Time is running out....
Desideria swung back a curtain, and stepped through a blue magnetic shimmer. Melitta followed. Storn, seized by indefinable reluctance, hesitated, then stepped forward.
A stinging shock ran through him, and—for an instant Dan Barron, bewildered, half-maddened, and fighting for sanity, stared around him at the weird trappings of the matrix laboratory, as if waking from a long, long nightmare.
“Storn—?” Desideria’s hand touched his. He forced himself to awareness and smiled. “Sorry. I’m not used to fields quite as strong.”
“I should have warned you. But if you could not come through the field you would not have enough knowledge to help us, in any case. Here, let me find what I need.”
She flicked a small button and motioned them to seats.
“Wait for me.”
Slowly, Storn became aware of the strange disorganizing humming. Melitta was staring at him in astonishment and dismay but it took all his strength not to dissolve beneath the strange invisible sound, not to vanish....
A telepathic damper. Barron had been aware of one, at Armida, with his developing powers, he had just been disturbed at it, but now ... now ...
Now there was not even time to cry out, it was vibrating through his brain—through temporal lobes and nerves, creating disruption of the nets that held him in domination, freeing—Barron! He felt himself spinning through indefinable, blue-tinged, timeless space—falling, disappearing, dying—blind, deafened, entranced.... He spun down into unconsciousness, his last thought was not of Melitta left alone, nor of his victim Barron. It was Desideria’s gray eyes and the indefinable touch of her compassion and knowledge, that went down with him into the night of an unconsciousness so complete that it was like death....
Barron came to consciousness as if surfacing from a long, deep dive.
“
What the bloody hell is going on here?
” For a moment he had no idea whether or not he had spoken the words aloud. His head hurt and he recognized the invisible humming vibration that Valdir Alton had called a telepathic damper—that was all his world for a moment.
Slowly he found his feet and his balance. It was as if for days he had walked through a nightmare, conscious, but unable to do anything but what he did—as if some other person walked in his body and directed his actions while he watched in astonishment from somewhere; powerless to intervene. He suddenly woke with the controlling power gone, yet the nightmare went on. The girl he had seen in the dream was there, staring up at him in mild concern—his sister?
Damn it, no, that was the other guy
. He could remember everything he had done and said, almost everything he had
thought
, while Storn commanded him. He had not shifted position but somehow the focus had changed. He was himself again, Dan Barron, not Storn.
He opened his mouth to raise hell, to demand explanations and give a few, to make everything very clear, when he saw Melitta looking up at him in concern and faint fright. Melitta! He hadn’t asked to get involved with her, but here she was and from what he could realize, he was her only protector.
She’s been so brave; she’s come so far for help, and here it is within her reach; and what will happen if I make myself known?
He was no expert on Darkovan law and custom, but the one thing he did know from walking with Storn for seven or eight days was that, by Darkovan standards, what Storn had done was a crime.
Fine—I could murder him for it, and God willing, some day I will. That’s one hell of a thing to do to a man’s mind and body! But none of it was Melitta’s fault. No. I’ll have to play the game for a while.
The silence had lasted too long. Melitta said; with growing fear in her voice, “Storn?”
He made himself smile at her and then found it didn’t take an effort. He said, trying to remember how Storn had spoken, “It’s all right, that—telepathic damper upset me a little.”
And boy, was that a masterpiece of understatement!
Desideria came back to them before Melitta could answer, carrying various things wrapped in a length of silk. She said, “I must go and make arrangements for transportation and escort to take you into the hills near High Windward, to the caves where the forge folk have gone. You cannot help in this, why not go and rest? You have a long journey behind and ahead, and difficult things—” She glanced up at Barron and quickly away, and he vaguely wondered why.
What’s the matter with the red-headed kid?
He suddenly felt faint and swayed, and Desideria said quickly, “Go with your brother, Melitta; I have many plans to make. I will come for you at sunset.”
Too disoriented and confused to do anything else, Barron let Melitta lead him through the suddenly strange corridors to a room where he knew he had slept the night before but which he had never consciously seen before. She stood looking down at him, distressed.
“Storn, what’s happened? Are you ill? You look at me so strangely—
Storn! Loran!
” Her voice rose in sudden panic, and Barron put out a hand to quiet her.
“Take it easy, kid—” He realized he was speaking his own language and shifted back, with some effort into the tongue Storn and his sister spoke together. “Melitta, I’m sorry,” he said with an effort, but her eyes were fixed on him in gnawing horror and understanding.
“The telepathic damper,” she whispered. “Now I understand.
Who are you?
”
His admiration and respect for the girl suddenly grew. This must have been just about the most terrifying and disconcerting thing that had ever happened to her. After she’d been so far, and been through so much, and with help so near, to find that her brother was gone and she was alone with a stranger—a stranger who might be raving mad, or a homicidal maniac, and in any case was probably mad—and she didn’t run or scream or yell for help. She stood there white as a sheet, but she stood up to him and asked, “Who are you?”
God, what a girl!
He said, trying to match her calm, “I think your brother told you my name, but in case he didn’t, it’s Dan Barron. Dan will do, but you’d better go on calling me Storn or some of these people may get wise. You don’t want that to happen when you’ve been through so much, do you?”
She said, almost incredulous, “You mean—after what my brother’s done to you, you’ll still help me? You’ll go back with us to Storn?”
“Lady,” said Barron, grim and meaning it more than he had ever meant anything in his life, “Storn is the one place on this damn planet that I want to go more than anything else in the world. I’ve got to help you get those bandits out of your castle so that I can get to your brother—and when I get my hands on him, he’s going to wish he only had Brynat Scarface to deal with! But that’s nothing against you. So relax. I’ll help you play your game—and Storn and I can settle our private difficulties later on. Good enough?”
She smiled at him, setting her chin courageously.
“Good enough.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
There was an airplane.
Barron looked at it in amazement and dismay. He would have sworn that there were few surface craft on Darkover; certainly no fuel was exported from the Zone for them, and he had never known of one being sold on Darkover, except one or two in Trade City. But here it was, and obviously of Empire manufacture. When he climbed into it he realized that all the controls had been ripped out; in place of an instrument panel was one of those blue crystals. Desideria took her place before it, looking like a child, and Barron felt like saying. “Hey, are
you
going to fly this thing?” But he held himself back. The girl seemed to know what she was doing, and after what he had seen on Darkover, he wouldn’t put anything past them. A technology which could displace possession by another mind was worth looking into. He began to wonder if any Terran Empire man knew anything about Darkover.
Melitta was afraid to climb into the strange contrivance until Desideria comforted and reassured her; then, looking as if she were taking her life in her hands and didn’t care, she climbed in, resolved not to show her fear.
The queer craft took off in an eerie silence. Desideria put on another of the telepathic dampers inside, saying almost in apology, “I am sorry—I must control the crystal with my own strength and I dare not have random thoughts intruding.” Barron had all he could do to endure the vibrations. He was beginning to guess what they were. If telepathic power were a vibration, the damper was a scrambler to protect the user of the force from any intruding vibrations.
He found himself wondering what Storn would have thought of covering in a few hours, the terrain which he and Melitta had covered so laboriously, on foot and horseback, in several days. The thought was unwelcome in the extreme. He did not want to think about Storn’s feelings. Nevertheless, his beliefs about the backwardness of Darkover had been gravely shaken in the last few hours. Their refusal of weapons other than knife and sword now seemed an ethical point—and yet Aldaran, too, seemed to have a valid ethical point, that this kept them struggling in small wars and feuds which depended for their success on who had the stronger physical strength.
But don’t all wars depend ultimately on that? Surely you don’t believe that rightness of a cause would mean that the right side would be able to get the biggest weapons? Would the feud between Brynat and Storn be easier settled if both of them had guns?
And if this was an ethical point rather than a lack of knowledge, was it just possible that their lack of transit, manufacturing and the like might come from preference rather than lack of ability?
Damn it, why am I worrying about Darkovan ways when my own problems are so pressing?
He had deserted his work with Valdir Alton’s men at the fire station. He—or Storn in his body—had stolen a valuable riding horse. He had probably irredeemably ruined himself with the Terran authorities, who had exerted themselves to give him this job, and his career was probably at a permanent standstill. He’d be lucky not to find himself on the first ship off Darkover.
Then it struck him that probably he need not go. The Empire might not believe his story but the Altons, who were telepaths, certainly would. And Larry had given him friendship, while Valdir was interested in the field of his professional competence. Perhaps there would be work for him here. He suddenly faced the awareness that he didn’t want to leave Darkover and that he had at last become caught up in the struggles and problems of these people whose lives he had entered against his will.
I could kill Storn for what he did—but damn it, I’m glad it happened.
But this was the briefest flash of insight, and it disappeared again, leaving him lost and bewildered. During the days as Storn he had grown used to Melitta’s companionship. Now she seemed strange and aloof and when he tried to reach out and touch her with his mind, it was an almost automatic movement and the low-keyed vibration of the telepathic damper interfered, making him feel dull, sick and miserable. He had expected to feel more at home flying than riding horseback but after a short time all he wished was that the flight would be over. Melitta would not look at him.
That was the worst of it. He longed for the flight to be over so that he could speak to her, touch her. She was the only familiar thing in this world and he ached to be near her.
Inconsistently, he was distressed when the flight ended and Desideria brought the craft expertly down in a small valley as quietly as a hovercraft. She apologized to Melitta for not coming nearer to Storn, but explained that the air currents around the peaks were violent enough to crash any small craft. Barron wondered how a girl her age knew about air currents.
Oh hell, she’s evidently something special in the way of telepaths, she probably feels ’em through her skin or her balance centers or something.
Barron had no idea where they were. Since Storn had never seen the place—being blind—Storn’s memories were no good to Barron. But Melitta knew. She took charge, directing them toward a mountain village where Darkovans swarmed out, welcoming Melitta with delight, and showing Desideria a reverential awe which seemed to confuse the young girl—the first time Barron had seen Desideria taken aback—and even make her angry.
“I
hate
this,” she told him, and Barron knew she still thought she spoke to Storn. “In the old days there might have been some reason for treating the Keepers like goddesses. But now we know how to train them, there is no
reason
for it—no more than for worshipping an expert blacksmith because of his skill!”
“Speaking of blacksmiths,” said Barron, “how are we going to round up these forge people?”
She looked at him sharply and it was like the first time she had seen him: She started to say, “You and Melitta will have to manage that; I have never been among them,” and stopped, frowning. She said, almost in a whisper and less to Barron than herself, “You have changed, Storn. Something has happened—” and very abruptly turned away.
He had almost forgotten that to her he was still Storn. Elsewhere the masquerade was over; the village people ignored him. He realized that if these were people who lived near High Windward, they would know all the Storns.
He did not try to follow what Melitta was saying to the villagers. He was definitely excess baggage on this trip and he couldn’t even imagine why Melitta had wanted him to come back to Storn with her. After a time she came back to Storn and Desideria, saying, “They will provide horses and guides to the caverns of the forge folk in the hills. But we should start at once; Brynat’s men patrol the villages every day or two—especially since I escaped—just to make sure that nothing is happening down here; and if it were known that they had helped me—well, I don’t want to bring reprisals on them.”
They started within the hour. Barron rode silently close to Melitta, but he didn’t try to talk to her. There was some comfort in her mere presence, but he knew that she felt ill at ease with him and he did not force himself on her. It was enough to be near her. He spared a thought for Storn, and this time he pitied him.
Poor devil, to have come so far and been through so much and then be forced offstage for the last act.