Psion (36 page)

“And even you were working for Corporate Security all along.
My compliments to them.
Your cover was ingenious.”

“Good enough to fool you.” I touched my bond tag.

“So it seems. . . . And you’re still wearing that. It must be satisfying to know you’ve been so well-rewarded for your loyalty to the Federation Mines.” He lifted an eyebrow.

I tried to laugh, but the truth made it stick in my throat. “Look, what do you want with us?”

“What do you want, Cat?
To take me prisoner, and go back to the mines as your reward?
Is that why you came? Is it worth that-are they worth that to you?”

“Shut up.” I went to stand beside Jule and touched her shoulder. I couldn’t reach into her mind.

“Cat. I’ll tell you what I want. . . .”

I looked back at him. And suddenly I was seeing a real face, tight with strain and fear, his eyes that saw his own humiliation and death ahead. And his mind was open-he’d dropped his guard to me.

His mind clawed at me: (I want to get out of this! Help me,
Cat,
you’re the only one who can. Turn me in and they’ll destroy me, they’ll destroy you, too. Help me-and I’ll teach you every trick I know. I’ll make you a better telepath than I am. Work with me and you can still have everything I promised, everything you ever wanted-!)

I felt my hands cover my ears as if they could shut him out. Lies, why should he . . . ? But I took a step toward him. Jule gasped, as if she felt my control slipping. . . .

But his mind was open to me, it was all true. And I’d known all along that this was what he’d wanted me for, what he’d planned for me all along. He couldn’t believe that I hadn’t understood-that Galiess was too old, that he needed someone new and smart, someone young. Galiess knew he’d chosen me-she resented it, and that was why she’d resented me. But she was loyal; together they would have helped me, they would have taught me . . . I was only a raw beginner. I’d created sophisticated results out of blind
ignorance,
I didn’t even know the things I could really do.

Or what I had done. No one had ever tricked him before. But I’d tricked him. I pulled him down, me, the half-breed kid-but he didn’t hate me for it. He admired me. If I helped him now, we could still escape this trap together. He’d take me with him, there wasn’t anything I couldn’t be, or have. . . . And my mind was full of what it would be like, again: the worlds and the wonder, the satisfaction, knowing they all had to ask me. . . .

And this was why I’d been afraid to face him.
Because now I wanted it all.
I wanted to know what I could really do with my mind. I wanted to be everything I could be, proud of my Gift and in control. . . . I wanted to know how it would feel to have everything money could buy, power, respect. . . . (Everything I want-everything?) I looked at Jule; my hand slid down her back in a caress.

Her face froze as she understood; but then her eyes said that she understood everything, before they dropped away. And that she knew there was no hope.

(Jule, I-) I pulled my hand back.

(Take her, if you want her!) Rubiy caught my mind. (Use her, stop being a fool! Don’t you know who she is; what the taMings stand for? They’re one of the most powerful and corrupt shipping families in the Federation! They’re part of the cartel that hired me to take over the Federation Mines! You’ve let her seduce you all along: for what? Have you forgotten Oldcity, the slums of Quarro? She never cared about you, none of them do. They’re all alike, parasites feeding off the combines that feed off the gutter scum-you and me, Cityboy!
Always the ones who suffer and bleed . . . because they keep it that way.
Because they need it! We make the systems work, our suffering,
our
despair. They’re using you, they’ve always used you. Hate them. . . .)

The way he hated them.
I touched his hatred, and black bitterness, rage like cold diamonds, ripped me inside. There was no light in the world, only a craving hunger, the need to survive. There was nothing I wouldn’t do, nothing I couldn’t do to them; they deserved it all and it was my right. . . .

But it wasn’t my right. I was only half human . . . and half Hydran. And now at last I saw what that really meant-that a part of every other Hydran lived in that half of me: a presence born into me like instinct, the presence of the people who rejected the ultimate use of power. To take a life was the unforgivable wrong; to destroy another was to destroy
yourself
.

“No . . . I can’t.” I stood beside Jule again, my mind torn in two, my hands tightening into fists. Jule, who was only Jule, who’d never done anything to me but show me she believed in me. But at the same time I knew that everything he said was true, and that another part of me hated half the universe for the things they’d done to me, to him, to so many others like us for so long, so long. . . . That he had the right to hate them.
That we were the same . . . once.

But not now.
Now I saw how hate and power had twisted him into the thing he hated. He didn’t give a damn for anybody, including me. He’d destroy the only thing that had ever mattered to me-the thing I shared with Jule, and Siebeling-and use me to do it. He’d use me worse than anyone had; he’d destroy me with his mind sickness. . . . He was crazy, and I couldn’t let him do it. I had to stop him-

I had to look at him. His face was a lie; his eyes didn’t show me anything. I knew then that it was too late to stop anything. I’d let him through my guard, and into my mind-

He took control of it.

Then I learned about triumph, and thought maybe I was going to die of it: he held my mind cupped in his hands, he could smack them together and smash it like a bug; every time I breathed it was only because he let me. He waited, letting me feel it, letting me see how strong he was; that no one could stop him, we were all crazy even to have tried.

He nodded, and his mind’s hand loosened around me. “I’ve misjudged you twice, now, it seems. The first time I underestimated you, and I paid for it. At least this time I didn’t make that mistake. This time the mistake was yours, half-breed: you’ve lost sight of reality.
I am-disappointed.
I’d hoped. . . . But your choice is plain enough.”

So I knew what would happen next. We were all going to die. And it wouldn’t even be because we’d ruined his plans; it would be because we’d hurt his damn pride. Now he was going to prove that he was still the strongest, and the best. He didn’t have anything else left, no way to escape, no future; but he could still have that much. He’d get his final satisfaction from the three of us, and especially from one half-breed bondie who’d ruined everything. . . .
(Siebeling!)
I called him without even meaning to. No, don’t think about him, he’ll-

Rubiy smiled.
(Think about him all you like; I already know.
He’s coming to join us now. We’ll wait for him; I think it won’t be long.)

He picked something up from the control panel, came and put it into my hands, cold metal. Static sparked in my palms as it touched them, and made me flinch. I tried to feel surprised, looking down at it, but I couldn’t. It was a six/ten energy hand weapon. In my whole life I’d only seen one a couple of times, on Citi-corpses in riot squads.

I looked up into his smile, and didn’t need to ask what he wanted me to do with it. But the pictures came into my mind, where I couldn’t close my eyes to keep them out; and I saw my hand press the button-to kill Siebeling, and then Jule, and finally myself. I wouldn’t be able to stop it, and neither would they, because he’d have control of us all. He could make us do anything to each other.
Anything.
My mind started to form images of . . . No! I jerked the gun up, trying to aim it at him.

And then suddenly my throat closed and I couldn’t get any air; I couldn’t even make a sound. Seconds passed and more seconds and more; the paralysis didn’t come undone. The room floated around me. I got too dizzy to stand; I went down on my hands and knees with my chest on fire, clawing at my throat. . . . And then he let me go, and I crouched panting with my head down, my eyes shut.

(Get up.)

I got up, somehow.

(Pick up the gun.)

I did.

Rubiy came over to me and caught my jaw with his hand, looking into my eyes. (Yes, I could kill you all myself-it would be simpler. But this way I’ll enjoy it so much more.) He let go of me again. (Consider the irony of the situation, Cat, while you have the time left. I find the arrangement fitting.)

(You bastard, I’m not gonna kill for you, I won’t,
I.
. . can’t.)

And he knew I couldn’t kill, because I was Hydran-he knew what it would do to me. But he knew I would kill, because I wasn’t Hydran enough-or strong enough to stop him. Because he was the best, he was stronger than any of us.
But not stronger than all of us.
(Jule-!)
This time slipping free, finding her in the darkness of our mind prison; linking, feeling her mind flow into mine.

Her hand rose and clutched at mine. But we were barely touching fingertips through the cage bars. It was only because Rubiy chose to let it happen, because he enjoyed pulling our strings. . . .

(Cat!)
Her voice filled my mind; she knew everything Rubiy had shown me. (Why did you come? I wasn’t worth it. . . .) And her guilt was a weakness that Rubiy used against her, like he used my own guilt, and my half-alienness. He was playing us all against ourselves, we were flies in his web, and every time we struggled we only pulled it tighter around us. (Jule, he can’t make me use this thing.) I looked at the gun, trying to make myself believe that; but knowing, too, that he knew every secret fear, and how to turn them all against me.

And then he reached out and broke our contact. Jule’s fingers slid down mine, my hand dropped . . . I was alone.

And Siebeling was coming. I felt Rubiy focus his mind like a part of my own, to take Siebeling over; I felt like it was my own mind being lost all over again. Now he had us all. Not wanting to, I turned to watch the door, and I waited.

I saw Siebeling come into the light. His face was stiff, like Jule’s face; the face of something trapped and helpless. His eyes went from Jule to me to Rubiy, and back to me. I had the gun pointed at him. His eyes asked the question-

(No, I don’t want to do it!) But I couldn’t reach into his mind and make him sure, any more than I could find Jule again. My hand held a gun on him, and all he knew was that he was going to die.

“Dr. Siebeling,” Rubiy nodded. “Now the circle is complete, and we can finish this.” He said it out loud; I wondered why he bothered. I felt his mind begin to push me, gently at first and then a little harder; because he had plenty of time, and he wanted to enjoy this. And it wasn’t like pain; it wasn’t anything I could fight back against, or even get hold of. It was just the understanding that if I didn’t do the thing he wanted me to do, in the end my mind would shatter into a million pieces like glass. I couldn’t do it . . . I couldn’t . . . but I couldn’t stop it. My hand began to
shake,
I watched while my other hand rose to steady it . . . he was trying to make my fingers close over the button . . . now both hands were on the gun. But Jule and Siebeling were all I could see. And they were all I had-

And I held him. My fingers froze like a part of the metal, he couldn’t make me fire.

It shook him. His control of me slipped a little: he’d taken on too much, he didn’t have any reserves left,
he
couldn’t control us all for long. He wasn’t a god-he was pulling a bluff too! And I tore his web, found Siebeling first, (Join with me!) But Siebeling’s mind turned me back; he wouldn’t join. He thought I wanted to kill him. The words formed in my mind, his words: (You lying gutter thief. I should have known better than to trust you.)

(Stop it-) My hands were slipping.

(I should have known what-no, I-what you were.) And then everything he’d always thought of me, despising me, denying me: (I should have known.)

“God damn you. . . .” My voice broke.

(No!
Cat! I won’t!) Horror filled his face.

Rubiy pushed me and I pressed the button.

I knew what he’d done then, I jerked my hand aside, but it was too late. The energy beam caught Siebeling and dumped him against the wall. Jule screamed with his pain, and my mind echoed with it.

And then he disappeared from my mind. Rubiy’s gloating pride filled the emptiness. It was a trick, another trick; and Siebeling was dead. I whimpered and swayed on my feet, but Rubiy controlled my whole body, holding me there. I felt my head pull around to look at Jule. She sat with everything and nothing in her eyes and on her face.

“I’m sorry, Jule. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. . . .” I felt my hands swing around with the gun. She just kept on staring.

Now there were only the two of us left; Rubiy knew he could make us do anything. Now it was Jule’s turn to die. He’d made me kill once, and after I killed Jule too, he wouldn’t even have to force me to use the gun on myself.
Because I wouldn’t want to live.

I saw Jule behind my eyes, and what I was going to do to her-to Jule, for him. And I knew that there had to be something stronger than Rubiy, and stronger than hate, in what she meant to me. Finding that thing was all that mattered, she was all that mattered. . . . Find her, find her, nothing else is real. . . .