Stewards of the Flame

by Sylvia Engdahl

  I was afraid for you, too, at first. Not for myself. It’s easier to deal with fear for yourself than with fear for someone you love.

  Yes . . . I never really loved anyone before loving you. Nor had he cared for friends the way he cared for Peter and Kira. He suddenly saw why the risks now seemed so worrisome.

  ~ 61 ~

  On the next-to-last night before departure, Carla began to know something was wrong. It had begun that morning, when she had been scheduled to fly to the Island with Peter. It was the start of their offshift, and they’d planned to pack up the lab equipment and close the Lodge, from which everyone else had already departed. But Peter hadn’t shown up. He hadn’t answered his phone. Concerned, she’d called everyone she could think of, but he was nowhere to be found.

  This was not like Peter—and in any case, there was only one day left. To leave retrieval of the equipment until the very last minute was risky, to say the least; what if something went wrong with the undercover trucking arrangement he’d made? What if a freak storm came up and prevented flying? That was unlikely, to be sure, but still . . .

  Peter had been acting strangely about the flight in any case. At first he hadn’t intended to take her with him. “You need someone to help you,” she’d insisted, knowing he had not asked anyone else and that the others weren’t aware that another trip had to be made. “Besides, I want to check the software and records again. I know they’re all in the datakeeper I downloaded them to, still I’d like to be the one to pack the computer.”

  “I’d just as soon go by myself, if you don’t mind.”

  “I do mind.” The loss of the neurofeedback software would be a major blow to the Group from which it would take years to recover. They were taking the lab computer with them, but she’d also stored the software on multiple backup devices. She dared not keep any of these in her apartment, much less carry them to work with her—they contained a complete history of the Group’s discoveries and accomplishments as well as personal records showing mind-patterns of individual members, plus genetic and medical data she’d downloaded from the Hospital. All the copies were at the Lodge, as had been the normal policy. They would be taken directly to the spaceport with the other things. But she felt a need to watch over them personally except for the brief time the boxes were on the truck, and in fact she planned to carry one copy in her own duffle bag. Peter had too much else on his mind to give full attention to them.

  “It won’t be a pleasant trip, Carla,” he’d said.

  No, she supposed not. Saying goodbye to the Lodge would be hard on Peter; it held memories dating back to his first meeting with Ian during his college years. Being a crèche child, he’d never known any other real home. Everything important in his life had happened there, including his tragically-ended marriage as well as the friendships that mattered to him. “You need someone with you,” she’d insisted. “You shouldn’t have to go through it alone. And I have memories, too, after all.”

  So, reluctantly, he had agreed. And then, when the time came, he’d disappeared. She knew he hadn’t gone alone because his plane was still moored in the city; that was the first thing she’d checked. By evening, she was frantic.

  She was almost ready for bed when at last he phoned. “I was held up,” he said shortly. “We’ll go tomorrow morning. I’ve rescheduled the meeting with the trucker.”

  During the flight, he told her what had happened. It had started with one of the children. Only a few Group members had children—none below teenage—and luckily most of them happened to be home for their offshift. But there was one such couple on the alternate shift, which meant their son would, theoretically, be confined in the crèche on the night of departure. They had expected to hide him for two days instead of letting him go back there when the shift began. Unfortunately, one of his friends had shown up to walk to school with him, and it had been impossible for him to say he wasn’t going.

  From a crèche, there was just one conceivable escape. The boy, who was no fool and who had been let in on the secret, had done the only thing he could do—soon after arrival he’d feigned illness and had been taken to the treatment wing of the Hospital. The parents had then contacted Peter for help in getting him out. There wasn’t any legitimate way to do it. The boy hadn’t been aware that he should fake mental illness; he was in a medical ward over which Peter had no jurisdiction. Yet Peter was pledged to support fellow Group members and could hardly have asked them to abandon their son while they took off into space, even apart from the fact that the kid couldn’t be trusted not to reveal their plans if pressed.

  In the end, he had simply walked into the ward and smuggled the boy out in inconspicuous clothes, relying on Anne to suppress the alarm at the ID checkpoint. Which would have been okay, except that a search was initiated when he was found to be missing and Peter’s presence in that ward had been noticed.

  “God, Peter,” said Carla. “They didn’t suspect you?”

  “No. They only thought I might have seen something. But I was questioned for a long time by Warick. The talk got onto . . . other things. I suppose a certain amount of unconscious telepathy goes on no matter how firmly I close my mind to specifics. He knew I was on edge. He jumped to the wrong conclusion as to why.”

  “Next week’s election.”

  “Yes. He knows I’m bitterly opposed to the microchipping, and I couldn’t deny it. I didn’t give him any further indication of my suspicion about the arsons, but it was plain that he has a guilty conscience. There’s little doubt in my mind that he was back of them, and he’s afraid I’ll go public with what he fears I’ve guessed.”

  “Oh, Peter.” She felt a chill; Jesse’s warning had impressed her deeply.

  “Well, there’s only today and tonight, and then I’ll be out of his way for good.” Peter frowned. “It was strange,” he reflected. “Warick was hostile at first, made me feel my job might be in jeopardy—and then suddenly he was all smiles. In spite of the low opinion he’s always had of me, he invited me home to dinner, and it wouldn’t have been wise to refuse. That’s why I didn’t call till so late.”

  “Maybe he decided bribes would work better than threats.”

  “That’s what I thought, but he didn’t offer one. Perhaps he was buttering me up in preparation for a promotion that will depend on my cooperation.”

  “Peter . . . did you tell him you were going to the Island this offshift?”

  “Yes. I hoped that might reassure him that I won’t be around much before the election.”

  For some reason it made her uneasy. Though Jesse hadn’t said anything about the possibility of tampering with the plane, she’d sensed that he was thinking it. But surely even the worst of the Meds weren’t murderers. . . .

  All the same, she was relieved when they arrived safely.

  The dismantling and packing of the neurofeedback equipment and cryogenic bank took quite a while. Looking around the storeroom for padding materials, she came across the stock of imported candles used for the Ritual, and fit them in between the various wrapped items; there might be no way to make candles in the future. After everything was boxed and she had double-checked that the data backups were well protected, she started to clean up the leftover mess.

  “Someone will eventually find this room,” she pointed out. “The government will take over the Island, I suppose—” At Peter’s look, she stopped, biting her tongue. Of course it was painful for him to think of the government seizing his beloved Lodge, even though he’d be long gone.

  “Don’t bother to pick up,” he said. “It’s not going to matter.”

  They carried the boxes down to the dock and loaded them into the plane, then went back to eat lunch. Most of the food had been removed earlier, but there were some imperishables left that no one had bothered to take. Neither of them had much appetite, but Peter could scarcely eat anything. His face was white. The emptiness of the Lodge so often filled with fun and laughter, the sunlight streaming into a deserted room, the cold firepl
ace . . . it was enough to depress anyone, Carla thought. Peter had been right; this was not pleasant.

  “You’ll need energy to fly,” she said, looking at his untouched food.

  “Take it with us. I can’t get it down now, my head aches. I knew today would be hell, but I didn’t think it was going to be this bad. Go back to the dock; I’ll be along in a minute.”

  She complied. If he preferred to be alone with his bittersweet memories, he had a right to privacy. Hers had been dealt with the last time she’d been here, after Ian’s funeral, when she had stood beside the fading fire with Jesse. Jesse, too, was making his last flight today, she remembered. He would perhaps fly over the Island once more before giving up his plane forever.

  It was a long time before Peter joined her on the dock. She noticed as he approached that he seemed to be stumbling.

  “Carla,” he said. The hand that gripped hers was cold. “There’s something I haven’t told you. That I’ve known all along, but couldn’t bear to tell anyone.”

  She waited, cold herself with a sense of deep foreboding.

  “We can’t let the government find the lab, Carla,” he said. “Even though we’ve taken our records out, it’s full of contraband. They would wonder where we got the infirmary equipment. They’d inform Fleet that we’re criminals if they discovered it before the starship leaves orbit. Or they could trace it to the friends on Earth who smuggled it to us. Our offworld contacts would be arrested, would suffer for helping us—and those who know what we plan to do might be forced to reveal our destination.”

  “Oh, God. I never thought of that. But we can’t prevent—” She broke off. Of course they could prevent it. There had long been a secret way to blow up the lab; that was common knowledge in the Group. It had been arranged years ago by a member with access to mining explosives. The blast would take the whole Lodge down. Peter had come here today not to close the Lodge, but to destroy it.

  Carla put her arms around him, hugged him, and realized presently that she was holding him up. “Peter, it’s okay,” she whispered. “I know how much it will hurt. But think of what’s ahead of us! Think of where we’ll be tomorrow—the journey we’ve looked forward to so long.” She was surprised to see him overcome to this extent. Painful though the act would be, he had always been so strong. . . .

  To her horror, Peter collapsed at her feet. He was barely conscious.

  She knelt beside him, feeling for a pulse. It was weak. This was not mere emotional distress; it was some kind of illness! But Peter was never ill. No one in the Group got sick; they could control their physiological responses well enough to prevent that. There were no infectious diseases on Undine anyway, and things like hidden heart problems were ruled out by the mandatory health checkups.

  With her healer’s senses, Carla probed Peter’s body. She was not as adept at healing as Kira or Peter himself, but she’d had experience enough to know the basics. There was simply nothing wrong with him. It was as if he’d been drugged. . . .

  Drugged. The dinner at the home of Dr. Warick, who was aware of his suspicion about the arsons. The wine, probably. It had to be that. He’d been given something with delayed action—something that would not affect him until late enough in the day not to endanger him while flying.

  Warick didn’t want to kill him. The aim was merely to keep him out of the way until after the election. But he couldn’t stay semi-conscious as long as that . . . so a rescue must have been planned. He’d said he was going to the Island. They would send an air ambulance, keep him sick in the Hospital for as long as Warick chose.

  Long enough for the starship to leave without him.

  It would not wait for stragglers; that had been made plain. Anyone not at the spaceport by tomorrow noon when the last shuttle lifted would be left behind. Peter could not bear that! He couldn’t endure abandonment on Undine even if it weren’t that he’d be penniless and guilty of financial crimes which, if he was identified as the ringleader, might even lead to his execution.

  And the Group probably couldn’t survive without him, not on a raw new world where only the inspiration he could offer would keep them going. People with paranormal talents tended to be introverts. Ian had searched a long time before finding someone with both the gifts and the charisma required for leadership. Besides, Peter alone was qualified to provide the psychiatric help some individuals in the next generation—who, unlike their elders, wouldn’t have been selected for personal fitness to cope with emerging psi powers—might well need. Though this had not been openly discussed, Carla knew it worried him. The success of so small a colony would depend on his ability to deal with potential misusers of those powers.

  She sat on the dock with his head in her lap, in despair as to what to do. She could not revive him. If the drug had affected only his body, she might have been able to, but it had evidently been a psychiatric drug that crippled his brain past the possibility of assisted self-healing. The best she could do was ease the pain of his headache, which his own mind was too debilitated to manage alone. If only she were a pilot! She had handled the seaplane’s controls occasionally when flying with Jesse, but she couldn’t take off or land. There was no way she could get Peter back to the city.

  She dared not phone anyone. Warick would be expecting that. He would assume that whoever was with Peter would phone for an ambulance. When that didn’t happen, he would have other phone messages to and from the Island monitored, guessing that Peter had caught on and had told his friends. He might not be sure how soon the drug would act. It was likely that he would wait, not send the ambulance before trying to learn whether anyone knew—wasn’t it? If they came tonight, if Peter was taken to the Hospital, there was no chance whatsoever of getting him out by tomorrow morning.

  But what chance was there anyway of reaching the spaceport? It was Peter’s offshift; he wouldn’t be missed at work for days. No one in the Group would miss him in time to get to the Island and back. Even Jesse wouldn’t . . . Jesse would be expecting them to come, waiting anxiously for them—and he’d wait in vain.

  For the first time it dawned on Carla that if she didn’t call someone, she too would be unable to reach the starship. Jesse would go to the new world without her. They would never see each other again.

  He’d have to go, of course. Without a Captain, there could be no new world. The Group would be taken to Liberty and be stuck there, destitute in a colony little better than Undine, for the rest of their lives. He wouldn’t condemn them to that, hard though it would be for him to board the ship if she and Peter were not there. Oh, Jesse, she cried silently, what shall I do? I can’t bear not to go with you! I can’t live if I’m left behind on this world! And there’s no chance for Peter either if I just let time slip away—it’s not as if I could get him aboard by giving up my own chance. . . .

  Unless . . . was it possible that Jesse would fly over? He might. He had planned to fly today, and might take a last look at the Island. He wouldn’t land; seeing no reason to, he wouldn’t let himself be tracked here even on this final day. But once he was overhead, telepathy might reach him. The distance wasn’t much more than they’d been communicating over for days. It was a long shot, but he might come. . . .

  She had a choice, then. Either she could call for help, ensuring her own freedom to get to the spaceport but eliminating Peter’s, or she could wait with the very slim hope that Jesse might come unsummoned and save both of them. Carla bent her head in agony. It was an impossible choice. She couldn’t give up Jesse! Yet she couldn’t fail Peter, either—she couldn’t face the idea of his waking in the Hospital and knowing that she’d betrayed him . . . betrayed the Group. . . .

  Oh, God. There wasn’t a choice. To call might indeed betray the Group—for what if Warick gave Peter truth serum in order to find out how much he knew about the fires? That might have been his intent all along! And once he learned of their criminal activities, he’d have legal grounds to stop the emigration. So at all costs she must prevent rescue by the Meds u
ntil enough time had passed for the starship to get away.

  If they came, could she hide Peter somehow? He wasn’t suffering, though he was unable to talk and was apparently unaware of anything around him. She should move him off the dock anyway, or at least get blankets to cover him; it was going to get chilly as dusk came on. And there was the matter of destroying the lab. That had to be done before she left here, and if an ambulance came she wouldn’t have opportunity. Besides, after the building exploded maybe they could hide in the ruins; maybe a rescue crew would assume they were dead and not search immediately. Carla eased Peter’s head gently out of her lap and got to her feet, starting back along the dock toward the Lodge. She knew where the hot switch was. It would be safest to do it now, after gathering up whatever items they might need.

  No, Carla! No, come back! She turned. It was as if he had shouted aloud. But he wasn’t conscious enough for telepathy, at least he hadn’t been. I won’t leave you for more than a few minutes, she thought, not expecting him to respond.

  Carla! You mustn’t go! Get back down beside me! Suddenly she remembered the mind-pattern Peter had learned from Jesse—the altered state for enhanced telepathic communication. A drug had triggered it for Jesse, maybe even for Ian; perhaps that had happened to Peter, too. Especially since he’d already experienced it on dual. She turned, took several steps toward him, wondering if in his weakened condition he was afraid to be alone even briefly.

  You don’t understand! I’ve already set the timer . . . we should be airborne by now!

  The blast threw her down flat. The dock rocked beneath her, making waves that splashed over its edge rail. Carla clutched Peter’s arm while behind them, what had been Maclairn Lodge collapsed and erupted into a fountain of smoke and flame.

  ~ 62 ~

  Jesse wasn’t free to fly until late afternoon. There had been all kinds of little details to attend to, plans to confirm with Kira, instructions to go over with his prospective crew and hijacking team. He was less hesitant about face-to-face contacts now that there wasn’t time left for the authorities tracking him to question his movements. He might even have risked a meeting with Peter, had he not known that Peter and Carla had gone to the Island. In addition, he’d had to visit the Fleet office once more to make sure that the starship really was expected to arrive tomorrow. A change in schedule after the passengers were at the spaceport would be disastrous.