To Save a World (12 page)

"It was," Missy said, "I always felt a bit of a freak." She drew a shaky. breath. "That's why I left it and I've never been back."

"Were you a foundling?"

wariness, wariness . . . careful . . . what do they want . . . .

She said, "I suppose so, although I'm not sure. I don't remember my parents." Again she lifted her eyes to Keral's; again the curious, puzzled spark flew between them, and then Keral quickly turned his face away. David could feel his unease, his revulsion like an almost tangible thing, and the sense of undercover pressure built up again. Damn it, how could a girl who looked fifteen put him at a loss? And was it simply the awareness of her earlier sexual exploits which had upset Keral? That was evidently an area where all of them might have to be careful with the chieri—an odd sexual code? Declining racial fertility meaning sexual hangups and taboos . . . .

Keral commanded himself. He said, in a flat quiet voice, "Why did you lie to us, Missy? How old are you?"

Panic. Violence . . . break/run/disappear/flight/a twisting trapped thing gnawing desperately . . . .

That image blurred. Other waves of magnetic awareness damped it out. Missy moved with a soft little seductive wriggle on the bed, stretching out with her hands behind her head. David wondered why it was he had thought she looked immature. Her smile was slow and luminous. She said softly, "It's a girl's privilege to keep her age to herself. But I'm over the age of consent."

She did not move, but for a blurred instant it seemed to David that she stretched out her arms, that there was a deep movement in his groin, that in another instant he must reach for her—

Keral made a strangled sound of disgust and revulsion.

One of ours? And like this? Madness, and yet I feel . . . it is true, yet how . . . a foundling? Yet maddened, a bitch ravening . . . all manner of men on all worlds . . . .

David, brought to quick sanity by Keral's recoil, drew back from Missy. He said coldly, "You worked that trick on Conner, but it won't work on us, Missy, not now anyway. You're overwhelmingly beautiful, but that isn't what we came here for. All we want from you is the truth, Missy. Why lie to us? What harm could the truth do you? Where did you come from? How old are you?"

Panic
.
Fear
.
Disquiet and an agonizing
,
shattering loss of self-sureness
; if they won't want me what am I good for, how shall I hide
. . . hide
,
hide
. . . .

Without warning the room exploded. David's brushes, lying on the top of the built-in counter, flew across the room and into the mirror. Missy, like a madly spinning cat, whirled within a vortex which picked up chairs, wastebasket, pens on the desk, flinging them madly about; Keral flinched and covered his face, but the blankets crawled up snakelike and wrapped with strangling force around him. A flicker of fire crawled up the wall . . . .

David heard screams of rage and terror, and yet at another level the room was wholly silent, in a sort of cushioned, timeless instant of dead silence.

Abruptly, Missy froze as if suddenly turned to stone. She writhed and struggled in an invisible grip, without actually moving, caught as if held in strong hands.

Behave yourself
. It was like an actual voice, cold, imperative and angry, and it held the very note of Desideria's presence.
I know you have neither manners nor training
,
but it is time you learned control
.
A natural gift like yours left to run wild is dangerous
,
my girl
,
and the sooner you learn it the better
.

Missy fell to the floor as if the invisible grip had physically dropped her. Around her the flying, spinning furniture slowly settled down. The sense of Desideria's presence withdrew, like an ironic flick of apology. Keral and David gasped and stared at each other.

Missy, breathing heavily and sobbing, scrambled to her feet and fled.

David let his breath go in a long, "Whew! What in ninety galaxies brought
that
on?"

"We scared her," Keral said without irony. "I asked the wrong question; how old she was."

David saw abruptly, without words, the picture in Keral's mind, contrasted with Keral's own quiet, unaging timelessness:

. . . . fleeing from world to world when they saw she never changed, never aged; instantly seeking a new protector; deserting him as he grew old and died; a new world always rising to be conquered, to be hidden from; at the lowest level, her gift good only to seek out and conquer, put a man under her instant spell with bondage to her body . . . .

Keral said shakily, "I am sorry. I felt sick, that is all. That one of our race—oh, yes, she is, she must be, although I still do not know how. We, our people
cannot
, that is all. The—the change must be a thing of deep involvement; no, I know you do not understand." He seemed frightened, wild as he had been at their first meeting, in a half-maddened retreat.

"Keral, Keral—don't—" David reached for his hands again, hoping to quiet him as he had done before, but Keral shrank again in a spasmodic rejection.

Don't touch me!

But as David drew back, distressed and hurt, Keral forced himself to calm. He said, "There is so much to tell, and I cannot tell it all. My elders must know about this. But we have failed with Missy, and this much I can tell you. Earlier I told you our race has been dying since before your people came first to this world you call Darkover. We were not always a forest people. We had cities, worlds, ships which could tread the stars, and when we knew we were dying we left this world and for many, many years we ranged among the other worlds of all kinds of men, seeking a remedy, trying to find a way to live and not to die . . . and there was no remedy; and at last we returned here and left our ships to rust into the bottom of time and our cities to fall into the very dust of eternity; and we withdrew into the unending forests, waiting to die and be no more . . . .

"But on some of those worlds some of our people must have remained. Unknown. Unguessed. Warped out of knowledge by what they had been through with other races who could not know them or understand.

"I guess that Missy is one of these, but I do not know . . . ."

He dropped his face into his hands and fell silent. He said faintly, "I am weary. Let me sleep."

The hospital quarters rooms were arranged so that extra beds could be pulled out from the furniture; David, realizing that Keral was at the end of his endurance, silently drew one out for him and watched the chieri fall swiftly into a stunned, unconscious sleep that was like trance. He, himself, sat staring at his notes for hours, his mind in turmoil with all he had discovered.

The next morning they found that Missy had disappeared.

LINNEA, KEEPER AND
leronis
of the Arilinn Tower, had few hours of leisure and when they came she tried to keep them inviolate. The work of a Keeper, a worker in the matrix screens which provided such small technology as was accessible on Darkover, was arduous and brain grating. Trained since early childhood in difficult telepathic work, like all the Keepers she shrouded herself from all casual contacts with those who were not telepaths, conserving her energies with every means at her command.

So that when one of the few servants in the Tower brought her word that two Free Amazons from the mountains sought to see her, she was both incredulous and offended.

"I do not see guests or travelers. I am not a freak to be seen by paying a penny. Send them on their way." A few Years ago. she thought, no one would have dared to suggest such an insolence.

The servant seemed almost equally embarrassed: "Do you think I did not tell them that,
vai leronis?
Yet when I said as mush, and rudely too, the one said that she was from your own village, one of your own, and that now your grandmother had gone from the mountains there was no soul within a thousand miles who could help her. She claimed that she would wait all night and all day for an hour of your convenience."

Linnea said, startled, "Then I suppose I must see them."
But what is a woman of my hills doing in Arilinn, so far from the Kilghards, so far from the mountains of Storn
. . . .

She went down the long stairs slowly, rather than exert her wearied body and brain to control the elevator shaft. Passing through the blue force field that shielded the Keepers at work from intrusive outside thoughts, she braced herself for an interview with outsiders, nontelepaths. It was so incredibly difficult, after months and weeks of seeing only those who could blend into your inner moods and senses, to mingle with and touch outsiders; minds and bodies cold, barricaded, alien . . . .

She touched rudimentary sensitivity at once from the tall Free Amazon with braided red hair (a telepath? neutered? Linnea, celibate by harsh necessity like all Keepers, felt the faint shock of revulsion for the sexless being) and it made her voice cold:

"What urgent necessity brings you here to the world's end, my countrywoman?"

It was the younger woman who looked up and spoke, a quietly pretty, plumpish girl wrapped in the furs of the hill people. She said, "Lady Linnea, I knew you as a child at High Windward, I am Menella of the Naderling Forst. This is my freemate Darilyn, and we are here because—" shyness overcame her, and she looked up in open appeal at the taller, red-haired Amazon. Darilyn said in a flat, abrupt, cold voice, "We should not have disturbed you,
leronis,
but there was no other person who would understand or believe us. You know what I am." She raised her gray eyes briefly, almost in defiance, to Linnea's, and the quickly-barricaded touch of recognition passed between them.

Like you, I live shielded, Sorceress. Because of what I am, guarded against man's touch: vulnerable, like all our fast-fading kind.

Linnea lowered her eyes; the condemnation in them was gone. Linnea had been born into a noble family; had she chosen not to work in the Towers as a telepath Keeper, she could have been given in marriage to a man of her own kind; one who could equal her own sensitivity, a fellow telepath. Darilyn, born into a village, growing up surrounded (a freak; a throwback) by those who could neither understand nor respect what she was, had chosen to have her womanhood destroyed by the neutering operation rather than subject it to a man who would be, to her, only a dumb beast.

Linnea's voice was gentle as she said, "Be welcome, countrywomen. My discourtesy was born of weariness, no more. Has refreshment been offered you? Is it well in the hills of our homeland, Menella?"

"It is as evil as can be,
vai leronis
," Menella said, "But we did not come to tell you a twice-told tale. You know that fire and hunger have ravaged us. Darilyn, tell her what you saw."

Darilyn, outwardly composed, was wretchedly nervous. She stated, "My freemate and I recently traveled with an outworld woman, not a Free Amazon, though she behaved much like one of us. She had contracted for our service as guides and hunters through the mountains. She was strange, like a Keeper who had lost her powers, but outworlders are all mad and we were not surprised at that. I could read her thoughts a little; she did not trouble to hide them and so I thought she had nothing to hide." Suddenly, Darilyn began to tremble.

"She was
evil
," she said with utter conviction. "She passed the blighted forests, and she looked at them as if her own hand had set them to flaming. She looked on me, and I knew that with her will all of our kind would die. And once I saw her from far off, burying a charm in the woods, and I knew that by her will, the soil would be blighted and die. I know this is madness, Linnea. I learned before my breasts grew that there were no witches and that evil will harmed no one any more than good intentions helped. Yet I cannot help it; I know that this woman's evil will would kill our world. It is a riddle I cannot read,
vai leronis,
and none in our world can read it if a Keeper cannot."

Linnea said, "This is superstition and folly." And yet her voice weakened and died.

A plot against our world?

What had Regis said?

The work of a witch? Impossible. Yet were these girls saying, in the light of their limited understanding, a truth? Truth, or at least that they believed it implicitly, was in every line of their stubborn, boyish faces. In any case, no Darkovan would lie to a Keeper. This conviction made her voice gentle as she said, "I do not see how what you say can be, and yet you must have seen something to make for such a belief. Have you left this woman's service?"

"Not yet, Lady. As we passed near Arilinn we told her we must pay you our respects and she thought nothing of it."

Linnea spoke decisively. "I will look into it. You know I must have something belonging to her."

"I cut a piece from her garments without being seen," said Menella, and Linnea could have laughed at the odd contrast of superstitious fear and practicality. Everyone knew that without something belonging to a person or at least in contact with that person, it was difficult to pick up the vibration of the person's thoughts. Yet they had thought the stranger a witch?

She dismissed further talk of the stranger, offered them refreshment, talked the amenities of their shared childhood for a further half hour before sending them away. Yet all during that time, while she listened to the disturbing news from their homeland, a coldness was growing at her heart.

Regis Hastur had seen this.

A plot. But why? From whom? Had these girls seen to the core of it?

She must somehow find out.

But at her heart there was a single-minded hunger. Regis knew so much more about these things. Was she only making excuses for herself to see him again? For she knew she must take this to him.

Regis
. . . .

Linnea! My dear one, where are you (so far from me, so near)
—

At Arilinn, but I must come there, even if it means closing all the relays; it's that important.

Beloved, what is it? (You are frightened. Can I share your fears?)

Not this way, where anyone open to us can overhear.

(Not only frightened but in terror for our world and all our people.)

Linnea, I can send a Terran aircraft for you if you are not afraid to ride in it, and if you can face the anger of the others. (I long for you here; I could see you this very night, but for myself I would never ask it.)

I am not afraid (to see you again I would face more than anger but not for my own sake) and I must tell you what I have learned.

Regis let the contact drop away and sighed, feeling his many fears and problems overwhelm him again after the brief respite. He was eager to see Linnea again, but the fear he had sensed in her thoughts came near to pulling the switch on his panic. Furthermore, he was exhausted with the terrible hunger and depletion from maintaining contact over such distances. This was something they should study in the Terran project, he thought, the physical depletion which came after prolonged contact or contact over longer distances. At the back of his mind, too, was another thought; direct contact all the way from Arilinn, more than a thousand miles, would hardly be possible for most of the telepaths on this world; Linnea must, indeed, have more extraordinary powers than he had believed. Most of the Keepers in these days, when powers were depleted and ill-trained, would have gone through the two intermediate relays between here and Arilinn, not even trying to come through to him in person. It was a mark of Linnea's panic that she had attempted the long distance contact without intermediates, and a mark of her power that she had succeeded even for these few seconds.

He knew there would be no questions asked if he requested the Terran authorities to dispatch a plane to Arilinn; and there were not, but he worried nevertheless while he was making the arrangements. This would mean criticism again, for himself and for Linnea; not from the Terrans (
they
were eager to put the Hasturs under obligations, damn them!) but from their own people. Damned by the one party for having anything at all to do with the Terrans; damned by the others for not having more to do with them. Just damned.

He had, at this minute, another appalling problem and was facing an uncomfortable interview. He shrank from going toward the Terran HQ hospital, even though he knew that most of what he would meet there would be good-natured. There was the problem of Missy. Where had she gone? Darkover spaceport was a big one, the Trade City enormous; and it had closed over her head as if she had never been there at all. He knew rationally that she would seek anonymity, not trouble, but still the fear nagged at him.

And then there was the more personal problem. He lingered in the hospital corridors, braving the curious glances of the passing nurses and doctors who wondered (some of them; the others knew all too well) what a man in the dress of Darkovan nobility was doing there.

He finally knocked at the door of the Project A Telepath offices, hoping it would put off the other visit a bit longer. Jason and David were both there; and Keral, who had taken to spending much of his time around the hospital, picking up much of what they were doing; Regis had been astonished at the swiftness with which the chieri had absorbed the technical knowledge he apparently desired.

Jason's hearty smile, friendly though it was, made Regis wince a little as the Terran said, "Regis! A pleasure to see you, though I didn't think you'd have time for us this morning! Dr. Shield told me congratulations are in order. A fine boy, I understand, six pounds and perfectly healthy."

Regis said, "I was going to visit Melora and the child now—if she will see me. She must be very angry; she sent me no message."

"You couldn't have done anything here," David said, "why should you lose your sleep? She was perfectly well looked after; I've met Marian Shield, and she seems to be as good an O. B. as is working on this world."

"I'm sure she was taken care of, and I'm grateful to all of you," Regis said. "But the very fact that she did not have me told—"

He caught David's eyes and saw a flash of quick understanding in them.

—A woman who loves the man who has fathered her child, wants him near her at such a time.

"I must go and see Melora, at least," Regis said. "Has there been any word of Missy?"

"Not a syllable, Regis," Jason answered. "They'll stop her if she tries to leave the planet, of course, but short of that—well, you have a damn big world out there and evidently she's used to running and hiding."

One of my people; fugitive!

Keral's thoughts were almost palpable, and Regis felt the obscure wish to offer some comfort, without knowing how. He saw David reach out, without a word, for Keral's hand, and their clasped hands filled him with curious half-sorrow; as if he had, somehow, lost something precious without ever realizing that he had it until it was forever beyond his reach.

He shook his head, dismissing the thought. Absurdities! Then a flicker of comfort struck him; Linnea would soon be here, and even though this might complicate matters still further with Melora (she was sure to decide that Linnea was here at Regis' personal wish) he simply did not care.

Keral said unexpectedly, "I have never seen a newborn human child. May I come and see your son, Regis?"

"Of course; I'm always glad to show off my children," Regis said. David decided to come too, and they went up through the hospital corridors, the tall slight chieri provoking curious glances; but here in the hospital HQ the curiosity was friendly; many of them had seen and spoken to Keral now, and he was simply another alien, not an unheard-of curiosity.

Melora had been put in a private room at a corner wing with a window looking on the mountains, a room often kept for important Darkovan guest-patients, and a Darkovan midwife and a nurse from her own estates had been permitted to attend her. She was sitting up in a chair, wearing a long, fleecy blue robe, her cheeks faintly flushed. She was a pretty girl, auburn-haired, gray-eyed, tall and dignified; and at the moment, with her long hair braided and falling over her shoulders, she looked hardly more than a child herself. Regis' eyes went swiftly, with the old fear, to the small, screened crib where the baby was lying (no more than a small red face asleep in a white hospital blanket) but he quickly brought his attention back to Melora, gesturing to her not to rise, bending and kissing her cheek. "He is lovely, Melora. Thank you. If I had known I would have been here with you."

"There was nothing you could have done, and I was very well cared for," answered the girl coolly, turning her cheek away from the kiss. The tension in the room was palpable; the three facing her, all telepaths of greater or lesser power, could all feel her anger. Regis knew suddenly that he had been cowardly to let the others come in the hope that Melora would not make a scene before outsiders; she had been distressed at the need to bear her child in this strange place; she did not understand why Regis had demanded it of her; and she was (Regis realized) entitled to make a scene if she wanted to, unhampered by outsiders.