by David Weber
He glowered at her, but then, to her vast relief, he seemed to unbend the tiniest bit.
"Yes. It is my job," he said gruffly, then drew another deep breath and forced the steel burr out of his voice.
"All right. I'll try to listen with a little less suspicion. I need to understand this, for a lot of important reasons. And while I'm listening," he met her gaze, "I'll remind myself that despite what your soldiers did to my men, despite the threat to my people they represent, neither you nor Jathmar tried to kill my men until we fired on you."
"No," Jathmar said stiffly. "We didn't. We weren't stupid. We were good enough woodsmen to notice panicked wildlife rushing ahead of a wide line of men driving through a forest to surround us. We guessed right then that we were outnumbered. That's why we found a hiding place. And when we finally saw your people, it was obvious we faced soldiers. Less than twenty civilians against enough men to cut off our escape from every direction? We'd have been crazy to shoot first! But that didn't help us in the end, did it—because you had to come in shooting anyway! Maybe Gadrial is right and you didn't order your people to shoot, but you were in command. You were the one who pushed it—chased us—until it was inevitable!"
His accent was more pronounced even than usual, and he had to pause several times to find the words he wanted. But his anger came through with perfect clarity, and Jasak studied him for long silent moments.
"Let me tell you what I see about that day," he said finally. "You had personal weapons more terrifying than anything we'd ever seen—certainly more terrifying than anything we 'soldiers' had. Something that killed with horrifying violence, something we couldn't even identify. And when we tracked the man who'd killed one of my men to your camp, we discovered that you hadn't made the sort of open encampment we 'soldiers' made when we bivouacked. Oh, no, you'd built a palisade, well placed on commanding ground, with good fields of fire. An obviously military palisade. One of my men was already dead, I had no idea who you were, where you'd come from, who'd shot first, what other weapons you might have, how close other military forces might have been, what your intentions were, what sort of people you were. And when we finally did catch up with you, you were holed up in the best military position we'd seen anywhere on that side of our portal! Yes, you turned out to be civilians, but how was I supposed to know that then? I knew nothing about you—except that you'd already killed one of my people—and every member of the Arcanan military forces has standing orders where contact with another human civilization is concerned. We're to make it a peaceful contact if we possibly can. But, if there's already been blood shed, especially by what appears to be an organized military force, then those same standing orders required me to control the contact. Given all of that, Jathmar, how would you have reacted differently up until the instant fire was opened?"
It was his turn to hold Jathmar's gaze challengingly, and he did. Yet even Jathmar could see it was a challenge, not simple anger, and he felt his own anger waver.
He didn't want to feel that. The sudden realization that he wanted—needed—to cling to his anger shook him badly, but it was true. He didn't want to take a single step toward understanding what Jasak had known, what Jasak's options had been, because understanding might undermine his hatred.
Yet he couldn't afford to clutch that hatred to him, either. And so, finally, he shrugged.
"I don't know," he said shortly. "I'm not a soldier. I'd like to think I wouldn't have run down a civilian survey crew, but if I'd thought they were soldiers?" He shrugged again. "I don't know."
"I appreciate your honesty in coming that far," Jasak said. "But there was another side to it, as well. Something I'd already recognized even before the shooting started. You were trying to keep the situation under control, too. You didn't want a bloodbath any more than I did, and I knew it."
"How?" Shaylar asked, totally astonished.
"You could have opened fire without warning. I was sure you'd gone into those fallen timbers. If you'd wanted a fight, you could have dug in in your palisade, tried to set up an ambush when we followed your man back to your camp. You hadn't done that; you'd run for your portal, instead, tried to break contact. There could have been a lot of reasons—military reasons—for that, but you didn't open fire when we started closing in on your position out in those fallen trees, either. You had concealment and cover—you could have killed a lot of my men before we even knew where to shoot back—and you didn't. Not until someone on our side killed someone else on your side who was trying to talk, not shoot."
He shook his head again, slowly, heavily.
"I'm not prepared to second-guess all my decisions that day, and we'll never know what happened when your man—Falsan—met Osmuna. But the bottom line is that my people shot first, whether I wanted them to or not, in the second encounter with you. However it happened, that was the outcome. And that means you deserve for me to at least listen with as open a mind as I possibly can."
Shaylar started to speak, but he raised one hand. The gesture stopped her, and he smiled without any humor at all.
"Don't misunderstand me. I'm still a soldier, and my duty is still to protect my people. After what happened at our portal—after what your soldiers did to us, when they came looking for you—I'm very much afraid that an ugly, brutal war is waiting for all of us." He spoke with dark and bitter honesty. "Even if we, the four of us, could figure out a way to stop it, it may be too late already. Military people on both sides are obviously already beginning to react to what's happened as the reports go up the chain of command, and the gods only know where that's likely to go. And once the politicians get their hooks into this, it may be impossible to stop.
"All we can do is this; try to convince me, Shaylar. Convince me your mental Talents aren't super weapons. That you can't use your minds to destroy Arcana at any time you choose. Whether you believe it or not at this moment, I am absolutely the closest thing to a friendly judge you're going to find. If you can't convince me, you'll never convince the Andaran High Commandery, let alone the politicians who govern the Union of Arcana."
"I know that," she whispered. "And that terrifies me."
"It should."
The dark thing riding his shoulders left Shaylar trembling. She was more than afraid for herself; she was afraid for Sharona. For every Talent alive. But then Jasak went on.
"Whatever else you say or don't say, before I come to a final decision about whether or not I believe what you're telling me, answer me this. Why do you touch people, if it isn't to read minds?"
He still sounded suspicious, although less unbelieving, and she met his gaze unflinchingly.
"Most people, even those without Talents, can tell a great deal about a person's emotions. When you look at a person, Jasak, you can see emotion in him, can't you? In his expression, his eyes, the way he stands or walks. You learn a great deal about a person that way, don't you?"
He nodded, clearly unsure where she was going.
"Well, I can see all that, too, visually. But when I touch a person, I can sense their emotions directly. Not their thoughts, just their feelings. If they're terrified, I feel waves of terror, as though I'm terrified of something, too. If they're angry, it's like being hit with a fist. If they're grieving, it's like drowning in the need to weep."
She turned to look at Gadrial, who still stood in the passage beyond Jasak.
"The day we came onto the ship, Jathmar and I knew something terrible had happened. That was obvious, because Gadrial had been crying. Her deep emotional shock showed in her eyes, in her face, in her posture—anyone could see that. But," her gaze moved back to Jathmar's face, "when you took my hand to help steady me on the gangway . . . "
Shaylar shut her eyes, shivering involuntarily.
"I almost fell down, your grief was so terrible. I know now it was for what had happened to your men, but I didn't know that then. And I didn't even have time to block it out. It just smashed into me like a club. It literally knocked me off my feet. I would have falle
n, if you hadn't caught me, and then Gadrial took my hand, and that was almost worse. It felt—"
She cast through every nuance of that memory, trying to be as accurate as possible.
"There was terrible loss. Personal loss, even worse than yours for your men, Jasak. Like when a family member dies. It felt . . . as if you'd lost a father?" she finished uncertainly, reopening her eyes to meet Gadrial's.
"Yes." Gadrial's breath caught on a ragged half-sob. "That's exactly what it feels like. Halathyn was a father to me."
"I'm sorry he was killed," Shaylar said softly. "I touched him that first day." She had to blink to clear her eyes. "I trusted him instantly. He was very gentle inside. It felt like he loved everything."
"Yes." Gadrial wiped away tears. "He did. I still can't believe he's gone. That he died so horribly . . . so stupidly."
"They all died horribly," Shaylar said, her voice suddenly harsh. "They all died stupidly. There was no need for any of it! I bleed for you and Halathyn, Gadrial—but who bleeds for us? Who bleeds for Ghartoun, who stood up to talk to you with empty hands? For poor, maddening Braiheri, who studied plants and animals? For Barris Kasell, who kept me sane when Falsan died in my arms? Who died trying to keep me alive? We had boys with us, too. Young men, barely out of school, who took care of our pack animals, the supplies. Boys with dreams and their whole lives to live. And they all died horribly. Stupidly. For nothing."
Gadrial bit her lip, and Shaylar looked directly into Jasak Olderhan's eyes.
"That first day, that horrible first day . . ." She didn't even try to fight the tears. "You can't ever know how terrified I was. How deep the shock was, even before you cremated the dead. I was badly injured—your own Healers have confirmed that. My husband's life hung by a thread, with burns so terrible I couldn't even bear to look at them. And then you burned the dead."
She shuddered. Her mind wanted desperately to shy away from that particular memory, but there was a point she needed to make, and she couldn't do that without facing the memory herself.
"When you burned them, I started to fall. You caught me—just like you did on the gangway. Do you remember that, Jasak?"
He nodded slowly.
"When you touched me—" She paused, swallowed sharply, wrapped both arms around herself. "My Talent was badly damaged because of my injury, but I could still feel your regret. Your horror. It shocked me. I didn't expect it, and I was too dizzy, too sick, to understand fully. But I felt more than enough to realize you'd actually intended to honor my dead."
His own memories of that dreadful day floated like ghosts in his eyes as she stared into them.
"And under the regret there was a sense of desperate sorrow—one I finally understood when Gadrial told me today, in this cabin, that you'd ordered your man not to shoot Ghartoun. I didn't want to believe it when she did, but a Voice has perfect recall, Jasak. I can shut my eyes anytime I want and hear you shouting not to shoot. And when I learned that, it hurt me, terribly, to finally know for certain that my friends had died for absolutely no reason except one scared man's stupid mistake. But it also confirmed what I'd felt inside you that day."
He looked down at her, his eyes still hooded, still suspicious, and her temper snapped.
"Gods' mercy, Jasak! Why else do you think I was able to trust you that day? To let you touch me? To not jerk back in horror every time you even looked at me? You've talked about how frightening our weapons were to you—what about your weapons to us? You'd just butchered my dearest friends—burned them alive, curse you! My gods, I'd never seen anything so barbaric in my life! You claim to be civilized people, but you build weapons designed to roast an enemy alive!
"You can't possibly know what you did to me that day! What you're still doing to me, every single day I spend trapped in a room with guards staring at me if I even try to look out a window. I can't go for walks in the moonlight anymore. I can't go for walks anywhere! I can't even take a bath by myself, without having to ask Gadrial to order some musclebound guard not to shoot before I step outside that cabin door without permission!"
She stood glaring at him, bosom heaving with emotion she could barely contain. She wanted to scream, wanted to hit him with her fists to make him see what he'd done to them, what he was still doing to them. And buried in her anger, making it burn even fiercer, was the knowledge that he did know. That he understood, and deeply regretted it. That he would have done anything to undo it . . . and that he was still unflinchingly determined to do whatever his "duty" required of him. That unless she could convince him their Talents did not present some deadly danger to his nation and the men in his army, he would take whatever steps seemed necessary to eliminate that danger.
"It was my Talent—the Talent you're so worried about right now—that let me understand what you were feeling. I wanted to hate you. Gods, I wanted to kill you! I was in deep shock, and the shocks just kept coming and coming, and it was all your fault. I didn't want you to touch me, not then, not ever, but you did.
"And because you did, and because I'm Talented, I knew you hadn't wanted it to happen. I knew how terribly you regretted it, and how determined you were to protect me from still more harm. And when that happened, I couldn't keep hating you. I couldn't. I'm a Voice—I was born to understand people. I can't help understanding people. Even," she sobbed in rage, "when I don't want to!
"I wanted to hate you, and my Talent wouldn't let me. I'm not a weapon—I'm a Voice. A bridge between people. A living tool to help people communicate and understand one another. It's in my blood, my bones, my very skin. It you would just stop holding onto your suspicion with both fists and all your teeth, you'd see the truth, Jasak Olderhan."
She drew a deep breath, scrubbed the angry tears from her face, then shook her head.
"I can't prove to you that my Talent is no danger to you," she said quietly, almost softly. "But if it were, don't you think I'd already be using it? All I've done is use it to learn your language. If there were something I could do to strike back at you after all of the agony, fear, humiliation, and helplessness your people have inflicted on us, you can be certain that I would." She met his eyes levelly, challengingly. "You'd deserve that, and I'm sure you'd expect it. But there isn't, and I can't, and you're not a Voice, don't have a scrap of telepathy. So words are all I have to convince you I'm telling you the truth."
He continued to gaze down at her, then turned to look at Jathmar again, and she wanted—more than she'd ever wanted anything in her life before—to touch him. To see what emotions were streaming through him behind that expressionless mask of a face. But that was the last thing she could do, and so she simply stood, waiting.
Jasak looked at the tiny woman standing in front of him. Looked at the face of that woman's husband and read Jathmar's desperate fear for Shaylar, and the horrible, debilitating knowledge that there was no way he could protect her from whatever Jasak decided to do.
And that was the crux of the problem, wasn't it? Jasak had to decide what to do, and Shaylar was right. He had no 'Talent" of the mind, no yardstick to measure the truth of what she'd said, or to sense what her true emotions might be. He had to choose whether or not to take her unsupported word for it.
Despite all she'd just said, it was entirely possible that she could be—and had been—subtly influencing his judgments, his decisions, his very thoughts. The very passion with which she'd presented her argument had only driven home the fact that he had no way of knowing what other hidden abilities lurked within her. Not only had she admitted that she could sense the emotions of others, but the way she'd described herself—as a 'Voice'—had told him exactly how they'd gotten a message back to their own side. And she'd forgotten to try to disguise her fluency in Andaran. Jathmar's progress in learning Jasak's language had been phenomenal enough, but the command of it which Shaylar had just demonstrated was little short of terrifying.
Yet that was the entire point, wasn't it? Should it be terrifying, or did it simply feel that way because he didn't unde
rstand? Because it was a simple, everyday ability of her people which simply lay so far outside his own experience that he couldn't recognize it as such?
"Sit down, Shaylar. Please," he said finally.
She stared at him for a few more seconds, then stepped back behind Jathmar and settled gingerly on the foot of Gadrial's bed. Jasak waited until she'd seated herself, then pulled the straight-back chair back away from the small desk in the cabin's corner and placed it for Gadrial. He waited until the magister was seated, as well, then drew a deep breath.
"First," he said quietly, "I acknowledge that I was in command of the troops who killed your companions and wounded the two of you. That's a significant point, which I'll return to in a moment."
Jathmar was watching his face even more intently than Shaylar. Now he reached out and took his wife's hand once more, and Jasak realized he was also clinging to that 'marriage bond' Shaylar had mentioned. That he was using it to help himself follow what Jasak was saying with his own, more limited Andaran.
"Second," he continued, "whatever concerns I might have over the threat your 'Talents' might or might not pose to the other people on this ship, or to the Union of Arcana as a whole, I wouldn't blame you for using them any way you could. Indeed, I'd expect no less out of you, just as I would expect no less out of Gadrial and her Gift under similar circumstances.