Sharon Green - Terrillian 05, page 2
“Now then, young woman, I believe a word or two with you is in order,” he said, his voice and eyes still deliberately stern. “I have seldom seen such disgraceful behavior, and I certainly have no intentions of seeing it again.
When you and I are through here you will apologize to Resson, asking her to excuse your barbaric behavior. Is that clearly understood?”
“If I apologize to her, she’ll only do the same thing to someone else at another time,” I answered, wondering why the man was so dense that he couldn’t see that. “Since I was able to stop her it was my job to do it, to protect others who might not be able to do the same thing. She doesn’t deserve an apology, so she won’t be getting one.”
“My dear Prime, it happens to be my place to remonstrate with and discipline my underlings,” he came back with a rumble of incensed anger, a heavy air of territorial protection about him. “If one of them offers you affront you report it to me, and then I take care of the matter. I am in charge here, and no one else has the authority to do the same.”
“But that just means that anyone who enjoys tormenting people has only to stay out of your way in order to continue with the practice,” I pointed out, trying to be reasonable and show him how wrong he was. “On the other hand, if they try it with someone who bounces them on their head for their trouble, they’ll probably hesitate the next time before doing the same thing. They won’t know, you see, if they’ll be bounced again, so that will make them cautious-not to mention help to keep innocent people safe. Don’t you want your-guests-here to be safe?”
He opened and closed his mouth a few times, looking like a fish trying to learn how to breathe air, and then he ended the fumbling by snapping his lips closed with a frown.
“Where in the world could you have picked up such outlandish ideas?” he demanded, close to total outrage. “I’ve never heard such barbaric nonsense, and I’ll listen to no more of it. All you need remember is that I am in charge, and our future association will be an extremely pleasant one. Now then, let’s get on to the reason you were summoned to my office.”
“Is our conversation going to be so short that it isn’t worth sitting down for?” I interrupted to ask, giving up on trying to teach him anything. He was obviously too concerned with privilege to understand right and responsibility, but I wondered fleetingly just where I had gotten such ideas. As soon as I had a moment, I would have to think about that. “What I mean, Director, is that if it is going to be that short, why are you sitting?”
“I am sitting, my dear, because I am director,” he answered in very careful and overly sweet tones, back to giving me that condescending smile. “If you consider the matter carefully, you’ll find it’s quite proper for you to be standing there before me, waiting for great honor to be bestowed on you. Honor must be balanced with humility, you know, and so it shall be. The arrogance of a Prime must be left behind as you travel the road to meaningful immortality.”
By the time he was through speaking, the words were echoing in my head rather than simply being picked up by my ears, and I was definitely feeling dizzy. I put a hand up to the echo, having no understanding as to why it was happening, having no idea how to make it stop. What he’d said-leaving arrogance behind and being suitably humble-humble and grateful-yes, that was the way it had to be. It was so obvious I was surprised I hadn’t seen it sooner, and I suddenly couldn’t wait to be given my honor.
“Yes, of course you’re right,” I answered, looking up at him with a smile that felt as shy as I did. “I’m sorry, Director Gearing, I must have forgotten that for a moment. Did you say-immortality?”
“I most certainly did,” he agreed with a broader, warmer smile, the expansiveness of his generosity coming through clearly as he sat back in his chair. “What lesser thing might be given to one who has served the Amalgamation so well, a Prime of your quality and caliber? You’ve earned immortality, my dear, and that is what you will have.”
“Oh, I can’t possibly be worthy of that great an honor,” I protested, needing to speak the truth I felt, feeling the blush in my cheeks as my fingers twisted together. “Really, Director Gearing, it’s too much … “
“Nonsense, my dear, and do call me Johnston for the moment,” he came back, a sleek smoothness coating his assurance, his eyes heavy-lidded. “I have the pleasure to inform you that you’ve been chosen as one of those few who are permitted to pass on your qualities and abilities to those who will come after you, those who will attempt to equal your service to the Amalgamation. We bestow this honor with glad pleasure, but also ask that you accept it as another of the many indications you’ve given of loyalty and dedication and selflessness. Will you accept the honor in such a way, with eagerness and gladness?”
“Eagerness and gladness, yes,” I breathed, my hand to my head again as the words echoed a second time, the privilege so great that it made me dizzy. “I can’t believe that I’ve been chosen for this, Johnston, I just can’t, but I’ll do everything in my power to be worthy of it. What must I do?”
“Quite simply, Terrilian, you must be a woman,” he said, his expression now sober as he rose again and came around the desk to take my hand. “In the main complex we have quite a large number of male Primes, and it will be your duty to interest as many of them as possible in you. Without them you won’t be able to fulfill your destiny, you know, but there are other female Primes already there, already attempting to fulfill their own destinies. You must be more attractive than they are, more beautiful and desirable to the only men who can help you achieve immortality. You must do everything and anything to attract and please them, but then, you don’t have to be told that, do you? You already know that and mean to succeed, don’t you?”
My head swam for a third time, but although I agreed with just about everything that had been said to me, some parts of it confused me more than others. People had always been told that there weren’t many male Primes, so how could that complex have quite a large number of them? I wanted to ask where they could have come from, but the director was stroking my hand and then he raised it to his lips.
“It’s my personal opinion that you’ll have very little trouble being attractive, my dear,” he said in a husky voice, my hand still held in both of his. “I know you’re somewhat unsure of yourself, however, so I’m prepared to assist you even further. Although I have almost no spare time in my very busy schedule, I’m going to take some anyway just to find out how pleased the men will be with you. No, no, you needn’t thank me, it can easily be considered part of my job, and you do deserve help with the honor you’ve been given. Just come this way.”
He led me by the hand he held to the wall to the left of his desk, where he pressed a small recess which caused the wall to slide noiselessly back. Behind it was an area with low lighting, soft music, faintly perfumed air-and a very wide square of a couch draped with silk. The couch had no back to it, only seat flanked by armrests, and the man’s left arm went around my waist as he urged me forward toward it. At first everything felt as right and proper as it had all along, nothing out of the ordinary except that I was about to be done a rather large favor, but then we crossed the threshold into the small, cozy room-and the director’s right hand came to squeeze my breast through the thin material that covered it-and something inside me screamed that he had no right-that I couldn’t let him-that I damned well wouldn’t let him and then I was pulling away and shoving at him, slapping and scratching-When the dizziness and confusion finally receded to a point where I could look around me with some measure of sanity again, I was sitting on the carpeting of the director’s office, my back against a wall that was staying solidly closed.
Low, moaning sounds were coming from the desk to my left, and I turned my head to see Gearing in his chair, what must have been a mirror raised up from the side of the desk. He was staring into the mirror as he dabbed at long, bleeding scratches on his cheek with a wet cloth, and the eye toward me was blackened and almost closed. I could see that the battle in my mind hadn’t been the only one I’d fought, and for a moment I was confused all over again.
The struggle I’d put up didn’t seem all that strange, but the results of my efforts didn’t feel in any way familiar.
“Oh, I should have known you’d be one of those, I should have known,” Gearing moaned, talking to me without taking his eyes from the mirror. “After what you did to Resson I should have called security immediately, but instead I relied on the conditioning holding. Now that you’ve broken out of it you think you’ve won something, but what you’ve really done is lost. You’ll still serve the program just as you’re meant to, but without the comfort of believing you’re being honored. And I’m glad you’ll be suffering, do you hear me? I’ll come and visit where they have you, and I’ll laugh!”
He ended his outburst with another moan instead of a laugh, but it didn’t make that much of a difference. I put my hand up to my head as I leaned back against the wall, shivering on the inside at how close I’d come to doing and believing exactly what they’d wanted. Even after I’d found part of the conditioning myself, I’d still fallen prey to the rest of it without a murmur.
I’d been so terribly eager to accept that “honor,” so willing to do everything I could! The second time I shivered on the outside, but not only at what had almost been done to me. They were still going to try doing things to me, and when they did I’d have no fantasies to hide behind. I’d have to face it knowing exactly what was happening, and that was the part that made me tremble. I’d have to find the courage to be strong, and I didn’t know if I could.
A moment later the door to the office opened, but instead of it being the woman Resson, two big men walked in. They both had dark hair and eyes and were dressed in identical white uniforms, but the part that made me wish I could get closer to the wall was the expression on their faces. Or, more accurately, the lack of expression. Totally uncaring is too weak a descriptive phrase, but when they saw the director they actually smiled.
“You called for security men, Director Gearing?” one of them said, his tone showing very little in the way of respect for a superior. He and the other were silently laughing at Gearing, and the way the fat man stiffened showed he knew it.
“Get her out of here,” he said, still looking at nothing but the mirror, briefly waving one pudgy hand in my general direction. “Tell them she’s broken through the conditioning, but that isn’t to exempt her from the program. Take her to the main complex, and don’t bring her back until she has to be here. By then there won’t be any fight left in her.”
The eyes of the two men came to me, still filled with faint amusement, and then it was they who came to me, reaching down to pull me to my feet. I tried to resist but they weren’t Gearing, and then I was going through the door, on my way to what was called the main complex.
Chapter 2
The wooden bench I sat on got harder and harder as the time passed, but no one seemed overly concerned about my comfort. I’d been pulled out of the building that housed the director’s office and the room I’d awakened in, thrust into a ground vehicle, then taken for a short ride. At the end of the ride I’d been pulled from the vehicle through the same bright but chilly sunshine I’d seen a few moments earlier, thrust through a door into a building, and walked up a corridor to a particular door. The door led to an anteroom with nothing in it but a wooden bench and another closed door, and I’d been offered a seat by being pushed down onto the bench. The two men in white uniforms stood to either end of the bench, saying nothing to me and not even to each other.
Between the confusion still rattling around in my head and the dull tan and gray of the room I sat in-not to mention the presence of my two silent companions-I was beginning to feel depressed. No, what I really felt was all alone, with no one there to help me or be on my side. All of those people were from the Amalgamation, some probably even from Central, but to them I was nothing but an animal to be experimented with, a prize animal to be sure, but still nothing but a beast. I didn’t want to think about what they were going to do to me, and had been helped in fulfilling that desire by the presence of other thoughts crowding my mind and demanding attention. There were so many things I couldn’t explain or understand or make any sense out of at all-
“All right, go on in there,” the man to my right said suddenly, and I looked up to see that the gray door the room held was now glowing with the message that visitors were welcome–or at least currently permitted. I hesitated only a moment before getting to my feet, but was abruptly aware of the thin garment I wore. The two men who had brought me there were staring at me, I knew that even without looking at them, and to say the idea disturbed me, was like saying I didn’t much want to fall off the roof of a twenty-story building.
Once standing, I resisted the urge to try tugging the thin covering lower and went instead to the softly glowing gray door, opening it as if I really belonged there.
Inside there were a larger number of amenities to be found, like thick carpeting, stylish drapes on wide windows, chairs and couches, artwork on the walls, and a desk that actually had papers and folders on it. It was basically the same tan and gray as the anteroom, but enhanced by faint touches of other colors and softened by richer fabrics and mediums. Like the first office I’d seen the desk had a man behind it, but unlike the portly Director Gearing this man really seemed to be working. He wore a uniform rather than a suit, in a gray to match his door, and his tanned, unlined face didn’t seem to go with his very white hair. He glanced up at me as I came in, his light eyes touching me in a distracted sort of way, and then he waved his hand toward the chairs in front of his desk.
“Close the door and sit down,” he said, his voice as distracted as his glance had been. “I’ll be with you as soon as I finish this.”
For something I’d expected to be dramatic and terrorizing, his few words had been a crazy sort of letdown, as though a ravening beast had paused in its bloodthirsty attack to hastily check its pockets. I closed the door as directed and went to the chairs indicated, and actually found myself annoyed that the chair I chose was comfortable. When you’re braced to resist horror, running into the humdrum instead can totally ruin your mood. I began to cross my legs, remembered what I was wearing and decided against it, then simply sat back until the man finished with the folder he was working on and raised his eyes to really look at me for the first time.
“So you’re the Prime Terrilian Reya,” he said, tossing his stylus away before leaning back in his chair. “You caused us trouble when we went to pick you up, and now you’re causing even more. Why couldn’t you have been a good girl and behaved yourself?”
“If the choice had been mine, I still would have done it exactly this way,” 1
answered, the annoyance I’d been feeling beginning to grow to true anger. “And if you persist in talking to me as though I were a backward child, you’re suddenly going to find all those pieces of paper in the air, most of them flying at your head. You haven’t the right to treat me the way you’ve been doing, and I demand to be released.”
“If you’re not a backward child, you should know you’re wasting your time demanding to be released,” he answered, a faint smile turning his lips. “And if you throw any of these papers at me, you’ll waste a lot more time picking them up again. You’re not the first Prime to break through the conditioning, Terrilian, but usually it doesn’t happen quite this fast. That fool Gearing must have caused it with the itch he wanted scratched, and if he wasn’t so useful I would have had him shipped back to Central a long time ago. It would have been easier for you if you’d gotten used to the routine before the conditioning went, but you’re still going to have to go through with it. All of it. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“No, as a matter of fact I don’t,” I said, suddenly finding his calm, patient attitude more chilling than threats would have been. “I don’t understand anything of what’s going on, and if you’d like the truth I don’t particularly want to know. All I want is out of here, and a chance to go back to things as they were. I’ve worked for the Amalgamation most of my life; is that too much to ask in return?”
“It’s not precisely a matter of too much,” he answered, something of a shrug in his tone. “The simple fact is that the Amalgamation needs to make use of you, and has no choice in that need. They can’t take someone else in your place because it’s a Prime they need, not just anyone off a city street or out of a Neighborhood. And if you stop to look at this reasonably instead of emotionally, you’ll find that you’re getting excited over very, very little.
The Amalgamation isn’t asking you to have your arms and legs cut off, Terrilian, all it’s asking you to do is have babies.”
All. I put my hands to the chair arms as he continued to stare at me calmly and reasonably, his own hands unconcernedly crossed on the desk in front of him. I’d expected having it put that baldly to be enough to make me feel any number of things, like disgusted or vastly reluctant or even very much afraid.
Surprisingly enough none of those feelings surfaced, but what I did feel quite a bit of was embarrassment.
“You see?” he asked, still the most reasonable of beings. “It isn’t anything vile, or obscene, or even outrageous. It’s simply something that women do, and you’re inarguably a woman. I’ll admit we had you conditioned against wanting children while you were still a working Prime, but that was only to keep you from being contaminated by someone whose blood wasn’t worthy of yours. Here we have many men worthy of you, men like yourself, the best of the breed. I’m afraid that initially the choice of who will have access to you will be theirs and ours rather than yours, but intelligent cooperation will earn you what should be a pleasant and satisfying bonus. Would you like to hear about that?”
