“You led that ship here, to us?” Hermes managed to suffuse each syllable with outrage.
The boy swayed on his feet. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“Dom Hermes,” Linnea said gently, “these people are fighting for their lives, making the best choices they can under terrible pressure. Can you hold this child responsible for an outcome none of them foresaw? Or do you truly believe that Captain Harris had some nefarious purpose in coming here?”
The young off-worlder could not understand her casta, but he responded to her tone and the pulse of kindness she sent in his direction.
“Does it matter? Now we’ll be the ones fighting for our lives, as you put it, vai leronis!” Hermes relented visibly. “It’s not your fault, lad,” he said, switching to Terran Standard.
“If your people idolize supernatural beings, now is the time to pray to them.” The young officer’s voice failed him. He straightened his shoulders and stood at attention before Domenic. “Request permission to return to my ship. Sir.”
To be with his comrades, Linnea thought. Maybe his family.
It struck her that this young man might well be the son of the captain or her younger brother. She didn’t think he was exaggerating. He truly believed he was about to die.
“Then you had best go,” Domenic said quietly. “And may the blessings of whatever gods you worship go with you.”
The young man hurried from the chamber.
“Jeram.” Domenic turned to the older man.
“He’s right, you know,” Jeram said darkly. “A fully armed aventour could do a lot of damage. It couldn’t destroy the whole planet. You’d need a dreadnaught for that. But it could level Thendara.”
“There’s got to be a way out of this,” Domenic said. “Keep them talking—Zandru’s seven frozen hells, let me do it!” He reached for one of the headsets.
“Are you sure that’s wise?” Hermes said. “Negotiating directly?”
“Do you have a better idea?” Domenic snapped.
Hermes seemed to gather himself. “If diplomatic speech can be of any help, I’m the one to do it. I’ve had years of experience negotiating with Nagy’s cronies in the Senate. Let me throw around some names. Maybe those connections still carry some clout.”
At Domenic’s nod, Hermes took the place beside Jeram. Linnea noted the change in his posture and vocal tone as he began to speak. He reminded her of Dyan Ardais, the old lord, not the current Warden, who had been misguided but no less passionate in his loyalty to the Comyn. Phrase after phrase rolled out, as fluent as if Hermes had rehearsed for a tenday. Linnea watched the man she knew, however slightly, transform into a stranger.
At last, Hermes paused for a reply. The voice from the Dauntless repeated that Darkover had no standing in the Star Alliance. Hermes spoke again, and then again, always with the same result.
“Do you think they’re using a recording?” Jeram said. From his expression, he was rapidly losing hope.
A new voice blared across the speaker: “Cottman IV, we have a duly authorized warrant for the capture or destruction of the renegade vessel Grissom.”
Domenic, his features even more grim than before, gestured for the headset. Shoulders sagging, Hermes passed it to him.
“This is Dom Domenic Alton-Hastur, Acting Regent of the Comyn of the Seven Domains. I remind you that Darkover is a Closed Planet and has declared itself neutral territory.”
“We do not recognize—”
“And we do not recognize the authority of the Star Alliance or any other institution claiming to be the successor to the duly constituted Federation! We have no part in your dispute. Any specific claims you have against the Grissom and her crew must be filed with the cortes, which will adjudicate the matter according to our laws. Do you wish to do so?”
“What can they do to us?” Cassandra said, her voice on the edge of a sob.
“The kid from the Grissom wasn’t kidding about their firepower. Look . . .” Jeram indicated one of the screens. Symbols scrolled across a diagram of a ship, an elongated tapering cylinder. “Here, here . . . and here. Those are plasma fusion missiles. The propellant reactors are almost fully charged. And there—” cluster after cluster of motes shimmered a poisonous green, “those are—”
“We don’t need to know,” Domenic cut him off. “How many different ways can they kill us?”
Linnea got up and, overcoming the natural aversion of a telepath for casual touch, put her arms around Cassandra. The girl was trembling so hard, her next words came out as a squeak.
“Are we going to die?”
“Hush, chiya. No one knows for sure.”
Hermes turned to Jeram. “How long before they attack? How much time do we have?”
“Maybe an hour to optimum range.”
“Dauntless, we are unable to comply with your request,” Domenic said. “We urge you to send down a representative to discuss the situation.”
“What are you doing?” Hermes said, aghast.
“Buying us more time.”
A heartbeat passed, and then another, and still the Star Alliance ship did not respond. Jeram switched the transmission to his own headset
“Dauntless, do you receive our last message? We are unable to comply.”
Again, only silence answered him. Cassandra was on the verge of tears, and Hermes had turned ashen.
Domenic looked as if he could not quite comprehend the enormity of the threat. The light in his gray eyes was all but quenched. “Repeat, unable to comply. Please acknowledge.”
In the pause that followed, Linnea imagined the Star Alliance ship like an enormous predator of the sea, such as those that sometimes wrecked ships off the Temora coast, now moving with quiet, deadly intent toward its prey.
“Th-that’s it, then?” Cassandra stammered. “There’s nothing to do but wait?”
“And go home to our families,” Hermes said in a voice gone suddenly hoarse. “An hour . . . there’s not enough time to get out of the city. At least the Regent has not returned.” He swallowed audibly. “Something may yet be salvaged.”
Domenic roused, visibly gathering himself. “We must not give up!”
Jeram shook his head. “I can keep trying . . .”
“What’s the point?” Hermes paused on his way to the door. “They won’t listen, they won’t talk to us! We can’t negotiate our way through this one. We have no weapons, no way to defend ourselves. The Compact is all very well, but not when it’s left us vulnerable to pirates who take delight in the ruin of those less powerful. They’re just the kind of monsters Nagy would use to squash resistance. I should have known—I’ve seen enough of their kind before.” He stormed out of the chamber.
“Wh-what about the Grissom?” Cassandra said.
“You heard,” Linnea murmured. “They cannot even help themselves.”
“I know it looks hopeless,” Domenic said, pacing the center of the room, “but there must be something . . . The reason we adopted the Compact was not to control physical weapons, it was to safeguard against the powers of the mind. Laran has been our greatest strength and what sets us apart from other low-industry worlds. Domna Linnea, could Comyn Tower create a laran shield—or disarm the missiles? Or—” his voice shook, “or blast the Dauntless before it can fire?”
Linnea remembered the disaster at Caer Donn, how an outlaw circle had used the immensely powerful Sharra matrix to destroy a spaceport and the spaceship there. But that ship had been on the ground, not high in orbit.
And we do not have any matrix of the magnitude of Sharra, if indeed any such still exist.
The chances of having even the slightest effect on the machinery of the Dauntless were impossibly slim. Perhaps the combined telepathic powers of a circle might be able to reach the mind of its captain or crew . . . but that would take an enormous amount of ps
ychic energy, a suicidal effort. Linnea had never heard of any group of leroni being able to cross such a distance.
For every deed, there is a first time.
“If it can be done, we will do it,” she said aloud. Gently, she set Cassandra from her and gathered her cloak. The girl slumped into a seat beside Jeram.
He nodded, understanding how little chance they had. “I’ll come with you. Illona—”
“The choice is hers,” Linnea said, meaning that under ordinary circumstances, no Keeper would allow a pregnant woman to work in a circle. But if we fail, there will be no future for either her or her child.
35
When the message came that Linnea of Comyn Tower wished to speak with her on the relays, Silvana knew immediately that something was wrong. It was mostly likely news of Gareth, and how could that be good? Anything not urgent would wait until a more convenient time.
She settled herself on the bench in front of the relay screens, aware of the increase in her heart rate, the rise in adrenaline in her blood. Usually she could focus her mind in only a few breaths, but now she achieved the necessary clarity with difficulty.
The linked stones of the relay screen wavered, as if blurred by unshed tears, as she softened the focus of her eyes. Turning her vision inward, she established the connection with the psychoactive device. The crystals trembled as energy coursed through them.
Stelli . . .
Silvana shuddered, knowing that her childhood name was not deliberately used. She was sensing something deeper in the pattern of her mother’s thoughts, her very emotions.
Mother?
Silvana. The mental voice was firmer now, as if Linnea were once more in control of her sendings.
Mother, what is wrong? What has happened to Gareth?
There is no time to explain it all. A starship arrived—rebels against the Alliance that has taken the place of the Federation. They’d been damaged in a fight and needed repairs. We allowed them to set down, but before they could take off again, another ship arrived—
Silvana’s blood felt like glacial meltwater in her veins. Images flickered at the back of her mind—the sky fractured with light as destruction rained down on a city, on Thendara, from above—flame and ash and the screams of the dying.
—refused to recognize Darkover’s sovereign rights or our neutrality. They mean to destroy Thendara in order to eliminate the rebel ship. Nothing any of us said made a difference. Our only chance is for the circle here to reach them. I don’t have much hope, but we have to try.
Silvana rocked back on her bench, her thoughts reeling. Did Linnea understand what she was saying? Did she know that to even attempt such a thing amounted to a death sentence? No human mind could sustain the strain of communicating over so great a distance. If, by the grace of all the gods of Darkover and everywhere else, Linnea survived, it might be better if she had not.
Yes, she knew. She’d called to say good-bye.
Silvana understood, without having to ask, that they had only a few moments together. Linnea would have to prepare herself and enter the state of deep concentration from which she would gather together the laran of her circle, focused through their starstones. Perhaps she might use one of the higher-order matrix screens, if such were available at Comyn Tower, to amplify the unified psychic energy.
Now, when there was no time, Silvana realized how much she wanted to say.
I never stopped loving you, was all she could think to say. The words seemed so paltry, so poor, so inadequate to what she felt.
And I, you. Remember me, caria preciosa, and live a long and happy life.
Then Linnea’s presence disappeared. The matrix stones still vibrated with Silvana’s own mental energy. There was no one at the other end.
For a long moment, Silvana sat in front of the relay screen, her mind too numb and her heart too full to know what to do.
“In time of need,” she murmured, echoing Dirav’s words, and reached for the heartstone.
In her palm the stone glimmered with its own inner light. It seemed to wink at her, to pulsate like a living heart, but its crimson brilliance in no way reminded her of blood. Instead, her mind brought forth images of sunset on the Hellers snowpack, rubies from Ardcarran, the first blush of color in an apple, the glory of autumn . . .
And then she was within the heartstone, or perhaps it was inside her. Far from being alone, she felt a multitude of entities, many either too vast or too minute for human comprehension. She sensed an ineffable comfort, as if she were cradled by the natural beauty of her world and its creatures.
Gradually—or perhaps quickly, for she could not judge the passing of time in that place—she became aware of the presence of the chieri. She first recognized those she knew best, Keral and Dirav. And Lian, Ah, Lian! Then came a sense of connection with others, chieri she had never encountered in the flesh. The union was like and yet fundamentally different from being in a circle. No Tower circle she had ever heard of was this large or stretched over this wide an area. Physical distance did not seem to matter, as it did for ordinary laran.
We are with one another, as we have always been. Words formed in her mind, and she knew it was her own human thoughts that gave them form. As we are with you now.
The ship—Thendara—Silvana began, and then realized she had no need for explanations. Certainly not for explanations in words. Nor did she need to consciously draw forth Gareth’s fractured images and Linnea’s message. All she had to do was soften the boundaries of her own mind, to open the doors between one set of memories and another. It was in many ways a reversal of what she had trained to do as a leronis and then as Keeper. She had learned to compartmentalize her thoughts, to set her emotions behind an unbreachable wall so that no personal concern would affect her concentration.
Now the heartstone demanded a different discipline, one of opening communication, of seeking integration. In order to reach unity with the shared consciousness of the chieri, she had to first become whole within herself.
For a terrible moment, she feared she could not do it, that the combination of early grief and years of practice had left her so fragmented that it was impossible to overcome the divisions between past and present, between heart and logic.
Over the years, she had helped many to heal from injuries to both body and spirit. Was she herself truly such a broken, scarred thing as to be beyond hope?
Look . . . A thought that bore the stamp of Lian’s mind brushed hers. Look back to the time when there were no divisions. Only love.
As if across an enormous distance, she caught the faint ripple of a harp . . . a woman’s voice, singing . . . the vitality of her own body at play . . . trees dancing in the wind, trees of silver and green . . . arms holding her, a man’s arms—her father’s arms—and a sense of such joy rising up in her that she could not contain it . . .
The crimson gem resonated in response.
He never forgot me, nor did she, Silvana thought. They were in my heart all along, even as I was in theirs.
It seemed to her, even as the idea formed and dissolved, that this was true for the oneness of the chieri, bound for that moment to one another and to Darkover itself.
The heartstone brightened, a surge of psychic energy. As it heightened the natural powers of each mind in the unity, it also drew from them. The sensation was so rapturous, so intoxicating, Silvana longed to give herself utterly over to it, to soar on that tide, to merge with it—but that way lay danger. Her Keeper’s training recoiled at such a surrender.
Even now, she felt the draw of the heartstone, not only its seduction but its price. It was far more than a circle, but a sphere, remarkable in its capacity to join so many minds across such distance. That unity came at an enormous cost in mental energy. The stone itself was neither benevolent nor evil, not like the great matrix of Sharra, which could never be used for good. What the heartstone allowed t
hose who wielded it to do required enormous psychic power. The chieri were stronger than she, with all her training, but they were far fewer in number than those who had created the heartstone. They could use it for only a short period of time, and that was quickly passing.
With a Keeper’s deft touch, Silvana shifted the focus of the unified heartstone consciousness to the skies above Thendara.
A ship appeared in the scarlet firmament, a thing of cold metal, of ceramic and glass, of intricate machinery and things that glowed with venomous fire. Below it, the city glittered with life, pinpoints of ordinary minds like grains of sand, marked here and there with flaring blue-white light . . . Comyn Castle, the Tower . . .
Silvana visualized the Terran Zone, then an open space and another ship, smaller than the one aloft, touched with the same smoldering poison but, unlike the first ship, this one’s weapons were quiescent, untriggered.
Weapons, yes . . .
The chieri minds recognized the materials, the explosives, the apparatus to rip apart the very fabric of stone and soil, of water and air. Silvana sensed not only the nature of the devices and chemicals, but the intent behind their manufacture. Every morsel of her being shuddered in revulsion. This ship and its armaments went beyond what the Compact forbade, weapons that killed at a distance without placing the one who used them at equal risk. This was far more hideous, aimed as it was not at an opponent but at the very land on which he stood. The attack, when it came, would be like burning down an entire forest to destroy a single splinter.
The ship was arming itself . . . it was almost ready to strike. From the buildings below, she felt a flare of terror, a quivering along the airwaves, a voice pleading, but so faint she could not make out more than its tone of desperation.
Silvana managed to hold her focus, to not flinch or withdraw even in the slightest degree. Too much depended on maintaining the full strength of the heartstone sphere. On a wordless, intuitive level, she understood why the chieri were delving so deeply into the mechanisms of destruction, the many links now forming between weapon and target. In their long history, they had passed beyond retaliation as a response to aggression. But they had not forgotten.
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