“A gratifying decision, inasmuch as Rimilia is where she will be most needed,” Murdock replied politely, almost distracted enough to be puzzled. “We mean to build a relocation center there, to house those of our nonassociated brothers and sisters who wish to join us, as well as the current residents of creches. From now on we will train our own blood, without the conditioning which makes tools of them.”
“And don’t forget about the retraining of the residents of this building and its basement hideaway,” Ashton said, for a moment sounding bone-deep weary. “I think we’d all better plan on living very long lives.”
“Each problem will be seen to in its own time,” Murdock said, sounding serenely confident. “With the help of the Rimilians themselves, we’ll build something worth being a part of. But we also have an additional goal now, and I yield the floor to Kaila so that she may tell you what she so recently told me.”
“Our group has done some investigating, questioning, guessing and concluding, and I’m wondering where to start,” Kaila said, smiling at me as she shifted in her chair. “I don’t know if anyone’s told you, Terry, but our community was established on Rimilia because one of us at the time discovered that a number of Rimilians had mind abilities very like our own. Not only were we able to hide on the planet, we were also able to bring in strong new blood to add to ours. At the very beginning males were needed for the high percentage of females born, and when some of our girls got old enough they went out with l’lendaa to protect them and looked for men to take back as mates. Quite a lot of them were dark-haired and greeneyed, and that’s why those traits are so highly prized among Rimilians even today.”
“Indeed,” Rissim said, drawing a flash of amusement from Lamdon. “What l’lenda would fail to prize a woman with the power, to have in his furs if for naught else. ”
“There are additional considerations, of course,” Tammad said in agreement, “yet would that point alone be sufficient.”
“Yes,” Kaila said after clearing her throat, knowing they were teasing her, but also knowing better than to continue on with the subject. “We were rather upset, to say the least, when we learned Rathmore Heilman’s group meant to use the planet, but there was nothing we dared do to stop it. It wasn’t beyond Rathmore to cause an ‘accident’ that would decimate the population of the world if he didn’t get the cooperation he wanted. Murdock will tell you more about that in a little while, so I’ll just skip to what happened with you and your abilities, Terry.”
I nodded as I dialed the chair for a glass of wine, wondering if I would like what I was about to hear. I knew what had happened to me better than she did, but she seemed to be looking at the scenes with more information than I had.
“You started out with nothing more in the way of ability than any other Prime, but that soon changed,” Kaila said to me, her smile still warm and friendly. “Thanks to Murdock’s planning you were allowed to remain awake when you first returned from Rimilia, and his theorythat our people didn’t develop in their talents because of being unawakened most of the time-was proven almost immediately. According to your own account you began discovering the possibility of a shield as far back as your assignment on Alderan, which was really the beginning of it.”
“A beginning fraught with disturbance for one who knew not what was occurring,” Lamdon said, empathy flowing from his mind to mine. “Another might well have retreated from that unknown; your courage does you credit, girl.”
“After that you progressed slowly, until the time of your struggle in the resting place of the Sword,” Kaila went on, giving me no chance to correct Lamdon. I didn’t have courage; all I had was stubbornness. “You were given quite a lot of pain because of the storms raging at the time, storms you’d never grown used to because you weren’t raised on Rililia.”
“You know, I never thought of that,” I said slowly, ignoring the glass of wine my chair had produced for me. “If you people live in that area all the time, those storms must make your lives absolute hell. How can any of you stand it?”
“After the first few, the storms never bother us,” Kaila answered, her voice soft and her eyes alive with the sense of imparting something important. “Terry, those of us born in the valley develop a shield during our first storm season. The shield is like the one you developed after your battle, the sort you call impenetrable. Those of us who are raised off-planet are-suggested out of using the shield until we’re adults, and can judge the times to use it without detection. Those who grow up on the planet use it constantly, especially during storm season, and none of us ever develop that light shield you told us about. You proved we’re capable of developing it by teaching Len how to form one, but none of us ever do. If Len hadn’t had us make him forget about his heavier shield when he knew he’d be working with you, we might have thought you were unique.”
“But—I don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head at her. “What can shielding have to do with anything? A shield stops you from using your abilities.”
“It does more than that,” she said, dialing her own chair for refreshment. “You gave us so many of the answers, I’m surprised we took so long. Look, let’s start from another side. Do you remember what you said about how you called up your curtain? You said you had to feel a need for it, and then it was there. Quite a lot of what you developed came about because of need, and not necessarily to save you from danger or hurt. Once the change had started you simply had to feel a need for something, and if it was possible for you to do, you did it. Need is the key for developing talents, not pain but need. ”
“But that’s good news,” I said, still not quite understanding. “I’m delighted to hear none of you have to go through what I did, but I still don’t understand what any of this has to do with shielding.”
“We think we may have run across a principle similar to that governing speech,” she said, sipping at her kimla while keeping her eyes on me. “If a child doesn’t learn to talk by a certain age, it never learns. It’s possible that the development of alight shield is a necessary step in progressing further with our abilities, and that may be why we’re stopped where we are. We never go through the light shield phase, and because of the presence of our heavy shields we rarely feel the need for more. Those two factors together, we believe, have kept us from doing what you did.”
“Then none of you can move up to where I am?” I asked, reaching for the wine I hadn’t touched earlier. I was beginning to feel alone again, and this time really didn’t want to.
“We won’t be sure until we try, but we have cause for hope,” she answered, this time joining Lamdon in sending me reassurance. “The fact that Len was able to develop that light shield has turned us ecstatic, because when some of us tried we were able to do the same thing. What we’ll have to do is force ourselves to give up our heavy shields, then start all over from the beginning using the key you gave us. If we’re successful the heavy shields will develop again when we need them, and by then they won’t be the equivalent of cloth wrapped around our feet in childhood. ”
Every female in the room must have flinched at that comment, referring to a former practice of one small segment of the style-conscious population of Alderan. For a few years some of the women had been binding the feet of their girl children in an effort to give them “delightfully dainty” feet, having no idea what they were really doing until those children began growing.
“And, of course, wed like your help when we start the experiments,” Kaila said, her sense of optimism strong and real. “Not only did you give us the key we were looking for, but you’ve also opened our eyes to something we should have seen long ago. Would have seen, too, if we weren’t still basing our beliefs on the nonsense put out by those idiots on Central. Terry, would you like to tell me what we of the blood are?”