Rediscovery (30 page)

For once, however, Evans didn’t seem prepared to make his usual speech. “I know

the rules,” he replied, surprising Elizabeth, “And there’s no point in debating theories.

You know how I feel; the less control a government has over us, the better.”

“Well, I don’t agree with you any more than I ever did,” the Captain replied. “We can debate principles some other time.”

“Fine,” Elizabeth said wearily, and turned away. Ryan was David’s friend, and

there were times that she liked him, too— but there were times when she disliked everything he stood for. This was supposed to be a celebration, and she really didn’t want to get into an argument that could only provoke bad feeling. But at the same time, she did have some very strong feelings on the subject!

She had never, in her admittedly short life, ever seen a case where drugs did “no”

harm. Even alcohol destroyed brain cells; even something as relatively harmless as chocolate and caffeine induced cravings which, if satisfied, might lead to harm in some individuals. If an informed and otherwise well-adjusted individual chose to use them, that was one thing—but to unleash a flood of exotic drugs on people who had probably never had the chance to think the problem such things posed all the way through—
that
could not and should not be permitted.

The havoc that alcohol had wrought in the Native American and Polynesian

cultures on Terra was only one example of what could happen. Evans’ waving of the

“freedom flag” was superficially very attractive to people who didn’t know any better.

That he was highly intelligent only made his position more attractive to people who didn’t realize he did not have the scruples or ethics to match it.

People with that high an intellect always ought to be targeted for serious ethics
tutoring in early childhood,
she thought, stifling a sigh.

But nothing could be done about Ryan Evans, certainly not at this late a date. He was unlikely to experience a crisis of conscience at his age.

The baby slept in Felicia’s arms; the musicians began a dancing tune, and the

natives began to gather for a circle dance. A few of the more adventurous Terrans, Zeb Scott included, allowed themselves to be persuaded into the circle. Elizabeth, who did not care for dancing, drifted over to the musicians. She passed by a table laden with refreshments and took a glass of the white mountain wine. The first sip was pleasant, but it had a strange aftertaste of bitterness.

Strangely like her conversation with Evans…

“Well?” asked Jessica Duval, a lieutenant with the ship’s crew. Her catlike face was alive with curiosity. “Is it or isn’t it?”

Ysaye made a face. She had never much cared for Jessica’s insatiable appetite for gossip, and now that interest seemed even more distasteful. “I don’t know, and I don’t particularly care,” she said, hoping that Jessica would stick a sock on her nosiness.

“But Ryan Evans says that the baby is some kind of mutant,” Jessica persisted.

“He told Ensign Rogers when he dropped his things off before he came to the festival, he said Kadarin told him. It’s all over the ship.”

“I heard the same thing, and I didn’t bother to investigate the claims,” Ysaye said dryly, hoping that no one standing nearby among the natives was either fluent in Terran Standard or adept at telepathy. “Just because
Rogers says that Evans says that Kadarin
says,
that doesn’t mean it’s the truth or even close. I wasn’t really interested in finding out the details. If it doesn’t matter to these people, it shouldn’t matter to us. Some things ought to be left in a little obscurity.” She leveled what she hoped was a quelling look at Jessica, who shrugged, but didn’t look the least intimidated or ashamed of herself.

“That’s hardly an attitude worthy of a scientist,” David teased. “Where would a

scientist be if he didn’t ask the questions that no one else would ask?”

Ysaye frowned at him; making it as clear as she could that she didn’t consider this a subject for teasing. “There are a few things I wouldn’t do even in the name of science, and violating someone’s privacy is one of them. If you really want to know, you can either ask Felicia herself, or ask the child when it grows up.” Her frown deepened. “You just might bother to take Felicia’s feelings into consideration before you do. It seems to me that her position is difficult enough, but if you want to take the chance of making her uncomfortable, that’s something you’ll have to live with.”

“Heaven forbid,” David replied, sobering. “I must admit that I’m curious, but I’m not that curious, and I wouldn’t make Felicia uncomfortable for the world. She’s been extraordinarily helpful any time I needed to ask her something. That would be no way to repay that graciousness.”

“That’s what I like about you,” Ysaye said affectionately, her stiff attitude melting away with her disapproval. “You agree that there are limits to investigation in the name of science.”

“Well,” David replied, with an ingenuous smile, “I think that anyone—even a

hard scientist—would have to admit that. Really, even though there are questions a scientist should ask when no one else will, there are ethical limits to what a scientist can do. Some of those old experiments in genetic recombination, for instance, just before we got any kind of interstellar capability, resulted in some pretty tragic and bizarre accidents.”

“Wait a moment,” Jessica put in, suddenly losing her air of carelessness, “You

can’t be doctrinaire about that! Those
accidents
were the results of bad science—people doing things they weren’t qualified to do, with inadequate protections! Some of those same experiments properly performed were all that allowed us to colonize Mars—and
that
let us terraform and colonize a lot of other planets without a proper atmosphere!”

Ysaye shook her head; that was one more thing that she and Jessica would never

agree on. No matter how much good had come of it—what would have happened if

Terrans hadn’t interfered? “I’m not so sure they should have been colonized,” she said doubtfully. “Maybe if we’d let them alone, they would have evolved along their own path someday.”

This was such an old argument that David didn’t even bother to get involved. He

knew how Ysaye felt; she had talked about it fairly often with Elizabeth. Odd that someone involved in science should so often take an anti-scientific position. Apparently though, this went back to things she had been taught as a small child—a peculiar “thou shalt not interfere with nature” doctrine. Which made no sense, since Ysaye interfered with nature every time she took an anti-allergy shot, or was given a vaccine booster.

Well, no matter; this argument would come to the same end it always did. No one ever converted anyone else. Instead, he waited for a lull and asked, “So, what did you think of the ceremony, Jessica?”

She seemed relieved at the change of subject. “I liked it,” she said.

The expressions of everyone else in the group showed a similar relief, and David was sorry he hadn’t intervened sooner. “Really, rather touching. It’s too bad that people aren’t that civilized about similar situations in our own culture—there wouldn’t be any paternity suits or messy litigation. It didn’t seem alien at all; it’s the kind of thing you’d expect from Terrans if we were a little more worried about the welfare of our children than of our own pride and convenience.”

“This place doesn’t seem all that alien, really,” someone else agreed. “Between

this festival and the naming, this could have been a combined Christmas party and christening.”

David laughed. “Well, Darkover isn’t alien—at least the customs shouldn’t be.

These people are mostly of Terran stock, and Northern European at that.”

Jessica’s face turned thoughtful. “Does that make you feel too out-of-place,

Ysaye?” she asked. “It never occurred to me that you might not find all this as familiar as some of the rest of us do. If anyone would feel alien here, I should think you would.”

“Oddly enough, no,” Ysaye replied, “Not really. I was brought up on the North

American continent, in the New York-Baltimore megaplex, and it isn’t as if I were from

—oh—Nigeria. And after all, when it really comes down to it all, I’m a human, and so are they. We have a great deal more in common than we have of differences that make us alien.”

She thought of her contacts, mind-to-mind, with Lorill Hastur and Kermiac

Aldaran; their thoughts had hardly been those of aliens. Lorill, in fact, had been more courteous than many of her own shipmates, taking care that he didn’t trouble or disturb her.

But what of that other, nebulous contact she had felt—the one she had sensed

hovering in the back of her thoughts when she played her synthesized flute, or searched the archives for music for Elizabeth? It was as if there were someone else out there—

one with fewer scruples than Lorill—trying to “eavesdrop” on her thoughts. She hadn’t been
certain
of what she had sensed, so she hadn’t said or done anything about it. But if there were folk here who were telepathic, did it follow that all of them could be counted upon to play by the rules?

Well, even if the “presence” hadn’t been anything more than her overactive

imagination, it hadn’t felt particularly alien—at least, no more so than some of her own crewmates. The few clues she had picked up indicated someone very—apart. Not

reclusive, exactly, but someone who felt herself distanced from others. Not entirely unlike the way she often felt, in fact. In some ways, as she had just demonstrated with Jessica, Ysaye often found her own shipmates more alien than any native of Darkover.

David interrupted her thoughts. “Have you seen Kadarin? I assume he must be

back from the Dry Towns. Evans showed up just before the ceremony, and Jessica said Kadarin arrived back an hour or so before that.”

“No,” she replied, indifferently. Kadarin’s presence or absence was not something that mattered much to her, when it all came down to it. “Should I have?”

David was about to reply, when there was a stir at the entrance to the hall. There was a certain commotion, then a silence dropped over that end of the room, a silence that seemed somewhat ominous. Ysaye sensed the sudden tenseness, and turned—

So did everyone else in the room. The dancers stopped in the middle of the set;

the music died in a flurry of confused notes.

Ysaye, along with everyone else in the room, craned her neck to see what the

cause of the disturbance could be. The crowd of dancers suddenly parted, noiselessly, making a corridor of silent, staring onlookers from the door to the dais where Lord and Lady Aldaran and Felicia still sat. And to her surprise, Lorill Hastur, with a small entourage, made his way through the dancers, heading for Kermiac Aldaran and his Lady.

Never before had Ysaye been so struck by an illustration of the phrase “a

deafening silence.”

The only sound was that of footsteps on the wooden floor; the boots of Lorill and his men.

On either side of the Hastur party was a crowd of folk with closed or hostile

expressions. Lorill did not pretend not to notice, but Ysaye saw that his own expression was determined and earnest. He did not strike her as a young man about to make trouble.

She only hoped that trouble was not about to happen anyway, despite his good

intentions.

Kermiac stood straight and cold; his face so set that it could have been carved in stone. Lady Aldaran was absolutely rigid, and even Felicia seemed frozen in place. And it was not her imagination; many of the men had placed their hands on the hilts of daggers that no longer seemed like such amusing ornaments. Ysaye could not for a moment imagine what was about to happen, but the tension in the room did not bode well for Lorill Hastur.

The young man stopped a few paces away from Lord Aldaran, and bowed stiffly.

Kermiac returned his bow with a slight nod of his own—not the full bow that Lorill had granted him. His posture challenged Lorill; saying
this is my land; these are my people.

Here you are not my equal.
Lorill reddened very slightly, but did not seem daunted.

“Lord Aldaran,” said the Hastur heir, carefully and clearly, “I have come to

apologize. I have been instructed by my father and the Keeper of Dalereuth Tower to tell you that I am an exceedingly foolish young man, who overstepped the bounds of proper guest-behavior and compounded his error by speaking and acting as only a fool would.”

Kermiac’s posture softened, just a bit. “Oh?” he replied. “And what do
you
say of that, Lorill Hastur?”

“That my father was being generous—sir,” Lorill replied, forthrightly. “I was not only foolish, I was exceedingly arrogant and stupid. I pledge to you that I meant no harm to your sister, but since I have never been outside of Domain lands, I—mistook what is custom among your people for what is considered boldness among mine. Your lady sister,” he bowed gracefully in Mariel’s direction,” was simply being kind to a stranger. I am sorry if my reaction led her to expect more of me. The Keeper of

Dalereuth made the error of my assumptions very clear to me, in—several ways. All of them quite eloquent.”

By Lorill’s reddening ears and the careful phrasing he used, Ysaye guessed that he had gotten a thorough dressing-down from this “Keeper,” whomever she was.

“I came to apologize personally, for it did not seem that an apology brought by a messenger would be appropriate or sufficient under the circumstances. I hope that you will accept my apologies, sir,” Lorill concluded, “and that with them, you will accept my father’s naming-gifts for your child, the mother, and your lady.”

Three of the men with Lorill held out small colorfully-wrapped packages, and

Ysaye held her breath, hoping that Aldaran would not refuse them.

For a fraction of a second, he hesitated, then he nodded, and the three men placed their packages in the ladies’ hands, with Felicia accepting for the baby.