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

by Sylvia Engdahl

  “Does Promise still bring observers?”

  “Yes, but they’re chosen by the Foundation, of course. Some people here think its policies are too conservative.”

  Obviously there was a lot to catch up on, Terry thought. “What will be done with my copilot?” he asked. “He’s locked in his stateroom.”

  “I’ll see that he’s released, but as for taking him with us, I don’t know—I think it might be better to wait till you’ve met the Council.”

  “I agree,” Terry said. “He normally guards Estel when I’m on the ground.”

  It was dark by the time the shuttle reached the surface of Maclairn. The pilot—the same young officer who had gotten the message to Kathryn—accompanied them from the Fleet landing area in the historic Old Settlement down to the lake and the boat that would take them to the dam. From there, the main colony was reached by funicular. So many times he’d followed this route, in the flesh and since, in dreams. . . .

  The night of their wedding had been like tonight, leaving Shepard after the ceremony, the trip down the lake, cuddling together in the chill wind while laughing and singing from other boats echoed across the water; and then, in Petersville, the wedding feast. Now they were alone except for the boatman, and the lake was silent . . . silent and calm, as it had been at dawn on the morning he’d left Maclairn forever. . . .

  They didn’t talk. What he had to tell Kathryn was too momentous to be said during the journey, and she sensed that for now he wanted to remain absorbed in his memories.

  Kathryn’s house in Petersville was one of the old ones, large enough for several generations and built mainly of stone instead of brick like the more modest dwellings. She had bought it after inheriting her grandfather’s fortune, leaving the room she’d occupied in the house of Jessica, then head of the Council. “I hated to,” she told him, “because that was the room where you and I lived together. But when Radnor was born, I knew I’d need more space while he was growing up.”

  She told him about her second lifemate, a widowed mentor quite a bit older than she was. “Radnor worshiped him,” she said, “but he always knew you were his father. He loved to hear me talk about you, and about how I’d searched for word of you. For years I tracked down every speculation anyone came up with, at League headquarters and on Earth. Aldren couldn’t believe you’d died in space, you see. He’d had that vision about your strange destiny. He said that if you had been killed it must have been while doing something significant for Maclairn’s cause.”

  “You saw Aldren?”

  “Yes, first when Promise stopped at Titan and often later, after he came back here to retire. To the end of his life he insisted that there must have been truth in the dream he’d believed was precognitive.”

  “He was right,” Terry said, thankful that she’d given him an opening. “Fate led me to several strange destinies, and this last one, my mission here, is the strangest of all.”

  They settled on the cushions before the fireplace in her great room, in which as was customary in Maclairnan homes, all seating was on the floor. The firelight illuminated Kathryn’s familiar face, now raised expectantly. He wanted only to caress her, love her, and not spoil the joy he knew she was sharing. But she was eager to know the details, and reluctantly he went on.

  “You know that the morning I left, I’d sensed something strange through psi, by remote viewing—a ship of some kind that didn’t belong in this system. Well, there was a ship and I was captured by it. And because I’d learned its crew’s secret, they couldn’t set me free. They told me I could never return to Maclairn because the mentors would perceive what I knew, even if I tried to conceal it. I refused to accept that, but they gave me no choice—they changed my body so I couldn’t be recognized, and forged a new ID, and took me to the planet I told you about, a world where no starships were allowed to come.”

  “Changed your body? Were they the ones who restored your natural fingers?”

  “Yes, and altered my face, and voice, and skin color—even my DNA.”

  “How could they do such things, things medical science can’t do on Earth?”

  Terry drew a deep breath. “Because they were not human in the sense that we are, Kathryn. Their species did not evolve on Earth. They were aliens.”

  “Don’t joke with me—I need to know what happened to you.”

  “I’m telling you. It’s not a joke; there are inhabited planets elsewhere in the universe, and I encountered one of their ships.”

  He felt the shock in her mind like a blow. “My God, Terry—I think you believe that! I know you do, if telepathy can’t lie, but that doesn’t mean what you believe is true. Something did happen, something so traumatic that it affected your memory. That’s why you didn’t come back to me.”

  ~ 68 ~

  Oh, God, Terry thought. He’d known she would be incredulous, but hadn’t anticipated the interpretation she’d put on his revelation. “It is true,” he assured her. “How could I have gotten my fingers back if I hadn’t met people with superior technology? How could I have been taken, as I have been since then, to dozens of worlds concealed from the League?”

  “I know you think you went there,” Kathryn said sorrowfully. “But that’s a delusion, Terry. You’ve been wandering, confused as to who you are—amnesia can work that way. You built a whole new life as the Captain of Estel, and you’ve done a lot of good with that persona. You didn’t remember where you belong till now, so I can’t blame you for not coming sooner. But you need to realize that some of what you recall is false memory. We’ll go to see Devan tomorrow, he’s been my mentor since Jessica died, and I’m sure he can help you clear it up.”

  Terry steadied himself, knowing he must not protest, must not be angry at her for coming to a conclusion that was actually quite logical. “I’ll be happy to see him,” he told her. “That’s what I’m here for, to tell the mentors about the Elders—the aliens. They couldn’t let their presence be known until Earth accepted the reality of psi because that’s the only way they can communicate with us, for one thing. Now that we’re ready to join their Federation, they’ve appointed me to be the first go-between.”

  He was aware, sensing her dismay, that it did sound like a crazy story, the sort of thing mental patients on Earth had been saying for centuries. Liam had warned that he might be thought insane . . . but he hadn’t expected to be doubted even by Kathryn. All the anguish of the separation, the years during which he’d been exiled under the assumption that she and others would learn what he knew, swept over him—despite what Liam had said, he might have come back long ago without endangering the secret. . . .

  He left it for the moment and went on to tell Kathryn what had happened to him on Ciencia—how bad it had been at first, his work in the underground, his initially-platonic relationship with Alison. She listened, obviously trying to sort fantasy from reality. “You always wanted to believe in aliens, she reminded him. “You talked about how exciting it would be if there were some. So when you got stuck in a situation you couldn’t escape from, couldn’t account for as a result of anything you’d done, it was natural to let yourself think aliens had put you there.”

  Yes, he’d wished there were aliens—they had talked about it more than once. And Kathryn had not shared his interest in the idea. He recalled a day when she’d told him that aboard the Foundation ship that discovered Maclairn, at her first sight from space of an unknown colony she and the others had half-thought it might be alien. And she had been scared, she’d said. She had thought it would have a devastating effect on Earth’s civilization.

  Which of course was exactly why the Elders had said it would be damaging for them to be discovered too soon.

  Encouraged, he told her so. She had been right all along, he said, as far as premature contact was concerned. The Elders wanted to protect Earth’s civilization. Their goal, and his while he stayed away from mentors, had been to conceal their existence until humankind could meet them as equals. In Kathryn’s eyes, ho
wever, he had simply imagined aliens as he felt they ought to be.

  Maybe it would go better in the morning, Terry thought. They were both tired now and it was time for bed. That was awkward; he did not dare ask if he could share hers. Perhaps she did not know if he would want to.

  They were still married, even if not under the law, for neither of them had intentionally broken the vow they’d made to love forever. But he could not be sure that she still felt desire for him. Age wasn’t a barrier; the mind training that prevented decline in old age applied to more than just health and appearance. Looking at Kathryn, he wanted her as much as when they both were young.

  He took her in his arms and kissed her, restraining himself, being careful not to let her think he expected more than she wished to offer. They’d both closed their minds to probing; perhaps she was repelled by his supposed mental illness.

  The room she led him to was next to her own. “This was Radnor’s room,” she told him. “No one else has slept here; I have other guest rooms, and I like to think he may be back someday.”

  Alone in the bed of the son he had never seen, he gave way to tears of frustration. If Kathryn didn’t believe him despite telepathic evidence that he was sincere, who would? He had been given an impossible task. Looking back, he saw that Liam must have known the chances were slim. His mission was a calculated sacrifice, one he’d been deemed willing to make because of his longing to go home. The first man to tell the Maclairnans that contact with aliens had finally occurred wouldn’t be taken seriously. But he would be remembered, especially if he stayed and persisted despite being viewed as crazy. The next man to make exactly the same claim, describing the aliens in the same way after passage of time, would be believed. The Elders took a long view of history.

  He didn’t regret having returned here; there had never been a time when he wouldn’t have chosen to do so under any terms whatsoever. The Elders had given him more wondrous experiences than any human before him had encountered. He couldn’t complain about being asked to repay through a role that was not exactly the sort of homecoming he would have wished.

  He was free to refuse it, Terry thought suddenly. He could say nothing to the mentors, tell Kathryn that seeing her had cleared his mind, and live out his life happily with her, honored by the Maclairnans as a returning hero. The Elders, unable to land here, could do nothing about it. Yet he knew he couldn’t bring himself to let them down—to let humankind down, when he’d worked for so long to hasten its readiness for contact. The Eldest had trusted him; Laesara had trusted him . . . and so had Liam. Whatever else might tempt him to back out, he could not betray Liam’s trust.

  And yet, Terry wondered suddenly, what was it all for? He had spent decades spreading hope to the colonies, and there had been more to it than his commitment to further Maclairn’s cause, for he and he alone had known that acquiring mind-powers was essential to contact with the Elders. He’d been told that time was running out, that Earth’s civilization might die before it became eligible for contact, and he had never stopped to wonder what difference the contact would make. He’d never doubted that reaching that point would produce a brighter future. But why?

  The Elders didn’t interfere with developing worlds—he’d known that. They weren’t going to step in and solve Earth’s problems. And it still had many, even though belief in volitional health control and in psi was now an accepted view. Eventually, telepathy would enable people to live in greater harmony, but that was a long way off for most. So how was membership in the Federation going to help? Dismayed, he realized that he’d never asked Liam about that. It had just been understood between them that revealing the Elders’ existence to Maclairn was essential. That it would matter in some significant way. . . .

  Terry lay wakeful, not using the mind training that would let him sleep. Liam had said he would know what to tell the Council, that he’d had enough past success in conveying beliefs to let himself be guided by unconscious instinct. But so far instinct wasn’t offering any answers . . . or was it? A glimmer of an idea came to him, but he could not capture it. Finally he stopped trying and turned to reliving in reverse his memories of the years when he and Kathryn were young.

  Kathryn—she shone through them all, illuminating the events of those short years. The Ritual, falling on the day she’d told him she was pregnant . . . the trips to Earth and back in Promise, with layovers in New Tahiti where they’d lain on white beaches by a blue sea . . . their wedding . . . his captaincy of Picard and near death on the icy moon of Planet Five, not letting himself picture her grief . . . the raising of the ancient Picard from Maclairn, at dawn following their first night together. . . . He wondered if he would have a chance to see the stone hut in the Old Settlement where they’d spent it, the night after which he’d been forever changed.

  It had been his first experience with the full mind merge of telepathic lovers. Terry’s heart ached for that; he wished he could experience it just one more time. With Alison it had never been quite complete, deep though his love for her had been, for she was neither psi-gifted nor sufficiently trained in telepathy. Only with Kathryn had all barriers to total union come down. He’d hoped . . . but she would be unlikely to want it now, at least not after the mentors confirmed her suspicion that he was mentally unbalanced.

  Abruptly he realized that this was his only chance. He loved her, longed for her, all the more after hours of recalling their life together while knowing she was no further away than the next room. If he made no move now, there might never be another opportunity; she would treat him courteously as a guest, but would have no wish for intimacy. It might already be too late; still he would always regret not having tried.

  The sky outside the window was already brightening; it was almost dawn. Terry rose. Without putting on a shirt he left his room and quietly opened the door to hers, telling himself that the invasion of privacy was forgivable because in his heart, at least, they were still married. Again he felt that he’d traveled through time, for she looked just as she had on that distant morning when he’d left without waking her, thinking they would be separated no more than a day or two. Her face was hidden by the pillow but the outline of her slim body showed clearly through the light coverlet under which she slept; for a moment he felt impelled to pull it away and embrace her without asking.

  Kathryn? he called silently. In the past, unconscious perception would have wakened her, and he did not want to make any noise by which she might be startled.

  She turned over and opened her eyes. Terry! I was afraid you wouldn’t come. . . .

  Did you want me to? I thought that maybe because—

  Because some of your memories aren’t real? That doesn’t matter! It doesn’t change love—you do remember now that you loved me.

  I have never for an instant forgotten that I loved you.

  She smiled and threw back the coverlet. Then come and show me. Pretend that you never went away.

  Terry undressed and lay down beside her, stirred not only by their mutual response to each other’s bodies but by the forging of the telepathic bond. It strengthened along with mounting passion, not as rapidly as it had in their youth, yet with the same intensity. Her breasts were less firm than he remembered but just as sensitive; as always, he felt her sensations as well as his own. But the physical ones were unimportant compared to the union of their minds.

  At first it was only an overpowering sense of love; he experienced her love for him along with his for her, as well as her awareness of his pleasure. He rolled over and seized her, sensing that despite age she was not fragile and there was no need to hold himself back. Then, with full arousal, came the total merging—he felt the pain of her past grief as his own, and her joy at their reunion. He saw fleeting images of places she’d been, people she’d known—and their son! He held their baby in his own arms, saw him grow, saw him reach manhood and become a mentor. All the things he’d imagined about him were now true memories, transferred directly from her mind into his. . . .


  And he was aware that the flashes of recall went both ways. Through her eyes, he saw his own history, Ciencia, Alison, Estel, New Afrika. . . and, at the moment of their climax, the Elders.

  He had tried not to envision them, fearing she would recoil from what she viewed as fantasy; but he’d forgotten that mind merging, except with regard to deep secrets purposely concealed, was not subject to control. She drew on his subconscious store of impressions as he drew on hers, randomly, as if from background awareness of her own past. Liam, whom she did not recognize as alien . . . Laesara, whom she did . . . and others, more alien still. . . .

  Oh, God, Kathryn cried out silently, it’s true! And I don’t want it to be true! She recoiled, gasping. “I’m—scared, Terry!” she murmured. “Not of them—I could tell from your memories that they mean us no harm. But knowing they exist changes so much! The universe seems so much stranger than before!”

  All at once Terry understood. She had not believed him because she didn’t want to believe. Just as people on Earth had refused to believe in psi because underneath they feared changing their view of reality, she feared a new conception of what it meant to belong to the human race. And he knew with foreboding that it was a fear other Maclairnans might share.

  ~ 69 ~

  They lay in bed and talked for a long time. Terry told her the details of his capture and exile, skipping over his work on Ciencia but explaining how he’d created the legend of Estel to inspire belief in mind-powers. “After my escape from prison, when I met the Elders again and was given the real Estel, Laesara made me see I’d been doing the same work as the mentors,” he said. “It was then, well over eighty years ago, that she chose me to be the first to visit alien worlds, though I didn’t know that till I was on the way there.”

  “And you were happy about it? You didn’t hate them for what they’d done to you?”

  “Yes, I was happy. I’d stopped hating them a long way back. All those years I’d longed to know more about their civilization—but I understood that they didn’t want to have any effect on humankind until we could meet them as equals.”