“More than that,” she pointed out, “you’re hardened to stress. You don’t lose control so quickly in the first session, so the mentor has to inflict far worse pain than with the average person. At least that’s what Jessica explained after I’d been through it and asked why Aldren had been afraid he might fail. He wasn’t sure he could get a non-telepath to volunteer for a second session if the pain was more severe than what’s usually needed. Peter had trained only a few Fleet officers, the captain of the ship that brought them here and the explorers who were stranded, and he warned that it was horrible having to be so hard on them.”
“I wondered about those explorers when I saw their grounded ship,” Terry said. “I’m an explorer pilot myself, at least I was until I was sent to Titan. So I couldn’t help thinking what it must have been like for them. Do you know why they brought their starship down instead of just a shuttle?”
“That’s a key event in Maclairn’s history,” Kathryn said. “They were bounty hunters when they arrived—there was a price on the heads of Peter and Jesse, the captain, because they’d left Undine illegally and hijacked the starship. They’d have been executed if captured, and the colony would have been exposed and taken over by the League. So Jesse gave himself up to the explorer crew, planning to blow up the ship before it could jump, but he couldn’t do it because his son and Peter’s foster daughter Ivana were brought aboard. In the end Ivana—who was only thirteen and pregnant—saved them by disabling the hyperdrive—”
“Wait a minute! You’re saying a thirteen-year-old girl without any engineering experience disabled the hyperdrive?” Terry protested.
“Terry,” Kathryn said seriously, “have they told you anything about psychokinesis yet?”
“I don’t even know what that is.”
“Affecting things with psi. Moving them, or in this case, heating them to the point of burning or melting. Ivana was extremely psi-gifted. She wasn’t aware of the extent of her own power, but when she found out what was going to happen to Peter and Jesse—and to her unborn child—if they were taken to Earth, she focused on the hyperdrive’s control panel and melted it past repair.”
Speechless, Terry felt the world around him spin. He had thought he knew what psi was, what had always been hidden within himself, what he would find on this world that attracted him far more than any other he had visited. Now everything he had ever believed was shaken, not because what Kathryn had said was incredible, but because he knew inside that it was true.
It’s not an evil power, she assured him. It has never again been used for destruction. Once they saw it was possible, they did constructive things with it, like melting copper or glass. . . . And healing is based on psychokinesis, too.
Aldren had said he might someday become a healer.
Struggling to regain his composure, Terry said, “So the crew couldn’t leave the solar system. They had to become Maclairnans. But why not keep the starship in orbit?”
“It was needed—it was the colony’s salvation. The settlers had lost their own ship when its AI failed; they’d sent it into the sun. They didn’t have enough power or equipment to jump-start manufacturing. And they lacked the technological expertise the explorer crew could provide. Peter had trusted in fate, and he turned out to be right. What started as disaster for them proved a blessing.”
“What happened to the girl—to Ivana?”
“She became a mentor, and when she was old she succeeded Peter as leader. She was Jessica’s great-great-great grandmother.”
“The leadership is hereditary, then.”
“Not officially, but psi talent is to some degree. The Council elects the most gifted of the mentors, and Jessica was chosen. She’s been the only leader since Ivana, because they live so long—she was already twelve when Peter died.”
“How large is the Council?” he asked.
“It has eleven members. Not all of them are mentors—they’re chosen for expertise in particular areas. It’s an administrative body, not a legislature. The original colonists set it up that way and when the population grew nobody saw any reason to change. Maclairn doesn’t have formal laws. People are free to do whatever they want as long as they don’t intentionally harm anyone, and most telepaths have too much empathy to harm others. The mentors can usually deal with the few deficient in it. In rare cases the Council has to step in, but its main function is just to coordinate everyday public affairs. There’s a Forum elected by the people that can override its decisions, but that hardly ever happens.”
She went on giving him information as they finished eating, but after a while Terry’s mind wasn’t on it. Still shaken by the awesome psi powers these people possessed, he fell silent. He looked around the circle at them, seated casually on the ground near the fire as if it were one of the camping trips he’d enjoyed during his boyhood, and he knew—knew inside, through the telepathic sensitivity he had gained—that their world was one he wished that he could belong to. He had never felt any allegiance to Earth, much less to the various planets where he had been stationed. Now it was as if he had come home.
Around one of the other fires, soft singing began. It sounded familiar—the colonists’ lyrics had been set to the tune of an ancient Terran alma mater—and the impact of it came not just from the music but from the feeling that everyone shared. As the group around him took it up, Kathryn squeezed his hand.
I never want to leave here, she was thinking. People everywhere else go through the motions, they try to get close to each other, but inside they don’t really connect.
You felt that way too?
Not while I was living on Earth. But ever since I found out what it’s like to be with people here. . . . Imagine what a difference it will make if someday the whole human race gains our powers—if our descendants can not only banish pain and sickness, but truly communicate. . . .
He could not describe the void in his former life, or explain how already the emptiness was being filled. But it did not need to be stated. Their exchange of thought was not in the form of words—telepathy, Terry perceived, involved only meaning. It was translated in his head to words because that was the only way his mind could process it.
I’m glad you’ve come, she told him again, and not just because we need Fleet to protect us. But oh, Terry, keep this world safe!
~ 14 ~
That night in the Old Settlement shelter where floor mattresses had been placed for the landing party, Terry could not sleep. His mind was too full of what he had just seen and felt, and what he was beginning to understand about Maclairn’s peril. It was no wonder that the League was wary of its people if they could melt metal by mind alone!
But that was not the main reason why secrecy must be maintained, Kathryn had told him. The mentors knew that as Aldren had said, many humans had an innate fear of psi, one they didn’t allow themselves to recognize and which therefore led them to ridicule the concept—or sometimes even seek to destroy the evidence. Unconsciously, they feared that their way of dealing with life, their orientation to the world around them, would crumble past restoration were they to suspect such powers within their own minds. He had found this incredible when Aldren spoke of it. To him, having psi powers had seemed wholly desirable. But now, at the thought that if he was psi-gifted he too might be able to burn things, he felt a touch of the same apprehension.
He would get over it, he knew. It didn’t affect his belief that for more people to become telepathic, or even to gain more spectacular uses of psi, would be a major advance for humankind. What it did do was to make him all too aware that such a reaction might pose a real threat to the mentors who went to serve other worlds, and possibly even to Maclairn itself. To Aldren and Roanna . . . to Kathryn . . . to this world where in so little time he had come to feel he belonged. And he was glad that he was among those chosen to defend it.
Restlessly he tossed on the mattress, until finally he got up and went out into the cold dawn. Nothing was moving outside; the Old Settlement was deserted e
xcept for the presence of the sleeping landing party. There was, he knew, no visible native animal life on Maclairn other than crawly creatures that lived in water or in dry seasons, underground. The planet was mostly rock and no complex ecology had evolved on it; it was an environment alien to the biology of Earth. There had been none of the terraforming that preceded establishment of authorized colonies—the settlers had introduced genetically engineered plants by enriching the soil, but these had not spread past cultivated areas. As he moved away from the trees he came to barren stony land in the short space between the settlement and the landing pads.
Beyond them, the rising sun struck the hull of an old damaged ship, a large shuttle that he’d been told had crashed on the night of the colonists’ first landing. Its interior had been stripped of useful materials, but like all ships, it was composed of an alloy impervious both to recycling and to the ravages of time. After two hundred years it was still intact.
There were three other old shuttles, smaller ones, on one of the pads; these might still be operational, assuming that enough power was available to recharge them and present-day Maclairnans were knowledgeable about maintenance, although the colony would have little use for them now that land transport facilities had been developed. They were dwarfed by the ship on the third pad, the grounded explorer. It towered above everything else in the settlement, gleaming in the sunlight, and Terry’s heart began to race at the sight of it. Though an ancient model, it was not very different from those he had served on; explorers didn’t change much over the years.
Seen from the surface instead of in space, it looked awkward and unnatural; still it roused memories of the life from which he’d been torn. As he approached he could make out the name emblazoned over the hatch: Picard. It had served the colony well, according to Kathryn. Without it, Maclairn would have been unable to develop the technology that made its society fit to be emulated rather than dismissed as an anomaly by modern civilization. Yet he hated to see such a ship stuck here like a beached whale. Happy though he was to be on Maclairn, that saddened him; he had spent the past few months longing to be back aboard an explorer, and it was possible that he would never fly one again.
Unless . . . was it possible that this one could still fly?
Its AI must be operational, for it had provided the beacon that guided them in; evidently the Maclairnans had planned ahead for their rediscovery and set it to hibernate on minimum power. The interior of the ship itself would not have been gutted even if they had taken out all the equipment that could be used apart from it. Passage of years wouldn’t have caused any deterioration if it had been depressurized, as it surely would have been when placed in hibernation. The hatch was sealed, he found on investigation. No doubt the Council knew the code for the lock.
Of course, Picard could not jump—with its hyperdrive controls destroyed, it could no longer be called a starship. But if it had enough power remaining to lift just once, it could dock with Shepard. Then, after a thorough maintenance overhaul, it could fly in normal space within this solar system. And that, Terry thought with excitement, would add considerably to the safety of Maclairn.
Shepard’s patrollers had limited range. They could intercept an intruder, but not before it got quite close to the planet, whereas a ship jumping into the system might emerge anywhere. The plan was to deploy unmanned sensor stations at various distances from the sun, but putting them in position would take many months if they had to be sent out under their own power. An explorer, on the other hand, was fast. And it could be used to place sensors on asteroids or other planets, which Shepard’s AI was incapable of doing.
Why, Terry wondered, had the planners of the mission not thought of this? Why had Headquarters not sent an explorer in addition to the cruiser? To save money, no doubt; according to Kathryn protecting Maclairn had not been high on the League’s priority list. On the other hand, perhaps that was an unfair assumption—perhaps they had felt that to protect the secret, it was best not to provide a ship that would be able to leave. Not all explorer crews were totally trustworthy, and news of a hitherto-unexploited colony might be worth a good deal of money in some quarters. Neither of these considerations had any bearing on the use of Picard. But would he be allowed to find out if it could lift?
Power gauges and AI checks would tell whether it could, in theory. But theory wasn’t a reliable guide when it came to ships. Whatever the instruments said, the attempt would be risky. Any pilot who claimed otherwise would be a fool.
He could go to Commander Chiang and explain his reasoning. And he would probably be told to forget it, after which he would not be free to pursue the idea. Fleet was not inclined to take unnecessary risks. To be sure, the value of Picard was not an issue in this case, since it was now useless on the ground. But the life of a fully trained, experienced explorer pilot would not be lightly endangered. Daredevils were generally disciplined, and any act deemed foolhardy might well result in his being grounded, or at the very least, demoted from patrol leader to standby status.
If, on the other hand, he could offer some evidence before raising the subject, the captain might then be persuaded to send down engineers and AI experts to evaluate the ship. He could do some preliminary checking himself; on explorer missions AI maintenance had been his backup role. But he did not have the code for opening the hatch.
Could Kathryn get it? Jessica was her mentor, and in fact she’d said she was living, while on Maclairn, in Jessica’s house. Probably Maclairnans would come today, as they had yesterday, to make sure the Fleet officers had everything they needed. If he asked her, Kathryn might come with them; although the colony as yet had no satellite service there was a wired phone line between the Old Settlement and Petersville, the colony’s capital. And she had given him her number.
~ 15 ~
Terry thought about it all through breakfast. He had no duties on the surface; installation of the satellite phone equipment was specialized technical work. Officially, he was at loose ends. And so, he decided, the bold way was the best way. After all, the captain had declared that fraternization was to be encouraged. “Sir, I met a woman last night that I’d like to talk to again,” he said to Commander Chiang. “If I’m not needed today, may I have permission to phone her?”
“Permission granted,” Chiang replied, “as long as you don’t leave this area.” The phone was in the prefab known as the Commons, where they’d slept, and Terry hurried to it. He told Kathryn only that he was curious about the grounded explorer and that he’d like to show her its interior. That would be excuse enough if they were seen. And in fact it would circumvent the question of authorization that sooner or later would arise—the ship was after all the property of the Maclairnans, who had confiscated it after disabling its hyperdrive. Fleet had no right to enter it without their permission.
“Jessica thinks this is a good idea,” Kathryn reported when she arrived on the boat that afternoon. “She said nobody has looked it over for many years and she’s wondered if there’s some way we could make use of whatever is left inside.”
He got a pressure suit from the shuttle and while Kathryn watched, climbed the footholds leading to the hatch. He drew a deep breath as he opened it. The gauge in the airlock showed that the interior was indeed depressurized; feeling only a moment of apprehension lest power failure trap him inside, he put on his helmet and closed the outer hatch firmly behind him. The pump’s normal soft whir reassured him. Once the airlock finished cycling he would be able to enter.
He would have to pressurize at least part of the ship, since Kathryn wasn’t trained to use a suit and even if she were, it would be risky to reseal it while she was inside—or in fact, while he was; there was no knowing how long the power would last. It was unlikely that stored oxygen had been left aboard, but since the airlock’s pump still worked, the intake pump probably would. He proceeded to the bridge, made sure that the intercompartment locks were closed, and set it in operation. While he waited for the green light to show that the air w
as breathable, he turned to the control console and gave the command to wake.
One by one the indicators lit up, until the whole board blazed with them. His eyes went first to the power gauges. There was power! Not a lot, but enough to keep the ship alive until, when docked with Shepard, it could be replenished. There was almost certainly enough to lift. Whether there was enough to reach escape velocity was something he wasn’t ready to think about.
There remained the question of the AI. Ships were not designed to be controlled manually; the only time when the pilot had any influence beyond giving commands was during landing. The AI carried out the pilot’s orders to lift, to reach the specified destination, and to dock. Or else it didn’t. If it didn’t, you were either helpless or dead. The original colonists had sent their starship to destruction in the sun when its AI began to fail; its mere presence in orbit had become a hazard. Picard, too, would present a hazard, and not only to him, if its AI could not be trusted.
Removing his helmet but not his suit, he went back to the hatch and called to Kathryn to come up. She climbed the footholds easily; as she did so Terry couldn’t help noticing how full of life she was. A current of vitality passed from her to him, like a live circuit. They were not consciously communicating by telepathy, yet the connection formed last night between them was unbroken. He felt sure that it would never break. He knew he did not want it to.
“This ship’s like Promise, the Foundation’s ship,” she told him as they went through the open airlock. “Except it’s not quite as big. How many staterooms does it have?”
“Four,” he replied. Now, close to her in the lighted corridor, he could see her better than by last night’s firelight, and he liked what he saw.
The Rising Flame: Box Set: Defender of the Flame + Herald of the Flame Page 9