Mind of My Mind

“Another experiment. All right, it can still work. Just give it a chance. After all, what have you got to lose?”

“Some very valuable people.”

I stood up and faced him. “You want to throw me away before you see how valuable I might be?”

“Girl, I don’t want to throw you away at all.”

“Give me a chance, then.”

“A chance to do what?”

“To find out whether this group of actives is different—or whether I can make them different. To find out whether I or my pattern can keep them from killing each other, or me. That’s what we’re talking about, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

He looked at me. After a moment, he nodded. I didn’t even feel relieved. But, then, I had never really felt threatened. I smiled at him. “You’re curious, aren’t you?”

He looked surprised.

“I know you. You really want to see what will happen—if it will be different from what’s happened before. Because this has happened before, hasn’t it?”

“Not quite.”

“What was different before? I might be able to learn from my predecessors’ mistakes.”

“Do you think anything you could have learned before your transition could have helped you avoid trapping my actives in your pattern?”

I took a deep breath. “No. But tell me anyway. I want to know.”

“No you don’t. But I’ll tell you. Your predecessors were parasites, Mary. Not quite the way I am, but parasites nevertheless. And so are you.”

I thought about that, then shook my head slowly. “But I haven’t hurt anybody. Karl was right next to me and I didn’t—”

“I said you weren’t like me. I’m fairly sure you could have killed Karl, though. I suspect Karl realizes that.”

I sat down. He had finally said something that really hit me. I had kind of built Karl up as a superman in my mind. I could see how he owned Vivian and the servants. His house and his life style were clear evidence of his power. He wasn’t Doro, but he was a good second. “I could have killed him? How?”

“Why? Want to try it?”

“Oh, shit, Doro, come on. I want to know how to avoid trying it. Or is that going to be

impossible too?”

“That’s the question I want an answer to. That’s what I’m curious about. More than curious. Your predecessors never trapped more than one active at a time. Their first was always the one who had helped them through transition. They always needed help to get through transition. If I didn’t provide it, they died. On the other hand, if I did provide it, sooner or later they killed the person who had helped them. They never wanted to kill, and especially they didn’t want to kill that person. But they couldn’t help themselves. They got … hungry, and they killed. Then they latched onto another active, drew him to them, and went through the feeding process again. Unfortunately, they always killed other actives. I can’t afford that.”

“Did they … trade bodies the way you do?”

“No. They took what they needed and left the husk.”

I winced.

“And their patterns gave them an access to their victims that their victims couldn’t close off—as you already know.”

“Oh.” I felt almost guilty—as though he were telling me about things that I had already done. As though I had already killed the people in my pattern. People who hadn’t done anything to me.

“So you can see why I’m worried,” he said.

“Yes. But I can’t see why you’d want somebody like me around at all—why you’d breed somebody like me if all my kind can do is feed on other actives.”

“Not your kind, Mary. Your predecessors.”

“Right. They killed one at a time. I kill several at once. Progress.”

“But do you kill several at once?”

“I hope I don’t kill any at all—at least not unintentionally. But you don’t give me much to base that hope on. What am I for, Doro? What are you progressing toward?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“Your race, your empire, yes, but what place is there in it for me?”

“I’ll be able to tell you that after I’ve watched you for a while.”

“But—”

“The thing for you to do now is rest so that you’ll have a better chance of handling your people when they get here. Your transition was several hours longer than normal, so you’re probably still tired.”

I was tired. I had gotten only a couple of hours’ sleep. I wanted answers, though, more than I wanted rest. But he’d made it pretty clear that I wasn’t going to get them. Then I realized what he had just said. “My people?”

“Both you and Karl say you feel as though they’re yours.”

“And both Karl and I know that, if they really belong to anybody other than themselves, it’s you.”

“You belong to me,” he said. “So I’m not giving up anything when I give you charge of them. They’re yours as long as you can handle them without killing them.”

I stared at him in surprise. “One of the owners,” I muttered, remembering the bitter thoughts I’d had two weeks before. “How did I suddenly become one of the owners?”

“By surviving your transition. What you have to do now is to survive your new authority.”

I leaned back in my chair. “Thanks. Any pointers?”

“A few.”

“Speak up, then. I have the feeling I’m going to need all the help I can get.”

“Very likely. First you should realize that I’m delegating authority to you only because you’ll need it if you’re to have any chance at all of staying alive among these people. You’re going to have to accept your own proprietary feelings as legitimate and demand that your people accept you on your terms.” He paused, looked hard at me. “Keep them out of your mind as much as you can. Use your advantage. Always know more about them than they know about you. Intimidate them quietly.”

“The way you do?”

“If you can.”

“I have a feeling you’re rooting for me.”

“I am.”

“Well … I wouldn’t ask why, on a bet. I’d rather think it was because you really gave a damn about me.”

He just smiled.

KARL

Karl had never wanted quite as much as he did now to hurt something, to kill something, someone. He looked at Vivian sitting next to him, her mind ablaze with fear, her face carefully expressionless.

The blast of a horn behind him let him know that he was sitting through a green light. He restrained an impulse to lash back at the impatient driver. He could kill with his ability. He had, twice, accidentally, not long after his transition. He wondered why he refrained from doing it again. What difference would it make?

“Are we going back home?” Vivian asked.

Karl glanced at her, then looked around. He realized that he was heading back toward Palo Verde. He had left home heading nowhere in particular except away from Mary and Doro. Now he had made a large U and was heading back to them. And it wasn’t just an ordinary unconscious impulse driving him. It was Mary’s pattern.

He pulled over to the curb, stopped under a NO PARKING sign. He leaned back in the seat, his eyes closed.

“Will you tell me what’s the matter with you?” Vivian asked.

“No.”

She was doing all she could to keep calm. It was his silence that frightened her. His silence and his obvious anger.

He wondered why he had brought her with him. Then he remembered. “You’re not leaving me,” he said.

“But if Mary came through transition all right—”

“I said you’re not leaving!”

“All right.” She was almost crying with fear. “What are you going to do with me?”

He turned to glare at her in disgust.

“Karl, for heaven’s sake! Tell me what’s wrong.” Now she was crying.

“Be quiet.” Had he ever loved her, really? Had she ever been more than a pet—like all the rest of his women? “How was Doro last night?” he asked.