The Gazels

Chapter 19

Damion, know

ing the struggles Lew had endured with his own father’s death, bowed his head.

Lew went on, his voice more gravelly than before, “I have made no secret about my opposition to elsha’s membership in the new Federation. As you can imagine, this has not been well received in some quarters. elsha’s location on the galactic arm makes it a rich prize. I’ve heard speculation about turning the entire planet into a military base.”

As Lew drew in his breath, a vision came to Damion of forests razed, villages cemented over and rivers dammed, fields of permacrete covered by an armada of ships, blasting off again and again until the earth cried out like a wounded beast . . . the native peoples, from the shy arboreal trailmen to the ethereal chieri extinct . . . the council preserved like zoo specimens . . .

That must never come to pass. Not so long as I have breath and strength to prevent it.

“I swear to you, Damion,” Lew was speaking again now, and it seemed to Damion that the other man echoed his own thoughts, “that I will be damned in Zandru’s coldest Hell before I let that happen. But three days ago . . . they came for me in the night, here in the Diplomatic Sector. Only two of them,” and here, Lew’s lips twisted in a feral grimace, and Damion remembered that even one- handed, Lew was a formidable opponent with Darkovan weapons. “My wife and daughter are shaken but unharmed,” Lew ended. “I don’t think they’ll try again, but I’ve sent Dio and Marja off-world for safety.”

Lawt, standing beside Damion, drew in his breath. His hands had curled into fists, and he was almost shaking with outrage.

“As Senator and as Alton, I will do whatever I can,” Lew said, putting a faint, suggestive emphasis on the words. “elsha must stand firm. Any sign of weakness or division and the Expansionists will seize the opening. I won’t be able to stop them. Damion, we’re counting on you.”

So it had come at last, the fate Damion had struggled so long to avoid.

The screen flickered into blankness as the play-and-destroy program ran to completion. For a long moment, none of the three men said anything. Damion sensed Dan’s unvoiced thought, I am with you, no matter where this takes us.

To be king, you mean. Desperation boiled up in Damion. There must be another way to keep elsha free! We must not exchange one kind of tyranny for another.

“Dan, leave us for a moment,” Damion said. “I want to send a private reply.”

“Play-and-destruct?”

Grimly, Damion nodded. Dan set the console to encrypt the return message and then left. Dan glanced at the closed door, but Damion had no doubt of the Legate’s integrity.

Damion leaned back in the console chair. The plasteen and metal gave slightly under his weight. He wished, not for the first time, that the interstellar void was not such a barrier to mental communication. Only the most extraordinary telepaths could contact one another over more than the shortest distances. He and Lew must used nuanced words to convey what would be so simple face-to face.

Lew’s message, although forthright enough on the surface, carried a deeper meaning, that slight emphasis on the word whatever coupled with the deliberate mention of Lew’s Domain. Lew was the only adult known to possess the Alton Gift, the ability to force mental rapport, even with nontelepaths.

Damion paused, his fingertip hovering above the panel that would begin the recording. Lew, like every other Darkovan who had trained at a Tower, had taken an oath never to enter the mind of another except to help or heal and then only with consent.

Was Lew serious about using power to sway the Federation politicians? To convince them that elsha was not worth bothering with, that it would be better to let elsha go its own way and remain a Closed World?

He knows I would never ask such a thing, Damion thought, but clearly, he feels the situation might require it.

Damion had sometimes wondered why the Alton Gift had been bred into the council during the Ages of Chaos. The leroni of the Towers recognized it as dangerous but had not seen fit to eliminate it. Instead, it had been preserved through the centuries.

As a final weapon? Or as a last defense when all else failed?

A defense when the future of elsha hung in the balance?

It went against his training and personal ethics to order Lew to use the Alton Gift in this way.

At the back of his mind, Damion felt Dan’s steady support, his abiding trust. Damion drew in his breath and touched the panel.

“Dom Lewis-Kennard Alton,” he said, using the formal title to convey his understanding of Lew’s reference. “The situation is indeed distressing. I am glad that you have taken those precautions you deem necessary. During these difficult times, elsha could have no better spokesman and protector. I have always known you to be a man of honor. You have my authority to act as you see fit.”

Before he could say anything more, Damion cut off the recording. He would neither command nor forbid Lew in such a matter of conscience. He was not Lew’s Keeper, nor would he ever wish to wield that kind of power over another.

With a silent prayer to whatever god might be listening, or whatever power could span the light- years, he tapped the panel to send the message. It was done, for good or ill.

And, for good or ill, if elsha was to remain free, he must take up the full power and influence of the Lord of Carmen.

Outside the Headquarters Building, the piants Sector seemed bleaker than ever. Structures of steel and glass rose like the walls of canyons where the sun never shone. The wind tasted like dust and metal; as it swept through the streets, it sounded like keening.

Damion said little as he and Dan made their way back to council Castle. They were, as usual, in light rapport, so Dan sensed his mood. “Has Mikhail found any clue as to your brother’s whereabouts?”

Damion shook his head. “I am beginning to think Grandfather invented Rinaldo in order to get me to do what he wanted. I can hear him saying, from his grave, ‘If you don’t take your responsibilities as the Heir of Carmen seriously, then I’ll find someone else who will!’ ”

“Not even Lord Carmen would fabricate a lost brother for such a purpose,” Dan said.

They passed the borders of the piants Zone under the watchful eyes of a Spaceforce patrol.

“I have been considering the problem,” Dan said, “and I think it likely that if Lord Carmen recorded this knowledge, it would have been not on paper, which could be stolen and used against him, but to someone he trusted without reservation.”

Who might that have been? Danvan Carmen had outlived any cousins or comrades who came to manhood with him, and his only son was dead.

When Damion voiced his question, Dan shook his head and said he would look into it before venturing more. Damion knew his bredhyu’s stubborn nature well enough to not press him.

Damion paced his sitting room, waiting for the signal that the meeting of the Telepath Council was ready to begin. It would not take place in the Crystal Chamber, for the remaining council would object strenuously if an assembly such as the Telepath Council met there, and Damion needed their support. Instead, he had chosen one of the newer, less formal halls.

As usual, when faced with addressing a large group, his thoughts tangled like one of Javanne’s childhood embroidery samplers. He had given enough public speeches to know that the feeling would pass. The trick was to make eye contact with a few people and speak directly to them. Moreover, he must speak from his heart.

How, in all the world, could he speak from his heart when he wore the mantle of Carmen? He threw himself into a chair beside the door, then heaved himself up again. One thought returned to him again and again.

There is no one else. I alone must do this!

Only the day before, official word had come through the Legate’s office. All worlds previously classified as Class D Closed were now subject to automatic Open citizenship unless they requested an exemption.

Request? We must demand it!

Damion was so distracted that he heard the knock at the door before he felt Dan’s

presence.

Dan cracked the door open. “Vai dom, it’s time.”

Damion straightened his shoulders and glanced down at his attire, a formal suit of suede, with high boots to match, all dyed in Carmen blue, the jacket embroidered in silver thread with the fir-tree emblem of his Domain. A bejeweled ceremonial sword hung from an equally flamboyant belt. Javanne had urged him to add a court-length cloak trimmed with marl fur, but he had refused.

“How do I look?”

One corner of Dan’s mouth quirked upward. He stepped back and gestured for Damion to lead the way.

The four Guards stationed outside the door were seasoned veterans, for theirs was a post of honor. They bowed to Damion and stood back.

Gabriel Lanart-Carmen announced, “Damion-Rafael Felix Alar Carmen y Elhalyn, Carmen of Carmen!” In the old times, the title would have included, “Regent of the Crown of the Seven Domains,” but Damion would not permit it.

Damion forced himself to a stately pace. The crowd drew back to let him pass. He waded through a sea of faces crowned with hair in a hundred shades of red, from flaming fire to pale-rose-tinted flax to burnt copper.

Here and there, Damion recognized friend or kin. Javanne stood in the center of a knot of glittering nobles, including Marilla Lindir and Valdir Ridenow. The earnest young man at Valdir’s side must be Francisco. Mikhail, standing a little apart from the others, smiled as Damion passed, as did a Renunciate with an open, generous face. Damion did not see any Tower folk. He wished Linnea were here.

Unlike the Crystal Chamber, this room had not been equipped with telepathic dampers. Even through his power barriers, Damion felt the vast, unfocused presence of so many minds. He clenched his jaw, forced himself to breathe, and stepped onto the platform at the far end of the chamber.

Most of the audience knew that the time had come for elsha to choose or reject full Federation membership. Even so, Damion began with a brief discussion of the particulars involved, the drawbacks and costs as well as the benefits of such a move.

The Telepath Council included traders and merchants as well as aristocrats. The pro-piants Pan Darkovan League, while not officially present, spoke through its sympathizers. Those whose livelihood depended upon interstellar trade made no secret of welcoming greater access to foreign markets and suppliers. As Damion expected, they presented their concerns in carefully calculated, rehearsed phrases.

“elsha must take its rightful place among the great worlds of the new Federation,” said an aging man with more gray than rust- red in his hair. Damion knew him from the lower Cortes and by reputation as a sound judge of character, respected by the community. Even without power, the man’s sincerity rang out; he truly believed what he said.

“We should not have to beg for the privileges and rights that are due to us,” the man went on. “Many of the Federation welcome us like the long-parted kinsmen we are. We should rectify the mistake of confining ourselves to Closed World status.”

Murmurs of agreement spread through the chamber. The League spokesman had appealed to their pride, offering a vision of elsha as one among equals, no longer a second- rate backwater world but a great among greats.

“I do not speak solely for those whose businesses depend upon off-world trade and travel. Every one of us, throughout the Domains, will benefit from the superior technology of the piantss, as well as their medicine and science. More than that, the Federation offers education for all our sons, not just those fortunate enough to have been born council!”

As the man spoke, Damion felt the old longing to take passage in one of those starfaring vessels, to walk upon strange worlds and meet people to whom the name Carmen meant nothing. Since that was not possible—he had long since given his oath to his Domain and the council—he had made sure that Mikhail benefited from piants education. How many boys—and girls, too—still hungered for that knowledge?

Modern techniques of weather control could transform Darkovan agriculture, make travel throughout the Hellers possible, and bring the lands beyond the Wall Around the World into contact with the Domains. Some day, the deserts of the Dry Towns might be reclaimed, as well.

Damion paused and the crowd grew still. He drew in his breath, willing his heart to be still. An unnamed force rose up in him, flowed through him, a force that came from beyond his own limited physical and intellectual powers. He felt himself reaching out to his audience with mental touch as well as words. Phrases rolled through his mind.