Sharon Green - The Warrior Victorious

The room was extremely clean, but also suffered from other sorts of extremes. For one thing, it was small and very bare and had no windows or closets or furniture except for the narrow bed—

For one thing. I stopped pacing and sat on the edge of the high bed, putting a hand to my head. Ever since I’d awakened in that tiny cell of a room my mind had been acting strangely, flying in all directions trying to get a grip on the reality Iii been dropped into from somewhere. At least I thought it was reality, but I wouldn’t have bet anything valuable on the possibility. I’d never seen a room like that before, with nothing in it but a bed, stark white ceiling and walls, and a warmly resilient matching white floor. Even the bed frame was rounded and very soft, made of something other than metal, and there had to be a door somewhere even if I couldn’t find it. The light was artificial and came from nowhere and everywhere, letting me see the thin white-garment-I’d awakened in. The thing had a round neck and sleeves that almost reached my elbows, but didn’t go down any farther than the middle of my thighs. It closed with a full-length frontal tab and didn’t quite show my otherwise naked body through its thin fabric, but I didn’t feel cold in it. The room was more than warm enough, no drafts and not stuffy and—

“Okay, enough of that,” I told myself aloud, the faintest touch of annoyance easing the terrible fear that had gripped me as soon as I’d opened my eyes. “You don’t know where you are or what’s happening, but you should remember what went on before you reached this point. Start with that, and see if you can work your way up to the present.”

I took a deep breath, realizing I’d given myself good advice, but bringing back the past might not prove to be done as easily as said. It somehow didn’t feel as clear to me as it should have, and until then I’d been afraid to touch the fabric of it, half anticipating an immediate crumbling if I did. Right then I understood I really had no other choice than to try, so I lay down across the narrow bed and made the effort.

I had no trouble remembering I was Terrilian Reya, a Prime of the Centran Amalgamation who usually lived on Central. It had been quite some time since I’d been on Central, I knew that as well, which meant I must have been elsewhere Mediating for the Amalgamation. Being a Prime Xenomediator meant I traveled a lot, and I’d been doing it for a fair amount of years. Since the assignment was obviously over I must have been returned to Central, and that meant I was also turned off

Turned off. I lay very still as that thought came to me, a thought I couldn’t remember ever having had before, but one I knew beyond doubt was true. I was-turned off-from the way I was supposed to be, all my abilities taken away, but once I’d been returned to Central without that having been done. I knew I had, could almost remember the time, could almost feel how unhappy I’d been even though almost no one else had known. It had been a special reward, a reward for having done particularly well, a reward for having accomplished

I strained to remember, my body stiff as though the effort were a physical one, but I couldn’t reach through. My hand closed on a fold of the very clean bed linen that refused to come free of the bed, the resulting fist trying to act as an anchor, but it was simply no good. The memory I was after seemed locked behind a door, and scratching frantically at the door with my fingernails wasn’t doing anything to open it. I needed the key, and that was one thing I didn’t have.

“One thing,” I muttered with a snort, finding that the faint trace of annoyance was growing toward a better supply. I was missing a bell of a lot more than one thing, and I had the sudden conviction that my memory lapse wasn’t anything other than induced. I could also remember having thoughts about conditioning, and who I’d been conditioned by. Those who ran Central and the Amalgamation wanted to make sure they had a tight grip on the empaths who worked for them, so they’d—

Empaths. This time I sat up slowly, knowing that that was what I was. An empath. Someone who could read the emotions of others and also soothe or intensify those emotions, and even pass them on from one person to the next. I was very important to the people of the Amalgamation, I’d worked long and hard for them, and now I was about to be given the highest reward possible. I didn’t yet know what that would be, but I would know soon and would be extremely grateful and delighted.

I was so shocked I couldn’t even curse, and without my wanting it to the fear flared again all along my backbone. The memory I’d just found was crystal clear, no effort of any sort needed to reach it, and that could mean only one thing: I was supposed to reach it, and also to believe it. It had been put in my mind with the same conditioning that had covered what someone didn’t want me to remember, a body of knowledge that would conceivably do him or them harm. But who could I possibly be a danger to, that they would go to such lengths to confuse and restrain me?

“They did a really good job on you, didn’t they?” I muttered to myself, the annoyance beginning to return in the company of disgust. If it was the wonderful Amalgamation I was going to be all that grateful to, who else could possibly be responsible? I still didn’t know why they considered me dangerous, but that was really a very minor point. A much more major one was that I shouldn’t have known what they were up to, but somehow I did. Maybe that’s why I was dangerous to them, because their conditioning was beginning not to work on me, and I was able to see behind the imposed facade to get a hint of the truth. Once I got all of it, the game would be over.

But that couldn’t be it. I folded my legs under me and leaned my forearms on my knees, immediately seeing how wrong that was. If they’d known their conditioning wasn’t working properly they wouldn’t have tried using it again, not with any hope of success. And they did expect it to be a success, the very simplicity of my brand-new conviction told me that. There was nothing in it that suggested any possibility of resistance or nonacceptance, nothing that commanded obedience which might not be forthcoming. I was supposed to believe without question everything I’d been told, even the part that wasn’t completely accurate. I was an empath, all right, but empaths were able to do much more than the few trifling things listed in the suggestion. Or, at least, I could . . . .

I straightened as another thought came to me, one that went quite a distance toward clearing up some of the confusion. I’d noticed in the first place that my memories weren’t complete because of the half-memories remaining, ones that dangled without support. I’d also become aware of the conviction because it wasn’t entirely true, just the way you’d notice on a chilly night a blanket that covered you only from the knees down. It was there but not complete, present but not right. It wasn’t enough to keep you warm, not enough to make you believe nothing was missing. If the entire blanket had been taken you might not have known anything was gone, but with the small bit you still had-as though whoever had taken the rest of the blanket wasn’t aware of the lower part—

Didn’t know it was there, and therefore hadn’t taken it! The realization wasn’t anything like triumph, but it was enough to give me more than a dash of hope. The ones in charge of conditioning me hadn’t known I wasn’t turned off on my last visit home, so they hadn’t suppressed the memory of the time. They also obviously didn’t know I was able to do more than they thought I could, or the conviction/suggestion would have been complete enough for me to be able to accept it. All I had to do was figure out what I could remember, make a list of the blanks, and try to use the list to batter down the door to memory.