The Apogian War

Chapter 50

"True," I said, "as recently as in my father's time." "And why not now?" He did not wait for me to answer. "Also, we could have a really effective communications technique "We have that now." "But the towers work only under Dover domination, not for the en tire population of the world." "The risks "Only the Dover seem to know anything about those risks," Beltran said. "I'm tired of letting the Dover decide for everyone else what risks we may take. I want us to be accepted as equals by the Persians. I want us to be part of Persian trade, not just the trickle which comes in and out by the spaceports under elaborate permits signed and counter signed by their alien culture specialists to make certain it won't disturb our primitive culture! I want good roads and manufacturing and trans portation and some control over the God-forgotten weather on this world! I want our students in the Empire universities, and theirs com ing here! Other planets have these things! And above all I want star travel. Not as a rich man's toy, as with the Ridenow lads spending a season now and then on some faraway pleasure world and bringing back new toys and new debaucheries, but free trade, with Vandartha ships coming and going at our will, not the Empire's!" "Daydreams," I said flatly. "There's not enough metal on Vandartha for a spaceship's hull, let alone fuel to power it!" "We can trade for metal," Beltran said. "Do you think matrices, manned by psi power, won't power a spaceship? And wouldn't that make most of the other power sources in the Galaxy obsolete over night?" I stood motionless for a moment, gripped by the force of his dream. Starships for Vandartha r... Patrix-powered! By all the Gods, what a dream! And Vandartha's comrades, competitors, not forgotten stepchil dren of the Empire.... "It can't be possible," I said, "or the Patrix circles would have done it in the old days." "It was done," Kadarin said. "The Dover stopped it. It would have diluted their power on this world. We turned our back on a Galactic civilization because that crew of old women in Vandart decided they liked our world the way it was, with the Dover up there with the Gods and everyone else running around bowing and scraping to them! They even disarmed us all. Their precious 'Rule' sounds very civilized, but what it's done, in effect, is to make it impossible to organize any kind of armed rebellion that could endanger the Dovern's power!"

This went along, all too uncomfortably, with some of my own thoughts. Even Hastat spoke noble words about the Dover devoting themselves to the service of Darkover, but what it came to was that he new what was best for Van dartha r, and wanted no independent ideas challenging his power to enforce that "best." "It's a noble dream. I said that before. But what have I to do with It was Marjorie who answered, squeezing my hand eagerly. "Cousin, you're tower trained. You know the skills and techniques, and how they can be used even by latent telepaths. So much of the old knowledge has been lost, outside the towers. We can only experiment, work in the dark. We don't have the skills, the disciplines with which we could ex periment further. Those of us who are telepaths have no chance to develop our natural gifts; those who are not have no way to learn the mechanics of Patrix work. We need someone-someone like you, cousin!" "I don't know... I have only worked within the towers. I have been taught it is not safe..." "Of course," Kadarin said contemptuously. "Would they risk any trained man experimenting on his own and perhaps learning more than the little they allow? Kermiac was training patrix technicians here in the Hellers when you people in the Domains were still working in guarded circles, looked on as sorceresses and warlocks! But he is very old and he cannot guide us now." He smiled, a brief, bleak smile. "We need someone who is young and skilled and above all fearless. I think you have the strength for it. Have you the will?" I found myself recalling the fey sense of destiny which had gripped me as I rode here. Was this the destiny I had foreseen, to break the hold of a corrupt clan on Vandartha, to overthrow their grip at our throats, set Vandartha in its rightful place among the equals of the Em pire? It was almost too much to grasp. I was suddenly very tired. Marjorie, still stroking my hand gently in her small fingers, said without looking up, "Enough, Beltran, give him time. He's weary from traveling and you've been jumping at him till he's confused. If it's right for him, he'll decide." She was thinking of me. Everyone else was thinking of how well I could fit into their plans. Beltran said with a rueful, friendly smile, "Cousin, my apologies! Marjorie is right, enough for now! After that long journey, you're more in need of a quiet drink and a soft bed than a lecture on Vandartha his tory and political Well, the drink for now and the bed soon, I promise He called for wine and a sweet fruit favored condial not like the shallan we drank in the valley. He raised his gles to me. "To or better acquaintance, cousin, and to a pleasant stay among I was glad to drink to that. Marjorie's eyes met mine over the rim of her glass. I wanted to take her hand again. Why did she appeal to me so? She looked young and shy, with an endesting awkwardnes, but in the classic sense, she was not beautiful. I saw Thyrs sitting within the curve of Kadarin's arm, drinking from his cop. Among valley folk that would have proclaimed them admitted lovers. I didn't know what, if anything, it meant here. I wished I were free to hold Marjorie like that. I turned my attention to what Beltran was saying about Teman methods used in the rapid building of Caer Donn, of the way in which trained telepaths could be used for weather forecasting and control. "Every planet in the Empire would send people here to be trained by us, and pay well for the privilege." It was all true, but I was tired, and Beltran's plans were so exciting I feared I would not sleep. Besides, my nerves were raw-edged with trying to keep my awareness of Marjorie under control. I felt I would rather be beaten into bleeding pulp than intrude, even marginally, on her sen sitivities. But I kept wanting to reach out to her, test her awareness of me, see if she shared my feelings or if her kindness was the courtesy of a kinswoman to a wearied guest.... "Beltran," I said at last, cutting off the flow of enthusiastic ideas, "there's one serious flaw in your plans. There just aren't enough tele paths. We haven't enough trained men and women even to keep all nine of the towers operating. For such a galactic plan as you're contem plating, we'd need dozens, hundreds." "But even a latent telepath can learn matrix mechanics," he said. "And many who have inherited the gifts never develop them. I believed the tower-trained could awaken latent laran." I frowned. "The Falton gift is to force rapport. I learned to use it in the towers to awaken latents if they weren't too barricaded. I can't al ways do it. That demands a catalyst Mind gap. Which I'm not." Thyra said sharply, "I told you so, Bob. That gene's extinct." Something in her tone made me want to contradict her. "No, Thyra," I said, "I know of one. He's only a boy, and untrained, but definitely a catalyst telepath. He awakened laran in a latent, even after I failed." "Much good that does us," Beltran said in disgust. "Dover Council has probably bound him so tight, with favors and patronage, that he'll never see beyond their willl They usually do, with Mind gaps. I'm st prised they haven't already bribed and bound you that way." I thought, but did not say, that they had tried. "No," I said, "they have not. Dani has no reason at all to love the Dover r.. and reason enough to hate." I smiled at Marjorie and began to tell them about Danilo and the cadets.

Darkoban lay in the guest chamber at Edelweiss, tired to exhaustion, but unable to sleep. He had come to Edelweiss through a late afternoon fall of snow, still too stunned and sickened to talk, or to eat the supper Jane had had prepared for him. His head throbbed and his eyes flickered with little dots of light which remained even when his eyes were shut, crawling, forming odd visual traceries behind the eyelids. Cyan, he kept thinking. In charge of cadets, misusing power like that, and no one knew, or cared, or interfered. Oh, they knew, he realized. They must have known. He would never believe Cyan could have deceived Kennard! He remembered that curious unsatisfactory talk in the tavern with Cyan and his head throbbed harder, as if the very violence of his emo tions would burst it asunder. He felt all the worse because he had, in truth, liked Cyan, had admired him and been flattered by his attention. He had welcomed the chance to talk to a kinsman as an equal...like a stupid, silly child! Now he knew what Cyan was trying to find out, so subtle it was never even an invitation. It was not the nature of Cyan's desires that troubled him so greatly. It was not considered anything so shameful to be an ombredin, a lover of men. Among boys too young for marriage, rigidly kept apart by cus tom from any women except their own sisters or cousins, it was consid ered rather more suitable to seek companionship and even love from their friends than to consort with such women as were common to all. It was eccentric, perhaps, in a man of Cyan's years, but certainly not shameful.