To his surprise, Terry was given paper and asked to record his impressions with a pen instead of an electronic stylus. “It may seem anachronistic,” Corwin said, “but you needn’t write out whole sentences, after all, and it won’t matter if your writing isn’t legible to anyone else. Just put down key words and rough sketches of shapes you perceive.”
He couldn’t possibly have any idea at all of the chosen photograph, Terry thought. The procedure seemed vague, almost silly. Nevertheless, when the green light signaled that the computer was displaying a particular photo on a monitor hidden from them, he found himself thinking of a row of towers, shafts rising higher than he could see without raising his eyes, with no distinguishing features he could make out other than an impression that they were not identical. He wrote “tall, straight” and sketched vertical lines with a jagged horizontal line above them, more a diagram than a picture.
After a few minutes Corwin took the paper from him and removed the cover from the monitor. Terry gasped. It was a scene from ancient Earth: tall skyscrapers of varying height, unlike anything that existed on the colony worlds, and clearly the inspiration for the pattern of lines he had drawn.
They tried several more. A few of his impressions were far off, others accurate in some respects, but none had the striking resemblance shown in his first sketch. “That’s normal,” Corwin told him. “Even after long practice, you’ll have misses as well as hits. But overall, your rate of accuracy will be well above chance.”
Aldren, too, had said not all viewings were true—and that when there was no way of checking, you couldn’t know whether a perception was true or not. Or whether you were seeing in real time or a scene from the future. . . . He had a vision of my face, Terry recalled, something to do with an extraordinary destiny. . . .
He became aware that Corwin was looking at him strangely. Evidently Aldren had not mentioned that vision in his message to the mentors. To cover his embarrassment Terry said quickly, “I guess I haven’t thanked you for asking Commander Chiang not to hunt for me last night.” There was no reason not to speak of it when even the captain seemed to feel it had been a good thing.
Corwin smiled and said “I’m glad that it worked out for you—and for Kathryn. Do you understand what happened when you were together, Terry? Besides the joy of love, I mean.”
“I know we became stronger telepaths, and not just with each other,” he said. “And I guess I know why you wanted her to gain more psi capability. But I don’t really see why sharing our minds carries over.”
“Everyone is to some degree telepathic on an unconscious level,” Corwin reminded him. “During an intense experience when you are focused on feelings rather than the rational thought that usually dominates your mind, telepathically sensed thoughts can rise to consciousness. The barriers that ordinarily suppress them come down, provided you’re emotionally receptive to the idea of psi and feel no fear of it. And once this has occurred, those barriers are weakened, so you become conscious of telepathic input much more easily than before. Extreme stress can cause this, as you found at the start of your training. Sex does it even better.”
What would have happened if Kathryn and I hadn’t met? He couldn’t help wondering, though he didn’t really want to know.
It wasn’t accidental. Jessica knew you were with the landing party, and that you were able to communicate telepathically. We made sure she’d be at the cookout.
You planned it? But why—
“Kathryn was in a unique position, and not just because of her wish to qualify for the Ritual,” Corwin said aloud. “It’s not usual on Maclairn for people to be without partners. As you know, marriage isn’t defined by law, here—”
Terry nodded. That had been explained in the initial briefing. Maclairnans considered it none of the government’s business who was living with whom and considered it wrong to make any legal distinction between singles and people with partners. Moreover, in the founding generation there had been more women than men and all of them had borne children, by IVF if too old to conceive naturally, so such a distinction would have been impractical.
“Nevertheless,” Corwin went on, “most couples have made long-term commitments and consider themselves lifemates. The others form temporary relationships that because of the mind-sharing involved are never merely casual. Without lovemaking we would feel isolated and incomplete. Kathryn wasn’t attracted to any of the men near her age who aren’t permanently bonded, and because of her background she wouldn’t have wanted a non-exclusive relationship in any case. We were saddened to think of her remaining alone.”
Isolated and incomplete . . . that’s how I always felt, Terry thought, and then as soon as I saw her. . . .
Yes. Love at first sight isn’t just a fairy tale; among telepaths it often happens. If I hadn’t believed you were feeling more than physical attraction to each other, I wouldn’t have done what I did.
“There was another reason why we took action,” Corwin continued after a pause. “I wouldn’t want you to get the idea that that it was a matter of expediency, either in Kathryn’s case or in yours. But actually, enhancement of your psi capabilities, too, is important to us.”
“Why?” Terry asked, puzzled.
Soberly Corwin said, “Aldren has told us that you welcome your psi gift, that you’re not merely unafraid of it, but eager to pursue further training. Is that still true?”
“Yes, it’s—it’s like a world that’s always been just out of range, something I was searching for that I couldn’t define . . . even before I met Kathryn. . . .” It was hard to find words to express it. He hoped the mentor was sensing the feelings the question stirred.
“Constant psi sensitivity can be a burden,” Corwin warned, “particularly for a person who hasn’t grown up in a society where it’s considered normal. Once you’ve developed the ability to maintain it during your regular activities, it can be hard to turn off. And it can interfere with those activities if you let it take over too much of your mind.”
Terry was silent. Corwin went on, “As you get in deeper, powers can emerge that are more difficult to deal with when you’re among outsiders. Aldren mentioned healing, didn’t he? He noted that he’d introduced you to self-healing, which ordinarily wouldn’t be done this early in your training.”
“Yes.” He said I might someday be able to heal others, that keeping it secret wouldn’t be easy. . . .
“And you’ve seen what happened to Picard’s hyperdrive controls.” I think you know what that implies, though it wouldn’t occur to many newcomers.
It . . . bothered me, when I first heard about Ivana, Terry confessed silently.
“So are you willing to explore your psi capability, knowing that once you do, you’ll be stuck with it for as long as you live?”
“I don’t have much choice, do I? It’s part of me. It’s the reason I always felt different, as if I didn’t fit anywhere except when I was flying. Now that I’m aware of it, I can’t turn away.”
“You’re wise, if you already know that,” Corwin declared. “Okay. I hadn’t planned to speak of this so soon, but since you’re better prepared than I expected there’s no point in holding off. We—the mentors who discussed the protection of Maclairn before Aldren left—had an idea, a very tentative idea that may come to nothing but which Jessica felt should be pursued. We suspect that if a ship were to approach this planet, we might sense it. We know that remote viewers among the first settlers got some information about the colony’s site from low orbit. And we know that both Peter and Jesse’s wife made telepathic contact with him while he was aboard Picard. Since then we’ve become far more accustomed to using psi than they were, and I’ve been briefly in touch with a friend on the surface.”
“But Fleet won’t let an intruder get as far as low orbit,” Terry said.
“Theoretically, psi is not affected by distance. We don’t believe it can be used across interstellar space, but there were reports of its having worked within Earth’s solar sy
stem. So there is a remote chance that a patrol near one of the outer planets might sense the presence of an intruder sooner than electronics could—even, perhaps, precognitively.”
“The odds aren’t very large. The solar system is a big place.”
“Yet you’re planning to put sensors on those planets in the belief that intruders might visit them. Our first thought, when Admiral Derham told us that Picard might be salvaged, was that mentors should travel with the crew. But he pointed out that the chances of contact weren’t great enough to justify taking people with no technical skills along on every trip for years to come. Then Aldren suggested that he might be able to send us at least one Fleet officer capable of distant sensing.”
Terry drew breath. “He sent . . . me? He thought I could do this?”
“That’s our hope. Assuming that you can be given sufficient training—maybe not before your first flight, but there won’t be an intruder soon in any case, despite Jessica’s worries. You would have to devote a part of your life to developing your psi skill on a long-term basis, and it would probably contribute nothing. You must want to do this for its own sake, not just gamble on a long shot.”
“I do want to,” Terry declared, “whatever it takes.”
“So Aldren thought. And everything I’ve perceived in you bears it out.”
“Does Captain Vargas know?”
“Yes. He screened explorer pilots’ records for Aldren to choose from. He’ll see to it that your schedule permits extra training. One more thing, Terry—telepathy is instantaneous. Whether you directly sensed an intruder or picked up a sensor signal, you might be able to warn Maclairn without the delay long-range radio transmission involves.”
It was a dizzying prospect. After everything else that had happened since yesterday, it was almost too much to take in.
~ 19 ~
It was decided that while Picard was being overhauled, Terry would go down to the surface to be taught remote viewing skills that could not be learned from pictures. After only one night aboard Shepard, he found himself on the lake boat, heading toward the capital—and Kathryn.
She met him at the marina near the dam and they walked across the bridge that spanned it to the funicular that would take them to the level below. It was a rough dam made of boulders and fused rocks, as if some natural disaster had formed it rather than any human plan. “What happened?” he asked. “We were told the lake wasn’t here during the settlement’s first years.”
“Jesse blasted the canyon walls from space,” Kathryn told him, “just before he sent the failing starship away. He channeled the last of its power into the beam because otherwise it would have been wasted, and they needed a way to conserve water.”
“He was either experienced with beam weapons or very lucky,” Terry declared. “I thought he’d been a freighter pilot when he was in Fleet.”
“A freighter captain. He’d been prepared to defend his ship against pirates. But it’s been said that unconscious remote viewing may have played some part in targeting for the dam.”
Terry frowned. “That means it might go on all the time beneath consciousness, even among outsiders.” He had already, he noticed, begun to think of people not in on the secret by the Maclairnan term.
“Certainly,” Kathryn agreed, “just like telepathy. All training does is make us more fully human.”
Put that way, it was not quite as overwhelmingly awesome as it had seemed to him during the night, when he’d begun to wonder what he was letting himself in for. He had been frozen inside so long that except when he was with Kathryn, there were moments when he felt as if his new mind powers were a mere dream state from which he might wake. He had been glad that Corwin had tested his pain control because it reminded him how real and down-to-earth those powers were—which, he perceived, was why Corwin had done it. Now, with Kathryn beside him talking matter-of-factly about what he was soon to learn, Terry’s usual self-confidence had returned.
At the bottom of the funicular they boarded a railcar that took them the short distance to the center of Petersville. It wasn’t the biggest town on Maclairn, but it was the oldest and in Kathryn’s opinion, the most attractive. The public and commercial buildings were of natural yellow brick roofed with flat tiles, all surrounded by the slender, fast-growing trees that seemed to dominate settled areas on the planet in contrast to the barrenness of the rest of it. Most of the private homes had stone foundations rising halfway up the walls, with wood siding above. They were large, as it was customary for several generations to live together, but closely spaced. Many had small garden plots filled entirely with brilliant yellow sunflowers.
“Sunflowers were the only flower seeds the founding starship carried,” Kathryn explained. “We grow them for oil, seeds to eat, and chickenfeed as well as for brightening residential areas—you’ll see large fields of them. Alternating with green crops, they’re spectacular.”
There was a park by the river, she said, with shade trees. The river was currently dry, as the dammed lake above it was not quite full. “If it doesn’t rain soon, the mentors will take action,” said Kathryn, “and we’ll be cut off from the Old Settlement for a few days when the lake is too high and turbulent for boats.”
Action? Terry inquired, but she did not tell him more and he realized that she did not know the details. With awe, he grasped her suspicion that some sort of paranormal rainmaking was involved.
He was to be a guest in Jessica’s house, where Kathryn was living, but she did not take him there immediately. “Jessica will want to welcome you, and she won’t be home until dinnertime. So let’s do your shopping first,” she suggested. Fleet personnel were to wear civvies while on leave or on duty in the settlements; League money was of course worthless on Maclairn, but arrangements had been made for them to receive an allowance in local credits.
To his surprise, he found that all clothes in the shops were handmade. The very limited manufacturing capability developed by the colony had been devoted to production of the robotic machines essential for the heavy work of building and large-scale agriculture required by an expanding population, plus the electronic devices necessary for communication and for continuing access to the electronic knowledgebase brought by the founding starship. That knowledgebase had provided the data needed to establish advanced technology. But there had never been an intermediate industrial stage. There were no factories for production of consumer goods other than very basic ones such as thread and woven cloth. The people took pride in handcrafts, Kathryn explained—there was little other work for those who weren’t high-tech specialists. Except for the ones employed in agriculture or food services, most did not have jobs; they created and personally sold such things as clothing, jewelry, and home furnishings.
Terry bought chino pants, several brightly-colored shirts, swim trunks, and sandals, which Kathryn assured him would meet all his needs; his flight jacket would serve when he went outdoors after dark. There wouldn’t be much else for him to spend money on, she said. Community events were free and most other recreation was centered on gatherings in people’s homes or outdoors.
Jessica’s house was a spacious one, located near the town’s center and reached by one of the broad stone-paved paths radiating from it. There were no streets on Maclairn, and no vehicles except the robocarts used for deliveries. They were not needed, since for generations the colonists had been used to walking. “What about the disabled and elderly?” Terry inquired.
“There aren’t any. Remember, everyone stays healthy—when necessary with the help of psi-gifted healers—and people who have used their mind-training since youth don’t deteriorate in old age.”
Though he was by now used to adjusting his temperature to the heat, Terry was glad to reach the cool interior of the stone-walled house. In the center of its huge great room was a circular stone fireplace with a hammered-copper hood, surrounded by large stuffed floor cushions. “The Council meets in this room,” Kathryn said. “It was patterned after the lodge on Undine
where Ian Maclairn formed the Group. Peter was still alive when the house was built, you see, and the time he’d spent at the lodge was his most cherished memory.”
Jessica was waiting for them. Terry had met her briefly at the cookout, but had not had a chance to talk with her. Now he was impressed by what a vital, energetic woman she was. Dressed in the informal pants and colorful shirt that everyone wore, she looked no different from people he had seen in the shops. It was hard to believe she was, as Kathryn had told him, a hundred and twenty-one years old—but then, he still wasn’t used to the fact that Aldren was over a hundred.
“Welcome, Terry,” Jessica said with warmth. “We’re happy to have you with us.” There was an odd intensity in her voice—no, not her voice; he was merely sensing emotion that seemed greater than the occasion warranted.
“I’m glad to be here, ma’am,” he told her, realizing too late that although she was the top leader of the planet, it probably wasn’t appropriate to address her as he would a Fleet commander. Despite the somewhat mysterious feelings underlying her greeting, he had the same immediate sense of connection with her as he’d had with Aldren, Roanna, and Corwin—and from what Kathryn had said about her, he suspected that she had even greater psi powers than they did.
“You’ll have just time to change before dinner,” she said. “We’re having some other guests.” She ushered them to the east wing of the house, where he found it was taken for granted that he would share Kathryn’s room.
While he put on the unfamiliar new clothes, Kathryn enlightened him about the dinner guests. “Most of them will be mentors; the idea is to find out which one you hit it off with. They’ll be couples, but only the men are eligible—someone of the same sex is always appointed because the emotional relationship between mentor and trainee becomes very close. If they were of opposite sexes there’d be danger of it getting romantic.”
The Rising Flame: Box Set: Defender of the Flame + Herald of the Flame Page 12