The Apogian War

Chapter 64

Until the day I die, I am sure I shall return in dreams to that first joyous time at Aldaran. In my dreams, everything that came after has been wiped out, all the pain and terror, and I remember only that time when we were all to gether and I was happy, wholly happy for the first and last time in my life. In those dreams Thyra moves with all her strange wild beauty, but gentle and subdued, as she was during those days, tender and pliant and loving. Beltran is there, too, with his fire and the enthusiasm of the dream from which we had all taken the spark, my friend, almost my brother. Kadarin is always there, and in my dreams he is always smiling, kind, a rock of strength bearing us all up when we faltered. And Rafe, the son I shall never have, always beside me, his eyes lifted to mine. And Marjorie. Marjorie is always with me in those dreams. But there is nothing I can say about Marjorie. Only that we were together and in love, and as yet the fear was only a little, little shadow, like a breath of chill from a glacier not yet in sight. I wanted her, of course, and I resented the fact that I could not touch her even in the most casual way. But it wasn't as bad as I had feared. Psi work uses up so much energy and strength that there's nothing much left. I was with her every waking moment and it was enough. Almost enough. And we could wait for the rest. I wanted a well-trained team, so I worked with them day by day, try ing to shape us all together into a functioning circle which could work together, precisely tuned. As yet we were working with our small ma trices; before we joined together to open and call forth the power of the big one, we must be absolutely attuned to one another, with no hidden weaknesses. I would have felt safer with a circle of six or eight, as at Arilinn. Five is a small circle, even with Beltran working outside as a psi monitor. But Thyra and Kadarin were stronger than most of us at Anilinn-I knew they were both stronger than 1, though I had more skill and training-and Marjorie was fantastically talented. Even at Ari linn, they would have chosen her the first day as a potential Keeper. Deep warmth and affection, even love, had sprung up among all of us with the gradual blending of our minds. It was always like this, in the building of a circle. It was closer than family intimacy, closer than s*x nal love. It was a sort of blending, as if we all melted into one another, each of us contributing something special, individual and unique, and somehow all of us together becoming more than the sum of us. But the others were growing impatient. It was Thyra who finally voiced what they were all wanting to know. "When do we begin to work with the Sharra matrix? We're as ready as we'll ever be." I demurred. "I'd hoped to find others to work with us; I'm not sure we can operate a ninth-level matrix alone." Rafe asked, "What's a ninth-level matrix?" "In general," I said dryly, "it's a matrix not safe to handle with less than nine workers. And that's with a good, fully trained Keeper." Kadarin said, "I told you we should have chosen Thyra." "I won't argue with you about it. Thyra is a very strong telepath; she is an excellent technician and mechanic. But no Keeper." Thyra asked, "Exactly how does a Keeper differ from any other tele path?" I struggled to put it into language she could understand. "A Keeper is the central control in the circle; you've all seen that. She holds to gether the forces. Do you know what energons are?" Only Rafe ventured to ask, "Are they the little wavy things that I can't quite see when I look into the matrix?" Actually that was a very good answer. I said, "They're a purely theo retical name for something nobody's sure really exists. It's been post ulated that the part of the brain which controls psi forces gives off a certain type of vibration which we call energons. We can describe what they do, though we can't really describe them. These, when directed and focused through a matrix-I showed you-become immensely amplified, with the matrix acting as a transformer. It is the amplified energons which transform energy. Well, in a matrix circle, it is the Keeper who receives the flow of energons from all members of the circle and weaves them all into a single focused beam, and this, the focused beam, is what goes through the large matrix.""Why are Keepers always women?" "They aren't. There have been male Keepers, powerful ones, and other men who have taken a Keeper's place. I can do it myself. But women have more positive energon flows, and they begin to generate them younger and keep them longer "You explained why a Keeper has to be chaste," Marjorie said, "but I still don't understand it." Kadarin said, "That's because it's superstitious drivel. There's noth ing to understand; it's gibberish." "In the old days," I said, "when the really enormous matrix screens were made, the big synthetic ones, the Keepers were virgins, trained from early childhood and conditioned in ways you wouldn't believe. You know how close a matrix circle is." I looked around at them, savor ing the closeness. "In those days a Keeper had to learn to be part of the circle and yet completely, completely apart from it." Marjorie said, "I should think they'd have gone mad." "A good many of them did. Even now, most of the women who work as Keepers give it up after a year or two. It's too difficult and frus trating. The Keepers at the towers aren't required to be virgins any more. But while they are working as Keepers, they stay strictly chaste." "It sounds like nonsense," Thyra said. "Not a bit of it," I said. "The Keeper takes and channels all that en ergy from all of you. No one who has ever handled these very high energy flows wants to take the slightest chance of short-circuiting them through her own body. It would be like getting in the way of a light ning bolt." I held out the scar again. "A three-second backflow did that to me. Well, then. In the body there are clusters of nerve fibers which control the energy flows. The trouble is that the same nerve clusters carry two kinds of energy: they carry the psi flows, the energons which carry power to the brain; they also carry the s****l messages and ener gies. This is why some telepaths get threshold sickness when they're in their teens: the two kinds of energy, s****l energies and laran, are both wakening at once. If they aren't properly handled, you can get an over load, sometimes a killer overload, because each stimulates the other and you get a circular feedback." Beltran asked, "Is that why-" I nodded, knowing what he was going to ask. "Whenever there's an energon drain, as in concentrated matrix work, there's some nerve over loading. Your energies are depleted-have you noticed how we've all been eating?-and your s****l energies are at a low ebb, too. The major side effect for men is temporary impotence." I repeated, smiling reassuringly at Beltran, "Temporary impotence. Nothing to worry about, but it does take some getting used to. By the way, if you ever find you can't eat, come to one of us right away for monitoring, that can be an early warning signal that your energy flows are out of order." "Monitoring. That's what you're teaching me to do, then?" Beltran asked, and I nodded. "That's right. Even if you can't link into the cit cle, we can use you as a psi monitor." I knew he was still resentful about this. He knew enough by now to know it was the work usually done by the youngest and least skilled in the circle. The worst of it was that unless he could stop projecting this resentment, we couldn't even use him near the circle. Not even as a psi monitor. There are few things that can disrupt a circle faster than uncontrolled resentments. I said, "In a sense, the Keeper and the psi monitor are at the two ends of a circle-and almost equally important." This was true. "Often enough, the life of the Keeper is in the hands of the monitor, because she has no energy to waste in watching over her own body." Beltran grinned ruefully, but he grinned. "So Marjorie is the head and I'm the old cow's taill" "By no means. Rather she's at the top of the ladder and you're on the ground holding it steady. You're the lifeline." I remembered sud denly that we had come far astray from the subject, and said, "With a Keeper, if the nerve channels are not completely clear they can over load, and the Keeper will bum up like a torch. So while the nerve chan nels are being used to carry these tremendous energy overloads, they cannot be used to carry any other form of energy. And only complete chastity can keep the channels clear enough." Marjorie said, "I can feel the channels all the time now. Even when I'm not working in the matrices. Even when I'm asleep." "Good." That meant she was functioning as a Keeper now. Beltran looked at her with half shut eyes and said, "I can see them, almost." "That's good, too," I said. "A time will come when you'll be able to sense the energy flows from across the room-or a mile away-and pin point any backflows or energy disruptions in any of us." I deliberately changed the subject. I asked, "Precisely what do we want to do with the Sharra matrix, Beltran?" "You know my plans." "Plans, yes, precisely what do you want to do first? I know that in the end you want to prove that a matrix this size can power a starship-" "Can it?" Marjorie asked. "A matrix this size, love, could bring one of the smaller moons right down out of its orbit, if we were course, destroy Darkover along with it. Powering a starship with one might be possible, but we can't start there. Among other reasons, we haven't got a starship yet. We need a smaller project to experiment with, to learn to direct and focus the force. This force is fire-powered, so we also need a place to work where, if we lose control for a few sec onds, we won't burn up a thousand leagues of forest." I saw Beltran shudder. He was mountain-bred too, and shared with all Darkovans the fear of forest fire. "Father has four Terran aircraft, two light planes and two helicopters. One helicopter is away in the lowlands, but would the other be suitable for experiment?" I considered. "The explosive fuel should be removed first," I said, "so if anything does go wrong it won't burn. Otherwise a helicopter might be ideal, experimenting with the rotors to lift and power and control it. It's a question of developing control and precision. You wouldn't put Rafe, here, to riding your fastest racehorse." Rafe said shyly, "Lew, you said we need other telepaths. Lord Ker miac... didn't he train matrix mechanics before any of us were born? Why isn't he one of us?" True. He had trained Desideria and trained her so well that she could use the Sharra matrix "And she used it alone," said Kadarin, picking up my thoughts. "So why does it worry you that we are so few?" "She didn't use it alone," I said. "She had fifty to a hundred believers focusing their raw emotion on the stone. More, she did not try to con trol it or focus it. She used it as a weapon, rather, she let it use her." I felt a sudden cold shudder of fear, as if every hair on my body were prickling and standing erect. I cut off the thought. I was tower-trained. I had no will to wield it for power. I was sworn. "As for Kermiac," I said, "he is old, past controlling a matrix. I wouldn't risk it, Rafe." Beltran grew angry. "Damn it, you might have the courtesy to ask him!" That seemed fair enough, when I weighed the experience he ust have had against his age and weakness. "Ask him, if you will. But don't press him. Let him make his own choice freely." "He will not," Marjorie said. She colored as we all turned on her. "I thought it was my place, as Keeper, to ask him. He called it to my mind that he would not even teach me. He said a circle was only as strong as the weakest person in it, and he would endanger all our lives." I felt both disappointed and relieved. Disappointed because I would mave welcomed a chance to join him in that special bond that comes