Tristan answered, “Yes, I do.”
Jessica turned to Terry. “Do you accept Tristan as your sponsor?”
“I’m happy to accept him,” Terry answered. If there was peril, would Kathryn have shared it? No doubt she would, since she’d said there would be risk to her unborn child. It was just as well that it had turned out that she needn’t take part.
“Terry, do you confirm the pledge you have made to keep everything you know or may learn of Maclairn, and of the Stewards of the Flame, secret from all but those to whom you are authorized to reveal it, now and forever, at whatever cost to yourself?”
“I do,” Terry replied.
“Do you by your own free choice commit yourself to live by the precepts of the Stewards of the Flame, as I have stated them?”
“Yes, I do.” There was nothing in them he had reservations about.
“Will you support fellow Stewards in all ways, even at the risk of your personal safety?’
“I will do so gladly.”
“Do you believe that your mind has power over the well-being of your body, and that it can protect or heal you from sickness, injury and pain?”
“I do,” he affirmed steadily. There seemed to be special emphasis on this point and he could tell from the emotions of the others that it was leading somewhere.
“Terry, are you willing to confirm your commitment by proving your trust in that power?”
“Yes, I am.” His heart began to race and as he had been taught to do, he quieted it.
For a moment Jessica was silent, motionless, but he felt her mind touch his, drawing from it no less fully than Kathryn did during lovemaking. All that he was, all that he had dreamed of being, was open to her evaluation; but he felt no desire to shrink from it. The awareness that she knew him, cared about him, was strengthening, for he now perceived that Jessica was far more than the distinguished elderly woman in whose home he was living. She had not become leader of Maclairn through seniority alone, he saw; she was truly psi-gifted beyond any other mentor he had encountered.
It did not matter what they did to test him, Terry realized. He was protected both by his own strength, which Jessica had just acknowledged, and by the overwhelming supportive presence of the group. She was channeling their psi power, holding it in focus as an anchor for him to hold to. He looked out at the candlelit faces surrounding him and felt his mind mesh with theirs, not as an indistinguishable part, but as an independent node of a network with access to whatever resources he might need. Whatever fear he might otherwise have felt vanished as the link was established.
Kathryn lowered the torch she bore, holding it horizontally with the flame at waist level half way between Jessica and Terry. He could feel tension mounting among the onlookers. In the formal words she had said were traditional, Jessica continued:
“Unfaced fear is the destroyer. We will acknowledge fear and accept it, we will go past it and live free.
“We will trust the power of the mind over all restrictions, whether imposed from within or by the world outside.
“We will act always through volition, allowing neither internal nor external pressures to enslave us.
“We will support each other unfailingly in fulfilling this pledge.
“We believe that we are stewards of a flame that will illuminate future generations.
“And we now seal our commitment with the symbol of the mind’s power, which is fire.”
The blaze of the torch between them dazzled him so that he could not see her expression; he knew only that he trusted her and through her, all the others, not only those present but those who, like him, would overcome whatever obstacles they must to pass Maclairn’s heritage on. He was proud and happy to be a part of it. It was so timeless a feeling that for a moment, when Jessica’s left hand reached for his, he did not grasp what was happening in the here and now.
His own hand was halfway to hers before he became aware that hers was in the flame, and was not burned.
“Put your left hand on mine, Terry,” Jessica commanded softly.
Incredulous, he froze with the hand still outstretched. But Kathryn’s silent command came instantly: Don’t hesitate, Terry! You can do it if you don’t stop to think about it—I did.
Tristan, too, was urging him: You must, Terry. Now, before you lose your nerve.
Terry thrust his hand forward into the flame, knowing that to draw back would be a repudiation not only of the pledges he had just made, but of the power within himself that was now an inseparable part of his identity. It would be a rejection of the connection with other minds that had come to mean everything to him. And it would mean alienation from Kathryn, not in a literal sense but in terms of the goal they shared. He did not reason this out in the few seconds it took to do it. He did not even remind himself that if he was burned, it would hurt no more than when the hand had been burned and mutilated before, for pain would not have mattered to him in the light of the things that did matter.
Immediately he was high, floating somewhere in space, detached from his surroundings but inwardly aware of the psi support of others: Tristan and Martin, whose hands were now on his, and the many onlookers who were touching the flames of their candles, thereby magnifying their psychic potency. It was like his first volitional shift of consciousness, with Aldren, but far better; and the memory of it would be with him forever.
Standing somewhere outside time, he would not have thought to withdraw his hand if the three others, removing theirs from the fire, had not silently told him to. Less than twenty seconds had elapsed. As he dropped back into reality he stared in awe at his unburned fingers and wondered if what seemed to have occurred had really happened.
Again Jessica embraced Terry; then she pinned a small copper flame, insignia of the Stewards, to the lapel of his shirt. Kathryn laid the torch in the fireplace and threw her arms around him, exulting in the dissolution of the last barrier to full merging of their thoughts. The others clustered around and they too hugged him, first Tristan and then the rest. He felt as never before that he truly belonged among them, that they were his family.
It was not his miraculous immunity to fire that had brought this about, he knew. It was his inner willingness to commit himself totally to the vision of the future Maclairnans shared, even to the extent of an irrational gamble on its validity. As the words of the Ritual said, the fire was only a symbol. “Oh God, Kathryn,” he said to her as they settled on the cushions now brought back to the hearth, “I never understood what’s happening here till now—”
“We’re defying the idea that prevails everywhere else, the belief that humankind is not progressing and never will. That belief seems reasonable if you look at what’s happening on Earth, and even in most of the colonies. To see that it’s false you have to believe in the impossible . . . and if you let yourself do that, it becomes possible after all.”
Still awestricken, Terry said slowly, “I’m not sure I really did what I did tonight, that it wasn’t some sort of fantastic illusion. But even if it was, I don’t question what it stands for. Corwin—I wondered how he could go on with his job so calmly when he knew he was a sitting duck—”
“You asked me,” Kathryn recalled, “And I told you there was a saying among the Stewards that I couldn’t reveal then. ‘It’s like touching flame,’ they say. ‘We just do it—and to be able to do it, we have to know we could be burned, and be willing.’”
Would the destiny Aldren had foreseen for him work like that? he wondered. He was now sure that his destiny was linked to Maclairn’s, but that in itself couldn’t be called extraordinary. Did the vague, persistent sense of an intruding starship he’d experienced have something to do with it? Was that why it had disturbed him—had there been precognition not just as to the intruder’s presence, but in connection with whatever challenge was ahead of him?
The people around him were soon celebrating as they had at the wedding feast, and the solemnity faded. But for Terry, the preternatural psi power aroused b
y the Ritual lingered, and he felt he would burst if he could not somehow make the most of it.
~ 41 ~
It was very late when they finally got to bed. They made love again, joyously as always but with the added elation produced by the Ritual’s lingering effects, Afterward Kathryn dropped off, exhausted from the day’s two portentous experiences.
Terry remained too excited to sleep. All his faculties were sharpened; he felt in touch with the entire universe, as if he could reach out and perceive the most distant stars. . . . Then, gradually but unmistakably, he began to sense the presence that had haunted him in space: the perception of an unseen ship lurking somewhere within range of Maclairn. And he knew it was there not in the indefinite future, but now.
Whether or not it had been precognition before, there was no longer any doubt of the ship’s reality. His remote vision, heightened by the increased telepathic sensitivity that had enabled him to touch flame unharmed, was revealing it to him; a vague picture was forming in his mind. It wasn’t shaped like a ship, or in fact shaped at all, but was merely a perception of some artificial object made of metal. Something that couldn’t be a normal feature of any solar system. It couldn’t actually be close, the satellite ring would have picked it up—but Jessica had sensed it at a distance repeatedly. She had lacked a means of pursuing what she sensed, but he did not. He was through with denying the power he’d feared to acknowledge in himself! He might be able to locate the ship, and if so he must do so before the enhanced psi capability given him by the Ritual wore off.
Terry got up and put on his clothes—his Fleet uniform, because if he met the intruder he would need to give an official warning on the comm vid. He was not going to consult his superiors aboard Shepard; there wasn’t time for that, for which he was glad because they might not share his confidence and in any case they would insist that he take a crew along. For some reason he felt that would be unfair—he was now committed to the defense of Maclairn, no matter what the risk, in a way the other officers were not; and inner awareness as well as logic told him that if its enemies indeed had a spy ship in the system, the risk was very great. More precognition? he wondered. It hardly mattered, since on this particular morning circumstances, whether by luck or something else, had converged to provide an opportunity that wouldn’t come again. He was empowered by the Ritual—and Skywalker, with a far greater range than any shuttle or patroller, was still on the ground instead of on the cruiser where it would be by nightfall if he returned to duty as scheduled.
Kathryn slept peacefully, her face half-hidden by the pillow. He longed to kiss her goodbye, but now that she was pregnant she needed her rest and anyway, he didn’t want her to protest. No matter what he said, she would grasp everything in his mind and would be bound to feel that his compulsion to go into danger alone was not rational. In fear that unconscious telepathy would wake her, he left quickly, scrawling a brief note saying he was returning early to Shepard. They wouldn’t be parted for long, after all. He would either sight the intruder and warn Fleet by comm, or return before she had time to be seriously worried by his absence. It would actually be safest for him to go alone and unarmed; even if the ship was crewed by hired outlaws they would be unlikely to kill a single challenger in cold blood, whereas if confronted by a team they would expect a fight.
It was still dark as he hurried to the rail station, but by the time he got to the lake dawn was reddening the sky, striping the ripples on the water. This early there were no boatmen around; he pounded on the door of the marina office and offered the one on duty a larger-than-normal fare to take him to the Old Settlement, sorry that he had not learned to handle a boat himself. On the way up the lake he thought of how beautiful it was despite the barrenness of the rocky canyon walls that rose on either side, so close at most points that the water looked yellow instead of blue. It reminded him of some of the isolated places where he had camped on Earth—but there, he had never had the feeling of attachment to his surroundings that he had come to feel on this world.
It was very calm; only the soft hum of the motor broke the silence. His heart, in contrast, felt close to bursting—with love for Maclairn, for Kathryn sleeping back in Jessica’s house, and already for the son she carried. His son! Radnor . . . he would be father to a native Maclairnan. For his son’s sake even more because of the pledge he had made, he must do all he could to protect Maclairn’s secret.
The lieutenant on watch at Fleet’s ground base was surprised to see him, but did not question a superior officer’s need to fly when he saw fit. Terry ordered her to top off Skywalker’s water tank and replenish its supply of emergency rations. His spacesuit, fortunately, was stored aboard. After completing his preflight check, he paced impatiently while the intake pump and liquefier raised the ship’s stored air supply to maximum. Then, without further preparation, he took off.
He had no idea where he was going; he would let his psi faculties guide him. Commanding the AI to set a course toward Corwin, he sat back and waited for the call that was bound to come once the surveillance satellites picked him up.
The comm came alive. “Skywalker, this is Shepard. What’s your destination? Over.”
“Shepard, this is Lieutenant Commander Radnor,” Terry replied calmly. “On my last flight down I noticed an anomaly in the instrument readings. I’m just checking it out. Over.
After a pause the watch officer came on. “You didn’t report any anomaly, Commander.”
“No, sir. I didn’t want to cause concern until I was sure. Since I’m the only pilot experienced with this ship, I had to evaluate it personally.”
“Very well, Skywalker, but keep your comm channel open and report every ten minutes. You should have advised us before lifting.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” he lied. “I’ll check in as soon as I’m past the satellite ring. Out.” In ten minutes he would be a long way past, and he had no intention of checking in until he was beyond the range of patrollers. He would be in big trouble when he got back, of course, unless he had something really significant to report such as the sighting of the intruder he felt ever more certain would appear. If he was wrong, it might end his career—but after last night, he was in a mood to sacrifice anything demanded as the price of living up to what he had pledged.
The mentors aboard would support him, Terry realized, and would inform Jessica, who had always hoped that he would sense something and who had a great deal of influence with the captain. Mentors found the culture of Fleet, based on unfailing obedience to orders, strange and unnatural; he knew that inwardly they disapproved of it. And after all, Promise belonged to the Maclairn Foundation, whose arrangement with Fleet was subject to renegotiation. If he had to resign his commission Arthur Bramfield would cancel the contract and hire him as civilian captain.
The response to his call to Shepard, when he finally made it after ignoring repeated demands to respond, was predictably furious; they had scrambled patrollers to search for him, as he had known they would. “Sir, I was trained in remote viewing for the specific purpose of sensing unauthorized ships,” he told Captain Vargas. “I have sensed one. Seeing that I’m the only pilot checked out on Skywalker and no other ship of ours has enough range, I felt I had no choice—if I’d waited for permission to pursue the intruder it might elude me. Stay on alert, because either I’ll verify its presence or it will be picked up by the satellite ring. I will report my status hourly. Out.” He turned off the comm without waiting for the inevitable outraged reply.
For Kathryn’s sake more than Fleet’s, he made the brief hourly reports. Apart from this, time passed in silence while Terry, though always aware of the nagging sense that his was not the only ship in the vicinity, recalled the joy of the Ritual—the firelight, the mind-touch of his gathered friends, the strengthening link with Kathryn in the knowledge that she carried his child, the solemnity of the pledges that had become the defining center of his life—and above all, his transformation in the moment when his mind merged with Jessica’s and Tri
stan’s as their hands touched in flame. He knew that had not been an illusion. Undamaged though his hand looked now, it had happened. Nothing could ever take that from him. No matter what the future held, he was forever one with Maclairn and what it symbolized. He fingered the copper flame now pinned to the lapel of his uniform; whether this was against regulations he did not know, nor, at the moment, did he care. In a conflict between two loyalties, there was no longer any doubt as to which was primary.
~ 42 ~
Eventually, Terry realized that he must sleep soon. He debated between setting an alarm to wake him once an hour and prerecording a status report; but Fleet would recognize the latter as automated and Kathryn would worry, so he decided on the alarm. He was afraid in any case of missing what he was seeking. Having come this far, it would be a terrible irony to be asleep when closest, though Skywalker’s AI was programmed to alert him if its sensors picked up any sort of signal.
Underneath, he was aware that there was no good reason to assume he had chosen the right course to intercept the intruder. There wasn’t even any reason to think the time was right, for if what had come to him these past weeks had been precognition, it still could be, despite his strong conviction that it wasn’t. And why had he supposed the ship would be found in the direction of Corwin, which was by now elsewhere in its orbit, merely because he had first sensed it on the way there? Why, he wondered, had he felt compelled to defy logic and caution in a sudden impulse to fly in this particular direction?
But the sense of something there was stronger than ever, overwhelming, so that his head swam and he began to sweat. Unaccountably, he felt a sudden desire to be back on Maclairn where he belonged. He was blurry-eyed from fatigue—this was still the day of the Ritual in terms of when he’d last waked—and perhaps, after all, he was hallucinating. . . .
The Rising Flame: Box Set: Defender of the Flame + Herald of the Flame Page 26