Thorarinn Gunnarsson - Battle of the Ring

“I assume, then, that our talents do not strengthen and grow with use,” Velmeran said. He was becoming used to Keflyn’s company. With her meter-long neck, it was not unlike talking tol Valthyrra.

Keflyn curled the end of her tail forward and sat back, balancing a portion of her weight on its thicker, stronger upper half. “It seems that the only thing that strengthens and grows is our skill with the tool that is the individual talent, while the tool itself remains always the same. A psychic talent is not like a muscle that develops with use. Say, rather, that your talents are the eyes and ears — and in some cases the hands — of your soul.”

“And is there such a thing?”

“Oh, of course,” Keflyn insisted. “Anyone trained in his talents can feel the souls of those about him. Indeed, a person of your talent can manipulate a lesser spirit, although for obvious reasons we consider that the worst offense that anyone can commit by the use of talent. We may even transfer the essence of a person out of a broken body into a cloned replica. Even the body I wear is not the one I was born in.”

Velmeran looked at her in open amazement. “You?”

She smiled gently. “I am Venn. Like you, I fight whenever there is need. It happened that when I was still very young, some four centuries ago, I was not as cautious as I should have been, and not as lucky as I would have liked.”

Another time, weeks later, they were standing in the vast cavern created by the removal of one of the Methryn’s four main drives. The repairs were proceeding in three steps. First the damaged portions and the old engines were removed, then the new field generators and jump generator were installed during the general refitting and overhaul, and finally the new engines would be installed and new hull plates set into place.

“Did the Aldessan make us?” Velmeran asked quickly, the question that Kelvessan had pondered for hundreds of years. It took a certain amount of courage for him to ask that, and even so it was not the question that he wanted most to ask. The only question that he might not have the courage to ask, because he was so afraid of what the answer might be.

Keflyn regarded him closely but without expression. “What do you think?”

“I believe that you must have,” he replied. “But…”

“But why?” she asked when he faltered, asking the question for him. “Again I ask, what do you think?”

“I know only the obvious answer to that. Because the Terran Republic asked and the Aldessan agreed. Perhaps we were only an experiment, from your point of view.”

“But you also know better than that,” she said, sitting back on her tail. “We did not make you for their use. This has only been your childhood, your time of maturing. Soon you will leave them to seek your own worlds and lives. We made you because we wanted you, as one might seek a friend in one’s loneliness. We made you because you are the thing in most ways like ourselves. Perhaps you are even what we wish ourselves to be.”

“And that is the reason?” Velmeran asked.

She smiled. “Were you expecting some great oratory to express some inescapable argument of logic and practicality? I have none. Your lives are your own, to live as you will.”

“And the humans?”

“They have problems that you cannot solve for them,” the Aldessa insisted. “They have found the best solution for their genetic deterioration, but even that cannot save them forever. We have seen too many races come and go for us to have much hope. There is a chance, but if they do survive they will be the first of half a hundred such cases we have observed. But that is not your problem. You cannot keep them alive, and you should not try to take their place when they are gone. Rid them of the Union before it begins the process of turning them into genetic machines, and that is all you can hope to do for them.”

“These are the general specifications for the jump drive,” the young Kelvessa explained as he began handing over microdisks, sheets, and booklets. “This is the helm manual, what your helm and navigator need to know to set up jumps manually. And these are the specifications, detailed enough for you to repair the generator or even — fortune forbid — build a new one.”

“Can you read that?” Consherra asked Lenna as they looked over the helm manual. Lenna was now very conversant in the Kelvessan language, although she still had some trouble reading technical material.

“Big words,” Lenna answered, a vague reply at best.

Commander Laroose entered the bridge at that moment, and Velmeran left Consherra and her assistant to work out matters themselves. Laroose was watching Lenna closely, still unsure of what to make of her after all this time.

“I see that you are using your new hand,” Laroose remarked.

“I am trying to remember to,” Velmeran amended, demonstrating the hand that he had grown. “It works now, even if it is a bit small yet. At this point it will only continue to get larger for another week or so.”

“That is amazing. And speaking of getting bigger…”

Consherra afforded him a tolerant stare. She remained on the ship now, where no one noticed — or pretended not to notice — that she could no longer button the lower half of her tunic over a round belly. With only days to go, she would not get any larger. Nor was she nearly as large as humans got, since Kelvessan young were born half the size of their two-armed counterparts, nor even as large as a Feldenneh, whose cubs always traveled in pairs.

“At least I can now be sure of having this over with before we leave airdock in four weeks,” she said. “Obviously, nature does not take into account that we have ships to run.”

“I can appreciate that,” Laroose agreed. “The joke around the station is that all pregnant Kelvessan must be from the Methryn. It’s a purely inside joke to ask who the father is.”

Velmeran looked uncomfortable, although it was hardly his fault that over a third of the Methryn’s female population was pregnant. Baressa had brought forth a son only days before, and those few who knew conveniently forgot that Baress was not the real father. But Valthyrra made no attempt to hide her amusement.

“What became of your long-legged friend?” Laroose asked. “It occurs to me that I haven’t seen the Valtrytian in quite some time.”

“Keflyn left about seven weeks ago to collect some things she needed, although she should be back any day now,” Velmeran explained. “She has decided to stay with us. She says that she has more to teach than she could even begin in only six months. And we can use another teacher.”

“Can she handle life with the Starwolves?”

“She says that she can handle the accelerations as well as Lenna can, and the cold bothers her even less. She certainly has more fur.”

“On the other hand, she wears no clothes.” He shrugged. “It’s your business. It just seems to me that she’s changing you into something I can no longer understand. The truth be known, I probably understand you better than I used to think I did. And you Starwolves are something of a different breed from the Kelvessan we have around here.”

“Perhaps it is because we do not live in close contact with other races, and are freer to be ourselves,” Velmeran suggested. “One race cannot live completely immersed within the society of another without becoming like it in some ways.”

“And you’ll be taking our Kelvessan away to their new home before very much longer,” Laroose added wistfully. “And mine will be a sadder world when you do.”

Venn Keflyn returned in five days. She came bearing gifts, although she quietly hauled her crated toys to a small storage hold assigned to her without the slightest hint of their contents. She also brought the promise that others would come soon to teach the psychic arts on other ships and the Kelvessan on Alkayja.