The Warrior Victorious

10

I wouldn’t have asked for the help I could have used in getting back to my cabin, which means I barely made it to the bed before I was asleep. How it’s possible to sleep when you’re hurting that much I still don’t understand, unless it’s more a matter of passing out than sleeping. Whatever it was I indulged in it for quite a while, then awoke to find myself out of the light brown uniform and under the covers again. I hadn’t been able to get out of the uniform on my own, and had just collapsed onto the bed still in it. Its being gone told me I’d had visitors while I was out, which supported the unconscious as opposed to asleep theory. I didn’t care for the idea much—the unrealized visitors, that is—and decided I’d have to see if there was anything to be done about avoiding such deep lack of consciousness in the future.

I stirred in the bed and then began to sit up, trying to find out if being out of things so completely had at least helped me a little, finding myself surprised when I discovered it had helped a good deal more than a little. Sitting up didn’t hurt at all, no more than faint stiffness and a shadow of aches whispering from somewhere in an effort to get my attention. They weren’t getting my attention, at least not much of it, and that made the dim transport cabin around me almost as pleasant as a sunny day in springtime. I took a deep breath and stretched a little, enjoying being able to do it again, then reached out with my mind to learn where the others were—

And ran into nothing but blankness. I stiffened where I sat, as tense as the woman Ashton had been during our fight, trying to understand what had gone wrong. I was awake, I knew I was awake, but I couldn’t reach anyone or anything-not the slightest murmur or overtone-just the way it had been in the complex—

Just the way it had been in the complex. I leaned back again onto one elbow, not knowing whether to be hysterical or furious, my thoughts so violently entwined with my emotions that I couldn’t separate them. It was fairly obvious my clothing wasn’t the only thing that had been taken from me while I was unconscious, and I didn’t have to wonder why. People are always afraid of what they can’t control, especially if that item has previously indicated it isn’t feeling very friendly toward them, and fear doesn’t invariably paralyze. Sometimes it pushed its victims into action, possibly badly thought out and hasty, but action nevertheless. My-‘own’ had been pushed into action, and now I was turned off.

Turned off. Through the anger I felt that phrase began signaling in some way, almost like a frantically waving hand trying to get my attention. I remembered having the fleeting impression back at the complex that that phrase meant something important to me, represented something I ought to know and think about. If I’d been talking to someone else I would have snapped out impatiently that it didn’t mean anything, it was only two words that described the condition I was now suffering from, a condition inflicted on me by my “friends.”

But a condition it shouldn’t be possible to suffer from. I stiffened again as the realization came, a flood of protest from the part of me that normally engaged in arguing against things that were accepted as truth but were patently not so. How do you turn off one of your senses? that part of me demanded, a thought I knew I’d had before even if I couldn’t remember when. To turn off your hearing you had to plug your ears, to turn off sight you needed a blindfold, to avoid smell you had to hold your nose, and to keep from touching things you needed gloves. Keeping things out of your mouth took care of taste-in the absence of strong odors, that is—but without using special means, senses could not be turned off. To keep them from working you had to block them off, shield them from what was around them, interrupt the flow of data—

Shield. The single word-thought set me sitting up straight again, feeling more like an imbecile than anything else. That, of course, had to be it, but it had taken me so long to see even with all the clues I’d had! That Prime Jer-Mar, the one I’d insulted in the low dining room. How many times had he mentioned in passing that he couldn’t “reach” me with his strength, not even when he was furious? None of the Primes at the complex knew about shields, none of them used one, and even Kel-Ten’s amazement over the one I’d shown him hadn’t rung any real bells. I was stupid, that’s what I was, which is a hell of a lot worse than just being ignorant. Conditioning or no conditioning, I should have realized a lot sooner that the only way to “turn off” an empath is to key a shield into being around his or her mind.

“With intelligence like yours, you would have made a good brain surgeon,” I muttered to myself, moving my legs under the cover so that I could sit cross-legged and lean my arms on my knees. “Are you going to test the theory, or just sit here and admire it for the rest of your life?”

I didn’t quite sigh at the question I’d asked myself, but only because I would rather have put off answering it for a while. The theory was sound, no argument there, but I had a fairly good idea of how many sound theories never worked out in practice. I really needed it to work out, but that didn’t mean it would; all it meant was that I had to try as soon as possible, even if there was nothing but disappointment waiting for me as a result. After all, disappointment wasn’t all that bad or unbearable, not with all the practice I’d had living with it . . . .

The second time I did sigh, but that was only a necessary prelude to making the effort that had to be made. If there was a shield imposed around my mind I was the only one who could be generating it, which meant it was subject to me and my decision to banish it. Theory, theory, that was the theory, but how do you make something go away that you never asked for in the first place? Banishing a shield-banishing it wasn’t the hard part, letting it form to begin with was harder. You had to encourage it to come nearer to form it, but to banish it you just

Let it drop. It was almost like taking sound-deadeners off my ears at first, but in an inexplicable way was more than that. Even that drab cabin brightened in color, I could breathe deeply and freely again, and best of all could feel the presence of other minds on the transport. I was free of the Shackles they’d tried to put on me, and couldn’t help grinning at the thought that those particular shackles should never work again. I was awake, but hadn’t been “turned on” with the usual keying word or phrase. Two “offs” in a row shouldn’t work with conditioning any more than it did with a mechanical switch, but that was a theory I was in no hurry to test. What I did instead was allow the shield to form again, that light shield I could see through when I tried—and had seen through, the strange impressions I’d had in the complex proving that—then got up to look for the clothes that had been taken from me. Ever since my eyes had opened I’d been feeling as though I were starving, and I was suddenly eager to see how my dear friends would treat their poor, helpless little capt-ah-guest.

When I left my cabin the single table in the common room was neatly set but unoccupied, which I took to mean that it was waiting for me. As soon as I sat down the steward appeared, looking faintly startled but making no attempt to refuse the food order I gave him. It didn’t take him long to return with my meal, which meant I was able to get more than halfway through it before two people came out of the passageway that led to or from the command deck. Murdock McKenzie was being helped by his friend Ashton Farley again, but I paid very little attention to them until they were both settled at the table. By then I was ready to acknowledge the fact that I couldn’t eat any more, so I simply pushed my plate away, picked up my cup of kimla, then leaned back to stare at Murdock while I sipped in silence.

“Whether or not you’re prepared to believe me, I’m glad to see that you appear better than you were yesterday,” Murdock offered, the words a shade calmer and more quiet than usual. “The doctor was furious with us -for allowing you to leave your bed, but happily it did you no real harm. Would you like an explanation of why it was necessary to do-what else-was done to you?”

“Not really,” I answered, holding my cup in the fingertips of both hands. “I’m more interested in what you intend doing next—and also in hearing more of how terribly concerned you are about me. And you are concerned, aren’t you, Murdock?”

“It so happens that’s exactly what he is,” the woman Ashton put in when the man I stared at didn’t respond, at least not in words. That pain I’d seen the last time we’d spoken was there again, and maybe that was why I shifted my gaze to the high and mighty female Prime. She was looking at me with a good deal less than sisterly love, a reaction I more than shared.

“Not that it will do any good telling you this,” she went on, “but the only reason we were near New Dawn long enough to pick you up is that Murdock refused to just leave. He kept arguing with the rest of us, trying to convince us we had to do something to get you out of there, even though he knew as well as we did that there wasn’t anything we could do. I kept telling him he was just wasting time, and then when you turned up in the woods I understood that was exactly what he’d been doing: wasting time to give you a chance to do what we couldn’t. How long do you think you would have lasted out there if he hadn’t given you that chance?”

Her question was surprisingly calm considering what had previously gone on between us, but there was a faint bitterness behind it that I could just feel filtering through my shield. Her light eyes were making no effort to avoid mine, which meant I could see the brief flash of surprise in them when I made a sound of scorn.

“That touching story is very-touching, but what do you expect it to accomplish?” I asked in turn, making it clear that now I was holding her gaze. “Am I supposed to be so overwhelmed by his thoughtfulness and loyalty that I stop thinking and just emote? You told me he made everyone wait around when they didn’t want to, so would you like to tell me what he was making them wait for? I didn’t know there was anyone out here waiting to pick me up if I got out of the complex, so what good did his delaying tactics really do me? It was pure luck I was not only forced to run, but also able to do it when I had to. If he makes a habit of expecting the intervention of luck like that, you’re all a bunch of fools for listening to him.”

“You don’t know anything about us at all, do you?” the woman asked, her sudden frown and faint pity making it my turn to be surprised. “You’re one of us, no possible doubt about that, but you haven’t the faintest idea of what you’re one of. There are a number of us who had to leave the community at a very young age and grow up elsewhere, but we always knew who we were and who we came from. I don’t know why they did it differently with you, hadn’t realized they did do it differently, and don’t much like it. Of course my brother was counting on luck like that, but we aren’t fools for listening to him. When he gets the feeling something wildly improbable will happen, it usually does. His only mistake was in thinking we had to make it happen, when we had no real part in it. Sometimes his talent works like that.”

Just a minute or so earlier I’d been all ready with a large number of words, each one designed to tell those people exactly what I thought of them. The words were still inside my head somewhere, still bouncing with indignation and huffiness, but they were no longer first in line and maybe not even second. I don’t like revelations, especially startling ones, and too much of what I’d just heard fell into the wide-eyed, what—the-hell-are-you-talking-about category.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I demanded almost at once, only glancing in the direction of Murdock, who wasn’t looking at me. “He can’t be your brother, you don’t even have the same last names. And what do you mean, his ‘talent’? Murdock’s from Central, and he doesn’t have a talent.”

“Murdock grew up and lives on Central, but like the rest of us he was born in the community,” the woman Ashton corrected, and if she wasn’t the sort to be gentle, she had no trouble managing patience. “Of course he and I have different last names, we were raised in different places by people who have no connection with each other except for wanting to be sure we don’t all end up living in chains. Our natural parents don’t use last names, so those of us raised away from the community simply keep the last names we grew up with when we go back. As for Murdock’s talent-our people were very upset when he wasn’t born an empath, and with both Rimilian and Centran blood in him couldn’t understand why he wasn’t. They didn’t know about his talent until he learned to talk, I’m told, but it was so strong and definite in him that they began checking others for the same thing. They discovered then that quite a few of us have it, but none are able to be quite as accurate as my brother. When he gets a flash of prescience, it usually can’t be argued with. ”

This time I turned my head to look directly at Murdock, vaguely wondering why he still wasn’t looking at me. There wasn’t the least expression on his narrow face, but it was almost as though he were ashamed of what I’d just been told. The pride I’d heard in Ashton’s voice made his attitude something I couldn’t understand, which only added to the crowding in the compartment of my mind meant to hold confusion.

“I think you can see now why his making us wait really was for your benefit,” Ashton went on, unbothered by the fact that I was no longer looking at her. “None of us could imagine how you could possibly get out of there, most especially with all that conditioning they use, but Murdock’s talent kept us from giving up and leaving. And he was the only one of us who didn’t want you turned off again, too. We insisted because we can’t afford to have someone with your strength walking around thinking we’re practically blood enemies, but it will only be until we get you home to the community. Once you share that with us and know you’re one of us, you’ll also know that what we did was in no way uncaring use or abandonment.”

I didn’t need my abilities to know the woman believed everything she was saying, believed it deeply even though she didn’t expect me to believe. My innermost thoughts were carefully searching everything I’d been told, looking for loopholes and inconsistencies and flaws running counter to simple logic, but I suddenly realized I didn’t expect them to find any. What I’d been told was what the people telling it considered the absolute truth, and then something else came to me with the same feeling of total conviction.

“Murdock, there’s something bothering you that has nothing to do with what Ashton just told me,” I said, the statement considerably softer than the words I’d previously addressed to him. “I’m too confused right now to know what to think, but this is a point I’m not uncertain about. I think you have something else to talk about-that I won’t be terribly happy to hear.”

“Intuition that accurate is almost certainly much more than mere intuition,” he answered, a faint smile curving his lips before he turned his head to look directly at me again. Once he did I could see that the smile wasn’t reflected in his eyes, a lack that made me even more uneasy than his words. “Terrilian, child, there’s one important point you haven’t yet commented on or questioned,” he said, something of a sigh behind the words. “Both Ashton and I have told you you’re one of us, but you haven’t yet asked how that could be. It’s possible you don’t believe us, or perhaps so much else has been told you that you haven’t yet gotten around to considering the contention. Will you do me the favor of thinking about it now?”

Reaching through my shield showed that Ashton was puzzled and concerned, undoubtedly because of the way Murdock’s mind was behaving. He was absolutely determined to go through with discussing what he had begun on, but the rest of him was so filled with the desire to avoid the subject that he was just about trembling inside. From Ashton’s reaction I could see I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t used to seeing Murdock like that, but at least I had his request as a partial distraction.

“I don’t really know what to think about it,” I admitted, finally remembering I held a cup of kimla I could drink from. “Murdock, have you forgotten that I know my parents even though they didn’t raise me? They were the ones who turned me over to the Centran government so that I could be raised in a creche with other empaths like myself. The authorities considered them my parents, and with all the checking routinely done, I don’t consider it likely that they weren’t.”

“Terrilian, we were expecting and prepared for all that checking, that’s why it showed the authorities nothing we didn’t want it to show,” he answered, gray eyes still sober, mind still burdened. “Not many of our people have ever been placed on Central itself, but not because doing the placing was all that difficult. Keeping in contact with them was the hard part, making sure they didn’t forget us—or talk about us when they were too young to realize what danger the talking would put us all in. We usually provided one older friend and confidante to support them with understanding companionship until they were old enough to be discreet, and then they were told the truth about where they came from. Once they knew, they were able to make occasional visits back to the community, to grow closer to those they came from, but, child-none of them were ever Primes.”

“Central tends to spoil Primes for any position lower than Ruler Of All Creation,” Ashton put in, her tone dry, her thoughts totally disapproving. “We’ve had Primes raised on other worlds relocate to Central, and after a couple of years there, there was no living or getting along with them. When the time came to pull them out of public life and bring them home for good to keep them from disappearing forever into what we then thought of as a Prime-maw, the very first thing they tried on the very first day was taking over direction of the community. They didn’t need or want to join any of our training classes, they just wanted to run everything in sight because they were so special. They had to be flattened hard before they listened to anything told them, and with most the lesson had to be repeated more than once.”

“Which should explain the rather-cool reception you had from Ashton at the very beginning,” Murdock said, the faintest of smiles on his face. “She herself took over heading our training program only after she was convinced she really was the strongest and most advanced in the community, and most of the difficulty she mentioned—and more she didn’t mention-became hers to contend with. But we seem to have strayed from the point

I was attempting to make. What few empaths were placed on Central itself we kept in touch with, and none of those were Primes. Should you accept our contention that you were, indeed, born in our community, then your first question must be obvious.”

“Overly obvious,” I agreed, but only to the comment he’d made. I still wasn’t anywhere near convinced that what they thought was true really was the truth, but to continue the discussion the point had to be conceded. “If everyone placed on Central was kept in touch with and wasn’t a Prime, then what was I doing there without a friend on the world?”

“Exactly,” Murdock said, a totally unnecessary counteragreement—which had been forced on him by all that reluctance. “In order for you to have been placed there in virtual-abandonment-someone must have caused standard practice to be discarded in your case, someone whose opinion carried enough weight to override any objections made. There were objections aplenty, I can tell you, and the debate raged on for quite a while, but in the end the needs of everyone in the Amalgamation had to come first. You were taken away from your real parents, placed with people who could pass you off as theirs, then were left to grow up without ever being told what had been done.”

“A heinous crime if there ever was one,” I muttered, really beginning to be worried about the state of his mind. “Murdock, I’m more than willing to admit how lonely I’ve been most of my life, and I’m also willing to bitterly accuse anyone who was responsible for making that happen to me. What I’m not quite up to is making it the absolute tragedy of the ages, especially since I have no idea what growing up among my ‘own’ would have been like. I was dissatisfied on Central and very alone, but Central isn’t the only world I’ve ever seen and I’ve never found one I thought I’d like better. If you want the complete truth, I’d rather believe I’ve been lonely all this time because my true companionship was callously and heartlessly stolen from me-not because there’s no one anywhere I’d get along with and like, a concept I’ve toyed with a few times over the years. I’m at this moment willing to bet even the deck plates of this transport have figured out that you’re the one who caused me to be put where I was, so can’t we stop the bush-beating and get on to whatever’s rattling your mind like a shack in a windstorm?”

“You’re not believing any of this,” Murdock said, really looking at me for the first time in many minutes, his light eyes narrowed. “No one could be so cold-bloodedly reasonable after being told their entire life was the result of someone else’s manipulation, most especially not when they’re also an empath. Damn it, Terrilian, I will not have you humoring me!”

“You prefer the thought of being accused?” I asked, blinking just a little at the way he’d nearly raised his voice. I’d also rarely heard him swear like that before, and found it disconcerting. “Yes, I can see you would prefer being accused, to help bleed off all that guilt you’re feeling. It’s fairly clear you think you’re telling me the truth, Murdock, and for all I know it might be true. My only problem right now is that I’m not accepting any of this, not the least, smallest part. I feel as though I’m walking through a very clear dream, parts of my past just as uncertain as most of my future. When and if I get my memories back that might change, but your best bet would be to get every painful confession off your chest right now, while I’m still unlikely to get hysterical. And if a time comes when I am prepared to believe, having heard it earlier just might make it easier to accept.”

“I hadn’t thought of that, and you may very well be correct,” Murdock said with faint surprise, now more thoughtful than upset. “There’s a saying about even the darkest of days being brighter than the lightest of nights, and this may be a prime example of the brightness in the dark. ”

“Did you say a Prime example, Murdock?” I asked, sipping my kimla in relief at seeing the awful agonizing loosening its hold on him just a little. “Most people would be ashamed, but I don’t think diplomats are really considered people.”

“That was most inappropriate, young woman,” he came back with lowered brows while Ashton half groaned and half chuckled. “You will do me the courtesy of waiting until I’m free of distractions before offering a bout of verbal fencing. As you stated, I am indeed the one who caused you to be done as none before you, but that’s no more than a part of my-concern over the matter. You were a lovely infant full of a great deal of promise, but the moment I first looked at you I knew you must be sent away from us-without being told, like the others, that you did indeed belong somewhere. Considering who you were that in itself would have been bad enough, but the fact of the matter is—I wasn’t able to give any concrete reasons for doing such a thing. The need for it was so overwhelming I was able to argue down anyone who disagreed, but Terrilian-to this day I have no real idea whether or not I was correct. The possibility remains that you were severed from your rightful heritage for no good reason at all, and that’s what I felt you should know. What was done to you was my fault, but worse than thatI can’t justify it.”

The cold gray eyes were looking at me with no attempt on his part to move them, no attempt on his part to avoid seeing whatever condemnation I felt it necessary to show. It’s possible for some people to do terribly heartless and low things without feeling guilty, but only if they have a really good reason to justify, at least to themselves, having done those things. What was causing Murdock’s agonizing was the fact that he had no such reason, and to an odd, strangely detached way, I was almost beginning to believe his story.

“But Murdock, didn’t we find New Dawn because of her?” Ashton asked, reaching over to put a hand on his arm in an attempt to ease the pain. “If shed known about us like the others, we would have brought her home before she could be taken, leaving us knowing nothing more than we knew then. Couldn’t that be the reason you did what you did?”

“I wish it were,” the man answered with a sigh, patting the hand on his arm without looking at the woman the hand belonged to. “We were almost to the point of using a volunteer, one properly conditioned to forget all about us, of course, but when Terrilian was taken while we were in a position to follow immediately-as we’d hoped we would be—we did that instead. Ever since the possibility first came up I’ve been sniffing around it hoping to find that it was the reason I hadn’t been able to discover earlier, but I’m afraid it isn’t. When you come across the real reason behind something you did while acting blindly, you know it without any doubt. This, my dear, unfortunately isn’t it.”

“What did you mean when you said, ‘considering who I was’?” I asked, finding the phrase standing out in my memory. I’d been very detached from the whole thing at the beginning of our discussion, but I felt myself being drawn more and more deeply inward with every new thing I heard. I was starting to believe I’d be much better off all alone in my cabin, but the part of me I’d been having so much trouble with lately had asked a question I couldn’t escape having answered.

“Terrilian, child, this all started only moments after you were born,” Murdock said, the gentle words an odd contrast to his usual expressionless ness. “The reason I was there to see you at all, let alone that quickly, was because you were the firstborn of my youngest sister. I knew your mother better than any of my other brothers and sisters because, unlike the rest of us, she wasn’t gone very long from the settlement. From the moment she first began walking and talking, she also began fighting against life in a creche, finally making it necessary for her ‘parents’ to take her back. No planet ever releases an empathetic child unless he or she is considered not only incorrigible, but also unable to learn what’s being taught. Your mother flatly refused to learn, flatly refused to let them force her to learn, and therefore ended up back in the community before she was ten years old. She spent a day or so looking around and getting acquainted with our real parents, then settled in without argument or fuss. It seems she approved of the settlement a good deal more than she did the creche, but that doesn’t mean she never argued or fussed again.”

“Is that why she was married to one of the recruited Rimilians, instead of one of the men of the community?” Ashton asked, a grin of amusement now on her face. “I’d always thought it was simply good luck for the rest of us, since no one ever told me that story before. Irin could have had my place, if shed worked at developing a little more self-control.”

“Irindel has always had her own priorities in life, and has also always pursued them in preference to anyone else’s,” Murdock returned, his faint smile back. “And marriage with Rissim was completely her choice, just as most of everything else occurring around her has been. If she had been stronger when I first spoke of what had to be done with her infant, I truly believe she would have ended me somehow, to keep me from convincing the others of the necessity. She has never quite forgiven me, but has left active acrimony for the time when we discover whether or not I was right. If events fail to justify what I caused to be done, I’ll have no need to worry about guilt plaguing me.”

“Yes, that certainly sounds like our sister,” Ashton said with wry agreement, then moved her gaze to me. “And must also account for why Terrilian there seemed so familiar to me right from the first. She looks only a little like Irin, but that irritating mental attitude is very nearly a carbon copy. Well, girl, don’t you have anything to say? Not even a polite hello for your newly-found but loving aunt?”

Ashton seemed to be rather amused, and I could have sworn that what was causing her amusement was a memory of the fight wed had the day before. I really did wish I could find things just as funny, but suddenly I was feeling worse than I had when I’d awakened in the complex. I’d believed for so long that I knew all about myself, but the skepticism I’d begun with had faded to a ghost of its former strength, what was left being too weak and transparent to support the weight of my growing doubt.

“Are you distressed to learn we all share the same blood, child?” Murdock asked, no sign of Ashton’s amusement in him. “You’ve no need to acknowledge those blood ties, you know, most especially not where I’m concerned. You may continue to think of me with whatever enmity you wish, for as long as you wish, just as your mother has done. I’ve never needed to be protected from the strength of her mind, of course, but only because she does have rather tight control of herself when she feels the occasion warrants it. She’s pledged herself to wait before taking vengeance on me, and can usually be counted on to keep her word.”

“Something we’ll have to find out about you before we can turn you loose again,” Ashton said, taking Murdock’s sobriety when she found he wouldn’t share her amusement. “My brother may be guilty of everything he told you about and lots more besides, but none of us wants to lose him—or any of the others who were talked into agreeing with him. I don’t know where you got the strength you have, girl, but it isn’t something we can play around with. You’ll have to convince us you can and will hold yourself in check, and then we’ll be able to welcome you the way you should be welcomed.”

“Welcomed,” I repeated, discovering that the word had been said and echoed so much in my mind that it no longer had any meaning for me. I was staring down at the table we all sat around, groping for a solid reality I could throw my arms around to anchor me in the windstorm I’d been tossed to, but there was nothing in reach. I was like my mother, they’d said, my mother-not that strange woman I’d never felt any link to, but my own, real, actual, warm person.

“You don’t have to worry about my self-control,” I said, aiming the words in Ashton’s direction without actually looking at her. “If there’s one thing I’ve managed to learn, it’s control over what I can do. As long as I stay shielded or curtained, I won’t be a danger to anyone.”

“Just a minute!” she came back, the words sharp as I began pushing myself away from the table and to my feet. “How do you know about shields, and what do you mean by ‘curtained’? If you think what you said is enough to get us to release you, you really must be . . .”

“I’m already awake,” I interrupted, telling it with a lot less scorn and satisfaction than I’d expected to, raising my eyes to look at her frowning astonishment. “I don’t need anyone to turn me loose, because I’ve already figured out how to do it for myself. And now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to be alone for a while. There’s so much-!”

I couldn’t go on in words with explaining how I felt, but I dropped my shield for an instant just to show I could—and to briefly share what I couldn’t speak about. Ashton made a sound of strangled pain and put her hand out to me as she rose from her chair, her face suddenly full of tragedy, but that wasn’t what I wanted or needed. Those who are used to being alone have to work things out that way-alone-before they can possibly discuss it with others. Even if the topic for discussion is no longer needing to be alone. I turned away from the two people who had told me so much, and went slowly back to my cabin.