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“I don’t know anything any more. And what I do know doesn’t help much!” He felt ragged despair. “Do

you really think I could have—”

“No, no, of course not, bredu. I understand why you couldn’t. I don’t think any decent man could!” Gently, he laid a hand on Andrew’s wrist. “Andrew, what saved you— saved you both—was the fact that she
 
wasn’t
 
afraid. That she loved you, wanted you. So all she hit you with was the physical reflex she couldn’t control. She didn’t even knock you out; it was hitting your head on the furniture that did that. If she had been terrified and fighting you, if you had really been trying to take her unwilling, can you
 
imagine
 
what she would have thrown at you?” he demanded. “Callista is one of the most powerful telepaths on Darkover, and trained as a Keeper in Arilinn! If she had hated it, if she had thought of it as rape, if she had felt any… any fear or revulsion against your desire, you’d have been dead!” He repeated for emphasis, “You’d be dead, dead,
 
dead
 
!”

But she was afraid, Andrew thought, until Damon and Ellemir made contact… It was the awareness of Ellemir’s pleasure that made her want to share it! Even more disturbing was the thought of Damon, awareof Callista as
 
he
 
had been aware of Ellemir. Damon, sensing his distress, was for a moment shocked,experiencing it as a rebuff. They had all been so close, didn’t Andrew want to be part of what they were? He laid his hand on Andrew’s shoulder, a rare touch for a telepath, natural enough at this moment in theawareness of the intimacy they had shared. Andrew shrank from it, and Damon withdrew, troubled and alittle saddened. Must he stay at such a distance? How long? How long? Was he brother or stranger?

But he said gently, “I know it’s new to you, Andrew. I keep forgetting that I grew up as a telepath,taking this sort of thing for granted. It will be all right, you’ll see.”

All right? Andrew asked himself. To know that only the fact that he had become an involuntary voyeurkept his wife from killing him? To know that Damon—and Ellemir—both took this kind of thing forgranted, expected it, welcomed it? Did Damon resent his wanting Callista all to himself? He rememberedthe suggestion that Callista had made, remembered the feel of Ellemir in his arms, warm, responsive—
 
as Callista could not be
. Shocked, in desperate confusion, he turned away from Damon, blundering withhorror to get out of the room. He was overloaded with shame and horror. He wanted—needed—to getaway, anywhere, anywhere out of here, away from Damon’s too revealing touch, from the man whocould read his most intimate thoughts. He did not know that he was virtually ill, with a very real illnessknown as culture shock. He only knew he felt sick, and the sickness took the form of furious rage against Damon. The heavy scent of the herbs made him afraid he would vomit. He said thickly, “I’ve got to getsome air,” and pushed the door open, stumbling through the deserted kitchens and into the yard. Hestood with the heavy snow falling all around him, and damned the planet where he had come and thechances that had brought him here.

I should have died when the plane went down. Callie doesn’t need me
…
 
I’m never going to doanything but hurt her
 
.

Damon said behind him, “Andrew, come and talk to me. Don’t go off like this alone and try to shut it allout.”

“Oh, God,” Andrew said, drawing a breath like a sob, “I have to. I can’t talk any more. I can’t take it

any more. Let me alone, damn it, can’t you just let me alone for a little while?”

He felt Damon’s presence like a sharp physical pain, a pressure, a compulsion. He knew he was hurting Damon; refused to know, to turn, to look… Finally Damon said very gently, “All right, Ann’dra. I know

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you’ve had all you can take. A little while, then. But not too long.” And Andrew knew without turning that Damon was gone. No, he thought with a shudder of horror, Damon had never been there at all, was still back in the little stone-floored still-room.

He stood in the courtyard, heavy snow blowing around him, its fury only a little abated by the enclosingwalls.
 
Callista
 
. He reached for the reassurance of her touch, but she was not there, only a faint pulse,restless, and he dared not disturb her drugged sleep.

What can I do? What can I do
? To his dismay and horror he began to weep, alone in the wilderness ofsnow. He had never felt so alone in his life, not even when the plane went down and he found himselfalone on a strange planet, beneath a strange sun, in trackless unmapped mountains…

Everything I ever knew is gone, useless, meaningless or worse. My friends are strangers, my wifethe most alien of all. My world is gone, renounced. I can never go back; they think me dead.

He thought,
 
I hope I catch pneumonia and die
 
, then, aware of the childishness of that, realized he wasin very real danger. Drearily, not from any sense of self-preservation, but the remnant of vague duty, heturned and went inside. The house looked alien, strange, not a place where any Terran could manage tolive. Had it ever seemed welcoming, home? He looked with profound alienation around the empty hall,glad it was empty.
 
Dom
 
Esteban must be taking his midday rest. The maids were gossiping in soft voices. He sank down wearily on a bench, let his head rest in his arms, and stayed there, not asleep, but inretreat, hoping that if he stayed very quiet it would all go away somehow and not be real.

A long time later someone put a drink in his hands. He swallowed it gratefully, found another, andanother, blurring his senses. He heard himself babbling, pouring it all out to a suddenly sympathetic ear. There were more drinks. He knew, and welcomed it, when he passed out.

There was a voice in his mind, worming its way past his barriers, deep into his unconscious, past hisresistance.

No one wants you here. No one needs you here. Why not go away now, while you can, beforesomething dreadful happens. Go away now, back where you came from, back to your own world. You’ll be happier there. Go now. Go away now. No one will know or care.

Andrew knew there was some flaw in his reasoning. Damon had given him some good reason why heshould not go, then he remembered that he was angry with Damon.

The voice persisted, gentle, cajoling:

You think Damon is your friend. Don’t trust Damon. He will use you, when he needs help, andthen turn on you
. There was something familiar about the voice, but it wasn’t a voice at all. It wassomehow inside his mind! He tried in panic to shut it out, but it was so soothing.

Go away now. Go away now. No one needs you here. You will be happy when you go back toyour own people. You will never be happy here.

With fumbling steps, Andrew went out into the side hall. He found his riding cloak, fastened it around hisshoulders. Someone was helping him, buckling it around him. Damon, was it? Damon knew he couldn’tstay. He couldn’t trust Damon. He would be happy with his own people. He would get back to Thendara, back to the Trade City and the Terran Empire where his mind was his own…

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Go now. No one wants you here.

Even thickly drunk and blurred as he was, the violence of the storm struck him hard enough to take hisbreath away. He was about to turn back, but the voice pounded inside his head.

Go now. Go away. No one wants you here. You’ve failed. You’re only hurting Callista. Go away,go to your own people.

His boots floundered in the snow, but he kept on, lifting and dropping them with dogged determination.
 
Callista doesn’t need you
 
. He was drunker than he realized. He could hardly walk. He could hardlybreathe, or did the flurrying snow take his breath away, snatch it, refuse to give it back?

Go away. Go back to your own people. No one needs you here.

He came a little to himself, with a final desperate attempt of self-preservation. He was alone in the storm,and the lights of Armida had vanished in the darkness. He turned desperately, stumbling, falling to hisknees, realizing he was drunk, or mad. He stumbled to his feet, felt his mind blurring, fell full length in thesnow. He must get up, go on, go back, get to shelter—but he was so tired.

I will just rest here for a minute
...
just a minute
 
….

Darkness covered his mind and he lost consciousness.

Chapter Nine

«^»

Damon worked for a long time in the narrow, stone-floored still-room, finally giving up in disgust. Therewas no way that he could make
 
kirian
 
as it was made in Arilinn. He had neither the skill nor, hesuspected from a relatively thorough investigation of the equipment here, the proper materials. Heregarded the crude tincture which he had managed to produce without enthusiasm. He didn’t think hewould care to experiment with it himself, and he was sure Callista would not. There was, however, aconsiderable amount of the raw material, and he might be able to do better another day. Perhaps heshould have begun with an ether extraction. He would ask Callista. As he washed his hands and carefullydisposed of the residues, he thought suddenly of Andrew. Where had he gone? But when he wentupstairs again, to find Callista still sleeping, Ellemir answered his concerned question with surprise.

“Andrew? No, I thought him still with you. Shall I come—”

“No, stay with Callista.” He thought Andrew must have gone down to talk to the men, or out to the stables through the underground tunnels. But
 
Dom
 
Esteban, alone at his frugal supper with Eduin and Caradoc, frowned when questioned.

“Andrew? I saw him drinking in the lower hall with Dezi. From the way they were pouring it down, I suppose he has passed out somewhere.” The old man’s gray eyebrows bristled with scorn. “Nice behavior, with his wife ill, to go off and get himself sodden drunk! How is Callista?”

Damon said, “I don’t know,” and thought suddenly that the old
 
Dom
 
knew. What else could it be, with Callista ill in bed and Andrew going off to get drunk? But one of the strongest sexual taboos on Darkoverwas that which separated the generations. Even if
Dom
 
Esteban had been Damon’s own father instead of

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Ellemir’s, custom would have forbidden him to discuss this.

Damon searched the house, in all the likely places, then, in growing panic, all the unlikely ones. Finally hesummoned the servants, to hear that no one had seen Andrew since midafternoon, when he and Dezi hadbeen drinking in the lower hall.

He sent for Dezi, suddenly afraid lest Andrew, drunk and not yet accustomed to Darkovan weather,should have gone out into the blizzard, underestimating its power. When the youngster came into theroom, he asked, “Where is Andrew?”

Dezi shrugged. “Who knows? I’m not his guardian or his foster-brother!”

But at the unconcealable flash of triumph, a momentary glint before Dezi’s eyes evaded his, suddenly

Damon
 
knew
 
. “All right,” he said grimly. “Where is he, Dezi? You were the last to see him.”

The boy gave a sullen shrug. “Back to where he came from, I suppose, and good riddance!”

“In
 
this
 
?” Damon stared in consternation at the storm raging beyond the windows. Then he swung on

Dezi with a violence that made the boy flinch and shrink away from him.

“
 
You
had something to do with this!” he said, low and furious. “I’ll deal with you later. Now there is no

time to lose!”

He ran, shouting for the servants.

Andrew woke, slowly, to burning pain in his feet and hands. He was rolled in blankets and bandages. Ferrika was bending over him with something hot. Holding his head, she got him to swallow it. Damon’seyes swam out of the fog, and groggily Andrew realized that Damon was really worried about him. Hecared. It was not true, what Andrew had thought.

Damon said gently, “We found you just in time, I think. Another hour and we could never have savedyour feet and hands; two hours and you would have been dead. What do you remember?”