Of Fire and Night - Kevin J. Anderson [134]
Osira'h looked at him with an expression of utter distaste. "Every touch, every word you spoke to me, was like the barbed fences enclosing the camp. You would pat me on the shoulder to congratulate me after some difficult exercise, but all I could feel was how your cruel hands had touched my mother."
Nira's voice cracked as she looked at her daughter, then at her tormentor. "Designate Udru'h, I never wanted to hate you. Jora'h and I were happy at the Prism Palace, but you took that from both of us."
The mob had backed off, not finished expressing their anger. Osira'h had riled them up to this point, and they wanted release. The girl shouted at the former Designate, "I experienced my mother's pain and humiliation. How could I drive that out of my head? When you raped her, you raped me."
"No!" Udru'h seemed horrified by what the girl was saying.
Nira explained to the Designate, "She is my daughter. We were linked. For a long time she has known everything you did to me--I gave her all of my memories on the night you ordered your guards to beat me . . . when you told everyone else I'd been killed."
Osira'h raised her hands to touch the bloody cheeks and forehead of the former Designate. She felt hot inside, and her head pounded. "I can make Udru'h understand. He has much to learn."
He blinked at her in surprise and relief, as if he expected her to offer him forgiveness. "Osira'h, what are--" But she did not intend to absolve him.
The girl pressed her hands harder against him, tensing. She stared at her former mentor with the intensity of artillery shots, and Udru'h stiffened. "I am a bridge between species. I learned how to open myself and act as a conduit for the hydrogues." Osira'h had a frightening expression on her face. "This is just sharing."
Udru'h began to shudder. His eyes widened, and his expression drew back in fear. Osira'h did not release him. "Enough!" He raised his hands, clearly in deep pain. "It is enough."
Osira'h let go, and the injured man reeled. His eyes were glassy. She smiled at her mother and said calmly, "I gave him every memory. Every assault, every torture, every rape. He has now experienced it as you did, Mother."
Udru'h looked at Nira with a new kind of revulsion.
The girl raised her delicate eyebrows. "Maybe we should have just killed him. Is that what you want? Would that make you feel free, Mother?"
The other angry men and women raised their implements and shouted, but Nira seemed to speak only to her children, all of them. "No. You might know my hatred of him, but you don't know what I want. Hatred cannot free me. You made me see your brothers and sisters--made me accept them for who they are and not reject them for how they came to be born. Think about your brother Rod'h. Udru'h is his father. Would you do this to Rod'h as well? Does he deserve to see his father beaten to death?"
Osira'h was confused and uncertain. "But I was doing this for you, Mother! What do you want?"
Nira seemed to have considered that already. "For these people, for this camp, I want changes. We are now strong enough to demand them. Changes, Osira'h. Not mere revenge. Revenge and violence are easy, but they leave a stain you can never wash away. I could never want that for you--for any of us."
She gestured toward the battered and bloody Udru'h, who huddled on the floor. "Bind him so he can't get away. Then we will all take him to the new Designate Daro'h. He has the power to end this . . . if he is wise enough."
79
NIRA
Outside the former Designate's residence, people ran wild through the settlement. Lens kithmen, laborers, servants, and guards were trapped within crowded communal residences, unable to escape the spreading flames. Screams rose like smoke from the burning structures.
At first, running far ahead of her from the bonfire of the breeding barracks, Stoner and his uncontrolled comrades had begun to torch outbuildings, supply structures, even a medical inspection center. But now the fire went wherever it wished, sweeping to inhabited buildings. Unsuspecting