The Rising Flame: Box Set: Defender of the Flame + Herald of the Flame

by Sylvia Engdahl

  She meant it, Terry knew. He sensed telepathically that she grieved for him. Ruefully, he recalled having stated that he would not argue if asked to make sacrifices for Maclairn’s sake. But he had imagined doing something spectacularly heroic, or becoming a martyr like Corwin. To let both Fleet and the mentors think he’d failed them—to simply disappear, when it was so unnecessary. . . .

  Not until later, when the Elders brought a gurney sealed against the alien atmosphere and prepared to take him for physical alteration, did he really believe it was happening.

  The ship was well equipped for modifying bodies since they had altered some of their own agents who were almost but not quite human. Nothing of his former life was to remain with him—not his skin color, his facial structure, or even his voice—and certainly not any of his possessions. Anticipating this, just before they came for him Terry took the tiny flame pin from his uniform’s lapel, carefully reclosed its clasp, and swallowed it.

  ~ 46 ~

  Lying flat in the gurney, its airtight bubble feeling more like a coffin lid than a shield against the poisonous air outside it, he felt terror beyond anything he had ever imagined. They were about to kill him—not his entire body, to be sure, but everything physical that made him who he was. They had sworn that they would not alter his mind, but how could he be sure that it would remain intact after such a drastic change to his self-image? After he had lost all tangible evidence of once having had a career, friends, a home world, a lifemate?

  The worst part was not the prospect of surgery; Terry knew, after all, that he would not suffer even if it involved pain. Nor was it the idea of exile from Maclairn, to which he was determined to make his way back even if it took a lifetime. The true agony was picturing Kathryn, left to mourn, not knowing what had become of him . . . bearing their child alone, a child who would grow up without a dad. Never to see her again, never to hold her in her arms and merge his mind and body with hers . . . he did not think he could bear that! He thought he would go mad.

  “Is there no way you could get a message to her?” he had asked Laesara. “I know you couldn’t tell her what’s really happened to me, but just to let her know I still love her, and that I’m all right—”

  “That would not be kind, Terry. It is better for her to believe you are dead, as she will when your ship fails to return. How could it be otherwise unless you had deserted her? And she must be free to love again someday. You would not want her to be alone forever.”

  But she would be, Terry thought in anguish—just as he would. They were committed to each other, bonded. Surely Laesara, as a telepath, must understand that. She had condemned them both to loneliness for the rest of their lives. Oh, God, Kathryn . . . Kathryn. . . . It was his last thought as he went under the anesthetic, knowing he would wake in different form.

  When he regained consciousness he sensed that time had passed; he could not tell whether it had been a short time or a long one. He looked at his arms and they were an even paler white than the normal untanned skin tone maintained during a life spent mostly in space and under domes—almost as if he were an albino. Amazingly, his missing fingers had been restored. He feared he would scarcely recognize his face in a mirror, though they assured him that only minor things had been done to it. More drastic had been the surgery to his vocal chords to prevent voice recognition. There were, he was told, slight changes in his DNA, for skin color and to change his dark brown hair to light blond. They had also changed his fingerprints and hand-veins but had been unable to do anything about his iris or retinal pattern; even if he were to obtain an eye scan, however, the other alterations would preclude its acceptance as proof of his original identity.

  There were no remaining scars of any kind, and he realized that they must be even more skilled in psychic healing than the mentors. Nevertheless, he felt vague pain all over his body. He couldn’t seem to turn it off, and feared they had taken even his mind-control capability until it dawned on him that the pain stemmed from his emotions rather than from physical damage. He was offered food, the first since coming aboard, but could not keep it down.

  No matter, they informed him silently. You have been given intravenous nourishment that will provide you with energy for several more days. Terry thought, with sadness, that if his bodily functions had been working normally the flame pin he had hoped to retrieve might be gone by now. He had so wanted to keep some small trace of Maclairn. . . .

  Laesara was waiting for him in the compartment with the airlock, which he supposed must be the front room of her private quarters. The viewscreen, previously dark, was now on, and he looked out at a cloud-covered world, a featureless off-white streaked with gray.

  “This is the planet Ciencia,” she told him. “You will not like it, for we necessarily chose an unpleasant world, one to which neither mentors nor Fleet will ever come. In this colony there is an embargo on all offworld commerce—its people do not wish their culture to be contaminated with ideas of which they disapprove. They are devoted to science, which is why they gave their world a name that means “science” in one of Earth’s ancient languages. They believe that non-scientific speculation—including religion, mythology, and metaphysics, as well as most art and literature—has retarded human progress and is the source of Earth’s problems. This is nonsense, as I’m sure you know; but for centuries there have been people who felt that way and once interstellar colonization became possible they were able to create a society from which all references to such ideas have been systematically excluded.”

  “How could they?” Terry protested. “The knowledgebase includes everything important ever written on those topics.”

  “Not their version—it is heavily censored. Their Net is monitored in case anybody develops thoughts that are frowned upon. Their only ansible is restricted to government use. As far we can tell, they have succeeded in wiping out half of Earth’s heritage.”

  He recoiled in dismay. He had read widely in the standard knowledgebase during his spare time on various worlds and aboard Shepard; the thought of censoring it seemed like sacrilege. Though he had not been raised to believe in any of Earth’s ancient religions, he respected them—and certainly he admired imaginative literature. “The whole knowledgebase is available on incoming ships,” he pointed out.

  “Starships are not allowed to approach; officially there are only local ships for mining nearby asteroids, though there are, of course, smugglers.”

  “It’s against League law to turn away Fleet starships,” Terry declared, “and Fleet has bases on all colonized worlds.”

  “Not if they forgo its protection,” Laesara said. “Fleet keeps an eye on Ciencia to make sure it is not building up a military force capable of attacking other colonies, but it does not land there or even orbit.”

  On the verge of asking why out of all the colonies in the League he was being sent to such a repressive society, Terry choked back the words. It was obvious why. If no starships ever came, there was no way he could ever leave. Without either a Fleet base or access to an ansible, he could not report his situation. And if all ideas considered unscientific were excluded, the mere idea of psi would be anathema to these people—he would never be able to connect with anyone. . . .

  Laesara met his eyes. “I see you understand,” she said. “But Terry, there could be more reasons why we have chosen to send you to a world like this. Think about it. You have plenty of time ahead for thinking.”

  He sensed that there was something she wished to tell him, but could not say, could not even let him perceive telepathically. Some mitigating factor in what seemed like the worst possible situation. Did she want him to escape? Or was this just a strategy to avoid leaving him without hope?

  “Your name is now Terry Rivera,” she continued. “An identity has been created for you in the League database, which of course is accessed by the government here through its one ansible, and your implanted ID chip now matches it, showing you to be a native citizen of Ciencia. The biometric characteristics i
t lists are those we have given you. By profession you are a computer programmer, but at present you are unemployed. You have enough credits banked to live on until you find a job.”

  “Do I just appear out of nowhere?” he inquired bitterly.

  “You will be left in a deserted forest area, an environment with which I believe you can cope since you have had wilderness camping experience. Your story is that you have camped for some time near an outlying settlement, but are now almost out of funds and need to find work in the city again.”

  “It looks like wet weather for camping,” he said, inspecting the world on the viewscreen more carefully. “I don’t see any breaks in those clouds.”

  “There are no breaks,” Laesara agreed. “Ciencia has one hundred percent cloud cover.”

  “All the time? What keeps it warm enough to be habitable?”

  “Most of it isn’t. Long-term terraforming is underway, and meanwhile high technology makes living in the region of the colony possible, if not comfortable.”

  “Oh, my God,” Terry whispered, stricken not by the prospect of being cold, but by the agonizing realization that once down there, he would never again see the stars.

  “You will be provided with a smartphone that will direct you to the city,” Laesara continued. “You have wit and courage enough to make a life for yourself, Terry. I do not say it will be an easy life, but I believe that ultimately you will find it tolerable.”

  That, Terry thought, was impossible. How could it be anything but torment when his career, his lifemate, his identity, and even the sight of the stars had been taken from him?

  “You are still yourself,” Laesara assured him. “Physical characteristics are superficial; your true identity is in your mind, and that, we have not touched. I will not see you again, but I will always remember you. Godspeed, Terry Rivera.”

  He did his best not to respond telepathically, not wanting her to sense how scared he was. So far, anger had carried him through. If he let himself accept her sympathy, he might give way to grief and fear.

  Part Four: Ciencia

  47 - 48 - 49 - 50 - 51 - 52 - 53 - 54 - 55 - 56 - 57 - 58 - 59 - 60 - 61 - 62 - 63 - 64 - 65

  ~ 47 ~

  It could not be true, Terry thought as he watched the Elders’ lander lift, hover barely higher than the trees, and then simply disappear. Yesterday in terms of waking awareness—though it might have been longer while he was unconscious—he had had everything: captaincy of a starship, a promising career, friends he could connect with, a newly-adopted home world, a wife to whom he was irrevocably bonded, an unborn son . . . and a purpose, a cause that had become central to his life. Now he had nothing, not even his own full name.

  He surveyed his surroundings with growing dismay. He had been abandoned in a frigid wilderness, with nothing in sight but an endless forest of tall, dark evergreens—genetically engineered, no doubt, as they could not be native to a world like this, nor could any normal tree withstand perpetual sunless cold. Presumably they were grown for lumber and he was in the middle of a closely-planted stand. There was no undergrowth; the ground was covered with a thin layer of dry snow. Automatically, he adjusted his body temperature, realizing that without the mind training he would have had no chance to survive in such a place.

  The sky, of course, was obscured by clouds—low, uniform clouds of dull gray. Neither sun nor stars would ever be visible here. He doubted that he would get used to it.

  He was wearing appropriate clothes for the climate: pants, a thick shirt and a heavy hooded jacket, all made of top quality thermal synthetics, as were his socks and gloves. They had been given to him just before he boarded the lander, and at first he had wondered how the Elders happened to have human clothing of this sort aboard their starship. Then he’d remembered that they had recently observed Ciencia. These must be the clothes their agent had worn; that man must have come by the same route, for the pilot had informed him telepathically that they could land no closer to the city. Their ships were shielded through some unimaginable technology that made them invisible both in space and in the atmosphere, but it could not be used close to the ground.

  He had been provided with a pack that held a tarp and sleeping bag, also of the most advanced lightweight materials; a canteen; and a small supply of concentrated food. He was not hungry. Perhaps the intravenous nourishment he had received was not yet depleted, but on the other hand, he was too deeply stricken by the horror of his situation to have any desire for food. He wanted only to crawl into the sleeping bag and sleep, perhaps forever, shutting out the sight of this dismal world and the knowledge that he could never leave it. . . .

  At least he had been told he could never leave it. But that was unacceptable. He wanted to live, and he could not live with the belief that everything that had ever mattered to him was lost forever. He was pledged to Maclairn. Someday, somehow, he would get back to Maclairn, Terry vowed. Only that goal would give him the strength to get through one day at a time.

  Taking out the smartphone he had been given, he consulted the map it displayed. He couldn’t use the phone to call for help in an emergency since it would be unwise to attract attention to himself, but its GPS could guide him to the nearest road. The city was, he estimated, about a three-day hike from where he was now, assuming days not much shorter than he was used to. Hopefully the effort of getting there would enable him to shut out all other thoughts.

  For about five hours, according to the smartphone’s clock which might or might not show hours somewhere near Earth-standard in length, it worked. He allowed himself to be aware only of the snow-covered terrain immediately before him, putting one foot in front of another in unbroken rhythm, slowing his pace when his energy lagged but never pausing to rest. If he rested he would remember where he was, and why; and if he did that, he might be tempted to rest too long. It was too cold for much rest, despite his ability to control body temperature; and so he kept going, glad that the increasing pain of his muscles required him to focus on banishing the physical aspect of his suffering.

  But the time came when he noticed that it was almost dark. Though there was no visible sunset on Ciencia, the fading of the already-dim light reminded him that the planet rotated like any other. At night he would have to sleep, or at least try to get some sleep, which he knew would be difficult despite his longing for it. He would also have to refill the canteen. Reluctantly he stopped and hollowed out a place in the snow, lining it with the tarp. There was no wood for a fire; the sparse-limbed trees had no low branches. But his pack proved to contain a battery-powered pot that enabled him to melt snow for drinking water.

  Not daring to think about the future, he could no longer avoid looking back. God, Terry thought, the last time he had slept, as distinguished from being sedated, was the night before the Ritual! The highest point of his life . . .followed almost immediately by the lowest. The memory of his hand touching Jessica’s in flame, the elation he had believed would always remain with him, was now a searing torment. He had been willing to be burned if it came to that; he would have died for Maclairn, as he had known underneath that he might when he pursued the intruder in Skywalker—but not this. Not this half-death to which the well-intentioned pursuit had led him. None of them had conceived of a price this high for attempting to defend Maclairn.

  What would they think when he didn’t return? They would blame his ship, Terry thought miserably. Skywalker was experimental, and he had falsely reported a problem with its instruments; they would assume it had killed him and would not send another. That beautiful ship, so well suited to Maclairn’s needs—the Elders couldn’t use it, they might even destroy it. . . . His eyes filled with tears, and then suddenly he was crying. He could not cry for Kathryn, not yet; his feelings about her went too deep. He would lose control once he let himself weep for her. Yet his emotions surged to the point where he could not keep them in, and so he wept for Skywalker.

  ~ 48 ~

  He slept the dreamless sleep of sheer exhaustion, rousing
several times during the night but using his mind training to calm his body’s startled reaction to the remembrance of where he was. When he came fully awake he thought it must be close to dawn, or what passed for dawn under the heavy cloud cover. He lay in the insulated sleeping bag for a long time, waiting for the sky to lighten further—and then he realized that it never would. Whether the sun was dimmer than Earth’s or the clouds thicker, he did not know, but he wasn’t going see what he thought of as full daylight.

  Terry forced himself to eat something—and then was sorry, because having been empty for some time while he was intravenously nourished, his stomach rebelled. The local water to which he wasn’t yet accustomed also caused trouble; during the next few hours cramps forced him to stop several times. Dull pain remained afterward; he was able to manage it, of course, but ending the physical discomfort didn’t help with his emotional anguish.

  It began to snow. Except when bodily needs required stopping, he kept moving in the direction indicated by the smartphone’s GPS. It would have been impossible to find his way on this world otherwise, with no stars to steer by and probably no magnetic pole. But, he recalled, it was not considered a habitable planet apart from the technology its colonists employed. Though that was true of quite a few colonized worlds, it seemed more incongruous on one with a breathable atmosphere than on those where people lived under domes.

  He had no internal sense of the passage of time; there was no indication of midday and to him the day was just one long blur in any case. But when the sky seemed to be growing dimmer again he checked the smartphone clock and found that it was indeed shorter than a day on Earth—twenty-one hours, into which he judged it was divided, as in most colonies, so as to make the hours as close as possible to standard length. Whether the astronomical year was given significance in the local calendar he did not know. On Maclairn it wasn’t, since there were no appreciable seasons and it was convenient to use Earth years for calculating ages and a historical timeline. It was unlikely, he thought, that there were seasons here, since he’d been told that it never got warm and if it were any colder everything would be frozen solid.