Actually that was a very good answer. I said, "They're a purely theoretical name for something nobody's sure really exists. It's been postulated that the part of the brain which
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controls psi forces gives off a certain type of vibration which we call energons. We can describe what they do, though we can't really describe them. These, when directed and focused through a matrix?I showed you?become immensely amplified, with the matrix acting as a transformer. It is the amplified energons which transform energy. Well, in a matrix circle, it is the Keeper who receives the flow of energons from all members of the circle and weaves them all into a single focused beam, and this, the focused beam, is what goes through the large matrix."
"Why are Keepers always women?"
'They aren't. There have been male Keepers, powerful ones, and other men who have taken a Keeper's place. I can do it myself. But women have more positive energon flows, and they begin to generate them younger and keep them longer."
"You explained why a Keeper has to be chaste," Marjorie said, "but I still don't understand it."
Kadarin said, "That's because it's superstitious driveL There's nothing to understand; it's gibberish."
"In the old days," I said, "when the really enormous matrix screens were made, the big synthetic ones, the Keepers were virgins, trained from early childhood and conditioned hi ways you wouldn't believe. You know how close a matrix circle is." I looked around at them, savoring the closeness. "In those days a Keeper had to learn to be part of the circle and yet completely, completely apart from it."
Marjorie said, "I should think they'd have gone mad."
"A good many of them did. Even now, most of the women who work as Keepers give it up after a year or two. It's too difficult and frustrating. The Keepers at the towers aren't required to be virgins any more. But while they are working as Keepers, they stay strictly chaste."
"It sounds like nonsense," Thyra said.
"Not a bit of it," I said. "The Keeper takes and channels all that energy from all of-you. No one who has ever handled these very high energy-flows wants to take the slightest chance of short-circuiting them through her own body. It would be like getting in the way of a lightning-bolt." I held out the scar again. "A three-second backflow did that to me. Well, then. In the body there are clusters of nerve fibers which control the energy flows. The trouble is that the same nerve clusters carry two kinds of energy; they carry the psi
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flows, the energons which carry power to the brain; they also carry the sexual messages and energies. This is why some telepaths get threshold sickness when they're in their teens: the two kinds of energy, sexual energies and laran, are both wakening at once. If they aren't properly handled, you can get an overload, sometimes a killer overload, because each stimulates the other and you get a circular feedback."
Beltran asked, "Is that why?"
I nodded, knowing what he was going to ask. "Whenever there's an energon drain, as in concentrated matrix work, there's some nerve overloading. Your energies are depleted?have you noticed how we've all been eating??and your sexual energies are at a low ebb, too. The major side effect for men is temporary impotence." I repeated, smiling reassuringly at Beltran, "Temporary impotence. Nothing to worry about, but it does take some getting used to. By the way, if you ever find you can't eat, come to one of us right away for monitoring; that can be an early-warning signal that your energy flows are out of order."
"Monitoring. That's what you're teaching me to do, then?" Beltran asked, and I nodded. "That's right. Even if you can't link into the circle, we can use you as a psi monitor." I knew he was still resentful about this. He knew enough by now to know it was the work usually done by the youngest and least skilled in the circle. The worst of it was that unless he could stop projecting this resentment, we couldn't even use him near the circle. Not even as a psi monitor. There are few things that can disrupt a circle faster than uncontrolled resentments.
I said, "In a sense, the Keeper and the psi monitor are at the two ends of a circle?and almost equally important." This was true. "Often enough, the life of the Keeper is in the hands of the monitor, because she has no energy to waste in watching over her own body."
Beltran grinned ruefully, but he grinned. "So Marjorie is the head and I'm the old cow's tail!".
"By no means. Rather she's at the top of the ladder and you're on the ground holding it steady. You're the lifeline." I remembered suddenly that we had come far astray from the subject, and said, "With a Keeper, if the nerve channels are not completely clear they can overload, and the Keeper will burn up like a torch. So while the nerve channels are being used to carry these tremendous energy overloads, they cannot
be used to carry any other form of energy. And only complete chastity can keep the channels clear enough."
Marjorie said, "I can feel the channels all the time now. Even when I'm not working in the matrices. Even when I'm asleep."
"Good." That meant she was functioning as a Keeper now. Beltran looked at her with half shut eyes and said, "I can see them, almost."
"That's good, too," I said. "A time will come when you'll be able to sense the energy flows from across the room?or a mile away?and pinpoint any backflows or energy disruptions in any of us."
I deliberately changed the subject. I asked, "Precisely what do we want to do with the Sharra matrix, Beltran?"
"You know my plans."
"Plans, yes, precisely what do you want to do first"? I know that in the end you want to prove that a matrix this size can power a starship?"
"Can it?" Marjorie asked.
"A matrix this size, love, could bring one of the smaller moons right down out of its orbit, if we were insane enough to try. It would, of course, destroy Darkover along with it. Powering a starship with one might be possible, but we can't start there. Among other reasons, we haven't got a starship yet. We need a smaller project to experiment with, to learn to direct and focus the force. This force is fire-powered, so we also need a place to work where, if we lose control for a few seconds, we won't burn up a thousand leagues of forest."
I saw Beltran shudder. He was mountain^bred too, and shared with all Darkovans the fear of forest fire. "Father has four Terran aircraft, two light planes and two helicopters, One helicopter is away in the lowlands, but would the other be suitable for experiment?"
I considered. "The explosive fuel should be removed first,** I said, "so if anything does go wrong it won't burn. Otherwise a helicopter might be ideal, experimenting with the rotors to lift and power and control it. It's a question of developing control and precision. You wouldn't put Rafe, here, to riding your fastest racehorse."
Rafe said shyly, "Lew, you said we need other telepaths. Lord Kermiac ... didn't he train matrix mechanics before any of us were born? Why isn't he one of us?"
True. He had trained Desideria and trained her so well that she could use the Sharra matrix?
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"And she used it alone," said Kadarin, picking up my thoughts. "So why does it worry you that we are so few?"
"She didn't use it alone," I said. "She had fifty to a hundred believers focusing their raw emotion on the stone. More, she did not try to control it or focus it. She used it as a weapon, rather, she let it use her." I felt a sudden cold shudder of fear, as if every hair on my body were prickling and standing erect. I cut off the thought. I was tower-trained. I had no will to wield it for power. I was sworn.
"As for Kermiac," I said, "he is old, past controlling a matrix. I wouldn't risk it, Rafe."
Beltran grew angry. "Damn it, you might have the courtesy to ask him!"
That seemed fair enough, when I weighed the experience he must have had against his age and weakness. "Ask him, if you will. But don't press him. Let him make his own
choice freely."
"He will not," Marjorie said. She colored as we all turned on her. "I thought it was my place, as Keeper, to ask him. He called it to my mind that he would not even teach me. He said a circle was only as strong as the weakest person in it, and he would endanger all our lives."
I felt both disappointed and relieved. Disappointed because I would have welcomed a chance to join him in that special bond that comes only among the members of a circle, to feel myself truly one of his kin. Relieved, because what he had told Marjorie was true, and we all knew it.
Thyra said rebelliously, "Does he understand how much we need him? Isn't it worth some risk?"
I would have risked the hazards to us, not those to him. At Arilinn they recommended gradual relinquishing of the work after early middle age, as vitality lessened.
"Always Arilinn," Thyra said impatiently, as if I had spoken aloud. "Do they tram them there to be cowards?"
I turned on her, tensing myself against that sudden inner anger which Thyra could rouse in me so easily. Then, sternly controlling myself before Marjorie or the others could be caught up hi the whirlpool emotion which swirled and raced between Thyra and me, I said, "One thing they do teach us, Thyra, is to be honest with ourselves and each other." I held out my hands to her. If she had been taught at Arilinn she would have known already that anger was all too often a concealment for less permissible emotions. "Are you ready to be so honest with me?"
Reluctantly, she took my extended hand between her own. I fought to keep my barriers down, not to barricade myself against her. She was trembling, and I knew this was a new and distressing experience to her, that no man except Kadarin, who had been her lover for so long, had ever stirred her senses. I thought, for a moment, she would cry. It would have been better if she had, but she bit her lip and stared at me, defiant. She whispered, half-aloud, "Don't?"
I broke the trembling rapport, knowing I could not force Thyra, as I would have had to do at Arilinn, to go into this all the way and confront what she refused to see. I couldn't Not before Marjorie.
It was not cowardice, I told myself fiercely. We were all kinsmen and kinswomen. There was simply no need.
I said, changing the subject quickly, "We can try keying the Sharra matrix tomorrow, if you want. Have you explained to your father, Beltran, that we will need an isolated place to work, and asked leave to use the helicopter?"
"I will ask him tonight, when we are at dinner," Beltran promised.
After dinner, when we were all seated in the little private study we had made our center, he came to us and told us permission had been given, that we could use the old airstrip. We talked little that night, each thinking his or her own thoughts. I was thinking that it had certainly cost Kadarin a lot to turn the matrix over to me. All along, he had expected that he and Beltran would be wholly hi charge of this work, that I would be only a helper, lending skill but with no force to decisions. Beltran probably still resented my taking charge, and his inability to be part of the circle was most likely the bitterest dose he had ever had to swallow.
Marjorie was a little apart from us all, the heartbreaking isolation of a Keeper having already begun to slip down over her, forcing her away from the rest. I hated myself for having condemned her to this. With one part of myself I wanted to smash it all and take her into my arms. Maybe Kadarin was right, maybe the chastity of a Keeper was the stupidest of Comyn superstitions, and Marjorie and I were going through all this hell unnecessarily.
I let myself drift out of focus, trying to see ahead to a day when we would be free to love one another. And strangely, though my life :vas here and I felt I had wholly renounced my allegiance to Comyn, I still tried to see myself breaking the news to my father.
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t came up to ordinary awareness and saw that Rafe was asleep on the hearth. Someone should wake him and send him to bed. Was this work too strenuous for a boy his age? He should be playing with button-sized matrices, not working seriously in a circle like this!
My eyes dwelt longest, with a cruel envy, on Kadarin and Thyra, side by side on the hearthrug, gazing into the fire. No prohibition lay between them; even separated, they had each other. I saw Marjorie's eyes come to rest on them, with the same remote sadness. That, at least, we could share ... and for now it was all we could share.
I turned my hand over and looked with detached sorrow at the mark tattooed on my right wrist, the seal of Comyn. The sign that I was laran heir to a Domain. My father had sworn for me, before that mark was set there, for service to Comyn, loyalty to my people.
I looked at the scar from my first year at Arilinn. It ached whenever I was doing matrix work like this; it ached now. That, not the tattoo mark of my Domain, was the real sign of my loyalty to Darkover. And now I was working for a great rebirth of knowledge and wisdom to benefit all our world. I was breaking the law of Arilinn by working with untrained telepaths, unmonitored matrices. Breaking their letter, perhaps, to restore their spirit all over Darkover!
When, yawning wearily, Rafe and the women went their way to bed, I detained Kadarin for a moment. "One thing I have to know. Are you and Thyra married?"
He shook his head. "Freemates, perhaps, we never sought formal ceremonies. If she had wished I would have been willing, but I have seen too many marriage customs on too many worlds to care about any of them. Why?"
"In a tower circle this would not arise; here it must be taken into account," I said. "Is there any possibility that she could be carrying a child?"
He raised his eyebrow. I knew the question was an inexcusable intrusion, but it was necessary to know. He said at last, "I doubt it. I have traveled on so many worlds and been exposed to so many things ... I am older than I look, but I have fathered no children. Probably I cannot. So I fear if Thyra really wants a child she will have to have it fathered elsewhere. Are you volunteering?" he asked, laughing.
I found the question too outrageous even to think about "I only felt I should warn you that matrix circle work could be dangerous if there was the slightest chance of pregnancy.
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Not so much for her, but for the unborn child. There have been gruesome tragedies. I felt I should warn you."
"I should think you'd have done better to warn her," he said, "but I appreciate your delicacy." He gave me an odd, unreadable look and went away. Well, I had done no more than my duty in asking, and if the question distressed him, he would have to absorb and accept it, as I absorbed my frustration over Marjorie and accpeted the way Thyra's physical presence disturbed me. My dreams that night were disturbing, Thyra and Marjorie tangling into a single woman, so that again and again I would see one in dreams and suddenly discover it was the other. I should have recognized this as a sign of danger, but I only knew that when it was too late.
The next day was gray and lowering. I wondered if we would have to wait till spring for any really effective work. It might be better, giving us time to settle into our work together, perhaps find others to fit into the circle. Beltran and Kadarin would be impatient. Well, they would just have to master their impatience.
Marjorie looked cold and apprehensive; I felt the same way. A few lonesome snowflakes were drifting down, but I could not make the snow an excuse for putting off the experiment. Even Thyra's high spirits were subdued.
I unwrapped the sword in which the matrix was hidden. The forge-folk must have done this; I wondered if they had known, even halfway, what they were doing. There were old traditions about matrices like this, installed in weapons. They came out of the Ages of Chaos, when, it is said, everything it's possible to know about matrices was known, and our world nearly destroyed in consequence.
I said to Beltran, "It's very dangerous to key into a matrix this size without a very definite end in mind. It must always be controlled or it will take control of us."
Kadarin said, "You speak as if the matrix was a live thing."
"I'm not so
sure it's not. I gestured at the helicopter, standing about eighty feet away at the near edge of the deserted airfield, the snow faintly beginning to edge its tail and rotors. "What I mean is this. We cannot simply key into the matrix, say fly1 and stand here watching that thing take off. We must know precisely how the mechanism works, in order to know precisely what forces we must exert, and in what directions. I suggest we begin by concentrating on turn-
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ing the rotor blade mechanism and getting enough speed to lift it. We don't really need a matrix this size for that, nor five workers. I could do it with this." I touched the insulated bag which held my own. "But we must have some precise way of learning to direct forces. We will discover, then, how to lift the helicopter and, since we don't want it to crash, we'll limit ourselves to turning the rotors until it lifts a few inches, then gradually diminish the speed again until we set it down. Later we can try for direction and control in flight." I turned to Beltran. "Will this demonstrate to the Terrans that psi power has material uses, so they'll give us help in developing a way to use this for a stardrive?"
It was Kadarin who answered, "Hell yes! If I know the Terrans!"
Marjorie checked Rafe's mittened hands. "Warm enough?" He pulled away indignantly, and she admonished, "Don't be silly! Shivering uses up too much energy; you have to be able to concentrate!" I was pleased at her grasp of this. My own chill was mental, not physical. I placed Beltran at a littie distance from the circle. I knew it was a bitter pill to swallow, that the twelve-year-old Rafe could be part of this and he could not, and I was intensely sorry for him, but the first necessity of matrix work was to know and accept for all time your own limitations. If he couldn't, be had no business within a mfle of the circle.
There was really no need for a physical circle, but I drew us close enough that the magnetic energy of our bodies would overlap and reinforce the growing bond.
I knew this was folly, a partly trained Keeper, a partly trained psi monitor ... an illegal, unmonitored matrix ... and yet I thought of the pioneers in the early days of our world, first taming the matrices. Terran colonists? Kadarin thought so. Before the towers rose, before their use was guarded by ritual and superstition. And it was given to us to retrace then- steps!
I separated hilt and blade, taking out the matrix. It was not yet activated, but at its touch the old scar on my palm contracted with a stab of pain. Marjorie moved with quiet sureness into the center of the circle. She stood facing me, laying one hand on the blue stone ... a vortex seeking to draw me into its depths, a maelstrom. ... I shut my eyes, reaching out for contact with Marjorie, steadying myself as I made contact with her cool silken strength. I felt Thyra drop into place, then Kadarin; the sense of an almost-unendurable