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Copper. Its structure seemed to glow and swirl from the map, attuned as it was to the terrain which themap had suddenly become, he could
feel
 
the metal there. It was not, quite, like sinking into the crystalstructure of the glass. It was curiously different, as if, through map and photographs that had, somehow,the texture of soil and rock and grass and trees, he traced the palpable magnetic currents and brushedaside all irrelevant atomic patterns. He was hundreds of times as sensitive to the terrain under his —hands? Surely not! Under his mind, his thoughts, but still, somehow, he was sifting the very soil insearch of the glowing and complex structure of copper atoms, to where they clustered… rich deposits of

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ore…

Dull, throbbing pain knifed him; he twisted
through
 
the copper atoms, he had
 
become
 
copper, hidingwithin the ground, entangled with other unfamiliar electrons, other structures, so thickly entangled that itwas impossible to breathe, atoms whirling and meshing and colliding. He was
 
in
 
the energy currents; hewandered in them and flowed in them. For a moment, disembodied sentience, he looked out through Rannirl’s eyes at the complex patterns, looked down on a strange flat-squeezed countryside, which heknew intellectually was the map, but which was still somehow the great aerial perspective of the Kilghard Hills spread out below him, hilltop eyries and crags and chasms, rocks and trees—and through it all hetraced the sequences of copper atoms… He saw and felt through Kennard’s eyes, moved on the tip ofan orange crayon down to the surface of the map, a mark that meant nothing, absorbed as he was in thewhirl of structures and patterns, pure copper atoms entangled painfully into the complex molecules of richores… Kennard, he knew, followed him, measuring distances and transmuted them into measurementsand marks on the maps… he moved on, interwoven with the meshing, sparkling layers of the matrixlattice, which had, somehow, become the map and the very surface of the planet… He never knew, fortime ceased entirely to have meaning, how long he whirled and probed and flashed, soil, rock, lava, ridingmagnetic currents, how many times Rannirl’s perceptions picked him up and he rode down on the tip of Kennard’s crayon, for his whole substance to be transmuted into markings on the map… But at last thewhirling slowed and stilled. He felt Corus (a liquid crystallizing, cooling into crystal) drop out of the meshwith a sensation like a shattering crash; heard Rannirl slide out of some invisible gap; felt Elorie gentlyopen her hand and drop Kennard (invisible fingers set a doll on a table) out of the web; then pain, like theagony of breathing water, racked Kerwin as he felt himself drop in free-fall into nowhere; Auster (a glassshattering, freeing a prisoner) made a thick sound of exhaustion, sliding forward with his head on thetable. An invisible rope broke and Neyrissa fell, crumpled, as if from a great height. The first thing

Kerwin saw was Taniquel, sighing wearily, straightening her cramped body. Kennard’s knotted fingers,swollen and tight with pain, released a stump of crayon, and he grimaced, holding one hand with theother. Kerwin could see the swelling in the fingers, the tension in them, and for the first time was aware ofthe joint-disease that had crippled Kennard and would some day paralyze him if he lived so long. Themap was covered with cryptic symbols. Elorie put her hands over her face with a sound like a sob ofexhaustion, and Taniquel rose and went to her, bending over her with a look of concern and dismay,running her hands over her in the monitor’s touch, an inch away from her forehead.

Taniquel said, “No more. Corus’s heart nearly stopped; and Kennard is in pain.”

Elorie came on unsteady tiptoe to stand behind Rannirl and Kennard, looking at the maps. She touched Kennard’s swollen hand with the lightest of fingertip-touches, more a symbolic gesture than a real one. She said, with a swift sidelong glance at Kerwin, “Jeff did all the structural work; did you notice?”

Kennard raised his head to grin unsteadily at Kerwin. He was still absentmindedly rubbing his hands, asif they hurt him, and Taniquel came and took them gently into her own, holding them cradled softlybetween her soft fingers. Kerwin saw the taut lines of pain leaving the older man’s face. Kennard said, “He was there all the time, holding all the structures; it was easy with him in the net. He’s going to be asgood a technician as you are, Rannirl.”

“That wouldn’t take much doing,” Rannirl said. “I’m a mechanic, not a technician; I can do a technician’s

work, but I look pretty bad when there’s a real technician around. Kerwin can have my place any time

he wants it;
you
 
could, Ken, if you were strong enough.”

“Thanks. I’ll leave it to Jeff,
 
bredu
 
,” Kennard said, with an affectionate smile at Rannirl. He leaned forward, resting his head for a minute on Taniquel’s shoulder, and Kerwin caught a fragment of her thought,
 
he’s too old for this work
 
, and a furious surge of resentment,
 
we’re so damned short-handed

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…

“But we did it,” said Corus, looking at the map, and Elorie touched the surface of the map with a light

finger. “Look, Kennard has measured every copper deposit in the Kilghard Hills, and all the places

where the ores are richest, as well as those places where they are so mixed with other ores as to be

practically useless. Even the depth is marked, and the richness, and the chemical composition of the ores

so they will know what equipment they will need for assaying and refining.” Suddenly, through her

heavy-eyed weariness, her eyes were exultant. “Show me the Terrans who could do so much, for all their

technology!”

She stretched, catlike. “Do you realize what we’ve
 
done
 
?” she demanded. “It worked, all of you—itworked! Now are you glad you listened to me? Who’s a barbarian
 
now
 
?” She went to Jeff, stretchedher hands to him, and her delicate fingertips just touched his; a gesture, he sensed, as meaningful to Elorie, behind the structure of taboo and untouchability, as another girl’s spontaneous hug would havebeen. “Oh, Jeff, I knew we could do it with you, you’re so strong, so powerful, you helped us so much!”

Impulsively, his hands tightened on hers; but she drew away, her face suddenly white, and her eyes methis; he could see the flash of panic in them. She clasped her hands together in a terrified gesture, andthere was sudden appeal in her eyes; but it was only a moment. Then she slumped, and Neyrissa caughtthe girl in her arms.

“Lean on me, Elorie,” she said gently. “You’re exhausted, and no wonder, after all that.”

Elorie swayed tiredly and covered her eyes, childishly, with her clenched fists. Neyrissa lifted her intostrong arms, and said, “I’ll take her to her room and see that she eats something.”

Kerwin was aware again of his own agonizingly cramped muscles; he stretched and turned to thewindow, where the sun was flooding in, already high in the sky. He had not been aware of its rising. Theyhad been within the matrix, and in rapport, for more than an entire night!

Rannirl folded the map carefully. “We’ll try again in a few days with iron samples,” he said. “Then tin,lead, aluminum—it will be easier next time, now that we know what Jeff can do in the network.” Hegrinned at Jeff and said, “Do you know this is the first time there’s been a full circle at Arilinn in twelveyears or more?” He looked past Auster, frowning. “Auster, what’s the matter with you, kinsman? This isa time for rejoicing!”

Auster’s eyes were fixed on Kerwin with steady, unblinking malevolence. And Kerwin knew:
 
He’s nothappy that I did it
 
.

He wanted me
—
 
us
—
 
to fail. But why
?

Chapter Eleven: Shadows on the Sun

«^»

The depression lingered even after Kerwin had slept away the fatigue. As he dressed himself to join theothers, near sunset, he told himself that he should not let Auster’s malice spoil this for him. He had comethrough the acid test of full rapport within the Tower Circle, and it was his triumph. Auster had neverliked him; it might even be that he was jealous of the fuss they were making over Kerwin. Probably therewas no more to it than that.

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And now, he knew, there would be a free interval, and he looked forward to spending some of it with Taniquel. Despite Kennard’s warning, he felt fresh and rested, eager to join her. He wondered if shewould consent, as she had done often, to spend the night with him, and there was a pleasant anticipationin his thoughts as he went downstairs. But there was no hurry; if not tonight, then later.

The others had all wakened before him and were gathered in the hall. The very casualness of theirgreetings warmed him; he belonged, he was family. He accepted a glass of wine and sank down in hisaccustomed seat. Neyrissa came over to him, trailing an armful of some kind of needlework, and settleddown near him. He felt a little impatient, but there was time. He looked around for Taniquel, but she wasnear the fireplace, talking to Auster, her back to him, and he could not catch her eye.

“What are you making, Neyrissa?”

“A coverlet for my bed,” she said. “You do not know how cold it is here in the winter; and besides, it keeps my hands busy.” She turned it to show him. It was a white quilt, with cherries in three shades of red stitched on in clusters, with green leaves, and bands of the same three shades of red at the edges; and the whole now being quilted with delicate stitches in a pattern of loops and curls. He was astonished at the amount of work and thought that must have gone into the design; it had never occurred to him that Neyrissa, monitor of Arilinn and a Comyn lady, would occupy herself with such tedious stitchery.

She shrugged. “As I say, it keeps my hands busy when there is nothing else to do,” she said. “And I amproud of my handiwork.”

“It is certainly very beautiful,” he said. “A piece of handiwork like this would be priceless on most of the

planets I have visited, for most people now have their bedding made easily and quickly by machine.”

She chuckled. “I do not think I would care to sleep under anything that had been made by machinery,”she said. “It would be like lying down with a mechanical man. I understand they have such things on otherworlds, too, but I do not suppose women are very pleased with them. I prefer genuine handiwork on mybed as well as in it.”

It took Jeff a moment to understand the double entendre—which was somewhat more suggestive in

casta
 
than in the language he spoke—but no one with a scrap of telepathic force could misunderstand her meaning, and he chuckled, a little embarrassed. But she met his eyes so forthrightly that he could not retain his embarrassment and laughed heartily. “I suppose you’re right, some things are better when they’re the work of nature,” he agreed with her.

“Tell me something about your work for the Empire, Jeff. If I had been a man, I sometimes think, I would like to have gone offworld. There is not a great deal of adventure in the Kilghard Hills, and certainly not for a woman. Have you lived on many worlds?”

“Two or three,” he conceded, “but in the Civil Service you don’t see much of them; it’s mostly working

with communications equipment.”

“And you do the same thing with your communications machinery that we can do with the relay-nets?” she said, curiously. “Tell me a little of how they work, if you can. I have been working in the relays since I was fourteen years old; it would seem strange to do this with machinery. Are there truly no telepaths in the Terran Empire?”

“If there are,” Kerwin said, “they’re not telling anyone.”

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He told Neyrissa about the CommTerra communications network that linked planet with planet byinterstellar relay systems, explaining the difference between radio, wireless, and interstellar hypercomm. He found that she had a quick mechanical intelligence and swiftly picked up the theory involved, althoughshe found the thought of communicating by machinery somewhat distasteful.

“I would like to experiment with some of them,” she said. “But only as a toy. I think the Tower relays

are more reliable and swifter, and they do not get out of order so easily, I suppose.”