Damia's Children (6 page)

Thian was twitching with excitement but Laria was able to control her own, though she'd a dreadful fluttering in her middle. Not that she hadn't already assisted her parents during emergencies. They all had during the cave-in at the Maltese Cross Mine. Telekinesis had saved every one of the hundred and eight miners from sure death by asphyxiation. Afra had even managed to salvage the bodies of the dead: a great comfort to their grieving families. Laria hadn't been quite sure about
that
aspect of the rescue but she'd been very glad when she'd linked with her mother to extricate the live ones: she, Thian, Rojer, and even Zara had added their strength to their mother's in a spontaneous link. They'd practiced such joinings—for just such an emergency as it had been used for—but this had been life and death.

Today's exercise was merely a union of the four high Talented minds to lift dead weight of refined iron ore and fling it across the galaxy to Betelgeuse and the manufacturies there. They had five to transport.

“This is by way of being a practice session, children,”
Afra said. “Easily within your present abilities and strengths.”

“You'll be doing it often enough and with considerably more drones so that this could become a boring exercise,” Damia added as she settled herself in her couch. “It is
never,
” and she waggled a finger at each of them, “to become either boring or an exercise. You are to pay strict attention to the protocol and the technique now and whenever else you are required to teleport: especially such masses as these.”

Laria and Thian nodded solemnly. They knew how proud their mother was of her Tower status as Aurigaen Prime. She'd held it since she was barely eighteen and never lost a cargo or mishandled one, inanimate or animate. They had been trained since the first time they'd “lifted” with mind power alone.

“Now, settle yourself comfortably,” Damia said, putting her head back on the rest, shaking her hands to relax them.

The generators were coming up to full power. Laria knew the sound intimately. She waggled her hands and let them drape beside her, giving her head a final scrunch. She listened intently to the generators, felt the touch of mother-father in her mind, let the link happen and felt part of that accord, then felt the addition of Thian's. Only it was no longer four separate minds, it was a Mind, much, much stronger than one raised to the fourth power. This Mind was directed to the first of five puny-looking drones, lying like swollen slugs in the paved court of the Trefoil Mining Corporation. The Mind gripped the drone and lifted it up, up, and then as a youngster would skate a flat pebble
across the still waters of a lake or river, the drone was skipped out, beyond the planet, beyond its moon and further, further, further, gathering speed until speed was a blur, until the Mind felt a resistance.

Betelgeuse has it!
said the Mind that was directed by David of Betelgeuse with his grown children behind him.

The first of five,
her Mind announced formally.

Receiving.

Lifting.

Pause.

Receiving.

Lifting.

Pause.

Receiving.
The pattern continued until all five drones had been delivered to their destination.

That is all today.

That is enough today!
the Betelgeuse replied with feeling.

Tut-tut, David. We must set the example for our young.

We ARE our young today, Damia! Salutations, Afra, Laria, Thian.

Salutations, David, Perry, Xahra, Morgelle.

The subsequent silence was as rigid as the exchange had been fluid: almost painful. Laria felt a subtraction, knew that Thian had been dropped from the Mind. Then sensed her own exclusion and opened her eyes, rolling her head to release taut neck muscles. Saw Thian doing the same exercises.

“Thank you,” Damia said warmly. “That made a hard task much easier.”

“I've got the hang of it now, Mother,” Laria said shyly. “No headache.”

“Those only come when you resist the link,” Damia said, reaching across the intervening space to ruffle her daughter's hair. “All right, Thian?”

The boy shook his head, rolled his eyes dramatically. “I must have been resisting. My head's drumming.”

Immediately Damia swung off her couch and went to sit on his, her long fingers massaging the column of his neck and up into the head, down again into the shoulder muscles. Thian made faces at Laria who sympathized because she knew how strong her mother's fingers were even as she envied Thian the special treatment.

“Comes with practice,” Afra said, sliding beside his daughter and giving her a gentle massage.

Thian grimaced again. “We'll get plenty of that now, won't we?”

“Enough to
learn
the technique required,” Damia said. “There, that should do the trick. Off you go, now. You've studies to do as well today!”

Thian groaned and Laria was certain that he only pretended to the headache, hoping to be excused from lessons. Mother was a lot smarter than Thian! She kept her notion to herself, however, for she wasn't in the mood to pick a fight right now. Being part of the Mind might be just part of the work of the telekinetic Talent but the merging, being part of her parents, her brother, being tuned to the generators exalted her—yes, exalt
was
exactly the word—in a way no other facet of her Talent did. She'd once tried to explain the complexity of that rapport to her father and stumbled badly. But
they weren't telepaths for nothing and he had cradled her in his arms, assuring her, telepathically, that he knew exactly what she meant. That that was how it should be, a transcendence of self. She had been much reassured.

Despite the fact that she had grown up among high Talents, had given evidence of very strong aptitudes by the time she was three, there were certain aspects of the gifts that were occasionally overwhelming.

“And that, my little love,” her father had said, cradling her gently and tenderly, letting his love for her wrap like a warm soft shawl about her, “is exactly how it should be. It doesn't do to become arrogant and that's a danger we must studiously shun.”

Now she made her way down from the Tower, into the main room of the complex, waved to Keylarion, the Tower's T-6, and Herault the stationmaster who looked inordinately relieved that the transfer of such mass had gone so smoothly. Xexo didn't look up from the gauges of his beloved generators and Filamena, the expeditor, was busy watching a scroll of incoming cargo assignments.

Tip and Huf looked up from the complicated stick game they were playing with Mur and Dip when she appeared on the steps. They whistled and began to gather up the splinters in front of them. Mur and Dip protested, and Laria had to laugh. No matter how often the two sets played, Tip and Huf were always the winners and Mur and Dip never seemed to figure out how. She signed to Mur that she couldn't beat Tip and Huf either but that didn't much appease them. Thian's
arrival did and the sextet set out back to the terraced house and the tutorials awaiting them. For all six young creatures had lessons to attend and that was how they occupied themselves until it was time to prepare lunch.

W
HEN her parents told Laria that she would shortly be going to the Mrdini homeworld, she was at first ecstatic. At the same time, Tip and Huf had been informed by the Aurigaen Mrdini chief and their joy to be going home was expressed in the form of incredible joyous acrobatics of such complexity that everyone in the Raven-Lyon household stopped whatever they were doing to see their display. The other 'Dinis joined in with suitable support gyrations, not as complex as Tip and Huf were managing, for after all, it was Tip and Huf who were going home.

It was perhaps seeing such antics on her home terrace that made Laria realize that she would be leaving it. Leaving Saki, the Coonies, the Darbuls, even the slithers: leaving her brothers and sisters, and most of all leaving her parents and all that was familiar and homey. Laria suppressed the rising
doubt and nebulous anxieties about her ability to handle all she would experience now. The exchange pact had been explained to her since the day, at five, she'd asked her parents why some people didn't have 'Dini friends. But oh, how she would miss everyone!

We would be terribly hurt if you didn't,
her father said gently, obviously speaking only to her. She managed a smile for him as she turned to where he stood on the top of the terrace steps with her mother.
You will be only a thought away, dear heart,
he added.
We have that advantage.

Yes, we do, Daddy,
she replied stoutly and resolutely turned her thoughts to positive ones. The first was to fix in her mind's eye the scene around her; their house with the mountains looming behind them in unbroken stretch, the city below her with the faint rattle and clang of mine machinery (a constant background noise), the 'Dinis dancing, the admiring audience of her brothers and sisters, Coonies and Darbuls, and even a few slithers who carefully kept to the banks where they would be less apt to be trampled by flippered feet.

The evening sky was a particularly beautiful shade of azure, darkening slowly to the vivid depths of night. There was even a breeze, flowing down from the mountains, that was cold and redolent of the pungent vegetation that was welcoming Aurigaen spring. And, as ever, the faint acrid whiff that left a metallic aftertaste at the back of the throat.

Laria would remember this scene, this moment, forever. She knew it, and sighed deeply.

*   *   *

Her sisters, Zara, Kaltia, and even five-year-old Morag, helped her pack while the 'Dinis watched.
They didn't have more to take home than a small pouch apiece, oddments that were valuable only to them: pieces of pretty rocks and sea-shells, beaded panels of unknown usage and uncut gemstones which were their particular favorites. When their fondness for jewels had been noticed, Afra had located a lapidary among the Aurigaen miners but, while the 'Dinis displayed keen interest in the process, they were not at all intrigued with the formality of cutting their gems. The 'Dinis on Earth had evidently cornered the market on pearls, nacre and other iridescent marine shells, items not available on Aurigae.

Leaving Saki was the hardest part although Laria knew that Zara, who would inherit the amiable horse, adored her. She would be leaving Saki in the best possible hands. Zara's pony would now pass to Morag who was just old enough to manage. But once Laria had accepted that necessity, she began to get excited about the adventure. For it would be one. She felt it from both her mother and father, including a touch or two of envy that she would be having an experience that they couldn't. Thian was particularly strong in his envy aura but he'd only a year or so to wait before he could come, too, so Laria didn't mind him. Rojer was the most unhappy because he hadn't been part of the 'Dini exchange and he really, really wanted to be. Laria tried projecting soothing thoughts to him but he caught her at it and disappeared on one of his solitary hunts. Dismayed, she kept a light touch on him, but though Rojer might only be twelve now, he was clever and eluded her.

Sometimes Laria felt like the 'Dinis, leaping about with excitement; at others, she wondered
just what she was getting into. Whether or not the 'Dinis had had similar trepidations, she didn't know but she received such supportive dreams from Tip and Huf, that gradually anticipation became wholly positive. She almost couldn't bear the wait until the hour she was to depart.

As several other 'Dini pairs were making the trip home, a large carrier was to be used. Almost too keyed up to contain herself, Laria hugged each of her siblings, her mother and father, and practically dove into the capsule.

As he closed the hatch, her father winked in such a conspiratorial fashion that she was startled.

Glad you stayed around to go by carrier, love,
he said.
You looked about ready to make the jump unaided.
She wriggled with her impatience and grinned radiantly back at him.

She
had
felt that way.
I've got more sense than that, Dad!

If you hadn't, we wouldn't have considered sending you, Laria,
he replied in his droll fashion.
When in doubt, use that good common sense of yours, coonie, and you'll be fine.

Calling her ‘coonie' was his especial endearment and a flood of prideful love enveloped her. She widened an already cheek-breaking smile and he completed the closure, slapping the roof of the carrier as the cargo handlers always did.

Laria wiggled again, scrunching herself more comfortably onto the padding. Then she turned her head to be sure that the 'Dinis were all secure in their specially made hammocks.

Ready?
her mother asked.

Ready,
Laria answered, dying for the protocol of sending to be finished so she could GO!