The Sword of Aldones

CHAPTER SEVEN

After the Hasturs left me, I went back to my rooms and thought over what I’d learned.

I had walked into Dyan’s trap and it had snapped shut on me. I had Hastur to thank if I hadn’t been already exiled. All along — I could see now — they had been goading me into open defiance. Then there was this child of mine, or my father’s or Marius’, a docile puppet; not a grown man with power in his own hands.

And Callina. That idea that a Keeper must be a virgin-superstitious drivel, but there must be some grain of scientific truth behind it, as with all other fables and Comyn traditions.

The superstitious could believe what they liked. But out of my own experience I knew this; any telepath working among the monitor screens will discover that his nervous and physical reflexes are all keyed into the matrix patterns. A matrix technician undergoes some prolonged periods of celibacy — strictly involuntary. This impotence is nature’s safeguard. A matrix mech who upsets his nerve reactions, or through physical or emotional excesses, upsets his endocrine balance, pays for it. He can overload his nervous system to the point where he will short-circuit and blow out like a fuse; nervous depletion, exhaustion and usually death.

A woman does not have the physical safeguard of impotence. The Keepers have always been severely cloistered. Once a girl has been aroused, once that first sensual response is awakened, so disastrously physical in its effect on nerves and brain, there is no way to determine the limit of safety. For a woman the picture is black or white. Absolute chastity, or giving up her work in the screens.

I, too, must be careful; I exposed Callina to a terrible danger.

I turned around to see old Andres scowling at me; a squat, ugly Terran, fierce and surly; but I knew him too well to be deceived by his fierce looks.

I never knew how a Terran ex-spaceman had won his way into my father’s confidence, but Andres Ramirez had been part of our home since I could remember. He’d taught me to ride, made toys for Marius, spanked us when we punched each other’s heads or raced at too breakneck a pace, and told us endless lying tales which gave no hint about his true history. I never knew whether he could not return to Terra, or whether he would not; but twenty years dropped from my age as he growled, “What are you standing there sulking about?”

“Not sulking, damn you! Thinking!”

The old fellow snorted. “Young Ridenow is waiting to see you. You keep fine company these days!”

In the other room Lerrys stood waiting for me, tense, seemingly uneasy; his attitude made my nerves jump, but with a curt semblance of politeness, I motioned him to a seat. “If you came as Dyan’s proxy, tell him not to bother. The fight’s off. Hastur said so.”

down. “Well, no. As a matter of fact, I had a

Lerrys proposition for you. Has it occurred to you, now that your father’s gone, you and I and Dyan are the strength of the Comyn?”

“You keep good company,” I said dryly.

“Let’s do without the insults. There’s no reason we should fight among ourselves, there’s enough for us all. You’re half Terran; I suppose you have some Terran common sense. You know how the Terran Empire will handle this, don’t you? They’ll deal with anyone who’s in a position to give orders. Why shouldn’t you, and I, and Dyan, make the terms for Darkover?”

“Treason,” I said slowly. “You’re speaking as if the Comyn were already out of the way.”

“It’s bound to fall apart in a generation or two,” Lerrys said quietly. “Your father, and Hastur, have been holding it together by pure force of personality for the last dozen years. You’ve seen Derik. Do you think he can take Hastur’s place?”

I didn’t. “Nevertheless,” I said, “I am Comyn, and I’m vowed to stand behind Derik while he lives.”

“And hold off disaster one more generation, at any cost?” Lerrys asked. “Isn’t it better to make some arrangement now, rather than waiting for the big smash, and letting things lapse into anarchy for years before we can get them squared away again?”

He leaned his chin on his hands, regarding me intently. “The Terrans can do a lot for Darkover and so can you. Listen to me, Lew. Every man has his price. I saw the way you looked at Callina today. I wouldn’t touch that she-devil’s fingers, let alone take her to bed, but I suppose it’s a matter of taste. I thought for a while it was Dio you wanted. But you’d fit perfectly well into our plans. You’d be better than Beltran. You’re educated on Terra, but you look Darkovan. You’re Comyn — one of the old aristocracy. The people would accept you. You could rule the planet!”

“Under the Terrans?”

“Someone will. And if you don’t — well, you’re unpopular because of the Sharra rebellion. And you’re Comyn. The

Terranan make a habit of disposing of hereditary monarchies, unless they collaborate. Terra wouldn’t care whether you lived or died.”

Lerrys was probably right. In these days of toppling empires, no man is overburdened with loyalties. The Comyn would come crashing down eventually; why shouldn’t I salvage something from the ruins?

Lerrys said, “Then you’ll consider it?”

I didn’t answer. A sudden intuition made me look up, and see that he had gone gray-white, his narrow fine features pinched and pale. That bothered me. The Ridenow are super-sensitives. In the distant past of the Comyn, when Darkover dealt with nonhumans, the Ridenow Gift had been bred into their family and they were used to detect strange presences, or give warning of unhealthy psychic or telepathic atmospheres.

He said with a strange intensity, “There are worse things than Terra, Lew. Better to make Darkover a Terran colony, even, than to face Sharra, or anything like that, from our own people.”

“Erlik defend us from either!”

“The choice might be up to you, in the end.”

“Hell, Lerrys, I’m not that important!”

“You may not know it,” he said, “but you may be the key to everything.”

Suddenly it seemed I was looking, not at one man, but at two. My brother’s friend, intent on trying to get me to come over to their faction — and some deeper thing, using Lerrys for its own purpose. I was seriously debating whether I ought to turn on a damper, before he could work some mental trick on me. But I didn’t move fast enough.

A flood of pure malevolence suddenly surged out of him. I jumped up, and with a terrible effort, managed to shut it out of my consciousness. Then I leaped at Lerrys, gripped him with one hand and angrily thrust my mind against his.

It wasn’t Lerrys!

I met perfect, locked defense — and Lerrys alone could never have barred me from his mind. I was using a force harder than I had used on Dyan — and the Ridenow are especially vulnerable to telepathic assault. And while it did not touch whatever was using Lerrys, it tortured him. He writhed a moment, slumped; suddenly, frenzied into convulsions by the thing that held him, he twisted in frantic resistance. With the strength of a maniac or a berserker, he flung off my one-handed grip. And from somewhere, he found strength, too, to slam down a final defense against the assault I was using on him. Gritting my teeth in despair, I let my telepathic touch break loose. If that possessing mind should suddenly withdraw, leaving Lerrys to stand the assault alone, Lerrys would be dead or raving mad before I could get out.

Lerrys lay still, sobbing in air, for a moment Then he sprang upright. I tensed for a renewed attack, but instead he said, quite unexpectedly, “Don’t look so startled! Does it surprise you to know you’re important to Darkover? Think over what I said, Lew. Your brother was a man of sense, you must have some of it too. I imagine you’ll decide I’m right.” Smiling in a friendly way, he held out his hand. Almost numbed, I touched his fingers, wary against some further trick.

His mind was blank, innocent of any guile, the alien gone. tie didn’t even know what he had done.

“What’s the matter? You look a bit off color,” he said. “I’d put on a damper, if I were you, and get some rest. You still need it, I’d say; that blow on the head was nothing to laugh at.” He bowed and went out, and I sank on a couch, wondering if the blow had, indeed, damaged my reason. Must I be alert to attack from everyone? Or was I stark raving mad?”

A battle like that is never easy, and I was shaking in every nerve. Andres, coming through the curtains, stopped and stared in consternation.

“Get me a drink.”

He started his routine protest about drinking on an empty stomach; looked at me again, stopped in mid-grumble and went. More than once I’ve suspected him of being more telepathic than he’ll admit. When he came back it was no Darkovan cordial, but the strong Terran liquor that is sold contraband in Thendara.

I could not close my hand on the glass; to my tremendous shame, I had to lean back and let Andres hold it to my mouth. I hated the fiery stuff; but after I had swallowed a little my head cleared and I could sit up and take the glass without shaking.

“And stop trying to baby me!” I yelled at Andres, who was hovering around as if he thought I’d explode into fragments: But his familiar grumbling had a soothing effect; he’d grumbled just like this when I’d taken a tumble off my pony and broken a couple of ribs on the way down.

Just the same, I waved away his various suggestions of food and bed, and went out.

The sky was murky with traces of a storm; I could see rain squalls coming down across Nevarsin. Bad weather for the Terrans, with their dependence on planes and rockets and the shifty upper atmosphere. Our mountain-bred beasts could endure storms, blizzards, and rain. Why would a sensible people put their trust in a tricky element like the air?

I crossed the courtyard, standing at the edge of the steep embankment where the cliff fell away; a thousand feet below me, the city of Thendara lay sprawled. I leaned on the low stone wall. If one wished to attack the Terrans, one need only choose a stormy night of rain or sleet, so that their planes and rockets were laid up, to meet them on equal terms.

Behind that, the ridge of the mountains were a darker line against the dark sky, and far away, on the high slopes, I saw a gleam of fire. Some hunter’s fire, perhaps; yet the glimmer reminded me that somewhere, a strange white smoke spiraled up through fires that were not ordinary flame, and an incredible tenth-level matrix twisted space around itself.

When once a man has stood at the fires of Sharra, the strange flames call to him, play on his nerves as a heavy hand sweeps harpstrings. But I knew that unless I stilled their harpings I would break completely; so I fought against the maddening live warmth that pulsed somewhere in me, reminding me of things I loathed and feared with all my heart — yet in some strange, shameful way, longed for; loved; desired.

Where could I go to still that harping?

Only-to Callina.