Rediscovery (27 page)

allowed to indulge your whims. That will end. We are all under orders in this, I as much as you. The day will come when—like all Keepers—you will
be responsible only to your own conscience. But for now you must do as you are told. Marelie is a hard

taskmistress and will brook no disobedience. You must obey not only the spirit of what she tells you, but the letter as well. There must be no impromptu trying of your
laran
powers; no excursions into the overworld or unordered weather-working. And I doubt you could cozen her in any way.” Fiora allowed a hint of a smile. “After all, since she is also a Hastur, she was probably much like you as a girl. It is most likely that she knows all your little tricks. At any rate, it is out of my hands; the Comyn Council has been informed and has backed her request with their order, which is what I would have told you if you had been reluctant to go. You would have had to petition them to be released from this—though I have little doubt you could cozen
them.
I suspect you have in the past.”

“I stand ready to do as the Comyn have ordered,” replied Leonie correctly, as a

dutiful daughter of the Hasturs should. “But I shall miss you!” she exclaimed. “Really, really. Fiora, I shall miss you! You have been so much kinder to me than I deserved!”

Fiora smiled at Leonie with genuine warmth.

“And I you,
domna;
try and be a credit to us there,” she said. “Now, you must go.

Have your attendant pack your things—you know she will not be allowed to accompany you to Arilinn? There are no human servants there, for they cannot come within the Veil

—the trap-matrix that protects you at Arilinn Tower.”

Fiora well remembered the Veil, and the Tower inside it. But not with trepidation; for thanks to the Veil, Arilinn Tower was the only place in all the Domains where a telepath could be completely shielded from the “noise” of outside minds without having to erect his or her own shields. No stray thoughts ever penetrated the Veil. Marelie had said that at one time, all Towers had such protections. Fiora had sometimes wished that Dalereuth did still. There was something so peaceful about a Tower containing nothing but trained, well-ordered minds.

Well, I shall never have that again, so there is no use in pining after it.

That revelation seemed a little dismaying to Leonie, and Fiora was really not too surprised. She had never in all her life had to do without a servant. “Must I dress myself, then?” she asked, then sighed, thinking of her complicated dresses, with lacing up the back, or long rows of hooks or buttons, of bodices that must be put on just
so,
and layers of petticoats; hard to reach and harder to do up properly even with a servant to help.

“Ah, well, if you did, I suppose I can learn to do whatever I must.” She did have simpler clothing; perhaps if she packed only that, she would not fare so badly. But she did dislike looking untidy, and until she got used to dressing herself, she probably would.

Fiora chuckled. “No, dear, you will not have to go about looking like a half-

dressed hoyden. There are servants there in plenty, but they are all
kyrri
—nonhumans.

They will help look after you. But the robes of a matrix worker and a Keeper are simpler than your Court dresses. I have dressed myself all my life, and there will truly be times when you will not
want
any sentient creature near you. And you will not need as much clothing as you wear now, for Arilinn Tower is as warm as a day in high summer, at all seasons.”

“Oh,” Leonie said, surprised once again. No one had ever told her so much about

Arilinn before—probably because few she knew had ever gone there and fewer still returned willing to talk about it.

“Now listen, for I must tell you what your life at Arilinn will be like,” Fiora said, and Leonie sat down again, obediently.

It would have to be different, if Fiora was warning her about it. Harder, without a doubt. But with unequaled rewards.

“First, you will not be allowed any contact with those outside the Tower,” Fiora said. “I mean that, Leonie. No contact at all. Not your father, not your brother, not your dearest friend, not even though your family were dying. You are supposed to be

concentrating all your mind on what is going on within the Tower, and learning that what goes on outside it need not concern you until you are a Keeper and qualified to make decisions on your own.”

“I know that,” Leonie replied. “You have already told me. I can bear with that.”

But she thought differently, although she would not have told Fiora that openly.

They could not keep her imprisoned away from Lorill in thought unless she wished it.

And he would be in contact with the rest of the world.
I shall not be so isolated as Fiora
thinks.

“You need not pack all that you brought,” Fiora continued. “They have your

measure, and you will be wearing robes like mine for the most part. Take a dress or two, and a few keepsakes that you will be allowed to have for the first few weeks or months.

Later you will have to give up even those few tokens, and all you have owned of your previous life will be put into storage. It is part of the process of detachment.”

“Detachment?” Leonie asked curiously. “What is that? You have never told me of

anything like that.”

“A Keeper must have no attachments to anything but her work and those she

works with,” Fiora replied calmly. “So you must give up those things to which you have become attached. First, your kin and friends, then your possessions. This is so that you will realize that possessions mean nothing, and the only
true
kin you have are those who work with you in the Tower. Your loyalty must first be to them, then to the Domains as a whole, and only then to your kinfolk. Even your twin— you may be permitted to see him no more than once a year, and even then, it will be a full year once you arrive at Arilinn before that first visit.”

Leonie considered that, and Fiora smiled a little sadly; Leonie would not be easy to teach—but, oh, how rewarding the girl would be, a credit to her teachers.

Still, she posed a problem far beyond Fiora’s own skill. Fiora was no novice as a teacher, and her skill was considerable, but Leonie was more than she could handle.

Not more than Marelie could deal with, however. Fiora had no doubt that the

formidable Keeper of Arilinn could make a Keeper of a catman if she chose.
So,
Fiora thought,
like it or not, she will learn.

“What of my brother?” Leonie asked. “Why is he coming here?”

The last that Leonie had heard, Lorill was still at Caer Donn. He’d said nothing of coming home. How would she know what was happening with the star folk if he was at Dalereuth.

“Your father suggested that he needed more training,” Fiora replied delicately.

“He requires more seasoning before he takes on any more errands for the Council.”

What the older Hastur had told her in dismay was that his “young whelp” had

compromised himself with Kermiac Lord Aldaran’s own sister.

Lord Stefan Hastur had been angry, as much with himself as his son. That much

had been clear to Fiora.

“He needs to learn that every female that looks at him is not flirting with him. He needs to see that women are not to be treated as playthings. I think being under the discipline of a woman while he masters his
laran
will teach him that.”

There had been some doubt in Hastur’s mind whether his son had misused his

laran,
consciously or unconsciously, in bending the Aldaran girl to incline toward him.

That was certainly possible; while Lorill did not have nearly the power his twin sister had, what he did have was more than enough to content any Comyn father.

That must be trained, and quickly, before misuse became habitual.

“Your father also said, and I agree, that Lorill needs to learn the full extent of his own
laran.”
At Leonie’s brief surge, quickly covered, of skepticism, Fiora continued, “I know he does not appear to have nearly as much as you do, Leonie, but he has more than enough to qualify as your father’s Heir, and more than many young Comyn. After all, your powers are formidable enough for three; anyone’s compared to yours would appear to be slight.”

Leonie pondered that as well, and realized that it was entirely true. Lorill
had
reached her all the way from Aldaran, and had wakened her from a sound sleep, too. So he could not be all that weak.

“I am glad to see that he is receiving training at last, then,” she replied. “Will he be here long?”

“Not long; probably no more than two or three tendays,” Fiora replied. “After all, he will soon have to take his place in the Cadet Guards at Thendara. He will probably have as little time to contact you when he’s there as you will have to reach him when you’re at Arilinn.”

“So we are both bowing to duty.” Leonie replied, and stood. “I must get to mine, then, if I am to leave in the morning. Thank you again, Fiora!”

This is good,
Leonie told herself, as she took her leave of the Keeper and went to pack her things.
Lorill will still be in the thick of things, and I shall know what is going
on. No matter what. For I do not think that even the Keeper of Arilinn Tower can keep
me apart from my twin brother mind-to-mind if that is what we truly wish.

Fiora smiled as Leonie’s steps retreated. She had not yet met the formidable

Marelie; and Fiora had not lied when she said that she thought Marelie would be more than a match for Leonie’s pranks.

But the only way that child will learn is by hard experience,
she thought.
Well, she
will have that
—
and more than she wants of it, before Marelie is done with her.

Bring together two Vegans, and they start a religion. Bring together two Deltans,
and they form a political party. Bring together two Terrans, and they build a town.

That was the saying, anyway, and in Elizabeth’s experience, it was probably true.

There was something about Terrans—or at least those in the Service—that seemed to make them eager to put their signature on a new world, to make a little piece of Terra in the midst of whatever strangeness might be.

As if we were territorial animals, and we were marking our territory with a town
instead of scent,
Elizabeth thought, amused. And this particular city had gone up in record time, just over a month.

In the center of the complex stood the Terran Headquarters, very similar to the

Terran Headquarters of any other spaceport in the galaxy. Even the lighting inside the complex was the same; mounted on the highest point of all the Empire buildings and on stanchions and poles overhead were the familiar yellow lights of Terra. Wherever Terrans went in the galaxy, they would find familiar working conditions. Too many psychological problems had been linked to the unfamiliar, sometimes uncomfortable, light of other suns. And indeed, tempers did start to ease a bit, the day those lights were turned on. One of the crew had told Elizabeth that it was nice to see faces that didn’t look as if they were flushed or bathed in blood.

Right now there was one difference between what had been built here and the

usual HQ buildings. These were wood, not stone; that would have to wait until materials were available for the permanent replacements. Stone was in the process of being quarried and bricks being made for the more substantial buildings that would replace the temporary wooden structures as soon as possible. Work on the spaceport, however, had not gone according to plan.

Usually the Terrans were able to hire local skilled workers to build whatever was the planetary equivalent of good roads, and use them to construct the first landing fields for the spaceport. The first ships in didn’t require much more than their own did, after all; a flat, stable place to land, one able to take the heavy weight of a ship, and a good, secure refueling depot. Even Bronze Age cultures had sufficient road-building

capability; the Romans and ancient Chinese had created perfectly good roads, and could, if given the proper design and instruction, have laid out a serviceable spaceport.

But here on Darkover, the spaceport engineer had hit an unexpected snag.

The inhabitants of Cottman IV—now dubbed “Darkover,” the best approximation

for the name the natives had for their world—did not construct very good roads. In point of fact, they didn’t really construct roads at all, for the most part. Roads seemed to just happen. Someone needed to go somewhere, and they followed game trails or cut across country to get there. If enough people followed the same track to the same place, it became a road as their horses and
chervines
and feet beat down the vegetation. And if someone truly needed to get across an obstacle like a stream or a ravine, he might throw up a rough bridge, or create a ford, or even a ferry.

But there was no earth-moving equipment at all, not even the concept of it. No

rock-crushing equipment. No paving equipment. No “construction” equipment of any kind. No skilled workers used to that kind of work and readily trainable.

So, the first requisition from the new settlement had gone out asking, not for

specialists and their equipment, and a Trade delegation, but for heavy machinery and the personnel to run it. Meanwhile, the spaceport engineer was making do with a pool of completely unskilled labor, former farmers who at least knew how to level land, and whatever machinery could be jury-rigged to clear and flatten the first landing field. The engineer was beside himself; he was having to instruct everyone in everything.

The Captain had appointed himself the default supervisor of the project, since he was the closest to being qualified for the job.

It put him in a very odd position: it was Empire policy to hire local workers for this sort of thing; it helped to ease the transition period and made for good relations with the locals. Local labor could assume that, rather than taking jobs from the people, the Empire would be providing them. And indeed, they had been able to hire as many