He rested his eyes a time then—jerked awake at a whisper of cloth by him, saw the boy Taz kneeling and feeding more of the fiber into the bowl.
“I shall wake, sir,” Taz said.
He was dazed somewhat, and ungracious—simply looked at Duncan, whose breathing remained eased and regular, and let his head down again against the shoulder of the dus, moved his slitted eyes over all the Kel, that made huddled heaps in the darkness—shut them again.
* * *
The lamp gave feeble light for study; Melein turned in her hands the golden and fragile leaf from the casing of the pan’en, laid it on her knee and drew another forth, replacing the first in sequence. She canted it to the light and the lamp picked out the graven letters like hairline fire. She read, as for years and years before this she had read, the record of the People’s travels. They were incomplete. Nigh on a hundred thousand years the record stretched; in so blindingly swift a few years they had come back, she and Niun and Duncan. There would come a time when she would write her own entry into the leaves of gold, the last of the People of the Voyage, the last statement, the seal.
And she shivered sometimes, thinking of that.
The hand which held the tablet lowered to her lap. She gazed at the flickering lamp, thinking, centered in the Now.
Where do I go? That was determined.
What do I do? That too, she knew.
But other questions she did not. Some of them extended to human space and regul, and dead worlds; some of them centered on Kutath itself, on the past in which mri had known another service. And they were one question.
A touch descended on her shoulder. She drew herself back, and shivered, looking into the gentle face of Kilis, the young sen’e’en who attended her, whose hands robed and disrobed her, and whose young eyes witnessed all her life.
“She’pan—the Council of the Sen is waiting. You sent for them, she’pan.”
She smiled at that, for at times the dreaming was too strong; it was not so for her, at least—not often. “I will see them,” she said, and carefully gathered the leaf of gold from her lap, slipped it into the casing with the others.
The curtains stirred and the Council entered, the first and second ranks of the Sen, to settle on the mats before her. Most were very old, older than kel’ein tended to live, hollow-cheeked and wrinkled; but there was among them Tinas, who had a kel’e’en’s robustness about her, and kel-scars slanting across her cheeks. Foremost among them, Sathas also bore the scars, sen’anth; grimness on him was a habit, but more than one face was frowning this night.
“Has the Sen questions?”
“You appreciate our present danger,” Sathas said. “It is what we warned you, she’pan.”
“Indeed.”
“It does not disturb you.”
“It disturbs me. I would wish otherwise: But that is not ours to choose. Is that your question?”
“The she’pan knows our questions. And they are all tsi’mri.”
“We have choices, sen’anth, and kel Duncan has given them to us.”
“Did you send him out?”
She looked into the guarded offense of Sathas’ eyes and tautly smiled, opened her hand palm up. “He is self-guiding. I let him go.”
Eyes flashed, nictitating with inner passion.
“You seriously consider this offer they have made?” asked Sathas.
“It is a matter we will consider . . . for the worth in it. You do not care for his presence, doubtless. But he has brought us choices; and knowledge of what hangs above our heads; he comprehends them . . . and serves the People. His life has value. You understand me.”
“We understand.”
“And dislike it.”
“We are your only weapon, she’pan, and you are ours. Do you turn aside?”
“From our course? No. No, trust me in this, sen’ein. I am not yet done.”
No one spoke. For a moment eyes glittered hard with speculations. Believe me: it was Intel who spoke, her old she’pan . . . who could persuade when reason counseled otherwise, with a voice which had wrapped silken cords about herself when she was younger; she had learned it, wielded it . . . consciously.
Perhaps all she’panei had had such arts; she did not know. It was the nature of she’panei that they never met, save the one by whose death one rose.
It was true that Intel had controlled her children when they would have rebelled, and persuaded elders who had power in their own selves: that half-mad force in her that chilled the spine and held the eye when the eye would gladly turn away . . . that followed after, so that even out of her presence the most cynical reason had no power to utterly shatter that argument.
Intel still held her; and she . . . held them.
Chapter Ten
The chief of security was back again, to trouble the labs. Averson blinked and focused on him, this dark man so persistent in his patrols. He glanced likewise at the collection of papers beside him on the desk, made a nervous snatch toward them as Degas gathered one up and looked at it.
“You’ve made progress with the regul transmissions?” Degas asked. “There’s some urgency about it.”
“It’s—” Averson held out his hand for the paper and received it back. Degas favored him with a sardonic smile as he shuffled it back into order. “It’s couched in idiom, not code. It might be clear if we understood Nurag.”
“Nurag.”
“Homeworld has bearing on language,” Averson answered shortly, and experienced a little uneasiness as Degas sat down on the edge of the desk facing him. Degas put down cassettes, click, click, click, on the desk top before him.
“There’s a great deal going on, Dr. Averson. Our time is escaping us. The onworld mission has decided to go . . . prudently or not rests elsewhere; they’ve moved out, to whatever they may find. And they may stir something up. There’s always that chance. Now we have a request for permission for a regul shuttle to go down and sit with Flower.”
Averson gnawed at his lips.
“The admiral is stalling,” Degas said.
Perhaps he was supposed to make some observation on this. He did not like the thought of regul in Flower’s neighborhood; he did not reckon what to do about it.
“The admiral,” said Degas, “understands from your reports and your advisements that the regul may move in with or without our permission.”
“They may,” Averson allowed. “They would reckon we would not move to stop them.”
“This:” Degas reached across the desk to the spot directly in front of his hands, tapped it with his forefinger. The man was dark in manner, dark in dress, but for the weapons and the badges; he glittered with them, like kel’ein, Averson thought, much like them. “This, Dr. Averson: you’ve paralyzed us with your yes and no. You’ve said nothing, except that there’s no action to be taken. Wait, you say; and what is your general feeling on the regal? Where are your opinions?”
“I can’t, I’ve told you. I can’t pronounce with any surety—”
“Your guess, doctor.”
“But without supporting data—”
“Your guess, doctor. It’s more valuable than most men’s studied opinion.”
“No,” Averson said. “It’s more dangerous.”
“Give it.”
“I—find it possible . . . that there is more than one adult. One to remain here, one . . . on that ship they want to send down. Logically, you see—they don’t function without elder direction. You think there are regul ships down there now; I agree. But no elder. I think they would like to get one down there if they could.”
Degas’s breath hissed softly between his teeth.
“The hydra’s head,” Averson said. Degas looked at him with no evidence of comprehension. “An old story,” Averson said. “Not the star-snake . . . the old one. Cut off the head and two more take its place. Kill a regul elder and more than one metamorphoses to take its place. Shock . . . some biological trigger . . . .”
Degas frowned the more deepl
y.
“One thing that bothers me,” Averson said. “How do they learn?”
“A question for the science department,” Degas said, rising. “Solve that one on your off time. What about the rest of the data I gave you? What about the transmissions?”
“No,” Averson said. “Listen to me. It’s an important question. They don’t write everything down.”
Degas shrugged in impatience. “I’m sure that’s solved some-how.”
“No. No! Listen to me. They remember . . . they remember. Eidetic memory. What died with bai Sharn . . . is forever lost to them. They have to lose something in the transitions. Young regul metamorphosing and taking over adult function by themselves and without outside influence, without the supporting information of their docha-structures and adults—”
“The easier to deal with them. There’s no reason for panic.”
Averson shook his head, despairing. “Not necessarily easier. You want guesses, good Colonel Degas. I shall give you guesses. That we have here regul without home ties, regul without past, regul who can’t imagine what they’re missing, regul more likely than any others to act as regul don’t act; and that is dangerous, sir. A spur, a splinter of Nurag maybe; maybe of Kesrith, maybe that. On Kesrith, regul attacked, and these young regul learned that. They overcame mri. It became reality. The psychology of the eidetic mind . . . is different. That’s why you asked me up here, Is it not, to tell you these things? Those ships that attacked us on the way up here weren’t mri; they were regul.”
“Prove it.”
Averson made a helpless gesture. He was confused in the motivations of this man, so supremely stubborn. He understood regul, and failed with this member of his own species, and suddenly he doubted everything, even what he knew he understood.
Degas leaned again toward him, laid his hand on all the papers in the stack. “Prove it, when none of our analyses could. By what do you know? Point it out to me.”
“The action is consistent with the pattern. It makes a larger pattern.”
“Show me.”
Averson shook his head helplessly.
“I have a tight schedule, doctor. Explain it to one of my aides when you think of it. But in the meantime, I have to work on all the possibilities. The cassettes, doctor, come from a downed ship and the one that recovered the recorder. A man died down there. How does that fit your patterns?”
“I’ve told you, if you would listen.”
“I’ll listen when there’s consistency in your advice.” Degas gathered up one of the cassettes. “Landscan. Can you handle this or do we shuttle it down to Flower?”
“I’m not qualified. Wait. Wait, I—would like to look at it before you send it on.”
“Inconvenient, to have the science staff split here and there. You say that you can’t handle it expertly; someone downworld can. I’ll have your affidavit on that. You’ll record it.”
“If you wish.”
“Now.” Degas ripped paper off a pad, shoved it across the desk at him, put a stylus down by it. “Write that.”
“Now?” Averson took a deep breath, mustered his anger. “I am also a busy man, colonel. You could wait.”
“Write it.”
He did not like Degas. The man was forceful and unpleasant. Capitulation would get him out of the lab. Averson picked up the stylus. Suggest transfer of landscan tape to more affected department, he wrote, and looked up. “I have some notes of my own I’ll want to send down when this goes.”
“If they make the shuttle, fine.” Degas tapped the paper. “Sign it. Write ‘Urgent.’”
“I will not be bullied.”
“Sign it.”
Averson blinked and looked up in shock, blinked again, thinking of things going on outside his comprehension, of motives in this man which intended things outside his own interests.
“I should consult with the admiral,” Averson protested.
“Do your job. If you can’t do it, pass it to those who can. Sign the paper. Note it as I told you. The shuttle will have it down within the hour.”
“Excuses for more flights.”
“Sign it.”
“I’m right, aren’t I?”
Degas put his hands framing his and leaned on them, gazing into his face at short range. “Do you know what happens if security is hamstrung, Dr. Averson? Do you comprehend your personal hazard? We have a shuttle down there poking about old sites and weapons, and ships loose we don’t have identified; science department is giving us cautions we already understand. We want information. We’re in orbit in range of ground-based weapons. Do you comprehend that? Sign it. And put ‘Urgent’ on it.”
Averson did so, his hand shaking. He did not understand security’s function in this. He understood personal threat. Degas collected the note and the cassette.
“Thank you,” Degas said with great nicety.
And walked out.
Averson clenched his hands together, finding them sweating. Such men had had great power in the days of the mri wars. Some evidently thought that they still did.
This one did, where they sat, with the mri below and the regul above, and themselves neatly in the middle.
He reached for the pad and dashed off another note:
Emil: Boaz was right. Security is involved in this, something may be personal or political. I don’t figure it out. Watch for the regul. Don’t let them into the ship. Please, be careful. All of you be careful. And send Danny up here if you can spare him.
I begin to understand things. I can’t make these soldiers comprehend simple logic.
Sim.
He folded the paper in all directions, put it into an envelope, and sealed it. Luiz, he wrote on it, Personal Mail.
And then he sat holding it on his lap and doubting where it would finally go.
The cassettes. He suddenly regretted the loss of the landscan tape, the tiny morsel of information now denied him. He manipulated the new data into the player on the desk, rapid-scanned it.
It told partial tales. All the mosaic was not there. Bioscan. He read it with an amateur’s eye, split screens, readouts, instruments he did not know. What he did told him only of an intermittent vegetation, more than they had yet seen.
With fevered haste he rejected that tape and pushed in the second. It made even less sense to him, ship’s instruments or some such, data with symbols of fields outside his specialization: physics, numbers that made no sense at all except that they might be electrical or some such power symbols.
A man dead, Degas had said. There was a pilot lost; he had heard that, a man named Van. The flow of data rippled past, with a man’s death in it, and told him nothing. They took landscan, of which he could have made at least a modicum of sensible interpretation, and left him this jargon . . . in payment for his signature. It was the signature security had wanted, to get another shuttle launched, a ship down there, nothing more than that. They had made games of him and he had let them. Perhaps what motivated them really was locked in these incomprehensible records . . . and Degas placed them in his hands for mockery.
They must not even need interpretation of the data . . . or they would have taken it all.
Harris: he thought of the pilot Harris, one man he knew on the ship who had some expertise in shuttles and the kind of scan they were carrying, who at least might know what field these strange notations came of. He cut off the tape with a jab of his finger, punched in ship’s communications.
Com answered, a young voice.
“This is Dr. Simeon Averson down in lab. Request you locate one Lt. Harris, pilot, and ask him to come to my lab as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir.”
He thanked com, broke connection and leaned back, gnawing at his knuckle.
And in a moment the screen activated again. “Dr. Averson,” said a different and female voice.
“Yes.”
“Dr. Averson, this is Lt. McCray, security. Col. Degas’s regards, sir, but your last request violates lines of operations.
”
“What request?”
“For communications with the military arm, sir. Regulations make it necessary to deny that interview. Lt. Harris is on other assignment.”
“You mean he’s not on the ship?”
“He’s on other assignment, sir.”
“Thank you.” He broke connection, clenched his hands a second time.
And after a moment he snatched up a pertinent handful of his notes, his notebook, and the tapes, stalked across to the door and opened it.
There was a young man in AlSec uniform just outside, not precisely watching—or moving, or with reasonable business in the otherwise deserted corridor.
Averson retreated inside and closed the door between them, feeling a prickling of sweat, a pounding of his heart which was not good for him. He walked back to the desk and sat down, slammed his notebook at the cassettes and the papers down, fumbled in his breast pocket for the bottle of pills. He took one and slowly the pounding subsided.
Then he stabbed at the console and obtained com again. “This is Averson. Get me the admiral.”
“That has to go through channels, sir.”
“Put it through channels.”
There was prolonged silence, without image.
“Dr. Averson,” Degas’s voice came suddenly over the unit. “Do I detect dissatisfaction with something?”
Averson sucked in his breath, let it out again. “Put me through to the admiral, sir. Now.”
The silence again. His heart beat harder and harder. He was Havener. In the war, such men had had power there. Absolute power. He had learned so.
“Now,” Averson repeated.
More silence.
“That comes by appointment,” Degas said. “I will make that appointment for you.”
“This moment.”
“I will meet you at the admiral’s office. If there is some question regarding security operations, it will be necessary.”
The heartbeat became painful again, even more than in the terror of the flight up.
“I trust you won’t be needing transfer back downworld,” Degas said blandly. “Flights are very much more hazardous than they were when you came up. I would not risk it.”