Mischa had never had a teacher before, nor access to a library, nor time and means to investigate anything that interested her. During the following weeks in Stone Palace, she had all those resources, and they gave her the planet, the solar system, the universe; a past, a present, a future. The Sphere worlds she read about did not disappoint her imagination. It was not long before she understood why Jan Hikaru had smiled when she told him she wanted to learn everything.
At first she was afraid that her ignorance would bore Jan, even disgust him. He could easily have told Subtwo that she was stupid and worthless, and thus relieved himself of responsibility and work. But as she got to know him better, she realized he would not have done any such thing even if she had been stupid, even if he had been bored. In fact he seemed fascinated, and sometimes even excited, by her progress, though he was by nature undemonstrative.
As they worked together, she watched him grow beyond his grief, neither forgetting nor dully resigning himself to it, but accepting the reason for it and cherishing his memories. Mischa began to trust him, though not quite enough to tell him everything about herself, until she knew how he felt about people not quite normal. Reading alone, she searched for explanations of her differences, and found only theories and new words that all had the same uncertain meanings.
Every subject she studied came easily. She seldom forgot anything she read. She was happiest with mathematics and theoretical physics: each level of study pulled more facets of reality into an elegant and intricate and consistent system of natural laws. The new knowledge pleased her in a way few things ever had, speaking to a sense of beauty and order that she had perceived, yet never had a means of expressing, as Chris had, in his work, before he changed.
Mischa had neither forgotten nor abandoned her brother, but she could not ask another concession from Subtwo so recently after winning the first. She knew she must prove herself here; she could not fail as she had failed before. If she did, Chris would have no chance at all. She put her concern into a separate part of her mind.
She discovered in herself a talent for making valid connections between diverse and apparently unrelated bits of information. She had no idea how she did it, and the ability sometimes startled her a little, inexplicable as it was. As her studies continued and the subjects became more complicated, more esoteric, she occasionally found herself pointing out the way to Jan. The reversal troubled her, but she could not say why.
And then one day, looking pleased but a little bemused that Mischa had explained a mathematical proof to him, Jan said, “I read that over last night, and I didn’t really understand it. But you’re right—what’s the matter?”
Stricken, she stared at him. She suddenly realized why some of her intellectual jumps came so easily, so quickly, with intuitive understanding of the intervening steps. It only seemed that the information had always been there, locked up without framework or terminology. It had never really been there at all. Somehow, despite not being able to sense Jan’s feelings through his self-control, Mischa decided that she must be transferring his knowledge to herself, stealing insights on the edge of his subconscious and claiming them as her own. She was no better than Gemmi, a relay for words meaningless to herself. She was worse than Gemmi: she pretended to understand, even to herself, which Gemmi did not and could not do.
Mischa dropped the library extension on the carpet and fled to her room.
She flung herself face down on the bed and pillowed her forehead on her arms. Perhaps every insight she had ever had was drawn from another person. Utterly empty, she could think only that she would have to keep up the deception, even in front of Jan, whom she had begun to think of as a friend. She would have to continue draining him, as Gemmi drained her, long enough to get Chris away from Center. Just that long. Though practiced in deception, she had never betrayed a friend.
As she lay in cool darkness, a slow and just perceptible change occurred around her, as though a soft sound, the flow of a quiet stream, the whisper of air, had stopped. She finally noticed it, turned over, and sat up.
It took her a few minutes to recognize what was wrong. She jumped up and ran across the hallway and flung aside the curtain to Jan’s room. “Jan—” She approached him, silent. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, his eyes closed, his hands palms up, resting on his knees, in a relaxed but deliberate position.
Finally he opened his eyes.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes,” he said. “Of course. What’s the matter?”
“I couldn’t…” He had closed in on himself so far that she could no longer sense him, even as his usual deep and quiet presence. She had grown used to his stability; he was very different from other people, with their changing moods and feelings. It was the changes that disturbed her.
“I thought—there was something wrong.” It was a crippled excuse.
“There is something wrong,” Jan said, “but I don’t know what. I was… thinking… trying to understand what I said that upset you so.”
She sat down in front of him. “It isn’t you, it’s me.”
“You’re doing fine,” he said. “Beautifully.”
“No…”
“Do you want to do something else?”
“It isn’t that at all—” She cut herself off, hesitated, took a deep breath, and plunged ahead. “It’s too easy. It’s because of this… this trick I can do. I didn’t mean to, I didn’t know I could use it this way. I didn’t know that must be what was happening until something you said a couple minutes ago.” She tried to explain what she thought she was doing, and Jan’s frown deepened.
“No,” he said. “No, that’s not what’s going on at all.”
“But I really do know when people are near, I can feel them. I—”
“Wait, I believe you about that.” He smiled. “I can accept it—that’s easier than trying to pretend you’re nothing but a data-processing machine.”
“What other explanation is there?”
“Tell me what you like most.”
“Mathematics. You know that.”
“I always hated it. Well—I didn’t really hate it, but I never had any ability at it. You’re farther along than I ever was before. I’ve been keeping half a step ahead of you for a week and I really can’t do it any longer.”
“So?”
“It seems to me, if you were lifting anything out of my mind, it would be something I’m passably good at.”
She rested her chin on her fist, thinking. What he said made sense, and she wanted to believe it. “Then how do I do what I do? I get from one idea to another and sometimes I don’t even know how.”
“With a very few subjects—and math is one of them—a few people can do that. It’s a rare ability, and a valuable one. No one has ever quite figured out how it happens. Gods, don’t worry about it—accept it and use it.”
“Maybe I don’t get it from you. Maybe I get it from somebody else.”
“Such as?”
“Subtwo?”
Jan laughed. “He has talents, but intuitive mathematics isn’t one of them. He’s intelligent and he has an encyclopedic memory, but he’s essentially methodical. He takes one step at a time—very fast, but it’s still plodding.”
“You’re sure? Whatever I’m doing, I’m doing myself?”
“Yes. You’re much too consistent to be dragging this gift out of other people’s minds. As consistent as intuition ever is, anyway.”
Mischa chewed on her thumbnail, distractedly, feeling her self-confidence renew itself from Jan’s assurance. “There’s one thing… what I told you—”
“That you can sense what people feel? I’d like to talk about it sometime.”
“All right. But only with you. Don’t tell anyone else, will you? Please?”
“If you’d rather I didn’t.”
“Maybe it wouldn’t matter in the Sphere, but it does in Center.”
“Okay.”
“Thanks.”
o0o
Jan Hikaru’s Journal:
Mischa’s one of those rare, strange prodigies, who know music or mathematics without being taught, and need only tools—an instrument, or an introduction to notation—with which to express their talent. Because there are concepts that can’t be expressed otherwise. Once we were talking about rotation—lines around points, planes around lines, n dimensions as a pivot for n+I. “And a solid around a plane,” she said. I agreed, and said that of course that situation couldn’t be visualized.
“But it can—!”
She tried to explain to me what she could see in her mind, but finally shrugged and spread her hands. “There aren’t any words.” I think she really can visualize a situation in four dimensions. I’ve heard of people who could, but never met anyone before.
I used to wonder what it was about music and math, why they’re so integral to the human system that a few people know them instinctively. I’m no closer to understanding.
I can still help her with other subjects, and the teaching is a delight. But though she can continue beyond me by herself, I think it would be better for her to have some direction. Even more now, I wish my friend were still alive, because I think she would have gotten great joy from working with Mischa. She would have been able to help, but the navigator of the pseudosibs’ ship knows barely more than I do. I think Subtwo gives out titles to make people happy and does all the real work himself. He’s the only one left to ask.
o0o
Subtwo made an error, stopped, and reached toward the pressure-sensitive display screen. Placing the side of his palm hard against the plastic, until he could feel the material give against the force, he dragged his hand from one edge to the other, very slowly, obliterating delicate lines and numerals in a bright green glow. Ashamed of his outburst, he touched a control and cleared the screen more conventionally.
This was the second time he had erred in as many hours, and he was disturbed by his lack of concentration. He sat back in his chair and allowed the reactions of his body to impinge upon his consciousness. Fatigue (lactic acid excess). Hunger (hypoglycemia). Tension, muscle strain, impeded circulation. And a deep feeling of unease that he could neither analyze nor dispel. He looked at the chronometer, and would have thought it faulty had he not known better. There was no excuse for mistreating his body; he had not rested nor fed it for two days, and for days before that he had acted in a similar irresponsible manner. He had not left his suite nor spoken to another human being for ten days, fifteen days. The isolation did not disturb him, but its effect on his attempts to live like other people did.
He doubted he would ever succeed completely, but such withdrawals would make his differences all the more obvious, preventing even the appearance of normalcy. Now he should get up, leave his comfortable quarters, go to gym or common room or cafeteria, and play or work or eat with his people, instead of by himself as he pleased.
He did not want to do any of those things. He wanted to stay all alone, unreminded of his loneliness. Never before had he been jealous of anything, of anyone, especially of his outcast followers. They had always seemed pitiful to him; they were running from what would find them eventually, or toward what they would never find. They could not adjust, they could not adapt, they could not survive anywhere but in the exile-world they made for themselves. They would not try, because of some flaw of intellect or character, Subtwo did not know which. Yet they were content. He resented their trivial happinesses.
Though recognizing his body’s need for food, if only concentrates here in his suite, he remained before his console. There was a great frustration inside him—that for all his own intellect, for all his dedication, he had found no path to contentment or happiness.
He keyed the records of the entrance hallway and watched Madame, the last time she had come to his rooms. He took comfort in her grace and poise, but felt distress that her image of perfection remained flawless even when she was alone. Of course she knew of the cameras. But Subtwo wondered if she ever allowed herself to relax, if she had any place where she knew she would not be watched.
In the spring, when they left again—perhaps a little before, if he could convince Subone to make the early departure—he could ask Madame to go with him. He would steal her away and give her her freedom. Steal her… he did not like to think of human beings as stealable, and therefore property; he did not like to think of Madame subject to the whims of Blaisse’s cruelty, her fate, even her survival, in his hands, a saleable commodity.
A saleable commodity…
Saleable…
He left his machines and walked into the corridor. No longer did it please him, for Subone had changed it, strewing trash and artifacts on its floor, painting the clean, smooth walls with indelicate designs.
The alice tube took Subtwo to Blaisse’s section of the Palace. He ignored the slaves who bowed to him as he passed. He could have ordered them to stay out of his sight, but he preferred to avoid any behavior patterns common to his pseudosib and Blaisse.
The guard at Blaisse’s door announced Subtwo with questionable civility, a reaction he could not comprehend until he recalled the other guard, the murdered woman. He wanted to say something to this cloudy-faced young man who glared so at him, but he could not think of anything that would not injure his own pride. He would not make excuses for Subone.
Blaisse lay in bed, Saita beside him. Subtwo’s upbringing, alone in a controlled environment, had produced in him an unintended modesty, which continued to be disturbed by such sights. He must have revealed his distress, or Blaisse remembered the party, for the Lord laughed at him. “You are a prude. I didn’t know there were any in these fine days.”
“I simply value my privacy.”
“Yes, I know.”
“I meant no censure.”
“Nor I.”
Conversations with Blaisse never took the direction Subtwo planned. Without waiting to be invited, he sat down in a chair that faced the bed, and rubbed his fingers across the brocaded upholstery. He could feel that the stitching was done by hand: inefficient, inexact.
“I’ve been observing your customs.”
“And—?”
“Some of them appear… quite agreeable.” Subtwo despised himself for the lie.
“Which ones, in particular?” Blaisse was smiling that dreadful, incomprehensible smile.
“Machines are insufficient companionship. Other options interest me.”
“Your brother—pardon me, your pseudosib—seems to find everything he needs in Center.”
“His needs are not mine.”
“What are your needs?”
“A relationship of longer duration than those contracted in Center.”
“Something permanent, you mean.”
“Yes.”
“But to your convenience alone, of course.”
“Yes,” Subtwo said, perhaps too quickly. He wondered if Blaisse could detect the reluctance of his answers.
“Then we shall certainly have to satisfy your urges. What you want is advice in selecting a slave.”
Subtwo thought it politic to agree.
“A young one,” Blaisse said. “To train yourself. That’s always the most satisfactory arrangement. There’s no worry about one’s own sufficiency of knowledge. Of course you must be careful to train them, not teach them.”
Subtwo felt that he must be purple with repressed fury, and he thought that his idea might fail simply because Blaisse would be offended by his manner. Saita watched, her usually gentle and unreacting expression troubled. Subtwo wanted to explain to her what he was doing, what he was trying to do, though he knew he should not care so much what people thought about him. Blaisse laid his hand on Saita’s breast; she started and her color heightened, silver dulled and blue darkened, with embarrassment or fear for having let her attention drift from her master’s pleasure. Blaisse looked down on her, but she did not meet his gaze; he glanced languidly back at Subtwo. “You see how well Saita and I get on?”
“I had in mind,” Subtwo said carefully, “someone more mature.”
“Indeed?” An ironic lift of eyebrow. “More mature. Older, you mean. And you so young. Well. No accounting for taste. So our problem will be finding a mature female who is not too badly used. Ah—excuse me—a female? Or a male? Or something more exotic? You’ve given me no chance to observe your preferences.”
“A woman,” Subtwo said, trying to resign himself to this humiliation of the spirit. He hoped Madame was not nearby, to hear herself discussed in such terms. It suddenly occurred to him, a dreadful thought, that she might misunderstand, just as Saita had, his aims. Even the knowledge that her misunderstanding would be for only a short time disturbed him.
“This is a difficulty,” Blaisse said. “We may have to contact Clarissa’s relatives and see if they have anything of the sort.”
“I had someone under consideration, as it happens,” Subtwo said. He understood Blaisse well enough, he thought, to know that he must not seem too eager.
“Indeed?”
“Yes. One of your… one of your people. She seems about the right age. She’s rather tall—I need someone tall. Dark hair. She wears black and silver—”
“You mean Madame? My slave steward?”
“Yes, I suppose so. I don’t know her name—”
Blaisse did not use the opportunity to tell Subtwo Madame’s name. Instead, he chuckled. “Madame? No, no, that’s ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous? I see nothing ridiculous about it.”
“Whyever do you think her attractive?”
Subtwo had no answer for such a question; the question itself was ridiculous.
“Your tastes are unusual,” Blaisse said.
“Then all that remains to discuss is the… price.”
“Price? Oh—to buy her.”
“That was what I came about.” To buy her, to free her: to offer to take her anywhere, without obligation, somewhere he too could be free, he hoped, and then to start again, both of them, two free people, and see if they could love.
“It’s out of the question.”
I’ve been too eager, Subtwo thought. He felt ill, weightless. He knows, and he plays with me. “Why? You as much as said you did not find her attractive.”
“Dear boy,” Blaisse said. “That has nothing at all to do with it. She wasn’t bought in the first place for beauty, just the opposite. How much work do you think she’d get done if my guests were always dragging her off to their beds? She was trained here. She’s been steward almost as long as I’ve been Lord. We couldn’t get along without her.”
“It is not sensible to be so dependent on one person,” Subtwo said woodenly. He had no idea of changing Blaisse’s mind; that was simply his reaction to the statement.
“You’re right. Of course you’re right.” Blaisse rubbed his middle finger across Saita’s nipple, and his eyes went out of focus. Subtwo thought Blaisse was about to lapse into his characteristic boredom and order him away; Subtwo did not think he could tolerate an order. He stood up and turned toward the door.
“One moment.”
Across Subtwo’s shoulders, all the muscles tensed abruptly.
“We should work out an arrangement.”
Reluctantly, Subtwo faced him, less than anxious to hear what Blaisse would say. “She should have an assistant. Someone to train, someone who could take over.”
“And—?”
“Bring me someone.” Blaisse’s blank look had changed to one of lupine watchfulness. “Raid it or buy it, I don’t care, a young child, six or eight years old, young enough to tame, I don’t want to have to flog it for obedience. Intelligent, not pretty, be sure of that. And if it works out, in a few years, we can repeat this conversation.”
“A few years…”
“A few years, yes. My palace is not simple to run.”
Subtwo gazed at the floor and slowly shook his head.
“Why so downcast?” Blaisse was truly mystified, or he was acting and laughing; Subtwo could not tell which. “If you’re so infatuated with her, take her—you don’t need her consent or mine for that. But don’t keep her from her duties, unless you don’t care that she’d be punished for neglect.”
Without responding, Subtwo turned and stumbled toward the door. He felt totally exhausted.
Blaisse’s voice, hard and victorious, followed him. “If you want her that much, steal me a child.”
o0o
Hearing the music of the alarms, Subtwo jumped up from his bed as though he had not been asleep. He had lain down only to think. He looked around, recalling the familiarity of his rooms, and collapsed back. No law said he should feel guilty about sleeping during what others considered daytime. Who could tell, in this forsaken place? And there was no law that said he must speak with anyone who approached. He had more important things to do, plans to implement. He climbed to his feet, and reached for the front door’s locking control.
“Subtwo?”
He spun at the voice. Jan Hikaru stood in the dimness of the next room, his hands in his pockets.
“What do you want? How did you get in here?”
“I thought you saw me—the door opened.”
Subtwo glanced toward the intercom screen, expecting to see Subone’s laughing face, but the communicator remained blank. He scowled; Subone was having a joke of his own. Subtwo decided then and there to sever the connections between the two suites. What had seemed a sensible safety precaution had proved a nuisance.
“What do you want?”
“To talk to you about Mischa.”
Subtwo frowned. He had wondered if she might have trouble adjusting to a new situation, but he had expected her apparent determination to keep her out of trouble longer than this. “What has happened?”
“Nothing bad,” Jan Hikaru said quickly.
Subtwo assumed, then, that he was being given a simple progress report, and that annoyed him. He wanted to plan how quickly the ship could be made ready—he should have done that without even needing to think, certainly before sleeping, despite his weariness. “I’m very busy. As it isn’t important, come back another time.”
“It is important.”
“I didn’t ask for status checks. Follow your own judgment with her education.”
“I’m trying to do that.” The tone of Jan Hikaru’s voice was moving into exasperation, which Subtwo noticed and found interesting in such an even-tempered young man. He could not remember ever having seen him angry or as much as annoyed.
“What is it?” More patiently.
“I’d like you to help her with her math.”
“Help her—what? If you’re not competent to teach simple arithmetic—”
Jan did not appear offended by the outburst. Subtwo cut himself off and waited.
“She already knew arithmetic,” Jan said calmly. “She’s working beyond what I know right now.”
“Then you knew less than I thought.”
“No, I knew more than you asked me about.”
Subtwo realized that was quite possible; he had not, in fact, pressed Jan’s knowledge, merely ascertained that he knew enough to work with. “You are saying?”
“With the right help, there’s no telling how far she could go. She’s a mathematical genius—she just never had any reason or chance to develop the ability.”
“You tested her neural responses?”
“I don’t need to test her neural responses,” Jan said with irritation. “I’ve worked with her for weeks.”
“Send her along, then, and I’ll test her. We’ll see.” He was already considering ways one could feign genius: Mischa would have to be quite clever if this were a trick.
Jan Hikaru looked hardly satisfied with the response, but Subtwo had no patience to commend a discovery he had not certified himself; his enthusiasm focused in other directions. “Will that do?” he asked sardonically.
“All she needs is a chance,” Jan said. “There’s no way for her to get one in Center.” He turned and left the suite.
Relieved to be alone again, Subtwo bent over his intercom. He started to call Madame, but he wanted to be certain he could offer her a concrete plan, not possibilities, after his first failure. He contacted the common room, and, after a few minutes’ delay, Draco.
“What is the status of the ship?”
“It’s coming along.”
“How much work needs to be finished?”
“Couple weeks’ worth.”
“How quickly could it be completed in an emergency?”
“Something wrong? There’s nothing that couldn’t be jury-rigged in a day or so.”
“Approximations are not required, but I would like to be able to leave should that seem advantageous.”
Draco laughed, a quick short bark that annoyed Subtwo and amused Subone; Draco pretended anti-intellectualism and put on a face of contempt if anyone spoke to him multisyllabically.
“Okay,” he said. “Five days, then?”
“Thank you.” Subtwo tolerated being annoyed because of Draco’s competence. He shut off the intercom and walked through his clean, pale, soothing rooms, anxious now to speak with his pseudosib and get that ordeal over with; Subone was fully as capable of taunting him as was Blaisse.
He opened the door as Mischa was about to knock. “Oh—you.”
“Jan said you wanted to see me,” she said.
“He does not delay, does he?”
She shrugged. “I’ll come back some other time.” She did not look like a genius of any sort, she looked like a maltreated stubborn child, wearing the same clothes she had arrived in, not exactly grubby, but far from spotless. Though self-assured, she was not arrogant, nor did her bright green eyes hold the superiority or surprise Subtwo might have expected in a newly confirmed genius.
“What did Jan Hikaru tell you when he sent you up here?”
“A minute ago he only said you wanted to see me. This morning he said he wasn’t very good in math and he thought he’d ask you to help.”
“I see.”
“I think he’s good,” she said defensively.
So he had not told her all that he believed, or had not let her know how much it might mean. Subtwo wondered why he had kept his silence, and admitted, though the fact was not flattering, that Jan might not have wanted to raise Mischa’s expectations without knowing that Subtwo would be of assistance. He was honest enough with himself to acknowledge that he had been very close to sending Jan and his time-consuming ideas away.
“Come in,” he said. “I want you to do something.”
He called up the biomedical programs and uncoiled the electrode wires.
“Sit there.”
“What’s that?”
“Electrodes—instruments to sense your brain waves.”
“I know that—what for?” She looked very wary, almost afraid of the simple devices. “Just to test the responses of your brain. It takes only a moment. It doesn’t hurt.”
“What’s on the other end?”
“A sensor,” he said, wondering why she was asking such questions. “A recording device, for the computer.”
“No patterns?”
“Like a lock? No, of course not. That would be pointless. This does not compare, it only examines.”
“Okay,” she said, and after that seemed quite relaxed. He fixed the electrodes at her temples with adhesive, for he did not approve of the self-attaching kind. He dimmed the lights.
“Look at that screen.”
She shook her hair back from her eyes and complied, gazing at the console. The design changed, and changed again. He turned it off and raised the light level. “Very good.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes. You may take off the electrodes.” Subtwo glanced down at the results, and froze.
“Wait…”
And then he remembered what Jan Hikaru had said: “I don’t need to test her neural responses. I’ve worked with her for weeks.”
He knew his instruments were not malfunctioning. They measured the time it took a mind to respond to the change in a pattern, an interval measured in milliseconds. It did not depend on learning, culture, motivation, any of the factors that could cause achievement above or below the average for ability. It measured only potential, and Mischa’s potential was tremendous.
“Never mind,” he said, half in a daze. “It’s all right. Tell Jan Hikaru that he was correct to speak with me. Are you free tomorrow morning?”
“I can be, I guess.”
“I will see you then.”
“All right.” She was looking at him curiously; he had the strange sensation that she had felt his astonishment, but she left without saying anything else, and Subtwo leaned over the console, staring at the amazing parameter, feeling a great, deep sorrow that Mischa had not been born somewhere else, anywhere else, where she would not have wasted all the best years for learning, her childhood.
o0o
Madame walked slowly down the pale plastic corridor. She did not want to reach its end, for she had no way of knowing what awaited her there, in Subtwo’s suite. She was prepared for anything; in her years at Stone Palace she had silently witnessed cruelties beyond anything she thought Subtwo could even imagine. Pain did not frighten her; she had endured and survived it when she was a child. At least, when Subtwo caused pain, it did not gratify him; nor did he intentionally cause humiliation. Madame had been prepared to endure either for many years. In Stone Palace both were, sooner or later, inevitable.
She scratched at the door, heard Subtwo’s deep voice, and slipped inside as the door swung open. Before she could speak, Subtwo took a single step toward her, holding out his hands as though in supplication. “Were you there? Did you hear? Did you understand?”
“I know you met with the Lord,” Madame said, without expression. All her experience warned her to be suspicious, to guard herself, to find some way to stop the progress of Subtwo’s desire for her, and her own, gods help her, for him. Free people and slaves had only one kind of relationship, that dictated by their status. The free person ordered, the slave obeyed. And eventually the former would grow bored, or the latter would err. There was no happiness, only satiation for one, destruction for the other.
“Do you know what we talked about?”
“It is my duty to know—”
“Stop it!” he cried. “How can you speak to me this way? I could bear it if you hated me, but you don’t feel anything!”
“I feel,” she said. He was so beautiful, now assured, now vulnerable, trying to speak with his deep, deep eyes. “I feel. I was born human.” She was saying too much: after so many years of protecting herself, she could say one unwise word and throw her life away.
“Do you understand why I tried to… to buy you?”
“It was not necessary.” Somehow, this was worse, that Subtwo would place Blaisse between them, that the Lord’s permission and urging would erase her degradation from Subtwo’s conscience. She was a fool to have hoped someone already possessing freedom might refuse to take advantage of another’s slavery.
“No,” Subtwo said. “Not necessary, but safer. If he thought I owned you he couldn’t hurt you—you’d be safe until we could leave. Now, we’ll have to be more careful.”
“… Careful?”
“I might have been foolish. He might know I… I…” Subtwo stopped, shook his head, and started again. “He might try to avenge himself on me by hurting you. We mustn’t give him a chance. But it would be dangerous to antagonize him until the ship is ready, so we must act as though everything were normal. When you go back, be careful.”
Madame had trained herself to respond as though nothing surprised or confused her; she had no nervous habits. She stood utterly still. “What are you saying?” she whispered.
“Blaisse won’t let me give you your freedom, so we must take it from him.”
She stared at him. By the rules of Stone Palace, his power over her was total. She wondered if he were trying to make her feel grateful so she would come to him willingly, though he could simply command the appearance of willingness, false or true. But his temperament was at times so ingenuous that Madame could almost believe he was sincere.
“The ship will be ready soon, and we can leave. Then you’ll be free—free to… to accept me or reject me of your own will.”
“Leave earth?”
The new lines in his face were deep, strained. “You will come? I promise, I give my word. I know captivity. I would not ask demonstrations of gratitude.”
“I must not speak of this,” Madame said, quenching her wonder in apprehension.
“You… prefer to stay here?”
“No!” She took a deep breath, calming herself, relaxing her hands from clenched fists. “No. But I must not speak of the future with you. If I did, I would hope, and if I hoped, Blaisse would know.”
Subtwo’s face relaxed; his expression was almost a natural smile. “Then we’ve said nothing. We’ll say nothing until my ship is ready. Soon.”
They parted, neither making a move to touch the other. Madame left knowing that of all the difficult days of her bondage, the next few would be hardest.