It would all be the same in the end anyhow, for I would never return to Darkover.
Time slid out of focus. I was kneeling in a room in a high tower, and outside the last crimson light of the red sun set across the high peaks of the Venza mountains behind Thendara. I knelt at the bedside of a little girl, five or six years old, with fair hair, and golden eyes… Marjorie’s eyes…I had knelt at Marjorie’s side like this… and we had seen her together, our child, that child… but it had never been, it would never be, Marjorie was dead… dead… a great fire blazed, surged through my brain… and Dio was beside me, her hand on the hilt of a great sword—
Shaken, I surfaced, to see Dio looking at me in shock and dismay.
“Our child, Lew—? And on Darkover—”
I gripped at the back of a chair to steady myself. After a time I said shakily, “I have heard of a laran—I thought it was only in the Ages of Chaos—which could see, not only the future, but many futures, some of which may never come to pass; all of the things which might someday happen. Perhaps—perhaps, somewhere in my Alton or Aldaran heritage there is a trace of that laran, so that I see things which may never be. For I have seen that child once before—with Marjorie—and I thought it was her child.” Dimly I realized that I had spoken Marjorie’s name aloud for the first time since her death. I would always remember her love; but she had receded very far, and I was healed of that, too. “Marjorie,” I said again. “I thought it was our child, our daughter; she had Marjorie’s eyes. But Marjorie died before she could bear me any child, and so what I thought was a true vision of the future never came to be. Yet now I see it again. What does it mean, Dio?”
She said, with a wavering smile, “Now I wish my laran were better trained. I don’t know, Lew. I don’t know what it means.”
Nor did I; but it made me desperately uneasy. We did not talk about it any more, but I think it worked inward, coloring my mood. Later that day she said she had an appointment with one of the medics at the Terran Empire hospital; she could have found any kind of midwife or birth-woman in Vainwal, which spanned a dozen dozen cultures, but since she could not be tended as she would be on Darkover, the cool impersonality of the Terran hospital suited her best.
I went with her. Now, thinking back, it seems to me that she was very quiet, shadowed, perhaps, by some weight of foreknowledge. She came out looking troubled, and the doctor, a slight, preoccupied young man, gestured to me to come and talk with him.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he said at once. “Your wife is perfectly well, and the baby’s heartbeat is strong and sound. But there are things I don’t understand. Mr. Montray-Lanart— ” my father and I both used that name on Terra, for Alton is a Domain, a title, rather than a personal name, and Lord Armida meant nothing here—“I notice your hand; is it a congenital deformity? Forgive me for asking—”
“No,” I said curtly. “It was the result of a serious accident.”
“And you did not have it regenerated or regrown?”
“No.” The word was hard and final and this time he understood that I would not talk about it. I understand there are cultures where there are religious taboos against that kind of thing, and it was all right with me if he thought I was that sort of idiot. It was better than trying to talk about it. He looked troubled, but he said, “Are there twins in your family, or other multiple births?”
“Why do you ask?”
“We checked the fetus with radiosound,” he said, “and there seems to be—some anomaly. You must prepare yourself for the fact that there might be some—minor deformity, unless it is twins and our equipment did not pick up exactly what we intended; twins or multiple births lying across one another can create rather odd images.”
I shook my head, not wanting to think about that. But my hand was not a congenital deformity, so why was I worried? If Dio was carrying twins, or something like that, it was not surprising that we could not clearly identify male or female.
Dio asked, when I came out, what the doctor had said.
“He said he thought you might be carrying twins.”
She looked troubled, too. She said, “He told me the placenta was in a difficult position—could not see the baby’s body as clearly as he could wish,” she said. “But it would be nice to have twins. A boy and a girl, perhaps.” She leaned on my arm and said, “I’m glad it won’t be long now. Not forty days, perhaps. I’m tired of carrying him, or them, around— it will be nice to let you hold him for a while!”
I took her home, but when we arrived we found a message on the communicator which was an integral part of all Empire apartments; my father was ill and asking for me. Dio offered to go with me; but she was tired after the morning’s excursion, so she sent him loving messages, and begged his pardon for not attending him, and I set off for the city alone.
I had expected to find him abed, but he was up and around, his step dragging. He motioned me to a chair, and offered me coffee or a drink, both of which I refused.
“I thought I’d find you laid up. You look as if you ought to be in bed,” I said, risking his wrath, but he only sighed. He said, “I wanted to say good-bye to you; I may have to go back to Darkover. A message has come from Dyan Ardais—”
I grimaced. Dyan had been my father’s friend since they were children together; but he has never liked me, nor I him. My father saw my expression and said sharply, “He has befriended your brother when I was not there to guard his interests, Lew. He has sent me the only news I had—”
“Don’t you throw that up at me,” I said sharply. “I never asked you to bring me here! Or to Terra, either.”
He waved that aside. “I won’t quarrel with you about that. Dyan has been a good friend to your brother—”
“If I had a son,” I said deliberately, “I would want a better friend for him than that damned sandal-wearer!”
“We’ve never agreed on that, and I doubt we ever will,” said my father, “but Dyan is an honorable man, and he has the good of the Comyn at heart. Now he tells me that they are about to pass over Marius, and formally give over the Alton Domain to Gabriel Lanart-Hastur.”
“Is that such a tragedy? Let him have it! I don’t want it.”
“When you have a son of your own, you will understand, Lew. That time is not very far away, either. I think you should come back with me to Darkover, and settle things at this Council season.”
He heard my refusal, like a shout of rage, before what I actually said, which was a quiet “No. I cannot and I will not. Dio is too pregnant to travel.”
“You can be back before the child is born,” he said reasonably. “And you will have settled his future properly.”
“Would you have left my mother?”
“No. But your son should be born at Armida—”
“It’s no good thinking about that,” I said. “Dio is here, and here she must stay until the baby is born. And I will stay with her.”
His sigh was heavy, like the rustling of winter leaves. “I am not eager for the journey, alone, but if you will not go, then I must. Would you trust me to stay with Dio, Lew? I do not know if I can bear the climate of the Kilghard Hills. Yet I will not let Armida go by default, nor let them pass over Marius’s rights without being sure how Marius feels about it.” And as he spoke I was overwhelmed with the flood of memories—Armida lying in the fold of the Kilghard Hills, flooded with sunlight, the great herds of horses grazing in the upland pastures, the streams rushing, or frozen into knotted and unruly floods, torrents arrested in motion and midair; snow lying deep on the hills, a line of dark trees against the sky; the fire that had ravaged us in my seventeenth year, and the long line of men, stooped over their fire-shovels in back-breaking work; camping on the fire-lines, sharing blankets and bowls, the satisfaction of seeing the fires die and knowing that our home was safe for another season… the smell of resins, and bloom of kireseth, gold and blue with the blowing pollen in a high summer… sunset over the roofs… the skyline of Thendara… the four moons hanging behi
nd one another in the darkening sky of Festival… my home. My home, too, loved and renounced…
Get… out! Were even my memories not my own?
“There’s still time, Lew. I won’t leave for more than a tenday. Let me know what you decide.”
“I’ve already decided,” I said, and slammed out, not waiting for the concerned questions I knew would follow, his scrupulous inquiries about Dio, his kind wishes for her well-being.
The decision had been made for me. I would not return with my father. Dio could not go and so I would not go, it was as simple as that, I need not listen to the thousand memories that pulled me back—
It was that night that she asked me to monitor the child. Perhaps she sensed my agitation; perhaps, in that curious way that lovers share one another’s preoccupations and fears (and Dio and I, even after the year and more we had spent together, were still very much lovers), she felt the flood of my memories and it made her eager for reassurance.
I started to refuse. But it meant so much to her. And I was free now, free of it for months at a time; surely a time would come when I was wholly free. And this was such a simple thing.
And what the Terran medic had said made me uneasy, too. Twins; that was the simplest answer, but when he had asked about congenital deformities, I knew I was uneasy, had been uneasy since the child was conceived.
“I’ll try, love. I’d have to try sometime—”
One more thing, perhaps, to rediscover with Dio; one more healing, one more freedom, like the manhood I had rediscovered in her arms. I rumbled one-handed with the little leather bag around my neck, where the blue crystal hung in its shielded wrapping of pale insulating silks.
The crystal dropped into my hand. It felt warm and alive, a good sign, without the instant flare, blaze, fire. I cupped the blue stone in my palm, trying not to remember the last time I had done this.
It had been the other hand, the stone had burned through my hand… not my own matrix, but the Sharra matrix… enough! I forced the memories away, closing my eyes for a moment, trying to settle myself down to the smooth resting rhythm of the stone. It had been so long since I had touched the matrix. Finally I sensed that I had keyed into the stone, opening my eyes, glancing dispassionately into the blue depths where small lights flickered and curled like live things. Maybe they were.
I had not done monitoring for many years. It is the first task given to young apprentices in the Towers; to sit outside a matrix circle, and through the powers of the starstone, amplifying your own gifts, to keep watch on the bodies of the workers while their minds are elsewhere, doing the work of the linked matrix circles. Sometimes matrix workers, deep in rapport with one another through the starstones, forget to breathe, or lose track of things which should be under the control of their autonomic nervous systems, and it is the monitor’s work to make sure all is well. Later, the monitor learns more difficult techniques of medical diagnosis, going into the complex cells of the human body… it had been a long time. Slowly, carefully, I made the beginning scan; heart and lungs were doing their work of bringing oxygen to the cells, the eyelids blinked automatically to keep the eye surfaces lubricated, there was stress on the back muscles because of the weight of pregnancy… I was running through surface things, superficial things. She sensed the touch; though her eyes were closed, I felt her smile at me.
I hardly believed this; that, once again, slowly, stumbling like a novice, I was making contact with the matrix stone after six years, though I had, as yet, barely touched the surface. I dared a deeper touch—
Fire. Blazing through my hand. Pain… outrageous, burning agony—in a hand that was not there to burn. I heard myself cry out… or was it the sound of Marjorie screaming… before my locked eyes the fire-form rose high, locks tossing in the firestorm wind, like a woman, tall and chained, her body and limbs and hair all on fire—
Sharra!
I let the matrix stone drop as if it had burned through my good hand; felt the pain of having it away from my body, tried to scrabble for it with a hand that was no longer part of my arm... I felt it there, felt the burning pain through every finger, pain in the lines of the palm, in the nails burning… Sobbing with pain, I fumbled the matrix into its sheath around my neck and wrenched my mind away from the fire-image, feeling it slowly burn down and subside. Dio was staring at me in horror.
I said, my mouth stiff and fumbling on the words, “I’m— I’m sorry, bredhiya, I—I didn’t mean to frighten you—”
She caught me close to her, and I buried my head in her breast. She whispered, “Lew, it is I should beg forgiveness— I did not know that would happen—I would never have asked—Avarra’s mercy, what was that?”
I drew a deep breath, feeling the pain tearing at the hand that was not there. I could not speak the words aloud. The fire-form was still behind my eyes, blazing. I blinked, trying to make it go away, and said, “You know.”
She whispered, “But how…”
“Somehow, the damned thing is keyed into my own matrix. Whenever I try to use it, I see… only that.” I swallowed and said thickly, “I thought I was free. I thought I was—was healed, and free of that…”
“Why don’t you destroy it?”
My smile was only a painful grimace. “That would probably be the best answer. Because I am sure I would die with it… very quickly and not at all pleasantly. But I was too cowardly for that.”
“Oh, no, no, no—” She held me close, hugging me desperately. I swallowed, drew several deep breaths, knowing this was hurting her more than me; Ridenow, empath, Dio could not bear any suffering… there were times when I wondered whether what she felt for me had been love, or whether she had given me her body, her heart, her comfort, as one soothes a screaming baby because one cannot bear his crying and will do anything, anything to shut him up—
But it had helped me, to know my pain hurt Dio and I must somehow try and control it. “Get me a drink, will you?” When she brought it, calming herself a little by the need to collect her thoughts and look for something, I sipped, trying to quiet my mind. “I am sorry, I thought I was free of that.”
“I can’t bear it,” she said fiercely. “I can’t bear it, that you think you should apologize to me—” She was crying, too. She laid her hand over the baby and said, trying to make a joke of it, “Already he is troubled when he hears his mother and father yelling at each other!”
I picked up on it at once and made a joke of it too, saying with exaggerated humor, “Well, we must be very quiet and not wake up the baby!”
She came and curled up next to me on the couch, leaning against my breast. She said seriously, “Lew, on Darkover— there are matrix technicians who could free you—aren’t there?”
“Do you think my father hasn’t done his best? And he was First at Arilinn for almost ten years. If he can’t do it, it probably can’t be done.”
“No,” she said, “but you are better; it doesn’t happen now as often as it did in the first years—does it? Maybe, now, they could find a way—”
The communicator jangled and I went to answer it. I might have known it would be my father’s voice.
“Lew, are you all right? I felt uneasy—”
I wasn’t surprised. Every telepath on this planet, if there were any others, must have felt that shock. Even the distant voice of my father tried to reassure me. “It hasn’t happened for a long time, has it? Don’t get discouraged, Lew, give yourself time to heal…”
Time? The rest of my life, I thought, holding the voice-piece of the communicator under my chin with the stump of my left hand, the fingers of my remaining hand nervously smoothing the insulating silks over my matrix. Never again. I would never touch the matrix again, not when—this—was waiting for me. What I said to my father was surface noise, mouthed platitudes of reassurance, and he must have known it, but he did not press me; he probably knew I would have slammed down the communicator and refused to answer it again. All he said was, “In ten days there is a ship which will touch a
t Darkover. I have booked a double passage; and a reservation on the ship which leaves ten days after that, so that if something should prevent my taking ship on the first, I will be on the second, and your place is reserved too. I think you should come; has this, tonight, not proved it to you, that you must face it soon or late?”
I managed not to shout at him the furious refusal storming in my mind. The distance, and the mechanical communicator, blocked out thoughts; this was the best way to talk to my father, after all. I even managed to thank him for his attempt at kindness. But after I had refused him again and replaced the communicator set, Dio said, “He’s right, you know. You can’t live the rest of your life with this. It started on Darkover and it should end there. You can’t go through your life dragging that—that horrible link behind you. And I understand—you said something, once—that you cannot leave it…”
I shook my head. “No. It—it nags me. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
I had tried to abandon it, when we left the lake cabin on Terra where we had been living while my hand healed after the final failure and the amputation. I had gone halfway round the world and then… the fire-form behind my eyes, blurring out all sight and sense— I had had to return, to pack it among our luggage… to carry it with me, a monstrous incubus, a demon haunting me; like my father’s presence within my mind, something of which I would never be free.
“The question’s academic,” I said, “You can’t go, and I won’t leave you. That’s what my father wanted.”
“The baby might not be born for forty days, at least… you could go and return—”
“I don’t know about babies,” I said, “but I do know they come when they will and not when we expect them.” But why did the thought bring such anguish and fear? Surely it was only the aftermath of Sharra’s impact on my shattered nerves.
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