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Andrew raised his head for an angry retort:
 
It seems we are never likely to know; you are not verylikely to bear me a child as things are now
 
. But her white, anguished face stopped him. He could notreturn taunt for taunt. That thoughtless
 
Terranan
 
had hurt, but he had pledged her that he would nevertry to hurry her, never put her under the slightest pressure. He bit the angry words back, then saw, in thedismay that swept across her face, that she had heard them anyway.

Of course. She is a telepath. The taunt I did not speak was as real to her as if I had actuallyshouted it.

“Callista,” he whispered, “darling, I’m sorry. Forgive me. I didn’t mean—”

“I know.” She stumbled against him, clung there, her bright head against him. She stood, shaking, within the circle of his arm. “Oh, Andrew, Andrew, I wish we had even
 
that
 
…” she whispered, and sobbed aloud.

He held her, hardly daring to move. She felt taut, feather-like, like some wild bird which had flown to

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him and would take flight again at a word or an incautious move. After a moment her sobs quieted, and it was the old, still, resigned face she turned to him. She moved away, so gently that he hardly felt forsaken.

“Look, the liquid has all filtered through. I must finish the medicine I am making for my sister.” She laid her fingertips lightly against his lips, in the old gesture; he kissed them, realizing that in an odd way this quarrel had drawn them closer.

How much longer? In the name of all the Gods at once, how much longer can we go on like this
? And even as the thought tore through his mind, he realized he was not sure whether it was his own or Callista’s.

Three days later, Andrew and Damon rode out, as planned, for Serrais. Ellemir was out of danger, andthere was nothing more that Damon’s presence could do for her. Nothing, Damon knew, could help Ellemir now but time.

Andrew felt strangely relieved, although he would have been ashamed to say so, to get away. He hadnot realized how the tension between himself and Callista, the aura of silent grief, had weighed down onhim at Armida.

The wide high plains, the mountains in the distance, all this could have been the Arizona horse ranch of Andrew’s childhood. Yet he had only to open his eyes to see the great red sun, gleaming like a bloodshoteye through the morning fogs, to know that he was not on Terra, that he was nowhere on Earth. It wasmidmorning, but two small shadowy moons, pale violet and dim lime green, swung low beyond the crestof the hill, one nearing the full, another a waning crescent. The very smell of the air was strange, and yet itwas his home now, his home for the rest of his life. And Callista. Callista, waiting for him. His mind’s eyeretained the memory of her face, pale, smiling from the top of the steps as he rode away. He cherishedthe smile in memory, that with all the grief their marriage had brought to her, she could still smile at him,give him her fingertips to kiss, bid him ride with the Gods in the soft speech he was beginning tounderstand: “
Adelandeyo
.”

Damon, too, brightened perceptibly as the miles lengthened under their horses’ hooves. The last fewdays had put lines in his face that had never been there before, but he no longer looked old, weighteddown with anguish. At midday they dismounted to eat their noon meal, tying their horses to graze on thenew grass poking up sturdy leaves through the remnants of the last blizzard’s snow. They found a dry logto sit on, surrounded by flower buds casting their snow-pods and breaking out in riotous bud and leaf asif it were spring. But when Andrew asked about it, Damon said blankly, “Spring? Zandru’s Hells, no, it’snot even full winter yet, not till after Midwinter feast! Oh, the flowers?” He chuckled. “With the weatherhere, they bloom whenever there’s a day or two of sun and warmth. Your Terran scientists have a phrasefor it, evolutionary adaptation. In the Kilghard Hills, there are only a few days in high summer when itdoesn’t snow, so the flowers bloom whenever they get a little sun. If you think it looks odd here, youshould go into the Hellers, and see the flowers and fruits that grow around Nevarsin. We can’t growice-melons here; you know. It’s too warm—they’re a plant of the glaciers.” And indeed, Damon hadtaken off his fur riding cape, and was riding in shirt-sleeves, though Andrew was still muffled against whatseemed a cold, biting day.

Damon unwrapped the bundle of food Callista had given them for their journey, and broke out laughing. “Callista says—and is very apologetic—that she knows very little of housekeeping. But we are in luck,since she has not yet learned what is suitable food to give to travelers!” There was a cold roast fowl,which Damon divided with the knife at his belt, and a loaf of bread still faintly warm from the oven, and

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Andrew could not imagine why Damon was laughing.

He said, “I don’t see what’s funny about it. She asked me what I thought I would like to eat during along ride, and I told her .”

Damon laughed, handing Andrew a generous portion of the roast meat. It was fragrant with spices whichthe Terran had not yet learned to identify by name. “For some reason, just custom, I suppose, about allthe food one can ever get for the road would be hard journey-bread, dried meat rolls, dried fruits andnuts, that sort of thing.” He watched Andrew slicing up the bread, making a neat sandwich of the roastmeat. “That looks good. I think I shall try it. And—will wonders never cease!—she gave us fresh applestoo, from the cellar. Well, well!” He was laughing as he bit with gusto into the leg of the roast fowl. “Itwould never have occurred tof me to question traveler’s food and it would never have occurred to Elli toask me if it was what I wanted! Maybe we can use some new ideas on our world!”

He sobered, lost in thought as he watched Andrew eating the sliced meat and bread. He himself had hadheretical thoughts about matrix work outside the Towers. There ought to be a way. But he knew if hebroached that to Leonie, she would be horrified, as horrified as if they were in the days of Regis the Fourth.

She would have known he was using a matrix, of course. Every legitimate matrix keyed to a Comyntelepath was monitored from the great screens in the Arilinn Tower. They could have identified Damonfrom his matrix, and Dezi, and, perhaps, though Damon was not sure, even Andrew.

If anyone had been watching. There was a shortage of telepaths for such inessential jobs as monitoringthe matrix screens, so probably no one had noticed. But the monitor screens were there, and everymatrix on Darkover was legally subject to monitoring and review. Even those like Domenic, who hadbeen tested for
 
laran
 
and given a matrix, but never used it, could be followed.

That was another reason why Damon felt they should not waste such a telepath as Dezi. Even if hispersonality did not fit into the intimacy of a circle—and Damon was ready to admit Dezi would be hardto live with—he could be used to monitor a screen.

He thought wryly that today he was full of heresies. Who was he to question Leonie of Arilinn?

He finished off the leg of roast fowl, thoughtfully watching the Terran. Andrew was eating an apple,staring off thoughtfully at the far range of hills.

He is my friend. Yet he came here from a star so far away that I cannot see it in the sky at night. And yet, the very fact that there are other worlds like ours, everywhere in the universe, is going tochange our world.

He looked at the distant hills, and thought,
 
I do not want our world to change
 
, then bleakly laughed athimself. He sat here planning a way to alter the use of matrices on Darkover, thinking of ways to reformthe system of ancient Towers which guarded the old matrix sciences of his world, guarded them in safeways established generations ago.

He said, “Andrew, why are you here? On Darkover?”

Andrew shrugged. “I came here almost by accident. It was a job. And then, one day, I saw Callista’sface—and here I am.”

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“I don’t mean that,” Damon said. “Why are your people here? What does Terra want with our world? We are not a rich world to be exploited. I know enough about your Empire to know that most of the worlds they settle have something to give. Why Darkover? We are a world with few heavy metals, an isolated world with a climate your people find, I gather, inhospitable. What do the Terrans
 
want
 
with us?”

Andrew clasped his hands around his knees. He said, “There is an old story on my world. Someoneasked an explorer why he chose to climb a mountain. And all he said was, ‘Because it’s there!’ ”

“That hardly seems enough reason to build a spaceport,” Damon said.

“I don’t understand all of it. Hell, Damon, I’m no empire-builder. I’d rather have stayed on Dad’s horse ranch. The way I understand it, it’s
 
location
 
. You
 
do
 
know that the galaxy is in the form of a giant spiral?” He picked up a twig and drew a pattern in the melting snow. “This is the upper spiral of the galaxy, and this is the lower arm, and here is Darkover, making it an ideal place for traffic control, passenger transfers, understand?”

“But,” Damon argued, “the travel of Empire citizens from one end of the Empire to the other doesn’t

mean anything to us.”

Andrew shrugged. “I know. I’m sure Empire Central would have preferred an uninhabited world at thecrossroads, so they needn’t have worried about who lived there. But here you are, and here we are.” Heshrank from Damon’s frown. “
 
I
don’t make their policy, Damon. I’m not even sure I understand it. That’s just the way it was explained to me.”

Damon’s laugh was mirthless. “And I was startled by Callista giving us roast meat and fresh apples forjourney-food! Change is relative, I suppose.” He saw Andrew’s troubled look and made himself smile. None of this was Andrew’s fault. “Let’s hope the changes are all for the better, like Callie’s roast fowl!” He got off the log and carefully buried the apple core in a small runnel of snow behind it. Pain struck athim. If things had gone otherwise, he might have been planting this apple for his daughter. Andrew, withthat uncanny sensitivity which he exhibited now and then, bent beside him, in silence, to bury his ownapple core. Not till they were in the saddle again did he say, gently, “Some day, Damon, our children willeat apples from these trees.”

They were away from Armida more than three tendays. In Serrais, it took time to find ablebodied menwho were willing to leave their villages, and perhaps their families, to work on the Armida estate foranywhere up to a year. Yet they could not take too many single men, or it would disrupt the life of thevillages. Damon tried to find families who had ties of blood or fosterage with people at Armida lands. There were many of them. Then Damon wished to pay a visit to his brother Kieran, and to his sister Marisela and her children.

Marisela, a gentle, plump young woman who looked like Damon, but with fair hair where his was red,expressed grief at the news of Ellemir’s miscarriage. She said kindly that if they had no better fortune in ayear or two, Damon should have one of their children to foster, an offer which surprised Andrew, butwhich Damon took for granted.

“Thank you, Mari. It may be needful, at that, since the children of double cousins seldom thrive. I have no great need for an heir, but Ellemir’s arms are empty and she grieves. And Callista is not likely to have a child very soon.”

Marisela said, “I do not know Callista well. Even when we were all little maidens, everyone knew she

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was destined for the Tower, and she did not mingle much with the other girls. People are such gossips,” she added vehemently. “Callie has a perfect right to leave Arilinn and marry if she chooses, but it is true we were all surprised. I know Keepers from the other Towers often leave to marry, but Arilinn? And Leonie has been there since I can remember, since our mother can remember. We all thought she would step directly into Leonie’s shoes. There was a time when the Keepers of Arilinn could not leave their posts if they would…”

“That day is hundreds of years gone,” Damon said impatiently, but Marisela went on, unruffled. “I was tested for
 
laran
 
in Neskaya when I was thirteen, and one of the girls told me that if she was sent to Arilinn she would refuse, since the Keepers there were neutered. They were not women but
 
emmasca
 
, as the legend says that Robardin’s daughter was
 
emmasca
 
and became woman for the love of Hastur…”

“Fairy-tales!” said Damon, laughing. “That has not been done for hundreds of years, Marisela!”

“I am only telling you what they told me,” Marisela said, injured. “And surely Leonie looks near enough to an
 
emmasca
 
, and Callista—Callista is thinner than Ellemir, and she looks younger, so you cannot blame me for thinking she might not be all woman. Even so, that would not mean she could not marry if she wished, although most do not want to.”

“Marisa, child, I assure you that Andrew’s wife is no
 
emmasca
 
!”

Marisela turned to Andrew and inquired, “Is Callista pregnant yet?”

Andrew laughed and shook his head. It was not the slightest use in being cross; standards of reticencediffered enormously between cultures, and why should he blame Marisela, who was after all Callista’scousin, for asking what everyone wanted to know about a bride? He remembered what Damon had saidabout Ellemir and repeated it.