Marion Bradley - The Sword of Aldones

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.”