The prototype ship was beautiful—sleek, for travel through atmospheres, yet efficiently designed for interplanetary operation. And of course, it lacked the worn appearance of the ships he had known; everything about it was brand new. Like Picard it had been christened in accord with a long-standing tradition of naming small ships after characters in modern mythology, in this case Skywalker—a name that had undoubtedly been used before but under which no ship was currently registered. From the moment Terry saw it, he knew that it was, or would be, connected to him in some special way. Yet great though it was to fly, he felt an odd sense of unease. Not until the day he left did he recognize this as the same sort of feeling he’d suspected might be precognition.
At the end of the week he flew Skywalker to Promise and took it aboard, then proceeded to Earth to pick up Drew and Amir. As the new ship wasn’t supposed to be seen at the spaceport, an Earth-based Fleet shuttle brought them up and took him down to the surface. He met Kathryn, who had just finished settling the new mentors in Vancouver, and they went together to see her grandparents.
Arthur Bramfield had, of course, already been told the details of the pirate encounter; but nothing had been said on the phone to confirm that they hadn’t been ordinary pirates. He had needed no one to tell him that. Now, after commending Terry for his handling of the threat and expressing his thankfulness for the escape, he confessed that he was still troubled. “I agree with you, Terry, that they can’t use the same tactics against us again,” he said. “You ended that once and for all. But I’m afraid they won’t stop trying to discourage us.”
“Admiral Frazer warned me never to leave the ship or its shuttle unguarded, or to allow maintenance to be done on Earth or New Tahiti by anyone other than Drew,” Terry said. “But we’ve always taken those precautions. All work on our ships has been done on Maclairn, and the shuttle hasn’t been on the ground elsewhere any longer than it took to load or unload passengers.”
“I know, and I don’t see how they could be touched, short of a missile attack, which is not the kind of thing that could be attributed to criminals.” He frowned. “This new ship—did its developers know about Maclairn?”
“No. It was built by Fleet’s regular research team. Whether the League commissioners aware of Maclairn knew it was being built, I can’t say, but Admiral Frazer is on top of the situation. He would have seen to its security, and he hadn’t told anyone where he was sending it.”
“Who knew it was taken aboard Promise?”
“No one but the caretaker pilot, who was a member of Frazer’s personal staff.”
Arthur sighed. “They’re not going to give up, Terry. Sooner or later they’ll find some vulnerability we haven’t foreseen, and there’s no way we can defend against it. Yet we have no choice but to keep right on doing what we’re doing.”
“Of course we haven’t,” Kathryn said. “The founders of Maclairn counted on us to continue what they started, no matter what it costs.”
The schedule allowed just two days with the family and Terry wanted to see Corwin, so, knowing that he worked a late night shift at the health club, he and Kathryn went there after midnight. “It’s a bad neighborhood,” he observed again, “but if Corwin and Kamila and their trainees walk through it at night, I suppose it’s no worse than anywhere else.” Nevertheless, he took his laser pistol. It would be terribly ironic if they had survived a confrontation with pirates only to become victims of muggers.
Corwin was in the process of teaching a new recruit to deal with pain and had just completed the first training session; he was free to talk with them during the necessary interval before the second. “There’s no one else here tonight except the security guard,” he said, “and Kamila’s at home. She’ll be sorry to have missed you.” Then, observing Terry’s mutilated hand, he said, “The training’s proven worthwhile in its own right, I see. Sometimes, working with people who haven’t grown up among others immune to pain, it’s hard for me to be as ruthless with them as I must. We do it for its effect in opening minds to other forms of voluntary control and for awakening telepathic sensitivity; few ever have a need to use it as you did.”
“It saved us all from capture, and perhaps from death,” Terry said. “I might have cracked if I’d been experiencing what they thought I was.”
“I doubt that,” Corwin told him. “People with your strength of character usually do better in a crisis than they think they will. But it saved you from unnecessary suffering, and that’s good to remember when I think of what my trainee is suffering now.”
“Never doubt, Corwin,” Kathryn said. “We’re all happier and more sure of ourselves than before we had mind training, as well as more connected to each other. It all goes together—we can’t separate one capability from the rest.”
“Or from our freedom from outside coercion,” added Terry. “After all, that’s why the enemies of Maclairn want to put a stop to our recruiting. Arthur thinks they’ll keep trying. Have you got any idea what they could do to us, now that they know they can’t take our ship?”
Corwin was silent. Suddenly foreboding swept over Terry, nearly swamping him. It wasn’t precognition this time, he realized. It was something Corwin was hiding behind a deliberate barrier against telepathic sensing. “If I did,” Corwin declared finally, “I wouldn’t tell Arthur unless it was something he could prevent. Everybody in the world—in any world—is at risk all the time; we are all going to die someday, and the only question is when.”
“That’s a fatalistic way of looking at it,” Kathryn protested.
“No. It is realistic. We’re free only when we accept it, and stop seeking absolute safety that can never exist. What matters is not to be safe, but to be doing something worth doing whether we live or die while doing it.”
With difficulty Terry quieted his sensation of alarm. He wasn’t in the habit of worrying about his safety any more than Corwin was; he hadn’t even worried much when he boarded Starhawk. He’d taken all possible steps to make sure Promise was safe. There was nothing to be gained by trying to guess what might happen in the future.
They talked for a while longer, then embraced as was customary among Maclairnans and said goodbye. Terry and Kathryn walked as quickly as they could to the parking structure and stood at the entrance, waiting for the automated retrieval of their groundcar.
In the next instant the ground was jarred by the force of a tremendous explosion, and as the sound wave hit, deafening them, they turned to see the entire health club building burst into flame.
~ 38 ~
“Oh, my God! Corwin!” Kathryn shrieked, and ran forward. Terry pulled her back, holding her tight in his arms. They clung together, too stunned for tears. Firefighters were already gathering, but there was nothing they could do. It would be pointless to waste scarce and expensive water on a blaze that could not possibly be put out; they turned their attention to adjacent buildings.
There were few spectators. Violence of all kinds was so common in the suburbs that it attracted little excitement, and it was, after all, the middle of the night, when most people were barricaded in their apartments behind triple-locked doors. Police came and cordoned off the area; they did not bother to search for survivors, since it was obvious that there could be none.
“Was it deliberately torched?” Kathryn asked when she could speak. “Was an arsonist in there when we were?”
“No,” said Terry bitterly. “There was a guard at the door, after all. It must have been a time bomb placed earlier in the day and set to go off when only a few people would be there. The conspirators evidently preferred not to kill any more innocent bystanders than were needed to make their point.”
“Conspirators—you mean terrorists? But the health clubs steer clear of politics.”
“Not ordinary terrorists, any more than the pirates were ordinary pirates.” Seeing that she had not grasped the nature of the attack, he added, “Arthur and I were so hung up on trying to predict what might be done to the ship that we over
looked the obvious alternative.”
“Oh,” Kathryn said in a small voice. They stood there, mute, as the building collapsed into a pile of fiery rubble. Terry, I thought I knew what we were getting into . . . I said over and over that it was dangerous, remember? But I didn’t picture our mentors being murdered.
You mean you didn’t let yourself picture it. You’re not naïve, Kathryn, any more than the mentors themselves are.
“Do you think Corwin knew it could happen?” she asked aloud.
“Of course he did, and he knew it could happen soon. That was what he was trying to tell us. I sensed something but he wouldn’t let me draw any specifics from his mind—he just wanted us to realize, if it did happen, that he’d accepted the risk knowingly.”
“Then they all know. Even before they get here.”
“I guess they do. They’ve studied Earth, and they don’t grow up with the insulation we have to develop here as kids, the shell that keeps us believing we’re unlikely to get killed.” Or was it more than that? Terry wondered. Corwin was psi-gifted; had it been precognition after all?
“We’ve got to go,” Kathryn said, gathering herself together. “We should be there in case the police call.”
“To tell Arthur,” he agreed. “Since he owned the building they’ll contact him right away.”
“Yes, but first we have to tell Kamila.”
“Oh, my God. Of course.” The police probably didn’t know who had died, but if they had records of who worked there they would call the whole list. And it would be even worse if they didn’t—if he and Kathryn hadn’t been here, Kamila would have waited in vain for Corwin to come home.
When they got to the apartment where the mentors had lived, Kamila met them with frozen calm, despite the agony he sensed beneath the surface. No one had contacted her—she had sensed her lifemate’s death when it happened, as psi-gifted people often did. All they had to tell her were the grim details.
They took her back to the Bramfield penthouse with them, where Kathryn’s grandmother made her as comfortable as possible in one of the guest rooms. “Thank God Promise is on Earth,” Kathryn said to her. “We have a stateroom free, and we’ll delay departure a few days so you can pack your things.”
“I am not going back to Maclairn,” Kamila said quietly. “My work is here.”
“But you’ll want to be with your family—” Corwin and Kamila, like virtually all older Maclairnans, had children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
“Don’t you see, Kathryn—if I left, our enemies would win. They would have driven me out, and Corwin would have died for nothing.”
That was true, Terry realized. The only thing to do was rebuild the health club and keep going; they would bring in more mentors so that Kamila wouldn’t be alone, but there must be no other changes. The whole plan would fall apart if scare tactics had any effect on it.
Arthur Bramfield was crushed, but he too knew that there must be no delay in rebuilding. The only concession to intimidation would be to tighten security; like all buildings open to the public the club had had a security guard at the door, but one was evidently not enough.
“Are the others in danger—I mean right now?” Kathryn asked miserably. “Is this only the beginning of a long series of bombings?”
“No,” Arthur said. “So far, it will look to the public like random violence; what’s one bomb more or less these days? But if they destroyed more than one Bramfield Club, especially after an attack on a ship I own, it would be seen as a vendetta against me. There would be an investigation, which is the last thing our opponents want. They are just as concerned about keeping our activities secret as we are, remember, and they have no control over the official League authorities.”
“You might think about getting a bodyguard for yourself, though,” Terry said, “and for Kathryn when’s she’s here. What scared me most about the pirates was the thought of the hold they’d have over you if Kathryn were taken. And of course if you died, who would keep the Foundation going?’
“I’d inherit not only Granddad’s personal funds, but the Foundation chairmanship,” Kathryn said, “and after me, my children, or my aunt if I’m childless. Any wealthy person has that all set forth in legal paperwork.”
“But I’m changing my will,” Arthur said, “to put you in line after Kathryn, though God willing, it will never come to that. There’s no one I’d rather trust with the responsibility.”
God, thought Terry, he means for the money! Someday when we’re old, Kathryn and I will inherit billions! He hadn’t taken it in before. He knew little of money, having never had any apart from his Fleet pay, and the idea of it awed him. Yet contact between Earth and Maclairn depended on money to operate Promise, support the mentors, and maintain the health clubs, and that would always be true. . . .
He felt a chill as a new thought came to him. “Arthur,” he said, “could Hiller’s next strategy be financial, like manipulating the stock market or stealing funds electronically? Something you may not know about me is that as a kid I used to be a hacker. I never stole any money, but I’ve seen how it’s done.”
Arthur nodded. “That hadn’t occurred to me, but you’re right. I trust my financial managers, but their standard security measures may not be adequate against a targeted attack by government insiders.”
“You need to hire an independent hacker to keep watch, sir. I could handle it I were here, but I won’t be.”
“I’ll do that. God, how else are we vulnerable? I didn’t expect things would get this bad so soon.”
“Well, we seem to have covered all the bases,” Terry said. “But if we’re guarding everything on Earth, that’s all the more reason why it’s important to be vigilant on Maclairn. It’s a good thing I’m on my way back, because the danger there is greater than Captain Vargas yet knows.”
Alone in their bedroom, Terry and Kathryn held each other and gave way to the tears they had been holding back. “Kamila and Corwin were bonded for nearly fifty years, from the time they were teens,” Kathryn said, “and she has at least another fifty years to live. Can you imagine what it will be like for her? All Maclairnans know they may be separated in extreme old age if one partner dies before the other, but usually the survivor doesn’t live long. The light goes out, they say, and their bodies just close down. Kamila isn’t old enough for that, she’s only a little past sixty.”
“I can imagine what it would be like for me, if I lost you,” Terry whispered. “And yet when they come here, they know what might happen.”
The bond between mentors and their students was strong, too, he realized. He’d had deep feeling for Corwin, almost as deep as his feeling for Aldren and Tristan. They had had telepathic contact under stress as well as friendship. “And it was Corwin who brought us together,” he said sadly to Kathryn. His heart ached at the memory of that first magical night that they owed to Corwin’s intervention.
“All the others he’s trained over the years will grieve, too,” Kathryn said. “Early death is virtually unheard of on Maclairn—”
“Others . . . God, Kathryn, what about tonight’s new trainee? He died too, died right after facing unbearable pain, without the second session that would have shown him how to lessen it. Is it right to take the risks we do if people like that can get hurt?”
“Either what we’re doing is worth risk or it isn’t,” Kathryn declared. “Corwin thought it is, and if he was wrong then his death was meaningless, which implies that everything anyone has suffered in connection with developing new powers, in training or later—”
“I haven’t committed myself the same way you have,” Terry said slowly. “I’m sure as hell not going to be pressured into quitting, but I’m a Fleet officer, after all. I know the Stewards of the Flame have secrets you can’t tell me, but do they . . . help? Do they explain why Corwin and the other mentors make the sacrifices they do for a future they can’t live to see?”
“Being a Steward is just a symbol, Terry. The secret part is
purely symbolic—it doesn’t tell you anything about life you don’t already know. But sharing symbols does help. We’ll hold the Ritual in Corwin’s memory, and our grief won’t hurt quite so much while our minds are joined.” She nestled in his arms and added, “The Stewards have a saying—but I can’t tell you that. It’s how Maclairn’s founders were able to face the hardships and dangers they did, and how the mentors do, I guess.”
The colonists had believed humankind could move forward, which was more than anyone on Earth had cared about for a long time. Commitment was just another word for caring, Terry realized, and he too cared—as much, perhaps, as Corwin had.
~ 39 ~
During the trip back to Maclairn with a new group of observers, everyone was subdued. The three couples had of course been recruited long before; hearing of the bombing didn’t reduce their enthusiasm, although they were warned of the increased risk they might face at the health club they were to establish in Berlin when they got home. But the dark mood of Kathryn and the crew put a damper on conversation.
Since Maclairn received no news from the League worlds except via Promise, there was a great deal to be told when they arrived. To Kathryn fell the painful task of informing Jessica of Corwin’s death, which she did by phone before escorting the observers to the surface. Terry briefly summarized developments to Captain Vargas, making plain that they would need to have a long talk later to reassess the risks Maclairn was facing. He said little about the pirate encounter and was somewhat irritated when Drew spread the details among Shepard’s crew, resulting in a hero’s welcome for him and the revelation of Kathryn’s status as an heiress.
The Rising Flame: Box Set: Defender of the Flame + Herald of the Flame Page 24