Marion Bradley - The Sword of Aldones

“No, you don’t! Have sense, man! You can hardly stand on your feet!” He forced me into the chair again. “What set them off? Who or what is Marja?”

The screaming stopped, abruptly, as if a switch had been flipped, leaving a silence that was somehow frightening. Lawton swore and stamped out of the room, leaving me lying in the chair, swearing with helpless rage, unable to rise. I heard shouts and voices ringing in the corridors, and wondered what had happened now, and then Dio stormed into the room.

“And they left you here!” she raged. “What did that redheaded bitch do to you? And they’ve doped Callina — oh, Lew, Lew, your shirt’s all blood—” She knelt by me, her face white as her dress. Lawton came stamping back and stood over me, his face furious.

“Gone! That Thyra woman is gone — out of a sheet-steel cell, with guards all over the place! When that happens, with a Comyn matrix mechanic in the building—” He caught sight of Dio and his scowl deepened"I know you, you’re that sister of Lerrys. What are you doing here?”

“At the moment,” she blazed, “trying to see what’s wrong with Lew — which nobody else is bothering about!”

“I’m, all right,” I muttered, angry at the solicitude which weakened me. But I let her take me down to the Medical Floor where a little fat man in a white coat grumbled about a damned uncivilized planet where he spent his time patching up knife wounds. He did me up in plastic shields which hurt like hell, burned me with ultra-light of some kind and made me swallow something red and sticky which burnt my mouth and made my head swim, but it took the pain away; and when the dizziness stopped, I could think clearly again.

“Where’s Callina Aillard?”

“In there,” Dr. Forth said. “Asleep. She was faint and sick, so I gave her a shot of hypnal and had a nurse put her to bed in the women’s infirmary.”

“Any chance she could be in shock-trance?”

He put the things he’d used under the light-machine. T wouldn’t know. She saw you stabbed, didn’t she? Some Women react that way.”

I damned the man for a fool. Darkovan women don’t faint at a little blood. What was he doing here, if he couldn’t diagnose matrix-shock? And if he had drugged Callina, there wasn’t a chance I could bring her out of it. Not until all the drug wore off.

“It might be best,” Dio said quietly. “Before she wakes, I want to tell you all about Callina. Not now.”

Lawton, in his office, was setting the mechanism of search into action. Time crawled by; I waited. Once his puzzlement exploded into frustrated questions. “Damn it, I still haven’t figured out how the Marshall girl got here from Samarra. And I’m still trying to get it all straight — the way you, and Rafe, and this Thyra woman, and Kadarin, are all brothers and sisters or cousins of whatever. And now this Thyra person vanishes into thin air! Did you witch her out of there someway?”

“I did not.” Thyra could lie in a cell forever, for all I cared.

As the narcotic slowly wore off, I felt pain in my side again, but deeper down was that horrible sense of something torn away — I was afraid to know what it was.

The bloody sun of Darkover had reached its height and begun to angle sharply downward when I heard dragging footsteps and Regis and Rafe and Kadarin came in.

Regis had changed shockingly in a few hours. There was blood on his face, and blood on his sleeve, but it went deeper than his first serious fight. The last trace of the boy had burnt away and it was a man, and a Hastur, who looked at me in despair.

“You’re hurt!” Lawton exclaimed, with the horror of a Terran for personally inflicted wounds.

“Not much. Cut my shirt up, mostly. I fought with Dyan.”

“Dead?” I asked.

“No, damn it!”

Lawton demanded “Kadarin! Where’s that woman of yours?

Kadarin’s gaunt face contracted in fear. “Thyra? Isn’t she here with you? Zandru’s hells, how can I tell her—” He covered his face with his hands. Suddenly he came to me. All the rest of the people in the office might as well have been on another planet for all the regard he gave them, and he looked into my eyes with an intensity that burned years away; back to the days when we had been friends, not sworn foes.

My voice came through dry lips.

“Bob, what is it? What’s happened?”

His face twisted. “Dyan! Zandru send him scorpion whips! Naotalba twist his feet off in hell forever! He’s taken her into Sharra — my little Marguerhia.” His voice broke. The words burned at me like acid. Dyan, with the Sharra matrix. Marja, a child but an Alton — a telepath. And the blankness where she had been, the sense of something torn away.

Then she was dead.

Marjorie. Marius. Linnell.

Now Marja.

Lawton did not press us for details. He must have known we were all touching our last reserves of strength. I found myself sitting and asking questions as if anything could matter now. “Andres?”

“Dyan left him for dead, but he may pull through.”

It was savage comfort to know that Andres had defended her. like that. “Ashara?”

Dio stood up, her mouth, pinched tight. I think we had all forgotten she was there. “Regis! Keep them! I am going to the Tower!”

I cried, “What for?” but she was already gone.

Lawton said grimly, “The first thing is to have Dyan picked up. If he has the little girl—”

Kadarin broke in. “You can’t! There’s no way to take the Sharra matrix away from him now. I’ve had the thing in my own hands often enough to know! Dyan could get it away from Marius only because he didn’t know how to guard him-self. No man living—” Kadarin started upright. “Lawton! all of you! Bear witness! His life is mine, when, how and as I can kill him, fair fight or unfair, his life is—”

“Mine!” I cut through his words. “Marja was mine! And whoever kills him, owes me a life—”

“You pair of maniacs!” Lawton said, “let’s catch him first, before you start fighting for the privilege of killing him!”

With a gesture that was animal in its ferocity, Kadarin said, “If he frees Sharra, don’t trust me! I’m the masterseal, and I’ll be right in it!”

Regis turned to me. “Well, Lew, it will have to be you. You’ve touched Sharra, but you’re sealed to the Comyn too. If we could hold you in rapport from here, you could go into the Sharra matrix—”

I cracked, then. “No!” I shouted. “No!” They could all die before they’d force me into that; why should I care now if Sharra ravaged Darkover? What had I left to lose? I grabbed the pistol out of Rafe’s belt, and snapped off the safety. “I’ll blow out my own brains first!”

Regis’ hand caught mine in a bone-crushing grip. We struggled briefly, crazily, but he had two hands; the recoil of the gun knocked me back and the bullet fired harmlessly through the window, in a burst of shattering glass. Regis shook my cramped fingers from the butt.

“You’re insane!” he said. He tossed the pistol to Rafe. “Here. This was yours originally, wasn’t it? Take it. It’s been around a lot lately. One lunatic is enough!”

Lawton swore, kicking at the glass on the floor. “I ought to throw you all in the clink. Rafe, go get somebody to clean this mess up, and take Alton downstairs. He’s off his head again.”

I dragged to my feet, but I had to hold the chair. “I’m a prisoner?”

“Hell, no! But you walk out of here now, you’ll pass out on the sidewalk! Man, use your head! Go on down to the infirmary! We’ll let you know when we need you!”

Quite suddenly the rage dissolved, leaving me empty and numb. Kadarin unfolded his long legs and came to me. “Truce, Lew,” he said quietly. “Marja was mine, too. We can’t do much now. You’re worn out. Maybe later we can figure out some way to get me out of that hellish thing before Dyan burns us all to hell-and-gone.” His eyes met mine; there was no hate left in them. Mine, too, had burnt away. I stumbled and let myself lean wearily on his arm. “Truce,” I said.