“Are you so sure it is better?” asked Karl.
“You’re damn right I am. How many latents do you imagine burn the hands off their kids like your mother didor worse? And you know Doro doesn’t pay attention to those kids. How could he? God knows how many thousands of them there are. So they get shitted on, and if they live to grow up, they shit on their own kids.”
“And you’re going to save them all.” Karl radiated sarcasm.
I turned to look at him.
“You’re not exactly vicious, Mary,” he said. “But you’re not altruistic, either. Why pretend to be?”
“Wait a minute, Karl,” said Doro. And then to me, “Mary, as angry as he’s just made you, I think he’s right. I think there’s a reason for what you want to do that you haven’t faced yet. Think about it.”
I had been just about to explode at Karl. Somehow, though, when Doro said the same thing in different words, it didn’t bother me as much. Well, why did I want to see as many latents as possible brought through transition? So I could be an empress? I wouldn’t even say that out loud. It sounded too stupid. But, whatever I called myself, I was definitely going to wind up with a lot of people taking orders from me, and that really didn’t sound like such a bad thing. And as for altruism, whether it was my real motive or not, every latent we brought into the pattern would benefit from being there. He would regain control of his life and be able to use his energy for something besides fighting to stay sane. But, honestly, as bad as it sounds, I had known that latents were suffering for most
of my life. I grew up watching one of them suffer. Rina. Of course I couldn’t have done anything about it until now, but I hadn’t really wanted to do anything. I hadn’t cared. Not even during the time, just before my transition, when I found out just how much latents suffered. After all, I knew I wasn’t going to be one much longer.
Altruism, ambitionwhat else was there?
Need?
Did I need those latents, somehow? Was that why I was so enthusiastic, so happy that I was going to get them? I knew I wanted them in the pattern. They belonged to me and I wanted them. The only way to find out for sure whether or not I needed them was to leave them alone and see how I fared without them. I didn’t want to do that.
“I’m not sure what you want me to say,” I told him. “You’re right. I want to bring latents through for my own satisfaction. I admit that. I want them here around me. But as for why…” I shook my head.
“You don’t have to kill,” said Doro quietly. “But you do have to feed. And six people aren’t enough.”
Karl looked startled. “Wait a minute, are you saying she’s going to have to keep doing what she did to Jesse and Rachel? That she’ll have to choose one or two of us regularly and”
“I don’t know,” said Doro. “It’s possible, of course. And if it turns out to be true, I would think you’d want her to fill the neighborhood with other actives. But, on the other hand, she didn’t take Rachel and Jesse because she wanted them. She took them in self-defense.” He looked at me. “You haven’t been an active long enough for this to mean much, but in the two weeks since your transition, have you felt any need, any inclination to take anyone?”
“No,” I said. “Never. The idea disgusted me until I did it. Then I felt … well, you probably know.”
“He might know,” said Karl. “But I don’t.”
I opened and projected the sensation.
He jumped, whispered, “Jesus Christ.” From him it sounded more like praying than cursing. “If that’s what you felt, I’m surprised you didn’t go ahead and take the rest of us.”
“It’s possible that she was only saving the rest of you for another time,” said Doro. “But I don’t think so. Somehow, her ability reminds me more of Rachel’s. Rachel could have left her congregations unconscious or dead, but she never did. Never felt inclined to. It was easy for her to be careful, easy for her not to really take anyone. But, to a lesser degree, she took everyone. She gained what she needed, and her congregations lost nothing more than they could afford. Nothing that they couldn’t easily replace. Nothing that they even noticed was gone.”
Karl sat frowning at Doro for several seconds after Doro had finished. Then he turned to look at me. “Open to me again.”
I sighed and did it. He would be easier to live with if he knew whether Doro was right or wrongor at least knew he couldn’t find out. I watched him, not really caring what he found. I stopped him just as he was about to break contact.
You and 1 are going to have to talk later.
About what?
About making some kind of truce before you manage to goad me into hitting back at you.
He changed the subject. Do you realize you’re exactly the kind of parasite he’s described? Except, of course, you prey on actives instead of ordinary people.
1 can see what you’ve found. 1 do seem to be taking a tiny amount of strength from you and from the others. But it’s so small it’s not bothering any of you.
That’s not the point.
The point is, you don’t want me taking anything. Do you have to be told that 1 don’t know how to stop it any more than 1 know how it got started?
1 know. The thought carried overtones of weary frustration. He broke contact, spoke to Doro. “You’re right about her. She’s like Rachel.”
Doro nodded. “That’s best for all of you. Are you going to help her with her cousins?”
“Help her?”
“I’ve never seen a person born to be a latent suddenly pushed into transition. I’m assuming they’ll have their problems and need help.”
Karl looked at me. “Do you want my help again?”
“Of course I do.”
“You’ll need at least one other person.”
“Seth.”
“Yes.” He looked at Doro. “Are you finished with us?”
Doro nodded.
“All right.” He got up. “Come on, Mary. We may as well have that talk before you get back to Seth and Clay.”
DORO
Doro did not leave the Larkin house, as he had planned. Suddenly there was too much going on. Suddenly things were getting out of handor at least out of his hands.
Mary was doing very well. She was driven by her own need to enlarge the pattern and aided not only by Doro’s advice but by the experience of the six other actives. From the probing Doro had made her do and the snooping she had done on her own, she now had detailed mental outlines of the other actives’ lives. Knowing what they had done in the past helped her decide what she could reasonably ask them to do now. Knowing Seth, for instance, made her decide to take Clay from him, take charge of Clay herself.
“How necessary is the pain of transition?” she asked Doro before making her decision. “Karl said you told him to hold off helping me until I was desperate. Why?”
“Because, in earlier generations of actives, the more help the person in transition received, the longer it took him to form his own shield.” Doro grimaced remembering. “Before I understood that, I had several potentially good people die of injuries that wouldn’t have happened if their transitions had ended when they should have. And I had others who died of sheer exhaustion.”
Mary shuddered. “Sounds like it would be best to leave them alone completely.” She glanced at Doro. “Which is probably why I’m the only one out of the seven of us who had any help.”
“You were also the only one of the seven to have a seventeen-hour transition. Ten to twelve hours is more normal. Seventeen isn’t that bad, though, and since your predecessors died whenever I left them alone in transition, I decided that you needed
someone. Actually, Karl did a good job.”