Butler, Octavia - Mind of My Mind

Mind of My Mind

Octavia E. Butler

DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC. GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK

1977

For all but the first few centuries of his 4000-year life, the Nubian Doro has struggled to build a new race of men. He has survived as a result of millennia of genetic mutations; his people exist as a result of nearly 4000 years of controlled breeding he has masterminded.

Now six of Doro’s most promising “actives” have been drawn to the side of his chosen disciple, Mary. A young woman possessed of an unheard of power: the telepathic pattern that enables her to regenerate the mutilated discards of Doro’s eugenics. A pattern that forces her into an inevitable struggle against the man who has been her father, her lover, and her master: Doro.

A frightening, chilling “pre-sequel” to Octavia Butler’s first novel, Patternmaster.

Prologue

DORO

Doro’s widow in the southern California city of Forsyth had become a prostitute. Doro had left her alone for eighteen months. Too long. For the sake of the daughter she had borne him, he should have visited her more often. Now it was almost too late.

Doro watched her without letting her know that he was in town. He saw the men come and go from her new, wrong-side-of-the-tracks apartment. He saw that most of her time away from home was spent in the local bars.

Sometime during his eighteen-month absence, she had moved from the house he had bought her—an expensive house in a good neighborhood. And though he had made arrangements with a Forsyth bank for her to receive a liberal monthly allowance, she still needed the men. And the liquor. He was not surprised.

By the time he knocked at her door, the main thing he wanted to do was see whether his daughter was all right. When the woman opened the door, he pushed past her into the apartment without speaking.

She was half drunk and slurred her words a little as she called after him. “Hey, wait a minute. Who the hell do you think you—”

“Shut up, Rina.”

She hadn’t recognized him, of course. He was wearing a body that she had never seen before. But like all his people, she knew him the instant he spoke. She stared at him, round-eyed, silent.

There was a man sitting on her couch drinking directly from a bottle of Santa Fe Port. Doro glanced at him, then spoke to Rina. “Get rid of him.”

The man started to protest immediately. Doro ignored him and went on to the bedroom, following his tracking sense to Mary, his daughter. The child was asleep, her breathing softly even. Doro turned on a light and looked at her more closely. She was three years old now, small and thin, not especially healthy-looking. Her nose was running.

Doro touched her forehead lightly but felt no trace of fever. The bedroom contained only a bed and a three-legged chest of drawers. There was a pile of dirty clothes in one corner on the floor. The rest of the floor was bare wood—no carpeting.

Doro took in all this without surprise, without changing his neutral expression. He uncovered the child, saw that she was sleeping nude, saw the bruises and welts on her back and legs. He shook his head and sighed, covered the little girl up carefully, and went back out to the living room. There the man and Rina were cursing at each other. Doro waited in silence until he was sure that Rina was honestly, in fact desperately, trying to get rid of her “guest” but that the man was refusing to budge. Then Doro walked over to the man.

The man was short and slight, not much more than a boy, really. Rina might have been able to throw him out physically, but she had not. Now it was too late. She stumbled back away from him, silent, abruptly terrified as Doro approached.

The man rose unsteadily to face Doro. Doro saw that he had put his bottle down and taken out a large pocket knife. Unlike Rina, he did not slur his words at all when he

spoke. “Now, listen, you— Hold it! I said hold it!”

He broke off abruptly, slashing at Doro as Doro advanced on him. Doro made no effort to avoid the knife. It sliced easily through the flesh of his abdomen but he never felt the pain. He abandoned his body the instant the knife touched him.

Surprise and anger were the first emotions Doro tasted in the man’s mind. Surprise, anger, then fear. There was always fear. Then yielding. Not all Doro’s victims gave in so quickly, but this one was half anesthetized with wine. This one saw Doro as only Doro’s victims ever saw him. Then, stunned, he gave up his life almost without a struggle. Doro consumed him, an easy if not especially satisfying meal.

Rina had gasped and begun to raise her hand to her mouth as the man slashed at Doro. When Doro finished his kill, Rina’s hand was just touching her lips.

Doro stood uncomfortably disoriented, mildly sick to his stomach, the hand of his newly acquired body still clutching its bloody knife. On the floor lay the body that Doro had been wearing when he came in. It had been strong, healthy, in excellent physical condition. The one he had now was nothing beside it. He glanced at Rina in annoyance. Rina shrank back against the wall.

“What’s the matter with you?” he asked. “Do you think you’re safer over there?”

“Don’t hurt me,” she said. “Please.”

“Why would you beat a three-year-old like that, Rina?”

“I didn’t do it! I swear. It was a guy who brought me home a couple of nights ago. Mary woke up screaming from a nightmare or something, and he—”

“Hell,” said Doro in disgust. “Is that supposed to be an excuse?”

Rina began to cry silently, tears streaming down her face. “You don’t know,” she said in a low voice. “You don’t understand what it’s like for me having that kid here.” She was no longer slurring her words, in spite of her tears. Her fear had sobered her. She wiped her eyes. “I really didn’t hit her. You know I wouldn’t dare lie to you.” She stared at Doro for a moment, then shook her head. “I’ve wanted to hit her though—so many times. I can hardly even stand to go near her sober any more …” She looked at the body cooling on the floor and began to tremble.

Doro went to her. She stiffened with terror as he touched her. Then, after a moment, when she realized that he was doing nothing more than putting his arm around her, she let him lead her back to the couch.

She sat with him, beginning to relax, the tension going out of her body. When he spoke to her, his tone was gentle, without threat.

“I’ll take Mary if you want me to, Rina. I’ll find a home for her.”

She said nothing for a long while. He did not hurry her. She looked at him, then closed her eyes, shook her head. Finally she put her head on his shoulder and spoke softly. “I’m sick,” she said. “Tell me I’ll be well if you take her.”

“You’ll be as well as you were before Mary was born.”

“Then?” She shuddered against him. “No. I was sick then too. Sick and alone. If you take Mary away, you won’t come back to me, will you?”

“No. I won’t.”

“You said, ‘I want you to have a baby,’ and I said, ‘I hate kids, especially babies,’ and you said, ‘That doesn’t matter.’ And it didn’t.”

“Shall I take her, Rina?”

“No. Are you going to get rid of that corpse for me?” She nudged his former body

with one foot.

“I’ll have someone take care of it.”

“I can’t do anything,” she said. “My hands shake and sometimes I hear voices. I sweat and my head hurts and I want to cry or I want to scream. Nothing helps but taking a drink—or maybe finding a guy.”

“You won’t drink so much from now on.”

There was another long silence. “You always want so damn much. Shall I give up men, too?”