Raising her eyebrows in surprise at such a discreet summons – both she and Jeff were accustomed to a direct mental inquiry – she opened the channel.
‘Prime Rowan?’ asked an unfamiliar feminine voice, a warm and kind voice. ‘I am Elizara Matheson, T-l, Medic/Ob. With all due respect, I request an interview.’
‘Not on my day off!’ The Rowan’s finger was halfway to the disengage when Jeff caught her wrist. ‘Damn Reidinger! How dare he presume!’
‘What harm does it do?’ Jeff asked at his most disarming. ‘You’re going to need a T-l during the delivery of a Talent. They can be most obstreperous about leaving their safe haven. At least Reidinger cares enough to send the very best.’ When the Rowan regarded him with amazement, he grinned. ‘I don’t think you accessed the right prenatal information. And if that lad of ours is half as stubborn as either of his parents, you may need all the persuasion you can muster.’ He leaned across her. ‘By all means, Medic Elizara. Please proceed to the residence.’
Every now and then the Rowan came smartly up against the realization that she couldn’t argue with or wheedle her way around Jeff Raven. He was steadily becoming stronger and stronger in all areas of his Talent. If sometimes a part of her resented that strength, at others she felt tremendously comforted and protected. Or, as right now, in complete rebellion. But she rebelled right now, not against his common sense, but against an intrusion of the short hours when they could share each other on the deepest possible levels, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.
But she acquiesced. You give me no option, do you? she shot at him as they waited for the unsolicited visitor.
I’m far more careful of you than Reidinger gives me credit. There was no flexibility in his gaze, or mind. You are not the obstetrician’s ideal proportions for easy birthing, you know. Let’s take every precaution.
Medic Elizara’s personal appearance was a surprise to them both as she was a slender woman, no taller than the Rowan, and looked far younger. Her smile as she felt their astonishment was vastly pleased with her effect on them.
‘I have heard so much about you, Prime Rowan,’ she said with irrepressible mischief in her wide-spaced, light-green eyes, ‘that I elbowed my way right past everyone with far more seniority than I have. Then, too, your reputation …’ and her marvelous smile deprecated the Rowan’s reputed temper, ‘made others demur. Gollee Gren solemnly warned me that you’re more devious than Reidinger.’
At that remark, the last of the Rowan’s resentment evaporated. ‘Gollee warned you, did he?’
Reidinger’s positively Machiavellian, isn’t he? Jeff said to her privately. What a choice!
Oh, no, came from Elizara, the choice was mine, though when Earth Prime interviewed me, I could tell he thought that I would suit. ‘I shan’t take more than a few moments of your time right now, Prime, but I need to update the Altairian report.’
‘Not a moment has been wasted,’ the Rowan remarked sardonically.
‘No!’ And Elizara’s eyes twinkled.
She did not indeed take more than a few moments. The Rowan had never met a T-l in another field and was very much reassured by her competence and deftness.
‘The pregnancy is proceeding nicely. I have nothing further to add to what the Altairian medics told you,’ Elizara said in conclusion. ‘The boy child is not far enough along for us to make a worthwhile contact. That’s when my particular Talent becomes useful and I can assist you both in the preparations.’
‘My mother had no trouble with any of us,’ Jeff said, and the Rowan heard the first tinge of uncertainty before he could dampen it.
‘True enough,’ Elizara admitted, ‘probably because her mother was her constant companion during the final month.’
‘How on earth did you know that?’ Jeff asked, surprised but he found out before Elizara could prevent him. ‘Reidinger has been very busy, has he not?’
‘I think you both must appreciate why and allow him his prerogatives,’ Elizara said with gentle dignity and a hint of reproach.
‘This is our child, not Reidinger’s. And he’s no relation to be prying into …’
Easy, love, Jeff said, reaching with hand and mind to soothe her.
The fetus will react, you know, Elizara said mildly. The calmer you remain, the easier it will be for you both! The stronger a bond of trust you make right now, the easier the birth will be. The child will need to trust you then. ‘But the main reason I was acceptable to the Prime, and you may find this so, too, was that I had easy births with my own two Talented children.’
That reassured the Rowan more than anything else about Elizara, though at that moment, she did not want to feel calm, even to reassure her unborn child, but she could not evade Jeff as easily as she could Elizara. Nor could she evade, or disobey, any of Reidinger’s subsequent safeguards which she found intrusive, impudent, arrogant, unnecessarily restrictive, and too authoritarian by far. Unfortunately, Jeff Raven was in total agreement with the Earth Prime. She was never sure if Elizara truly disagreed with the two men on the subject of her return to Altair or was ‘humoring the pregnant woman’.
The upshot was that the Rowan was not permitted to return to Altair and was reinstalled as Callisto Prime. Jeff went off to Altair until two appropriate T-2s could be found and integrated with Maharanjani and Bastian at Altair. When that task was completed, what Jeff termed his galactic peregrination began. Reidinger sent him to each of the other Prime Stations on various errands of high security importance.
‘I don’t know what could be more secure than a mind-to-mind contact or why he has to shoot you all over the place.’
‘Oh, I find it incredibly fascinating, love. I’ve met all the Primes, now, and I really did pick the best of the lot of you,’ he said with an outrageous glint in his eye. ‘That Capella!’ He raised eyes and hands in such comic dismay over that confrontation that he made her laugh.
While the Rowan could appreciate just how valuable Jeff was to FT&T as the only peripatetic Prime, she resented his absences even though Jeff always took several days rest on Callisto between jaunts. On the other hand, Jeff returned, stimulated, excited, and highly pleased by his reception at every tower. She did like listening to him discuss his perceptions of the other Primes, the diversity of the planets linked in the Central Worlds: once she would have envied him his fearless ability to transverse those immense distances, but she formed a secret intention, when her pregnancy was over, to join him in these tours. But the traveling, despite Jeff’s innate strength, took a noticeable toll of his energy. She worried about the alarming signs of deep fatigue which he dismissed lightly.
‘Sure it takes effort, love,’ Jeff told her as they sprawled together in their favorite spot in the lounge before the artificial fire. For the Rowan, being close to him physically was in many ways far more satisfying than the more intimate mental contact. As much, she thought, because she had had so few physical relationships that she found their intimacies especially rewarding. ‘And it’s tiring, but a few days with you and I’m rarin’ to go again. This galactic touring’s quite an eye-opener for this poor li’ll ole Denebian farmboy.’
‘Don’t you say that about yourself!’ The Rowan bridled at his phrase, punching his upper arm to emphasize her annoyance.
‘Dearling, I am poor,’ he reminded her. ‘Mind you, the bonuses I’ve been extorting from Reidinger for doing these leapfroggings is bringing me out of debt much faster than if I just drew stationary Tower pay.’
‘Nor are you little …’ The Rowan was not letting him belittle himself in any way.
Jeff let out a hoot of laughter. ‘Honey, I love your sense of loyalty but have you seen the guys they grow on Procyon? And Betelgeuse?’ He shot her a glance for comparison’s sake and she saw that he had felt dwarfed in their presence. ‘And I AM a Denebian farmboy.’ He grinned in his roguish way. ‘Keeps me from getting above myself.’
‘Oh, was David being difficult again?’
Jeff ran a few scenes of
the Betelgeuse Talent’s arrogance through her mind and she was both appalled and amused.
‘If I’d ever met Siglen, I’d’ve had a few cogent remarks to make to her about her notions of “training” Talent,’ he said, serious for a moment. ‘And Primes are unquestionably the vital links between Central Worlds, but there are T-1 ratings in every other Talent that make some of us stevedores look rather limited. Still,’ and he sighed for he was at heart a generous and forgiving person, ‘she got the basics right but we’ll train our own kids the way they ought to go.’
‘Indeed we will!’
Jeff tightened his arms about her, kissing the side of her neck tenderly. ‘And none of our kids will need a Purza.’
‘Was the pukha on my mind again?’
‘She keeps lurking there, where you can’t see her.’
‘I can’t imagine why. Not after I’ve been back to Altair, and the Rowan mining campsite. Not with you doing far more for me than any construct could ever do.’
‘I can’t read why she keeps surfacing, love, except that Purza was the most important thing in your young life. I’m not exactly sure I like competing with a pukha.’
No way! Then Rowan let out an exaggerated sigh and then a self-deprecating chuckle. ‘But for ages there, that pukha was the only thing in the world that truly understood the young Rowan child … or so she thought.’ She paused, frowning. ‘You know it’s very odd, your mother asked me who Purza was, too. That caught me off-balance.’
‘I think we ought to get Mother to train her mind.’
‘Oh, she wasn’t being intrusive. It’s as you said, she has a long ear. I’ve never met anyone quite like her before. She was so calm and reassuring, even when …’
‘When everyone thought I was dying?’
‘You were never dying …’ But a shiver caught the Rowan even as she repudiated the mention.
Jeff cocked his right eyebrow, a droll expression on his face. ‘Not the way Asaph and Rakella tell it, my love. Well, I suppose Purza would surface at a time like that. When you need support the most.’
The Rowan nodded, nestling as close to him as her altered shape permitted.
‘I think we, all of us, have someone,’ Jeff went on, ‘or some place, we retreat to in times of stress: a known comforter, adviser, confidante, who never fails us.’
‘You never needed one.’ Rowan was beginning to wonder about the odd resurgences of Purza. She felt the unexpected embarrassment in Jeff’s mind.
‘I haven’t got you fooled, too, have I, love?’ And Jeff gave her a quick hug, laughing. ‘Believe me, dear heart, the only advantage I have over others is that I learned to read minds quick enough to correct my follies before they got out of hand. That’s all.’
‘But did you?’ She needed to delve into that curious embarrassment, so unusual in her self-possessed and reliant love.
‘Yes, I did,’ and he gave a funny chuckle. ‘Your Purza was at least a visible creature, properly programmed to respond to certain infant and pre-adolescent needs …’
‘What’s wrong with an invisible friend?’ The Rowan now plucked that easily from his mind.
‘Nothing. Until your younger sister finds out about it and the whole family gives you an unmerciful ragging.’
Does your friend have a name?
Jeff stroked her head. Bagheera.
Oh?
It’s been so long, love, but you know, it’s rather odd that he was also a feline, like your Purza. Big, black, powerful: he loved to lie on branches high up in trees which was not surprising as I was always climbing trees myself, or lurk on sunny rock ledges because I used to hide from chores on such places, and he hated water! Which I did not, actually. I loved to swim but I could never get him to join me. He had yellow eyes – like Afra … Jeff’s tone was amused/amazed that he had found one point of resemblance with anyone of his acquaintance. We spent a lot of time discovering unexpected treasures in caverns and mines and other unlikely places. He was good protection against all the terrors of wild, raw Deneb. And we’d make fortunes for our planet and bring it into the Central Worlds Autonomy faster than any world had ever been admitted. Jeff chuckled. ‘You know, I haven’t thought of Bagheera for years! He was, I think, a character in a children’s story. I preempted him for my own special use. He was invincible.’ Hey, are you falling asleep on me again?
‘Not really,’ and yet a massive yawn caught her. ‘We don’t need to move from here, do we?’ She snuggled up against him, finding the right hollow in his shoulder for her head. He brought a warm blanket from their bed to cover them so there was no need to rearrange themselves.
Despite what the Rowan saw as Reidinger’s intrusiveness, she looked forward to Elizara’s visits. Gradually the T-1 Medic appeared on Callisto twice a month and then weekly. At the beginning of the last semester of the pregnancy, Elizara came to stay until the delivery.
‘But I’m fine, and the baby is developing perfectly,’ the Rowan protested, ‘or so you’ve told me.’
Elizara grinned. ‘You know it to be so yourself, Rowan. Call it an old man’s foibles. A young man’s too, considering Jeff’s state of mind.’
The Rowan grunted and felt her baby react. To save herself violent convulsions of her womb, she had learned to restrain untoward responses to each new imposition.
‘Jeff knows how much family means to you,’ Elizara said.
‘Family?’ The Rowan found the wording odd. Jeff never referred to their unborn as ‘family’: usually it was ‘his’ or ‘their’ son, or Jeran when they finally decided on a name for him. But the child’s arrival would indeed make them a family!
‘There was once a time,’ Elizara went on in her lilting voice, ‘when the mother and father of a newborn were totally unprepared for it, or the effect it would have on them and their own relationship. Of course, parenting has become so much a part of early education, that many of the iniquities of earlier centuries can no longer be perpetrated on young, unformed minds. But the high-potential Talent child needs special care and handling, especially at birth and in the first three months.’
‘I know that. I know that! I’ve been made aware of that by just about everyone in the whole damned Central Worlds. The only one who hasn’t alluded to this is Capella and right now I could almost trade places with that dried-up old virgin!’
‘Rowan! If she should hear you!’
‘She is,’ the Rowan acidly replied, ‘probably the only Talent in the entire FT&T network who doesn’t contact me half a hundred times a day to ensure I’m still all right and the child is alive and kicking! Which he is right now!’
‘Then calm down!’
Elizara exuded an authority that the Rowan found as impossible to evade as Jeff’s. So she found herself initiating meditation in obedient response. Elizara’s inner serenity extended itself to the Rowan and the flare of anger and frustration was soothed away.
‘Oh, by the way,’ Elizara said when the Rowan was tranquil again, ‘I took another liberty on your behalf.’ She hesitated.
‘Why not?’
Elizara touched her hand in gentle rebuke. ‘I’ve managed to trace the Gwyn family. Just in case there might be some genetic flaws that we should know about in advance.’
‘You did?’ the Rowan exclaimed. ‘But I tried …’
‘Yes, you tried from Altair,’ and Elizara gave a little smile, ‘but not from Earth. And not consulting the original immigration files, only the Altair entries.’
‘They were useless. And?’
‘Genetics prints were made of all outgoing settlers; genotypes and blood profiles. You could only be the child of Ewain and Morag Gwyn.’ Shyly Elizara slipped two small holograms from her pouch to the table. ‘As you’ll notice, the tendency to premature silver hair affected both parents.’
With a reverence akin to awe, the Rowan looked down at the two faces: Despite the fact that her father could have been no more than thirty, his hair was silver while eyebrows and moustache were as black as coal. He had
a strong face, and his brows were drawn in a faint scowl. Her mother’s hair had silver streaks from a center parting: she looked more worried than anxious, but she had bequeathed her gray eyes to her daughter and the narrow face.
Elizara, if you knew what this gift means …
Ah, love, I do! And Elizara laid her hand gently on the Rowan’s bowed head.
What’s wrong? was Jeff’s sudden demand. He was never out of touch with her and he was as grateful to Elizara as she was. That girl’s a wonder! Give her a hug for me! I don’t dare do it myself or I’ll have you to answer to!
I’m much too happy at this moment to deny you that, my love!
In her mind was a fiendish chuckle. Warn her!
The Rowan didn’t, but smiled happily to herself, her eyes resting on the two holograms until they were indelibly imprinted in her mind. She had parents now: and it was enough to know that she had had a brother. She could console herself wondering whether he had resembled father or mother more. Maybe Mauli, who was deft with pencil and paint, would draw her a likeness of what her brother might have been.
On one count did the Rowan prevail against Reidinger’s over protectiveness: she was allowed to continue working Callisto Station. Torshan and Saggoner were needed on another colonial outpost, and Elizara, backed by all other medical consultants, reassured Reidinger that the Rowan’s mental abilities were in no way affected by the pregnancy. Nor was her normal occupation affecting her unborn child. The Rowan proved that more conclusively by a suspension of the pyrotechnics which had often disturbed the Station personnel during her moody periods. For this everyone on the Station was grateful.
As soon as her pregnancy became common knowledge, Brian Ackerman had braced Afra, wanting to know if the Rowan would be ‘OK’.
‘If by OK you mean is she likely to be as difficult as she was before Jeff arrived,’ Afra replied in a droll tone, his yellow eyes reflecting considerable amusement at the question, ‘I’m told that pregnant women are often more quiescent and docile.’
The Rowan Page 25
