Restoree

by Anne McCaffrey

  “I hope so,” said a wry voice from the doorway. We both turned to see Ferrill there, supported by two men. “I’m being conducted to the Vaults,” he said, indicating the escort with amusement. “Coming?”

  Ferrill’s smile, oddly mocking, made his old-man’s face younger.

  “There’s really no need for me to be bulwarked by all the ingenuity of the Vaults. The Mil wouldn’t bother a wreck like me,” Ferrill continued amiably. “I gather,” and his face grimaced ruefully at Jokan, “Harlan has made you stay behind to guard the sacred persons of the Warlord’s progeny. You’ve worked as hard for this contingency as he. Pity you can’t witness it. But I’m glad it’s you that’s here!” Ferrill’s sincerity reached Jokan through his bitterness.

  “It is my honor, sir,” he replied in a neutral voice, but the bow he made the ex-Warlord was deep and respectful.

  Jokan indicated I was to precede him to the hall. I hesitated at the doorway so that Ferrill might precede me as I felt his due. He bowed slightly and I continued. We made our way to the down-shaft through hurrying people who stopped and stepped aside respectfully to let Ferrill’s party pass.

  “Nuisance to be sent scurrying down so early,” Ferrill commented as we reached the shaft. “Nothing will happen for a day or so.”

  “True,” Jokan conceded, “but they have activated the spatial tank below and set up the remote connections there rather than in the Council Hall. It’s more reassuring to the general public to vault themselves anyway. Too much has happened to unsettle them. They fancy themselves more Tanes, I’m told.”

  “Hmm. That’s reasonable,” Ferrill replied thoughtfully.

  When we reached the cellars of the palace, we passed a six-foot-thick section of wall that would swing up into place, closing off the entrance to the Vaults beneath the palace. Huge guards saluted as we passed this impenetrable lock.

  We walked down a short corridor to an enormous, low-ceilinged room where partitions blocked off working, resting and eating areas. The busy occupants spared Ferrill a grave smile or bow. The next corridor was doubly sealed by more six-foot sections. The precautions were so formidable I wondered what kind of attack armament the Mil mounted which could penetrate such fortifications. Maybe the effect of the doors was more psychological than necessary.

  “I haven’t been in the Vaults in years,” Ferrill remarked. “I often wondered who dusted them and how frequently.”

  Jokan gave a mirthless snort at such a fancy while I surprised myself with a genuine laugh at such drollery.

  We paused before a final heavy door and were admitted by guards into the innermost section, the retreat of the Council and the Warlord’s family.

  The huge room, which appeared to be as large as Starhall, was dominated by a spherical tank some ten feet in diameter. I did not have the chance to examine it because Stannall approached us from one of the cubicles beyond. He bowed gravely to Ferrill, glanced at me curiously and clasped Jokan’s arm in welcome.

  “Sir Ferrill, your quarters are prepared in Room Seven. I regret you must share them with your attendants and your brother Fernan but . . .”

  Ferrill shrugged off the inconvenience and excused himself. He rested more heavily on his helpers although he had moved along the public corridors with a semblance of vigor.

  “I had not expected the Lady Sara,” Stannall said severely.

  “Lord Harlan has claimed the Lady Sara in my presence,” Jokan said bluntly. “I have, here, an alternate commission of Regency,” and Jokan handed over the slates to Stannall, “as well as Harlan’s official record of claim and acceptance.”

  The First Councilman glanced quickly through both, scowling at me again with intense irritation.

  “Very well,” Stannall acknowledged sourly.

  “You mean my appointment as Regent,” Jokan said pointedly.

  “No, of course not. I approve of that heartily.” He looked up, conscious of Jokan’s stare. I had not exactly expected Jokan to come to my defense, particularly against Stannall, so his attitude was very reassuring. “My congratulations, Lady Sara. I know the Lady Fara will be glad to see you.”

  “Did Maxil . . .” Jokan began.

  “Fara accepted the honor,” Stannall said quickly.

  “Congratulations all around then,” Jokan said with a wry smile.

  “Maxil claimed Fara?” I repeated, hoping that at least one area of irritation might be erased between Stannall and me.

  “Thank the mother of us all for that,” Jokan muttered. “Room Four?” he asked and when Stannall nodded, he drew me off to the side where I saw numbered doors, closed against the noise of the main room.

  “There is much for me to order, Lady Sara,” Jokan said, opening the door for me.

  “And I am tired.”

  A droning voice muttering unintelligible syllables in a room beyond penetrated my sleep and woke me, startled, in an unfamiliar darkness. Frightened, I lay still until the mounds of deeper shadow became distinguishable as Fara, Linnana and two empty beds.

  The drone continued and I had been so startled on awakening that my ability to sleep was gone. I rose and stumbled across to the bathroom.

  The lights of the main hall and the muted conversations that blended under the theme of the droning voice were a shock after the dim quiet of the sleeping room. I stood in the doorway, looking over the bustle for Jokan or Ferrill. Stannall was standing in front of the cubicle that was his office, his slight body slumped with weariness. While he talked to a Councilman, his eyes were fixed on the space tank and the measured tread of the blips within it. There were few in the room who did not glance frequently at the tank, frequently and apprehensively.

  I located the drone as issuing from one of the twelve big screens at the top of the room. A communications man was talking, calling off sector units and parsec figures. In turn, clerks noted down these figures at tables that circled the screen and tank area. From the other big hall messengers came and went, officials in patrol uniform or Council robes met and conversed quietly in the linking corridor. Their voices were pitched lower than that continuous drone.

  Jokan came striding down the corridor and up to Stannall. Ferrill, walking slowly from Stannall’s office, joined them. The Councilman who had been talking to Stannall bowed and moved away. Jokan was arguing and Stannall was objecting, shaking his head dubiously. Ferrill added a sentence and Stannall regarded the ex-Warlord with a long scowl. The three of them moved over to the tank and Jokan pointed, scribing a circle with his hands and indicating its position in the spatial reference. A messenger came up and handed Jokan a slate. This had a bearing on his argument because he pointed out several lines for Stannall to read. The First Councilman shrugged, shook his head again. When Ferrill added his comment, Stannall lifted both arms in a gesture of exasperation. Jokan bowed formally and went to the main communication screen, one that looked in on the giant refitted Mil ship that was Harlan’s command vessel.

  My attention was abruptly diverted from Jokan by a touch on my arm. To my concern, I saw Monsorlit standing beside me, regarding me with a cold impersonal interest tinged with some private amusement.

  “Lady Sara,” he said, making a mockery of the title with a flick of his eyes, “for a moron, you’ve made remarkable conquests. I’ve reread your dossier and find it fascinating.”

  “Moron? I’m no moron,” I said with all the disdain I could muster. I turned from him, but his hand, as cold as his expression and as strong as his personality, closed round my wrist.

  “As I was saying, I have examined your history and I find it differs considerably from the public version of your origin.”

  “Against Harlan’s word, what can you prove?” I demanded.

  He smiled blandly, his eyes wandering over my face and body with clinical dispassion.

  “Against Harlan’s word, I have the facts and witnesses. Facts that would prove extremely interesting to the First Councilman, to young Maxil. And, certainly to Harlan himself, unless you are more
of an innocent than you appear.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I gasped, trying to twist my hand free.

  He looked down at my wrist, holding it up and stroking it with his thumb. Then he glanced suggestively into my face. I had no strength to hide the shock that gesture gave me.

  The smile which was no smile cut across his thin face.

  “You are unique, Lady Sara. Absolutely unique and as a serious scientist, I cannot allow the originality to go unremarked. I intend to have you back in the Clinic and I give you warning. You may come of your own free will, explaining your request to your protector any way you wish. Or, I will force you to come, by edict of the Council. I doubt you like that alternative.”

  “Physician,” said Ferrill’s soft voice at my side. Monsorlit looked up and bowed to the invalid.

  “Do not overexert yourself in this excitement, Sir Ferrill,” Monsorlit advised sternly.

  “Exert myself? Oh, not likely. I have accepted the role of passive observer. That requires no exertion at all.”

  So saying, Ferrill neatly turned me away from Monsorlit and guided me toward an unused table in the dining area. He motioned me to sit and gave an order for hot drinks to the servant who appeared.

  “Why does Monsorlit terrify you?” he asked quietly, his eyes slightly narrowed.

  “He’s . . . he’s so cold,” I blurted out, still trembling with the shock of the encounter.

  Ferrill’s eyebrows raised questioningly but, at this moment, the waiter returned. I drank hastily, the comfort of the warm beverage dissipating my inner chill. When I raised my eyes over my cup, Ferrill was regarding me with curious intentness. He reached over and lifted my right hand, turned it over and rubbed one finger across my wrist. I jerked my hand away and sat staring at Ferrill in a sort of helpless horror.

  Ferrill smiled to himself and then included me in that smile.

  “Lady Sara,” he began with a rueful grin, “for the short time you have been in our circle, you have managed to elicit an amazing amount of talk. You succeed in antagonizing one of the most powerful men on the planet for some obscure reason and you stand in petrified terror before our leading scientist. You appear out of nowhere in Maxil’s keeping, deliver me from evil, and now I understand that our noble Regent, who has kept remote from all permanent entanglements, has claimed you as his lady.” He shook his head in mock consternation. “I can dismiss a good ninety percent of the talk about you as the fabrications of envy. I have a good idea of the basis for the antagonism, but I am at a complete loss to explain the terror.”

  I did not trust myself to answer him. Instead, I pulled out the slate Harlan had given me for him and thrust it across the table. Ferrill took it with a brief glance at the outer inscription and shoved it into his belt.

  “Surely it’s not restoration that makes you fear Monsorlit. The punishment is the same for the operator as the victim.”

  I looked nervously around to reassure myself no one could overhear us.

  “As I told Monsorlit,” Ferrill continued, “I am merely an interested bystander. I consider myself qualified to make all kinds of deep, penetrating observations which, to project my new image, I like to think are acute and perceptive. I have had much time for passive reflection, you know.

  “Monsorlit is a great artist, a genius in his field. He is interested in achieving perfection, to which I say ‘well done.’ But he must have allowed himself to be carried away with his zeal, if he can be said ever to be carried away by anything.” Ferrill’s grin was a bit malicious. “For he neglected one axiom of nature . . . which prohibits her from duplicating anything . . . even two sides of the same face.” He stopped and, narrowing his eyes, stared keenly at me. Pointing negligently to my wrists, he continued, “He was exceptionally deft in disguising the graft joints. I gather he has done a great deal of work on that crucial spot. But he made your features too symmetrical. If a mirror were handy, I could easily prove that both sides of your face are the same, except for your eyes. The left one droops a trifle at the outside edge. I wonder if that irked him in his search for perfection,” and Ferrill chuckled. “However, if he had been able to change that, I do believe he would have ruined the total effect. That slight imperfection gives your face a touch of humanity it would otherwise lack.”

  I wasn’t sure I understood all he was talking about. His tone was so light, so conversational, that his disclosures were robbed of their gravity.

  “Still,” and he frowned thoughtfully, “I doubt anyone has the time for the close scrutiny my conclusions require. And, since Monsorlit has conveniently done away with the one weak spot, the one detectable, unmistakable weakness in a total restoration, what do you have to fear?

  “I should say he has proved his point. And Monsorlit doesn’t care for the approbation of the multitude as long as he has satisfied his own curiosity. As you know, he has always maintained that restoration itself did not cause mental vegetation. As he expresses it,” and Ferrill evidently did not agree completely with the theory, “it is our ancient fear and superstition that breaks the mind. He says we had so many centuries of passive acceptance of death under the godlike Mil that a man unconsciously wills himself to die when he is captured, whether his body dies or not.”

  His words began to make some reassuring sense to me and I started to relax. After all, Harlan had said that Ferrill was the only one who would or could understand and help me. Had he guessed that Ferrill knew I had been restored? At least, Ferrill did not regard me with horror and revulsion. I sipped my cup and the warm liquid ran down my throat, spreading its comfort to my fingers.

  “That’s better,” Ferrill said with a grin. I realized he had been talking as much to put me at ease as to tell me of his theories.

  “I gather,” he continued, smiling, “Monsorlit’s new techniques of shock treatments worked on you to bring you out of the mental death. You certainly are a far cry from the ghastly parodies that gave restoration its death sentence. I shall suggest to Harlan that he repeal that law quietly if you’re the result of the latest techniques of restoration. Or should I say ‘repossession’?” Ferrill’s smile mocked the semantic hairsplitting. “So you see, you don’t have anything to fear from Monsorlit. Anything.”

  “But I do,” I protested. “He wants me to go back to that horrible Clinic of his. He said he’d make me if I didn’t come willingly.”

  “He can do nothing to you,” Ferrill said blithely. “For one thing . . . well, Harlan knows you’ve been restored, doesn’t he? Well, he won’t permit it.”

  “But . . . if Harlan doesn’t . . .” I stammered and couldn’t finish the sentence.

  Ferrill tapped his chest with a thin finger. “Then I won’t let you go back. Oh, I may be a frail invalid, my dear, but I am still Ferrill,” he announced, his voice ringing.

  “I’m so terribly sorry . . .” I began but Ferrill waggled an admonishing finger to silence me.

  “At the risk of repetition, I owe you my life, Lady Sara, or whatever is left of it. Besides, I wouldn’t be very good at that sort of thing,” and his gesture indicated the spatial tank. “Now, Maxil, as is the habit of younger brothers, has always been a scrapper. You never saw a boy keener on spaceships. Right now, if he isn’t free-fall sick, he’s having the time of his life. By the way, there’s Harlan on the screen now.”

  I rose hastily, peering over the obstructing partition for the best view of Harlan. I ignored Ferrill’s chuckle.

  Harlan was addressing his remarks to Stannall, Jokan and the elder Councilmen, continuing an argument that must have been going on for several minutes.

  “Sir,” said Harlan, stressing the title as one whose patience is also stressed, “I know it hasn’t been tried before. But neither have we had the equipment or the emergency. I insist, and so do my commanders, that the gamble is worth the game. We are fortunate that so many of our ships were equipped with the electromagnetic crystals during my disability. We may thank Gorlot for that at least,” and Harlan permitted h
imself a wry smile at the shocked distaste occasioned by his remark.

  “That is enough to make me distrust that innovation completely,” Stannall said stiffly, looking for agreement among his fellow Councilmen. Several of them sided with him by their nods of disapproval.

  “You forget, sir,” Jokan put in, defending a system he had developed, “that it was Harlan’s innovation, a development of war research under my guidance. And you forget that it was Fathor who thought the Ertoi planetary defense mechanism might be adapted to shipborne armament. Gorlot was at least strategist enough to recognize its value as a weapon when no one else considered it more than a toy.”

  “Sir Harlan,” expostulated Lesatin pompously, “a decision of this magnitude cannot be made in so off-hand a manner.”

  “By my Clan Mother,” Harlan exploded, “your own committee of specialists approved the installation of the magnetos two years ago, Lesatin. Why all this time-consuming chatter? I’ve not asked for your decision. I’ve already made it for you. I’m telling you what I’m going to do. The battle plan remains as I have outlined it.”

  “The responsibility,” Stannall said forcefully, “of the people lies on our shoulders, too, not yours alone. Your disregard of time-proved successful action . . .”

  “Time-proved in the jetwash,” snapped Harlan impatiently, “life-wasting, you mean. The resonant phenomenon produced by the electromagnets can crush the Mil with greater personnel safety, less risk and loss of ships and lives than any improvement in our battle tactics since we refitted the first Star-class ship. By all that lies in the stars, I will use the resonant barrage if we have to form before Lothar itself.

  “What you grandly ignore, good sirs, in your preference for these time-proved orthodox methods is the plain and simple fact that we’ve never had such a concentration of Mil against us. You ignore the recorded facts that it takes the concerted action and an eighty-five percent casualty of twenty ships to disable . . . with luck . . . a Star-class vessel. We have fifteen out there in the black speeding toward our puny four Stars. And whether we form before Lothar or at the first circle of defense, the casualties from your ‘time-proved tactics’ will be the same.”