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He said vehemently, "Then you should be one of us! You were sent to us at this moment, I think, because we needed you, because we couldn't go on without someone like you!"
"To do what?" I wanted no part in any Aldaran plots.
"Only this, kinsman, to give Darkover her rightful place, as a world belonging to our own time, not a barbarian backwater! We deserve the place on the Empire Council which we should have had, centuries ago, if the Empire had been honest with us. And we are going to have it!"
"A noble dream," I said, "if you can manage it. Just how are you going to bring this about?"
"It won't be easy," Beltran said. "It's suited the Empire, and the Comyn, to perpetuate their idea of our world: backward, feudal, ignorant. And we have become many of these things."
"Yet," Thyra said from the shadows, "we have one thing which is wholly Darkovan and unique. Our psi powers." She leaned forward to put a log on the fire and I saw her features briefly, lit by flame, dark, vital, glowing. I said, "If they are unique to Darkover, what of your theory that we are all Terrans?"
"Oh, yes,1* she said, "these powers are all recorded and remembered on Terra. But Terra neglected the powers of the mind, concentrating on material things, metal and machinery and computers. So their psi powers were forgotten and bred out. Instead we developed them, deliberately bred for them?that much of the Comyn legend is true. And we had the matrix jewels which convert energy. Isolation, genetic drift and selective breeding did the rest. Darkover is a reservoir of psi power and, as far as I know, is the only planet in the galaxy which turned to psi instead of technology."
"Even with matrix amplification, these powers are dangerous," I said. "Darkovan technology has to be used with caution, and sparsely. The price, in human terms, is usually too high."
The woman shrugged. "You cannot take hawks without climbing cliffs," she said.
"Just what is it you intend to do?"
"Make the Terrans take us seriously!"
"You don't mean war?" That sounded like suicidal nonsense and I said so. "Fight the Terrans, weapons against weapons?"
"No. Or only if they need to be shown that we are neither
Ignorant nor helpless," Kadarin said. "A high-level matrix, I understand, is a weapon to make even the Terrans tremble. But I hope and trust it will never come to that. The Terran Empire prides itself on the fact that they don't conquer, that planets ask to be admitted to the Empire. Instead, the Comyn committed Darkover to withdrawal, barbarianism, a search for yesterday, not tomorrow. We have something to give the Empire hi return for what they give us, our matrix technology. We can join as equals, not suppliants. I have heard that in the old days there were matrix-powered aircraft in Arilinn?"
"True," I said, "as recently as in my father's time.*1
"And why not now?" He did not wait for me to answer. "Also, we could have a really effective communications technique?"
"We have that now."
"But the towers work only under Comyn domination, not for the entire population of the world."
"The risks?"
"Only the Comyn seem to know anything about those risks," Beltran said. "I'm tired of letting the Comyn decide for everyone else what risks we may take. I want us to be accepted as equals by the Terrans. I want us to be part of Terran trade, not just the trickle which comes in and out by the spaceports under elaborate permits signed and countersigned by their alien culture specialists to make certain it won't disturb our primitive culture! I want good roads and manufacturing and transportation and some control over the God-forgotten weather on this world! I want our students in the Empire universities, and theirs coming here! Other planets have these things! And above all I want star-travel. Not as a rich man's toy, as with the Ridenow lads spending a season now and then on some faraway pleasure world and bringing back new toys and new debaucheries, but free trade, with Darkovan ships coming and going at our will, not the Empire's!"
"Daydreams," I said flatly. "There's not enough metal on Darkover for a spaceship's hulk, let alone fuel to power it!"
"We can trade for metal," Beltran said. "Do you think matrices, manned by psi power, won't power a spaceship? And wouldn't that make most of the other power sources in the Galaxy obsolete overnight?"
I stood motionless for a moment, gripped by the force of
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his dream. Starships for Darkover . . . matrix-powered! By all the Gods, what a dream! And Darkovaos comrades, competitors, not forgotten stepchildren of the Empire. . . .
"It can't be possible," I said, "or the matrix circles would have done it in the old days."
"It was done," Kadarin said. "The Comyn stopped it It would have diluted their power on this world. We turned our back on a Galactic civilization because that crew of old women in Thendara decided they liked our world the way it was, with the Comyn up there with the Gods and everyone else running around bowing and scraping to them! They even disarmed us all. Their precious Compact sounds very civilized, but what it's done, in effect, is to make it impossible to organize any kind of armed rebellion that could endanger the Comyn's power!"
This went along, all too uncomfortably, with some of my own thoughts. Even Hastur spoke noble words about the Comyn devoting themselves to the service of Darkover, but what it came to was that he knew what was best for Darkover, and wanted no independent ideas challenging his power to enforce that "best."
"It's a noble dream. I said that before. But what have I to do with it?"
It was Marjorie who answered, squeezing my hand eagerly. ''Cousin, you're tower-trained. You know the skills and techniques, and how they can be used even by latent telepaths. So much of the old knowledge has been lost, outside the towers. We can only experiment, work in the dark. We don't have the skills, the disciplines with which we could experiment further. Those of us who are telepaths have no chance to develop our natural gifts; those who are not have no way to learn the mechanics of matrix work. We need someone? someone like you, cousin!"
"I don't know ... I have only worked within the towers. I have been taught it is not safe ..."
"Of course," Kadarin said contemptuously. "Would they risk any trained man experimenting on his own and perhaps learning more than the little they allow? Kermiac was training matrix technicians here in the Hellers when you people in the Domains were still working in guarded circles, looked on as sorceresses and warlocks! But he is very old and he cannot guide us now." He smiled, a brief, bleak smile. "We need
someone who is young and skilled and above all fearless. I think you have the strength for it. Have you the will?"
I found myself recalling the fey sense of destiny which had gripped me as I rode here. Was this the destiny I had foreseen, to break the hold of a corrupt clan on Darfcover, to overthrow their grip at our throats, set Darkover in its rightful place among the equals of the Empire?
It was almost too much to grasp. I was suddenly very tired. Marjorie, still stroking my hand gently in her small fingers, said without looking up, "Enough, Beltran, give him time. He's weary from traveling and you've been jumping at him till he's confused. If it's right for him, he'll decide."
She was thinking of me. Everyone else was thinking of how well I could fit into their plans.
Beltran said with a rueful, friendly smile, "Cousin, my apologies! Marjorie is right, enough for now! After that long journey, you're more in need of a quiet drink and a soft bed than a lecture on Darkovan history and politics! Well, the drink for now and the bed soon, I promise!" He called for wine and a sweet fruit-flavored cordial not unlike the shal-lan we drank in the valley. He raised his glass to me. "To our better acquaintance, cousin, and to a pleasant stay among us."
I was glad to drink to that. Mariorie's eyes met mine over the rim of her glass. I wanted to take her hand again. Why : did she appeal
to me so? She looked young and shy, with an endearing awkwardness, but in the classic sense, she was not beautiful. I saw Thyra sitting within the curve of Kadarin's arm, drinking from his cup. Among valley folk that would have proclaimed them admitted lovers. I didn't know what, if anything, it meant here. I wished I were free to hold Marjorie like that
I turned my attention to what Beltran was saying, about Terran methods used hi the rapid building of Caer Donn, of the way hi which trained telepaths could be used for weather forecasting and control. "Every planet in the Empire would send people here to be trained by us, and pay well for the privilege."
It was all true, but I was tired, and Beltran's plans were so exciting I feared I would not sleep. Besides, my nerves were raw-edged with trying to keep my awareness of Marjorie under control. I felt I would rather be beaten into bleeding pulp than intrude, even marginally, on her sensitivities. But I kept
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wanting to reach out to her, test her awareness of me, see if she shared my feelings or if her kindness was the courtesy of a kinswoman to a wearied guest....
"Beltran," I said at last, cutting off the flow of enthusiastic ideas, "there's one serious flaw in your plans. There just aren't enough telepaths. We haven't enough trained men and women even to keep all nine of the towers operating. For such a galactic plan as you're contemplating, we'd need dozens, hundreds."
"But even a latent telepath can learn matrix mechanics," he said. "And many who have inherited the gifts never develop them. I believed the tower-trained could awaken latent faran"
I frowned. "The Alton gift is to force rapport. I learned to use it in the towers to awaken latents if they weren't too barricaded. I can't always do it. That demands a catalyst tele-path. Which I'm not."
Thyra said sharply, "I told you so, Bob. That gene's extinct."
Something in her tone made me want to contradict her. **No, Thyra," I said, "I know of one. He's only a boy, and untrained, but definitely a catalyst telepath. He awakened laran in a latent, even after I failed."
"Much good that does us," Beltran said in disgust. "Comyn Council has probably bound him so tight, with favors and patronage, that he'll never see beyond their will! They usually do, with telepaths. I'm surprised they haven't already bribed and bound you that way."
I thought, but did not say, that they had tried.
"No," I said, "they have not. Dani has no reason at all to love the Comyn ... and reason enough to hate."
I smiled at Marjorie and began to tell them about Danilo and the cadets.
Chapter THIRTEEN
Regis lay in the guest chamber at Edelweiss, tired to exhaustion, but unable to sleep. He had come to Edelweiss through a late-afternoon fall of snow, still too stunned and sickened to talk, or to eat the supper Javanne had had prepared for him. His head throbbed and his eyes flickered with little dots of light which remained even when his eyes were shut, crawling, forming odd visual traceries behind the eyelids.
Dyan, he kept thinking. In charge of cadets, misusing power like that, and no one knew, or cared, or interfered.
Oh, they knew, he realized. They must have known. He would never believe Dyan could have deceived Kennard!
He remembered that curious unsatisfactory talk in the tavern with Dyan and his head throbbed harder, as if the very violence of his emotions would burst it asunder. He felt all the worse because he had, in truth, liked Dyan, had admired him and been flattered by bis attention. He had welcomed the chance to talk to a kinsman as an equal ... like a stupid, silly child! Now he knew what Dyan was trying to find out, so subtle it was never even an invitation.
It was not the nature of Dyan's desires that troubled him so greatly. It was not considered anything so shameful to be an ombredin, a lover of men. Among boys too young for marriage, rigidly kept apart by custom from any women except their own sisters or cousins, it was considered rather more suitable to seek companionship and even love from their friends than to consort with such women as were common to all. It was eccentric, perhaps, in a man of Dyan's years, but certainly not shameful.
What sickened Regis was the kind and type of pressure used against Danilo, the deliberate, sadistic cruelty of it, the particularly subtle revenge Dyan had taken for the wound to his pride.
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Petty harrassment would have been cruel but understandable. But to use laran against him! To force himself on Danilo's mind, to torment him that way! Regis felt physically ill with disgust
Besides, he thought, still tossing restlessly, there were enough men or young lads who would have welcomed Dyan's interest. Some, perhaps, only because Dyan was a Comyn lord, rich and able to give presents and privileges to his friends, but others, certainly, would find Dyan a charming, pleasing and sophisticated companion. He could have had a dozen minions or lovers and no one would have thought of criticizing him. But some perverse cruelty made him seek the one boy in the cadets who would have none of him. A cristo-foro.
He turned on his side, thrust a pillow over his face to shut out the light of the single candle he was too weary to get up and extinguish, and tried to sleep. But his mind kept going back to the frightening, disturbingly sexual nightmares which had preceded the wakening of his own laran. He knew now how Dyan had pursued Danilo even in sleep, enjoying the boy's fright and shame. And he knew now the ultimate corruption of power: to make another person a toy to do your will.
Was Dyan mad, then? Regis considered. No, he was very sane, to choose a poor boy, one without powerful friends or patrons. He played with Dani as a cat plays with a captive bird, torturing where he could not kill. Regis felt sick again. Pleasure in pain. Did it give Dyan that kind of pleasure to batter him black and blue at swordplay? With the vivid tactile memory of a telepath he relived that moment when Dyan had run his hands over his bruised body, the deliberate sensual quality of the touch. He felt physically used, contaminated, shamed. If Dyan had been physically present then, Regis would have struck him and dared the consequences himself.
And Dani was a catalyst telepath. That terrible force, that loathsome compulsion, against the rarest and most sensitive of telepaths!
Again and again, compulsively, he returned to that night in the barracks when he had tried?and failed?to reach out to Danilo and comfort him. He felt again and again the pain, the physical and mental shock of that wild rejection, the flood of guilt, terror, shame which had flooded him from that
brief and innocent touch on Danilo's bare shoulder. Cassilda, blessed Mother of the Comyn! Regis thought in scalding shame, I touched him! Is it any wonder he thought me no better than Dyanl
He turned over on his back and lay staring at the vaulted ceiling, feeling his body ice over with dread. Dyan was a member of Council. They could not be so corrupt that they would know what Dyan had done, and say nothing. But who could tell them?
The single candle near his bed wavered, flickered in and out of focus; colors looped and spun across his visual field and the room swelled up, receded and shrank until it seemed to lie far away, then loom enormously around him in great echoing space.
He recognized the feeling from when Lew gave him kirian, but he was not drugged now!
He clutched at the bedclothes, squeezing his eyes shut. He could still see the candleflame, a dark fire printed inside his eyelids, the room around him lit with blazing brilliance, reversed afterimages, dark to bright and bright to dark, and a roaring in his ears like the distant roaring of a forest fire . . . ... The fire-lines at Armida! For an instant it seemed that ?he saw Lew's face again, crimson, gazing into a great fire, ' drawn with terror and wonder, then the face of a woman, shining, ecstatic, crowned with fire, burning, burning alive in the flames ... Sharra, golden-chained Forge-Goddess. The room was alive with the fire and he burrowed beneath the blankets, sunk, battered, swirled. The room was dissolving around him, tilting ... every threa
d in the smooth fine linen of the blankets seemed to cut into him, hard and rough, the .twisted fibers of blanket trying to curl and frizzle and dig ..painfully into his skin, like cutting edges. He heard someone Inoan aloud and wondered who was there moaning and .crying like that. The very air seemed to separate itself and come apart against his skin as if he had to sort it out into little droplets before he could breathe. His own breath hissed and whistled and moaned as it went in and out, like searing fire, to be quenched by the separate droplets of water in bis ^ lungs....
Pain crashed through bis head. He felt his skull smashing, shattering into little splinters; Another blow sent him flying high, falling into darkness.
"Regis!" Again the crashing, reeling sickness of the blow
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and the long spin into space. The sound was only meaningless vibration but he tried to focus on it, make it mean something. "Regis!" Who was Regis? The roaring candlefiame died to a glimmer and Regis heard himself gasp aloud. Someone was standing over him, calling his name, slapping him hard and repeatedly. Suddenly, noiselessly, the room fell into focus.
"Regis, wake up! Get up and walk around, don't drift with it!"
"Javanne ..." he said, struggling fuzzily upright to catch her hand as it was descending for another blow. "Don't, sister ..."
He was surprised at how weak and faraway his voice sounded. She gave a faint cry of relief. She was standing beside his bed, a white shawl slipping from her shoulders above her long nightgown. "I thought one of the children cried out, then heard you. Why didn't you tell me you were likely to have threshold sickness?"
Regis blinked and dropped her hand. Even without the touch he could feel her fear. The room was still not quite solid around him. "Threshold sickness?" He thought about it a moment. He'd heard of it, of course, born into a Comyn family: a physical and psychic upheaval of awakening tele-paths in adolescence, the inability of the brain to cope with sudden overloads of sensory and extrasensory data, resulting in perceptual distortions of sight, sound, touch. ... "I never had it before. I didn't know what it was. Things seemed to thin out and disappear, I couldn't see properly, or feel..."
"I know. Get up now and walk around a little."
The room was still tilting around him; he clung to the bed-frame. "If I do, I'll fall...."
"And if you don't, your balance centers will start drifting out of focus again. Here," she said with a faint laugh, tossing the white shawl to him, looking courteously away as he wrapped it around his body and struggled to his feet. "Regis, did no one warn you of this when your laran wakened?"
"Didn't -who warn me? I don't think anyone knew," he said, taking a hesitant step and then another. She was right; under the concentrated effort of getting up and moving, the room settled into solidity again. He shuddered and went toward the candle. The little lights still danced and jiggled behind his eyes, but it was candle-sized again. How had it