“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
I was surprised to realize how much I didn’t want to tell her. None of them knew that I could read them through their shields, that nothing they could do would keep me out. They hated me enough already. But I had already decided not to hide my ability. Not to act as though I were ashamed of it or afraid of them. “I read it in your mind,” I said.
“When?” She was beginning to look outraged.
“That doesn’t matter. Hell, I don’t even remember exactly when.”
“I’ve been shielded most of the time. Unless you read it just now while I was healing … you were reading me then, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You watched what I did, then came in here to try it on yourself.”
“That’s right. Doesn’t it seem strange to you that you don’t feel drained?”
“We’ll get back to that. I want to find out more about your snooping. I didn’t feel you reading me just now.”
I took a deep breath. “I could say that was because you were so busy with Jesse, but I won’t bother. Rachel, you’ll never feel me reading you unless I want you to.”
She looked at me silently for several seconds. “It’s part of your special ability, then. You can read people without their being aware of it. And … you can read people without thinning your shield enough to have them read you. Because you weren’t open just now. I would have noticed.” She stopped as though waiting for me to say something. I didn’t. She went on, “And you can read people right through their shields. Can’t you!” It was a demand or an accusation. Like she was daring me to admit it.
“Yes,” I said. “I can.”
“So you’ve taken our mental privacy as well as our freedom.”
“It looks like I’ve given you something, too.”
“Given me what?”
“Freedom from the parasitic need you feel so guilty about sometimes.”
“If you weren’t hiding behind Doro, I’d show you how much I appreciate your gift.”
“No doubt you’d try. But since Doro is on my side, shouldn’t we at least try to get along?”
She turned and walked away from me.
Nothing was settled and I had one more strike against me. But at least I was starting to learn to heal. I had a feeling I should learn as much as I could about that as quickly as I could. In case Rachel tried something desperate.
Nobody tried anything for a while, though. There was only the usual arguing. Jesse promised me he was going to “get” me. He was a big, dumb, stocky guy, blond, good-looking, mean—a troublemaker. But, somehow, he was the one active that I was never afraid of. And he was wary of me. He told himself I was crazy, and he kept away from me in spite of his threat.
People began to get together in the house to do something besides argue.
Seth started sleeping in Ada’s room, and Ada, our mouse, started to look a little more alive.
Jesse went to Rachel’s room one night to thank her for healing him. His gratitude must have pleased her. He went back the next night to thank her again.
Karl said “Good morning” to me once. I think it just slipped out.
Rachel told Doro—not me—that I had been right. That she could heal now without taking strength from a crowd. In fact, she said she wasn’t sure she still could draw strength from crowds. She said the pattern had changed her, limited her somehow. Now she seemed to be using her patients’ own strength to heal them—which sounded as though it would be dangerous if her patient was in bad shape to start with. Jesse had merely eaten a couple of steaks when she let him wake up. Steaks, a lot of fries, salad, and about a quart of milk. But Jesse was such a big guy that I suspected that was the way he usually ate. I found out later that I was right. So, evidently, the healing hadn’t weakened him that much.
I kept to myself during those first days. I watched everybody—read everybody, that is. I found that Rachel had spread the word about my abilities and everybody figured I was watching them. They didn’t like it. They thought a lot of shit at me when I was in a room with them. But I almost never read them steadily when I was with them, talking to them. I had to keep my attention on what they were saying. So it took me a while to realize that I was being cursed out on two levels.
I was settling in, though. I was learning not to be afraid of any of them. Not even Karl. They were all older than I was and they were all physically bigger. For a while, I had to keep telling myself I couldn’t afford to let that matter. If I went on letting them scare me, I’d never be able to handle them. After a while, I started to convince myself. Maybe I was influenced by the kind of thoughts I picked up from them when they were off guard. Sometimes, even while they were complaining or arguing or cursing at me, they were aware of being very comfortable within the pattern. Jesse wasn’t getting any of the mental static that had used to prevent him from driving a car, and Jan didn’t have to always be careful what she touched—bothered by the latent mental images she had used to absorb from everything. And, of course, Rachel didn’t need her crowds. And Clay Dana didn’t need as much help from Seth as he had before he came to us. Clay seemed to be getting some benefit from the pattern even though he wasn’t a member of it. And that left Seth with more time for Ada.
Everybody was settling in. But the others didn’t like it. It scared them that they were not only getting used to their leashes but starting to see benefits in them. It scared hell out of them that maybe they were giving in the way ordinary people gave in to them. That they were getting to be happy slaves like Karl’s servants. Their fear made them fight harder than ever against me. I could understand their feelings, but that wasn’t enough. I had to do something about them. I was fed up with hearing about them. I thought for a while, then went to talk to Doro.
I had come to depend on Doro more now than I ever had before. He was the only person in the house that I could talk to without getting blamed, cursed, or threatened. I had all but moved into his room. So, one night, about two weeks after my transition, I walked into his room, fell across his bed, and said, “Well, I guess this has gone on long enough.”
“What?” he asked. He was at his desk scribbling something that looked like ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics in a notebook.
“Everybody sitting around waiting for something that isn’t going to happen,” I said. “Waiting for the pattern to just disappear.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Get them all together and make them face a few facts. And then, after they stop screaming, get them thinking about what they can do with themselves in spite of the pattern.” I sat up and looked at him. “Hell, they’re all telepaths. They don’t have to be able to go miles from home to get work done. And God knows they need something to do!”
“Work?”
“Right. Jobs, interests, goals.” I had been thinking about it for days now. “They can make their own jobs. It will give them less time to bitch at me. Rachel can have a church if she wants one. The others can look around, find out what they want.”
“If they’re reasonable. They might not be, you know.”
“Yeah.”
“They might not stop screaming, as you put it, until they’ve tried to lynch you.”
“Yeah,” I repeated. I took a deep breath. “Want to sit in and see the blood?”
He smiled. “There might not be any blood if I’m there.”
“Then, by all means, sit in.”
“Oh, I will. But it will only be to let them know I’m acknowledging your authority over them. I’m going to turn them loose, Mary.”
I swallowed. “Already, huh?”
“They’re yours. It’s time you jumped in among them.”
“I guess so.” I really wasn’t surprised. I had seen him working up to this. He couldn’t read my mind, but he watched me as closely as I watched everybody else. He questioned me. I didn’t mind. He let the others complain to him about me, but he didn’t question them about me or make them pr
omises. That, I appreciated. So now it was time for me to be kicked out of the nest.
“You’ll be leaving if this works, won’t you?” I asked.
“For a while. I’ll be back. I have a suggestion that might help you both before and after I leave, though.”
“What?”
“Let Karl in on what you’re going to do before you do it. Let him get over some of his anger with you and see the sense in what you’re saying. Then, if I understand him as well as I think I do, he’ll stand with you if any of the others threaten you.”
“Isn’t that just trading one protector for another? I’m supposed to be able to protect myself.”
“Oh, you can. But, chances are, you’ll have to do it by killing someone. I was trying to help you avoid that.”
I nodded. I knew he was still worried that my killing might be a chain-reaction thing. That if I took one of the actives, then, sooner or later, I’d have to take another. And another. I had a feeling that, when he left, he wouldn’t go any farther than Emma’s house. And from there, he’d keep whatever special senses he had trained on me.
“Is Karl alone now?” he asked.
I checked. “Yes, for a change.” Karl had been screwing around with Jan, of all people. He couldn’t have found a better way to disgust me.
“Then, go to him now. Talk to him.”
I gave Doro a dirty look. It was late, and I was in no mood to hear the things Karl would probably say to me. I just wanted to go to bed. But I got up and went to see Karl.
He was lying on his back interfering with the thoughts of some sleeping local politician. I hesitated for a moment to find out what he was doing. He was just making sure that a company he and Doro controlled got a zone variance it needed to erect a building. He had a job, anyway. I knocked at his door.
He listened silently to what I had to tell him, his face expressionless.
“So we’re here, we belong to you, and that’s that,” he said quietly.
“That wasn’t my point.”
“Yes it was. Along with the fact that we might as well find some way to live our lives this way and make the best of it.”
“All I want us to do is settle down and start acting like human beings again.”
“If that’s still what we are. What do you want from me?”
“Help, if you can give it. If you will.”
“Me, help you?”
“You’re my husband.”
“That wasn’t my idea.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. This wasn’t the time to fight with him.
“Doro will back you up,” he said. “He’s all you need.”
“He’s putting me on my own. He’s putting us on our own.”
“Why? What have you done?”
“Nothing, so far. It’s not punishment. He just thinks it’s time we found out whether we can survive without him—as a group.”
“Whether you can survive.”
“No, us, really. Because, if things go bad, I’m not about to let the others get me without taking as many of them as I can with me.” I took a deep breath. “That’s why I want your help. I’d like to get through this without killing anybody.”
He looked a little surprised. “Are you so sure you can kill?”
“Positive.”
“How can you know? You’ve never tried.”
“You don’t want to hear how I know, believe me.”
“Don’t be stupid. If you want my help at all, you’d better tell me everything.”
I looked at him. I made myself just look at him until I could answer quietly. “I know the same way you know how to eat when you’re hungry. I’m that kind of parasite, Karl. I suppose you and the others might as well face it the way I have.”
“You … you’re saying you’re a female Doro?”
“Not exactly, but that’s close enough.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Oh yes you do.”
He stared at me silently for a moment. “I didn’t want to believe you could read me through my shield either.”
“I can. That’s part of my ability, too.”
“You have enough abilities not to need my help.”
“I told you why I need you.”
“Yes. You don’t want to kill.”
“Not unless somebody is stupid enough to attack me.”
“But if hunger is what you feel, how can you avoid doing something about it eventually? You’ll have to kill.”
“It’s more like having an appetite—like being able to eat but not really being hungry.”
“But you will get hungry. It seems to me that’s why we’re here. We’re your food supply. You’re gathering people the way Doro does. It just isn’t as much work for you as it is for him.”
“Yeah,” I said softly. “I’ve been thinking things like that myself. They might be all wrong. But even if they aren’t, I don’t know what to do about it.”
He turned his head, stared at a bookcase. “Short of committing suicide, there’s not much you can do.”
“And I’m not about to do that. But I’ll tell you, as mad as these people make me sometimes, it would be almost as hard for me to kill one of them as it would be for me to commit suicide. I don’t want their lives.”
“For now.”
“And I don’t want anybody forcing me to change my mind. Because, if I do, I’m not sure I’ll be able to control myself. I might kill more of you than I mean to.” I got up to leave. “Karl, I’m not asking you to make up your mind now, or promise me anything. I just wanted you to know there was a choice to make.” I started for the door.
“Wait a minute.”
I stopped, waited.
“You’re closed, shielded all the time,” he said. “I don’t think you’ve unshielded once since you did it for me after your transition.”
“Would you if you were living with people who wanted to kill you?”
“What if I asked you to open for me? Just for me. Now.”
“Why?”
“Because you need me. And because I need to see the truth of what you’re telling me.”
“I thought that was settled.”
“I’ve got to see it for myself, Mary. I’ve got to be certain. I can’t … do what you’re asking until I’ve seen for myself that it’s necessary.”
I read him, saw that he was telling the truth. He was angry and bitter and he didn’t like himself much for even thinking about siding with me. But he knew it was his best chance for survival—for a while, at least.
I opened. I was more worried about accidentally taking him than I was about what he might find out. I was a little touchier about his rummaging through my memories than I had been before, but I put up with it. He didn’t go after anything more than verification of what I had told him. That was all he cared about.
“All right,” he said after a moment.
I shielded, looked at him.
“I’ll do what I can to help you,” he said. “And heaven help both of us.”
Chapter Seven
Mary
Winning Karl over gave me the courage to get right to work on the others. I called everybody together in the living room at around ten the next morning. Karl came in with Vivian, and Seth Dana came with Ada and Clay. Vivian and Clay didn’t really have to be there, of course, but it didn’t matter to me that they were.
Karl had to go and get Jan. She said she wasn’t about to take orders from me. I figured we’d have this meeting and then, if she still felt that way, I’d show her how gentle Doro had been with her.
And Doro had to get Jesse and Rachel. They were shacked up in Jesse’s room now, like they meant to stay together for a while. They were sure as hell together in their opinion of me. In fact, they were so close together and they hated me so much that I knew if I had to take anybody, it would probably be one of them. And the way they had been acting for the past few days, I didn’t see how I could get away with taking just one. Neither of them was going to
sit by and watch the other killed.
That bothered me. I realized that their feelings for each other could be used against them—that, for a while at least, I could control one by threatening the other. But, somehow, I didn’t want to do that. I’d try it if I had to, rather than kill them both and make myself a liability to Doro, but I hoped they wouldn’t push me that far.
Once they were all in the room, with Doro sitting by himself off to one side, I made my speech. Doro told me later that I was too blunt, too eager to threaten and challenge. He was probably right.
I told everybody that the pattern was a permanent fixture binding them to me. It wasn’t going anywhere, I wasn’t going anywhere, and they weren’t going to do anything to me. I told them I could kill them, would kill them if they pushed me, but that I didn’t want to kill them if I could avoid it. I told them to follow the feelings I knew they were suppressing and accept the pattern. Get themselves some new interests or revive some old ones, get jobs if they wanted them, stop sitting around bitching like kids. I spoke quietly to them. I didn’t rant and rave. But they still didn’t like what I had to say.
And, of course, except for Karl, they didn’t want to believe me. I had to open to them. I had thought that might be necessary. I hadn’t been looking forward to it but I was ready to do it. First, though, I did what I could to throw a scare into them.
“Look,” I said quietly. “You all know me. You know I’ll do whatever I have to to defend myself. Try anything more than reading me now, and you’ve had it. That’s all.”
I opened. I could see that they were moving cautiously, trying to find out whether I had the power I claimed before they made any move against me—which was intelligent of them.
I had never opened my mind to anyone but Karl before. I had only the memories of the others to tell me what it was like to open to more than one person at a time. They had never done it deliberately. It was just that they couldn’t stay shielded all the time, the way I could. Their shields cut off their mental perception totally. In a way, for them, shielding was like wandering around wearing a gag, a blindfold, and earplugs. None of them could put up with it for long. So sometimes they picked up things from each other. Sometimes two or three of them picked up something from one. They didn’t like it, but they were learning to live with it. Doro had said that in itself was more than he had dared to hope for. Actives had never been able to live with it before. He said it seemed much easier for my actives to keep out of each other’s minds than it had been for earlier generations. He gave my pattern the credit for that. Maybe my pattern deserved the credit for the way I was able to accept them all into my mind, too. Like them, I didn’t enjoy it. But I wasn’t nervous or afraid, because I knew I could defend myself if I had to, and I knew none of them meant to try anything—yet. I was just uncomfortable. Like I’d suddenly found myself stark naked in front of a lot of strangers, all of whom were taking a good look.