The Warrior Victorious

9

I was awake instantly, faster than I could ever remember waking up before, faster than I knew it was possible to wake up. I raised up on my left side on the bed, using a slightly sore elbow to brace me, confused not so much about what had happened before I’d lost consciousness, but about what was then going on. The plain metal room I lay in wasn’t anything like what they had in the complex, and in fact looked most like a cabin aboard a transport, which didn’t make any sense. I hadn’t been anywhere near the complex port when the last of my strength went, and couldn’t quite believe I’d found it and gotten into a transport while still unconscious. And those men I’d felt in the forest, the ones coming after me; if they hadn’t been there to take me back to the complex, then what—

I was just about to put a hand to my head when I heard a sound at the cabin door, a sound that meant the door was being unlocked. I forced myself to sit up all the way, paying scant attention to the sheet that covered my otherwise bare body, banishing the light shield that covered my mind and leaving only my curtain. I didn’t know whose hands I was in that time, but whoever they were they would learn what it meant to be in a fight if they thought I was going to let myself be taken advantage of again. I’d had enough of being pushed around to last ten people a lifetime, and I’d be damned if I took any more at all.

The door in the wall opposite the foot of my bed opened with no special hurry, and by then I knew there were four people outside, three male and one female. There were other minds farther away, quite a few minds, but two of the nearest four clearly intended entering. The other two minds were concerned with nothing but waiting—which made them guards for my door—but the third man and the woman were coming in. I couldn’t reach the woman’s mind without moving through her shield, but the man’s mind was unshielded, and there was something familiar about the rigidly controlled worry in it. As the door opened I was sure I knew that mind, and then the woman walked in and quickly turned to help the man

“Murdock McKenzie!” I blurted, watching him move his twisted body toward the only chair in the room, leaning heavily on his cane. His gray hair was as neat as always, his clothing as plain, and the ever-present pain in his mind was so well-controlled that it was flatly refused access to his awareness. The woman helped the head of Central’s XenoDiplomacy Bureau to the chair then waited while he sat, the bending he had to do almost the hardest part for him, but nothing of his struggle showed on his face any more than it ever did. He got himself settled with a minimum of fuss, then raised those cool gray eyes to me.

“Yes, Murdock McKenzie,” he agreed, the words dry as he studied my face. “A bit late, perhaps, in his arrival, but nevertheless here. Are you all right, Terrilian? Did they harm you in any-permanent-way?”

“You’re not asking about what happened in the forest, are you?” I said, suddenly knowing it for a fact. “You’re discussing those people at the complex, which means you know all about them. Are you one of them, Murdock? If you are, don’t think you have me safely captured because you don’t. I’ll fight before I’ll let anyone take me back there. ”

“I see you’ve changed quite a lot since the last time we spoke,” he said, a faint, cold smile just creasing his lips as he continued to study me. “I believe I know the reasons for the changes, and I couldn’t be more pleased. And no, my dear Terrilian, I am not ‘one of them.’ I’m one of those opposed to them, a group they happily know very little about, but who now, even more happily, know the location of their most secret nest. It’s thanks to you that we have this very vital knowledge, and now we may move with all speed to begin stopping their madness for all time.”

His mind, unlike his narrow, sunken face, showed warm delight and the gratitude and appreciation he’d spoken of. I didn’t want to relax away from the unyielding sense of resistance I’d put up in front of me. not while I still suspected the motives of everyone I met, but I knew Murdock McKenzie wasn’t lying. I could feel the truth of what he’d said, and the ache I was also feeling was beginning to convince me that leaning back and resting a short while would not turn out to be self-betrayal.

“If you’re all that grateful to me, then you won’t mind if I insist on joining your major effort to stop them,” I said, easing down to my right elbow so that I could still look at Murdock. “I want to be there when you hit them, and I want to do my share of the hitting. You don’t mind humoring me to that small an extent, do you, Murdock?”

“Absolutely out of the question,” the woman interjected in a flat, final way before Murdock could answer me. I’d forgotten all about her during my brief conversation with Murdock, but the way she spoke put her quickly centerstage. She was my height but carried more body weight, was a good deal older, had light brown hair and blue eyes, and wore a drab-green, one-piece ship’s uniform with what seemed like full familiarity. She had also opened her shield to look at me with her mind, and those back at the complex probably would have been upset to know her strength was very close to that of Kel-Ten.

“Absolutely out of the question,” she said, folding her arms where she stood beside Murdock’s chair. “Her mind is so feeble she’d be flattened in an instant, and it wouldn’t take the best they have, either. I still don’t understand how she could have been declared a Prime to begin with. And if you have no modesty, girl, you might consider the feelings of those around you. That sheet should be covering you, not resting forgotten across your hips. ”

She was right about my having forgotten the sheet, but suggesting I had no sense of modesty was as ridiculous as the rest of what she’d said. I was as modest as the next woman, but there are, at times, things more important than worrying about whether or not you’re covered. I took a handful of the sheet and pulled it over me, then met the annoyance in the light eyes staring at me.

“Please accept my apologies for having offended your sensibilities,” I drawled, knowing the tone would add to the woman’s annoyance. “If I’d realized you’ve never before seen what I was showing, I would certainly have been more careful. And since my question was addressed to Murdock rather than to you, why don’t we let him answer it, hm? ”

The woman stiffened where she stood, unfolding her arms as her mind also went stiff with insult, the expression on her face turning coldly angry. She was all ready to come back at me with a blast of words, but this time Murdock was the one to interrupt.

“Now, now, ladies, let’s not have hostility between allies,” he said, the command so smooth and soothing that it almost seemed like a casual interjection. “It’s come to me that you two don’t know each other, so you must forgive me for being remiss in regard to introductions. Prime Ashton Farley, I would like you to know Prime Terrilian Reya, and you may both accept my word that you are nor enemies. Ashton has been in charge of training our own force of empaths, Terrilian, and from what I hear Terrilian has been struggling with very special training on Rimilia, Ashton. If you like you may address her as ‘Chama,’ for that’s the position she won to in Vediaster.”

“She’s the new Chama of Vediaster?” the woman Ashton Farley demanded, her disbelief so clear even Murdock must have felt it. “That’s not possible, Murdock, not with the small amount of mind-strength she has. I have ordinary empaths with more mind-muscle than that, so someone must be pulling your leg. And if she was on Rimilia, why didn’t I know about it’?”

“My dear Ashton, she wasn’t there to train with your forces,” Murdock answered with faint amusement for the woman’s continuing annoyance, his fingers turning his cane just a little. “She was there for another purpose entirely, one facet of which was to be five-banded by Tammad, the denday Rathmore Hellman believes is uniting Rimilia for him. What the esteemed head of the Centran Amalgamation on Central doesn’t know, of course, is that Tammad is in reality working in the interests of his own people, and therefore in our interests as well. He and Terrilian have been together for months, and—”

Murdock’s words broke off a bare moment after his eyes returned to me, leading me to wonder what my expression must be like. It had taken me a little time to realize that Murdock knew what was missing from my memory, knew where I’d been and what I’d done during the time that was only a blank to me. He clearly didn’t mind talking about it, but for some reason I felt very reluctant to ask him to go into details.

“Of course,” he said almost at once, his gray eyes narrowed as he studied my face, his mind close to outrage. “They’ve conditioned you into forgetting all that, haven’t they? They wanted nothing to interfere with total dedication to the new commitment, and with no memory of what was, their wishes were fulfilled. Have no fear, child, their wishes will very shortly no longer obtain. As quickly as your system rids itself of the drugs you were being fed, that quickly will you begin to remember—and more quickly still with the assistance of my own memories. Would you like me to begin now?”

“I-think I’d like to rest for a while first,” I said, knowing I was being a coward but helpless to do anything else. “And I think I’d also like to hear first how it was that you were right there to rescue me from what I thought was a hopeless situation. Is it modern science we have to thank for our now being able to grow coincidences to such an unusual size?”

“Our being there was hardly a coincidence,” he answered, his tone warmly reassuring despite the snort of ridicule voiced by the woman beside him. “It’s all part of the story, but not a part you’re likely to remember on your own. You never knew the entire story, you see, but it’s more than time that you did. Perhaps you’d care to join us for a meal once you’ve rested, and we can talk then.”

“I think—I’m suddenly more hungry than tired,” I found myself being forced to say, the decision having been made almost on its own. Something told me I would not be too pleased to hear what I’d been doing during the time that was blank to me, but I discovered I had to know. I didn’t want to know but I did want to know, and since I would remember eventually anyway there was no sense in putting it off. “You don’t happen to have something I can wear, do you?”

“That uniform you had on when we found you is hanging in the closet over there,” the woman Ashton said, nodding her head toward the wall to my left. “The bloodstains have been cleaned out of it, and the rips and tears aren’t so bad that it can’t be worn. Would you like us to wait while you dress, or would you prefer bringing the uniform out to the common area and getting into it there?”

“Ashton and I will go on ahead and get the food ordered,” Murdock said as he began to struggle out of his chair, the words so quick and smooth I barely had time to glare at the woman. “There’s no need of your hurrying, Terrilian, take what time you require and join us at your leisure. Come, Ashton, I find I’ve an appetite of my own to see to.”

I was ready to swear Murdock had never accepted as much help from anyone as he did from the woman right then, forcing her to pay more attention to him than to me. It seemed fairly clear she was spoiling for a fight as much as I was, and although I didn’t know the details of what was motivating her, I was more than ready to oblige. The only thing that had held me back until then was the difference in the strength of our minds, a difference the woman had no real idea about as yet. If she pushed me one more time she would learn about the difference, though, no matter how unfair it was. Enough is enough, but with her it was too much.

Once the door closed behind my two visitors, I was faced with the need to get out of bed. Doing it wasn’t as easy as deciding on it, and although I didn’t have to use pain control, I did have to move a lot more slowly than I wanted to. Getting into the uniform first meant sitting back down, and if the boots hadn’t been flexible enough to more or less step into I would have had a problem. By the time I was dressed I knew the beating I’d taken hadn’t broken anything on me, not even the ribs I’d first thought it had, but that didn’t mean it didn’t still hurt.

It wasn’t unreasonably long before I left the cabin for the common area, but even before I reached the single, round table set up in it I could see that plates of food had already been brought. Murdock was settled into a special chair that both supported and comforted his body, a cup of kimla in his hands, for the most part ignoring what he’d said he was developing an appetite for. The woman Prime was still his companion, sitting in a standard chair and sipping from her own cup of kimla, her gaze more inward than on her surroundings. Murdock’s mind was still under its usual calm control, but hers, as unshielded as it was in the cabin, was a whirlwind blend of annoyance and confusion and frustration and anger. As I neared the table, heading for the last unoccupied chair, she looked up and purposely smoothed the turning in her mind, but didn’t say anything.

“Ah, Terrilian, happily sooner than I had expected,” Murdock said, touching a stud that raised the back of his chair just a little. “The ship’s doctor informs me that you’re doing very well, considering the fact that you might have been seriously hurt by so vicious an attack. Whatever possessed those people to hurt you like that?”

“Those people,” I echoed looking at him as I carefully lowered myself into a chair that was usually very comfortable. “Am I mistaken, Murdock, or are you under the impression this was done to me by those of the complex?”

, , Why-of course I’m under that impression,” he said, exchanging faint frowns with the woman Ashton. “Who else might there be on that world, a world noted on the charts as having no higher life forms of its own?”

“Murdock, they’re breeding for Primes,” I said, leaning back slowly enough so that what pain I felt increased only a small amount. “When empaths mate you may always get more empaths, but you don’t necessarily get Primes even from Prime parents. I was attacked by one group of those who didn’t happen to be born Primes.”

“You can’t mean they simply-kick out—the ones who aren’t Primes?” the woman Ashton demanded, her body straightened by the same outrage filling her mind. “Empaths are empaths, some stronger, some weaker, but all the same! How can they do such a barbaric thing, such a—a-! ”

“They do it as easily as they do all the rest,” Murdock interrupted, his thoughts as cold as his .face was devoid of expression. “Clearly, I should be unsurprised by anything I hear of them, and yet just as clearly—”

His voice stopped for a moment while he fought with the urge to do something useless but violent, and then his normal self-control reasserted itself. “I refuse to waste my strength on rage,” he stated, possibly more to himself than to us. “As we may now begin to finalize our plans against them, I shall content myself with the knowledge that they will soon be made to pay for everything they’ve done. At the same time their wrongdoing will be righted, as quickly and as thoroughly as we find it possible to see to. And I believe we would do well to speak of other things now.”

He paused while a steward stopped beside me to supply a cup of kimla like those my companions held, and I found I was more than happy to have it. The kimla was warm and smooth and properly sweetened, the first sip of it showing me how badly I needed something like that in my stomach. I felt as though my insides were just about empty, which meant it was time for one of the questions I hadn’t yet asked.

“How long ago did you people find me?” I put to Murdock, leaning forward carefully to check the contents of a tureen already on the table. It held a creamed soup that positively beckoned to me, and when the steward saw I wanted some of it he took over the job of filling a bowl.

“We’ve had you aboard almost a full day now,” Murdock replied, nodding with absent approval over the bowl being filled for me. “Our doctor treated your cuts and bruises while muttering things best not repeated under his breath, then put you to bed with orders that you weren’t to be disturbed by anyone. He felt that it would likely be quite some time before you regained consciousness, but it wasn’t that long at all before the empath assigned by Ashton to watch you told us you were beginning to come awake. The doctor also thought you would be bedridden for quite a while, but he seems to have been in error on that score as well. Once you’ve eaten and we’ve talked, we’ll let him know you’re up and about again.”

With a bowl of soup in front of me and a small scoop in my hand I didn’t feel the need to comment on that, most especially since I wasn’t terribly anxious to see his doctor. It was true that I still hurt, but if the doctor could have changed that he would have, which meant seeing him would be a waste of time for both of us. Right then I preferred wasting my time in other ways, and Murdock shifted in his chair before beginning on one of them.

“Perhaps it would be best if I tell Ashton what’s been happening to you, with you simply listening in,” he said, apparently aware of the upset still felt by the woman and wanting to distract her. “If you happen to hear something that strikes you as wrong or partially inaccurate, don’t hesitate to speak up. It will mean your memory is beginning to return, an occurrence I would like to see completed as soon -as possible. We will all need to be in our clearest minds before this thing is over and done with.

“As you know, Ashton, Rimilia was chosen for the construction of the all-planets conference complex because of its location in space. With all member planets just about equally distant from it it was considered perfect, but it also had another attraction not as well publicized. With a population not far above the level of barbarism, Rathmore Hellman and the others felt that when the proper time came to deprive the other planets of its seasoned leadership, that very population could be pointed to as the perpetrators of the bloody-handed deed. In order to manipulate permission for the complex out of the Rimilians as well as gain control over them, we gave our backing and wholehearted support to a Rimilian leader named Tammad.

“From the very beginning Tammad appeared to be nothing more than our ally, and Terrilian here was sent to Rimilia to assist him in convincing the others of the Rimilian leaders to allow the complex. She was told by everyone involved that she would be returned to Central when her mission was accomplished, no one finding it necessary to mention that Tammad had indicated such a strong desire for her that he insisted on purchasing her in the accepted Rimilian way. Rathmore Hellman was amused by such naivete, that Tammad would believe Central would simply sell one of its best Primes to a primitive, but still allowed the insistence. Tammad’s price for her was his promise to unite as many of the diverse people of Rimilia under his own personal banner, so to speak, as possible, which was exactly what Rathmore wanted him to do. His own broaching of the subject made the arrangement much sweeter to Rathmore’s way of thinking, and through me Tammad’s offer was accepted at once. When Terrilian was returned to us at the embassy on Rimilia after the complex was approved at the Great Meeting she had been sent to attend, we all believed Tammad had changed his mind about keeping her. For that reason, I immediately returned her to Central on my own transport.

“No more than a small number of days passed before I learned of the misunderstanding we were all in the midst of,” Murdock said, pausing to sip at the kimla he still held. “Tammad appeared at the embassy with a large number of his warriors, offered me polite greetings, then asked to have his woman returned to him. It developed that he’d sent her back only because he’d given his word to her to do so, fully intending to reclaim her once he’d made good on that word. When he discovered she was gone he grew furious, and demanded that he be provided with the means to follow after and recover her. By the time my transport returned I discovered she was due to Mediate on Alderan, so I sent Tammad and some of his men off in the transport, telling the captain to give Tammad all the help and advice he was able to provide.

“The mission proved successful and Tammad returned to Rimilia with Terrilian, but in the interim there had been occurrences neither of them knew about. Word had come to me with Rathmore’s authorization behind it, stating that Terrilian was to be returned to Central for a highly classified and extremely important’ assignment. I had no doubt as to what that would be and immediately decided it was time Terrilian joined Your group, Ashton, but the step was never taken. Although Terrilian clearly had no desire to return with Tammad to the midst of his world, Tammad refused to release her. He spoke of our ‘returning the price he’d paid for her,’ a promise of the withdrawal of his cooperation and alliance which Rathmore most certainly did not want at that point. When I admitted my inability to return his price he simply turned and strode away, taking Terrilian with him.”

“I remember how frustrated and furious you were after that confrontation,” Ashton said, a faint smile on her face as she looked at Murdock. “No one in the entire community dared ask you what had happened, but we gathered we could forget about our supposed new arrival. Why didn’t you tell Tammad how dangerous it was for the girl to be away from our protection? ‘Highly classified’ assignments for female Primes have always meant the end of their lives as rational individuals, and if he really cared about her he wouldn’t have refused to let her go with you.”

“Speaking to him privately at that time was out of the question,” Murdock replied, a faint look of distaste flitting across his face. “Not only had he been angered by Terrilian’s refusal to accompany him—and another incident involving her which I won’t mention—but one of those who accompanied me was Rathmore’s man from first to last. I couldn’t speak out without betraying my own stance, and therefore had to stand there and watch Tammad walk away with Terrilian as well as the two people sent from Central who were meant to replace her. After that I used ill health as an excuse to leave all but one of my aides behind in the embassy, supposedly to rest in orbit while they awaited further orders from Central, and instead used a landing slip to visit the community and plan our next move.”

“Just a minute,” I interrupted, frowning down into what was left of the bowl of soup. I wasn’t precisely upset, not when everything I’d heard sounded as though it had happened to someone else, but something didn’t fit in with what I did remember. “You keep talking about a community on Rimilia, as though you mean a Centran community of some kind, but I can’t recall ever having heard of a Centran community on that world. All I ever heard about was the Rimilian barbarians.”

“That’s all anyone was supposed to hear about,” Murdock said, a faint smile on his face to match the satisfaction in his mind. “Our community on Rimilia isn’t a Centran -sponsored one, nor is it large enough or accessible enough for even the natives to know about. It’s made up almost entirely of empaths, mostly of Centran stock but well leavened with the addition of Rimilian blood, and was established generations before Rathmore and his cronies decided on the world as a site for their complex. When we first learned of their plans we nearly began an immediate campaign to sabotage their efforts, then decided wed be best off allowing them to continue. We were, after all, already there. What better position might we have to keep very close track of what they were doing?

“At any rate, quite some time passed before our agent in Tammad’s entourage contacted us frantically by radio. He had reported from time to time of the events transpiring around and about him, among which were Terrilian’s abduction by savages, her having been kept as a slave by the Hamarda, her escape from the Hamarda across the desert to Grelana, her forced assistance to the Chama of Grelana, her part in the breaking of the Chama’s power, her flight to Gerleth, her capture there, and finally her journey to Vediaster. When Tammad and Terrilian and Cinnan, another Rimilian, were taken prisoner by the then-Chama of Vediaster, Dallan, the fourth of their party who was also a Prince of Gerleth, sent back word to his father the Chamd that he and his companions were in dire need of assistance.

Cinnan’s l’lendaa from Grelana and Tammad’s l’lendaa joined the warriors of Gerleth and all rode as fast as possible toward Vediaster, but by the time they reached the city of Vediaster everything was over but the shouting. Those who had opposed the former Chama had attacked her palace in force and, with Terrilian’s assistance, had defeated the hated ruler. Everyone was safe and sound, and by the law of the land Terrilian was the new Chama, circumstances which should have pleased all concerned. It certainly pleased the Rimilians, but for some reason not quite clear to any of them, Terrilian wasn’t equally as, pleased. She had agreed to help out a short while until they chose someone else to be Chama, had seemed to be honoring the agreement she’d made, and then on the very day the small army of l’lendaa from Gerleth arrived, had suddenly disappeared. No one had any idea where she might have gone, and then they discovered shed taken a seetar and had ridden alone out of the city.”

Murdock sighed and used the pause to swallow down more of the kimla, but that wasn’t all he used the pause for. He also spent a short time studying my face, probably searching for some sign of returning memory, but there weren’t any returns for him to see a sign of. Everything still sounded as though it had happened to someone else, and when he saw that he shrugged inside himself and simply went on.

“Groups of l’lendaa and w’wendaa began a search for her both inside and out of the city, and one group, the one containing our agent, found something more than the faint, cold trail they would have been willing to settle for. Once they had left the city behind them, they were contacted by a completely unexpected ally—the giant black seetar that was Tammad’s usual mount. How the beast had gotten out of the city no one seemed to know, but his recognition of some of the riders had brought him from the forest surrounding the road the riders were on, his thoughts positively frantic. Our agent was already familiar with the seetar’s emotion-symbol for Terrilian, and since most of the agitation in the beast’s mind centered around that symbol, he knew at once that the seetar had seen her. He worked for a short while calming the beast, then began the very difficult task of extracting what information he could. By the time he was through he was exhausted, but was also certain he understood what the seetar had been trying to tell them.

“Apparently he had seen Terrilian riding past him on another seetar, felt confused as well as annoyed as to why she would do that, then decided to follow her. She didn’t go very far before she stopped, dismounted, and sat down in the woods beside a tree, but before he was able to approach her she suddenly fell over unconscious. He was trying to decide whether to go for help—and how to get the only man he could count on to give that help-when two strangers appeared, picked up the unconscious woman, and disappeared back into the forest. He followed them to something that smelled a little like a sword but was very large, watched them enter the thing, then had to stand helplessly by while the thing rose silently into the sky and out of his reach. He waited a short while to see if it would return, and when it didn’t he started back for the city to find help. The emotions signifying ‘high’ and ‘gone’ were so clear to our agent, he lost no time calling us to say Amalgamation people had taken Terrilian. ”

“And how right he was,” Ashton said with a snort and a flash of remembered anger. “We located their private transport in orbit, and were able to lock onto them before they left that orbit. If it hadn’t taken them so long to get around to leaving once they had the girl, we most probably would have missed them completely. I wonder what they were so busy with, that it took them that long to get started.”

The question was put very casually and only to Murdock, but there was something in the woman’s mind that sneered faintly in my direction, and that on top of the way she was pretending I wasn’t there at all. I didn’t have to know what she was hinting at in order to resent it, but once again the option of replying was taken from me by Murdock.

” They were certainly overconfident through being in orbit around an undeveloped world,” he said, his tone suggesting his guess was the only reasonable one. “It never occurred to them there were others around who would be able to detect them, so they took their time and no precautions at all. We hadn’t planned on using you as bait to help us find their hidden base of operations, Terrilian, but once presented with the opportunity we could hardly refuse to take it. We were in the midst of trying to decide whether it would be possible to free you before we returned to our people with the news, when our instruments told us you had effected your own escape. We sent people down into the woods to intercept you, found you senseless from’ the vicious beating you’d been given, and quickly took you to this transport. Now, happily, you are once again among your own.”

The faint, icy smile he sent me was very familiar, so familiar it was probably meant to distract me from what he’d said to the great amount of very real satisfaction he was feeling. Unfortunately for his intentions, though, I was too annoyed by the snide attitudes of his woman companion to be anything but critical of what I’d been told. Murdock’s narration was as neat and outwardly complete as anything I’d ever heard from someone in the XenoDiplomacy Bureau, but a small figure named logic was jumping up and down inside my head, pointing eagerly and insistently at the gaping holes in the fabric so recently constructed for my benefit.

“You know, I have the strangest feeling I’ve been told that before,” I remarked, doing my damnedest not to slump in the chair the way my body wanted to. “I’m referring to your comment about me being among my own, Murdock, and I also have the feeling I’ve doubted the sincerity of those who previously told it to me. Maybe that’s why I’m being so ungrateful as to feel no hesitation about lumping you in along with the rest of them.”

“A reaction like that is no more than to be expected after what you’ve so recently gone through, child,” the head of Central’s XD Bureau said smoothly, his mind as unconcerned and convincing as his expressionless expression. “When one is forced to spend time among those who cannot under any circumstances be trusted, one most naturally transfers the attitude to all who are thereafter encountered. Only a lack of betrayal can serve to alter the attitude, so you must expect to spend some time among us before. . . ”

“Before easy explanations and overblown sentiments can blind me to the truth again’?” I interrupted to ask, my brows raised with the question. “I’ve always admired your ability to weave blindfolds, Murdock, but this time you were a little sloppy. I wonder if that’s because you thought I was hurting too much to notice. I certainly hope it wasn’t because you decided I would never notice even under the best of circumstances. I’ve learned to resent having people dismiss me like that.”

“You’re in no position to resent anything, girl!” the woman Ashton snapped out, her mind filled with heavy annoyance rather than any sort of guilt or regret, her light eyes hard. “Right now you owe your life to us, and you’d be smart to understand you’re not important enough for Murdock or anyone else to bother lying to. All you Central bigwigs are alike, so full of yourselves you think the universe stops and goes only when you press the switch. Once you’ve been in my group for a while you’ll learn better, and until then you’ll keep your mouth closed and your opinions to yourself!”

The woman’s words started out heated and rose in temperature from there, her mind reaching out toward mine and quickly surrounding it before beginning to squeeze. Murdock was saying something in protest that both of us ignored, and although I now knew the main reason the woman didn’t care for me, that didn’t stop me from being as furious as she was. I’d taken all from her I intended taking, and it was time to fight back.

The Prime Ashton Farley was sitting up and forward in her chair, her hands clamped tight to the armrests, bracing herself physically for the mental assault she was in the midst of. For me, just sitting there normally was almost too hard, but then I didn’t need to brace myself in order to drop my curtain. Ashton’s mind was strong and trying hard to impress me with that strength, the pressure she exerted aimed toward making me ask her to stop—or begging her to, which was probably more like it. The instant I dropped my curtain I began exerting my own pressure outward, hard against her efforts but not as hard as I could have. First I let her see what she was trying to contain and then I flung her mind away from mine, more contemptuously than I had ever done with anyone.

The woman had been very surprised when my mind didn’t immediately quiver and collapse under her efforts, but the surprise paled into shock when my curtain disappeared to show her what she was working to hold down. She gasped and tried to continue squeezing even as the blood drained from her face, choked as she tried to throw herself back in the chair, but nothing happened the way she wanted it to. When I thrust her away from me she was even beyond the ability to scream, her mind clanging with shocked disbelief and fear, her body shuddering and gasping. Her feet had been pushing at the floor to get her farther away from the table, and when she had the chair facing far enough away, she staggered to her feet and ran. There was silence for a moment after that, and then Murdock brought his eyes and attention back to me, looking more shaken than I had ever before seen him.

“You-appear a good deal less than wearied from that exchange, Terrilian,” he said, his thoughts whirling so fast I found it impossible to separate one emotion from the next. “Ashton is one of the strongest we have, and yet you bested her with almost no effort. We were told your abilities have grown over the last months but details were not included, save that the process causing the growth was far from pleasant. I dislike the implications of that, but-our needs are too great to ignore any avenue presented us. Did the-disagreement-harm you in any way? ”

His cold gray eyes were now trying to look inside me, his mind so quickly calmed and back under control that it was possible to believe he’d never lost that control. I found myself just as impressed as ever, but not swayed in the least.

“You know, Murdock, I really do wish you would stop trying to show how concerned you are about me,” I said, reaching for my unfinished cup of kimla. “Every time you do it you remind me again about how you used me, so why don’t you just give it up? If you had an agent in with whatever group of people I was with, you could have warned me about what was most likely going to happen. That you didn’t warn me means you were using me as bait, and were waiting for me to be taken so that you and your friends could follow. The fact that you were able to detect me in the forest means you were keeping close track of me with some sort of tracer device, so don’t even bother denying it. And that you people who are my ‘own’ were also prepared to abandon me in that place once you had what you wanted is also pretty clear, since you made no effort to get me out and only picked me up once I’d gotten myself out. Why don’t you tell me again how grateful I ought to be?”

Staring at him over my cup rim didn’t show me anything but the same lack of expression anyone ever saw, which wasn’t the same as touching his mind. The guilt he felt over what had been done was fully accepted, but neither that nor the real, true pain he experienced ever reached his narrow, sunken face.

“You’re completely correct, of course,” he conceded, nodding fractionally. “To warn you might have also given warning to our enemies, but that’s neither here nor there. We used you as necessary to gain the ends we simply had to gain, but would not have forever abandoned you to your fate. You are one of us, child, and would have been freed as quickly as we organized our people and attacked. What you were made to suffer is certainly. . . ”

“Regrettable?” I finished for him, replacing my cup on the table. “It was that, all right, but it was also something a lot worse than you’ll ever be able to understand. ‘Abandoned’ is a good word, but you’ll have to remind me some day to give you the emotions that go along with the word. The experience should be—an experience. I’d like to know now what world you intend dropping me off on, so I can begin making plans. In consideration of everything that’s happened, I don’t think we would be wise to spend any more time in each other’s company than absolutely necessary.”

“Terrilian, I thought you understood you’d be returning with us to Rimilia,” he said with a frown, disturbance now touching his mind. “Not only have we an attack to plan and carry out, but Tammad must be told that you’re safe. He’ll most certainly be beside himself with worry, and once your memories have returned you’ll know. . . ”

“Please, Murdock, I’d really rather not hear any more about that,” I interrupted impatiently, beginning to start the process of getting to my feet. “If your narration was meant to show me anything other than that I want nothing to do with this Tammad of yours, you failed to accomplish your aim. The man ‘buys’ me without any regard to what feelings I might have on the subject, kidnaps me and forces me to go with him when even you knew I didn’t want to, and then concerns himself so little with me that all sorts of horrendous things are able to happen to me. This is the person I’m supposed to be concerned about? Somehow I think not. As far as your attack goes, I’ll probably join in just to make sure there won’t be anyone left to come after me again but once it’s done there will be an absolute parting of the ways between us. Do you understand me?”

Having managed to stand-with the help of the table edge—I looked up at him, and for once his cold gray eyes were mirroring the throbbing pain his mind sent out. He wanted to argue with me, reason with me, talk and talk until I saw things his way, but the pain refused to allow that.

“I understand,” he said in the softest of voices, a two word admission of total defeat, and when I let go of the table and headed back for my cabin, no other words followed me.