Sharon Green - Terrillian 05, page 32
“No, taking a chance like that wouldn’t have been very smart,” Ashton said with gentle reassurance from very near, and then her arm was around me. I didn’t realize until then that I was trembling, but didn’t try to pull away even though I had no need of her support.
“It would have been worse than not very smart,” I said more calmly, sitting unmoving against the arm around my shoulders, my eyes open again but staring down at the carpet fur. “They have nulls as guards in that place, and one of them decided he wanted me. While Kel-Ten was busy covering the female Primes he’d been assigned to, the nullused the opportunity to enjoy himself. That happened the night before I was awakened, but the next day I found out he planned on doing it again that very day, and my being awakened would have been no use at all. I wouldn’t have been able to stop him from hurting me again, so I-ran. I had myself sent to Serdin’s office, found out that the null was too important a man to be denied a little thing like-what he’d done to me-and would do again-so I took over Serdin’s mind and had him get me out of the complex-and when I got into the woods the Ejects told me I’d be found no matter how well I tried to hide-which meant there was a tracer under my skin somewhere-and then they drove me off to keep me from leading the complex people to them when I was found-they get used as targets for the male Primes in their training-and then-I don’t remember much after that besides running.”
“Treda, be calm, you are safe now among friends,” a soothing voice said from my right, and I almost told it not to be silly, that I was calm, but then I realized how hard I was breathing. It also came to me that my eyes were closed again and that Hestin, the one who had just spoken, had a hand wrapped around my right arm as his other hand stroked my hair. I didn’t know how he could have understood what I’d said since I’d been speaking in Centran, but there was no doubt he had because he was speaking in Centran. And then there was someone to my left, someone who wasn’t Ashton.
“Hama, you have my word that I will seek out the ones who gave you pain and will end their lives!” that deep voice said, the tone so full of fury that I nearly cringed to think of what the mind behind it must be like. “Not again shall I allow you to be taken from my side, no matter that in this last instance the choice was not mine. Not again will it be allowed to occur.”
The words were almost all growl, the sworn oath behind them so clear even someone without hearing couldn’t have missed it. I shuddered without being able to stop it, only beginning to realize how ill I felt, then quickly leaned away from the wide arms that were starting to go around me. I didn’t want those arms around me, and when I moved against Hestin his grip on my own arm tightened just a little.
“Tammad, my friend, the woman is not well,” he said, surprisingly with a frown in his usually even voice. “Pain lingers in her on too many levels, and for some reason she has done no more than merely begin the healing of herself.
Also, she must surely continue to have no memory of you, for the spirit within her retreats in haste from the touch of your hands. Clearly must you exercise patience in regard to … “
“What do you mean, `the healing of herself’?” Ashton suddenly demanded of Hestin, no apology in her tone for having interrupted him. “Is that what you call her use of pain control, or is there something … “
“Part of that pain has to be my fault,” Len said, his voice filled with misery and guilt. “Terry, please, you have to believe I didn’t mean to hurt you like
. . ”
“Don’t let what they did to you bother you any more, Terry,” Garth said, sounding utterly savage. “I’ll be designing a good number of the attack plans against them, and when I’m through there won’t be anything left of …”
I sat there staring at the cup of kimla in my hands, surrounded by noise that was climbing higher and higher in its level of strength. Murdock’s voice added itself to the others and so did Dallan’s, both of them merging into the rising explosion that was making me want to put my hands over my ears and race out of there. In one way or another all those people were trying to make me believe they cared about me, but all I felt like was a rock in a river, something the violently swirling current was forced to go around. I couldn’t …
“Silence!” a deafening shout suddenly came, a very deep voice that had used sheer lung power to overcome the cacaphony that was about to split the walls.
It had come from behind me, in the direction of the door hanging, and quickly got the silence it had demanded. When I realized everyone was looking that way I twisted around to do my own looking, and saw the man and woman who had evidently just come in. The man was in haddin and swordbelt and was just as large and blond as all Rimilian l’lendaa, but the pretty woman was more my size, with dark hair and light eyes. She wore a long, full skirt that was almost a caldin but made of sturdier material, and her long-sleeved blouse was more tunic than imad. She also stood in a pair of plain but well-made sandals, and for some reason she was staring directly at me.
“Well, doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun?” Ashton commented from behind me in a drawl. “Is it sundown already, Irin?”
Irin. The woman didn’t answer Ashton but she also didn’t stop staring, and suddenly I felt very hollow inside. Those two standing at the door, the man now joining the woman in her stare-they had to, be-my real parents Chapter 12
“Why does she look so pale?” the woman suddenly demanded, taking a step forward. “What have you all done to her? And why does she think she has to shield here, back where she belongs? Damn you, Murdock, if you’ve made things even worse-!”
“Calm yourself, Irindel,” Murdock said from where I couldn’t see him, his voice filled with its usual diplomatic smoothness. “Your daughter has been through a trying experience, but felt she needed to relate the episode for our benefit. She would likely have been wiser resting first, but seems to have inherited a good deal of your disposition. “
“Then perhaps one of greater wisdom should have seen to deciding the matter in her stead,” the man beside the woman Irin said in Centran while she looked indignant, his steady blue gaze now resting beyond me, most likely on Murdock.
“One must be in full possession of one’s wits to see the necessary; should the situation be otherwise, those about that one must show sufficient concern to give assistance.”
“With all the experience you’ve had with Irin, Rissim, that’s easy for you to say,” Ashton put in, sounding much too amused for a situation like that. “One of the reasons your daughter tends to shield most of the time is because of the strength of her mind. If you combine that with Irin’s stubborness you get someone who isn’t that easily àssisted,’ no matter how concerned those around her are. You two may find yourselves glad she’s been gone all these years.”
“How dare you say something like that!” the woman Irin growled, her hands closed to fists as her furious gaze found her sister. “There’s nothing that will ever make me glad my child was stolen from me, nothing! I’ll make you regret that twisted sense of humor of yours, Asha, you wait and see if I don’t!”
“Surely, Irindel, there will be better, more appropriate times for recriminations,” Murdock said before Ashton could come back with an answer likely to continue the argument. “I, however, would consider it the perfect time for introducing yourself to your daughter, and in turn having her introduced to you. My study is just down the hall; why not use it before returning to your own house?”
Suddenly the woman’s eyes were back to me, and none of her previous anger was anywhere to be seen. As a matter of fact she looked more like I felt: completely at a loss with nothing of any sense or importance ready to be said.
We stared at each other in silence for what felt like hours, neither of us apparently able to start taking Murdock up on his offer, and the double hesitation proved to be too much for Ashton.
“For pity’s sake, do you two intend playing statue for the rest of your lives?” she demanded, the words accompanied by the sound of rising. “Since you’re both incapable of taking a hint, let me put it another way: how about moving the reunion into the next room so the rest of us can get back to a conversation with words?”
She must have known her suggestion would do no more good than Murdock’s had, and wasn’t about to wait around to see it happen. Without warning her hand was suddenly on my arm, and before I knew it the cup of kimla was gone and I was on my feet. The next few minutes were very confusing in that Ashton took charge of me and Rissim began navigating Irindel, both efforts ending us all up in a small room a short distance away from the first. To this day I can’t call up a memory from then of how the room was furnished, but at the time it took me no more than seconds to notice that Ashton disappeared immediately without another word. That left just three of us in the room, and at least one of the three decided she probably would have been smarter staying right where she’d originally been.
“Perhaps it would be best, girl, if it were you who spoke first,” Rissim said after a moment, his deep voice very gentle. “It was, after all, we who allowed you to be taken from us, we who permitted the severing of your proper blood ties. Should you wish to voice anger at so vile a doing, the right is surely yours.”
I had been standing around on the carpet fur trying to find something to look at, but what Rissim said made me stop and think. How did I feel about it all, and if I didn’t really , believe these strangers were my parents, why couldn’t I look at them?
“I don’t yet feel any anger,” I said after a pause of my own, forcing my eyes back to where the two people stood. “I may decide it’s appropriate if I can ever get myself to believe all this on an emotional level, but right now I’m too confused and upset to believe in anything beyond daylight and dark. And if you want to be realistic about it, Ashton made a point that shouldn’t simply be dismissed. You’ve been looking forward to regaining a member of your family, but how do you know you’ll like the woman she’s become?”
It took quite a lot for me to get that question out, and while I was under a double light-eyed stare at that. There was no way to ever really know if what I’d missed would have been better and more satisfying for me than what I’d had, and that part of it was gone into the irretrievable past. My point was much more relevant to the time we stood in, and was the one causing most of my upset. At first I saw nothing but two people staring at me, no true expression on either face, and then I realized how wrong I was. Quiet tears were running down Irin’s cheeks, and the light of a very warm smile showed in Rissim’s eyes.
“Were the question of liking truly at issue, we would now have our answer,”
Rissim said, the arm he had around his woman gently tightening as the smile spread to his face. “Our love shall always be for the child produced by a union of that love, yet liking, never so easily accomplished, is now the belonging of one who first considers our feelings in the matter. In no manner might a daughter such as that be unacceptable. “
He seemed to be telling the truth, but the answer he’d given wasn’t really the one Iii been looking for. I hadn’t asked my question to impress anyone, just to find out something I needed to know, and then it carne to me that lowering my shield might be the way to get it. Most of the time it’s a good deal easier not knowing what others really think of you, but that time I wanted the truth even if it hurt. If all that turned out to be reality rather than a disturbing dream, the truth was something I had to have.
But the condition of my mind wasn’t something to be inflicted on those around me, most especially not without warning. Instead of simply dropping my shield I replaced it with my curtain-and the next instant was nearly bowled over.
Reaching through the curtain showed that Rissim had been telling the truth as he saw it, the vast calm of his mind confirming his words, but Irin-! She wasn’t simply feeling agreement she was aching with it, her fiercely burning sense of pride nearly drowning in a flood of loss and guilt. Those reactions immediately made me think she couldn’t be trusted, a pointless, mindless thought I thrust away without knowing where it came from, and then I was able to understand why she felt as she did.
I hadn’t been told the truth until a few days earlier, but she had lived with it for all the years of my life.
No matter how good the reason, she had allowed her child to be taken from her, to be raised by hated strangers and never told who her real people were.
If her child hated her for it, or worse, simply had no interest in knowing her, there was nothing she would ever be able to do about it. It would come close to killing her, but could never, ever be changed.
I stood there feeling what she felt, understanding her more completely than I had ever done with anyone, realizing almost at once that she didn’t know our minds touched. Hers was bright and sharp, not possessing the strength of mine but one of the strongest Id ever encountered, a loving, self-confident, normally self-satisfied mind that now quaked with terror. The fear I’d felt over not being liked was nothing when compared to her fear of the same thing, a nightmare shed lived with for so many long, empty years. The passing time had done very little to mar her prettiness, which meant I didn’t feel quite so strange when I opened my mind and my arms to her. She was, of course, the elder between us, but she was the one who needed a child’s comforting. She sobbed once before rushing to me, and then it was hard to tell whether there was more laughing or crying going on.
It didn’t take long before Rissim joined in the hugging with laughter of his own, and before I knew it reality retreated even farther away than it had been before. It felt so right to be where I was, exchanging hugs with a woman I’d never seen before, the two of us being hugged by a man I didn’t know, all of us touching minds so completely and freely that wed never be strangers again.
That was the way it happened in dreams, with laughter and no sense of worry; something bothered me about that, but it was the only way I could take it.
The strongest emotions are too draining to sustain for very long, so it wasn’t more than a few minutes before we all took deep breaths and moved back just a little to look at one another. There’s nothing of intrusion involved in really looking at your own, most especially in a dream. Irin had settled into a glowing smile, and after shed taken a breath she shook her head.
“Asha may have the worst sense of humor I’ve ever come across, but I can see she wasn’t lying,” I was told, a hand coming to smooth one side of my hair back. “Your mind does have more strength than we’ve yet encountered, daughter mine, and for the first time in my life I feel like bragging and strutting.
Not only do I finally have my firstborn back, and not only is she filled with more compassion than I’d dared hope for, but she also comes back as an excitingly wonderful example. Do you believe most of the people in this valley think our talents have already been developed as far as they can go?”
“If that’s true, they may not like finding out they’re wrong,” I answered, feeling odd and almost comfortable. “People usually don’t enjoy having their beliefs torn away. “
“You don’t understand,” she said with a laugh, putting her hand to my arm. “It isn’t satisfied conviction your presence will disrupt, it’s glum resignation.
No one was happy believing wed stretched to the end, but without anything concrete to give us hope all we could do was accept the conclusion. Now we can accept the truth instead, and as soon as we put paid to the sick plans of Rathmore Hellman and his group, we can throw a celebration feast like you’ve never seen. After that we’ll get to work.”
“Perhaps not all those in our valley will wish to begin a similar striving,”
Rissim said, looking me over with an odd bent to his thoughts, his arms folded easily across his chest. “Our firstborn is truly sarella wenda, Irin, and many will be the l’lendaa and varindaa who come seeking my approval. I shall listen to each with courtesy and patience-and shall see more directly to those who attempt to approach her rather than he who is her father. The old ways have not died among us here, nor shall they the while I remain among the living.”
“Oh, Rissim, no one will try to steal her from you, not with your reputation as a l’lenda,” Irin said with a laugh while I blinked at the big man who stood beside her. “They’ll all come to the front door, not try to sneak in through the back, and in any event our little girl is not what I would consider helpless.”
She was still grinning when she turned away from him, then laughed again at whatever my expression was like. I hadn’t realized how-protected-it would feel to have a Rimilian father, and I wasn’t sure I liked it. It’s really terrible to be all alone and know there’s no one there to help you but yourself, but after you do it for awhile you sort of begin getting used to it. I could see from Rissim’s mind he expected me to get unused to it as fast as possible, and like most Rimilian men wasn’t prepared to take no for an answer.
“Now, Terry, don’t let your father’s overprotectiveness bother you,” Irin said as she patted my hand, amusement still clear in her mind. “You’re the only daughter I’ve managed to give him, and although men enjoy having sons they can share manhood with, there’s always a small part of them that yearns for a daughter to protect. He only sounds as though he means to chase the l’lendaa and varindaa away. He won’t really do it.”
“What are varindaa?” I asked, mainly to cover the fact that I couldn’t think of anything else. Rissim was grinning at me faintly, his mind practically purring, his satisfied thoughts saying more plainly than words that he d be the one to decide what he did and didn’t do.
