Damia's Children

by Anne McCaffrey

  The Mrdinis Dreamed explanations but these did not explain their biology. Mrdinis reproduced during their annual hibernations. Whether mating occurred before or during was still debatable: the Mrdinis did not seem to understand “gestation” as a concept of time or even a process. They did not understand “abort” or “impotence” as a reason why not all “pairs” reproduced. Nor why there were always twin births. Diplomatic courtesy denied Humans the right to observe in the hibernatory. No one was certain that these were live births, or if the Mrdinis might be oviparous. But the young were born “adult,” in that they understood the basics that all ’Dinis instinctively knew. They had to wait until their muscles strengthened to walk upright but they needed only to be “reminded,” Laria thought, of sounds—words—to reproduce them properly. As Damia once said, ’Dini young went from “oh” to “oration” in nothing flat. And they left the hibernatory “house-trained” and with mouths full of sharp teeth.

  Mrdini builders had constructed the special hibernation facility well up in the hills behind the sprawling Raven-Lyons home. To this all the Aurigaen Mrdini retired for their two-month long period of inactivity. Not all pairs reproduced in that time. Not all remained for only two months. When all had left the facility, it was scrupulously clean and ready for the next hibernation period.

  Laria was both relieved and lonely during the absence of Tip and Huf: relieved because she didn’t have that extra worry about doing or saying something misleading; lonely because she enjoyed their company and the fun they could get up to. ’Dinis had whimsical humor and a special rippling wheeze that was their amused noise: not quite a laugh, not a sputter, but definitely laughter. Fortunately ’Dinis and humans had comparable notions of comedy.

  Though she had learned to get tongue around the vowelless Tlp and Hgf, Laria used Tip and Huf: Thian called Mrg and Dpl, Mur and Dip. Her parents called Flk, Fok, and Trp, Tri. Evidently ’Dini made do without vowel sounds, though they certainly had innumerable consonant sounds, glottal stops, and fricatives to produce all those clicks, clacks, dongs, bongs, tlocks, and infinite varieties of whistle. Laria had become so deft at interpreting, that her parents often asked her to verify their understanding of conversations with Flk and Trp.

  Then dinner was ready and served with rapidity to the hungry horde. ’Dinis had clever blades that served as spoon, fork, and knife. Laria was adept with the instrument and kept one on her belt as Tip and Huf did. Fingers were permissible at home, Morag and Ewain employing theirs to good use, even remembering to use finger-bowls and napkins. Zara was even more fastidious at nine and her ’Dinis tended to imitate her. The fact that the ’Dinis were also accustomed to finger-bowls and napkins had at first astonished Humans. Afra had carved the first bowls from Denebian hardwoods, decorated with the first Dream which the ’Dinis had sent him and Damia. While he still entertained everyone in the household with his paper folded origami designs, he had added wood-working to his leisure time.

  He had done ’Dinis in origami. Fok and Tri carried theirs in their belt pouches and would often exhibit them to ’Dini guests. While all the family liked to watch him create his animals and forms, only Rojer and Zara showed enough interest to learn to do the intricate paper folding. Fok and trihad attended the first two lessons and then retired. Their digits were too powerful for the delicate movements needed and they tore more paper than they folded.

  Mrdini mental processes apparently differed from Human—though the results might be similar—but areas of mutuality were in constant development, and double households like the Raven-Lyons contributed hugely to interspecies understanding. It wasn’t their Talent that was exercised so much as their innate empathy and objectivity.

  “Dad,” Thian began when he had assuaged the first edge of hunger, “we’ve about hunted out the nearby ranges. Aren’t I old enough to use a sled?”

  Afra thoughtfully regarded his eldest son, all bony ribs, elbows and knees in his latest growth spurt and likely to match his father’s height soon.

  It would be useful, considering the fact that we may not ’port our friends about the place.

  Laria held her breath, for while she didn’t begrudge Thian the opportunity . . .

  Both Laria and Thian are responsible youngsters, Afra went on, nodding at them in the manner both knew was cautionary as well as challenging. I shall apply to the City for licenses. You two will have to qualify on your own merits but I’ll arrange with Xexo a time to give you trial runs . . . Study the operation manuals.

  Sure, Dad, both Laria and Thian chorused, delighted. Considering both had the family eidetic memory, they’d be through that requisite in an hour or more. And Xexo, the resourceful T-8 Tower engineer, who kept all the machinery running smoothly, had known them since their births and was a special friend.

  Then, as Thian turned to Mur and Dip, Laria signed to Tip and Huf that soon they wouldn’t have to climb the hill: transport was going to be arranged. They would be able to reach new hunting grounds without effort. The ’Dinis clicked and wriggled enthusiastically—Tip almost falling off its bench in its exuberance.

  Laria, you must also become familiar with the management of Mrdini ground effects machines, Damia added, cocking her head in her daughter’s direction. I’ll arrange that with the Coordinators.

  Then I will be going to Mrdini?

  Damia nodded, a resigned twitch to her lips. That has always been the plan. Thian will follow when he reaches sixteen. You will be the first young Human to go. She sent a flood of pride and encouragement to her eldest child. Then she, in turn, felt the warmth of love and reassurance from Afra, salving the ache of that separation.

  Sixteen is old enough for one of us, Afra said in the very tight focus that meant his thought was for her alone. She was also aware of his mental caress.

  I was no older when I was sent to Altair, she answered as discreetly.

  The difference being that Laria does not resent the duty.

  I think we’ve done what we could to be sure she wouldn’t, Damia added with a resigned sigh. You’ve made such a good father.

  Afra grinned openly, his smile including every child at the table. They’ve had their mother’s help.

  I shall miss her, though.

  Why? She’ll be only a thought away.

  It’s the thought that she will BE away. Damia diverted herself by ’porting the dirty dishes from the table and extracting the final course from the larder.

  With the exception of Terran bee honey, the Mrdinis did not find sweets palatable. Honey was, however, a luxury item when it was available. So, while the Humans ate fruit, the ’Dinis cracked nuts and picked the meats out of the shells or nibbled at the unsweetened mealy crackers, made of imported ’Dini flour that Damia baked for them. From time to time, ’Dini delicacies were shipped to the exchange personnel but today was not an occasion.

  DAMIA! Keylarion called and the Aurigaen Tower’s T-6 managed to cram excitement and alarm into her shout for the Prime.

  Damia and Afra immediately excused themselves and ’ported down the slope to the Tower control center where the generators were beginning their upward climb to full power.

  “Earth Prime ordered me to get you both here,” Keylarion said.

  Father? Damia sent across the vastness of space, her thought boosted by gestalt with the generators and Afra’s immediately accessible T-2 thrust.

  Mrdini scouts have crossed the path of three Hive Ships! Jeff Raven said.

  Three? the Damia-Afra link cried in an almost fearful tone.

  Three! The theory is that these must have originated from the Home System for their directions began to diverge just as the Mrdini scout ship crossed their ion trail. Fortunately the scout was well out from any Alliance colonies or worlds. The Hivers are heading even further out.

  The Damia-Afra link let out a cheer, all apprehension dissolved at this tremendous news. For fifteen years both Mrdini and Nine Star League ships, now called the Alliance, had been probing systems to locate the homewo
rld of the Hive Culture, aliens whose prime directive of ruthless propagation of their species had once attempted to invade the Mrdini colony in its Sef solar system. The attack had been repulsed but only with the extreme sacrifice of ’Dini ships and personnel. The colony had been devastated and had to be rebuilt and repopulated. Thereafter ’Dini had kept ships in constant patrol about their colonized worlds and sent out squadrons to patrol nearby space and make sure no Hive ship ever got so close to a ’Dini world again. Over two centuries they had maintained such a vigil, constantly expanding the parameters of “safe space,” their whole culture dominated by the dire threat of Hive penetration.

  The Mrdinis had also searched vainly for allies of sufficient spatial sophistication to aid them. The resources of their home and colony planets had been stretched to the utmost in the constant vigilance.

  As desperately, the Mrdini sought new weapons to destroy the predatory Hive ships. The effective tactic was to use a suicide ship which would plunge midships in the spherical Hive ship and detonate itself in order to achieve total destruction of the Hiver. Not every suicide mission was successful, for the Hive gunners were skillful and often six suicide ships had to attack to be sure one got through. Such punitive losses had naturally used up tremendous materiel as well as ’Dinis whose genes should be perpetuated.

  But still elements of the ’Dini fleet searched and would track down any Hive ion trail located in the vastness of space.

  Then both a marauding Hive ship and the ’Dini ship following its ion trail discovered the Denebian system.

  Jeff Raven, an unexpectedly Talented telepath and teleporter, had single-mindedly held off three scouts from an intruding Hive. With the assistance of the Primes of Earth, Altair, Procyon, Capella, Betelgeuse, and the Rowan on Callisto Moon, the mind-merge focusing in Jeff Raven had destroyed two of the scouts and sent the third back to its mother ship. Two years later, the Mother Hive had been on a collision course with Deneb which had been thwarted when the Rowan, leading the female minds, had paralyzed the dominant Hive “Many.” Then Jeff Raven, being the focus for the male Talents, had diverted the Hiver into the blazing whiteness of the Deneb primary star.

  Alarmed, the Nine Star League had prepared distant early warning devices around all its inhabited systems to forestall another incursion by this dangerous species. The Mrdini had been able to circumvent the device, by staying just beyond its sensor range and inserting instructive dreams in the sleeping minds of Damia, Afra, and four other Denebian Talents. The Mrdini were not only triumphant to find a species that could destroy a Hive ship with no loss of life and without collecting a flotilla of space vessels and suicide crews to do so, but who would also be Allies in their long struggle against the depredations of the Hivers. Deneb had been unknowingly selected as an excellent Hive colony society. The press for acceptable worlds on which to propagate themselves meant the annihilation of any life form they encountered. Sadly not all emerging species had the weapons to counter such tactics and the method which the Talents had used—telepathy and teleportation—had seemed magical to the Mrdinis. While the ’Dinis had no “Talents” as the Nine Star League understood it, they were able to superimpose their Dreams on susceptible human minds.

  Through these Dreams, they had communicated an outline of their history and their hopes, and the Nine Star League, with the help of all Talents, began to establish a viable communication level: starting with the most pliable and least resistan Humans . . . children of both Talented and unTalented families.

  * * *

  Damia and Afra had been one of the first families to accept Mrdini youngling pairs in order to establish a useful form of communication between the species. As it happened, Talent was an unimportant factor since the Mrdini mind could not be read even by as powerful a Talent as Jeff Raven, or his wife, Angharad Gwyn-Raven, the Rowan. But when Damia realized she was pregnant, shortly after the first ’Dini contact was made, she was one of the first to suggest that the young of each species, brought up together from infancy, might absorb the others’ language as easily as their own.

  So Laria had had cribmates from the time she was six months old, as had each of her siblings.

  Almost as prolific as her Denebian grandmother, the Healer Isthia, Damia had had no problems with pregnancies, though, unlike her mother, the Rowan, she had been careful to space her children two or two and a half years apart. Then, too, her duties at the Iota Aurigaen Tower had not been as demanding as her mother’s responsibilities at Callisto Moon Station. And Afra, being partnered in the Tower with his mate, had been able to devote as much time as required to his increasing family.

  If Jeff Raven twitted his son-in-law about overdoing paternity, Afra would merely shrug and remind his friend that he himself had urged the Capellan to marry and have children.

  Maternity had mellowed Damia as much as paternity had relaxed Afra. If his family never understood why their Talented son had had to leave Capella and the promise of a good position in Callisto Prime Tower, he could at least find alternative Towers for those nieces and nephews of his that might also wish for a life unrestricted by Capella’s methody ways.

  He did, however—and often smiled as he did so—insist that his children behave with the courtesy protocols in which he had been raised. But he did not fall into the error of his own parents—in believing that they knew best for their children.

  Consequently the Raven-Lyon home was easy going, friendly, and totally unselfconscious in the practice of Talent and the inclusion of an alien species into their familial structure.

  That life-style might undergo drastic change with the Mrdini discovery of the putative route to the Hive Home System. Damia had no precognitive Talent but she didn’t need any to recognize that a new era had just begun: an era that would—hopefully—eradicate the threat of the Hive Species for both Human and Mrdini.

  So, what happens now? Damia and Afra asked Earth Prime.

  Well, and there was a wry note to Jeff’s tone, your mother and I are to send all available Fleet ships of Galaxy and Constellation class to a rendezvous with the Mrdini scout. They’re sending as many of their own heavyweights as possible.

  Afra snorted. And what good is that going to do without Talent support, Jeff? We all know the extrapolations of confrontation. Who’s going to supply sufficient power to overwhelm them?

  We may follow, Jeff replied in a droll fashion.

  You AND mother? Damia’s concern and alarm flowed out of her despite Afra’s tight reassuring embrace.

  When you consider how much larger a Talented population we can draw on now than we could twenty-odd years ago, daughter dear, stop being negative. Much has to be decided. But we cannot deny the use of Talent when it can be of tactical advantage.

  First the Hive Home System has to be found.

  And every other one they have overpowered, Jeff added, seemingly unconcerned at the monumental task facing the Allies.

  How in the universe can we do that? Damia demanded, appalled at the prospect.

  That is what must be discovered. The strength of resolve in her father’s voice provided Damia with fortitude. The event which we have entertained for long has occurred. We cannot be lacking in courage now.

  No, Dad, of course not. Aurigae Tower supports you one hundred percent.

  The warning has been limited to those who need to know, of which Aurigae Tower is one. The official position will be announced in due course but prepare yourselves and the Tower for unusual activity.

  The Hive System is near Aurigae?

  No, but the mine production will be increased as fast and as soon as possible. Expect to transmit huge and continuous ore drones.

  And what explanation is to be given? Damia asked for she knew they’d be interrogated by the mine syndicates.

  Tell them a new design of interstellar transport has been approved and production of the units is a top priority. Jeff chuckled. That won’t be a falsehood, either, for our people have just commissioned a prototype long-range Co
nstellation-class vessel, the Genesee. There are four more in construction and they’ll be finished as fast as possible. Your miners don’t have to know where their ore goes, only that they’ll be paid for it. How good are your eldest two in Tower disciplines?

  Laria and Thian? Damia asked, once again experiencing that stab of irrational maternal concern.

  They’re steady enough for anything we can handle, Afra replied. Why?

  You may have to lob big daddies about the League again.

  What a blessing my eldest are both T-1’s then, isn’t it?

  Jeff Raven chuckled over his daughter’s sardonic remark. Then his mental tone abruptly altered to one of great pride and dignity. The Allies will be made fully aware of how blessed we are with Talent. There was a pause and then one of Jeff Raven’s inimitable chuckles reached their ears. Gwyn-Ravens and Lyons to the rescue yet again! Then his mental tone disappeared from their minds.

  Damia was guyed up by Jeff’s imperturbable optimism but she looked to Afra for further reassurance. Tenderly he pulled her into a deeper embrace, gently pressing her head into his shoulder. With one hand he pushed back the vagrant silver lock of her hair that always seemed to fall into her face when she was distressed. Patting it into place, he kissed her, making contact on every level that bound them to each other. She felt herself respond, as much out of habit as need.

  I didn’t raise children to fight Hives. Does Laria have to go to Mrdini?

  We have promised the exchange. We have intrinsically benefited by the exchange. We will make it as planned. Don’t fret. Laria’s a well-balanced, sensible and responsible chi . . . young woman, nearly—as we both know. She is in no more danger on Clarf than she would be here.