“Oh, I know you, girl.”
That didn’t sound too good. “I mean you used to be one of us. You could be again, you know.”
“Your people don’t need me. Neither do you.”
“You’re our founder,” I said. “Our father. We teach the new Patternists about you, but that isn’t enough. They should get to know you.”
“And me them.”
“Yes.”
“It won’t work, Mary.”
I frowned down at him. He was lying flat on his back now, looking up at the ceiling. “If you get to know us as we are now, Doro, you might find that we really are the people, the race, that you’ve been working for so long to build. We already belong to you, and you can be one of us. We haven’t shut you out.”
“It’s surprising how eloquent you can become when you want something.”
I hung on to my temper. “You know I’m not just talking. I mean what I’m saying.”
“It doesn’t matter. Because it’s not going to change anything. The order I gave you is final. I’m not going to be talked out of it. Not by getting to know your people better. Not by renewing my relationship with you.”
“What are you doing here, then?”
“Oh, I intend to renew our relationship. I just don’t intend to let you charge me for it.”
I kicked him out of the bed. We were positioned perfectly for it. I just let him have it in the side with both feet. He fell, cursing, and got up holding his side.
“What the hell was that supposed to prove?” he demanded. “I thought you had outgrown that kind of behavior.”
“I have. I only give it to you because it’s what you want.”
He ignored that, sat down on the bed. “That was a stupid, dangerous thing to do.”
“No it wasn’t. You have some control. You can control your mouth too when you want to.”
He sighed. “Well, at least you’re back to normal.”
“Shit!” I muttered and turned away from him. “Pleading for my people isn’t normal. Acting like a latent is normal. Stay with us, Doro. Get to know us again, whether you think you’ll change your mind or not.”
“What is it you want me to see that you think I’ve missed?”
“The fact that your kids really have grown up, man. I know actives and latents didn’t use to be able to do that. They had too many problems just surviving. Surviving alone. We weren’t meant for solitude. But the Pattern has let us grow up.”
“What makes you think I haven’t noticed that?”
I looked at him sharply. Something really ugly had come into his voice just then.
Something I would have expected to hear in Emma’s voice but not his. “Yeah,” I said softly. “Of course you know. You even said it yourself a couple of minutes ago. It must have come as kind of a shock to you that after four thousand years, your work, your children, were suddenly as finished as you could make them. That they … didn’t need you any more.”
He gave me a look of pure hatred. I think he was as close to taking me at that moment as he had ever been. I touched his hand.
“Join us, Doro. If you destroy us, you’ll be destroying part of yourself. All the time you spent creating us will be wasted. Your long life, wasted. Join us.”
The hatred that had flared in his eyes was concealed again. I suspected it was more envy than hatred. If he had hated me, I would already have been dead. Envy was bad enough. He envied me for doing what he had bred me to do?because he was incomplete, and he would never be able to do it himself. He got up and walked out of my room.
KARL
In only ten days Karl knew without doubt that Mary’s suspicions had been justified. She wasn’t going to be able to obey Doro. She had begun sensing latents again without intending to, without searching for them. Sooner or later she was going to have to begin pulling them in again. And the day she did that would very likely be the day she died.
She and how many others?
Karl watched her with growing concern. She was like a latent now, trying to hold herself together, and no one knew it but she and Karl. She kept shielded, and she was actress enough to conceal it from the others?except possibly Doro. And Doro didn’t care.
Mary had already talked to him and been refused. That tenth night, Karl went in to talk to him. He pleaded. Mary was in trouble. If she could even be given a small quota of the latents that Doro valued least?
“I’m sorry,” said Doro. “I can’t afford her unless she can obey me.”
It was a dismissal. The subject was closed. Karl got up wearily and went to Mary’s room.
She was lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling. Just staring. She did not move as he came to sit beside her, except to take his hand and hold it.
“What did he say?” she asked.
“You’ve been reading me,” he said mildly.
