Sharon Green - Terrillian 05, page 6
Her question was a demand, straightforward and unashamed, but I had no equally straightforward answer. I had occasionally found myself wondering when the Amalgamation would ask something more of me than Mediating, something along the lines of what other empaths had been asked to do. I’d never heard of a Prime being approached, but normal empaths were constantly being urged to pair off, with all sorts of extras thrown their way if they did. But it wasn’t the same thing, not the same at all. E
“If someone had come by and asked, I would at least have had a choice as to who I was going to be involved with,” I pointed out, feeling familiar sourness flowing back in my direction. “I would have had some freedom of say in the matter-and I wouldn’t have produced babies I’d never even get a chance to see, let alone hold. I’m not a machine, I’m a woman, and I won’t let anyone turn me into a machine.”
“No, you’re not a machine, but you’re not a woman either,” she came back, still looking determined. “You’re a Prime, which makes you something else entirely. If you’d paired off with a single man, even one of your choice, what would have happened if you’d suddenly discovered you didn’t like him after all? Nothing, that’s what would have happened, because you’d be stuck with him. And after having the baby of someone you didn’t like grow inside you how long do you think you would have gotten to keep it? How long do other empaths get to keep their children? How long do normals producing talented children get to keep them? At least here you don’t have to go through the hurt of giving up a part of yourself, and you don’t have to worry if you don’t like the partner you’re assigned to. After he’s done his job you don’t have to look at him again, there are enough others around who are pleasant to look at. You have fun during your offtimes, fun during most of your fertile periods, the good life while you’re carrying, and don’t stay pregnant long enough to feel that you’ve lost something once they’ve taken it. Honestly, Terry, what more can you ask for?”
The question was just short of being exasperated, about as far from the rote response of conditioning as you can get, and she knew well enough shed made at least one valid point. Just as she and I had been raised in creches, our children, the children of any other empaths, and the talented children of any normals would be raised the same way. That had not only been a government requirement it was an out-and-out necessity, especially where normals were concerned. When a newborn baby is empathetic, it doesn’t simply cry the way other babies do. It doesn’t yet know how to read emotions, but general broadcasting is something you don’t have to be taught. If you suddenly find yourself feeling very uncomfortable, starving-to-death hungry, or cranky because you’re so tired, you can be fairly certain there’s a baby empath around. If the baby happens to be colicky or delightfully engaged in nursing, there’s no “fairly” about it. You know there’s a baby empath around, and either you take yourself out of its limited range, or see to it that it’s the one taken away while you still have your sanity. Adults experience a wider range of emotions than babies do, but they usually don’t experience them so intensely. A little of that goes a long way, and it takes trained workers to put up with it for any length of time. But I was letting myself be distracted off the track, and it was time to get back on it.
“All you’re doing is rationalizing,” I told the girl Mera, able to see it where she couldn’t. “They talked you into believing you had no chance fighting them, so you rationalized your decision to back down. I’m not interested in their opinions one way or the other, so I don’t have to rationalize anything.”
“Garbage,” she came back with a snort, leaning forward to put her brush back into the box under her cot. “I’m not rationalizing anything, but you haven’t been here long enough to know that. Once you are, you’ll see I’m right. Now listen, when we go into the dining room, I want you to stay right next to me.
That way you won’t have to worry about being noticed, which should speed things up a little. Some of the guys don’t want anything but those icky, cooing, clingy types who still believe they’re being honored, but most of them prefer a woman who knows a little something about flirting. They don’t believe what I say any more than I do, but they get a kick out of hearing it and always come back for more. Let me tell you, I haven’t spent a night in this menagerie since they brought me back straight, and with just a little effort you won’t have to either. And in case you’re wondering, you don’t want to spend a night here.”
She gave me a look of solemn assurance, the voice of experience instructing innocence, and all I could do was blink a little. She had enough self-possession for someone twice her size, and I couldn’t ever remember being taken over like that before. After the surprise passed I found I didn’t like it much and was about to say so, but she wasn’t through imparting the store of information shed gathered.
“And don’t let these stupid cover-ups bother you,” she went on, flicking a finger at the smock she wore. “These are just for daytime use, and to be worn to places like Medical and the General Offices. If you get asked to stay in someone’s apartment for the night, they’ll give you one of the dress-up outfits as a reward for your efforts. You may end up having it ripped off you and then you’ll need to come back bare, but that isn’t anything to worry about. The male Sees in the men’s sector won’t ever. put a finger on you, and the Sees in our own areas are all female. I happen to think the male Securities are drugged or conditioned against touching any of us, and not just for our protection. We’re special, and meant only for the guys. I hate to think what they would do to a Sec who tried to touch what was theirs.”
Her shudder wasn’t completely muffled as she shifted to sitting on the cot, and somehow I knew she was right to be upset at the thought. We who were Primes could do terrible things to people, worse than just about anyone knew, so bad I didn’t want anyone to know. That was something else I couldn’t get the details on, something else gone with the rest, but enough was left for me to know better than to comment. Mera began talking again, back to giving me information and advice, but this time I had no interest in listening. I lay down again on my cot, and stared up at the ceiling stretching high above me.
Only a few more minutes went by before a sound suddenly began echoing through the room, a very low, pleasant gonging that awoke eager movement everywhere it touched. Women began putting their brushes and combs away and getting to their feet, and Mera broke off her monologue to lean forward and tap my arm.
“Lunchtime,” she announced, standing up to stretch high. “And since I took care of my exercises this morning, I can spend the time after lunch having fun. Come on, Terry, we don’t want to be last.”
“Since I’m not very hungry, I think I’ll stay right here,” I answered as I looked up at her, making no effort to get off the cot. “You go ahead and have a great time for both of us.”
“Terry, why do you have to be so thick?” she asked in exasperation, putting her fists to her hips. “They’re not going to let you skip lunch, so why bother pretending? If you don’t walk to the dining room alone they’ll drag you, and that’s not the kind of first impression you want to make. Let’s go in now and get something to eat and meet the guys, and just save the defiance for some other time. “
The suggestion was so reasonable I smiled, but not with anything like real amusement. If I cooperated now to avoid an unnecessary confrontation I could always resist later, but if I went along with that line of thinking I’d find that later was always ahead, never at a place of arrival. I’d cooperated to the point of letting them put me in that zoo of a dormitory room, but that was as far as I was willing to go.
“I’ve always been really bad at saving things,” I said, letting my smile fade.
Ànd what’s that saying about putting things off? It would be a shame to start developing bad habits after living so long without them.
“People who won’t listen to good advice are dumb, ” she pronounced, leaning forward a little to emphasize the opinion. “You’re lucky I like you, or Id leave you to get into all the trouble you’re looking for. If you’re all that good at fighting you’d better get started now, otherwise we’re about to go in to lunch.”
Just for a moment I didn’t understand what she was talking about, and then the two big women in security white reached my cot and leaned down to take my arms. I struggled and tried to keep from being pulled to my feet, but as far as fighting ability went I didn’t have any. The two women were about as distant as it’s possible to get from the bumbling incompetence of the man Gearing, and each one of them alone weighed more than I did. I was pulled along between them behind a calmly strolling Mera, cursing under my breath, wishing I had learned how to use a sword
You can’t really stiffen when you’ve been straining with all your strength to get loose and you certainly can’t stop short, but I know I made a respectable effort to do both. Where in the name of everything that’s real had that thought about a sword come from? Me, learn how to use a sword? When? How? And even above that, why? What in hell was going on with my mind, and if I knew all those things were there, why couldn’t I remember?
The frustration flared so sharply through me that I barely saw the ramp I was dragged up and the double swinging doors I was hauled through. There was a short, wide corridor beyond the doors and another set of doors at the end of the corridor, and then I was in a room even larger than the dormitory room.
The walls had pastel designs with dark-colored accents, the floor was softly carpeted, low, pleasant music was playing, and large, round tables were scattered from one end to the other. As involuntary as my entrance was it took me a moment to notice, but the tables closest to the doors I’d come in by weren’t quite the same as the ones farther away. The nearer ones were just as large but plain, with ordinary-looking chairs circling them m an uninteresting way. The closer I looked at the ones toward the far end of the room, however, the more attractively designed they and their chairs appeared. The tables had brightly colored cloths and rich-looking settings, the chairs were more like overstuffed and contoured armchairs, the carpeting seemed thicker, the …
“Well, what do you think of them?” Mera murmured to me over her shoulder, just as though I’d accompanied her willingly and now stood without being held there. “Aren’t they yummy and delicious?”
The “they” she referred to were the men, of course, and I’d been trying very hard not to look at them. They had been filling the room even as we came in, talking and laughing together and strolling casually in our direction, and the women I stood among were so anxious and eager they were practically holding their breath. I could almost feel a hum in the air from their hovering, and I hadn’t missed the fact that none of them were moving toward -any of the tables. It was as though they first needed permission before they could sit and eat, and I hated the thought. I kept my eyes on the inanimate parts of the room or looked down at my feet, making no answer to Mera’s question, but I should have known better than to think that would stop her.
“Oh, I know you’ll be one of the ones they take down to the other end, Terry, I just know it!” she enthused, practically jumping up and down where she stood. “Some of them saw me and started over, but now they’re looking at you, too! They’re our kind, Terry, more so than any other men anywhere, and it’s right that we belong to them. Come on, girl, smile at them!”
Smiling was the last thing I wanted to do right then, most especially after what shed said. I’d never even so much as met a male of my kind, a male Prime, and as a young girl I’d had daydreams about what wonderful things would happen if I ever did. I wanted to know them but I couldn’t even bear the thought of looking at them, of finding them attractive, of enjoying their company, or ultimately shuddering to their touch. I would not do what all the rest of them were doing, would not sell my selfrespect and my body in response to the psychological manipulations of lowlives. What the Amalgamation was doing was wrong, and if I let myself be coaxed into going along with it, I’d be just as dirty as they were.
“And how are you today, Mera?” a male voice said suddenly, almost bringing my eyes up from the floor to the group that had stopped near us. “I’m happy to note you’re looking as tasty as ever. I don’t remember having seen your friend before, but she’s being treated like a hatchling. We were wondering why that is.”
“In a way she is a hatchling,” the girl answered, light laughter and eager attention in her voice. “She only just got here but she’s already broken out, so of course she doesn’t know how silly she’s being. Other hatchlings are frightened and confused, but all she is is stubborn.”
“Then, by all means, let’s bring her along and show her what she’s missing,”
another male voice said, heavy amusement in it. “If she still tries being stubborn after that, we’ll have to do something about it.”
The comment caused chuckling in everyone in the group including Mera, and then they were moving away with me being forced along behind them. I was aware of the way others of the women had been claimed and drawn toward the far side of the room, but there were still some left who made their dejected way to the nearer, plainer tables. It was clear there weren’t as many men as there were women, which meant the women were being made to compete with each other for attention. I didn’t know what happened to them if they didn’t get that attention, but it wasn’t likely they escaped the fate of those more popular.
Most probably they were left alone to suffer and agonize, which would make them swear to themselves to do better next time.
With jolly thoughts like that for company, I was taken to a table and forced down into a very comfortable chair. The table was more than halfway across the room and was nicely set, but it wasn’t the best of what the room held. The security woman on my left took my hand and pressed my fingers onto a narrow print-plate to the left of my setting, the one on the right bent to slide a padded metal cuff around my ankle which quietly clicked into place against the chair leg, and then the two of them let go of me.
“For future reference, you’re to identify your position in the room at every meal before you do anything else,” the woman on my left said softly, obviously not wanting to interrupt the conversations going on around the table. “The chef has been programmed with a different diet for every woman here, but it has to be told where you are before it can deliver it. We’ll be back for you later, and in the meanwhile you’d be wise to behave yourself.”
They both turned and walked away, leaving me alone in the midst of quite a lot of amusement. Others of the women had been brought to the table by the men, and the whole bunch of them, men and women alike, considered my being locked to the chair the funniest thing they’d seen in a very long time. I. could feel my discomfort over that, burning in my cheeks like a flame, but all I did was sit there, staring down at my hands in my lap.
“Stubborn or not, she’s certainly pretty enough,” observed a voice to my left, a drawling male voice. “And she even knows how to blush. I expect to enjoy myself quite a lot with her, even before she starts to moan and squirm. I think, after this morning, no one can deny I’m entitled to firsts.”
“You don’t have to look for challenges that aren’t there, Jer-Mar,” another male voice said from a different place around the table, a faint hint of petulance to the words. “You’ve placed higher than anyone else on our level, and we know it as well as you do. If you can hold that place for another four days, you’ll be leaving us to move up to the next level. “
“When, not if,” the man to my left corrected smugly, shifting in his chair.
“Once you take that one major step it starts getting easier rather than harder, so much easier you’d have trouble believing it. It was hell dividing that first projection in half, but now I can hold the result for more than thirty seconds before starting to tire. Once they move me up to the next level, who knows what I’ll find I can do.”
“You might even cause Kel-Ten to start worrying,” a third voice said, and this one was chuckling. “If you keep going the way you’ve begun, you won’t only be able to challenge him, you’ll have first dip ahead of him. Which might be more of a favor, or so I hear. The word going around is that he’s bored and making some trouble. “
“Only a man with something wrong with him could get bored with first dip,” the man to my left, Jer-Mar, said with a very cultured sneer. “When I get firsts on that level, you won’t find me getting bored. And speaking of firsts, sweet thing, your food is on the table in front of you. Eat up fast like a good little thing, and then Jer-Mar will take you to his apartment for a while. No need to let it go until after dinner.”
The man reached over to me and put his finger to my ear, caressing the outer edge before poking abruptly inside. I jerked my head away with a feeling of disgust, but he just laughed, took my face in his hand, and forced me to look over at him. It was something I hadn’t wanted to do for a very specific reason, and as soon as my eyes were on him I knew I’d been right. That woman Quatry, the one who was the leader or whatever, had told me Iii been “helped”-
for my first meeting with the men, and she hadn’t been joking. The desire that shivered through my body wasn’t my own idea, and certainly wasn’t being caused by the brown-haired, blue-eyed man who held my face. The arrogance in his stare was that of a grown-up spoiled brat, but I was partially wrong about his not being the cause of the way I felt. His very presence was the cause, that and whatever they’d injected into me, and the flaring anger behind my eyes did only a little against the rising heat lower down.
“Well, well, what pretty green eyes the sweet thing has,” the man drawled with a grin, obviously knowing what he had made happen to me. “I do believe she’s now ready to eat up fast, so Jer-Mar can get to his fun. She really needs him to have his fun, don’t you, sweet thing?”
“Stop talking to me as though I were a worthless pet,” I choked out as I pulled my face from his hand, ignoring the laughter coming from those around the table. “I’m a Prime just the same as you are, and you have no right talking to me as though I weren’t.”
