Butler, Octavia - Mind of My Mind

Clay shook himself. “I could have. I didn’t know what I was doing, most of the time.”

“A psychokinetic always has a good chance of killing himself before he learns to control his ability.”

“That may be the way it was,” said Mary. “But it won’t be that way any more.”

Doro heard the determination in her voice and sighed to himself. She had just shared a good portion of Clay’s agony as she worked to keep him alive, and immediately she was committing herself to do it again. She had found her work. She was some sort of mental queen bee, gathering her workers to her instead of giving birth to them. She would be totally dedicated, and difficult to reason with or limit. Difficult, or perhaps impossible.

Christine Hanson came through in an ordinary transition, perhaps a little easier than most. She made more noise than either of the men because pain, even slight pain, terrified her. She had had a harder time than the others during the pretransition period, too. Finally, hoarse but otherwise unhurt, Christine completed her transition. She remained a telepath, like her brother. It was possible that one or both of them might learn to heal, and it was possible that they, Rachel, and Mary might be very long-lived.

Whatever potential Jamie and Christine had, they accepted their places in the pattern easily. They were Mary’s first grateful pattern members. And their membership brought an unexpected benefit that Jesse accidentally discovered. Now all the members could move farther from Mary without discomfort. Suddenly, more people meant more freedom.

Doro watched and worried silently. The day after Christine’s transition, Mary began pulling in more of her cousins. And Ada, who knew a few of her relatives, began trying to reach them in Washington. Doro could have helped. He knew the locations of all his important latent families. But as far as he was concerned, things were moving too quickly even without his help. He said nothing.

He had decided to give Mary two years to make what she could of her people. That was enough time for her to begin building the society she envisioned—what she was already calling a Patternist society. But two years should still leave Doro time to cut his losses—if it became necessary—without sacrificing too large a percentage of his breeding stock.

He had admitted to himself that he didn’t want to kill Mary. She was easily controllable in most matters, because she loved him; and she was a success. Or a partial success. She was giving him a united people, a group finally recognizable as the seeds of the race he had been working to create. They were a people who belonged to him, since Mary belonged to him. But they were not a people he could be part of. As Mary’s pattern brought them together, it shut him out. Together, the “Patternists” were growing into something that he could observe, hamper, or destroy but not something he could join. They were his goal, half accomplished. He watched them with carefully concealed emotions of suspicion and envy.

PART THREE

Chapter Nine

EMMA

Emma was at the typewriter in her dining room when Doro arrived. He had not called to say he was coming, but at least when he walked in without knocking, he was wearing a body she had seen him in before: the body of a small man, blackhaired, green-eyed, like Mary. But the hair was straight and this body was white. He threw himself down on Emma’s sofa and waited silently until she finished the page that she was working on.

“What is it?” he asked her when she got up. “Another book?”

She nodded. She was young. She was young most of the time now, because he was around so much. “I’ve discovered that I like writing,” she said. “I should have tried it years earlier than I did.” She sat down in a chair, because he was sprawled over the length of the sofa. He lay there frowning.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Mary’s the matter.”

Emma grimaced. “I’m not surprised. What’s she done?”

“Nothing yet. It’s what she’s going to do after I talk to her. I’m going to put on the brakes, Em. The Patternist section of Forsyth is as big as a small town already. She has enough people.”

“If you ask me, she had enough two years ago. But now that you’re ready to stop her, what are you going to do with all those actives—all those Patternists—when she’s not around any more to maintain the Pattern?”

“I’m not out to kill Mary, Em. The Pattern will still be there.”

“Will it?”

He hesitated. “You think she’ll make me kill her?”

“Yes. And if you’re realistic about it, you’ll think so too.”

He sighed, sat up. “Yes. I don’t expect to salvage many of her people, either. Most of them were animals before she found them. Without her, they’ll revert.”

“Animals … with such power, though.”

“I’ll have to destroy the worst of them.”

Emma winced.

“I thought you’d be more concerned about Mary.”

“I was concerned about her. But it’s too late for her now. You helped her turn herself into something too dangerous to live.”

He stared at her.

“She’s got too much power, Doro. She terrifies me. She’s doing exactly what you always said you wanted to do. But she’s doing it, not you. All those people, those fifteen hundred people in the section, are hers, not yours.”

“But she’s mine.”

“You wouldn’t be thinking about killing her if you believed that was enough.”

“Em… .” He got up and went to sit on the arm of her chair. “What are you afraid of?”

“Your Mary.” She leaned against him. “Your ruthless, egotistical, power-hungry little Mary.”

“Your grandchild.”

“Your creation! Fifteen hundred actives in two years. They bring each other through on an assembly line. And how many conscripted servants—ordinary people unfortunate enough to be taken over by those actives. People forced now to be servants in their own houses. Servants and worse!”

Her outburst seemed to startle him. He looked down at her silently.

“You’re not in control,” she said more softly. “You’ve let them run wild. How many years do you think it will take at this rate for them to take over the city? How long before they begin tampering with the state and federal government?”

“They’re very provincial people, Em. They honestly don’t care what’s happening in Washington or Sacramento or anywhere else as long as they can prevent it from hurting them. They pay attention to what’s going on, but they don’t influence it very often.”

“I wonder how long that will last.”

“Quite a while, even if the Pattern survives. They honestly don’t want the burden of running a whole country full of people. Not when those people can run themselves reasonably well and the Patternists can reap the benefits of their labor.”

“That, they have to have learned from you.”

“Of course.”

“You mentioned Washington and Sacramento. What about here in Forsyth?”

“This is their home territory, Em. They’re interfering too much here to avoid being noticed by Forsyth city government, half asleep as it is. To avoid trouble, they took over the city about a year and a half ago.”

Emma stared at him, aghast.

“They’ve completely taken over the best section of town. They did it quietly, but still Mary thought it safest for them to control key mutes in city hall, in the police department, in—”

“Mutes!”

He looked annoyed, probably with himself. “It’s a convenient term. People without telepathic voices. Ordinary people.”

“I know what it means, Doro. I knew the first time I heard Mary use it. It means nigger!”

“Em—”