Braxi-Azea - In Conquest Born Part 34

I looked up the planet's location. Maybe I shouldn't have. Maybe I should have left well enough alone.

Too late now, though.

Uri's in the Active War Border. In a sector that Zatar controls. Which either means that some smugglers got through his defense network-unlikely-or that he's somehow involved in all this.

I'm going to try very hard not to think about that.

Viton: Between natural enemies there is never peace.

Seventeen.

Anzha strode quickly from her shuttle to the Inst.i.tute. She was in no mood for delay-not for savoring the planet's aura, admiring the magnificent scenery, or reconsidering her actions. She was angry, and barely contained herself. Woe betide the man who set that torrent loose!

Familiar steps and familiar halls; life went on, but the Inst.i.tute never changed.

She sent a brief thought ahead to warn him of her coming-a token courtesy-and then arrived only moments after it had faded from his mind.

"Admission," she told the door. "Anzha lyu Mitethe."

There was a pause; the Director gathering his thoughts, no doubt. Finally the door pinged clearance and slid open, admitting her to the inner sanctum of the so-called monarch of telepathy, Nabu li Pazua.

She neither smiled nor bowed. "Director."

"You honor me, Starcommander." A surface thought chided her for her unexpected arrival. "What business brings you this far from the War Border?"

In answer she removed a thin packet of doc.u.ments from her half-jacket, opened it, and spilled its contents onto his desk. "I think you know."

He looked at the papers and shrugged; his surface thoughts were running a lightyear a minute but she couldn't catch any of them. He was too guarded for that. "Ah. Your request?"

"Just so. It was refused. I want to know why."

He indicated one of the doc.u.ments. "You have my reasons right here."

"I have a standard rejection form. That's not enough."

"You're a.s.suming complexity of motive where there's none."

"And you're stalling. I requested the services of an omnicultural Communicant.

I went through the proper channels. You turned me down. I want to know why."

He tapped a stence briefly against the top of his desk, a parody of non- telepathic thoughtfulness. "The Inst.i.tute isn't required to supply you with personnel. And I'm not required to give you reasons."

He could feel her trying to control herself, not quietly and not well. "This is true." Her voice and mind were rich with threat but she said nothing more, waiting.

"All right." The confrontation must be, so let it. "It was our decision that since as a Functional Telepath you're fully capable of transcultural communication, it was pointless to expend another mind merely to satisfy your desire for redun- dancy. There's nothing that Siara ti can do that you can't, and better."

"I'm only one person," she pointed out. "There's a limit to how many jobs I can handle."

"Then recruit physicals. We're not a supply house for StarControl personnel, you know."

"There isn't a physical in the galaxy who can do what Siara ti can," she said coldly. "Having the skill myself, I understand that."

"Your relative isolation from telepathic kind has given you a strange view of our relations.h.i.+p to the physical world. There are perhaps ten thousand of us in an Empire with millions of times that many people-and I'm sure I need hardly remind you that there are no true telepaths native to areas outside the Empire.

Most of them stay with the Inst.i.tute and serve its cause, hoping someday to change those numbers. You chose to leave; very well, that was your option. But now you seem to think you can recruit psychics regardless of our needs, our purposes. Well, you're wrong."

"Isn't the War important? Isn't that cause enough to spare a few people?"

"I have spared a few people. I've given you five psychic-receptives-against my better judgment, I might add. But they wanted to go, so I let them. Now two of them are dead."

"I regret that. But such things happen in a war."

"War isn't my concern! Psychogenetics is. I have a responsibility to breed, protect and train as many human psychics as I can. I defy my own purpose when I send them out to die. You've wasted your time in coming here, Anzha lyu. The answer is no."

She tried to explain. "Director, the War is changing. We've gotten closer than ever before to the Braxiside Border as a direct result of having these psychics.

With them, I can send scouts and fighters far beyond the Conqueror's scanner- range. With a Communicant, I could manage even more."

"You told me this when you were first a.s.signed to the Conqueror. And again, when you applied for each psychic. Once I could see the truth of it. But your progress has slowed, Starcommander; how do you explain that?"

She darkened. "The enemy's changed. Zatar-"

She stopped suddenly, unwilling to let him share her emotions. The anger. The hunger. He would misinterpret that, reading it as weakness. When in fact it was just the opposite. Her determination to bring Zatar down was her strength, her emotional refuge, the pa.s.sion that fueled her very existence. The fact that li Pazua would stand between her and her victory was incomprehensible. Inexcusable.

Unacceptable.

"He knows what I'm doing," she said softly. There was awe in her foremind, and rightly so; what other Braxin could have managed to second-guess a psychic? "He understands. He's learning to work around my telepathy. He makes plans that have no meaning, takes action designed to confuse a psychic. All with the intensity of purpose that usually indicates sincerity. I need another mind that can read him. One that isn't bound by my . . ." pa.s.sions? ". . .limitations."

"And your enemy won't simply adjust for the new personnel?"

She shut her eyes, hating him. "Probably. But it would take time."

"It seems to me that while you're busy designing a new kind of war, you're also creating a new kind of enemy. Isn't that self-defeating?"

It was so close to the philosophy of the k'airth that she was startled to hear it from him. How much had she been broadcasting during their argument?

"Director, this War's a race. Little by little we're pus.h.i.+ng closer to the Holding; when we get there, all the rules will change. Every new element, be it psychic or strategic, buys us that much more time, advances us that much further. He isn't psychic himself; there must be a limit to how much he can second-guess us!"

"Your own subsidiary images cause me to wonder if that's true. But regardless, I'm afraid I still have to refuse this request. I have many responsibilities, some of which outweigh this one. And one of them is to protect the psychic community."

"Am I a threat to it, then?"

"Two psychics have died in your service. That's fact. I'm not willing to lose any more."

"Is it your choice to make?"

"In Siara ti's case, yes. He's young; I'm sure sure the War sounds very exciting to him. I doubt he comprehends the reality of what you're asking him to do. Or the risk. Two deaths is enough, Anzha lyu. Be satisfied with what you have."

She touched his surface mind, smiled at what she found there. "Are you really upset over those deaths, Director? Or does it bother you more that the ones who still live might transfer their allegiance from the Inst.i.tute to me?"

She had hit a nerve; he was quick to conceal it, but not quick enough. You are the start of a dangerous trend! his surface mind told her. Then his control was back. "You imagine yourself to be more important than you are. You offer the excitement of war; I offer training. Here at the Inst.i.tute a psychic can reach his or her maximum potential. In the long run-"

"Do you really believe that?" she interrupted. "Can you look at me and still think it? Out there, that's where the power comes from! From having to deal with humans whose minds are closed to you. From being alone in the Void until your mind screams for contact-from skimming whole planets with your thoughts, hungering for the touch of a familiar soul. Not here, in this spoon-fed environment where you try to nurture strength by fulfilling our needs. Power like mine doesn't grow unless it has to-and mine has had to. The very existence of your Inst.i.tute inhibits the talent you're after."

She let that sink in, then told him, "I offer you the War, the ultimate testing- ground. Send Siara ti to me and he'll become stronger than you ever dreamed possible. I guarantee it."

"Very dramatic," he said dryly. "And I don't doubt that you've discovered your own fulfillment in combat. And found new ways to focus your talent. But your limitations are still the same, here or elsewhere."

"Are they?" Her eyes gleamed, and anger was evident in her foremind. "Are they really? Let me demonstrate. Director, just what sort of talent we're arguing about."

She launched an a.s.sault on his mind slowly, so that he might have warning and find no recourse in the excuse of surprise. Even as he withdrew to cut himself off from her, he felt his eyes, alien things, widening in astonishment. This was in violation of the most basic tenets of Telepathic Etiquette!

She pushed the release forms toward him, a remarkable display of motor control; it was hard to do anything with one's body while exerting that much power. "Sign them, Director.''

~ I will not!

He tried to build walls for himself while staring her down, but could not. One by one his physical senses shut down, allowing him to concentrate on the deadly battle within him.

~ Have I overestimated myself, Director?

She was trying to move his body as though it were her own and he was fighting to stop her. And losing. Mental claws tore at the walls he erected even as they were begun, until he battled merely to lay down a foundation for the struggle.

Distinction Discipline, he begged his memory. The key patterns snapped into place and he began to withdraw into the dark isolation of self-only. Then she followed him there- followed him there!-and destroyed the flowing pattern which had promised salvation.

- You can't hide from me. Director. I'm too strong. I'm stronger than you ever meant me to be, and perhaps stronger than you thought any of us could become.

He was seeing again, but only as a spectator to the vision she had activated within his eyes. She saw through her own eyes and controlled him. Not possible!

"Yes." She wanted him to hear her so she heard for him, letting him share the sensation. Inside he was still struggling, but his will, overpowered and afraid, was succ.u.mbing at last to her battering strength. "So much of what you taught us was wrong. Abandon the physical senses to concentrate on the mind. Nonsense!

Integrate the two and both are strengthened. You learn that when you have no alternative."

His hands clenched, then unclenched-her doing. He couldn't stop it, slow it, lessen it. His body was hers to command. This wasn't possible!

"Why not?" she demanded. "If my body were strong enough, I could force you physically. I might manipulate your intellect through reasoning if my debating skills were outstanding. Why is this so unexpected? There isn't a man or woman who could stand up to me if I were determined enough-receptive, telepathic, or otherwise. Not if you can't." She pushed the request toward him. "Sign it, Director."

~ under duress- "Your own propaganda will be your undoing. One telepath can't control another, remember?-Sign it."

He fought as his hand reclaimed the stence, fought as he pulled the forms toward him. Fought desperately as she squeezed the signature out of him, calling his own mind into collusion with hers to make the mark perfectly his. He fought, and he lost.

"Thank you, Director. I knew you'd see reason."

Like a fist holding a rag from which water had been wrung she relaxed and released him, and like a damp rag he fell to the desk before her, emptied.

She refolded the doc.u.ments and tucked them back inside her half-jacket. "I'll expect Siara ti Lann at Base Twelve in ten Standard Days."

"And if he's not there?"

"You've released him already. If you interfere with StarControl now, I'll have you up on trial for treason. And you know as well as I do how many people in the Empire want you there. Including myself; it would give me access to your private psychefiles, and the notes on my conditioning. So don't tempt me." Again her thoughts grew dark. "And if I ever have reason to suspect that my conditioning- or that of my psychics-is interfering with my work, I a.s.sure you I will burn this Inst.i.tute to the ground and its precious records with it. Do you understand me?"

It was all he could do to nod; his body felt numb, and was slow in responding.

"That's all, Director. Once more, I thank you."

She left his office as she had entered it: a whirlwind of mad, half-disciplined energy. Exhausted, Nabu nursed his injured mind. They had always been impressed by her potential, but this exceeded their wildest dreams. If only it were under control!

What about her conditioning? he asked himself. Is that still functioning? It was hard to judge. They had taken in an outcast child and had raised her to hunger for the stars. They wanted something, and had wagered that she could find it. If things had gone according to plan she would be traveling now, supported by the Inst.i.tute, wandering from planet to planet until she found the information that would satisfy them. They had instilled zeymophobia in her for that reason, so that she might never be comfortable enough on any surface to settle down and abandon her quest.

Who could have foreseen that she would join the military? By sending her to the Border fleet, StarControl had destroyed the environment required for her conditioning to function properly; who could say what would happen to it under the present circ.u.mstances? The first break had already been made: by treating Nabu as she had, Anzha had made it clear that her conditioned dependence upon the Inst.i.tute was no longer operative. How much else had been similarly annihilated?

His confidence badly shaken, the Director of the Inst.i.tute forced himself to face an unpleasant truth.

We've lost control of her.

Harkur: The Braxana are wrong if they think that they will never be intolerant toward human indulgences. They simply have not yet encountered one that offends them.

Eighteen My name is Venari. It's a meaningless thing, a collection of syllables whose combination has been applied to me. When it's called, I come; when others speak it, visions of me are called to mind. But it has in itself no meaning. I have in myself no meaning. I exist. I live. I serve. Venari.

My memory extends back nearly a year.

I'm told that I was in a terrible accident once, and that my mind has blocked that part of my memory, to keep me from reliving the pain. Perhaps I malfunctioned. In any case, I've lost not only the memory of that terrible day but of all days before it. My life is fifteen zhents old; of my soul, who can say? I speak seven languages but have no memory of having learned them. I have skills no one taught me and every day I am aware of memories nearly coming to mind that were supposedly lost forever.

I have dreams.

This is my most common dream: I am in a small stars.h.i.+p speeding through the Void. The image comes of a knife slicing the substance of that darkness, of myself plunging through the wound. There are instruments all about me, upon which my life depends. An image comes of gold hands over a control board, dancing. There is a weight over me, and also an exhilarating sense of joy, of coming triumph. I laugh, wildly. Then fire b.u.ms about me suddenly-fear envelops me. I have a glimpse of a golden egg, to match the hands, freefloating in the Void. I strive to reach it.

And I awake, screaming.

I'm learning not to scream. When that half-state comes where I am still in the dream but no longer entirely so, I stifle my cries with the terror of my days and the memory of what's done to me when this dream is made public. That's usually enough. The memory is a strong one.

Ident.i.ty: the mirror, conjured, reveals a human woman with the mark of the foreign-born strong upon her. Prehensile toes, nails that are better called talons, a broad face splayed out in horizontal features that make a mockery of the cleanly chiseled details of the Braxana, by whom I am surrounded. I am tall-too tall- spare in the chest and hips, and so dark that I could slip unseen from shadow to shadow. When I'm cut, the interior of my flesh is pink-white, like theirs, as if my color were makeup and could be easily removed. Sadly, I observe this often.

Which brings me to the next point of identification: I am a slave in the House of Sechaveh.

Some primitive peoples believe in a variety of afterlives; my Mistress has told me of these things. They're based upon the concept that some G.o.d-or G.o.ddess- has taken the time and trouble to remain in the human sphere of affairs and oversee the eternity of the immortal soul. I imagine this would be terribly boring, for a being that was truly omnipotent. So, for the sake of variety, said deity devises a series of distinct and memorably atmospheric subafterlives. One of these, though it's called by many names, is recognized by all believing peoples as a place of eternal suffering. What that suffering is, no one is quite sure. What they are certain of is that this place has a Master, whose pleasure it is to concoct new varieties of human anguish for the diversion of the creator-G.o.d in charge. I have met this man. In fact, I serve him.

They say that Sechaveh's character was formed in his childhood, when he was ruled by women and made to suffer for his parents' arrogance. I don't believe this. The mind freely imagines many terrible things, and none of them, not even in their most fearsome intensity, could turn out the sort of being that Sekav, son of Lurat and M'nisa, became.

Of course, I'm prejudiced. I am a woman. I don't know what men think of him and I imagine I will never find out. I wonder sometimes if the Braxana could really approve of him, they who speak of the right to pleasure and revere their own women above the men of all other races. Sechaveh's not like that. He's different, and knows it, and as a sign of that difference he bears a different name, the one the aliens gave him. But the Braxana use it, and perhaps they really do consider him one of them. To me they are very different. But then, I am his.

I've become disturbed recently over my ident.i.ty. The formula of it is cut and dried, nothing to question, every bit of it in its proper place. Yet there's a piece missing. I have never thought of my life as a puzzle, but more and more I wonder about those missing years. What sort of person would I be now if I remembered my entire past? Such memory doesn't seem to be a positive thing. Whenever my words or actions lead my Master or Mistress to believe that a fragment of memory has surfaced I'm punished soundly and then made to undergo such treatment as will erase it entirely. But that never completely works. I don't tell them that; after undergoing such pain as Sechaveh's fertile imagination supplies and then spending days in drugged hypnotreatment, I'm in little mood to inform them that the whole process failed. But fail it does, more and more as I'm subjected to it. It's as if I'm building up an immunity to the process, or perhaps my memories are finding ways to circ.u.mvent Sechaveh's surveillance, and only gradually succeeding.