“I’ll be like you, too, then, won’t I?” the girl asked.
“You will, yes. Soon.”
“What will I be then to the Dietrichs?”
“You’ll be the first of their foster children to grow up. They’ll remember you.”
“But … they’re not like you. I can tell that much. I can feel a difference.”
“They’re not telepaths.”
“They’re slaves!” Her tone was accusing.
“Yes.”
Page was silent for a moment, startled by Ada’s willingness to admit such a thing.
“Just like that? Yes, you make slaves of people? I’m going to be part of a group that
makes slaves of people?”
“Page”
“Why do you think 1 tried to die?”
“Because you didn’t understand. You still don’t.”
“I know about being a slave! My parents taught me. My father used to strip me naked, tie me to the bed, and beat me, and then”
“I know about that, Page.”
“And I know about being a slave.” The girl’s voice was leaden. “I don’t want to be a part of anything that makes people slaves.”
“You have no choice. Neither do we.”
“You could stop doing it.”
“You’d still be with your parents if we didn’t do it. We couldn’t have cared for you.” She took a deep breath. “We don’t harm people like the Dietrichs in any way. In fact they’re healthier and more comfortable now than they were before we found them. And the work they’re doing for us is work they enjoy.”
“If they didn’t enjoy it, you’d change their minds for them.”
“We might, but they wouldn’t be aware of it. They would be content.”
The girl stared at her. “Do you think that makes it better?”
“Not better. Kinder, in a frightening sort of way, I know. I’m not pretending that theirs is the best possible way of life, Pagealthough they think it is. They’re slaves and I wouldn’t trade places with them. But we, our kind, couldn’t exist long without them.”
“Then maybe we shouldn’t exist! If our way is to enslave good people like the Dietrichs and let animals like my parents go free, the world would be better without us.”
Ada looked away from her for a moment, then faced her sadly. “You haven’t understood me. Perhaps you don’t want to; I wouldn’t blame you. The Dietrichs, Page, those good people who took you in, cared for you, loved you. Why, do you imagine, they did all that?”
And abruptly, Page understood. “No!” she shouted. “No. They wanted me. They told me so.”
Ada said nothing.
“They might have been taking in foster children, anyway.”
“You know better.”
“No.” The girl glared at Ada furiously, still trying to make herself believe the lie. Then something in her expression crumbled. How did it feel, after all, to learn that the foster parents you adored, the only parents who had ever shown you love, loved you only because they had been programmed to?
Ada watched her, fully aware of what she was going through, but choosing for a moment to ignore it. “We call ourselves Patternists,” she said quietly. “This is our school. You and the others here are our children. We want the best for you even though we’re not capable of giving it to you personally. It isn’t possible for us to take you into our homes and give you the care you need. It just isn’t possible. You’ll understand why soon. So we make other arrangements.”
The girl was crying silently, her head bowed, her face wet with tears and twisted with pain. Now Ada went to her, put an arm around her. She continued to speak, now offering comfort in her words. The girl was going to be too strong to be soothed with lies or
partial amnesia. She had already proved that. Nothing would do for her but the truth. But that truth was not entirely disillusioning.
“The Dietrichs deserve the love and respect you feel for them, Page, because you’re right about them. They are good people. They love children naturally. All we did was focus that love on you, on the others. In your case we didn’t even have to focus it much. I didn’t think we would. That’s why I chose them for youand you for them”
Finally Page looked up. “You did? You?”
“Yes.”
She thought about that, then leaned her head to one side, against Ada’s arm. “Then I guess it’s only right that you be the one to take me away from them.”
Ada said nothing.
Page lifted her head, met Ada’s eyes. “You are going to take me away, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want to go.”
“I know. But it’s time.”
Page nodded, lowered her head again to rest it against Ada’s arm.
Chapter Ten
MARY
A few months into our first year, the original group of actives broke up. Rachel and Jesse moved out firstmoved down the street to a house almost as big as ours. Then Jan moved alone. I had had a talk with her about using her psychometry as a kind of educational tool, or even as an art. At the same time, I told her to keep her hands off Karl. I didn’t have that good a grip on him myself at the time, but I had already decided that, whether I got him or not, she wasn’t going to. She left the next day.
Our new Patternists had been leaving us right along, taking over nearby houses, with Jesse preparing the way for them with the mutes who already lived there. They all had to learn to handle muteslearn not to smash them and not to make robots of them. That was something Jesse had been able to do easily since his transition.
Seth and Ada moved to a house around the corner and across the street from us. Suddenly Karl and I were the only Patternists in Larkin House. We weren’t back where we’d started or anything. Doro had finally left us, and we had a pair of latents with us. Everybody except Jan and Rachel was seconding somebody then. New Patternists too, as soon as they could be trusted to handle it. But Karl and I were more alone together than we had ever been before. Even Vivian didn’t matter much any more. She should have left Karl when he gave her the chance. Now she was a placid, bovine little pet. Karl controlled her without even thinking about it.
I was a predator and, frankly, not a very good one. But that was all right, because Karl wasn’t as sure as he had once been that he minded being the prey. He was a little wary, a little amused. He had never really hated me, though. Hell, he and I would have gotten along fine together from back when he first climbed into my bed if it hadn’t been for the Pattern and what the Pattern represented. It represented power. Power that I had and that he would never have.
And while that wasn’t something I threw at him, ever, it wasn’t something I denied either.
The Pattern was growing because I searched out latents, had them brought in, and gave them their push toward transition. It was growing because of me. And nobody was better equipped to run it than I was. I hoped Karl could accept that and be comfortable enough with it to accept me. If he couldn’t … well, I wanted him, but I wanted the thing I was building too. If I couldn’t have both, Karl could go his way. I’d move out like the others and let him have his house back. Maybe he knew that.
“You know,” he said one night, “for a while I thought you’d leave, like the others. There isn’t really anything holding you here.” We were in the study listening to the rain outside and not looking at a variety show on the television. Neither of us liked television. I don’t know why we had bothered to turn it on that night.