The Sword of Aldones

CHAPTER TWELVE

The thin red sunlight of another dusk was filtering through the walls of my room when I woke; I lay still, wondering if the whole thing had been a delirious nightmare born of concussion. Then Andres came in, and the drawn face of the old Terran, grief deep in its ugliness, convinced me; it was all too real. I remembered nothing after Callina’s collapse, but that wasn’t surprising. I had been warned, after the head-wound, not to exert myself; instead I’d been throwing myself into battle with some of the strongest forces on Darkover.

“Regis Hastur is here,” Andres said. I tried to sit up; he pressed me flat with strong hands. “You young idiot, don’t you know when you’re done in? You’ll be lucky to be on your feet again in a week!” Then his real feelings burst through the gruffness. “Boy, I’ve lost two of you! Don’t send yourself after Marius and Linnell!”

I yielded and lay quiet. Regis came in, and Andres turned to go — then abruptly went to the window and jerked the curtains shut, cutting the lurid sunlight.

“The bloody sun!” he said, and it sounded like a curse. Then he went away.

Regis asked me gently, “How are you feeling?”

“How do you think?” My jaw set. “I have some killing to do.”

“Less than you think, maybe.” The boy’s face was grim. “Two of the Ridenow brothers are dead. Lerrys will live, I think, but he won’t be good for much, not for months.”

I had expected that. The Ridenow were hypersensitive even to ordinary telepathic assault; he would probably lie in a semicoma for months. He was fortunate to have survived at all. “Dio?”

“Stunned, but she’s all right. Zandru’s hells, Lew, if I’d only been stronger—”

I quieted him with a gesture. “Don’t blame yourself. It’s incredible that you’re not completely burnt out; the Hasturs must be hardier than I ever thought. Callina?”

“Dazed. They took her to the Keeper’s Tower.”

“Tell me the rest. All at once, don’t dribble out the bad news!”

“This may not be bad. Beltran’s gone; he left the castle that night, as if all Zandru’s scorpions were chasing after him. That leaves Callina free.”

I felt sourly amused. Beltran could have stepped in, with the Comyn in disorder and shock, and seized the reins of power as Callina’s consort. That had, no doubt, been the idea. But in Beltran of Aldaran — superstitious, Cahuenga of the Hellers — they had relied on the weakest of tools, and it had broken in their hand.

“This is bad. There are Terrans here, and they’ve put an embargo on the castle. And—” he stopped, but he was keeping something back.

“Derik — is he dead too?”

Regis shut his eyes. “I wish he was,” he whispered, “I wish he was.”

I understood. Under terrible need, we had cut into Derik’s mind. We could not have foreseen that greater forces would be loosed so soon after. Corus and Auster Ridenow were the fortunate ones; their bodies had died when their minds were Stripped bare.

Derik Elhalyn lived. Hopelessly, permanently insane.

Outside I heard a strange voice, a Terran, protesting, “How the devil does one knock when there’s no door?” Then the curtains parted and four men came into the room.

Two were strangers, in the uniform of Terran Spaceforce. One was Dan Lawton, Legate from Thendara.

The fourth was Rafe Scott, and he was wearing the uniform of the Terran service.

Regis rose and faced them angrily. “Lew Alton has been hurt! He’s in no shape to be — interrogated — as you questioned my grandfather!”

“What do you want here?” I demanded.

“Only the answers to a few questions,” said Lawton politely. “Young Hastur, we warned you before; stay in your own quarters. Kendricks, take the Hastur kid back to his grandfather, and see that he stays there.”

The bigger of the Terrans put a hand on Regis’ shoulder. “Come along, sonny,” he said kindly.

Regis twisted away. “Hands off!” His hand, flashing to his boot, whipped out a narrow skean. He faced them across the naked steel, saying with soft, cold fury, “I will go when the vai Dam Alton bids me — unless you think you can carry me out.”

I said, “I prefer him to stay. And you won’t get anywhere with violence in the Comyn Castle, Lawton.”

He almost smiled. “I know,” he said. “Perhaps I wanted them to see that. Captain Scott told me—”

Captain Scott.

“Traitor!” said Regis, and spat.

Lawton ignored that, looking down at me.

“Your mother was a Terran—”

“Black shame to me that I must admit it — yes!”

“Look,” Lawton said quietly, “I don’t like this any more than you do. I’m here on business; let me do it and get out. Your mother was—”

“Elaine Aldaran Montray.”

“Then you are kin to — How well do you know Beltran of Aldaran?”

“I spent a year or so in the Hellers, mostly as his guest. Why?”

He countered with another question, this time to Rafe. “Exactly what relation are you two, anyhow?”

“On the Aldaran side, it’s too complicated to explain,” said Rafe, “Distant cousins. But he married my sister Marjorie. You could say — brother-in-law.”

“No spy for Terra can claim kin here!” I sat up, my head exploding painfully, but too much at a disadvantage flat on my back. “The Comyn will look after the law in this zone. You go and attend to your affairs in the Terran Zone! Since that was your choice!”

“That is exactly what we’re doing,” Lawton said. “Lerrys was working for us, so his brothers are our business; and they’re dead.”

“And Marrus,” said Rafe. “You never had a chance to hear it, Lew; but Marius had been working for Terra—”

I flung the lie into his face. “My brother never took a copper from Terra, and you know it! Lie to them, but don’t try to lie to an Alton about his brother!”

“The plain truth will do,” Lawton said. “You are right so far; your brother was not in our pay, nor a spy. But he worked for us, and he had applied for Empire citizenship. I sponsored him myself. He had as good a right to it as you, though you never chose to claim it. Even by your standards, that is no spy.” Lawton paused. “He was probably the only man on Darkover working to bring about an honest alliance. The rest were out to line their pockets. How come this is news to you? You’re a telepath.”

I sighed. “If I had a sekal for every time I’ve explained that, I could buy and sell the Terran Zone,” I said. “Telepathic contact is used to project conscious thoughts. Quicker than words, no semantic barriers — and no one but another telepath can listen in. But it takes deliberate effort; one to send, the other to receive. Then, even when I’m not trying, I get a sort of — well — leakage. I can feel; right now you’re confused, and sore as hell about something. I don’t know what and I’m not trying to find out; telepaths learn not to be curious. I’ve been in rapport with my brother. I know everything he knew. But I don’t remember — and I don’t want to remember.”

Suddenly, from Lawton’s complete calm, I knew he had simply been trying to goad me; to make me lose my temper and drop my barriers. He was half Comyn; for all I knew, he might be a telepath himself. He’d been trying to find something out, and whatever it was, he’d probably found it.

“I’ll tell you why I’m here,” Lawton said abruptly. “Usually we let city-states govern themselves, until the government collapses. It usually does, within a generation after the Empire comes. When we meet real tyranny, we depose it; planets like Darkover, we simply wait for them to fall apart. And they do.”

“I heard it all on Terra. Make the universe safe for democracy — and then for Terran Trade!”

“Maybe,” Lawton said, imperturbably. “While you rule peaceably, you “an rule till the planet crumbles. But there’s been disorder lately. Riots. Raiding. Smuggling. And too much telepathic dirty-work. Marius died after you had forced rapport on him.”

Regis said, “Who told you those lies. I saw him die with a knife in-his heart.”

“Marius wasn’t a citizen yet, so I can only ask questions about his death, not punish it,” he said. “But there’s another report that you’re holding a Terran girl here, prisoner.”

My heart pounded suddenly. Kathie. Had Callina and I rashly exposed this last secret of Darkovan science?

“The daughter of the Terran Legate on Samarra — Kathie Marshall. She was scheduled to leave Darkover on the Southern Cross, days ago; I thought she had gone. But she’s missing, and someone saw her here.”

Regis said indifferently, “There were a great many Terrans here Festival Night. Some one must have seen—” he raised his voice. “Andres? Bring the comynara here; she is with Dio Ridenow.”

His eyes held an intensity whose meaning escaped me; I started to open my mind, but sensed his instant prohibition. Lawton and Rafe would both know it, if we were exchanging telepathic messages, even if they couldn’t read what they were about.

Regis said, “I would not, of course, know anything about Miss — is it Marshall? But I know who you saw. The resemblance has caused us some amusement, and a little embarrassment. Since, of course, no comynara could possibly be permitted to behave in public as your Terrananis do.”

Inward I raged and worried. What now? Why must they drag the name of the dead into this? After an eternity, I heard light, familiar footsteps, and Kathie Marshall came into the room.

She wore Darkovan dress; a ruffled gown that hung loose from her slender shoulders, her unbound hair dusted with metallic fragments. Bangles tinkled on her ankles and slender wrists.

“Kathie?” said Lawton.

Kathie raised a pretty, uncomprehending face. “Chi’zei?”

“Linnell, my dear,” Regis drawled, “I have spoken of the foolish resemblance to some Terranis; I wished them to see at first hand.”

I was praying that none of them knew Kathie well. The difference was so haunting that it struck me with passionate grief; a ghost, a mockery.

Kathie put a hand down to touch my face. It was not a Terran gesture. She walked and moved like a Darkovan. “Yes, Regis, I remember,” she said, and I had all I could do to keep back a cry of astonishment. For Kathie was speaking the complicated, liquid-syllabled pure mountain Darkovan — not with her own harsh Terran accent but with soft quick fluency. “But should you have so many strangers around you when you are hurt? To tell you some fantastic story about the Terrans?”

It wasn’t Linnell’s intonation. But the fact remained, she was speaking Darkovan, and speaking it with an accent as good as my own or Dio’s.

Lawton shook his head. “Fantastic,” he muttered, “There certainly is a resemblance! But I happen to know Kathie couldn’t speak the language anything like that!”

The big Terran broke in. “Dan, I tell you, I saw—”

“You were mistaken.” Lawton was still looking intently at Kathie, but she did not move. Another false note. It is rudeness unspeakable to stare at an unmasked young girl on Darkover; men have been killed for it. Lawton knew it. Linnell would have been dying of confusion. But as that thought crossed my mind, Kathie blushed and ran out of the room.

“I’m trying to tell you,” Kendricks said, “I was on spaceport duty when the Marshall girl left. I checked the passenger list after they were all drugged and tied-in. She certainly didn’t get off after that, and it’s been reported from Samarra by relay, so how could she be here? The fastest ship made takes seventeen days hyperdrive, between there and here.”

Lawton muttered, “I guess we’ve made prime fools of ourselves. Alton, before I go, can you tell me how the Ridenow brothers died?”

Regis said, “I tried to explain—”

“But it didn’t make sense. You said someone had a trap-matrix out. I know a little about matrices, but that’s a new one on me.”

No Terran can really grasp that concept, but I tried. “It’s a sort of mechanical telepath that conjures up horrifying images from race-memory and superstition. The person who sets one can control the minds and emotions of others. The Ridenow are sensitives — disturbed mental atmospheres affect them physically. This one was so badly disturbed that it short-circuited all the neural patterns. They died of cerebral hemorrhage.”

It was a grossly over-simplified explanation, but Lawton at least seemed to understand. “Yes, I’ve heard of things like that,” he said, and I surprised a strange, bitter look on his face. Then, to my surprise, he bowed.

“Thank you for your co-operation,” he said. “There will be other matters to discuss when you are recovered.

Rafe Scott lingered when the others had gone.

“Look, if I could talk to you by yourself, Lew,” he said, glowering at Regis.

Regis only said with angry contempt, “Get out of here, you filthy Terran half-caste!” He put his hand in the middle of Rafe’s back, giving him a sharp push — more offensive than a blow.

Rafe turned around and hit him.

Regis’ fist slammed into Rafe’s chin. The Terran boy lowered his head, rushed in and clinched, and they swayed back and forth in a struggling, furious grip. AH Regis’ contempt, all the humiliation Rafe had suffered at the hands of the Comyn, exploded; they slammed at each other, the room filled with their pummeling violence. I lay there forgotten by both, yet somehow more a part of the fight than they were themselves. I felt, half deliriously,, that the two halves of myself were slugging it out; the Darkovan Lew, the Terran. Rafe, once almost a brother — Regis, my best friend in the Comyn — both were myself and I was fighting myself, and each blow struck was in my own quarrel.

Andres settled it abruptly by collaring both the angry young men and jerking them violently through the curtains. “If you’ve got to fight,” he growled, “do it outside!”

There was the brief sound of a scuffle, then Regis’ voice, clear and scathing. “I should dirty my hands!”

Somehow, being part of their contention, these words were strangely meaningful; as if my own inward struggle had been somehow resolved.

After a while Andres came in, keeping up a steady monotoned grumble that was vaguely soothing. His hands were gentle as he looked at the half-healed wound at the back of my head; he ignored my profane protests that I was perfectly capable of taking care of myself, grinned when I swore at him, until finally I broke into rueful laughter that hurt my head, and let him do what he -would. He washed my face as if I were a fretful child, would have fed me with a spoon if he’d thought for a minute that I’d allow it — I didn’t — and finally dug out a pack of contraband cigarettes smuggled in from the Terran Zone. But when I had finally chased the old fussbudget off to rest, I could elude thought no longer.

Time had healed, a little, my grief for Marjorie. My father’s death, bitterly as I regretted it, was more the Comyn’s loss than mine. We had been close, especially toward the end, but I had resented the thing that made me half-caste. Much as I missed him, his death had set me at ease with my own blood. And the murder of Marius was a nightmare thing, mercifully unreal.

But Linnell’s death was a grief from which I have never been free; that night my own pain was only an obligato to the torture of my nerves.

What had killed Linnell? No one had touched her, except Kathie. She was not, like Dio, a sensitive.

And then I understood.

I had killed Linnell.

All evening, intuitively, Linnell had been striving for contact with her duplicate. Their instinct had been better than my science. I — pitiful, damned, blind imbecile — I had blocked them away from one another. When the horror of Sharra had been loosed, Linnell had instinctively reached for the safety of contact with her duplicate. What had I said to Marius? One body can’t take it…

And the bypass circuit in Kathie!s mind had thrown Linnell into contact with me — and through me, into that deadly matrix in Kadarin’s hands. Years ago, Sharra had been given a foothold in my brain. And force flows toward the weaker pole. It had all rushed into the unprotected Linnell, overloading her young nerves and immature body.

She had gone out like a burnt match.

Havoc had indeed raged in the Comyn. Linnell, the Ride-now, Derik, Dio. I smiled, grimly. The defenses I’d given Dio had probably saved her from the fate of her brothers. And after her malice-Blinding light broke suddenly on me. There wasn’t a scrap of malice in Dio. In her own way, the perverse little imp had been warning me!,

A narrow chink of moonlight lay in a cold streak across my face; in the shadows there was a stir, a step and a whisper. “Lew, are you asleep?”

The dim light picked out a gleam of silvery hair, and Dio, like a pale ghost, looked down at me. She turned and slid the curtains back, letting the light flood the room and the moons peer over her shoulder.

The chilli radiance cooled my hot face. I found no words to question her. I even thought, incuriously, that I might have fallen asleep and be dreaming she was here. I could see the shadow of the bruise lying on her cheek, and murmured, “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

She only smiled, half-bewildered. Her voice was as dreamy as the unreal light when she bent down to me.

“Lew, your face is so hot—”

“And yours is so cool,” I whispered. I touched the bruise with my good hand, wanting to kiss it. Her face was in shadow, very grave and still. Suddenly, forcefully, Callina came into my mind. Not the aloof Keeper, but the proud and passionate woman defying the council, refusing before Ashara to bare her mind to my touch—

Dio, too, had feared that. Could any woman endure that intimacy, that bond that was deeper than any physical touch? Callina, remote, precious, untouchable — and Dio, who had been everything to me that a woman can be to a man. Or almost everything. And why was I thinking of Callina, with Dio beside me? She seemed to be forcing the thought on me; so strongly, I was almost constrained to speak the name aloud. Her pallid face seemed to flicker, to be Callina’s own, so dreamishly that I could not believe I was awake.

“Why are you here?”

Dio said, very simply, “I always know when you are in pain or suffering.”

She drew my head to her breast. I lay there with my eyes closed. Her body was warm and cool at once and the scent of her was at once fresh and familiar, the mysterious salty smell of tears mingling with the honey and musk of her hair.

“Don’t go away.”

“No. Never.”

“I love you,” I whispered. “I love you.”

For a moment Callina’s sobs deepened — Callina? Callina? She was almost a physical presence between us; rather the two women blended and were one. To which one had. I whispered my love? I did not know. But the soft arms around me were real.

I held her close, knowing with a sort of sick certainty that — as a woman — I had nothing for her now. The telepath’s personal hell, just as painful as ever.

But it didn’t seem to matter. And suddenly I knew that the Dio I had loved on Vainwal, passionate and superficial and hoydenish, was not the real girl at all. This was the real one. I was not the man she had known there, either.

I could not have spoken if I had tried. There was shame, and a proffered apology, in my kiss; but she gave it back as it was given, gently, without passion.

We fell asleep like little children, clasped in each other’s arms.