Stewards of the Flame

by Sylvia Engdahl

  “This is the last night on the Island for almost everyone, not just for me,” Jesse said sadly. “You have to tell them in the morning before they go, Peter. Only a few of your known friends should spend offshifts at the Lodge. It should be put out that an open invitation was Ian’s policy, not yours.”

  “I agree,” said Kira. “It will be a blow to us all, yet it would have happened anyway if we were microchipped—and soon we’ll be leaving this whole world.”

  “Dear God, what have I done?” murmured Peter. “It didn’t occur to me that I was putting the Group in danger by what I insinuated—”

  “You had no choice,” Jesse declared. “They were about to give me truth serum, and that would have meant our immediate exposure. But be careful not to say anything more that suggests you’re a threat.”

  He decided not to extend the warning any further. Peter, despite his wisdom concerning the mind’s power, was an innocent. He still hadn’t perceived that an official who resorted to serial arson for political reasons might be capable of arranging some sort of accident for a man he wanted to eliminate. If it were me, Jesse thought, I’d be damned thorough with my preflight inspections from now on. But that wasn’t something Peter needed to hear on top of all he’d been through today.

  “You and I can’t talk freely in your office anymore,” Carla pointed out. “We’ll have to rely on telepathy for anything secret, just as you and Jesse will.”

  “Yes. That’s fine for sharing feelings and general ideas, but it’s going to complicate the planning of our escape. Jesse and I can’t meet anywhere that’s not safe for him to be tracked to—and I can’t be seen going to places he’s known to be.”

  “I think I’m more of a telepath than before,” Jesse reflected. “I never used to be good at it, except in bed with Carla. But because of what happened to me in the Hospital, I’ve . . . changed. Permanently, maybe. Tonight during the Ritual I noticed.”

  “Kira told me you and Carla were able to make sustained contact over a distance,” Peter said. “I hadn’t foreseen that. It’s logical, I suppose, that suppressing the higher brain functions would free deeper ones from the psi filtering that limits the range of conscious telepathy. Yet the last time you and I were in touch, I noticed no change in you—”

  “That was before Ian taught me how to do it,” Jesse said.

  Peter stared at him. “Ian taught you?”

  “Yes, I’m sure he did, now that I know he was in the Hospital, though at the time I thought it was only a dream.” He went on to describe what had happened in it. “I think he must have showed me snatches of his own dream, along with . . . other things. And at the end, he sent me to Carla. I called silently to her after I woke, and I knew how.”

  “In all the years he trained me, he never gave me that.” Peter looked almost envious.

  “Well, you weren’t drugged, Peter. He probably couldn’t have reached me if I hadn’t been.”

  “But you reached Carla.”

  “Because we’re closely bonded, and in any case I was still drugged. I wonder if maybe it isn’t an altered state even Ian hadn’t encountered before. Did they give him any kind of sedative?”

  “Undoubtedly. He hated drugs, would never have taken anything voluntarily, but in the Hospital it’s routine. He was an exceptionally powerful telepath to begin with; if he felt himself going into an unfamiliar state, he was strong enough to take advantage of it, and concern for you was uppermost in his thoughts, after all. Since your condition caused you to be receptive . . . the two of you may have made a discovery. An advance toward the goal the Group exists for, terrible though the circumstances were.”

  “Now that Carla and I have done it once, maybe we could again, even without my being medicated,” Jesse said. “I’ve been told things are done in the lab that outsiders do only while stoned.”

  “Yes, in advanced training. There are mind-patterns you haven’t been exposed to yet.”

  “Then if we could record this new pattern, others might be able to match it?”

  “Perhaps. But I don’t have the facilities in the Hospital; it would be too risky to run our software there. And you can’t come here again.”

  “I’m here now,” declared Jesse. “As you say, this is the sort of thing we exist for. The risks we take are meaningless if we throw away chances to pass on what we learn.”

  “It’s a lot to ask of you, after all you’ve just been through,” Peter replied, obviously tempted. “But if you’re up to it—”

  “Peter,” Carla protested, “Jesse has to fly at dawn! To get into that state again he’d have to recall all the worst moments. It would wipe him out.”

  “Don’t worry—I’m not about to risk losing our Captain in a seaplane accident. There are plenty of pilots here tonight and one of them can go with you when you leave. I can pick him up from Verge Island tomorrow; it will give me an excuse to go there so that Jesse and I can make specific plans for arranging the starship charter.”

  ~ 58 ~

  With Kira to handle the computer, they returned to the Lodge. For the last time Jesse went downstairs, through the storeroom and freezer compartment, into the hidden room where his introduction to the powers of mind had begun. He would miss it, he realized as Peter fitted the headpiece. They would, of course, take the lab equipment with them; it would be essential to new generations. But reassembling it might not be their top priority on a wilderness world.

  Recalling how he’d felt while drugged would be grueling, he knew. Yet tonight he was past apprehension. The Ritual’s afterglow would enhance their telepathic power, too. This was an ideal time to try it. Though perhaps, since he was high, it would be impossible to enter a state dependent on diminished mind . . . such a state was incompatible, after all. . . .

  No. To his surprise, Jesse found that he knew something he had not known before, something even Peter had not known, and should know. . . .

  “Peter,” he said. “Go on dual with me! You have to experience this, not just record it as an observer. And besides, you and I might be able to establish a link we could use in an emergency—”

  Kira broke in quickly, “Don’t even think of it! Peter, you’ve been through far more than the rest of us today. There are limits to what you can endure; an experience of how Jesse felt while his mind was being destroyed is outside them.”

  “No, it’s not,” Jesse said. “The mental debility in itself, not just the long-distance telepathy, is an altered state like all the others. It’s not harmful, Kira, not before there’s brain damage—at least not to anyone with enough training to keep from involuntarily slipping back into it later on. It’s . . . a tradeoff. No one would want to be stuck in that state permanently, but Peter needs to know it’s not as bad as he’s been assuming it is. He can’t learn that from a recording, or even from ordinary telepathic sharing. We need dual feedback from live minds to learn the other states, don’t we?”

  “Let me try it with you, then,” Kira said. “Peter’s not in shape for it, not now.”

  Peter had been standing transfixed as Jesse spoke. “God, I’ve been blind!” he said. “I suppose because nobody ever came out of the stupor before, and the patients I had to drug weren’t trained to deal with altered states in the first place, I never looked for a positive side to it. I just took it for granted that it was wholly destructive.”

  “Yet other drugs, so-called recreational drugs, produce brain damage too, if taken often enough,” Jesse said. “So it’s just the same with psychiatric drugs. If we can sort out the useful effects and get them through volition instead of chemistry—”

  “The catch in that,” Peter said thoughtfully, “is that it was hell for you—I sensed that you felt your mind was deteriorating. That you were in the process of losing it.”

  “Of course, because I’d been told that I would and I was scared stiff until Ian enlightened me. I suspect that’s why he didn’t even hint that I was going to be released. He wanted me to understand that no matter what happened,
nothing could destroy my inner mind.”

  “He said as much to me many times,” Peter admitted, “but I didn’t grasp it. I felt so much guilt over what I was forced to do to people that I never put two and two together—not even though for years I’ve been helping mental patients out of unpleasant states they fell into spontaneously. I failed you, Jesse—”

  “No,” Jesse said. “If you hadn’t kept contacting me telepathically, I wouldn’t have been in shape to absorb what Ian gave me. The training alone wouldn’t have been enough.”

  “All the same, I should have been better prepared. If I’d faced the fact that I might someday have to give that drug to a healthy person, I might have figured out its effects. Well, it’s time I found out what it feels like.”

  “You’re too stressed out to go on dual,” Kira insisted.

  “I was told on my first day here,” Jesse said, “that being stressed out helps. That for a breakthrough it’s best not to be in full control.”

  “Sure it is, with a qualified instructor as partner,” said Kira grimly. “But you have never taken the lead role on dual before. If Peter gets into trouble, you’ll both go down.”

  “If we do, you know how to deal with it,” Peter told her, settling into the other chair and reaching for its headpiece. “But I’d hate to think I’m not capable of handing a state of consciousness that Ian considered harmless.”

  Resigned but not happy, Kira attached their sensors and went to the control booth. The lights came on, and then the feedback patterns on the wall. “They’ll be crude,” Peter warned, “because this state will be new to the software; Carla will have to reprogram the filters after we’ve had some experience with it. But they should be distinctive enough for matching.”

  Jesse lay back and deliberately strove to recall the hours of mental fog. All altered states, he knew, could be entered much faster and more easily after they had once been experienced. That was why what was learned in the lab could be applied to real life, and it was also why recurrent bad trips happened to outsiders even when they weren’t on drugs. The pathways of the mind were indelible. He would never be quite the same person as before being medicated in the Hospital, any more than he was the same as he’d been before receiving lab training in pain control. The knowledge of how to reach the state medication had produced was somewhere within him, buried, but accessible. . . . He focused his eyes on the shifting pattern, letting his thoughts drift. It was getting hard to think . . . it was as if a grey cloud was thickening in his mind. . . . He felt a stab of fear, but ignored it. There was nothing to fear. There was no need to think clearly for now . . . his mind had other functions, with which thinking would interfere . . . rational thought would suppress his other powers . . . the power to reach Carla. . . .

  Carla?

  I’m here. He was with her in the cottage, where she had remained waiting for contact. Through her eyes he saw the warm glow of candles. I lighted them for proof we were in touch. I’ll blow them out now. When you come back here, tell me what you saw.

  She in turn shared his sight of the neurofeedback. I see the patterns, Jesse. Yours, and Peter’s—he’s on dual with you! That’s more evidence—I didn’t know he was going to go on dual.

  Carla . . . I’ve got to leave you and contact him. It’s frightening at first. He’s strong, still he shouldn’t be alone.

  You ought to be with him, Carla agreed. You and I can do this anytime, now that we know how.

  Jesse broke off with her, calling out silently to Peter. They had communicated that way often before, of course; since they were in the same room, no new state was required for telepathy between them. But a link made now would be stronger. Peter? he probed.

  Jesse! You were with Carla, I picked that up. I saw her blow out candles, through your eyes, I think, not directly. . . .

  Their visual mind-patterns were identical; Peter’s skill and experience in matching had thrown him quickly into the new state. Their consciousness merged, and Jesse became aware that Peter was experiencing not fear, but remorse . . . remorse not merely because he’d been inadequately prepared to help during Jesse’s ordeal, but because he felt he had come close to losing faith in the Group’s destiny.

  But you didn’t! Jesse protested. Underneath, you never stopped believing that somehow Ian’s dream would come true.

  I wish I could think so. He wanted me to believe . . . before he gave me the proof. The words didn’t come like conversation; they formed in Jesse’s own mind from what he sensed in Peter’s. He knew he himself wasn’t replying in words either, though only words would be recorded in his memory.

  You believed. Otherwise, you’d have cancelled the application for the starship. It had been made in Peter’s name, not Ian’s; Ian wouldn’t have had to know.

  I never even thought of canceling it!

  Exactly.

  Peter’s spirits lifted briefly, only to be engulfed as the dulling of his mental processes continued. This . . . to feel my mind slipping . . . it’s all my worst nightmares come true. Yet you endured it while believing it wouldn’t end. . . .

  I’m not sure I could have borne it indefinitely, Jesse admitted. But I don’t think I’d have died, which means I’d have known underneath I was still myself, even if Ian hadn’t come. Otherwise my inner mind would have killed me, as Zeb’s killed him. If we lost everything, we’d be brain-dead—by definition. There’s something in us that persists through any state, as long are we’re alive. . . . Ian said that when we affirm the power of the mind, we’re affirming that! That we’ve been saying it all along. . . .

  His thoughts drifted, became hazy. The image of Ian formed again before his eyes, superimposed on the swirling patterns of light on the wall before them, and was shared so that he did not know whether it came from his mind, or from Peter’s, or from somewhere else. And the patterns faded out as the image became less tenuous . . . Ian was standing there, smiling, yet removed beyond any possibility of contact. He felt fresh sorrow in knowing that he would never again see Ian in real life, never feel the touch of his hand. His eyes blurred, and there was an ache deep inside him that was suddenly overpowering. He was losing control, could not fight the tears any longer . . . he, Peter, was so tired . . . he’d done all that need be done for now . . . he could not bear further pain. . . .

  With a jerk, Jesse snapped back, brought his feedback pattern into clear focus, saw it shift and swirl into the familiar shapes and colors of normal consciousness. But Peter’s did not shift. He turned his head and saw to his dismay that Peter was crying.

  Kira! Jesse called out urgently. Oh God, Kira, what have I done to him?

  She responded fast. It’s okay—just let him be. He needs to cry.

  Coming down from the control booth, Kira went to Peter and removed his headpiece. She stood silently beside him as he twisted in the reclined chair and buried his face against the headrest, making no attempt to hold back the sobs. After a while she whispered, “Help me get him into bed in the infirmary, Jesse.”

  Leaning heavily on Jesse, Peter went with them to the infirmary without speaking. Soon he slept, and Jesse realized Kira had sedated him telepathically.

  She turned to Jesse. “I underestimated you,” she said softly. “I knew this was likely to happen if he let go his rigid control of consciousness. I was afraid that if it did, you’d be sucked down with him and might panic, might cause him to try to help you when he wasn’t in condition to do it. I didn’t realize you’d acquired the strength to bring yourself back from a shared reaction as deep as the one Peter’s going through.”

  “But what brought it on? What went wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong . . . except that though he’s often said he’s not superhuman, he asks as much of himself as if he were. Think, Jesse—he’s been through weeks of strain, anticipating Ian’s death and our coming danger while keeping the plan to save us secret; then your arrest and his belief that he’d be forced to destroy you; and finally the shock of Ian’s sacrifice. Only this morni
ng he watched while Ian was executed! He’s loved Ian as he would have loved a father, yet he couldn’t stop to grieve for him. He had to conduct the funeral and inspire the mourners to risk their lives traveling to an unknown destination in space. And on top of all that, he held the Ritual, which would have been demanding even without all that came before. He was overdue for a breakdown. Better now than later, when he’ll have to take on the responsibility of leading our escape.”

  “So my telepathic image of Ian simply . . . triggered it?”

  “Yes, though there’s no knowing with which of you the image originated. You are both grieving, as are we all. But tears are normal, Jesse. Mourning isn’t a weakness. And to have shared it beneath surface consciousness will bond the two of you. Peter needs that. He has many friends, but he was a crèche child, after all, and has recently lost his wife. No one except Ian has been truly close to him since Lesley died. I believe Ian intended you to become much more than our Captain.”

  Jesse nodded. “He sent Peter to me with a message that he trusted me in all things. Neither of us understood what it meant—though now I see he was counting on me to hold up long enough for his sacrifice not to be in vain.”

  “Yes. But I suspect the message was meant for Peter himself as much as for you. Ian knew he would need the support of an equal.”

  “I’m hardly that. There are a lot of Group members better qualified—”

  “Leadership is lonely; you know that, don’t you, from your past space command? As Captain you will have a unique relationship with Peter, one that his followers can’t duplicate. As for the rest of the Council, I am an old woman; the only other man, Hari, is too absorbed by mystical aspects of psi to be concerned with practical affairs; and Reiko is focused mainly on scholarship. And besides, you are the only one among us with first-hand knowledge of the universe beyond Undine. So you see the responsibility has fallen on you, Jesse.”