Damia (44 page)

“I’d insist on inclusion.”

I’ll be coming too
, Isthia said.

Are we allowed to think again?
Damia asked sarcastically.

I applaud it.

Was that what your clapping meant?
Afra asked as he locked eyes with Damia.

They were both answered by Isthia’s laugh.

I had to be certain you’d obey my injunction, so I added
a deterrent. Please come back to the house, Damia, Afra.
Her request bore no hint of command.

Sighing at the inevitable, Damia got to her feet and, with Afra’s long fingers twined in hers, made her way back to the house.

“Are we telling Earth Prime now?” Damia asked as they joined Isthia in the kitchen. Neither Rakella nor Ian was present.

“No, not yet.”

“Is that wise, Isthia?” Afra asked.

Isthia leaned forward across the table, still littered with Ian’s sketches. “Look, you two, I have survived two invasions of a highly inimical force, bent on total destruction. I do believe I can tell the difference when—ah—visitors do come in peace.”

“Remembering that the reason for most stellar travel is to provide colonists and mineral wealth for the explorers?” Damia asked cynically.

“I don’t have much precognitive Talent,” Isthia surprised them by saying, “but what I have is training to make that contact. Ian’s dream last night did have one positive result,” and she flicked one of the drawings on the table toward them, “if you’ll notice the stars?”

Damia drew the sheet toward her, frowning, for the seemingly random scatter of stars gradually became familiar to her.

“These are the constellations above Deneb!”

“Exactly. And this globe has protuberances suspiciously like the DEW sensors beyond the heliopause.”

“Oh,” and Damia’s single syllable came out on a long sigh of denial.

“That’s not so far to take a personal capsule. Is it?” Isthia asked softly.

“No,” Afra replied equably. “Damia went much further than the heliopause to reach the Sodan entity.”

“I’m not sure,” and Damia spaced her words carefully, “that I could go that far again.”

“Ah, but you won’t be going by yourself, pet,” Isthia said comfortably.

“I shouldn’t be going at all.”

“That’s why you must,” Afra said, gently pushing his index finger into the soft part of her arm. She felt not only the vibrancy of cool-green but a resolution she could not fight. She’d been terribly wrong once, and Afra had suffered. Afra and Larak. She must trust Afra now if his feeling was that strong.

Isthia was shaking her head slowly. “I wish we had a reliable way to convey a response.”

“What do you mean, Isthia?” Afra asked.

“I mean, I send a message by Ian and Damia gets the answer.”

“Send the question by Damia then.”

“If Damia doesn’t mind . . .” Isthia looked hopefully at her granddaughter and Damia conceded gracefully, “then we’ll try it tonight.”

“Why wait until tonight?” asked Afra.

“Sleep seems to be the vector,” Isthia said.

Afra chuckled. “Then Damia can go to sleep.”

“I what?”

Afra rose, took Damia by the hand and, with a perplexed Isthia following, stalked out to the corner of the porch where the hammocks swayed gently in the breeze. Afra sat Damia down in one, picked her feet up, and motioned for her to get comfortable while he set the hammock swaying.

“I can put Damia to sleep any time,” he said, grinning broadly.

“Now, wait a minute—” but Damia’s protest was cut off as Afra began to croon the same song he’d sung her to sleep with the night before. She had no choice in the matter but her last, outraged thought was that she’d settle this with him when next she was awake.

The sequence started instantly, only this time Damia took control and, as the visitors made their way up the hill, she separated a figure from those at the top and walked it down toward the visitors. She stopped it at the globe. Then, beckoning broadly to them, she urged them to follow her back up the hill. She was then back at the start of
the dream and repeated her reassurance, to be sent back to the beginning at which point she was becoming rather annoyed that they couldn’t get so simple a message.

She woke up grumpy, her head loggy with sleep.

“Afra Lyon, you stop doing that to me,” she said, shaking a finger under his nose.

“Works, though, doesn’t it?” He was not the least bit repentant.

“How?” asked Isthia, mystified, but she regarded Afra with considerable respect.

“Goes back to when Damia wouldn’t sleep at night. The daycare Talent and I used a prudent post-hypnotic suggestion and, with a bit of rocking and a line or two of a lullaby, Damia would drop off to sleep just fine for her mother.”

“And it has lasted this long?” Damia was incredulous.

“I’ve proved it. Mind you,” and Afra’s voice held the note that meant he was teasing, “I wish I’d been forethoughtful on other matters.”

“As well you weren’t,” Damia said direfully.

He helped her up out of the hammock and hugged her.

“So, tell us what happened?” Isthia asked, getting back to the more important matter.

“I told them we’d meet them at the DEW, and indicated that we’d welcome them. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

Isthia nodded her enthusiasm. “Now, do we get Jeran’s assistance?”

“We’d have to explain everything,” Damia said with an exaggerated groan. “You know how Jeran is. A, B, C, and D!”

“Damia, did you feel threatened by the dream?” Afra asked, no hint of levity in his expression.

“No. I’d like to believe Isthia’s intuition is correct.”

“Like to believe?” Isthia asked.

Afra held up his hand. “That’s fair, Isthia.”

“I suppose so. Well, let’s tell Ian and Rakella. We’ll need their help, anyway.”

*   *   *

The one vehicle at Deneb Tower which could carry three long bodies was a medium-sized rescue pod with four conformable seats. It had probably been left behind by a liner, for its engine was missing, but it still had working directional thrusters. They put in fresh oxygen tanks and dusted down the console, rather pleased to have a vehicle that had standard communications as well as a viewplate and external sensors. Jeran was not on-duty, which was no problem as Ian and Rakella knew how to run up the generators. Damia could feel her palms sweating and her stomach was griping badly as she settled herself into her chair, Isthia on one side, Afra just behind her.

“I’ll make the lift,” Isthia said, settling her hips deeper into the seat. “You’re completely cured, Damia, but you save your strength for the contact.”

Damia had a moment of panic for that decision, but then, Isthia had never lied to her and probably wasn’t now. It just would have been so reassuring to push off again, as she used to do so blithely.

You could now, too, love
, said Afra in a fine, thin tone. He reached forward to give her shoulder a reassuring squeeze.
Relax!

She was quivering with tension and forced herself to unwind. She could, however, sense the risking keen of the generators and felt Isthia tense as she waited for exactly the right mo . . .

She launched them, a good, strong thrust that Damia could objectively admire. It was good to be in deep space again. And then the pod’s proximity alarm beeped urgently.

“Bring up the screen, Damia,” Afra said, leaning forward to peer over her shoulder.

“There it is!” cried Isthia, unnecessarily pointing, her expression exultant.

“It” was not a large ship, which immediately encouraged Damia to believe in amicable motives. “It” was also a deep space craft, having the usual haphazard design of ships that were never intended to land. It did have what looked very much like weaponry: wide-mouthed orifices
that were stained with old fires and long snouts pointing outward and looking effective.

Ian, turn off the DEW
, Isthia said.
We don’t want the Fleet charging out here and blowing us and our visitors up. Yes, that bunch of toggles under the red-rimmed glass panel. Turn ’em all off. The disconnection won’t show up for an hour or two. At which time we’ll know one way or the other
 . . .

“I think I have to go to sleep again,” Damia said drily. “Will just the song do it, Afra? These seats aren’t made for rocking.”

“I could rock the pod,” offered Isthia.

“We’ll try without that, thank you,” Afra said and, with his hand on Damia’s shoulder, began to sing the potent lullaby.

She knew she was shaking her head as sleep once more claimed her.

The pattern was gone. Instead she was inside the other ship, looking out at her tiny cargo pod. This time other figures were clearly visible and they were definitely alien. Despite their unusual appearance, she could sense no danger, nothing “heavy,” only relief. The “visitors” looked to be tall, though she had no gauge by which to compare them, save the bulky equipment. They did not sit, but stood on the three rear appendages, stubby legs which ended in splayed feet with three thick “toes.” The upper limbs had five longer digits, one on each side of a squat “palm” and three along its top. The heads were long, tapering to what appeared to be a muzzle but she could not see a mouth. One eye of a composite nature crowned the thick “head.” There seemed to be dorsal ridges along the backbone. Maybe one of the three feet was actually a caudal appendage. Their skin or pelt, she couldn’t discern which, was sleek and varicolored, ranging from grays through green, brown, and a slatey blue. Some were definitely taller than others, but she didn’t think the smaller ones were immature or another sex.

Instantly her dream self turned toward a flat surface, set at a distance above the deck. This surface abruptly lit up
and images began to form. More of this species, racing to enter what she had to identify as shuttles. These took off into space and she watched them link up with larger versions of the ship she was dreaming on. In a massed array, this fleet left its orbit, obviously in battle readiness.

To her shock, she saw their objective: a Beetle Hive sphere. She watched the battle, saw “her” ships being destroyed, saw the Hive sphere send its fighters out, watched them being destroyed and then, with great relief, saw the Hive ship suddenly explode, sending huge chunks spinning off, sometimes colliding with “her” ships and demolishing them.

Abruptly those scenes segued into huge fragments turning end over end against . . . suddenly the background changed and it was the Denebian system from which the twisted detritus escaped.

Then all the dream figures turned inward to face her and she was overwhelmed with a sense of urgency, of interrogation, of fear.

In yet another wrench of perspective, she was back in the pod, crying out.

“They know about the Beetles. I saw them destroy a Hive. Then there was all this debris spinning in space, away from Deneb.” She turned first to Isthia and then to Afra for a reassuring interpretation of what she’d seen.

“Are they warning us then?” asked Isthia.

‘No, they know we’ve been attacked and survived, as they have survived,” Damia said, choosing her words slowly.

“Then what do they want of us now?” Isthia wanted to know.

“Just don’t put me back to sleep again,” Damia said flatly, rubbing at her temples.

“It seems an admirable way of communicating between species,” Afra said, teasingly, but he patted her arm sympathetically.

“The universe doesn’t have to be full of species who are inimical,” Isthia said. “Perhaps what these folk need are
allies against the Hives. We’ve survived an attack, so we’d make good allies.”

“They’ve certainly gone to great lengths to explain,” Damia admitted. She was beginning to believe that Isthia could be right. Her mind had not been overwhelmed or raped during this closer encounter. They had managed to convey vital information.

“Isthia, can you put me into a hypnotic sleep?” Afra asked. “I was part of both mind-merges: the first Rowan-focus, and then the B-Raven section that sent the Hive sphere into the sun. I can at least give them our battle account.” Then he settled himself in the conformable and linked his hands across his thin waist.

Damia had an impulse to protest, but Isthia unfastened her safety harness and drifted to Afra, holding herself down with one hand while she placed the other firmly on his left temple. Afra seemed to collapse into sleep.

She turned to look out at the visitors’ ship, now noticing how pitted its surface was, how worn and scratched the symbols on what she took to be its bow. There were other ideograms elsewhere, some more legible than others. A complicated language rendered in bars and dots and occasionally cross strokes. Not as complex as some of Earth’s oriental scripts, if that was the right word for them.

“How long did I sleep that last time, Isthia?”

“About half an hour. I didn’t think to time it,” she said, floating back to her own chair. “Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating.” Then she let out a big sigh. “I suspect my son is going to be vastly annoyed with his old mother,” and the eyes she turned on Damia hadn’t the slightest gleam of repentance. “I really should have taken training much earlier. I could have been Deneb’s Prime.”

Damia regarded her grandmother with wonder.

“We tend not to make the most of our chances,” she went on. Extending a hand, she lightly touched Damia’s arm. “Make the most of yours, dear child. But then, you are, aren’t you?”

“Do you think they are emissaries of an altruistic species?”

“I’m quite attached to that notion,” Isthia said comfortably. “I wish we’d thought to bring some provisions.”

Damia laughed. “This was sort of a scramble. Ohho!” Her throat went too dry for more words and she could only point at the vessel which was clearly moving under power.

“Let’s get out of its way,” Isthia said, and frantically reached a hand out to Damia.

Damia, following Isthia’s thought, pushed the pod back so forcefully that the vessel became only a darkness.

“Not that far.”

“It’s following us,” Damia decided after a moment’s observation. “What
is
Afra telling them to do?”

“Come on in, the water’s fine,” Isthia replied facetiously. “This must be the right way to handle this.”