The World Wreckers

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Regis did not long leave them in doubt about why he had called them together. After rehearsing a few of the known problems, and begging them to cooperate in the Terran-sponsored program to measure their gifts and train those which were latent, he broke off the formal speech and stepped down from the high platform from which he had spoken.

  David had been in contact with him often enough to sense his complete dedication, but he had never before thought of Regis as much of a leader. Always before Regis had seemed to him a quiet, rather diffident youngster, pushed reluctantly into a position of power and not enjoying it. Regis was not especially tall, even for a Darkovan-they were not a particularly tall race. He was about five foot nine, and although his features were fine, the snow-white hair lending them a steel-toned distinction, he would not of himself have drawn all eyes. But now, as he spoke, David sensed that he was drawing on some force which seemed above and beyond his own personality.

  ""Our world is in the hands of wreckers," he said, "and I cannot even urge you to seek help from the Terrans. It might be better to die our own way than to live in theirs. But I do not believe these are our only alternatives. We are something quite unusual among the hundred thousands of inhabited worlds; and we must keep what we have.

  "Our traditional ways and governments have been broken up, and nothing has emerged to take their place. The Terran Empire is all too ready to step into this vacuum.

  "The Comyn and the Comyn Council, our old hierarchy, are gone. I am going to ask you all to join with me in forming a new council; a council which will not rule Darkover, but which will lead it and work to restore it.

  "For hundreds of years, those of you who, like myself, were born into telepath families and castes have had the tradition of spending your gifts for the good of our world as a whole. You have sacrificed yourselves and lived in isolation, working with the screens and matrices to give us such small technology as we have. And those of you born into other families and castes have been considered outcasts, freaks, strange and uncanny, both revered and feared.

  "I ask you to join together: Comyn and commoner, peasant and lord, Free Amazon and stranger, valley man and mountain man. I ask you to spend yourselves further for our people. And for the time being, I ask you to lend your gifts to the Terrans in return for the help we need to rebuild our world. But in return I guarantee that we will never become just another of the lockstep worlds of the Empire. Maybe we can be the leaven in their dough. Maybe, when they find that they cannot remake us in their image, they will find that they remake themselves more like us.

  "Will you give me all your help?"

  He stood silent, and for a moment there was no answer.

  It was not needed. It was like a visible storm in the room, as every man and woman there rose physically to his feet and David found himself locked into the sudden and incredible joining.

  There were superficial differences; there would even be hostilities. But at this moment they were all united; and David knew that never in the history of the known universe had anyone led such a united group with such a single mind.

  He didn't know how they would meet the problems their world faced. But he'd bet on them to solve them-and he knew in that blinding moment of revelation that he would be a part of the answer.

  The winter wore away, day by slow day, while Andrea Closson studied her plans, listened to her spies and cogitated the final act which would leave this planet defenseless. Once or twice she thought that she could hardly have planned it better, all the remaining telepaths coming together into the Comyn Castle; it was as if, in some lemming rush, they had hastened to put themselves into her hands.

  The few who remained, old, insignificant, ill or trapped in isolated districts, they did not count; even the few young pregnant women who remained away. Nevertheless, without realizing it she was relieved, for she had an irrational prejudice against killing a woman with child, and this eliminated the need. Regis Hastur, who, when her assassins were still on this planet, had been her prime target, was rumored in the city to have another mistress. Andrea had never seen Regis Hastur, but she felt a vague admiration for him; he had thwarted so many attacks. Well, let him enjoy such time as was left to him and his people, in peace. The few who remained after her last act would be too few and too feeble to rebuild their kind; in another generation they would be no more than a memory and a few isolated throwbacks.

  Working through a few agents (like most Trade Cities, you can buy anything in the main spaceport of Darkover if you have the price) she had managed to secure the materials she wanted. One night toward spring, she heard the news she was waiting for: "It's one of their special Festivals," the man told her, "and all of them, including the telepaths they've brought in from offworld on this special HQ Medic project-ten or fifteen of them by now-will be up in the castle that night. It's some kind of dance-to celebrate the spring thaw, or the first green leaves, or something like that. I don't know why they're taking time off to hold a dance at this time of year with all they've got on their minds, but I guess I'll never understand Darkovans."

  "How reliable is this information?" Andrea asked. "It's as straight as a computer readout," the man assured her. "One of the chaps in the telepath project is a great gambler. I can get his tongue loose if he wins-and I make sure he wins."

  "Fool," Andrea said dispassionately, "if he's a telepath he probably knows you're picking his brains."

  "Whether he knows or not, he doesn't give a damn," the spy retorted. "I don't know what you're plotting, or planning, if anything, so he couldn't read much. So what if he knows I don't mean them any good. I'm no telepath, but I don't need to be, to know that this cat Rondo means them no good either. He's probably delighted to know that I'm reporting back to somebody who doesn't love them."

  Well, the harm was done; but Andrea doubted if anyone, now, would trouble to track down who was behind a single spy. In any case, she doubted if anyone born human could read her thoughts. Certainly not after all these years. (Once, in the forest, when a copper-haired Free Amazon had watched her burying the black virus, she had felt a trace of contact and dismissed it with contempt. And after all, nothing had been done, although a brief check had told her that the Free Amazon had run to some local seeress for a counter-charm. So much for Darkovan telepaths!)

  And if they read her mind too late-well, it would be too late. She never let it come up to the surface of her mind that

  after this final act she had not bothered to plan her own escape. (What for?)

  Her excuse was simple. There was no one else she could trust to know her plans, or the telepaths would pick up the knowledge from his mind.

  So that it would be her own act and another race would die. Like her own. Without knowing it, David echoed the very words of Andrea's spy: "I don't know why, with all they have on their minds, they're taking time off for a dance tonight!" Jason chuckled. "When you've been on Darkover a few years longer, you'll understand it." It was taken for granted by them both now, David thought, that he was committed for Me to this world. "Dancing is a big thing here. Get three Darkovans together anywhere and they hold a dance." Regis said, "It's a primary study. I think it goes back into prehistory; perhaps rising out of old folk festivals at the eclipses; I don't know. It's the one exclusively human activity; there is a parallel for every other human thing in some lower animal, even music-the birds sing, and even some insects make artistic patterns. But there is an old poem which states it: only men laugh, only men weep and only men dance." He was resplendent in a jeweled costume of blue and silver; Linnea, at his side, was covered with pink flowers, some real and some artificial. He smiled kindly at David and asked Keral, beside him, "Do the chieri dance?"

  "They do," said Keral softly, "in the forests-in sun or moonlight-in ecstasy."

  David, as always, sensitive to Keral's moods, thought that Keral was near the edge of ecstasy himself. Although he normally avoided crowds, tonight he had dressed himself in his own garments-a curious long tunic of shimmery fa
bric which he said was woven of spider's silk-and joined them. The Change was complete in Keral now, and to David he seemed lovelier than Missy had ever been; but tonight there seemed a positive glow, a visible light and shimmer around the chieri.

  Behind them, the lighted ballroom was aglow with a thousand sparkles, crowded with men and women in brilliant costumes, hair of every shade of red. There was soft music with quiet, well-marked rhythm, but Regis turned his back on it all and walked across the dark garden. He looked up into the sky at the four floating moons. He looked round again, at the pale gleam of Keral's moonlit hair; at Conner's face, a mere blur against the dark.

  Conner said, "You know I have one of those 'out of focus* time things. Watch it, Regis; something's going to go wrong tonight. I was just there for a minute and felt it, but I can't control it." Regis said slowly, "I don't sense anything, but precognition isn't a Hastur talent. What was it like, Conner?"

  He ridged his brow with effort "I can't completely control it," he said. "I'm not sure. Like-like fireworks."

  "Maybe it's the past you sense and not the future. This castle has a long and sometimes a bloody history, my dear friend."

  "Maybe." Conner looked troubled though and reached in the darkness for Missy's hand. Regis watched as they moved away. Missy's fantastic beauty had never come back, but from what Keral said about the chieri, in general, there was time for that. Much more time than Conner had. Lifetimes. But Conner was content with her as she was.

  David, returning to the lighted ballroom, stood at the side -dancing was something he knew little about-watching the intricate patterns: couples, groups, long chains of people, an occasional sudden solo dancer emerging from the group. It was like watching the flight of brilliantly colored birds. Regis and Linnea briefly emerged from the group, dancing entwined, and the love between them was like a palpable awareness. Not that the dance held any note of eroticism, and yet an essence of sexuality wove like a line of light between them, and he sensed that in some curious way

  they were actually flaunting it. He thought, with some amusement, that since he had come to Darkover he had spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about other people's sex life. Well, sex was pretty basic. After all, most people spent a lot of time thinking about it. On Darkover- or at least among telepaths-it simply wasn't possible to keep it out of casual conversations and encounters. It made little sense to treat a girl as if you were uninterested when she was just as conscious of your undercover feelings as of her own. He wondered if that was why the telepaths had created what seemed a very elaborate code of almost ritual politeness-for instance, never staring deliberately at a young girl; perhaps a way of emphasizing, "I am a sexual creature and I respond to you, but I emphasize that I await your response and consent." It had evidently, from what he knew of Darkovan manners in general, filtered down to groups which were not telepathic at all, and he wondered what rationalizations they had developed to account for it. He knew that dueling was common on Darkover-to compensate for the inability to conceal hostility? A backlash against painful empathy? Or a way of asserting cock-of-the-walk masculinity?

  Keral reached for David's hand, and David clasped it in his own, with the never-failing awareness of response, empathy. Keral seemed even more joyous than usual tonight, the gray eyes seeming mad with merriment, his color higher than David had ever seen it, a positive radiance of glow and joyousness. His silky hair, very long, shoulder length and more, seemed to catch the light breezes and blow in an invisible current no greater than that which made the lights dance and sway. David said, "You look happy, Keral," and realized that the words were inadequate.

  "I am. Do you remember what I said to you, the first time we were together-/ want to laugh, to sing, to fly?"

  "I remember; how could I forget?"

  "I am even more happy now. Don't ask me why, not now, not here. I will tell you very soon. But now-here-" He threw back his head and stood there in an attitude of intent, close listening intensity. It seemed that he heard some sound, some voice from nowhere; rapt, ecstatic. Then he raised his arms, stood swaying for a moment like a tall flower stem swayed by the invisible breeze of the music, and began to dance.

  David, watching, felt the music drop away into silence, or perhaps he no longer heard it. He was only conscious of Keral, first like a drifting leaf borne on the currents, then whirling into a mad dance of ecstasy. It was the frail and sensitive Linnea who caught the contagion first, breaking away and whirling across the floor behind him; and after her, first by twos and threes and then by tens and dozens, like some mad flight of birds wheeling, dipping, circling and rising. David, his whole awareness swept up into the dance, saw, at the edge of his consciousness, Conner flinging himself into the flooding movement, saw Desideria moving lightly, drifting with her delicate draperies afloat; then his own separate awareness drifted away in a rising tide that broke over his head and swept him out into the moving flood of his own people.

  Rise and fall, drift and circle and whirl on the invisible tides of the world; the force of flooding spring in the heart and soul. The currents of moonlight an invisible magnet that drew them, whirling and surging, through the great doors and out into the cool misty garden. David, his feet treading the measure in rhythm with the others, felt the cool air on his face, and in a split second of brief, amazed, sane self-awareness, wondered, what are we all doing; and then the thought was swept away again in the pull of flooding moonlight, shared consciousness, dizzy motion of sheer joy for its own sake. It was vaguely like swimming underwater, with a blind unfocused pressure pulling him along on its own swift current, and he surrendered to it, seeing with scraps of awareness little instantaneous fragments of beauty; Keral's hair silvered by moonlight, his rapt face upturned and almost wholly inhuman; Missy, blown like a circling leaf; Conner, drawn volitionless on a blind tide; Regis, moving slowly with his eyes closed and yet somehow resembling an arrow in flight. And then David was swept away from his friends and into the center of the spinning ecstasy, whirled faster and faster into the rising vortex of awareness. He moved in a dream, but his body was wholly alive and aware of the joyous freedom of motion, the pull of the tides of moons and sea, each separate moon a different living tingle in his nerves. Each star in the luminous sky seemed a separate living thing, exerting its own pull on his brain; and each of the separate dancers in the crowd was a different force, a separate feel. With infinitely extended senses, like long streamers of cobweb brilliance, almost palpable in the thin and scented air, he touched each individual one of them, feeling their uniqueness, their own special joy.

  And more. And more. The spring leaves bursting bravely and unseen throughout the ruined land. The mosses unfolding under the snow. The quiet and secret life of birds here in the garden and far away in the hills and forests; the fierce prowling of the nonhuman catmen on the hills, driven by hunger and fear; the rising sap in the blood of beasts driven by tides and currents to race fiercely in mating; everywhere, everywhere, all things reawakening, rising, flooding into spring and rebirth and a new world. Far away in the forests, without knowing how, in a vividness past picturing, David saw them; the old kindred, tall and still and old and wise beyond knowing, with their grave gray beautiful eyes like Keral's, and their long flowing hair, and the ageless sureness in their hearts, resigned to the long slow fall of their last autumn, suddenly sensing the new spring and rebirth and knew that they, too, wheeled and danced in the overwhelming awareness of returning life and spring and a world reborn.

  (And somewhere in a high hidden vantage point above the garden, Andrea too saw the madness of the dance whirl through the red-headed ones and even through senses blunted for centuries, felt the old madness of surging life and renewal, and stood paralyzed, caught up, anguished, with old throbbings beating through her life and battering at closed and agonizing doors. Caught in an anguish beyond endurance, clamped in fearful agony of remembrance and grief, she stood frozen, her eyes burning in silent and outflooding fury. ...)

  The
surging, flooding beat of the invisible music, the very life of the planet, the magnetic currents of the spring itself, beat in them all, wakening them to the total ecstasy of the world. Even the dying felt the call, life struggling and surging to reestablish itself through the prevalence of death and ruin on a planet struggling helplessly for survival. It was Regis in whom the surge of renewed life first reached explosive force of need; sudden, dark and mindless, it surged through him and he reached out, still blinded with the surging life of the gathering dance, and drew the girl at his side into his arms. Together, they sank down into the soft grass.

  And then, spun away one by one from the wheeling dance of life, they moved together, sinking down in twos and threes. David, feeling the waves crest within him, breaking over his head, blind and dizzied with the madness of life, felt hands on his body, a whisper, was blindly conscious of an exquisite girl face surrounded by masses of flaming hair. He felt himself drop out of the dance, sink into her arms. He was almost wholly unaware of movements or how it happened, but within what seemed seconds they were lying close together, naked on the warm moon-flooded grass. It was like madness, with the damp scent of flowers all around them both, and all around them in the night the sounds of love; kisses, murmurs, the final dropping down of the last dancers into silent groups, hot plunging fierceness, cries of supplication, hunger, content. He was caught up unknowing, moving in a blind and deaf need with the delicate strength of the girl body in his arms.