch me. I’m the one who’ll do the touching, and you’re the one who’ll feel it.”

I cried out again as his fingers twisted harder, but part of the scream held the possibility of triumph rather than the ring of pain. He’d been trying to torture me with how impossible it was to reach, him, but instead he just might have given me the key to where he was! I struggled my arms up despite the uniform holding them down and beat at his face in an effort to make him let me go, knowing my mind-tool would help me do what I had to if I could just stop the pain long enough to reach it. He cursed at me as he blocked my fists, and then the room was spinning and clanging from the slap he gave me, my cheek flaming to fire as I went over sideways on the bed. The next instant his fingers were twisted in my hair again, and I was pulled to my back to see him looming over me.

“You’re not picking up on this very well, pretty girl,” he said hoarsely, the look in his dark eyes so cold I shivered. “I’m the one who does the hitting, you’re the one who does the getting hit. Here, let me show you again how it goes.”

He raised his left fist angled back and down, giving me more than enough time to see where he was aiming. He was going to hit me in the stomach, probably to keep the bruises from annoying him by showing caring nothing at all about what damage he might do. I needed time to try the idea I’d had, but he wasn’t giving me time—and then I nearly screamed again at the sound of the door shattering. He let me go instantly and threw himself from the bed, and when I managed to struggle half erect I saw

Tammad, standing in the room with pieces of door scattered on the floor behind him, that giant sword in his fist, kill-lust in his mind. He’d seen what Adjin had been about to do to me and knew what had already been done, and all he wanted was to end the life of the man he stared at. I couldn’t believe he was there, couldn’t believe he had found me, couldn’t believe it was all over

“Don’t come any closer, savage,” Adjin said in a very cool, very unexcited voice, obviously talking to my beloved. When I turned my head furiously to look at him, the words I would have said froze on my tongue. Adjin had something small and round pointed at me, and the faint smile on his face was no bluff.

“If you so much as think about taking another step, I’ll kill her,” the null said, his hand absolutely steady on the weapon. “Then you’ll be able to kill me, but she’ll still be dead. If you don’t want it to happen, put that sticker back in its nest, then get rid of the whole belt.”

“Don’t listen to him!” I shouted as quickly as I could, looking at the barbarian, but I was already too late. Knowing men and what they were capable of far better than I ever would, Tammad was wasting no time following instructions. His light, furious eyes were locked to the dark ones watching him, his teeth showed in a silent snarl, but his hands were already empty and reaching for his swordbelt. I’m sure he knew he would be dead at most only minutes after he disarmed himself, but that didn’t matter to him as long as I lived.

Well, congratulations, Terry, you managed to get rescued, a voice inside me said, sounding sickeningly sweet. Now that Tammad’s started the ball rolling, do you think you might make the effort to give him a hand?

“Damn!” I said under my breath, immediately reaching for my mind tool. Talk about your softheaded, helpless females! The big hero arrives, and she just sits there and watches him die. That could have been the meaning of the conviction I’d had, that I’d never belong to Tammad because he would soon die, but if it happened it would not be because I just sat there!

Putting my mind-tool into use always seems to make time stretch, as though everyone but me has slowed to a crawl. That time I really needed the edge, as I had no true idea of what to do to make my guess work. Adjin had said something about me not being able to see his mind any more than the complex people had been able to see I was awake, and that had to be the answer. No one had known I was awake because I’d been shielded, that being the only way to keep an empath from a living mind. It had suddenly come to me to wonder if it were possible that nulls were born shielded, and not being empaths had no way of ever banishing that shield. If that proved true then their emotions were right where they could be easily reached-by someone who knew how to get through a shield.

But I’d had the time to examine Firmer’s mind closely, and hadn’t been able to detect the gaps an ordinary shield contained! If my theory was true, then it had to be an impenetrable shield that enclosed their minds, and there was no way to get through one of those. All it was possible to do was go around it, and I hadn’t been able to get around Rissim’s shield or Irin’s—

But you also didn’t want to hurt Rissim or Irin by experimenting, that inner voice reminded me, the mind-tool immediately calming my upset which had begun growing. You may not have the room to get around the null’s shield, but if you hurt him will you really care?

Yes, I admitted with the calm I was being made to feel, but I’ll do it anyway. I have to do it, or he’ll just go on hurting more and more innocents.

“That’s exactly what I wanted,” Adjin’s voice came, and I looked up to see that Tammad had tossed away his swordbelt—and the null was beginning to swing the weapon toward him! Mind-tool or not, I’d run out of time, and whatever I did had to be done fast! I gathered the sensation of touching something unbearably hot, pushed it forward, then swung it around toward where the null’s emotions should have been. There was an agonizingly long wait of seconds, and then—

“Yeow!” the null screamed, flinging away the weapon he’d almost had leveled on the barbarian. Tammad’s eyes lit with delight, a growl sounded in his throat, and then he was launching himself at the man he so achingly wanted to reach.

By rights it should have been over with then and there, but I’d forgotten the reason why Secs didn’t need to carry weapons. Adjin was still shaking the pain out of his hand when Tammad reached him, but at the last second he turned and lashed out with a kick. The big barbarian grunted and bent over, the impetus of his charge wiped out, and Adjin grinned and put himself into an odd-looking semi-crouch. He wasn’t much smaller than Tammad, but it was clear his confidence came from something other than size.

The next couple of minutes made me get to my knees on the bed and clench my fists, but despite the fact that Tammad wasn’t doing at all well, I knew I couldn’t interfere. Every time it looked like the big barbarian was about to get his hands on the Sec, Adjin would lean away and land a kick, but if I tried helping by touching him again, I knew Tammad would be furious. At that point I wasn’t feeling very understanding or reasonable, but I had to admit he would have had cause to be furious. I’d lately been part of a number of confrontations myself, and with one or two of them I would have flayed anyone who tried to interfere for whatever reason. There are some battles you just have to fight for yourself, and what Tammad was then engaged in was one of those.

Despite the fact that he was losing. They’d only been going at it for a few minutes, but the barbarian was already sweating and not just from the exertion. Most of the sweat came from the pain he’d been given, and at first Adjin had really enjoyed giving it. After the first couple of kicks Tammad had learned to shift just a little before the blow landed, and Adjin hadn’t liked that. He kept on kicking at him and reaching after that, but he was no longer grinning while he did it.

The punishment went on and on, but if I was upset I would have bet Adjin was frantic. Every time the Sec kicked him now it looked like he expected the Rimilian to go down, but Tammad refused to do it. He staggered under the strength of the blow, his body streaming the sweat of agony, but the kill-look in his light eyes refused to fade and his hands refused to stop reaching for the throat they wanted. Adjin knew that if he faltered even once he was done, but all that kicking must have been very tiring. His white uniform was beginning to darken with his own sweat, but he didn’t dare stop to rest.

I was listing again all the reasons I shouldn’t interfere, my palms aching from the fingernails dug into them, when the end suddenly came. Adjin, horribly tired but forcing himself to go on, launched another kick, but one that lacked the speed the previous ones had had. Tammad, exultation in his mind, immediately grabbed the foot coming at him, something he’d done once before earlier in the fight. The first time Adjin had shifted his balance and kicked up with the foot he’d been standing on, and Tammad had been thrown back and away, having time to return to his feet but with nothing to show for his efforts.

The second time, however, was another story. Almost automatically Adjin tried using his free foot again, but the strength and speed just weren’t there. Tammad knocked the second kick away with his arm while throwing himself forward, and the two of them went down together. Adjin tried desperately to reach Tammad with his hands, but the big barbarian moved behind him and wrapped a wide arm around his throat. Adjin screamed as his body was pulled back in an arc, struggled to free himself and reach the man who held him, but it was too late. An almost soundless snap came, and his screams were ended forever.

After that there were two unmoving bodies on the floor, and I lost no time getting to the one that was still breathing. Tammad’s mind was filled with nothing but pain and exhaustion, even the sense of victory buried beneath those two, but I no longer had to worry about distracting him. I knelt on the floor and pulled his head into my lap, then reached out to him with the pain control that was healing. I also took one of his hands to hold, but as far as I know that did nothing to add to my mind’s efforts.

It took quite a few minutes, but when I felt his body and mind eased far enough that his own recuperative powers could handle it from then on, I withdrew. I opened my eyes to see a pair of blue eyes gazing up at me, a smile on the face beneath them, the hand I held now holding me as well. It’s unbelievably good to open your eyes to something like that, and I couldn’t help matching the smile I was getting.

“Have I ever told you what a really beautiful sight you are?” I asked, smoothing aside a lock of his long, blond, still-wet hair. “Especially when you come crashing through a door like that?”

“I seem to recall a time when you felt differently, wenda,” he answered, his smile changing to a grin. “It was the occasion of your very first banding, and I doubt that you would have aided me as greatly then as you did this day. Also did you aid me in withholding aid after the first of it, and I find myself greatly satisfied to see that at last you have learned the mind and heart of the l’lenda who is yours.”

“I thought it was about time I did,” I said, deciding it would be wise to refrain from adding how close I’d come to doing exactly the opposite. “It was particularly wonderful seeing you arrive like that because I never thought you would. How did you find me?”

“I followed the trail of your thoughts,” he said, his grin slipping just a little as he forced himself to sitting. “It was not your mind which I came upon when I was able to seek you, hama, it was a-trail of thoughts which showed your passage. I know of no other way to give explanation to one who has not hunted, yet was the matter clear to me and easily taken advantage of. It was a trail of longing which I followed as a hunter, and at the end of it was you—and that one.”

The gesture he made in the direction of Adjin’s body was full of the contempt and disgust he felt, this time both of the emotions tinged with the-sense of victory he hadn’t been able to feel properly earlier. I was surprised that something like what he’d done with his mind was possible, but that wasn’t what kept me from even glancing at the former null. The terror I’d felt every time I looked at or thought about Adjin was gone, more completely than his being dead would account for, despite the fact that emotions like that tend to hang on and haunt you even after the reason for them is removed. I thought about the oddity for a moment, and then suddenly I knew why it had happened. My terror had come from the very real possibility that he would kill Tammad, but I hadn’t known that. I’d thought it was personal terror I was feeling, but once he’d died the terror had done the same.

Tammad and I spent a few minutes getting ourselves and/or our possessions together, and then we left the room. I followed him through a part of the complex I’d never seen before, one that was apparently underground, the walk taking us past line after line after line of small metal doors stacked one above the other. There was also an endless amount of mechanical equipment I couldn’t identify and didn’t know the purpose of, but for some reason I didn’t like it. If Tammad hadn’t had his arm around me I would have put a near-death grip on him, and to hell with how helpless-female-like it would have been. There was something about those oblong metal doors that bothered me, and sometimes it feels good to admit just how frightened of something you are.

I would have enjoyed leaving that area as fast as possible, but we walked for a good ten minutes before we came to the end of it. By that time we also came to something else, a group of our own people who had turned from the wall they’d been examining when they’d heard us coming. One of the group was Ashton, and I could have felt the relief in her mind a mile away.

“Tammad-bless you for finding her!” she called as soon as we were near enough, stepping away from the others to meet us part way. “We were all sick with worry, but when you disappeared too, we began feeling some hope. You’d better get her back above to let the others know you rescued her.”

“It would be far more accurate to say the rescue was accomplished through the efforts of us both,” Tammad answered, his arm briefly tightening around me as he grinned. “I find myself filled with great pride over the doings of my l’lenda wenda, and also over that which she fails to do.”

“I figured out how to reach the mind of a null, but didn’t step in when it came to finishing him off,” I explained with a shrug in answer to Ashton’s questioning look, inwardly very satisfied with the arrangement Tam-: mad and I had come up with. I took care of the mental fighting while he took care of the physical, each of us doing what he or she did best and using it to protect the other. Then Ashton’s look changed from questioning to sly, so I thought it best to change the subject.

“How can you people take standing around down here sightseeing?” I demanded, muffling a shiver. “Looking at the null’s body wasn’t as hard to do.”

“So you feel it too,” Ashton said with something of a smile, gesturing to the others in her party. “So far only two of us have gotten the creepies, but that could be because we know what it is. Have you ever seen this much stasis equipment before?”

“What’s stasis equipment doing way down here?” I asked, finding no relief in having the machinery identified. “It’s usually set up a lot closer to food distribution points, and why would they need so much of it? Even with the number of people needing to be fed in this place, they must have enough here to hold three times their number for a thousand years.”

“This equipment has nothing to do with food,” she answered, then hesitated very briefly before adding, “Terry, do you remember saying the male Primes here weren’t able to think about what happened to a First Prime when a newcomer defeated him? Well, did it ever occur to you to ask why they would train Primes as far as they could, only to put them out of the way when they were finally defeated? It wouldn’t make much sense, would it?”

“No, it wou—” I started, intending to agree, and then I felt a shudder run completely through me. “Oh, Ashton, you don’t mean- They couldn’t have—”

“Wiped out the final defeat from their minds, then put them in stasis?” she said, the faint smile on her face doing a bad job of hiding the sickness she felt. “That’s exactly what they did, we’re told, and they’ve been doing it for many years. If wed waited much longer to hit them, we would have been badly outnumbered. Our-reluctant-informant told us they were just about to start bringing them all out of it, the first step in their active plan of conquest. Now we have to figure out how to do it, and in a way that will hurt them the least. Need a job when we get back to Rimilia?”

I shivered again and didn’t answer, just looked for and found the way out of there. No wonder that place was so awful, all those living minds stopped virtually in midthought! They were living dead men who would know nothing of the passage of time when they were brought out of it, who would still think they were the best ever made, who would still be spoiling to face challenges. Work with that? I knew I’d rather be back working for Aesnil in Grelana.

It took us a while to trudge up the ramps that led aboveground, but once we made it the peace and quiet were over. The fighting had long since stopped from the initial attack, but bodies were still being cleared away, wounded were being treated, and the resident Primes without ringing heads were making absolute pains of themselves. I called up my curtain to filter out as much of the mental noise as I could, then sent my mind searching for Rissim and Irin. I made contact long before I saw them, which meant they were both grinning by the time they were in view. Irin hugged me while Rissim thanked Tammad with slaps to the back that should have knocked him down, then Rissim hugged me while Irin got up on tiptoe and kissed Tammad’s cheek. They’d sent someone to tell Murdock I was all right they said, and then they had to leave to go back to what they’d been doing. We arranged to meet again after things had quieted down a little, and then Tammad and I went searching for a calm corner where we could sit down and talk.

When I looked into the lounge I was hoping it was empty, but the answer turned out to be, no such luck. Instead of being empty the room held quite a few w’wendaa guarding a number of prisoners, and as soon as they saw me a cheer went up.

“Chama, we knew you could not have been slain!” one of the women said for all of them, coming forward with pleasure in her mind. “These darayse are naught, and far from the ability required to best you. We feared only that they had harmed you with unfair means.”

“They tried, but happily they didn’t make it,” I answered, speaking in Centran as I stepped farther into the room because the w’wendaa had. Apparently all of our force had been equipped with both languages, and—

“Hey, sweet thing, how about putting in a word for me?” a voice called, startling me into looking around to see Kel-Ten getting to his feet. His gold outfit was dirty and sweat-stained, and a small line of dried blood showed at the corner of his mouth. “After all these hours, I think I’m getting tired of being patient.”

“It’s all right,” I said to the w’wenda nearest him who was reaching for her sword, then moved a few steps closer. “I’m sure the First Prime will prove to be no enemy-once the drugs and conditioning are removed from him.”

“And there’s probably more of it to remove than even I thought,” he said with a grimace, relief showing in his mind when the w’wenda took her hand from her hilt. “I spent hours asking myself why you’d left without me—and then got around to wondering why you’d found it possible to go alone when I hadn’t. I didn’t know then what sort of mind you really had, but the question was enough to start me thinking. When I faced you across the training room and felt you ordering me to have patience instead of begging me to forgive you, I knew something was going on. I thought starting a riot was the least I could do, especially after you’d gotten them ready for it by shaking them up. We were so far into it we almost got cut down by these people of yours, but they seemed to know it wasn’t them we were after.”

“They’re good at knowing things like that,” I agreed with a nod. “When they finally get things straightened out enough to turn you loose, check with one of the technicians before you use a chef to get anything to eat or drink. I know they intend getting rid of the drug programming, but I don’t know when they’ll have time for it. If they haven’t gotten around to it, use someone not in the memory to order for you.”

I started to turn away from him, relieved to have gotten through the conversation so easily, but he wasn’t through. He put a hand on my arm to stop me, and when I looked up at him he grinned.

“Speaking about the drugs and what they do to you, I-ah-still have something of a problem,” he said, the hand on my arm squeezing suggestively. “Since you still owe me for what I did for you, how about the two of us going back to my apartment where you can-see to my problem. ”

He began to send me the heat in his mind, a heat that had more personal choice than drug-induced need behind it, but I didn’t get the chance to throw it back at him the way I wanted to. A thick arm reached over my left shoulder, the hand attached to the arm closing on his throat, and suddenly heat wasn’t the main problem on Kel-Ten’s mind.

“Should you wish the touching of my woman, you must first face and best me,” Tammad said, his calm tone widening the eyes of the man he held by the throat. “Such a doing is called offering a challenge, and in no manner will you find me reluctant to answer. Is this what you wish, to offer a challenge?”

It was right then that I discovered how satisfying—and amusing-it can be to have a certain someone take care of certain annoyances for you. Kel-Ten’s mind darted to Tammad’s, took one good look, then flinched back in a hurry. At that point in time Kel-Ten was slightly stronger than the barbarian, but only because he had trained and practiced so long. He had no trouble recognizing a mind that had the potential of being much stronger, and wanted nothing to do with a mind like that—or the sword worn by the body surrounding the mind. When he shook his head, Tammad let him go with a small push, sending him back to sprawl again on the couch where he’d been sitting.

“Outworlders are clearly more than foolish,” the w’wenda standing to my right said to Kel-Ten, grinning faintly at the way he rubbed at his throat. “Think you our Chama is unprotected in matters not concerning the power? Such is the purpose of the l’lenda who bands her, to see to her safety at times her w’wendaa cannot. To her go the duties of the mind, to him the duty of the sword. To protect one of such importance is a duty fit only for the best of the best, which we have learned this l’lenda is. You, too, I think, have now learned the same.”

The look Kel-Ten shot Tammad was not one of awed respect, but I barely noticed that in the midst of thepleasurepride-flattered happiness-that was coming in waves from the man standing beside me. I didn’t quite understand what that meant, so once we had left the lounge I decided to find out.

“Have you given up your plans to be denday of dendayy?” I asked, trying not to dread the answer. “You seemed to be so pleased with what that w’wenda said about you, but I thought . . . ”

“Hama, I have not given over my ambitions,” he said with a smile, sending me reassurance. “My people now no longer need protection from those who would use them badly, yet is there still the matter of adjustment to consider. They will require guidance and assistance, aid I mean to see they have.”

“But the woman spoke of you as nothing but my protector,” I said as we moved along the hall, more confused than ever. “If you still have plans to be much more than that, why weren’t you insulted?”

“I felt no insult for the reason that I, too, consider the matter of your protection to be greatly important,” he said, stopping us where we were so that he could make me look up at him. “Think you there are any about who would joy to see your life held in the hands of one with little or no skill? Such a one is not I even should there be others, but wenda-do none in your worlds have two tasks of great importance which they see to? Such things are not easily done, yet are they possible of accomplishment. Do you feel I would seek to shirk one or the other?”

I shook my head as I leaned against him, holding him around as he held me. Most men, I felt, would have considered being my bodyguard a menial task, especially if they happened to be important in their own right. That Tammad looked at it differently—and more wonderfully-was not that much of a surprise, but hearing him say it only reminded me that I also had something to say.

“Hamak, I have to tell you something,” I whispered after a moment, really wishing I didn’t have to. “Help me find some place private where we can talk.”

He smoothed my hair as he looked down at me, concern in his mind as well as his eyes, but he didn’t argue. It took us a while to find a small lounge that wasn’t being used for something else, but once we did we closed the door and sat down on a couch to hold each other around. I didn’t know if he could feel the fear in me, but before it turned me speechless I started the story of the child that had been ours. By the time I was through I was crying, my shield closed tight to keep his reactions from me, the reactions I was very much afraid would be hatred and disgust. He held me tight to his chest as he stroked my hair, his silence more painful than what had been done to me in the complex, and then he sighed.

“Hama, this tale you tell distresses me greatly,” he said, very little life left in his voice. “I had not understood the reason for your own distress over my not having told you of my intentions to reclaim you from your embassy, yet is my understanding now more than clear. A man who wishes the child he has planted retains the wenda who carries it. To send her from him, most especially with no other there to band her, is to say he wishes naught of the child. I had not known I -had put such agony on you, and nearly do I lack the courage to once more ask your forgiveness.”

“My forgiveness?” I blurted, raising my head to look at him. “But the child was yours, and I never even told you about it! If you’d known you probably would have told me what you were doing, and all this grief could have been avoided.”

“And yet, I did not then look upon you as I do now,” he said, raising one hand to stroke my face. “Then you were beloved yet no more than a wenda, and no l’lenda has need of sharing his intentions with one such as that. This tragedy was given life in the same manner a child is-by the combined doings of two. Perhaps best would be that we share the burden, and in such a manner lighten it each for the other. You say you have already taken the lives of those responsible for our loss?”

“Some of them,” I answered, opening my shield to find that he was grieving rather than blaming. “There are others also responsible, and if they survive the attack on their headquarters on Central, I think we ought to pay them a visit.

“L’lenda wenda,” he said with a faint smile, taking my face in both of his hands. “Indeed are you changed from the woman I knew, changed in a manner I had not thought would please me. No longer do you accuse me of all manner of odd doings, no longer do you seek to disobey me in all things, no longer do you deny the love you feel. And I, I am fully as changed as you, for no longer do I feel your obedience necessary to my happiness, and no longer do I wish to discount what council you give me as foolishness. Much pain did we both need to suffer to accomplish these ends, yet have we finally and in truth accomplished them.”

He lowered his head and kissed me then, knowing I wanted him to, but I discovered he’d made more progress in reading emotions than I’d thought. The kiss only continued for a minute or two, and then he raised his head.

“Something continues to disturb you,” he said, trying to look at me with his mind as well as his eyes. “I feel the presence of the disturbance, yet am I unable to reach its cause. Will you speak of the matter to me?”

“I don’t think I should,” I answered, leaning forward to put my cheek against his chest. “That last time I mentioned this problem to you you refused to listen, which made me do some things to force you to go along, which eventually got me spanked. I don’t care for the idea of getting spanked again.”

“Hama, you cannot mean that you continue to feel we must part!” he protested, more confused than angry. “After all we have faced, both together and apart, how are you able to believe such a thing?”

“Do you think the choice is mine?” I asked in turn, raising my head to look at him. “You may be a heartless, overgrown barbarian who spanks the woman foolish enough to love him, but that’s a habit that can be broken and there are plenty of men around with worse faults. I don’t want to believe what I’m feeling, but preferences don’t seem to matter.”

“I cannot see how such a thing may be,” he said with a shake of his head, anger and frustration finally getting a grip on him. “Who is there about capable of taking you from me? Who might there possibly be to lure me from your side?”

“I think you’re sounding a little too interested in that second question,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him. “Maybe what I’m being told is that I’ll catch you fooling around with another woman, and because of that I’ll drop a building on your head.”

“Such jealousy does not become you, hama,” he said with a grin, really enjoying the way I was feeling. “Each time you imagine me of interest to another, you speak of doing me harm. I, however, in greater generosity, speak only of doing harm to he who might take you from me. Clearly are l’lendaa possessed of more generous natures than wendaa. ”

“Oh, sure they are,” I said with a very slow nod. “Their natures are so generous, they feel it’s their duty to share themselves with every female who walks, staggers or crawls past them. Unfair as it undoubtedly is, people with natures like, that do sometimes come to a bad end.”

“There is but one end I currently find of interest, hama sadendra,” he said, his grin still there as he pulled me down flat on the couch with him. “Try though I might, I cannot envision any other end ever taking my fancy as does the one I possess. Though duty may call me a thousand times, ever shall I return to the end which is mine.”

“How many times?” I demanded in a growl, raising my hands to bury my fists in his hair. “If nature doesn’t kill you, duty has a damned good second shot at it!”

He laughed aloud then held me still for his kiss, and it wasn’t long before I was rushing to get out of the brown uniform. We’d teased each other about jealousy and then made very strenuous love, but that doesn’t mean we erased the cloud of the child wed lost—or forgot the probability that wed never have the chance to make one to replace it.

The day after the attack was calmer than the previous night had been, and I spent the morning working with some of the community’s people trying to get through the conditioning of the female Primes. It was a job very much like pulling out teeth using nothing but fingers; we knew what we wanted to do, but couldn’t seem to get a good enough grip to accomplish it.

While I was occupied with frustration, Tammad and a large number of our fighters went to sort out the mess in the smaller building that was a short distance from the main complex. A couple of crash teams had entered it at the same time different ones had entered the main complex, but all they did then was disable every mechanical system in the place except for what was labeled life-support. Most of the personnel in that building had been locked in their apartments or rooms for the night, and were going to be tackled one or two at a time. I would have preferred going along with Tammad, but the stubborn beast decided I couldn’t and that was that. With the only fighting likely to occur being physical in nature he did have a point, but point or not I didn’t like it.

He and most of the others were back by lunchtime looking very little the worse for wear, so he and I found Rissim and Irin, and we four Vent back to racking our brains while we ate. Our little group had done the same the night before, but we were coming up with so much nothing you would have thought we were a full committee. I knew I would never belong to Tammad but I didn’t know why, and none of us could come up with a reason for it—or a suggestion as to how it might be avoided.

We had just reached the point of agreeing that what was causing my conviction might very well be that Tammad and I were destined to die of frustration-with Irin and Rissim joining us-when one of the expedition people came to interrupt. Murdock sent his compliments, and asked that I join him for a short while to discuss something important. I couldn’t remember ever receiving someone’s compliments before and was tempted to return my criticisms along with my agreement, but I was the only one who considered the situation amusing. Irin immediately decided he was about to send me off somewhere again—the hidden reason behind my’ feeling we hadn’t known about before—and promptly stood up with the very clear intention of committing murder. Rissim also stood, mainly with the intention of keeping her from doing anything foolish, but part of him was sharing her urge toward violence if it turned out her guess was right. Tammad made it a threesome when he got to his feet, and it wasn’t even necessary to touch his mind; the way he stood very straight but loose, as though he might need to draw his sword at any minute, the lack of all expression on his face, the cold, distant look in his eyes . . .

I sighed before I got up, but sighing didn’t accomplish anything at all. I still had three grim silences following me as I followed Murdock’s messenger, giving me the feeling I was casting a triple shadow.

The room we were led to was in the executive wing, a large, poshly decorated setup meant for party-meetings rather than just meetings, and Murdock turned out not to be alone. Ashton was there and so was Lamdon, and with them was the woman from the group who investigated mental abilities. Our guide led us in then left after closing the door, and Murdock showed one of his wintry smiles.

“I hadn’t expected you to have an escort, Terrilian,” he said from the chair he sat in, his mind more amused than his expression showed. “I’m somewhat surprised there are no w’wendaa as well.”

“If it’s a w’wenda you want, I may soon oblige you, brother,” Irin said, stepping forward to stand beside me. “What is it that you want from her this time?”

“He doesn’t necessarily want something from her, Irin,” Ashton put in from her chair to Murdock’s right, obviously trying to soothe her sister. “You three look like we intend dismantling her to find out where her power comes from. Has any of you any idea how much strength that would take?”

“I do,” I said, trying to keep it light. “Especially after the meal I just had. I must be fueled for a month, not to speak of against all comers.”

“Why don’t all of you sit down,” Murdock suggested, nodding toward the half circle of empty chairs facing the four already occupied. “You all know Lamdon and Kaila and they know you, so what need is there for us to act like a group of strangers?”

“At the moment there’s no need,” Irin said, not conceding an inch of ground. “If that happens to change, you’ll be the first to know.”

She headed herself to the chair to the left of the one I was taking, but she and I were the only ones who sat. I didn’t have to turn around to know Tammad and Rissim had stationed themselves behind my chair, and the small, satisified smile on Irin’s face said she knew it, too. Three of the four people sitting opposite us were clearly dying to ask what was going on, but the show was Murdock’s and he was more interested in getting on with it.

“Terrilian, I asked you to come here so that you might be told a number of things,” he said, “and one of the items should be of interest to Irin as well. I would like to begin by informing you that our strike at Rathmore Hellman and his people was just as successful as our enterprise here. An interim deputy now holds his chair, one of our people, I might add, and very soon there will be places for many of ours in the government. We mean to see that those of our blood are never captured and used again.”

“She doesn’t want to go back to Central, and she doesn’t want to work in your government,” lrin said flatly, staring at Murdock. “What she wants is to stay on Rimilia. ”

“A gratifying decision, inasmuch as Rimilia is where she will be most needed,” Murdock replied politely, almost distracted enough to be puzzled. “We mean to build a relocation center there, to house those of our nonassociated brothers and sisters who wish to join us, as well as the current residents of creches. From now on we will train our own blood, without the conditioning which makes tools of them.”

“And don’t forget about the retraining of the residents of this building and its basement hideaway,” Ashton said, for a moment sounding bone-deep weary. “I think we’d all better plan on living very long lives.”

“Each problem will be seen to in its own time,” Murdock said, sounding serenely confident. “With the help of the Rimilians themselves, we’ll build something worth being a part of. But we also have an additional goal now, and I yield the floor to Kaila so that she may tell you what she so recently told me.”

“Our group has done some investigating, questioning, guessing and concluding, and I’m wondering where to start,” Kaila said, smiling at me as she shifted in her chair. “I don’t know if anyone’s told you, Terry, but our community was established on Rimilia because one of us at the time discovered that a number of Rimilians had mind abilities very like our own. Not only were we able to hide on the planet, we were also able to bring in strong new blood to add to ours. At the very beginning males were needed for the high percentage of females born, and when some of our girls got old enough they went out with l’lendaa to protect them and looked for men to take back as mates. Quite a lot of them were dark-haired and greeneyed, and that’s why those traits are so highly prized among Rimilians even today.”

“Indeed,” Rissim said, drawing a flash of amusement from Lamdon. “What l’lenda would fail to prize a woman with the power, to have in his furs if for naught else. ”

“There are additional considerations, of course,” Tammad said in agreement, “yet would that point alone be sufficient.”

“Yes,” Kaila said after clearing her throat, knowing they were teasing her, but also knowing better than to continue on with the subject. “We were rather upset, to say the least, when we learned Rathmore Heilman’s group meant to use the planet, but there was nothing we dared do to stop it. It wasn’t beyond Rathmore to cause an ‘accident’ that would decimate the population of the world if he didn’t get the cooperation he wanted. Murdock will tell you more about that in a little while, so I’ll just skip to what happened with you and your abilities, Terry.”

I nodded as I dialed the chair for a glass of wine, wondering if I would like what I was about to hear. I knew what had happened to me better than she did, but she seemed to be looking at the scenes with more information than I had.

“You started out with nothing more in the way of ability than any other Prime, but that soon changed,” Kaila said to me, her smile still warm and friendly. “Thanks to Murdock’s planning you were allowed to remain awake when you first returned from Rimilia, and his theorythat our people didn’t develop in their talents because of being unawakened most of the time-was proven almost immediately. According to your own account you began discovering the possibility of a shield as far back as your assignment on Alderan, which was really the beginning of it.”

“A beginning fraught with disturbance for one who knew not what was occurring,” Lamdon said, empathy flowing from his mind to mine. “Another might well have retreated from that unknown; your courage does you credit, girl.”

“After that you progressed slowly, until the time of your struggle in the resting place of the Sword,” Kaila went on, giving me no chance to correct Lamdon. I didn’t have courage; all I had was stubbornness. “You were given quite a lot of pain because of the storms raging at the time, storms you’d never grown used to because you weren’t raised on Rililia.”

“You know, I never thought of that,” I said slowly, ignoring the glass of wine my chair had produced for me. “If you people live in that area all the time, those storms must make your lives absolute hell. How can any of you stand it?”

“After the first few, the storms never bother us,” Kaila answered, her voice soft and her eyes alive with the sense of imparting something important. “Terry, those of us born in the valley develop a shield during our first storm season. The shield is like the one you developed after your battle, the sort you call impenetrable. Those of us who are raised off-planet are-suggested out of using the shield until we’re adults, and can judge the times to use it without detection. Those who grow up on the planet use it constantly, especially during storm season, and none of us ever develop that light shield you told us about. You proved we’re capable of developing it by teaching Len how to form one, but none of us ever do. If Len hadn’t had us make him forget about his heavier shield when he knew he’d be working with you, we might have thought you were unique.”

“But—I don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head at her. “What can shielding have to do with anything? A shield stops you from using your abilities.”

“It does more than that,” she said, dialing her own chair for refreshment. “You gave us so many of the answers, I’m surprised we took so long. Look, let’s start from another side. Do you remember what you said about how you called up your curtain? You said you had to feel a need for it, and then it was there. Quite a lot of what you developed came about because of need, and not necessarily to save you from danger or hurt. Once the change had started you simply had to feel a need for something, and if it was possible for you to do, you did it. Need is the key for developing talents, not pain but need. ”

“But that’s good news,” I said, still not quite understanding. “I’m delighted to hear none of you have to go through what I did, but I still don’t understand what any of this has to do with shielding.”

“We think we may have run across a principle similar to that governing speech,” she said, sipping at her kimla while keeping her eyes on me. “If a child doesn’t learn to talk by a certain age, it never learns. It’s possible that the development of alight shield is a necessary step in progressing further with our abilities, and that may be why we’re stopped where we are. We never go through the light shield phase, and because of the presence of our heavy shields we rarely feel the need for more. Those two factors together, we believe, have kept us from doing what you did.”

“Then none of you can move up to where I am?” I asked, reaching for the wine I hadn’t touched earlier. I was beginning to feel alone again, and this time really didn’t want to.

“We won’t be sure until we try, but we have cause for hope,” she answered, this time joining Lamdon in sending me reassurance. “The fact that Len was able to develop that light shield has turned us ecstatic, because when some of us tried we were able to do the same thing. What we’ll have to do is force ourselves to give up our heavy shields, then start all over from the beginning using the key you gave us. If we’re successful the heavy shields will develop again when we need them, and by then they won’t be the equivalent of cloth wrapped around our feet in childhood. ”

Every female in the room must have flinched at that comment, referring to a former practice of one small segment of the style-conscious population of Alderan. For a few years some of the women had been binding the feet of their girl children in an effort to give them “delightfully dainty” feet, having no idea what they were really doing until those children began growing.

“And, of course, wed like your help when we start the experiments,” Kaila said, her sense of optimism strong and real. “Not only did you give us the key we were looking for, but you’ve also opened our eyes to something we should have seen long ago. Would have seen, too, if we weren’t still basing our beliefs on the nonsense put out by those idiots on Central. Terry, would you like to tell me what we of the blood are?”

“Why—we’re empaths,” I answered, immediately trying to figure out what she was talking about this time. “We’re a bunch of human beings born with the empathetic ability.”

“Something we’ve always been told and can even prove,” she said with a nod, the cup of kimla at her lips doing nothing to hide her amusement. “Now tell me this: what does healing, and precognition, and telekinesis and-something we haven’t even named yet that increases a person’s thinking and planning ability-got to do with empathy? You can 8o all the rest of that, you know. Ashton saw you doing some of it. The balance you told us about yourself.”

“When did I ever increase anyone’s thinking and planning ability?” I demanded, then took a good swallow of the wine I held. With my head spinning the way it was, those were the only two things I could think of doing.

“Ashton saw you doing it with our strategy and tactics people,” Kaila said gently, throttling back her amusement. “They were having all sorts of problems with details until you got there, and then everything began clearing away like magic. Our approach to the complex, the number and size of the transports we needed, who would command where, how the complex residents were to be handled-one thing after another just fell into place, letting us move faster and more efficiently than any of us thought we could. All because you were in a hurry to get the attack going and needed it done.”

“Just like you needed the attack on the Chama’s palace in Vediaster,” Ashton put in, her own amusement more evident. “When we were there, I heard someone mention how well their planning had gone with you there. And in case you were about to ask, that block you removed from Leelan was very fine telekinesis. No need to look so surprised. If you think back, I’m sure you’ll come across some other instances when you did the same things without knowing it.”

I wasn’t surprised; I was stunned, but being stunned didn’t stop me from remembering more than one odd incident—the conversations I’d had with Garth, the unexplained insight Dallan kept showing-hell, I could even remember getting answers I needed from my own reflection in a goblet! It was all very unsettling, but Kaila ignored my state of mind as she leaned forward with a smile.

“You’ve proven to us that all the talents we’ve been considering odd residuals are just part of the whole picture,” she said, and again her voice was gentle but firm with conviction. “Empathy isn’t all there is to it, it’s just the first thing we can do, the crawling that comes before the ability to walk. Even if it turns out that we can’t go back and start over, our children and children’s children won’t have that problem.”

“And also must we investigate more closely the differences between Centran and Rimilian abilities,” Lamdon put in, looking very pleased. “We who are part of the community have learned Centran ways, doing naught with that which was given us by our own. Your memabrak has been forced to finding his own way about much as were you, wenda, with results somewhat different from what has been considered the norm. His efforts were, of course, necessitated by your presence, therefore must we thank you for this as well.”

Tammad’s hand came to my shoulder and squeezed gently, a gesture of approval and agreement according to his thoughts. Everyone seemed to be looking at me with the same sort of reaction, which was an odd incident all by itself. The reaction I evoked in people wasn’t usually approval, and I didn’t know how wise I would be getting used to it.

“And now would seem to be the time to point out the reason for all these happenings,” Murdock said, shifting just a very small amount in his chair. “A Prime was needed to do the job Rathmore Heilman wanted done, and that’s why Terrilian was sent with Tammad to Rimilia. That single decision was meant only to save Rimilia and yet it precipitated events which caused all the rest, Rathmore’s downfall included. For many years I’ve sought the reason for my having had to bring very great pain to my own flesh and blood, and most of that reason was just given you. The final point is that now we have the opportunity of righting the wrongs done by those who were our enemy, of establishing a government capable of feeling the needs of the people it governs, not simply assuming what we believe those needs should be. For this, also, we have Terrilian to thank, and Irin and Rissim as well, for the sacrifice they made. There was indeed a reason, and now we know it in full. ”

To say Murdock glowed would not be completely accurate, but his mind was certainly lighter and brighter than I’d ever before seen it. Irin was staring at him in an effort to maintain stubborn anger, but the anger was dissolving too fast for her to keep it together. If everything they’d said turned out to be true, our forced separation would bring benefit to uncounted numbers of people. Since we weren’t missing knowing each other entirely, there was a lot of room for forgiveness.

“Well, that seems to settle most of it,” I said, standing up as Ashton, Kaila and Lamdon did the same. “Now maybe we can get back to kicking around a problem that isn’t quite planetary in scale.”

“What problem?” Ashton asked while Tammad came over to put his arm around me. “Come to think of it, you four have been spending an awful lot of time with your heads together. For a while Murdock and I were afraid you were planning a revolution of your own.”

“We’re not really into revolution,” I said with a headshake, wondering if Ashton was capable of being serious for longer than fifteen minutes at a stretch. “And what we have come up with is so meager, I can’t say I think much of that planning-enhancer ability you claim I have. With all the skull-sweat we’ve put into it, we should have had an answer by now.”

“Maybe you four aren’t capable of coming up with an answer,” Kaila said, her wrinkle-browed expression showing she wasn’t trying to be insulting. “Possibly the person you enhance has to have the ability to do the answering to begin with. If it’s a technical problem, you may not have that sort of expertise among you.”

“In a manner of speaking, our difficulty is precisely that,” Tammad put in, his thoughts pleasantly surprised. “The woman is possessed of a conviction, one we have thus far found no basis for, yet is there no doubt within her concerning its veracity. Should we be unable to resolve it, all we have attained will be meaningless for us.”

“Then let’s get Murdock working on it,” Ashton said, immediately turning brisk and efficient. “I’ve been watching him develop convictions for years, so he’s the expert you need.”

“What’s this?” Murdock asked as we turned to him, Irin and Rissim coming over to join us. “What is it I’m needed for?”

“Murdock, Terry is sure something is going to keep her and Tammad from being together,” Irin blurted, looking at her brother anxiously. “She doesn’t know what, but the feeling is so strong she can’t simply forget about it. What are they going to do?”

“I get nothing of the same myself,” Murdock answered with a frown, his stare unfocused, and then he was silent for a moment before asking, “Is that precisely the conviction you have, Terrilian? That you and Tammad will not be together?”

“Just about,” I admitted, more disappointed at his lack of immediate help than was rational or reasonable. “Not long ago it came to me that I would never belong to him, and the feeling refuses to go away.”

Murdock shook his head helplessly, frustration strong in him, which made my disappointment even stronger. I was just about ready to suggest we simply give up, when suddenly Ashton began laughing. She was so truly and completely amused that all we could do was stare at her, and finally she noticed the silence and shook her head.

“What were you saying about your ‘so-called’ talent?” she asked me, still chuckling and enjoying herself. “I don’t think I ever got an answer this fast in my entire life, not even after all the experience I’ve had with Murdock. ”

“What are you talking about?” Irin asked her in annoyance, starting to get angry. “Terry’s life is about to fall apart and you think it’s funny?”

“ ‘Interpretation is the key to precognition,’” Ashton answered as though she were quoting, giving her sister a grin. “She said she would never belong to him, which is completely Rimilian and absolutely true. The conviction isn’t telling her she won’t stay with him, it’s saying she won’t belong to him. To Rimilian men women are belongings, but I saw myself that Tammad now thinks of her more as a companion adventurer. She’ll never be his belonging again, but that doesn’t mean they won’t belong to each other.”

I turned to look up at Tammad in shock, and when he felt in my mind that Ashton was absolutely right he let out a whoop of delight and reached down to lift me off my feet. He danced me around the room for a minute, laughing as hard as I was while I squeezed my arms tight around his neck, and then he stopped so he might kiss me. Together we made it a very long kiss, and when it was finally over we looked at each other.

“My happiness is now complete,” he said, still touching my lips with his. “The woman I have desired so long is now forever mine.”

“Only because you’re also hers,” I reminded him with a grin, holding his broad face between my hands. “Now we have all the time we need, and I’m going to use that time to good purpose. Of course, you’ll have to do your part if it’s to work. It takes two to make children, you know.”

His grin widened as his eyes began to shine, and then he kissed me again with a silent vow that he would make all the children in the world if I wanted them.

Beloved barbarian. He did.