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

by Sylvia Engdahl

  Though in most ways Terry’s past was behind him, he still had the mind skills he’d learned from Aldren. He would never suffer in the way this woman was suffering; there was no need to be sharing it even now. . . . Recalling how it felt to shift into a different state of consciousness, he told himself firmly, It needn’t be like this, you don’t have to suffer, just relax and the pain will stop. . . . The familiar shift occurred and he was free of the shared suffering almost instantly. Terry turned back to Marcia, thinking he shouldn’t have let his attention drift.

  She was smiling. Incredulous, she said, “It just—stopped! It doesn’t hurt anymore! I didn’t think just watching the screen would act so fast.”

  Only then did he remember that he had stopped Mikaela Orlov’s pain telepathically in the same way.

  Mikaela had had training. But the mentors could heal people who hadn’t . . . and both Aldren and Tristan had said that someday he too might be able to do so.

  Alison was staring at Marcia, aware that something inexplicable had happened but unable to imagine what had caused it. Terry knew he had to take charge of the situation. “It does act fast sometimes,” he said. “It’s not permanent, of course; it’s just a way of training your mind. In between sessions, remember how you felt just before the pain stopped, and let it happen again. Don’t try to force it. Sometimes it may lessen and other times it won’t. But now you know it can happen. With practice, it may happen often.”

  God, he thought, what had he done? He had enough responsibility with managing the conspiracy, with hacking, with retrieving data from Darrow. He had just managed to gain respect as an underground leader, and being viewed as a miraculous healer was not at all compatible. Yet Marcia would come again and he couldn’t refuse to help her. Alison knew, and so he couldn’t refuse to help other clients, either. . . .

  When they were alone she said, “Okay, Terry. You can’t keep this from me any longer. I have to know what you’re doing with the neurofeedback and how you learned to do it.”

  He didn’t know how to begin—or how far he would have to go. But he was suddenly aware that he trusted Alison not only with the conspiracy’s secrets but with his inner self; if she could not believe what he said, then he could not rely on his own ability to sense people’s trustworthiness. His psi-giftedness was the core of who he was, the underlying reason for his commitment to spread acceptance of mind power. He could not refuse to let it guide him.

  “What you’ve read about telepathy is true,” he told her, “and more is known than is in the ebooks. Everyone is unconsciously telepathic, including you. I happen to have a gift for using it consciously. I reach the minds of the clients and they respond. I can’t pick up their thoughts, though—only their feelings. To exchange thoughts, both people must be aware of what they’re communicating.”

  She wasn’t in a position to doubt him; there was no other explanation for what had been going on. But it didn’t satisfy her. “How could you know more than is in the books? How could you even know what’s in the ones you haven’t read yet? The ebooks come from Earth.”

  Terry drew a deep breath. “So did I, Alison.”

  She stared at him. “That’s not possible.”

  “I told Elrond once, and he thought I was literally crazy, that I was deluding myself with a story I wanted to think was true. So I’ve never told anyone else. I—I don’t want you to think I’m delusional. I care too much about what you think.”

  “I could never doubt your sanity. But I don’t understand how what you’re saying can be true.”

  He told her, then—not all of it, of course, not about Maclairn or the Elders. But he did say that he had been in Fleet before he was captured. That he had been a starship captain and still longed to fly. That he had a wife he loved and a son who was now, perhaps today, being born.

  “I can’t explain what I was mixed up in that led to my being dumped here,” he said. “I’ve sworn twice over never to reveal it, and I won’t break that oath even though there’s no way it could ever be known that I did. But it wasn’t anything I regret. I knew I was putting myself at risk, even though I didn’t imagine having to live out my life in exile.”

  She pressed his hand, and he knew that inside she was grieving for him. “Why here, out of all the colonies in the galaxy?”

  “Because this is the only one from which there’s no way to escape.”

  He went on to tell her what Aldren had taught him, including only as much as he’d known while on Titan. This was technically a violation of the ESA he had signed there, which he had been warned was binding for life; but since he was sure she would never repeat what was said to her in confidence and there was no chance that she would have contact with anyone beyond this isolated world, he did not think Admiral Frazer would mind.

  “Aldren used neurofeedback much more advanced than what we’ve got,” he said. “I’ve tried to improve ours, but our sensors don’t provide enough data—and there’s a secret part of the procedure he used that I promised not to reveal. I wouldn’t be capable of handling that part myself anyway, and without it a client couldn’t learn to turn off pain personally, or control as many physical responses as I do. But I guess I can provide help during sessions. I guess I have to.”

  Alison said thoughtfully, “Terry—if you’re doing it telepathically instead of teaching people to reduce pain by themselves, it doesn’t really depend on the neurofeedback, does it?”

  “No,” he admitted, “though the feedback helps make them receptive. I did it once for a young woman who’d been injured in a crash. I—I stopped her bleeding, too. But we mustn’t let anyone find out that I can. I don’t want to be pursued as a healer. The powers of the mind are in everyone, and what’s important is to get people to believe in their own potential.”

  “By reading about it?”

  “Yes, since that’s the first step. That’s why I’m working to spread the idea. But on Earth people can read freely and they still don’t believe in what the mind can do. A group of us who knew Aldren were trying to promote acceptance of psi, but there was opposition even there. And here we’re so far behind that I’m not sure how much good I can do.”

  “You’re doing a lot of good,” Alison declared. “I’m proud to know you, Terry. I’d do anything to help you escape if it were possible, but since it’s not, your loss is Ciencia’s gain.”

  ~ 61 ~

  As time wore on, Terry threw all his thought and energy into his work, driving himself so as not to fall back into thinking of the past. Alison’s clinic was thriving and she made him a partner; they had a long waiting list and gave priority to applicants with physical pain that medical science had not cured. He conducted all the neurofeedback sessions, while Alison followed up with psychotherapy aiming to reinforce her clients’ belief in the power of their minds to help them.

  He had not wanted to become a healer, yet it would be wrong, he decided, not to use his psi gift, and there was no other opportunity to do so on Ciencia. He found that during sessions, at least, his satisfaction in relieving suffering overrode his general unhappiness, despite the fact that he had to literally share it each time before shifting into the state of freedom from it. To his surprise, in some cases people he helped did gradually learn to reduce pain on their own, despite the fact that he wasn’t a mentor and the neurofeedback wasn’t as sophisticated as that used on Maclairn—evidently telepathy alone was giving them experience that carried over. Then too, the clinic’s clients were developing skepticism about the scientific dogma they’d been taught, and any means that could be used to encourage public interest in heretical ideas was worth pursuing. Perhaps it was worth the risk of being idolized as the word spread, abhorrent as that would be to him.

  Now that the shock of his exile was lessening, he did think sometimes about the Elders, and the irony of how his youthful wish to meet aliens had turned sour. It would have been such a thrill once to know of their existence. The idea of finding them had epitomized the discoveries he had wanted s
o desperately to make as an explorer. But knowing had proved to be a burden, as Laesara had warned that it would be, even apart from the loss of all the personal things he cared about. Though the confirmation that humankind was destined to join with other civilizations in the future was reassuring, it made wondering about such civilizations all the harder. He alone among humans had knowledge that the wisest men and women for centuries would have given anything to possess—but only enough to tantalize. Only enough to make speculation about ETs more frustrating than it had been when it could be classed as fantasy. It would do harm for others to have this knowledge! The more he pondered it, the more Terry realized that for the Elders to hide themselves was right. Until such time as humankind was ready for full partnership with them, it was better for people not to be aware of what lay beyond comprehension. So he no longer felt bitterness about their stern policy, and cursed not them but fate for ruining his life.

  He had learned not to dwell on this. His days were full; often he worked after hours in order to accept as many clinic clients as possible. At the same time, he devoted evenings to delivering cargo or meeting with conspirators, leaving only the nights for hacking. He got very little sleep.

  Membership in the conspiracy grew rapidly. Alison started her own cell; Terry did not know which of their clients she recruited, just as he did not know Darrow’s recruits or those of Elrond’s friends. But he knew how fast the password database was growing. And these were just the people given access to reading material that couldn’t be found through easter eggs. The total number of people influenced was much larger, and before long, he began to sense—perhaps through contact with the collective unconscious—that the public’s mood was changing.

  It occurred to him the very fact that reading about unscientific ideas was forbidden might be increasing people’s appetite for it. On Earth, where such ideas were freely available, those not presented through religious metaphors were generally scorned; or when not scorned, were met with widespread indifference. But people don’t scorn what they search for in a game, much less what they take risks to acquire. Perhaps the most effective way to spread such ideas was to ban them. On the other hand, suppression was wrong, and his hope was to see it brought to an end.

  The government censors did not catch on to what was happening under their noses. It simply didn’t occur to them that interest in the unscientific might be an organized underground movement; what amateur writing they found in plain sight they attributed to crackpots. Occasionally Terry posted some badly-written fantasy and speculation openly though anonymously to see what would happen, and received stern email warnings in return. This he did to keep the censors busy so that they wouldn’t bother to look any further. If security experts had searched, they could have found evidence of clandestine activity even if not who was behind it; there was no way to prevent that. So he took preemptive action to make them think experts would be wasting their time.

  The people he knew, except for Alison and Darrow, continued to consider him rather odd and standoffish; and having spent his youth as a loner, Terry reverted to behaving like one. Remembering what Captain Vargas had once told him about command, he didn’t encourage familiarity. An underground movement could not be run like a democracy. Either he was in charge or he wasn’t, and he knew that if he wasn’t it would fall apart.

  Nevertheless, he had to prepare for the possibility that he might someday be caught. He therefore devoted considerable time and effort to training two backups to take over the hacking if necessary, and asked them each to train a successor. He hated the idea of letting these four people in on the location of the files and the methods he used to hide them, yet there was no reasonable alternative.

  He no longer saw Nina often, to her great disappointment; though she dated others she had not become attached to anyone. She was a strange girl, tough on the surface and capable of risky action, yet obsessed with a fantasy world centered mainly on Lord of the Rings, the remaining books of which he had long ago obtained for her. A number of Elrond’s original group had taken their screennames from the story, as she had; and she felt Terry should have done the same. “I don’t know who Skywalker was,” she said, “but you share our goal and you’re our leader, so you should be one of us.”

  He smiled. “Do you think of me as Frodo, then?”

  “Oh, no,” Nina said. “You are Aragorn. You are destined to be king.”

  “I’m not aiming to head the government,” he protested. “I’m only trying to bring about some changes in its policy.” He recalled wryly that Aragorn was also destined to marry Arwen.

  “To bring about change someone has to run for office,” she pointed out, “and that will be you.”

  He had never thought of such a thing. On the verge of reminding her that Ciencia was not his world, he recalled that she hadn’t really believed that any more than Elrond had; she had simply been more tolerant of his alleged delusion. “I couldn’t be a political candidate,” he protested. “I have to stay undercover.”

  “But you wouldn’t need to after you won. And before that, who would know?”

  Journalists would be sure to find out, he thought. If there was any sure way to get investigated, it was to seek office. And no candidate who challenged science could possibly win. Change, if it happened, would be brought about by public demand rather than by any single political leader. What was needed was a symbol around which their secret supporters could rally, to make them feel that what they were doing might accomplish something once the novelty of reading forbidden texts wore off. Then, perhaps, a grassroots movement would flourish.

  It was too soon for that, much too soon. But not too soon to start searching for a symbol. As the thought emerged, a strange feeling came over him like the precognition that he’d once believed might be among his gifts. “I’ll use one of Aragorn’s many names,” he told Nina, “but not openly. It may not even turn out to be me. When the time is right, I’ll write of Estel—which means “hope”—but only to say that someday Estel will transform this world.”

  Hope for whom? he wondered. Not for him—he had long ago given up all hope of fulfilling the pledge to defend Maclairn that had meant so much to him. But if there was a chance that he could have some impact on Ciencia, his life might not be entirely wasted.

  One year went by like another. He counted them by his son’s birthdays. Radnor was a year old, then two, then three . . . was Kathryn still alone? He could not expect her not to enter another relationship; as far as she knew, she was a widow. He told himself that he wanted her to find happiness, as he himself never could. In any case he didn’t have time to brood over it. He took on more work to make sure he didn’t have time.

  Shortly before Radnor’s fifth birthday, Elrond was released from prison.

  Terry wasn’t sure what he was going to do with Elrond. No one but Nina, his cousin, had been allowed to visit him in prison, which Darrow felt was because of a fear that one of the captains might tell him why he was there. The authorities weren’t aware that Nina knew. Nobody was supposed to know about the racket except the captains themselves, who were instructed not to talk on pain of exposure and arrest; Terry had learned belatedly of the risk Darrow had taken in informing him.

  Nina’s visits had been brief and monitored, so she had told Elrond nothing about the status of the conspiracy. He might well believe it had been dormant, awaiting his return. He certainly wouldn’t be expecting a structured underground with Terry, who he thought was at least partly out of his mind, at the head of it. And he would naturally feel it was his right to assume leadership again. Yet a risky undertaking could have only one person in charge, just as a ship could have only one captain. Terry’s Fleet experience told him that there was no place for someone who thought he was captain, but wasn’t.

  He drove Nina to the prison to pick Elrond up, intending to wait in the car while she greeted him and explained what he needed to know. The guard, however, insisted that not even brief parking was permitted; the groundcar must b
e put on autocontrol and taken into the stack. Exasperated, Terry complied. He hadn’t wanted to be present when Elrond heard the news of his promotion. As he had feared, a subtle announcement wasn’t effective—Elrond thanked him warmly for taking over in his absence and, while they waited for the autovalet to retrieve the car, he expressed eagerness to assume the responsibility again. “Though I may not be able to make pickups.” he added, “since they’ll be watching me now. I still don’t know how they caught me, or who planted the false evidence—but I believed Nina when she said it wasn’t you.”

  “Didn’t Guroff tell you?” Terry inquired, starting the car and taking back manual control.

  “I didn’t see Guroff—the lifers are isolated from everyone else. Anyway, how would he know?”

  “Elrond,” Terry began, “they only wanted you for evidence against Guroff—”

  At that moment, as he pushed the Proceed switch, the car blew up.

  ~ 62 ~

  Elrond was killed instantly. Nina, in the back seat, was thrown out; she hated seatbelts and fortunately had defeated hers. Terry was alive but badly injured; he managed to crawl out only because he was able to turn off the pain of movement. He lay stunned, realizing dimly that he was bleeding and must stop. As he took control of his physical processes in the way the mentors had taught him, his head cleared and he realized that the renewed pain he felt must be Nina’s. “Nina!” called out. “Nina, where are you?”

  “I’m over here,” she answered weakly. He turned toward her voice and saw to his dismay that the wreckage near her was burning. There wasn’t much left that was flammable but to be safe, he drew on his long-unused psi skill for extinguishing fire, thankful that Tristan had forced him to overcome his fear of pyrokinesis.