You are quite correct, daughter, but you do not understand the vastness of
space. Consider what these illegals were able to build and accomplish right
here, under our very noses, as it were. If it can exist here, imagine how much
easier it is to hide in space. It is not our concern and is no longer your
concern. It is, however, deadly knowledge that threatens us all. I will arrange
to have all traces of it removed from your mind at the first opportunity.
Father! I beg of you! Do not do this to me! I—
He stopped her with a glance and a gesture. Enough. I tolerate too much from
you now. He paused a moment. I have allowed you a grand childhood, the envy of
any others, male or female. I have, in fact, been far too patient far too long.
Yet someone who will threaten one of my officers with a false rape charge, a
most dishonorable action that brings shame on your mother and on me, I am forced
to notice—and to realize that the time has come to end this period of your
life.
He was the one man who could chasten her, make her feel real shame, and she felt
tears coming up inside of her. Yet deep down an inner voice said angrily, That
son of a pig Chung! Somehow I will kill him personally! Aloud she responded,
It was my excitement and my enthusiasm. I meant to bring no shame upon anyone,
not even the colonel.
I can understand and perhaps excuse the infraction on its face, but this is a
special case. You interfered with a key man in the midst of a mission vital to
our family’s survival, and you did it to get him to violate my orders. My
orders. The gods know you have violated everyone else’s orders and advice, but
attempting to willfully violate my orders is intolerable. You were designed to
bear tomorrow’s leaders, the offspring who will ensure this family’s rule and
perhaps advance it. We are coming up on Leave Time. During this Leave you will
be married, here.
His words startled her. He had talked like this before, but now it really
sounded as if he meant it. Married? To whom?
It would serve you right if I gave you to Colonel Chung. He has most of the
correct qualities, and it would be justice. However, it would also place him
within this family and far too close to me for my own liking. The truth is,
there are a number of candidates, subject to the same sort of breeding
attributes as yourself, but I have had more pressing matters and have put off
making a final choice. I will no longer let it go. You are seventeen, and that
is old enough. You will be informed in due time.
She wanted to protest, but there was really only one way to do so, and that was
to appeal to an intermediate power. Does mother know of this?
He did not take offense at the question. Of course, what her mother liked or
didn’t like was beside the point when he made such a decision, but she was not
exactly one who would be easy to mollify. The wife of a great man was herself a
politician and had many ways to work her will upon him. If all else failed, his
wife alone knew many secrets that would be uncomfortable to have leaked, even in
the family holdings and on the Han cultural level.
Your mother and I have talked this over many times. She will, of course, have a
voice in the final selection as is her right and duty, but she is certainly in
full agreement on this. It is decided, daughter. Go. Enjoy this time, which is
the last of childhood. It is precious.
This disturbing interview had suddenly turned her world upside down. She had
gone in flush with discovery and wanting so much her father’s approval and
appreciation of her work; instead, she had found that what she knew was known to
him, and that her comfortable life was about to take a radical turn for what
could only be the worse.
She occupied her mind over the next few days helping the relatives move in and
lending a hand in the kitchens and service areas, but there was no joy in it.
Ahead, the marriage loomed like a great threatening wall against which she was
to be dashed, and every day that wall drew closer and closer.
She was in the great formal gardens in back of the main house, just looking at
the beautiful flowers and wanting to be as alone as possible in this
environment, when Tai Ming and Ahn Xaio sought her out.
They greeted her warmly, but something was clearly on their minds. You two are
so serious, she noted. What—are your parents marrying you off as well? The
knowledge of her father’s decision had spread quickly, if only because such
things for one of her rank took much time to prepare.
No—not yet, anyway, Ming responded hesitantly. It’s just that there are—
There are rumors, Ahn put in. Strong rumors. Rumors supported by things
overheard and repeated.
About what? My marriage? My husband to be?
In a way, Ming responded, trying to figure out a way to say it.
Song Ching knew that these two had much closer contact with the servants and
staff than she possibly could and that the servant and staff gossip network was
extremely reliable and useful. One of you—out with it! I can no longer stand
this!
Your father has told you that the knowledge you gained from the raid must be
erased? Tai Ming asked her.
She nodded. Yes, and I don’t like it. I have never liked anyone inside my mind
even when it was for safety’s sake, and I like erasures even less, but they have
no choice in this matter. Surely you have been told the same.
Yes. All of us will be sent back to the Center before Leave time comes, Ahn
admitted, getting it out at last. You, however, will be treated differently,
although you are not supposed to know that. They have a team of experts ready.
Psychochemists, a complete psychotech team—all for you. Your father was
overheard giving the orders to General Chin. Chin was his chief aide, his
deputy up at administration headquarters, and would be acting director while her
father was on Leave.
Oh, Song Ching, they are going to remake you! Tai Ming blurted tearfully.
They—he said it was the only way you would ever be a good wife and mother.
She suddenly felt a little nauseous. He wouldn’t dare! she responded angrily,
but she knew her father well enough to know that not only would he dare, he’d do
it. He had probably been planning it all the time, which was why he’d let her go
on so long as she was. He’d been testing her, both for abilities and for
physical and mental development! Now she’d passed the last test. But her father
would never consider her an end result, merely the bearer of grandsons who would
be allowed the power and position she craved and deserved but which could never
be hers.
Now she would fulfill her father’s master plan. There was no way around it. She
could hardly avoid the psychotechnicians who would be required before going on
Leave—to leave undisturbed all that she knew would be sure death not only for
the family but for her—and then she’d be at the mercy of her father’s power and
directives. She would never come off Leave. She would be wiped clean of active
memory and replaced with a template she was quite certain her father had
commanded to be made up for her long ago, one which would leave her a docile,
obedient, subservient little woman with no knowledge of any world beyond Hainan
and no interest in it, either. She’d still be as smart, but that would just make
it worse, since she would be totally bound and constricted by her culture. It
would be a boring, pampered, frustrating life of perpetual pregnancy—with no way
out.
She knew that they could do it. They could erase anything from your mind and
replace it so you’d never know. They could give you chemicals that would go to
your brain and settle into receptors that could make even someone like her into