Exile's Song (19 page)

“Collect folk music?” Linnea sounded bemused. “I must have misunderstood.” Lady Hastur gave her husband a helpless look, as if to say: “I tried, dear.”

She could almost hear them, speaking in one another’s minds, trying to marshal arguments to manage her. She wasn’t having any of that! They could not understand her, and she did not feel she understood them. Her skull throbbed, and her knees ached, and she just wanted to get away.

“We certainly will not force you to stay here,” Danilo said, speaking for the first time since he had offered her wine. There was something in the way he said it that made her think this was not quite true, that he could have forced her to remain if he had chosen to. “However, it would be a good thing for Darkover if you did. You belong here, whether you realize it or not.”

Quite rudely, Margaret looked the paxman directly in the eyes. All she saw was a rather good-looking man somewhere between forty and fifty, with light-colored hair and deep lines along his mouth, as if he had suffered some great tragedy. There was, indeed, a kinship between Danilo’s somber expression and that of her father.
But who was he to speak with such authority?

She found she did not dislike him, but that she mistrusted him deeply. He was clearly devoted to Hastur, and something more. Margaret wondered if he was Regis’ servant or his lover, and was mortified at herself. But she was certain that whatever his position was, Danilo would do anything necessary to protect Regis, even kill for him. “No doubt you believe that, but I don’t.”
I won’t be involved with your local problems!

Margaret could feel waves of incomprehension drifting across her, but she just didn’t care. She knew she could have been more tactful to Lady Hastur and Danilo, but they were not listening to her. They were too involved with their damned breeding program and their Council to hear her. It was like trying to talk to Lew—he wasn’t good at listening either. Maybe it was a racial thing. Perhaps all the inbreeding they had done for centuries had done something to their hearing.

The utter ridiculousness of this thought lightened her mood a little.
A year ago—hell, a week ago—the thought of meeting my father’s kinsmen would have delighted me. Now it just makes me angry—no, scared. I won’t be used again!
The image of the silver-eyed man rose in her mind, and made her tremble.
I just want to get away from these people, from feeling like they are walking around in my mind.

“Thank you for meeting me. I regret I can’t stay. Now, if you will excuse me.” She gave a little bow, a clumsy movement which betrayed her fatigue, and started for the door. Margaret saw her uncle standing just under the shadow of it, and almost ran toward him to escape from Regis, Linnea, and the ambiguous paxman.

“I’ll walk you back to Music Street,” Captain Scott announced when she came up to him.

Margaret wanted to weep with gratitude. “All right—so long as you promise not to plague me with more duties and obligations I have no intention of honoring.”

“You are determined to go on as if you were not the heiress of one of the Domains, then? To wander around doing this ‘work’ of yours, when Darkover needs you?” He sounded troubled and rather sad.

“Exactly!” The viciousness of her reply startled her a little. She was too close to the ragged edge of exhaustion to care.

“You are most decidedly Lew’s child,” he replied, with a somewhat sardonic smile.

“ ‘What’s bred in the bone will come out in the flesh,’ ” she quoted tartly.

“If you only knew how true that was, Marguerida.” Rafe gave a little sigh. “You are going to need permits to leave Thendara, you know. Will you at least let me help you get them?”

Margaret laughed a little, comforted by his steady presence. At last someone was behaving rationally! “I may be stubborn, but I never object to anyone making themselves useful.”

Margaret sat up in her bed, her heart pounding and her breath ragged. Her throat ached with terror, and it was dry and painful. Images spun in her mind as she tried to tell herself it was only a dream. What was her father doing in Ivor’s grave, and why was he reaching for her? She sank back into the pillows, fresh tears welling in her eyes, and pulled the blankets up around her.
It was only a dream!

 

The morning following Ivor’s funeral, Margaret presented herself at Terran HQ, dressed once again in her Scholar’s uniform, and armed with all of the correct documents. Then she waited. It took two hours to get to see a bored clerk who sent her to a computer terminal to fill out forms. The smell of HQ gave her a nasty headache, and the overwarm air made her sweat.

After she completed the forms, which were complex, confusing, and ambiguous, she pressed the “transmit” command, rose, and headed for one of the refreshment machines. It accepted her credit chit without trouble, and gave her a cup of lukewarm mud pretending to be coffee in return. She was making a face over it when she heard her name called. She returned to the clerk, who handed her a disk and sent her on to another office. There she waited again, to see another bureaucrat, musing that efficient and bureaucracy seemed to be mutually antagonistic terms. She wished she had something to read, but the office was empty even of posted notices, let alone any publications. She was so bored she would have read the latest proceedings of the Federation Senate if it had been at hand.

The thought of the Senate brought back the nightmare, and she began to sink into a morbid mood. Margaret stared at her boots and tried to shake it away, but it seemed to have taken a firm grasp on her mind, and would not be shrugged off. She almost didn’t hear her name when it was called, as she was coiled deep in misery.

A stern-looking woman sat behind a metal desk, drumming her fingers. She did not rise when Margaret entered the office, and she did not look at all friendly. A modest metal sign sat on the desk. It read “Major Thelma Wintergreen,” and looking at the forbidding countenance, Margaret thought she was well-named.

“I doubt we can permit you to continue Professor Davidson’s survey of native folk music, Miss Alton,” Wintergreen began without preamble. “You are too young to undertake such a mission, you do not have the proper credentials, and besides, it is not a task for a solitary woman. I cannot imagine why permission was given for such an unnecessary and expensive undertaking in the first place. The local music can be of no interest to anyone but the locals.”

Margaret was outraged. Didn’t have the proper credentials? Who did Wintergreen think she was? She held in her temper by force of will and ignored the throbbing in her temples. “Are you a trained musicologist, Major?”

“Certainly not!”

“Then you are hardly in any position to make a judgment about the value of Darkovan music, are you?” Margaret forced her mouth into a smile that was, she knew, closer to a snarl. “Captain Scott led me to believe there would not be a problem transferring the grant to me.”

“Who?” Wintergreen’s mouth went pinched, and her eyes squinted.

“Captain Rafael Scott.” She realized she should have tried to find him while she was sitting around and waiting. Her brain seemed stuffed with cotton. He had offered his help, and she had agreed on their walk back from Comyn Castle. But this morning she had just started off without him. Why was she so damned independent? Margaret realized she didn’t even know what section he was in, or if he really had the influence to make it easier for her. On the other hand, the invocation of his name clearly carried a lot of weight with the woman.

The Major looked displeased, and tapped something into her terminal. Then she folded her hands in front of her on the desk and stared at Margaret. “Just how do you know Captain Scott?”

“We are related.”

Wintergreen’s jaw clenched. She tapped another command into the terminal, then stared at the screen with a look of fury that surprised Margaret. She could feel waves of rage and envy radiating toward her, and she could not imagine what cause the woman had to be jealous of her. “There is no record of it,” the woman snarled.

“Captain Scott is my mother’s brother, whether it is in your records or not.”

As if his name had conjured him into being, Rafe walked through the office door. Margaret had rarely been so glad to see anyone in her life. He gave her a smile, patted her shoulder, then turned to Wintergreen.

“What’s the problem, Major?”

Wintergreen looked apprehensive now, and, if anything, angrier than before. “This isn’t any business of yours, Scott! I am not going to let this young woman go traipsing off into the hinterlands. Cottman is no place for a woman to go wandering around alone!”

“How would you know, Major, when you never leave HQ at all?”

“Why should I? There is nothing out there but a bunch of backward indigenes who don’t even have the sense to want . . .”

“Thelma, your prejudice is showing.” Margaret could hardly believe the tone of Scott’s voice. It was hard and authoritative, quite unlike the pleasant and almost modest man she had met the day before. “You really should put in for a transfer, you know.”

“You keep your nose out of my business, Scott!”

“Gladly. Just give her the necessary documents, and we’ll be gone.”

Something like malice shadowed Wintergreen’s features. “I don’t think so, Captain. She isn’t a full professor, just a clerk.”

“She is fully trained, and she has been in the field for years, on more worlds than you have ever visited. And she is a Scholar, not a clerk. Stop this behavior—it does you no credit whatever.”

Margaret gave her uncle a glance. He must have called up her records after they parted in front of Master Everard’s the night before. She felt the warmth of gratitude flood her limbs.

“How dare you!”

“Thelma, everyone in HQ knows you loathe and despise Darkover and the Darkovans. I expect even people who have never met you know it. You are the wrong person for this job, and if that gets into your records, you know, you can kiss your chances of promotion good-bye. Now, be a lamb and let Margaret get on with her business.”

“It is out of the question. She knows nothing about . . .”

“I was born on Darkover, Major.”

“There is no record . . .”

“If you look under the correct spelling, A-L-T-O-N, you will find out that my niece was indeed born here.” Rafe cut in. He turned toward Margaret. “I noticed, when I logged on, that some idiot has used an E instead of an A.”

Margaret shrugged. “That has happened before, but I thought I had it straightened out.”
Sometimes I think that Terrans are spelling impaired.

Precisely!
“And the first name would be Marguerida, Major Wintergreen,” Rafe continued dryly. Margaret hardly noticed, so stunned was she by the brief mental interchange. She knew she had not imagined it, and she only wished she had.

If looks could have killed, Scott would have been dead on the floor. As it was, Major Wintergreen grudgingly accessed something on her terminal and gave a small grunt as she read the display. “I suppose you think that being the daughter of a Senator gives you some sort of special privileges,” she snarled.

“Actually, I don’t. I’ve never used my father’s influence. I have never needed to.” Margaret had a kind of quiet pride in the truth of that statement.

The Major made a face as if she had bitten into a ripe fruit and found half a worm, hit a command key, and waited. A stack of flimsies popped out of the slot which concealed the printer in her desktop, and she almost flung them at the girl. “Take these to room 411. And don’t blame me if you get raped and murdered out there in the hills!”

“What? And deny you the pleasure of saying ‘I told you so’? I promise I’ll come back and haunt you if anything happens to me,” Margaret replied, allowing her dislike of the Major to spill from her tongue.