Free Mind of My Mind by Octavia E. Butler Page A

without
    knowing what they were doing," he said. "You're holding six powerful people captive.
    How can you do that by accident or instinct or whatever?"
     
    "I don't know."
     
    He withdrew from my thoughts in disgust. "You also have some very Dorolike
    ideas," he said. "I don't know how the others feel about it, Mary, but you don't own me."
     
    It took me a minute to realize what he was talking about. Then I remembered. My
    proprietary feelings. "Are you going to blame me for thoughts I had while I was in
    transition?" I asked. "You know I was out of my head."
     
    "You were when you first started to think that way. But you aren't now, and you're
    still thinking that way."
     
    That was true. I couldn't help the feeling of rightness that I had about the pattern—
    about the people of the pattern being my people. I felt it even more strongly than I had
    felt Doro's mental keep-out sign. But that didn't matter. I sighed. "Look, Karl, no matter
    what I feel, you find me a way to break this thing, free you and the others, and I'll cooperate in any way I can."
     
    He had gotten up. He was standing by the bed watching me with what looked like
     

 
    hatred. "You'd better," he said quietly. He turned and left the room.
     
    PART TWO
     
    Chapter Four
     
    SETH DANA
     
    There was water. That was the important thing. There was a well covered by a tall,
    silver-colored tank. And beside it there was an electric pump housed in a small wooden
    shed. The electricity was shut off, but the power poles were all sturdily upright, and the
    wire that had been run in from the main road looked all right. Seth decided to have the
    electricity turned on as soon as possible. Otherwise he and Clay would either have to haul
    water from town or get it from some of the nearer houses.
     
    Seth looked over at Clay, saw that his brother was examining the pump. Clay looked
    calm, relaxed. That alone made Seth's decision to buy him this desert property
    worthwhile. There were few neighbors, and those widely scattered. The nearest town was
    twenty miles away. Adamsville. And it wasn't much of a town. About twelve hundred
    dull, peaceful people. Clay had been reasonably comfortable even while they were
    passing through it. Seth wiped the sweat from his forehead and stepped into the shadow
    cast by the well's tank. Just morning and it was hot already.
     
    "Pump look all right, Clay?"
     
    "Looks fine. Just waiting for some electricity."
     
    "How about you?" He knew exactly how Clay was, but he wanted to hear his brother
    say it aloud.
     
    "I'm all right too." Clay shook his head. "Man, I better be. If I can't make it out here, I
    can't make it anywhere. I'm not picking up anything now."
     
    "You will, sooner or later," said Seth. "But probably not much. Not even as much as
    if you were in Adamsville."
     
    Clay nodded, wiped his brow, and went to look at the shack that had served to house
    the land's former occupant. An old man had lived there pretty much as a hermit. He had
    built the shack just as, several years before, he had built a real house—a home for his
    wife and children. A home that they had lived in for only a few days when the wind blew
    down the power lines and they had to resort to candles. One of the children had invented
    a game to play with the candles. In the resulting fire, the man had lost his wife, his two
    sons, and most of his sanity. He had lived on the property as a recluse until his death, a
    few months back. Seth had bought the property from his surviving daughter, now an
    adult. He had bought it in the hope that his latent brother might finally find peace there.
     
    Clay shouldn't have been a latent. He was thirty, a year older than Seth, and he should
    have gone through transition at least a decade before. Even Doro had expected him to.
    Doro was father to both of them. He had actually worn one body long enough to father
    two children on the same woman with it. Their mother had been annoyed. She