Mind of My Mind (35 page)

left, they said, because the others were leaving. Not because they wanted to be out of

Larkin House. They didn't. They were as comfortable with us as our new Patternists were

with each other in their groups, their "families" of unrelated adults. We Patternists

seemed to be more-social creatures than mutes were. Not one of our new Patternists

chose to live alone. Even those who wanted to go out on their own waited until they

could find at least one other person to join them. Then, slowly, the pair collected others.

Their house grew.

Rachel and Jesse came back to us a few days after Seth and Ada. They were a little

shamefaced, ready to admit that they wanted back into the comfort they had not realized

they had found until they walked away from it.

Jan just reappeared. I read her. She had been lonely as hell in the house she had

chosen, but she didn't say anything to us. She wanted to live with us, and she wanted to

use her ability. She thought she would be content if she could do those two things. She

was learning to paint, and even the worst of her paintings lived. You touched them and

they catapulted you into another world. A world of her imagination. Some of the new

Patternists who were related to her began coming to her to learn to use whatever

psychometric ability they had. She taught them, took lovers from among them, and

worked to improve her art. And she was happier than she had ever been before.

The seven of us became the First Family. It was a joke at first. Karl made some

comparison between our position in the section and the position of the President's family

in the nation. The name stuck. I think we all thought it was a little silly at first, but we got

used to it. Karl did his bit to help me get used to it.

"We could do something about making it more of a family," he said. "We'd be the

first ones to try it, too. That would give some validity to our title."

The Pattern was just over a year old then. I looked at him uncertainly, not quite sure

he was saying what I thought he was saying.

"Try that again?"

"We could have a baby."

"Could we?"

"Seriously, Mary. I'd like us to have a child."

"Why?"

He gave me a look of disgust.

"I mean . . . we wouldn't be able to keep it with us."

"I know that."

I thought about it, surprised that I hadn't really thought about it before. But, then, I

had never wanted children. With Doro around, though, I had assumed that sooner or later

I would be ordered to produce some. Ordered. Somehow, being asked was better.

"We can have a child if you want," I said.

He thought for a moment. "I don't imagine you could arrange for it to be a boy?"

I arranged for it to be a boy. I was a healer by then. I could not only choose the child's

sex but insure his good health and my own good health while I was pregnant. So being

pregnant was no excuse for me to slow our expansion.

I was pulling in latents from all over the country. I could pick them out of the

surrounding mute population without trouble. It didn't matter any more that I had never

met them or that they were three thousand miles away when I focused in on them. My

range, like the distance the Patternists could travel from me, had increased as the Pattern

had grown. Now I located latents by their bursts of telepathic activity and gave a general

picture of their location to one of my Patternists. The Patternist could pinpoint them more

closely when he was within a few miles of them.

So the Pattern grew. Karl and I had a son: Karl August Larkin. The name of the man

whose body Doro had used to father me was Gerold August. I had never made any

gesture in his memory before, and I probably never would again. But having the baby had

made me sentimental.

Doro wasn't around to watch us much as we grew. He checked on us every few

months, probably to remind us—remind me—where the final authority still rested. He

showed up twice while I was pregnant. Then we didn't see him again until August was

two months old. He showed up at a time when we weren't having any big problems. I was

kind of glad to see him. Kind of proud that I was running things so smoothly. I didn't

realize he'd come to put an end to that.

He came in and looked at my flat stomach and said, "Boy or girl?" I hadn't bothered

to tell him I'd deliberately conceived a boy.

So Karl and I sat around and probably bored him with talk about the baby. I was

surprised when he said he wanted to see it.

"Why?" I asked. "Babies his age all look pretty much alike. What is there to see?"

Both men frowned at me.

"Okay, okay," I said. "Let's go see the baby. Come on."

Doro got up, but Karl stayed where he was. "You two go ahead," he said. "I was out

to see him this morning. My head won't take it again for a while."

No wonder he could afford to be indignant at my attitude! He was setting me up. I

wished Ada was around to take Doro in. August wasn't at the school itself, but he was at

one of the buffer houses surrounding the school. That was almost as bad. The static from

the school and from children in general didn't hit me as hard as it did most of the others,

but it still wasn't very pleasant.

We went in. Doro stared at August, and August stared back from the arms of Evelyn

Winthrop, the mute woman who took care of him. Then we left.

"Drive somewhere far enough from the school for you to be comfortable, and park,"

said Doro when we got back to the car. "I want to talk to you."

"About the baby?"

"No. Something else. Although I suppose I should compliment you on your son."

I shrugged.

"You don't give a damn about him, do you?"

I turned onto a quiet, tree-lined street and parked. "He's got all his parts," I said.

"Healthy mentally and physically. I saw to that. Watched him very carefully before he

was born. Now I keep an eye on Evelyn and her husband to be sure they're giving him the

care he needs. Beyond that, you're right."

"Jan all over again."

"Thanks."

"I'm not criticizing you. Telepaths are always the worst possible parents. I thought the

Pattern might change that, but it hasn't. Most actives have to be bulldozed into even

having children. You and Karl surprised me."

"Karl wanted a child."

"And you wanted Karl."

"I already had him by then. But the idea of having a child wasn't that repulsive. It still

isn't. I'd do it again. Now, what did you want to talk to me about?"

"Your doing it again."

"What?"

"Or at least having your people do it. Because that's the only way I'm going to allow

the Pattern to grow for a while."

I turned to look at him. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm suspending your latent-gathering as of today. You're to call your people in from

their searches, and recruit no more new Patternists."

"But—But why? What have we done, Doro?"

"Nothing. Nothing but grow. And that's the problem. I'm not punishing you; I'm

slowing you down a little. I'm being cautious."

"For what? Why should you be cautious about our growth? The mutes don't know

anything about us, and they'd have a hard time hurting us if they did. We aren't hurting

each other. I'm in control. There's been no unusual trouble."

"Mary . . . fifteen hundred adults and five hundred children in only two years! It's

time you stopped devoting all your energy to growth and started figuring out just what it

is you're growing. You're one woman holding everything together. Your only possible

successor at this point is about two months old. There'd be a blood bath if anything

happened to you. If you were hit by a car tomorrow, your people would disintegrate—all

over each other."

"If I were hit by a car and there were anything at all of me left alive, I'd survive. If I

couldn't put myself together again, Rachel would do it."

"Mary, what I'm saying is that you're irreplaceable. You're all your people have got.

Now, you can go on playing the part of their savior if you do as I've told you. Or you can

destroy them by plunging on headlong as you are now."

"Are you saying I have to stop recruiting until August is old enough to replace me if

anything happens to me?"

"Yes. And for safety's sake, I suggest that you not make August an only child."

"Wait twenty years?"

"It only sounds like a long time, Mary, believe me." He smiled a little. "Besides, not

only are you a potential immortal as a descendant of Emma, but you have your own and

Rachel's healing ability to keep you young if your potential for longevity doesn't work

out."

"Twenty Goddamn years . . . !"

"You would have something firm and well established to bring your people into by

then, too. You wouldn't be just spreading haphazardly over the city."

"We aren't doing that now! You know we aren't. We're growing deliberately into

Santa Elena, because that's where the living room we need is. Jesse is working right now

to prepare a new section of Santa Elena for us. We've got the school in the most protected

part of our Palo Alto district. We didn't manage that by accident! The people don't just

move wherever they want to. They go to Jesse and he shows them what's available."

"And all that's available is what you take from mutes. You don't build anything of

your own."

"We build ourselves!"

"You will build yourselves more slowly now."