The Sword of Aldones

CHAPTER TEN

The next day, Beltran of Aldaran, with his mountain escort, came to the Comyn Castle.

I had not wanted to be present at the ceremonies which welcomed him; but Hastur insisted and I finally agreed. I’d have to meet Beltran sometime. It had better be among strangers where we could both be impersonal.

He greeted me with some constraint; we had once been friends, but the past lay between us, with its grim shadow of blood. I was grateful for the set phrases of custom; I could mouth them without examining them for a hostility I dared not show.

Beltran presented me, ceremoniously, to some of his escort. A few of them remembered me from years ago; but I looked away as I met a dark familiar face.

“You remember Rafael Scott,” Beltran of Aldaran said.

I did.

There is no such word as endless, or the ceremonies would still be going on. However, at last Beltran and his people were handed over to servants, to be shown to rooms, fed, and permitted to recuperate for the further formalities of the evening. As we dispersed, Rafe Scott followed me from the hall, and I turned to him brusquely.

“Listen, you,” I said, “you’re here under Beltran’s safe-conduct, and I can’t lay a hand on you. But I warn you—”

“What the hell’s the matter?” he demanded. “Didn’t Marius explain? Where is Marius, anyhow?”

I looked at him, bitterly. This time I would not be taken in by the confiding manner that had gulled me before, when I was sick from space and too trusting to doubt him.

He laid rough hands on me. “Where’s Marius, damn you?” It got to him, through the touch. He let me go and fell back. “Dead! Oh, no — no!” He covered his face with his hands, and this time I could not doubt his sincerity. That momentary shock of rapport had at least convinced us that we were telling the truth to each other.

His voice was not steady when he spoke. “He was my friend, Lew. The best friend I had. May I die in Sharra’s fire if I had a hand in it.”

“Can you blame me for doubting you? You were the only one who knew I had the Sharra matrix, and they killed him to get it.”

He said evenly, “Believe what you like, but I haven’t seen Kadarin twice in the last year.” His face was wrung with grief. “Didn’t Marius ever get a chance to explain it to you? Damn it, if I wanted to hurt him, would I have loaned him my pistol? He gave it to the Ridenow boy — Lerrys — because he was afraid to take it into the Terran Zone. Like I said, it has the contraband mark on it. I have a permit but he didn’t. When you thought I was Marius, I pretended — I thought, if I could only get a chance to keep the two of you apart, until you understood what was going to happen—”

I could not disbelieve his sincerity. After a moment I put my hand on his shoulder. Had we been Darlcovan men, we would have embraced and wept; but we both have the reserve of our Terran blood. I said baldly, at last, “You have seen Kadarin?”

“A few times, with Thyra. I’ve tried to keep out of his way.” Rafe looked at me, oddly. “Oh, I see. They’ve told you about her baby.”

“And mine,” I said grimly. “I imagine I was drugged with aphrosone. Why did she do it?”

“I don’t know,” Rafe said. “Thyra never tells anyone anything. There’s an odd streak in Thyra — almost inhuman. She’s very strange with the baby, too. In the end Bob had to put the kid in the spaceman’s orphanage. He didn’t want to. He loved the kid.”

“And knew she was mine?” It didn’t make sense, any of it. Least of all that a child of mine had grown up to call Kadarin father, to bear his name, to love him.

“Of course he knew. How could he help it? I think he made Thyra do it,” Rafe said. “He’s had Marja home a dozen times, but he couldn’t keep her. Thyra—”

But before he could go on, we were interrupted by a palace servant with a message from Callina.

“We’ll talk again,” Rafe said, as I took my leave. And I was not sure whether it was a promise or a threat.

Callina looked tired and harried.

“The girl’s awake,” she greeted me. “She was hysterical when she came to; I gave her a sedative, and she’s calmed down a little. Lew, what are we going to do now?”

“I won’t know until I see her,” I said emptily.

The girl had been moved to a spacious room in the Ail-lard apartments. When we came in, she was lying across a bed, her face buried in the covers; but it was a tearless and defiant face she raised to me.

She was still Linnell’s double. She looked more so, having been decently dressed in Darkovan clothing, which I supposed — correctly — to be Linnell’s own.

“Please tell me the truth,” she said steadily. “Where am I? Oh—” she cried out, and hid her face. “The man with one hand who kissed me on the spaceport, back on Darkover!”

Callina stood apart, a figure of dignified disdain, leaving me to squirm alone. “That was a — a mistake,” I said lamely. “Allow me to introduce myself. Lew Alton-Comyn, z’par servu. And you?”

“That’s the first sensible thing anyone has said.” Although she spoke the language badly, I was amazed at the luck that gave us someone who could speak it at all. “Kathie Marshall.”

“Terranan?”

“Terran, yes. Are you Darkovan? What’s all this?”

“I suppose we do owe you an explanation,” I said, and broke off, staring with what I suppose must have been a very stupid expression. “But I’m damned if I know how to explain it!”

“You have nothing to fear. We brought you here because we need your help—”

“But why me? Where’s here? And what makes you think I’d help you, even if I could — after you’ve kidnapped me?”

It was, I supposed, a fair question.

Callina said, “Shall we bring Linnell here, and let her see? You were brought here, Kathie, because you are twinned in mind with my sister Linnell. We had to-take the chance that you would be willing to help us, but there will be no compulsion involved. And no one will hurt you.”

As Callina moved toward her, Kathie sprang up and backed away. “Twinned minds? That’s — that’s ridiculous! Where am I?”

“In the Comyn Castle in Thendara.”

“Thendara? But that’s — that’s on Darkover! I — I left Dark-over weeks ago. I arrived on Samarra just last night. No,” she said, “no, I’m dreaming. I saw you on Darkover and I’m dreaming about you!” She wasn’t to the window and I saw her white hands clench on a fold of curtain. “A — a red sun — Darkover — oh, I have dreams like this when I can’t wake up. I can’t wake up—” She was so deathly white that I thought she would faint. Callina came and put an arm around her, and this time Kathie did not pull away.

“Try to believe us, my child,” Callina said. “You are on Darkover. Have you heard anything of matrix mechanics? We brought you here like that.” It was a grossly inaccurate description, but it calmed her somehow.

“Who are you, then?”

“Callina Aillard. Keeper of the Comyn.”

“I’ve heard about the Keepers,” Kathie said shakily. “Look, you — you can’t take a Terran citizen, and — and pull her halfway across the Galaxy; my father’s going to tear the planet apart looking for me—” Her voice broke and she covered her face with her hands. She was only a child. From the child came the scared wail. “I’m afraid! I — I want to go home!”

Gently, as she might have spoken to Linnell herself, Callina murmured, “Poor child! Don’t be frightened!”

There was something else I had to do. Kathie must keep her immunity, and unawareness, of Darkovan forces. I knew one way to do that. Yet I hated doing it; I must make myself vulnerable. In effect, I meant to put a barrier around her mind; built into the barrier would be a sort of bypass circuit, so that any attempt to make telepathic contact with Kathie, or dominate her mind, would be immediately shunted from her open mind to my guarded one.

There was no sense in explaining to Kathie what I meant to do. While she clung to Callina, I reached out as gently as I could and made contact with her.

It was an instant of screaming pain in every nerve. Then it blanked out, and Kathie was sobbing convulsively. “What did you do? Oh, I felt you — but no, that’s crazy. What are you?”

“Why couldn’t you wait till she understood?” Callina demanded. But I stood looking at them somberly, without answering. I had done what I had to do, and I had done it now, because I wanted Kathie safely barriered before anyone saw her and guessed. And, above all, before Callina confronted her with Linnell. That moment of prevision last night had left me desperately uneasy. Why, of all the patterns in the world, why Linnell?

What happened when a pair of exact duplicates met? I couldn’t remember ever hearing.

It hurt to see her cry; she was so like Linnell, and Linnell’s tears had always upset me. Callina looked up at helplessly, trying to soothe the weeping girl. “You had better go away for now,” she said, and as Kathie’s sobs broke out afresh, “Go away! I’ll handle this!”

I shrugged, suddenly angry. “As you- please,” I said, and turned my back on them. Why couldn’t she trust me?

And that moment, when I left Callina in anger, was the moment when I snapped the trap shut on us all.