I stirred in the warm bath water, thinking about transparenting the walls around me then rejecting the idea. I no longer felt the need to reach out in some vague way, groping for something I couldn’t explain even to myself. Empaths usually lived half lives when on Central, their gifts and the very memory of those gifts suppressed until the need to use them came along again. Then, once they’d reached their destinations, the triggering word would be spoken to awaken them and let them do their jobs, the countertrigger coming only when the assignment was complete. This time, as a reward for the work I’d done for the Amalgamation, the countertrigger hadn’t been spoken to me and I still retained my talent, although I’d been forbidden to tell anyone. I stirred again in the water, wondering just how much a reward I’d been given. All the people I’d thought of as friends had turned out to be something else entirely.
Abruptly I felt bored with sitting in a tub of water, and rose to my feet without even washing. I’d felt the same sort of impatience on Rimilia—the impatience to do rather than sit—and had been lucky enough to be able to take over Murdock McKenzie’s transport back to Central. Murdock McKenzie was in charge of Central’s Diplomacy Bureau—and considerably more, I was beginning to suspect—and he had decided he and his people could wait for the transport to return for them. I’d left the very next day after I’d been returned to the embassy, and as soon as I’d grounded at Tallion City Outer Port, had gone directly to the medical center. The tiny speck that was Tammad’s child and mine now lay in stasis, waiting for me to decide what to do with it, and my body was protected again. I didn’t plan on needing the protection, but I was protected.
I toweled the water off myself, then picked up the yellow dress and carried it back into the bedroom with me. It had come to me that I’d worn it only because Tammad wouldn’t have approved of a shorter dress, and in spite of everything I was still dressing to please him. A man who beat me when I disobeyed him, who ignored my wishes when his own failed quarters than—than Tammad had allowed a locked door to stand between us. He’d broken the door down immediately, striding angrily through the wreckage, then had
I stopped the train of thought and put my hands to my head, appalled at what was happening to me. Could I actually be blaming men for rationally discussing their differences rather than spilling each other’s blood, for accepting a refusal of disinterest rather than taking me against my will? The men of Central were civilized and sensible, not barbarians who needed to be criticized and sneered at! Then why was I
I cut off that thought too, closing my eyes against the anger building inside me. It was all that barbarian’s fault, all part of what he had done to me. Wrong looked right and right looked wrong, and everything had to be thought of and done according to his beliefs and preconceptions! He had forced me, a Prime, into fulfilling his every desire, obeying his every wish—and then had thrown me away, my usefulness over. I hated him, hated everything about him—and hated myself for wishing he had kept me.
I went to my bed and sank down onto it, then stretched out beside the reports I’d left there. I was going to have to force myself to forget what had gone on during my time on Rimilia, and burying myself in work would be the first step toward doing that. I was a Prime, one of the best; even if he didn’t want me, everyone else did.
I pulled the first report to me and thumbed through it quickly, verifying that it held nothing but details about Alderan. Everyone in the Amalgamation knew about Alderan, bow it was one of the greatest fashion centers, one of the first planets settled by Central, one of the first to break away into independence. Its main claim to fame, of course, was being the home planet of the Kabras, but that need hardly be pointed out. Mediation assignments on Alderan invariably involved the Kabras, which never failed to amuse me. In my opinion, the doings of the largest group of professional soldiers in the Amalgamation should not require the services of a Mediator to settle its differences.
The second report described the disagreement one contingent of Kabras were currently involved in. They had hired themselves out to a merchant on the planet Defflore to protect his interests against a rival merchant—and incidently take as much land and goods from the other merchant as possible—but the second merchant had also hired a contingent of Kabras equal to the first merchant’s force. Such a situation had come to mean a standoff as it would be foolish to expect two equal groups of Kabras to fight, and the only alternative at that point was for the two merchants to come to a peaceful understanding, or for one of them to hire an additional Kabra fighting force. The presence of the additional force would give the merchant who had it immediate victory—after all, a fight between two unequal Kabra groups is a certainty in outcome without needing a single blow to be struck—and reparations could then be claimed against the defeated merchant. In this instance, however, neither merchant could spare the expense of an additional force, and the agreement between them was quickly concluded. Not quite as quickly concluded was the fulfillment of payment to the forces of the first merchant, the one who had begun all the difficulty. He insisted he had been expecting acquisition’s from the efforts of the Kabras and would have paid them from those. Without the acquisitions he was totally unable to live up to his end of the bargain, and demanded that the Kabras remove themselves from his property and return to their home world. The Kabras, of course, refused to stir until their fee’s were paid in full.
I sighed deeply and put the report aside, then stretched the weariness out of my body. The Mediation would be dull and unimportant, but sending anyone but a Prime to Alderan would be considered an insult by the Kabras. I’d been to Alderan a number of times before, and had disliked being there each of the times. If any other assignment had been available I would have refused this one, but even Alderan was better than staying on Central. I looked again at the third folder—which gave detail’s on my transportation and time of departure—then put it all aside and went into my kitchen to dial a meal from my chef. Going to bed early would take care of the rest of the night, and tomorrow I would be on my way—hopefully, to forgetfulness.
2
The skies were gray above stuffy, dead calm when I left the transport at Nidah Inner Port on Alderan. Unlike Central and most of the other worlds of the Amalgamation, all of Alderan’s ports were inner ports, situated right inside the cities they were related to. That fact alone said something about the Kabras of Alderan, but the Kabras themselves were pleased with the arrangement—as though any civilized being could be pleased to have transports take off and land at their front doorstep. I shook my head over custom and the people who conform to it, then made my way across the open field to the landings building where arrangements were made for visitor accommodations. There wasn’t a breath of air anywhere, not even on the field, and I was pleased I’d brought an entire wardrobe of Alderanian leisure suits and had had the foresight to wear one of them for the landing. The short skirt and low-cut bodice gave my body some relief from the oppressive humidity, but I could almost feel the perspiration on my face running my makeup.