Butler, Octavia - Mind of My Mind

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.

“If I had, I’d know what he said. I was coming upstairs a few minutes ago. I saw you go into his room.” She sat up and looked at him intently. “What did he say, Karl?”

“He said no.”

“Oh.” She lay down again. “I knew damned well he would. I just keep hoping.”

“You’re going to have to fight.”

“I know.”

“And you’re going to win. You’re going to kill him. You’re going to do whatever you have to do to kill him!”

Like a latent, she turned onto her side, clutched her head between her hands, and curled her body into a tight knot.

The next day, Karl called the family together. Mary had gone to see August, and Karl wanted to talk to the others before she returned. She would find out what had been said. He planned to tell her himself, in fact. But he wanted to talk to them first without her.

They already knew why Mary had called in her searchers. They didn’t like it. Mary’s enthusiasm over the Pattern’s growth had infected them long ago. Now Karl told them that Mary’s submission could not last. That Mary’s own needs would force her to disobey, and that when she disobeyed, Doro would kill her. Or try to.

“It’s possible that with our numbers we can help her defeat him,” Karl said. “I don’t know how she’ll handle things when the time comes, but I have a feeling she’ll want to get as many of the people away from the section as she can. Doro has told us that actives couldn’t handle themselves in groups before the Pattern. I know Mary’s afraid of the chaos that might happen here if she’s killed while we’re all together. So I think she’ll try to give the people some warning to get out of Forsyth, scatter. If any of you want to scatter with them, she’ll almost certainly let you go. The idea of other Patternists dying either because she dies or because she takes too much strength from them is bothering her more than the thought of her own death.”

“Sounds like you’re telling us to cut and run,” said Jesse.

“I’m offering you a choice,” said Karl.

“Only because you know we won’t take it,” said Jesse.

Karl looked from him to the others, let his gaze pass over them slowly.

“He speaks for all of us,” said Seth. “I didn’t know Mary was in trouble. She hides things too well sometimes. But now that I do know, I’m not going to walk out on her.”

“And how could I leave the school?” said Ada. “All the children …”

“I think Doro has made a mistake,” said Rachel. “I think he’s waited too long to do this. I don’t see how any one person could resist so many of us. I don’t even see why we have to risk Mary, since she’s the only one of us who’s irreplaceable. If the rest of us got together and—”

“Mary says that wouldn’t work,” said Karl. “She says it wouldn’t even work against her.”

“Then, we’ll all have to give her our strength.”

“To be honest, she’s not sure that will work either. Doro says strength alone isn’t enough to beat him. I suspect he’s lying. But the only way to find out for sure is for her to tackle him. So she will gather strength from some or all of us when the time comes. We’re the only weapons she has.”

“If she’s not careful,” said Jesse, “she won’t have time to try it—or time to warn the people to scatter. Doro knows she’s in trouble, doesn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“He might decide there’s no point in waiting for her to break.”

“I’ve thought about that,” said Karl. “I don’t think she’ll let him surprise her. But, to be sure, I’m going to start work on her tonight—talk her into going after him. Preparing herself, and going after him.”

“Are you sure you can talk her into it?” asked Jan.

“Yes.” Karl looked at her. “You haven’t said anything. Are you with us?”

Jan looked offended. “I’m a member of this family, aren’t I?”

Karl smiled. Jan had changed. Her art had given her the strength that she had always lacked. And it had given her a contentment with her life. She might even be a live woman

now, instead of a corpse, in bed. Karl wondered briefly but not seriously. Mary was woman enough for him if he could find some way of keeping her alive.

“I think Doro has made more than one mistake,” said Jan. “I think he’s wrong to believe that Mary still belongs to him. With the responsibility she’s taken on for all that she’s built here, she belongs to us, the people. To all of us.”

“I suspect she thinks it’s the other way around,” said Rachel. “But it wouldn’t hurt if we went to some of the heads of houses and said it Jan’s way. They’re our best, our strongest. Mary will need them.”

“I don’t know whether I’ll be able to get her to take them,” said Karl. “I intend to try, though.”