The Rowan

by Anne McCaffrey

  The concert was very good indeed, with three bands and some extremely clever light and sound variations: much more sophisticated than the Favor Bay recital. Barinov sat very close to her for the first part, his muscled thigh pressing against hers. His energy was a rusty-brown, which surprised her, and his aroma was indefinable, not unpleasant, exactly, but not reassuring.

  What she really didn’t like was the way he kept nudging her mind, poking here and there, trying to find a way in. In the first place it was very bad manners and in the second she did not like his insistence. His intrusions increased when the light, sound, choreography, and lyrics combined into erotic suggestiveness: not highly erotic, just enough to get positive hoot-holler and whistle reactions from the audience. They were sitting well up in the ampitheater so she couldn’t miss seeing some couples, and several groups, moving into the dark outer corridors. She knew such things occurred for Lusena had completely briefed her on sexuality and sensuality but this was the first time she’d witnessed it in public. On her other side, Goswina squirmed nervously. Those furtive leavings distressed her.

  Subtly, the Rowan emanated a soothing empathy to ease Goswina and that seemed to help.

  The finale of the concert, however, was a deliberately sensual construction, ending on a triumphant blare of sound, spectacular light effects, and everyone on stage in frankly sensuous postures. Goswina rose from her seat – to leave, not to cheer and shout approval. The Rowan followed for she caught the girl’s choked exclamations.

  ‘ ’Wina! It’s only a show!’ the Rowan said, catching her up in the crowded parking lot.

  ‘Do they have to be so … so disgustingly vulgar? Suggestive displays are simply not condoned in public on Capella.’ Goswina’s voice was low and taut with disgust and she was actually shaking in fury. ‘I just hate it when it’s so very obvious. It’s supposed to be a very private, wonderful experience. Not cheap, tawdry and … and public.’

  Without meaning to pry, the Rowan ‘knew’ that Goswina had had an attachment which had been deep and meaningful, which she had had to leave behind her for this course. That she missed her friend with an intensity that surprised her for she felt she was too young to have a lifetime commitment. Fortunately, Goswina was too involved in her own emotions to have been aware of the Rowan’s trespass. And the Rowan was involved in extricating herself so that she was not as aware of externals as she might have been.

  Moving shadows became the solid figures with imperfectly shielded intent. Goswina let out a little scream before her mouth was covered and her arms pinned tightly to her sides just as the Rowan felt herself attacked.

  ‘Oh no, you don’t!’ She snarled aloud, but mentally stabbed out, exerting a kinesis in all directions for she wasn’t sure how many attackers there were. Indiscriminately she sent them all spinning away from Goswina and herself. She didn’t bother to limit the push she exerted and had the intense satisfaction of hearing soft bodies meeting solid objects with considerable force, inflicting pain and damage. Ruthlessly she closed her mind, sparing herself their anguish and, for the time being, any immediate sense of guilt at having injured another human being.

  ‘Rowan!’ her companion gasped. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Only what they deserved. Let’s get out of here,’ and the Rowan grasped Goswina and pulled her out of the shadows and into the more brightly lit parking field. ‘There’ll be public cabs at the entrance.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘No buts, no explanations and don’t tell me you want to be involved in those!’

  ‘Oh, no! No! Oh, dear! We should have stayed with the others.’

  ‘We should have, but we didn’t.’ The Rowan was getting exasperated with Goswina. Ray, Goswina’s taking me home. I feel sick. Ray Loftus would be less likely to question a ’pathed message from her. And right now, she didn’t want anything to do with Barinov’s curious interest. ‘I’ve told Ray that we’re going back separately. Now, c’mon. There’re plenty of cars.’

  Goswina was quite willing to let the younger girl take the initiative. She collapsed into the corner of the car which monotonously inquired the destination.

  ‘The Tower.’

  ‘The Tower is restricted.’

  ‘I am the Rowan.’

  The car responded by lifting from the road and smoothly turning south-east, gaining altitude quickly and speeding toward the now visible configuration of lights about the Tower complex.

  ‘You’re not a T-4, are you, Rowan?’ Goswina asked in a quiet voice.

  ‘No. I’m not.’

  Goswina sighed then, relief and satisfaction emanating from her. ‘So you’re the reason this course is being held on Altair. You’re a potential Prime so you can’t travel.’

  ‘I don’t know that I’m the reason …’

  Goswina uttered a noise of disbelief. ‘You’ll need a Station support team. You’ll need people you can trust and empathize with. Building a team takes a lot of time and experimentation. I know. My parents are Capellan support personnel. That’s why they let me come, in the hopes that I’d be acceptable … to you when you’re Stationed.’

  The Rowan could find no immediate reply. But Goswina’s explanation made a lot of sense. How many of this group had guessed the purpose? And her real Talent stature. Barinov? That made more sense than his developing a true attachment for an odd-looking adolescent.

  ‘Please, Rowan. I like you very much and I’m very grateful to you but we would not work well together. I … I frighten easily and you’re very strong. That’s good,’ Goswina said hastily, lightly touching the Rowan’s arm and the girl could see Goswina’s gentle smile, ‘for you. You must be strong. I don’t honestly think I’m the sort of person who should be in a Tower. But my parents wanted me to have this chance. My younger brother, Afra, he’s only six but he’s already shown considerable potential. At the least, T-4, in both ’path and ’port. He adores going to the Tower with my father and Capella’s always teasing him that he’s going to take over from father.’

  The Rowan chuckled and briefly clasped Goswina’s fingers in hers, emphasizing her appreciation and friendship. Goswina was delicate blue and florally fragrant.

  ‘I think we’d better deal with the present, Goswina. Now, you’re not to say anything when we get back ’cept that I didn’t feel well. The place got so loud and stuffy …’

  ‘It was open air, Rowan …’

  ‘The noise! And all that lighting gave me a headache. That’s what you’re to say.’

  ‘But those …’

  ‘Thugs?’ the Rowan filled in wryly.

  ‘They’ll know they’ve been acted against. And you hurt them.’

  ‘Let them explain why – if they give anyone the chance to ask.’ The Rowan refused to relent. She was furious that, having assured Goswina that Port Altair was a safe place, they had actually been assaulted. And Goswina, too, whose empathy made her the least able to have to cope with nastiness.

  ‘You were much braver than I would have been.’

  The Rowan snorted. ‘Not brave. Angry. Here we are.’

  ‘Occupants: identify.’

  ‘The Rowan here and Goswina of Capella,’ and the car was permitted through the security web.

  ‘Now, you see me to the Tower, Goswina, and then the car’ll take you to your quarters. That way we keep to the story,’ the Rowan said, giving the necessary directions. ‘Remember now, Goswina,’ she said as she got out at the Tower entrance. ‘And when he’s old enough, I’ll make sure Afra takes the course here, too.’

  ‘Oh, would you?’ Then the car carried her away.

  The Rowan told Lusena about her headache caused by the blinding flickering lights and meekly agreed to having her eyes tested the next day. While Barinov was concentrating on the problem that Gerolaman had given them to solve, she had no compunction about probing in past his public mind. She didn’t know his source but it was clear to her that Barinov was deliberately cultivating her because he’d learned that she was a potential Pri
me. She had no further hesitation then about competing against him, or any of the others. A Prime ran the Station: sentiment did not enter into its management.

  So during the last week of the course, she ran Barinov a very subtle dance which occasionally caused the gentle Goswina to flush.

  Over the next four years, other courses were given by Gerolaman at Altair which the Rowan was not specifically required to attend. She often dropped in when it came to the troubleshooting: She liked matching wits with the other students but she never permitted herself to become too friendly with any of them. She ignored overheard insinuations that she was cold, aloof, too haughty, conceited, stuck-up. She was pleasant enough to everyone, even those she genuinely liked, but she kept those preferences to herself. Sometimes Gerolaman would invite her into his office to have an informal chat and discuss her opinions about this or that student.

  At some point after each course had finished, Reidinger would contact her for a talk, discussing various aspects of the material covered, and the problems proposed and solved.

  The Rowan told Lusena that she felt as if she was being given a long-distance final exam.

  ‘Well, I’d say you were lucky, young lady, to have his personal interest. Bralla says,’ and here Lusena grinned with some malice, ‘that he expects monthly reports from Siglen about your progress.’

  ‘Oh, is that why she suddenly allows me to handle the ore drones?’ The Rowan was not completely satisfied to be given the chore since the routing was usually pretty basic transferral. ‘How many years will she keep me on inanimates before I’m allowed a real job?’

  Lusena had no adequate consolation. Instead, backed by Reidinger’s authority, she could and did arrange for the Rowan to take time away from the Tower. When Tower traffic was very slow, they went camping on long weekends on Altair’s scenic Eastern Shore and several times on the Great Southern Wasteland which, the guide showed them, was teeming with all sorts of insect and invertebrate life forms, fantastic flowers that bloomed at night or in the dawn-lit hours, drooping and dying once the blazing Altairian primary seared the planet’s equatorial areas. The Rowan enjoyed water sports the most so that the executive house at Favor Bay was a frequent holiday site: Bardy and her husband, or Finnan and his wife and young children joining them.

  The summer of her sixth year at the Tower coincided with the scheduling of a larger than average group, some of whom were older personnel from planetary as well as interior stations, taking the course as a refresher. By this time, most of the students knew that the Rowan was an unusually strong telepath and teleporter: the likelihood was that she would make Prime.

  Where, in the Nine-Star League, was the real quandary. Plainly, it would not be Altair for there was no diminution of Siglen’s sure handling of her Tower; David was firmly entrenched at Betelgeuse, Capella at her Station. Procyon’s Guzman was aging but still years away from retirement. There was no possibility of her acceding to Earth Prime but the rumor strengthened that Reidinger might settle some of his more onerous duties on her. Or that League Council might be considering a Station at Deneb, one of the newest colonies, though that was most unlikely. A colony had to have both exports and the credit to purchase imports from League members as well as sufficient off-planet correspondence, or a trade route, to justify the expense of establishing a Tower. Right now, Deneb had no surplus of material or credit.

  ‘I’ve told Reidinger,’ Gerolaman said to Lusena the evening before the new group was to arrive, ‘something’s got to be done for the Rowan. She’ll get stale, bored, and while she’s a sensible kid, it’s not right to keep her twiddling her thumbs. She knows far more about Station mechanics and operational procedures than Siglen ever did. She’s fully capable of Prime responsibilities right now and she isn’t even at full adult strength.’ He shook his head slowly, fretfully. ‘And that woman never gives her any real work.’

  ‘Humph. She’s jealous of the child, and you know it as well as Bralla and I do.’

  ‘She’s always going to be a child in Siglen’s lexicon. I often wonder,’ and Gerolaman scratched his jaw, ‘if it wouldn’t have been better to have sedated the child and taken her to Earth when you had the chance.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Lusena said, sitting upright in contradiction. ‘You weren’t there. You didn’t see the terror in her face when we tried to get her to board the shuttle. And her mind was chaotic with fear. That’s why Siglen intervened. She wouldn’t have otherwise, I assure you. That was the only time I’ve ever seen Siglen worried about someone other than herself! And you know that Primes are agoraphobes. Look at the breakdown David of Betelgeuse went through. And Capella! They had awful voyages to their stations.’

  Gerolaman scratched his head thoughtfully. ‘Well, Siglen sure was sick. I came on the same ship and there was more medical staff than Station personnel, from the Moon onward. Though I thought at the time, she was hoping they wouldn’t send her to Altair. She was so sure that she’d be Earth Prime if she just hung around long enough down at the Blundell Building,’ he said in a dissatisfied grumble. Then he picked up the sheaf of hard copy, the records of the incoming group. ‘I think something’s going to happen soon, though. Look, every one of the repeats is someone the Rowan worked well with in the courses. Ray Loftus, Joe Toglia: they’ve been transferred from Capella with excellent ratings. Reidinger’s tagged three for me to vet as potential Stationmasters. He hasn’t done that before. Devious, that man is. Pure devious.’

  ‘If only he’d tell the Rowan, maybe she wouldn’t spend so much time fretting.’

  ‘You take her off to Favor Bay, just as you planned. Give her a good break, and come back in time for her to show these lamebrains up in the troubleshooting phase.’

  Lusena started to smile at the relish in Gerolaman’s malicious anticipation and then sighed. ‘If she were just a little more subtle with her corrections, a little less forceful in her opinions …’

  Gerolaman raised his eyes in surprise and waggled a finger at the woman. ‘Station crew measure up to their Prime, you know that, Lusena. That’s what all this is about. They support the Prime, they assist the Prime and the Prime calls the plays. Primes aren’t in it for popularity awards. They’ve got to be tough on everyone and are usually tougher on themselves.’ He made a slicing motion with his hands. ‘That’s the way it’s got to be or FT&T falls apart. Let that happen and then the League has a wedge to gain control. FT&T won’t function half as well as a bureaucracy, with this system or that system throwing its weight around and demanding preferential thises and thats. FT&T is strictly first-come, first-served: high, low, or middle men get the same considerations.’

  ‘I do,’ and Lusena gave a rueful sigh, ‘but I don’t forget that she’s a lonely child, and always has been.’

  ‘But not for always. Yegrani promised.’

  ‘A promise which is a long time coming.’ With that Lusena left the Stationmaster’s office. ‘And I have guarded the guardian,’ she muttered to herself with considerable satisfaction.

  Favor Bay in the full height of spring was glorious and Lusena noticed that the Rowan began to brighten as soon as she stepped from the groundcar.

  ‘The only thing wrong with this place,’ the Rowan said, glancing about and then pulling windswept silver hair off her face, ‘is that I can’t bring Rascal with me.’

  ‘He doesn’t seem to mind being left with Gerry,’ Lusena replied.

  ‘True cupboard love,’ the Rowan said with a wry grin, ‘so long as you feed me, I love you.’

  Lusena laughed. ‘Partly, but he is affectionate with you and runs to the door whenever he hears you coming. He never notices me even when I feed him and he only tolerates Gerolaman.’

  The Rowan made a skeptical noise in her throat, and turned to ’port first Lusena’s baggage and then her own up to their respective rooms. ‘Someday it would be nice to have something who loved me! Not the Rowan Prime, not the provider, but me! Someone preferably.’

  Lusena replied in the same objectiv
e tone of voice. ‘You’re eighteen now …’

  ‘Are we sure of that?’

  ‘Medically, yes,’ Lusena said with a tartness in her reply. The Rowan still yearned to discover the minor details most people grew up knowing: birthdate, family name, family background.

  ‘Not many people here in Favor Bay know that you’re Talented, much less Altair’s coveted young Prime. You’ve always been here as part of a family group. You’re fully old enough to do a bit of private research.’

  The Rowan regarded Lusena with a wide-eyed smile. ‘Siglen would have apoplexy if she heard you say that! Persons with our Talents and responsibilities cannot indulge in gross physical activities.’ Her mimicry was devastatingly accurate.

  ‘Gross physical, indeed,’ and Lusena laughed. ‘Oh, I shouldn’t laugh at her, but really, Rowan, Siglen is not temperamentally, or physically, suited to enjoying the “finer emotions in life”…’

  ‘Even if she recognized them …’

  ‘Whereas you’re a slender young …’

  ‘Fey-looking, isn’t that what that redheaded Earth kinetic in last year’s course called me?’ The Rowan shot Lusena a challenging look.

  ‘Fey is attractive.’ Lusena refused to budge from that interpretation.

  They were in the house now and the Rowan peered at her features in the hall mirror. ‘I could dye my hair!’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Indeed, and why not?’

  They tried several shades but, although the Rowan would have preferred to wear long black tresses, she didn’t have the right skin tone to go brunette. So they settled on a mid-blonde. For summer wear, the Rowan decided to have short curly hair as well and the result pleased them both.

  ‘Any improvement?’ the Rowan wanted to know, twisting a curl to curve down on to her brow.

  ‘Piquant! Fashionably sensible. Now, go enjoy yourself. The color’s guaranteed not to fade in sun or sea.’

  ‘I’ll just swim and sun a bit: to make sure the claim is accurate. Coming along?’