Mind of My Mind (10 page)

Doro looked at Mary, who had finally straightened herself out on the bed. She looked

back at him wearily.

"Good luck," he said quietly.

She continued to watch him, not responding at all.

He turned and left with Vivian, still holding her as she cried.

Karl looked down at Mary.

She continued to stare after Doro and Vivian. She spoke softly. "Why is it Doro is

always so kind to people after he messes up their lives?"

Karl took a tissue from the box on her night table and wiped her face. It was wet with

perspiration.

She gave him a tired half smile. "You being 'kind' to me, man?"

"That wasn't my word," said Karl.

"No?"

"Look," he said, "you know how it's going to be from now on. One bad experience

after another. Why don't you use this time to rest?"

"When it's over, if I'm still alive, I'll rest." And then explosively, "Shit!"

He felt her caught up in someone else's fear, stark terror. Then he was caught too. He

was too close to her again.

For a moment, he let the alien terror roll over him, engulf him. He broke into an icy

sweat. Abruptly he was elsewhere—standing outside in the back yard of a house built

near the edge of one of the canyons. Coming up the slope from the canyon was the

longest, thickest snake he had ever seen. It was coming toward him. He couldn't move.

He was terrified of snakes. Abruptly he turned to run. He caught his foot on a lawn

sprinkler, fell screaming, his body twisting, thrashing. He felt his own leg snap as he hit

the ground. But the break registered less on him than the snake. And the snake was coming closer.

Karl had had enough. He drew back, screened out the man's terror. At that instant,

Mary screamed.

As Karl watched, she turned on her side, curling up again, pressing her face into the

pillow so that the sounds she made were muffled.

He watched her mentally as well, or watched the ophidiophobe whose mind held her.

He thought he understood something now. Something he had wondered about. He knew

how Mary's expanding talent, acting without control, was opening one pathway after

another to other people's raw emotions. And now he realized that when he let himself be

caught up in those emotions, he was standing in the middle of an open pathway. He was

shielding her from the infant fumbling of her own ability by accepting the consequences

of that fumbling himself. That was why Doro had told him to back off. When he was too

close to Mary, he was helping her. He was preventing her from going through the

suffering that was normal for a person in transition. And since the suffering was normal,

perhaps it was in some way necessary. Perhaps an active could not mature without it.

Perhaps that was why Doro had warned him to help Mary only when she could no longer

help herself.

"Karl?"

He looked at her, realizing that he had let his attention wander. He didn't know what

had finally happened to the frightened man. He didn't care.

"What did you do?" she asked. "I could feel myself getting caught up in something

else. Then for a while it was gone."

He told her what he had learned, and what he had guessed. "So at least now I know

how to help you," he finished. "That gives you a better chance."

"I thought Doro would tell you how to help me."

"No, I think half Doro's pleasure comes from watching us, running us through mazes

like rats and seeing how well we figure things out."

"Sure," she said. "What are a few rat lives?" She took a deep breath. "And, speaking

of lives, Karl, don't help me unless I'm about to lose mine. Let me try to get through this

on my own."

"I'll do whatever seems necessary as you progress," he said. "You're going to have to

trust my judgment. I've been through this already."

"Yeah, you've been through it," she said. He saw her hands tighten into fists as

something clutched at her mind before she could finish. But she managed to get a few

more words out. "And you went through it on your own. Alone."

She struggled all evening, all night, and well into the next morning. During her few

lucid moments he tried to show her how to interpose her own mind shield between

herself and the world outside, how to control her ability and regain the mental peace that

she had not known for months. That was what he had had to learn to bring his own

transition to an end. If she didn't want his protection, perhaps he could at least show her

how to protect herself.

But she did not seem to be able to learn.

She was growing weaker and wearier. Dangerously weary. She seemed ready to sink

into oblivion with the unfortunate people whose thoughts possessed her. She had passed

out a few times, earlier. Now, though, he was afraid to let her go again. She was too

weak. He was afraid she might never regain consciousness.

He lay beside her on the bed listening to her ragged breathing, knowing that she was

with a fifteen-year-old boy somewhere in Los Angeles. The boy was being methodically

beaten to death by three older boys—members of a rival gang.

Just watching the things she had to live through was sickening. Why couldn't she pick

up the simple shielding technique?

She started to get up from the bed. Her self-control was all but gone. She was moving

as the boy moved miles away. He was trying to get up from the ground. He didn't know

what he was doing. Neither did she.

Karl caught her and held her down, thankful, not for the first time that night, that she

was small. He managed to catch her hands before she could slash him again with her

nails. The blood was hardly dry on his face where she had scratched him before. He held

her, pinning her with his weight, waiting for it to end.

Then, abruptly, he was tired of waiting. He opened his mind to the experience and

took the finish of the beating himself.

When it was over, he stayed with her, ready to take anything else that might sweep

her away. Even now she was stubborn enough not to want him there, but he no longer

cared what she wanted. He brushed aside her wordless protests and tried to show her

again how to erect shielding of her own. Again he failed. She still couldn't do it.

But after a while, she seemed to be doing something.

Staying with her mentally, Karl opened his eyes and moved away from her body.

Something was happening that he did not understand. She had not been able to learn from

him, but she was using him somehow. She had ceased to protest his mental presence. In

fact, her attention seemed to be on something else entirely. Her body was relaxed. Her

thoughts were her own, but they were not coherent. He could make no sense of them. He

sensed other people with her mentally, but he could not reach them even clearly enough

to identify them.

"What are you doing?" he asked aloud. He didn't like having to ask.

She didn't seem to hear him.

1 asked what you were doing! He gave her his annoyance with the thought.

Mary noticed him then, and somehow drew him closer to her. He seemed to see her

arms reaching out, her hands grasping him, though her body did not move. Suddenly

suspicious, he tried to break contact with her. Before he could complete the attempt, his

universe exploded.

MARY

I couldn't have said what I was doing. I knew Karl was still with me. His mental voice

was still reaching me. I didn't mean to grab him the way I did. I didn't realize until

afterward that I had done it. And even then, it seemed a perfectly natural thing to do. It

was what I had done to the others.

Others, yes. Five of them. They seemed to be far away from me, perhaps scattered

around the country. Actives like Karl, like me. People I had noticed during the last

minutes of my transition. People who had noticed me at the same time. Their thoughts

told me what they were, but I became aware of them—"saw" them—as bright points of

light, like stars. They formed a shifting pattern of light and color. I had brought them

together somehow. Now I was holding them together—and they didn't want to be held.

Their pattern went through kaleidoscopic changes in design as they tried to break free

of me. They were bright, darting fragments of fear and surprise, like insects beating

themselves against glass. Then they were long strands of fire, stretching away from me,

but somehow never stretching quite far enough to escape. They were writhing, shapeless

things, merging into each other, breaking apart, rolling together again as a tidal wave of

light, as a single clawing hand.

I was their target. They tore at me desperately with the hand they had formed. I didn't

feel it. All I could feel was their emotions. Desperation, anger, fear, hatred . . . They tore

at me harmlessly, tore at each other in their confusion. Finally they wore themselves out.

They rested grouped around me, relaxed. They were threads of fire again, each thread

touching me, linked with me. I was comfortable with them that way. I didn't understand

how or why I was holding them, but I didn't mind doing it. It felt right. I didn't want them

frightened or angry or hating me. I wanted them the way they were now, at ease,

comfortable with me.

I realized that there was something really proprietary about my feelings toward them.

As though I was supposed to have charge over them and they were supposed to accept

me. But I also realized that I had no idea how dangerous it might be for me to hold a

group of experienced active telepaths on mental leashes. Not that it would have mattered

if I had known, though, since I couldn't find a way to let them go. At least they were

peaceful now. And I was so tired. I drifted off to sleep.