To Save a World

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Keral's chart. Similar structural features. I wish I knew his own language! I gather even Regis can't talk to him freely because of the language barrier. That would be a really meaningful use for telepathy!

  He shut off the feeling of warmth he got from thinking about Keral ever since that instant of rapport, and returned to scientific objectivity. Externally Keral appeared rather more male than female; fluoroscopy showed undeveloped although present and potentially serviceable female organs, but on superficial inspection naked, both Jason and David had taken him for male until the fluoroscope showed otherwise. Why did our questions about sexuality disturb him? With his intelligence, and the lack of nudity taboos, it doesn't seem to make sense.

  He put the two charts back into the folder as he saw Conner approaching him across the cafeteria, carrying a laden tray. The dark face looked sad, abstracted and lonely, but brightened a little as he stopped at David's table:

  "Join you?"

  "Glad to have you." David made room. "Back from the city? What's it like?"

  "Fascinating, though I've seen stranger around the galaxy."

  "Did you all come back? Rondo, Missy—"

  "No, they chose to stay," Conner said. "They evidently have more tolerance of crowds than I do. Regis told me I could learn to barricade my—esp sensors, I think he said—and learn to get along in crowds. He admitted, though, that I'll probably never feel happy about 'em. I gather it's just one of the drawbacks of being—what we are."

  "How did you find out what you were?" David asked; but Conner's flinch was so perceptible that he said quickly, "Skip it. Forget I asked."

  "Some day. When I'm more—detached," Conner said. "It's pleasant, not being the only telepath around, but it's going to take some getting used to."

  They ate in a companionable silence, but David felt vaguely uneasy, remembering that he had an unpleasant and intrusive duty ahead. How in the hell did you tell a near stranger that you had unwittingly played voyeur on an emotional experience that had evidently meant a good deal to that stranger? Damn Regis for shoving this off on me! It would be simpler if I could either like or trust Missy, but considering that everything she said to me or Jason was a flat-out lie, I feel uneasy about her.

  And the closer I am to Conner the more uneasy I feel. She can't care about him. He's too—too straightforward. Too nice. Or must have been before whatever it was that threw him into a tailspin.

  Conner looked up from his plate, piled with an odd-tasting mixture—fruit and beans?—into David's eyes. His grin was laced with irony. "I gathered from something Regis said today that there's a fairly elaborate etiquette of the privacies and the decencies in a telepath society to rub off the raw edges," he said. "Obviously none of us has had a chance to develop it, but there must be something indicating that it's rude to think about a man in his presence, Dr. Hamilton."

  David wished his face was as dark as Conner's; he knew he was blushing. "I'm sorry; I haven't learned the code, either, if there is one, Conner. And won't you call me David?"

  Conner, still piling food into his mouth, said, "I didn't get it all, but let's level with each other. Why am I on your mind? I was thinking it was good to have a doctor on the project who realized I was more than just a case; what were you thinking about me?"

  "First, that you were a David too, and wondering what to call you," the younger man temporized. "The rest—well, not here. Why not come up to my quarters and we can talk?"

  "Pleasure. Have you noticed these?" On his way out, Conner stopped at a machine which dispensed small packs of a mixed fruit-nut-candy snack. He said, apologetically, "I seem to be always hungry. I think it's the air here."

  David picked up a handful of the bars. He had tasted them earlier; they were evidently, like most of the food in the HQ building, a local product. He said, "One thing everybody on the project seems to have in common is abnormally high metabolisms, which suggests telepathy demands a high energy output. Although I understand it appears in a trance state too." He noticed a package under Conner's arm. "Been souvenir hunting already?"

  "No. Danilo gave it to me and suggested I put it up in my room, and that maybe I'd find it an interesting piece of machinery. It goes without saying that I'm going to check it out carefully; I'm inclined to trust Danilo—but I wouldn't put it past them to use us for some experiments, either, just to see how we react."

  They moved in silence up the long elevators toward David's small room in the HQ. Inside, David busied himself putting the charts neatly on the built-in desk while Conner unwrapped the small machine. He moved a lever and a dull vibration began in the room. David felt it jarring his brain, cutting off sight and hearing—

  No. He could see and hear as well as ever. What was cut off was the sudden sense of an extra sight and hearing; not cut off, exactly, scrambled. Like the blind spots of a migraine headache, interfering with vision without actually stopping it . . . .

  "Well, I'll be damned," Conner said quietly, moving the levers to a null position that cut off the vibration. David felt himself extended to normal again. "And they say, around this end of the galaxy, that the Darkovans have no technology?"

  David said, not knowing exactly how he knew, but as sure as if he was reading it off a printed page, "None that the Terran Empire can understand, they mean. I want to study that thing too, Conner. When we learn how a gadget will shut off telepathy, we will have gone a long way toward knowing what telepathy is. But I'd bet good money that they themselves don't know exactly why these things work, just how to build them. That's typical of societies with a low level of technology. Think how long the Terrans used electricity without understanding its structure, back in the early days of space."

  "Might be." Conner was examining the structure with slender competent fingers. "I'll bet this dingus is what they call a telepathic damper. I heard the phrase used when I was in the city. Wonder why they gave it to me?"

  David raised his eyes, suddenly grinning. He had the perfect opening, and he used it. "Well, for one thing—to give you and Missy a spot of that privacy you were talking about, I should imagine."

  The next minute, David found his head striking the wall. Dazed, he picked himself up, angry and protesting—he had meant no harm, damn it; Conner might have warned him if he was angry enough for a fight, rather than striking unaware—then, slowly and dazedly he heard Conner's cry of amazement and contrition and discovered that the older man was helping him tenderly to his feet.

  "David, I swear I didn't move! I only thought about punching you in the face. I realized right away that you hadn't meant any offense, only by then you were flying through the air! Good God, what am I—oh, God, God—" Conner was trembling, about to cry. "I ought to be dead . . . ."

  David felt a rushing need to reassure the man. He had suffered so much himself, only in such a different way. "Conner—Dave!" he said, urgently, "take it easy, I'm not hurt. This is just part of whatever it is we've got."

  Conner nodded, slowly. His face had the gray pallor of a black man gone bloodless and sick. He said, "I read something about poltergeists back in the hospital on Capella IX. They seem to be linked with—well, with sexuality, disturbed sexuality, in some people. I guess we've just had a demonstration."

  "Sure. Tomorrow we'll see how well you can control it," David said. "We were going to level with each other, remember. Didn't you know that you and Missy were—broadcasting it to all of us?"

  "I knew while it was happening. I could feel all of you," Conner said. "It didn't seem to matter. It was the first time since the accident that I—that I hadn't been alone." He lowered his eyes. "Now, I'm embarrassed. I wasn't, then."

  David said, with more gentleness than he had ever guessed that he could summon, "We may all have to learn not to be embarrassed, then, Conner. Until we learn more of the mores of living among telepaths. I'm damn sure of one thing, though; we're all going to have to give up a good many of our own preconceived notions, and I don't only mean about sex. Being here has already changed us
both."

  The tension slackened. They were both, to some degree, barricaded against each other again. Shortly afterward, Conner said good night and went off to his own room, and David sat, without any desire to pick up the charts again, chewing on the Darkovan sweetmeats without really being aware that he was doing it.

  What's going to happen when he finds out Missy isn't human?

  He felt desperately uneasy for Conner, without clearly knowing why. He thought, I'm changing too, I'm learning about this thing I am.

  What will it do to me?

  He had fallen asleep without turning out the light, when suddenly he came awake, all his senses screaming with violent panic. Lights! People! Strange faces, critical eyes, they're coming to find me, David, David, help me . . . .

  The cry had faded, he wondered if Keral had even known he made it, but he was out of his chair in a bound, running down the corridor, impatient with the slow movement of the escalator, taking the moving staircase down three or four paces at a time. Vaguely and in the back of his mind, as something not very important, he realized that he had no doubt about exactly which way to go, that pinpoint shriek of panic led him like a homing beam, although he had never been outside the building here before . . . .

  Outside it was getting dark with no sign of the sun and the night sky starless against the lights of the spaceport. Confusion . . . no moons . . . nothing to find my way . . . the air was icy, wind gusting up in little ripples, cutting through David's thin smock like a knife, but he ran on, heedless. Keral's panic was wordless now, a whirling frightening thing. David rounded a building, came out into the glare of lights before a little plaza. There was a crowd there, murmuring, muttering; their tone: wonder, extreme surprise, a sort of staring gawking hostile curiosity which David associated with the crowds that gathered around freaks and extreme disasters. Oh, God, if he's hurt—

  David shoved through the crowd, saying with the crisp authority he had learned the first week in his hospital, "All right, let me through here—let me through, I'm a doctor, let me through—" thanking his lucky stars for the uniform he wore. In the hospital it made him anonymous, a nobody, just another person with a right to be there; outside the hospital, though, it gave authority. They sidled back before him and David thrust through, using his elbows and broad shoulders without mercy.

  He saw Keral and for a moment his heart stopped. The chieri was crouched over, huddled, arms wrapped around his head, so pale and white that for a moment of horror David wondered if he had literally been frightened to death. A delicate high-strung creature, unaccustomed to the society of people at all; what had brought him out into these crowds? Then his eyelids flickered, and David went up to him and put his hand on Keral's shoulder and said in a soft voice, "It's all right; I'll have these people out of here in a few seconds."

  He turned to the crowd. "All right, just move along, there's nothing to see. Or shall I radio for Spaceforce to come and move you on?"

  Most of the crowd were Terrans and he realized that they had meant no harm, they were simply staring idly at a strange thing. David felt suddenly ashamed and abashed at being human. Slowly, they began to drift along, and David put his hand under Keral's elbow and raised him to his feet. He said, "They're gone, but you'd better come inside with me for a little while."

  Keral's breathing was rapid, his face white. He said, "I was coming to see you, I was sure I could find my way. Only, inside the spaceport I lost my way, and they began to follow me and stare. And when I began to run it was worse, I think some people did not know what the crowd was, they thought they were hunting down a—a fugitive."

  "Well, they are gone.'' David led him back the way he had come. His bump of direction had deserted him now that he was no longer following the signals of Keral's panic and he had to inquire the way twice. It was icy cold, the wind growing in intensity with every minute, and David realized he was chilled through. The chieri reached out with a quick gesture and flipped a corner of his own long cloak around David's shoulders.

  The warmth of the HQ building closed around them and David relaxed thankfully. He felt, from Keral's direction, a faint surge of renewed panic, and turned to him in anxious solicitude, but Keral only said faintly, "I am not used to being within walls. Never mind, it is better than the crowds."

  A picture, swift, strange and beautiful flashed in and out of his mind, multidimensional, multi-sensed:

  —soft wind, blowing leaves; a thousand fragrances each known, accepted, cherished; a roof overhead that smelled of leaves and gave softly to the wind, yet gave warm security from slashing rain; water, splashing, softness under foot—

  "Your home?"

  He did not need an answer, and he felt oddly apologetic as he drew the chieri on to the first of the maze of intertwining escalators he took for granted in a large building; Damn it, David, he berated himself, quit being romantic. Living in a forest may sound and smell great, but you're here and there's work to be done.

  Nevertheless, the contrast nagged at him as he drew Keral into his own bleak, depersonalized quarters. Had he really lived for years in surroundings as grim as a jail cell, absorbed in his work? He fussed around, finding his strange guest a place to sit, and felt the shivering tension in the chieri slowly relax.

  "You said you were coming to see me, Keral, when you panicked in the crowd. Not that you aren't welcome, even at this hour. But what did you want?"

  "It seemed," Keral said in that light strange voice, "that while your people learned of me, I could also learn of you, and I could do this better among you here than in isolation. I am not yet fluent enough in your language; it is easier if I touch you—" he reached for David's hand, clasped it lightly, and the flow of images reached the Terran:

  . . . . a civilization new and strange and yet not so different from those my people knew millennia ago. Perhaps we have been selfish, withdrawing into our forests and (knowing we die, alas, singing our lamentation alone) waiting here and silently living in beauty and memory; perhaps those who come after us may profit from what we are/what we know. Let us go among them and learn from them, see what people will live in our world when we are gone . . . .

  The strange, forlorn sadness of the flow of thought brought an almost anguished feeling of loneliness to David. Feeling that he might burst out crying if he didn't, he pulled his hands away from Keral and swallowed hard. Keral looked at him, curious and not offended.

  "Is it not mannerly, in your culture, to touch? Forgive me. I could not do it with everyone, but you are—I can touch you and it does not—frighten me," he fumbled for words, and David, moved again, reached out and reclasped the thin, cool hands in his. He said softly, "Why are your people dying, Keral? Regis told me they were only a legend now."

  . . . . Infinite sadness, like a song of farewell borne from distant shores . . . leaves fall, buds wither unborn, our people grow old and die with no children to renew their songs . . . and I, loneliest of all because I die here in exile . . . hands of a stranger clasped in mine, a loving stranger but stranger still . . . .

  David: Willing exile is exile none the less.

  . . . . who will reconcile me to the paths I must walk alone . . . .

  David: Mountains divide us and a world of seas . . . and we in dreams behold . . . .

  The wave crested; broke; splashed in soft surf on a silent shore of pain. David swallowed hard and their hands fell apart. They had come briefly closer than even their growing ease with one another could tolerate, and they drew apart again. Keral said, "I came here for that; that you could learn about my people. Many of the others are too old; they would die away from their forests. I am willing to give you what I can; but I too am curious to know. Let me be part of your researches, David. Let me know what you find out; share with me what you learn. I can pick up your language quickly; my people have a gift for this."

  "You certainly have," David said, suddenly struck by this; yesterday when they were introduced Keral had fumbled in speaking even a few words of Regis' rather
scholarly casta language, and that now he was speaking in easy, fluent phrases, the cahuenga or lingua franca spoken all over Darkover by Terran and Darkovan alike, which David had learned by educator tapes on the ship coming here. He said, "I have no objection; I am sure that Jason and the authorities would be happy to give you this privilege if you want it. And if you want to stay here, I'll do what I can to help you feel less—hemmed in. Although I have no authority on my own, and you ought to take it up with Regis, of course. If you want to know what we're learning, you're welcome to share what I've found out myself. But will you answer a few questions, too? You were so confused yesterday, and it was so hard to get through to you and make you understand. For instance: how old are you?"

  —He looks about seventeen, though he must be older—

  "I am a stripling of my own people," Keral said, "almost the latest-born among them. But you would know how many sun-circlings I have lived, and I cannot tell you. I think perhaps your people count time differently than we do. To us, many turns of the sun go by and it is as a sleep and a sleep, the beginning and ending of a song. I must try and think in different ways when I talk to your kind of people, and that is why the elders among us cannot any longer tolerate to come among you. The days and leaf fallings seem to—to regulate your thoughts and your words and your inner processes. I was born—how can I mark it in ways you can understand?—in the time before the great star over the polar ice shifted to its latest place. Does that mean anything to you?"