Stewards of the Flame (53 page)

“Yet other drugs, so-called recreational drugs, produce brain damage too, if taken often enough,” Jesse said. “So it’s just the same with psychiatric drugs. If we can sort out the useful effects and get them through volition instead of chemistry—”

“The catch in that,” Peter said thoughtfully, “is that it was hell for you—I sensed that you
felt
your mind was deteriorating. That you were in the process of losing it.”

“Of course, because I’d been told that I would and I was scared stiff until Ian enlightened me. I suspect that’s why he didn’t even hint that I was going to be released. He wanted me to understand that no matter what happened, nothing could destroy my inner mind.”

“He said as much to me many times,” Peter admitted, “but I didn’t grasp it. I felt so much guilt over what I was forced to do to people that I never put two and two together—not even though for years I’ve been helping mental patients out of unpleasant states they fell into spontaneously. I failed you, Jesse—”

“No,” Jesse said. “If you hadn’t kept contacting me telepathically, I wouldn’t have been in shape to absorb what Ian gave me. The training alone wouldn’t have been enough.”

“All the same, I should have been better prepared. If I’d faced the fact that I might someday have to give that drug to a healthy person, I might have figured out its effects. Well, it’s time I found out what it feels like.”

“You’re too stressed out to go on dual,” Kira insisted.

“I was told on my first day here,” Jesse said, “that being stressed out helps. That for a breakthrough it’s best not to be in full control.”

“Sure it is, with a qualified instructor as partner,” said Kira grimly. “But you have never taken the lead role on dual before. If Peter gets into trouble, you’ll both go down.”

“If we do, you know how to deal with it,” Peter told her, settling into the other chair and reaching for its headpiece. “But I’d hate to think I’m not capable of handing a state of consciousness that Ian considered harmless.”

Resigned but not happy, Kira attached their sensors and went to the control booth. The lights came on, and then the feedback patterns on the wall. “They’ll be crude,” Peter warned, “because this state will be new to the software; Carla will have to reprogram the filters after we’ve had some experience with it. But they should be distinctive enough for matching.”

Jesse lay back and deliberately strove to recall the hours of mental fog. All altered states, he knew, could be entered much faster and more easily after they had once been experienced. That was why what was learned in the lab could be applied to real life, and it was also why recurrent bad trips happened to outsiders even when they weren’t on drugs. The pathways of the mind were indelible. He would never be quite the same person as before being medicated in the Hospital, any more than he was the same as he’d been before receiving lab training in pain control. The knowledge of how to reach the state medication had produced was somewhere within him, buried, but accessible. . . . He focused his eyes on the shifting pattern, letting his thoughts drift. It was getting hard to think . . . it was as if a grey cloud was thickening in his mind. . . . He felt a stab of fear, but ignored it. There was nothing to fear. There was no need to think clearly for now . . . his mind had other functions, with which thinking would interfere . . . rational thought would suppress his other powers . . . the power to reach Carla. . . .

Carla?

I’m here.
He was with her in the cottage, where she had remained waiting for contact. Through her eyes he saw the warm glow of candles.
I lighted them for proof we were in touch. I’ll blow them out now. When you come back here, tell me what you saw.

She in turn shared his sight of the neurofeedback.
I see the patterns, Jesse. Yours, and Peter’s—he’s on dual with you! That’s more evidence—I didn’t know he was going to go on dual.

Carla . . . I’ve got to leave you and contact him. It’s frightening at first. He’s strong, still he shouldn’t be alone.

You ought to be with him,
Carla agreed.
You and I can do this anytime, now that we know how.

Jesse broke off with her, calling out silently to Peter. They had communicated that way often before, of course; since they were in the same room, no new state was required for telepathy between them. But a link made now would be stronger.
Peter?
he probed.

Jesse! You were with Carla, I picked that up. I saw her blow out candles, through your eyes, I think, not directly. . . .

Their visual mind-patterns were identical; Peter’s skill and experience in matching had thrown him quickly into the new state. Their consciousness merged, and Jesse became aware that Peter was experiencing not fear, but remorse . . . remorse not merely because he’d been inadequately prepared to help during Jesse’s ordeal, but because he felt he had come close to losing faith in the Group’s destiny.

But you didn’t!
Jesse protested.
Underneath, you never stopped believing that somehow Ian’s dream would come true.

I wish I could think so. He wanted me to believe . . . before he gave me the proof.
The words didn’t come like conversation; they formed in Jesse’s own mind from what he sensed in Peter’s. He knew he himself wasn’t replying in words either, though only words would be recorded in his memory.

You believed. Otherwise, you’d have cancelled the application for the starship.
It had been made in Peter’s name, not Ian’s; Ian wouldn’t have had to know.

I never even thought of canceling it!

Exactly.

Peter’s spirits lifted briefly, only to be engulfed as the dulling of his mental processes continued.
This . . . to feel my mind slipping . . . it’s all my worst nightmares come true. Yet you endured it while believing it wouldn’t end. . . .

I’m not sure I could have borne it indefinitely,
Jesse admitted.
But I don’t think I’d have died, which means I’d have known underneath I was still
myself,
even if Ian hadn’t come. Otherwise my inner mind would have killed me, as Zeb’s killed him. If we lost everything, we’d be brain-dead—by definition. There’s something in us that persists through
any
state, as long are we’re alive. . . . Ian said that when we affirm the power of the mind, we’re affirming that! That we’ve been saying it all along. . . .

His thoughts drifted, became hazy. The image of Ian formed again before his eyes, superimposed on the swirling patterns of light on the wall before them, and was shared so that he did not know whether it came from his mind, or from Peter’s, or from somewhere else. And the patterns faded out as the image became less tenuous . . . Ian was standing there, smiling, yet removed beyond any possibility of contact. He felt fresh sorrow in knowing that he would never again see Ian in real life, never feel the touch of his hand. His eyes blurred, and there was an ache deep inside him that was suddenly overpowering. He was losing control, could not fight the tears any longer . . . he, Peter, was so tired . . . he’d done all that need be done for now . . . he could not bear further pain. . . .

With a jerk, Jesse snapped back, brought his feedback pattern into clear focus, saw it shift and swirl into the familiar shapes and colors of normal consciousness. But Peter’s did not shift. He turned his head and saw to his dismay that Peter was crying.

Kira!
Jesse called out urgently.
Oh God, Kira, what have I done to him?

She responded fast.
It’s okay—just let him be. He needs to cry.

Coming down from the control booth, Kira went to Peter and removed his headpiece. She stood silently beside him as he twisted in the reclined chair and buried his face against the headrest, making no attempt to hold back the sobs. After a while she whispered, “Help me get him into bed in the infirmary, Jesse.”

Leaning heavily on Jesse, Peter went with them to the infirmary without speaking. Soon he slept, and Jesse realized Kira had sedated him telepathically.

She turned to Jesse. “I underestimated you,” she said softly. “I knew this was likely to happen if he let go his rigid control of consciousness. I was afraid that if it did, you’d be sucked down with him and might panic, might cause him to try to help you when he wasn’t in condition to do it. I didn’t realize you’d acquired the strength to bring yourself back from a shared reaction as deep as the one Peter’s going through.”

“But what brought it on? What went wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong . . . except that though he’s often said he’s not superhuman, he asks as much of himself as if he were. Think, Jesse—he’s been through weeks of strain, anticipating Ian’s death and our coming danger while keeping the plan to save us secret; then your arrest and his belief that he’d be forced to destroy you; and finally the shock of Ian’s sacrifice. Only this morning he watched while Ian was executed! He’s loved Ian as he would have loved a father, yet he couldn’t stop to grieve for him. He had to conduct the funeral and inspire the mourners to risk their lives traveling to an unknown destination in space. And on top of all that, he held the Ritual, which would have been demanding even without all that came before. He was overdue for a breakdown. Better now than later, when he’ll have to take on the responsibility of leading our escape.”

“So my telepathic image of Ian simply . . . triggered it?”

“Yes, though there’s no knowing with which of you the image originated. You are both grieving, as are we all. But tears are normal, Jesse. Mourning isn’t a weakness. And to have shared it beneath surface consciousness will bond the two of you. Peter needs that. He has many friends, but he was a crèche child, after all, and has recently lost his wife. No one except Ian has been truly close to him since Lesley died. I believe Ian intended you to become much more than our Captain.”

Jesse nodded. “He sent Peter to me with a message that he trusted me
in all things
. Neither of us understood what it meant—though now I see he was counting on me to hold up long enough for his sacrifice not to be in vain.”

“Yes. But I suspect the message was meant for Peter himself as much as for you. Ian knew he would need the support of an equal.”

“I’m hardly that. There are a lot of Group members better qualified—”

“Leadership is lonely; you know that, don’t you, from your past space command? As Captain you will have a unique relationship with Peter, one that his followers can’t duplicate. As for the rest of the Council, I am an old woman; the only other man, Hari, is too absorbed by mystical aspects of psi to be concerned with practical affairs; and Reiko is focused mainly on scholarship. And besides, you are the only one among us with first-hand knowledge of the universe beyond Undine. So you see the responsibility has fallen on you, Jesse.”

In time, he supposed, he would be up to it. But for now, all he wanted was to sleep with his arms around Carla.

~
 
59
 
~

Several days later, Jesse went to Fleet’s office at the spaceport. The likelihood that he would be tracked wasn’t a problem, since it could be reasonably assumed that as a former officer he might be hoping to procure transport offworld. After confirming that he was indeed officially on leave, he changed his status to permanent retirement. Then he transferred his previously-untouched back pay and retirement accounts to Fleet as down payment on charter of the colonizer
Mayflower XI.

“
Mayflower
?” asked Peter incredulously when they met later that day in a safe house. “Starships haven’t been given that name since before Undine’s founding! Is there a revival of sentiment for Earth’s ancient history?”

“You knew it was going to be an old ship,” Jesse said. “Didn’t your contact mention its name?”

“No. And I hadn’t realized quite
how
old.”

“They don’t wear out from age. This one established a brand new colony and spent a long time there waiting for it to get on its feet. And then it had to travel back the slow way to be refitted with the hyperdrive. It’s transported a lot of emigrant groups since, but with larger and faster ships now coming off production lines, it’s due to be decommissioned. That’s the only reason we were able to get it.”

“There’s no question about its spaceworthiness, is there?”

“Oh, no. After all, its assigned crew’s safety depends on that, and the Captain won’t take it unless he’s satisfied. Besides which, Fleet could be sued for far more than the charter fee if anything went wrong.” Jesse did not mention that a normal crew included engineers who could repair the ship’s drive in case of trouble, a capability he himself didn’t possess. He must gamble on its smooth operation.

“Well, then, I’m glad to hear it’s going to be decommissioned,” Peter said. “I haven’t been happy about stealing it—we’ve committed a lot of crimes, but so far grand larceny hasn’t been among them. Yet they’re not going to get it back, and we haven’t the resources to buy a ship outright, even if we arrange to have our property on Undine transferred to Fleet after we’re gone.”

“They won’t lose more than the scrap value,” Jesse said. “But there’s another problem with it, Peter.”

“Something you didn’t want Carla to hear.” Jesse had contacted him, ostensibly to arrange for an outpatient visit, and made plain via a prearranged code that when they met to discuss what he’d learned of the ship, Peter should come alone.

“It’s best if she doesn’t,” Jesse said, “You remember I told you that I had seen stasis units, the kind used in the early days on long trips, during Fleet training?”

“Yes, in a museum, I assumed.”

“No. When old ships were refitted with the hyperdrive so that putting passengers in stasis was no longer necessary, the facilities weren’t removed. And the
Mayflower
class was the last to have them.”

“Good God. Are you saying there will be stasis vaults on our ship?”