She touched rudimentary sensitivity at once from the tall Free Amazon with braided red hair (a telepath? neutered? Linnea, celibate by harsh necessity like all Keepers, felt the faint shock of revulsion for the sexless being) and it made her voice cold:
"What urgent necessity brings you here to the world's end, my countrywoman?"
It was the younger woman who looked up and spoke, a quietly pretty, plumpish girl wrapped in the furs of the hill people. She said, "Lady Linnea, I knew you as a child at High Windward, I am Menella of the Naderling Forst. This is my freemate Darilyn, and we are here because-" shyness overcame her, and she looked up in open appeal at the taller, red-haired Amazon. Darilyn said in a flat, abrupt, cold voice, "We should not have disturbed you, leronis, but there was no other person who would understand or believe us. You know what I am." She raised her gray eyes briefly, almost in defiance, to Linnea's, and the quickly-barricaded touch of recognition passed between them. Like you, I live shielded, Sorceress. Because of what I am, guarded against man's touch: vulnerable, like all our fast-fading kind.
Linnea lowered her eyes; the condemnation in them was gone. Linnea had been born into a noble family; had she chosen not to work in the Towers as a telepath Keeper, she could have been given in marriage to a man of her own kind; one who could equal her own sensitivity, a fellow telepath. Darilyn, born into a village, growing up surrounded (a freak; a throwback) by those who could neither understand nor respect what she was, had chosen to have her womanhood destroyed by the neutering operation rather than subject it to a man who would be, to her, only a dumb beast.
Linnea's voice was gentle as she said, "Be welcome, countrywomen. My discourtesy was born of weariness, no more. Has refreshment been offered you? Is it well in the hills of our homeland, Menella?"
"It is as evil as can be, vai leronis," Menella said. "But we did not come to tell you a twice-told tale. You know that fire and hunger have ravaged us. Darilyn, tell her what you saw."
Darilyn, outwardly composed, was wretchedly nervous. She stated, "My freemate and I recently traveled with an out world woman, not a Free Amazon, though she behaved much like one of us. She had contracted for our service as guides and hunters through the mountains. She was strange, like a Keeper who had lost her powers, but outworlders are all mad and we were not surprised at that. I could read her thoughts a little; she did not trouble to hide them and so I thought she had nothing to hide." Suddenly, Darilyn began to tremble.
"She was evil," she said with utter conviction. "She passed the blighted forests, and she looked at them as if her own hand had set them to flaming. She looked on me, and I knew that with her will all of our kind would die. And once I saw her from far off, burying a charm in the woods, and I knew that by her will, the soil would be blighted and die. I know this is madness, Linnea. I learned before my breasts grew that there were no witches and that evil will harmed no one any more than good intentions helped. Yet I cannot help it; I know that this woman's evil will would kill our world. It is a riddle I cannot read, vai leronis, and none in our world can read it if a Keeper cannot."
Linnea said, "This is superstition and folly." And yet her voice weakened and died. A plot against our world? What had Regis said?
The work of a witch? Impossible. Yet were these girls saying, in the light of their limited understanding, a truth? Truth, or at least that they believed it implicitly, was in every line of their stubborn, boyish faces. In any case, no Darkovan would he to a Keeper. This conviction made her voice gentle as she said, "I do not see how what you say can be, and yet you must have seen something to make for such a belief. Have you left this woman's service?"
"Not yet, Lady. As we passed near Arilinn we told her we must pay you our respects and she thought nothing of it."
Linnea spoke decisively. "I will look into it. You know I must have something belonging to her."
"I cut a piece from her garments without being seen," said Menella, and Linnea could have laughed at the odd contrast of superstitious fear and practicality. Everyone knew that without something belonging to a person or at least in contact with that person, it was difficult to pick up the vibration of the person's thoughts. Yet they had thought the stranger a witch?
She dismissed further talk of the stranger, offered them refreshment, talked the amenities of their shared childhood for a further half hour before sending them away. Yet all during that time, while she listened to the disturbing news from their homeland, a coldness was growing at her heart. Regis Hastur had seen this.
A plot. But why? From whom? Had these girls seen to the core of it?
She must somehow find out.
But at her heart there was a single-minded hunger. Regis knew so much more about these things. Was she only making excuses for herself to see him again? For she knew she must take this to him.
Regis. . ..Linnea! My dear one, where are you (so far from me, so near) - At Arilinn, but 1 must come there, even if it means closing all the relays; it's that important. Beloved, what is it? (You are frightened. Can I share your fears?)
Not this way, where anyone open to us can overhear. (Not only frightened but in terror for our world and all our people.)
Linnea, I can send a Terran aircraft for you if you are not afraid to ride in it, and if you can face the anger of the others. (I long for you here; I could see you this very night, but for myself I would never ask it.) I am not afraid (to see you again 1 would face more than anger but not for my own sake) and I must tell you what I have learned.
Regis let the contact drop away and sighed, feeling his many fears and problems overwhelm him again after the brief respite. He was eager to see Linnea again, but the fear he had sensed in her thoughts came near to pulling the switch on his panic. Furthermore, he was exhausted with the terrible hunger and depletion from maintaining contact over such distances. This was something they should study in the Terran project, he thought, the physical depletion which came after prolonged contact or contact over longer distances. At the back of his mind, too, was another thought; direct contact all the way from Arilinn, more than a thousand miles, would hardly be possible for most of the telepaths on this world; Linnea must, indeed, have more extraordinary powers than he had believed. Most of the Keepers in these days, when powers were depleted and ill-trained, would have gone through the two intermediate relays between here and Arilinn, not even trying to come through to him in person. It was a mark of Linnea's panic that she had attempted the long distance contact without intermediates, and a mark of her power that she had succeeded even for these few seconds.
He knew there would be no questions asked if he requested the Terran authorities to dispatch a plane to Arilinn; and there were not, but he worried nevertheless while he was making the arrangements. This would mean criticism again, for himself and for Linnea; not from the Terrans (they were eager to put the Hasturs under obligations, damn them!) but from their own people. Damned by the one party for having anything at all to do with the Terrans; damned by the others for not having more to do with them. Just damned.
He had, at this minute, another appalling problem and was facing an uncomfortable interview. He shrank from going toward the Terran HQ hospital, even though he knew that most of what he would meet there would be good-natured. There was the problem of Missy. Where had she gone? Darkover spaceport was a big one, the Trade City enormous; and it had closed over her head as if she had never been there at all. He knew rationally that she would seek anonymity, not trouble, but still the fear nagged at him.
And then there was the more personal problem. He lingered in the hospital corridors, braving the curious glances of the passing nurses and doctors who wondered (some of them; the others knew all too well) what a man in the dress of Darkovan nobility was doing there.
He finally knocked at the door of the Project A Tele-path offices, hoping it would put off the other visit a bit longer. Jason and David were both there; and Keral, who had taken to spending much of his time around the hospital, picking up much of wh
at they were doing; Regis had been astonished at the swiftness with which the chieri had absorbed the technical knowledge he apparently desired.
Jason's hearty smile, friendly though it was, made Regis wince a little as the Terran said, "Regis! A pleasure to see you, though I didn't think you'd have time for us this morning! Dr. Shield told me congratulations are in order. A fine boy, I understand, six pounds and perfectly healthy."
Regis said, "I was going to visit Melora and the child now-if she will see me. She must be very angry; she sent me no message."
"You couldn't have done anything here," David said, "why should you lose your sleep? She was perfectly well looked after; I've met Marian Shield, and she seems to be as good an O.B. as is working on this world."
"I'm sure she was taken care of, and I'm grateful to all of you," Regis said. "But the very fact that she did not have me told-"
He caught David's eyes and saw a flash of quick understanding in them.
-A woman who loves the man who has fathered her
child, wants him near her at such a time.
"I must go and see Melora, at least," Regis said. "Has there been any word of Missy?"
"Not a syllable, Regis," Jason answered. "They'll stop her if she tries to leave the planet, of course, but short of that-well, you have a damn big world out there and evidently she's used to running and hiding."
One of my people; fugitive!
Keral's thoughts were almost palpable, and Regis felt the obscure wish to offer some comfort, without knowing how. He saw David reach out, without a word, for Keral's hand, and their clasped hands filled him with curious half-sorrow; as if he had, somehow, lost something precious without ever realizing that he had it until it was forever beyond his reach.
He shook his head, dismissing the thought. Absurdities! Then a flicker of comfort struck him; Linnea would soon be here, and even though this might complicate matters still further with Melora (she was sure to decide that Linnea was here at Regis' personal wish) he simply did not care.
Keral said unexpectedly, "I have never seen a newborn human child. May I come and see your son, Regis?"
"Of course; I'm always glad to show off my children,"
Regis said. David decided to come too, and they went up through the hospital corridors, the tall slight chieri provoking curious glances; but here in the hospital HQ the curiosity was friendly; many of them had seen and spoken to Keral now, and he was simply another alien, not an unheard-of curiosity.
Melora had been put in a private room at a corner wing with a window looking on the mountains, a room often kept for important Darkovan guest-patients, and a Darkovan midwife and nurse from her own estates had been permitted to attend her. She was sitting up in a chair, wearing a long, fleecy blue robe, her cheeks faintly flushed. She was a pretty girl, auburn-haired, gray-eyed, tall and dignified; and at the moment, with her long hair braided and falling over her shoulders, she looked hardly more than a child herself. Regis' eyes went swiftly, with the old fear, to the small, screened crib where the baby was lying (no more than a small red face asleep in a white hospital blanket) but he quickly brought his attention back to Melora, gesturing to her not to rise, bending and kissing her cheek. "He is lovely, Melora. Thank you. If I had known I would have been here with you."
"There was nothing you could have done, and I was very well cared for," answered the girl coolly, turning her cheek away from the kiss. The tension in the room was palpable; the three facing her, all telepaths of greater or lesser power, could all feel her anger. Regis knew suddenly that he had been cowardly to let the others come in the hope that Melora would not make a scene before outsiders; she had been distressed at the need to bear her child in this strange place; she did not understand why Regis had demanded it of her; and she was (Regis realized) entitled to make a scene if she wanted to, unhampered by outsiders.
Keral created a small diversion by going to the baby; Melora gave a small cry as the stranger bent over her child; then as Keral's beautiful eyes turned to her, she relaxed. She actually smiled at the chieri, saying, "Yes, take him if you like, Noble One; you lend us grace."
Keral picked up the infant. His long hands slipped competently around the little swaddled body, as if he were quite accustomed to handling children, although David, watching him, knew without knowing how that Keral had never seen or touched a young baby before. Keral's smile was curiously distant, fascinated. "His thoughts are so strange and formless. And yet how different it feels from touching a small animal."
David privately thought the baby looked like any other newborn thing, small and nondescript, but he knew that this was born of the cultivated cynicism of the medical student. He tried for an instant to see the child through Keral's eyes, a small wonder, a miracle of newness. It was too intense; he dropped away from the contact and said to Regis, "What will you call him?"
"That will be for Melora to say," said Regis, smiling at the young mother, "unless she asks me to give him a name."
Melora's face softened and she laid her hand in Regis'. "You may if you like," she said, and David touched Keral's shoulder. Keral put the baby down quietly and they went out, leaving the young parents alone with their child.
David thought, later, that it was this moment of contact with the child and with Regis which sensitized him; but at the time he let it drop from consciousness and spent the day with the remaining members of the project. Rondo was sullen and uncooperative to attempts to measure his control of small objects, unwilling to discuss his gambling career or how he had managed it, unwilling to attempt manipulation of the test objects Jason and David showed him. Desideria was snappish and seemed apprehensive. Conner had sunk into apathy again and would not even talk, let alone cooperate. David could sense, like a tangible thing, his grief and sense of desertion now that Missy was gone.
Regis was not with them at all, and Danilo, who turned up briefly, made Regis' excuses, on the grounds of urgent private affairs, and took himself off again as well.
In the end, after Rondo had sullenly pleaded fatigue and headache (and David felt that Conner would have done the same if he'd cared even that much about what happened to him) David simply asked Desideria to tell them something about the training of a telepath Keeper, and he sat listening and making, listless notes-pure waste motion, he knew, as it was all being put on tape anyhow.
"We were trained at first with games, like manipulating this stuff-when we were very young, that is," Desideria told them, moving her head at the assembled dice, feathers and other small objects with which David had been trying to arouse Rondo's cooperation. "There were also games where sweets and other things were hidden and we had to find them, and later much more elaborate games where clues were hidden or one group hid from the others. Later there was fairly strenuous physical training of the nerve currents; breathing, concentration, hours and hours spent in breath control and meditation, learning to work both in and out of the physical body. All this before we ever saw a matrix, of course. When we could control all our natural talents, then we began to work with the matrix jewels, the small ones first-"
David reflected that much of this sounded like the old traditional yoga training, still used by some groups of Terrans for religious or health reasons. He put away curiosity until all this could be evaluated at leisure. ,
All during that evening the same sense of dullness, of everything hanging fire, pervaded all of David's senses. Keral was edgily quiet and uncommunicative. He had been assigned to a room in the hospital HQ near David's, and, as they had fallen into a habit of doing, they went to supper together in the cafeteria, but he did not speak a dozen words nor did he offer to come to David's room and talk as usual. Conner, too, seemed not to be speaking to anyone, and while Keral's silence did not worry David, Conner's did. If this apathy continued, would it trigger another suicidal phase in the spaceman? He had come back to life for Missy. If she was gone, would it take away his interest in living? Damn Missy anyhow! But David hardened his heart. He couldn't, and wo
uldn't, take on responsibility for the mental and physical well-being of the whole blasted project! That was Jason's baby and he could rock it.
Nevertheless, it was a long time before David could sleep; he kept having the curious illusion of voices just at the edge of consciousness, in the same way that distant cries or sobs, even after they have ceased, seem to be going on just below the level of hearing, keeping the listener's ears and senses strained and his nerves on edge with the fear of hearing them again.
Nevertheless, he did fall asleep at last, the sort of light sleep where the sleeper knows he is sleeping and is conscious of shuttling back and forth, half aware, from true sleep and dreams into light half-awake drowsing and back again. Two or three times he startled upright with the brief sharp shock of falling, weightless horror, and knew his dreams wove into Conner's; Missy's face, nightmarish and contorted with crying, swam in and out of his dreams; and Keral, his alien hands cradling the small" pink form of the baby and a weird croon of song weaving into the dream.
Abruptly, with a sharper sense of spinning awareness cutting through the dream, he was upright and on his feet, half-dressed, running. . . .
The World Wreckers Page 11
