Restoree (25 page)

“Are you trying to get rid of me?” I asked, amazed at the hoarseness of my own voice. “I’ve made a pest of myself, I know. First I tag along on that escape. You could have got away much faster by yourself.”

“But I don’t sail.”

“And you should have left me at Gartly’s. That would have made much more sense.”

“True. But you’d not have encountered Maxil and got into the palace.”

“Where I caused Ferrill to collapse completely.”

“Which meant Council automatically convened, exactly what I hoped to effect.”

“But I angered Stannall so.”

“And got yourself into an untenable position as Maxil’s woman.” I saw a flare of anger in his eyes.

“I got myself involved with everyone!” I said, sunk in miserable reflection.

“Causing Harlan to complicate his own life unnecessarily by claiming you before anyone else dared.”

“I’ll unclaim you any time you want,” I said wildly in my dejection.

“Do you really think I’d let you?” Harlan laughed, half frowning, half smiling. “I haven’t known a moment’s peace since you half starved me in that asylum. For the sake of the clan mothers,
do
you love me, Sara?”

“Yes, of course. Isn’t that obvious?” I gasped, astonished. “I’ve been madly in love with you since you propositioned me on the boat.”

His face relaxed into such an expression of tenderness and entreaty I thought my heart would stop.

“Love me, Sara!” he commanded softly. His hungry mouth claimed mine in a giving and taking that was complete fulfillment for us both, a release from the uncertainties and terrors of the past few days and a promise of richness and peace to come.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“I
HATE TO WAKE YOU,
Sara, but Jokan’s pounding at the door,” said Harlan’s voice in my ear. I felt a feather kiss on my eyes. I stretched with delicious languor as Harlan continued, “and I want him in here where we can be private.”

“Well,” I prompted agreeably.

Harlan, standing at the side of the bed, looked down at me quizzically.

“You have nothing on, dear my lady, and while he
is
my brother . . .” and Harlan threw my robe in my face. “Put it on. He’s got to keep his mind on what you’re
saying.”
Harlan laughed at the face I made at him.

I drew the robe on and accepted the hot drink Harlan handed me before he called Jokan in.

“You
want
me in here?” Jokan asked pointedly, glaring at me. I learned later that such intimacy was unusual in Lothar where men were extremely possessive of their ladies.

Harlan indicated Jokan should close the door. Shrugging, Jokan approached the bed and took the chair Harlan pointed to.

“Well?” Jokan asked helpfully, looking from one to the other of us.

“Sala discovered that the latest Mil victims,” Harlan began quietly, sitting down on the edge of the bed beside me, one arm loosely on my shoulders, “are people very similar to us. From certain indications,” I noticed Jokan also swallowed rapidly, wiped his forehead nervously, “the last planet was not far away. I want you, with Talleth as captain, to take the Star-class command ship and retrace that route, establish relations with these people and give them whatever scientific and military experience we have to share. Provided,” and Harlan held up his hand, “they will agree to joining forces with us to track the Mil to their lair and destroy them.”

Jokan snorted, shaking his head at the orders his brother had given him.

“Just orbit in, in a ship no different from the ones raiding them, land in the midst of the poor barbarians with their spears or swords and say, look here,
I’m
friendly.”

I was conscious of Harlan’s hesitation.

“Use one of the smaller rockets,” I suggested and Harlan’s hand pressed my arm in approval. “You’ll need it to get past the satellites and to take evasive action against the nuclear missiles that, I assure you, will be launched.”

“To get past what?” Jokan asked, blinking in surprise.

“The planet in question has atomic energy, has landed robot ships on the moon and orbited its nearest space neighbors.”

Jokan glanced, wide-eyed, at Harlan for confirmation. Then turned his incredulous blue eyes to stare at me.

“Oh, and we already have electrical power in quantities. So once you explain the Ertoi defense mechanisms, I’m sure they can be put in place very quickly. If someone hasn’t worked out an even better defense already.”

Jokan made an attempt to rise from his chair and then sat back, stunned.

“I came from that planet, Jokan.”

A look of horror replaced the surprise in Jokan’s face and he turned to his brother with an angry accusation. At first all I could think was he was revolted by the natural conclusion that I was a restoree.

“You took Sara
with
you to Nawland yesterday?” he rasped out, his eyes flashing.

Harlan nodded slowly.

“I had to identify the victims,” I said hurriedly, taut with strain for his reaction.

“But you . . . you’re . . . not . . .” and Jokan stared at me fixedly.

“Yes,” I said slowly, because Jokan’s good opinion mattered. “I am a restoree.”

“Sara!” Harlan snapped, anxiously.

“No,” I countered, watching Jokan’s face as he struggled with his emotional reactions. “I think Jokan should know. I don’t like to deceive
him.
”

Jokan continued to scrutinize me, not masking traces of revulsion because he had them subdued quickly. He looked at me with great interest and finally, rubbing his hands slowly up and down his thighs, he began to smile at me.

“While I went into deep shock,” I continued hastily, “not from restoration, but from . . . what I saw, I came out of it gradually.
That’s
how I met Harlan. I must have been taken to Monsorlit’s Mental Defectives Clinic sometime during the early part of the Tane wars when a Mil ship was disabled, either on Tane or in space. I guess Gorlot’s people thought me a Tane colonist. At any rate, there I was. When I overheard Monsorlit and Gleto talking, I realized Harlan had been drugged. And, well,” I ended lamely, “you know what started happening then.”

Jokan expelled all the air from his lungs in a deep sigh. He began to relax, nodding his head slowly up and down.

“Well,” he said briskly, slapping his thighs, “that explains a great many things, doesn’t it?”

“It should,” Harlan agreed, a faint smile on his lips. I could feel he was still tensely waiting for something.

“It’s very reassuring to learn, however, that your people are
not
hiding in caves,” Jokan remarked in a completely different tone of voice. He rose, drawing a slate out of his belt pouch, and sitting down on the bed beside me, asked if I could draw a map of my world.

The tension left Harlan’s body and I realized he had been waiting, hoping that Jokan would do something of this order, proving that my restoration did not render me physically revolting in his eyes. That he had hoped Jokan, too, could put aside the conditioned reaction toward a restoree.

“I’ll be glad when you bring back paper,” I muttered, struggling awkwardly with a stylus.

“What’s that?” Jokan asked, sharply inquisitive.

“It is made of wood pulp combined with rags, pressed flat and thin. It can be made quickly and cheaply and is much easier to write on.”

“Wood pulp, rags?” Jokan repeated. “Doesn’t seem very durable. I’ve been using this pocket slate for years. Can you use the same piece of . . . what did you call it . . . paper . . . for years?”

“Well, no,” I demurred, “but you people are backward in a lot of other things.”

Both Harlan and Jokan rose up in concerted protest.

“Just because you have space travel—which you inherited, you didn’t develop it—don’t go looking down your noses at my world. We had to start from scratch to get off our planet. There are plenty of things on Lothar where it’d be better if you started all over again with a clean slate.” I stopped, bemused by my pun. “You see,” I told Jokan archly, “we gave up slates a century ago.”

“All right, all right,” Harlan chuckled. “Draw.”

I had the general outlines sketched in when a vagrant thought came back to me.

“You know, getting you on Earth is going to be a problem,” I said with concern. “You’re right in that you can’t just touch down. Particularly not in a Mil-design ship. You see, we have a radar network that would spot you miles up and while I don’t know what the Mil may have done to the internal politics of Earth, you’re sure to meet a barrage of nuclear missiles. And a Star-class is just too big to miss.”

“The rider ships are not Mil-designed,” Jokan suggested.

“That doesn’t mean they won’t be shot at.”

“What kind of communication systems does your planet have? They must have some if they are experimenting in space flight,” Harlan put in.

“Telstar!” I cried with sudden inspiration. “Why you’d reach every country in the world!” Then I got deflated just as quickly. “No, I wouldn’t even know how you could jam it or interpose your broadcast on it.”

“What is it?” Jokan prompted hopefully.

I explained as best I could and Jokan beamed at me patronizingly.

“We may still be using slate, dear sister, but in space we are completely at home. It’s a simple matter to locate this Telstar of yours on
our
equipment, well out of the range of your radar screens and defensive missiles. Interfere and use its transmission for our purposes. That’s an excellent idea.”

“Fine,” I agreed tartly, “I grant you can do it. Then what?” I demanded acidly. “No one
there
speaks Lotharian.”

I couldn’t help laughing at the expression on their faces.

“Now, get me a tape recorder and I will introduce you. I speak enough of our languages to get across what I mean. The point is to get you
down
to Earth and let the linguists take over from there.”

“Good,” Harlan put in, his face echoing his prideful pleasure in possessing me. “Sara has a curious habit of supplying our need. Did you know she can sail boats?”

“I believe you’ve mentioned that, Harlan,” Jokan remarked with dry testiness. It was my first indication, however, that Harlan had ever mentioned me to anyone. He had seemed so concerned I shouldn’t arouse any attention at all.

“You can see why she’s been so important,” Harlan commented.

“Because she can sail?” Jokan retorted with an innocent look.

“I’m surprised,” Harlan continued, ignoring his brother, “it hasn’t come up in conversation so far this morning,” and he regarded me suspiciously, “but I’m hungry. And I’m going to break my fast.”

“Why didn’t someone say breakfast was ready?” I exclaimed sitting straight up.

Jokan jumped to his feet. “We’ll all work better after eating. Less snarling at each other.” And he grinned boyishly at both his brother and me.

“Jo,” and Harlan stopped his brother with a hand on his shoulder, “do I need to caution you about revealing Sara’s . . .”

Jokan shook his head solemnly from side to side.

“She’s just infernally lucky it was you,” he commented. “But I’d suggest that you in your official capacity as Regent, redirect Stannall’s campaign to put Monsorlit on the Rock as a collaborator. Sara could be implicated.”

“Yes, the day the Mil invaded, Stannall was trying to get me to accuse Monsorlit,” I added, and fear of the cold physician, never far from my consciousness, returned. If Jokan had also noted Stannall’s preoccupation, I had not misinterpreted my danger.

Harlan put an arm around my waist comfortingly. “I also know Monsorlit and, despite everything I’ve heard, I don’t think Sara has anything to worry about from him.”

“Well, I’d rather find a deep cave I didn’t need than not have one when I did,” Jokan remarked pointedly and, turning on his heel, started for the main room.

Harlan gave me another reassuring hug before we joined him.

There were just the three of us at breakfast this morning. A very unusual occurrence in itself, for breakfast was the hour of the patronage seekers or intense political conferences. The intimacy we three shared was therefore an unusual and unexpected respite. Because of Linnana and Harlan’s servant, Shagret, we couldn’t talk about Jokan’s mission. And, as soon as breakfast was over, the communicator lit up. Harlan was called to meet the Councilmen in charge of Jokan’s mission, so he left for his offices in the administration wing to get the necessary clearances.

Jokan and I retired to the study with closed doors and I taped a message that he would, he assured me, be able to transmit over Telstar. I started to give him a brief summary of our world history and decided it was useless to predispose him. The menace of the raiding Mil might well have consolidated and changed everything. Instead I spent the morning giving him some basic English phrases and such terms as he might need to effect a safe landing. I suggested that Cape Kennedy or the new Dallas Space Center would be able to accommodate the huge Star-class ship. I showed him these centers on my rough map, sighing at such inadequate cartography.

It was as if a cork had been pulled out of me that had damned up my Earth past. I talked and talked while Jokan listened, directing me occasionally with questions about his own areas of interest. My work as a librarian in a huge advertising agency had forced me to acquaint myself with a broad index of references, so I had a thin understanding of many facets of industry and technology. But I was painfully lacking in the details he needed or wanted so that he groaned over the tantalizing snips and snatches I held out to him. I talked until I was hoarse. Then Jokan covered up his slates and announced he was going to see what progress Harlan was making in ramming through the expedition.

Jokan was able to leave two days later, a big coup for Harlan who had indeed rammed the clearance through any opposition in Council. He attributed his success to the fact that Lesatin, thoroughly shaken by the Tane disaster and the Mil penetration, was more than willing, as Acting First Councilman, to expand the Alliance. Stannall, Harlan remarked privately to me, would have delayed until he “had given the matter mature consideration.”

“However,” Harlan said with a grimace, “I did have to agree to take a committee of Councilmen to the Tanes to see firsthand what has happened there.” He covered my hands with his, smiling ruefully. “I’d take you along if I could . . .”

“I’m all right. How long will you be gone?”

“Two, three days, depending on how much convincing they take. And one of them is Estoder.”

“I remember him from the Regency debate,” I said sourly.

“So do I,” Harlan remarked in a thoughtful way.

So he left and the first day I occupied myself with the mechanics of getting my Council grant in order. The much bemedaled slate Stannall had given me the day of the Mil invasion turned out to have considerably more value to me personally than a mere official propitiation. Harlan had read it to me and explained that I had been given a lifetime income from three iron-producing shafts in Jurasse. Someday I would have to inspect these but in the meantime this income was a tidy sum.