Primary Inversion (28 page)

      
He smiled. “With the hikers?”

      
Hikers? He must mean the rootberry drinkers. “No. I walked back from JMI last night. Actually, I went to Soldier’s Green. I slept there.”

      
That definitely startled him. “Why?”

      
I wished he would stop asking that. “I was tired.”

      
He stood there, waiting.

      
“I took the underground to JMI,” I said. “But I didn’t like being stared at. So I walked home.”

      
“You don’t have a flycar?”

      
“Yes, I do. But yesterday morning I couldn’t get into it.”

      
He spoke with care, probing. “Do you ride in them often?”

      
“All the time.”

      
“Did something happen to you in a flycar?”

      
“Of course not.”

      
“But yesterday you couldn’t get into yours.”

      
I suddenly wanted to shake him. “So what the hell is wrong with that?”

      
“Primary—” He paused, obviously looking for a name. I regarded him implacably. So he said, “Talking to me may make you uncomfortable. But if I’m going to help, I need you to answer.”

      
I felt crowded. Taking a breath, I turned and walked away from him. When his desk blocked my retreat, I stopped and rested my hands on its edge.

      
After a moment I turned around. I spoke slowly, like a diver checking the temperature of freezing water. “A man named Kryx Tarque once took me in his flycar.”

      
Tager stayed where he was, not crowding me. “That’s a Highton name.”

      
“He was a Highton man.” My hands felt cold. “He picked me off a street on Tams Station. I was working undercover. I was—I—” I made myself say it. “I was his provider for three weeks. Every night, for most of the night. During the day too.” Three weeks of unending torture.

      
Tager was good at making appropriate responses. Very good. The man could have faced an oncoming hovertrain with flinching. But even he couldn’t hide his reaction. He spoke in the same even voice he had used since we met, but underneath it I felt his shock. “How did you escape?”

      
My voice cracked. “I strangled him while he was fucking me.”

      
Tager came over to me. “I’m sorry.”

      
“For what?”

      
“That you had to go through that.”

      
“It was my job.”

      
Incredulity tinged his voice. “That’s a hell of a job.”

      
“Look,” I said. “It happened ten years ago. I’ve been fine for a long time. There’s no reason for it to make problems for me now.”

      
“The man you almost stabbed—does he look like Tarque?”

      
“No.” That wasn’t completely true. Hilt did have dark hair and a leanly muscular frame, like Tarque. He was tall too, like Tarque. And when he walked into my apartment that night, it had reminded me of the arrogance I had hated in Tarque, who had believed he had a right to do whatever he pleased to people he considered inferior. But it was only a surface reminder. Hilt was abrasive, yes, but even after knowing him only a few hours I could tell he was basically a decent human being.

      
“They aren’t at all the same,” I said.

      
“What about the singer in the cafe? Did he have any resemblance to Tarque?”

      
I snorted. “That man was the polar opposite of an Aristo. He had golden eyes and a golden voice. I doubt he would have hurt a shimmerfly.”

      
Tager spoke gently. “You sound angry.”

      
“Angry?” I stared at him. “Why should I be
angry?
I didn’t want to hurt him. I wanted to make love to him.”

      
“Tell me about him.”

      
“I don’t know anything about him.”

      
Tager waited. I scowled and crossed my arms.

      
After a moment he tried a different tack. “Then you have no husband?”

      
Was it that obvious no one wanted me? “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

      
He let out a breath. “You strike me as someone who wouldn’t consider a person as a potential lover if you were already committed to someone else.”

      
“Oh.” How had he known that? “So what? You expect me to be married?”

      
“Why does that anger you?”

      
“Stop being a heartbender and answer the damn question. You want me to be honest with you, then you be honest with me.”

      
He spoke quietly.  “Yes, I’m surprised you’re not married.”

      
I always got the same garbage:
How could
you
be lonely?
“Lose it, Tager.”

      
“Why does that make you angry?”

      
“I’m not angry. Quit asking me that.”

      
“You look furious.”

      
“Sure. Right. Get that sexy Primary into bed. What a catch. Or else they want what Hilt wanted, to punish me with sex.” My fist clenched at my side. “Maybe I should scar my face and wear rags and see if anyone wants me then.”

      
He kept on in his maddening gentle voice. “Who is Hilt?”

      
I was furious at Tager, with his stupid questions. “Hilt is the bastard who shoved me up against the wall and called me an Old Money Ice Bitch.”

      
“You’re not.”

      
I felt like a hovertrain that had just run into a brick wall. “What?”

      
In his gentle voice, he said, “The reason I’m surprised you’re not married is because so few empaths with your sensitivity can bear to live alone.”

      
“I have the sensitivity of a cement block.”

      
He smiled. “An unusual block.”

      
“I’m not making a joke.”

      
“Neither am I.”

      
I couldn’t believe him. “What makes you think you know anything about me?”

      
Tager spread his hands. “I go on experience, training, gut level reactions. I’m also an empath.”

      
“Oh.” Of course. In his line of work he had to be an empath. “I don’t think I want to talk any more.” Telling him about myself was more exhausting than walking back from JMI. I just wanted to go home and sleep. “I don’t know if I’ll come back.”

      
“I think you should,” Tager said.

      
That stopped me cold. I had thought he would say what Kurj implied, that I was overworked, that I should go out and live a normal life. Relax. Rest. I had expected Tager to tell me, tactfully, that I didn’t need to waste his time with my self-indulgent worries about my inability to relate to people.

      
Instead he wanted me to come back.

      
But talking to him took too much out of me. “I don’t know if I have time.”

      
“I don’t think it would be wise for you to stop.”

      
I stared at him. “Why?”

      
He had that look again, like my mother. “I need to see you more before I can understand why you’re so angry. This much I can tell: if you don’t deal with it, something is going to give.”

      
I tensed. “You think I’m going to hurt someone?”

      
“It’s possible.”

      
I knew it. I had known it all along. I forced myself to say it. “You think I’m going to lose control and kill someone, don’t you?”

      
“I don’t believe you’re capable of killing without provocation.” Then, with no warning, he lifted my hand and pulled off my glove, revealing the bandages underneath. “How did you do this?”

      
He was
too
empathic. I pulled away my hand. “I told you. I broke a glass.”

      
“How?”

      
“None of your goddamned business.” I wanted to shake him. “What does it
matter
how?”

      
He spoke with his unbearable kindness. “The person I fear you’re going to hurt is yourself.”

      
I was so mad my voice cracked. “That’s the stupidest thing you’ve said yet.”

      
“I can’t force you to come back,” Tager said. “Even if I could, it would do no good. I’m sure you can make me believe whatever you want about your mental state. But you wouldn’t have come here if you didn’t want help.”

      
I spoke bitterly. “I’m a malfunctioning machine. I need an overhaul.”

      
His expression softened. “You’re no machine.”

      
I pulled off my other glove and held out my hand, palm up, so he could see the socket in my wrist. “Machine.”

      
“Your implants don’t make you less human. They just extend the gifts you were born with.”

      
“Gifts?
Gifts?
” I dropped my arm. “When someone I know hurts,
I
hurt. When someone wants to hurt me, I feel it. Often I don’t even know where it comes from. Do you know what it’s like to live that way?” The words escaped before I could stop them. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to fly in a Jag squadron? What it’s like to feel Aristos when you go into combat? They
like
to kill us. It’s better than sex for them. Or else the pilot is a slave given his one chance for a better life. And I have to kill him.” I couldn’t stop my voice from shaking. “I feel every Trader I kill. I’ve died a thousand times and more out there. I can’t do anything to myself that hasn’t already been done.”

      
“I can only know a part of it,” Tager said. “But I’ve seen what it does to empaths to endure the life you live. That any of you survive is a miracle.”

      
I didn’t know what to say. I was tired. Tired. I couldn’t talk any more. “I have to go.”

      
“Will you come back?”

      
“I’ll—think about it.”

      
“I’m here every day. You can reach me any time. Day and night, any day.”

      
I nodded. I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t know if I could bear to come back.

      
It was mid-morning when I left the embassy. I walked home along the harbor, watching the ships in their docks. Sailors crowded the piers, strutting in their white pants and striped shirts, their blue caps pulled jauntily down to shade their eyes. Couples and families and singles strolled the beach, played in the water, or lay in golden sand under the golden sky with its shining span of rings. Children ran everywhere in bright clothes, waving puff-cube balloons, laughing and yelling and teasing the street musicians. The smells of food from concession stands mixed with the salty tang of the air. The place was
alive,
alive and thriving, human, booming and vibrant.

      
For a long time I stood by a wooden rail on the boardwalk watching the commotion. Gradually I became aware of an odd sensation.

      
Relief.

      
For some bizarre reason, knowing Tager thought I was in trouble gave me an incredible sense of
relief.
Why? Why should I be glad to know I was a mess?

      
Because if I was sick, I could be cured.

      
That was the crux of it. A problem could be fixed. If no problem existed, that would mean the way I had been feeling was normal, not something I could change. I didn’t know if I could have lived with that.

      
Maybe, just maybe, I could go back to see Tager.

      
Eventually I started to walk again. I looked forward to getting out of my uniform and relaxing in the quiet of my apartment. The harbor was only a kilometer from the building where I lived, so it didn’t take long to get home.

      
As I neared the building, I saw several people standing on the steps. It wasn’t until I had almost reached them that their identities filtered past my preoccupation, and I understood why they were staring at me. It was Jarith and his friends, including Rebeka and Hilt. I had forgotten Jarith invited me to the beach.

      
I stopped in front of them, standing awkwardly. “I’m sorry I’m late. I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”

      
Jarith was staring at the bands on my jacket. “No, not long.”

      
I pushed my hand through my hair. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t be much company today. Perhaps you should all go without me.”

      
They nodded. No one seemed to have any idea what to say. Jarith’s embarrassment practically shouted at me; he felt like an utter fool, an idiot who had been lunatic enough to ask an Imperial Primary on a date.

      
This is no good, I thought. I smiled at him. “Would you like to come up?”

      
Jarith blinked. “To your apartment?”

      
“Yes.”

      
He reddened. “Oh.” Then he smiled. “Okay.”

      
The others looked at him, then at me. Rebeka cleared her throat. “Well. We’ll—um—see you later, Jar.”

      
When he nodded, the others bowed slightly in my direction and left—all except Hilt, who was the one I most wanted to disappear.

      
“I’d like to talk to you,” Hilt said. He glanced at Jarith, then back at me. “In private.”

      
Given what I had almost done to him, I owed him that. “All right.”