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Where and how had Cleindori died?
How and why had the elder Jeff Kerwin, his nose broken, bruised and battered after a terrible fight,brought their son to the Spaceman’s Orphanage?
And where had he gone after that, and where and how had he died? For surely he had died; if he hadlived, surely, surely, he would have reclaimed his son.
And why had Jeff Kerwin’s son, at five years old, been unable to speak a word in either of his parents’languages, for more than a year?
And why had Jeff Kerwin, grown, no memory of mother or father, no memory at all except the curioushalf-memories of dreams—walls, arches, doors, a man who strode proudly, cloaked, through a castlecorridor, a woman bending over a matrix, taking it up with a gesture that remained when all the rest of hismemory had blurred… a child’s scream…
Shuddering, he cut off the half-formed memory. He had found out a part of what he wanted to know,and Elorie would be waiting to know what had happened.
When he got back, she was asleep, flung across the bed in exhaustion, grey smudges under herlong-lashed eyes; but she sat up as he came in, and put up her face to be kissed.
“Jeff, I’m sorry, I held it as long as I could…”
“It’s all right.”
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“What did you find out?”
He hesitated, not sure he should tell her. Would the questions surging in him raise disquiet in her? Whatdid she know of Cleindori, except that she had been taught to despise the “renegade”?
Her hand closed over his. “What would really hurt me,” she said, “would be if you refused to share thesethings with me. As for Cleindori… how can I look down on her? She did only what I have done; andnow I know why.” Her smile made Kerwin feel that his heart would break. “Don’t you know that
Elorieof Arilinn
will be written beside Ysabet of Dalereuth and Dorilys of Arilinn as renegade Keepers, whofled without giving back their oath or asking leave?” He had forgotten that Cleindori had been only hismother’s nickname, not her real name; at Arilinn she was written as
Dorilys
.
He sat down close beside her, then, and told her everything; all that had happened since his first momenton Darkover, when he had encountered Ragan and learned what his matrix was, the frustration of his firstvisit to the orphanage, the matrix mechanics who had refused to help him and the old woman who haddied trying to help; and then all the rest, including what Harley had told him.
“And time’s running out,” he concluded. “I ought to face facts; it’s not likely that I’ll ever find out any more. As soon as the report I put in at the spaceport HQ goes through, I’ll probably have to face charges and perhaps a civil inquiry. But there it is; the story of my life, for what it’s worth, Elorie. You’ve married a man without a country, darling.”
As if in answer, the communicator in the corner of the room sounded and when he picked it up, ametallic mechanical voice said, “Jefferson Andrew Kerwin?”
“Speaking.”
“Coordination and Personnel,” said the mechanical recorded voice. “We are informed that you are within the Terran Zone, where a civil charge has been placed against you of unlawful flight to avoid deportation. You are hereby notified that the City Council of Thendara, acting in the name and with the authority of Comyn Council on a warrant signed by Danvan, Lord Hastur, Regent for Derek of Elhalyn, has declared you persona non grata. You are officially forbidden to leave the Terran Zone; and since proceedings have been instituted to declare your wife, Elorie Ardais Kerwin, a citizen of the Empire, this prohibition applies also to Mrs. Kerwin. This is an official order; you are forbidden to travel more than two Universal Kilometers from your present accommodations, or to leave them for more than two hours; and within fifty-two hours you are ordered to surrender yourself to the appropriate authorities, which may be accomplished by presenting yourself, with identification, to any member of Spaceforce in uniform, or to any employee of Coordination and Personnel. Do you understand the communication? Please acknowledge.“
Jeff muttered, “Damn!”
The mechanical voice repeated patiently, “Please acknowledge,” and waited.
Elorie whispered, “Do your Terran officials all talk like that?”
“Please acknowledge,” the mechanical voice repeated a third time, and Jeff muttered, “Acknowledged.”
Turning from the communicator, he murmured, “Do we want to fight this, darling?”
“Jeff, how would I know? I’ll abide by your decision. Do what you think best, love.”
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The mechanical voice was proceeding steadily. “Kindly indicate whether you will accept the summonsand surrender within the time indicated, or whether you elect to file a legal request for an appeal.”
Jeff’s mind was racing. It went against the grain to accept the deportation order calmly. An appealwould give him a tenday’s automatic delay, and perhaps in that time he might discover something further. He was resigned to leaving Darkover; but if he acted as if he might make trouble, they might offer him abetter post when he was finally forced to transfer.
“I request an appeal,” he said at last, and the silence from the communicator made him think of
computers racing, selecting the appropriate loop for communicating further.
“Kindly indicate the nature of your appeal and the legal grounds on which you attempt to file the appeal,” the voice said, and Kerwin thought quickly. He was not a legal expert. “I claim Darkovan citizenship,” he said at last, “and I appeal their right to declare me
persona non grata
.”
It probably wouldn’t do any good, he thought while the communicator’s patient taped voice repeated hiswords. But he wasn’t sure whether this was the old declaration of
persona non grata
after which he hadfled from the HQ, or a new one, filed against him since he had left Arilinn. He didn’t think the Arilinn Tower could have reached Hastur yet and persuaded him to issue a new order so quickly. Anyhow, thiswould gain time. But if they had, not a soul on Darkover would stand between him and legal deportation.
Kennard might help… if he could reach Kennard. But Kennard was in Arilinn, a long way from here.
And however he might sympathize with them, he was bound by his oath to Arilinn.
And none of the questions would ever be answered. He would never know who Cleindori had been, orwhy she had died, or why she had left Arilinn. He would never know the secrets of his own childhood.
Elorie rose and came to him. She said, “I could— perhaps—get through the barrier in your memory withthis, Jeff. Kennard said you had a fantastic degree of barrier; that was why he didn’t spot the block inyour mind at first. Only—Jeff, why do you want to know? We’re done with the Comyn, and probablyleaving Darkover forever. What does it matter, then? The past is past.”
For a moment he was not sure how to answer. Then he said, “Elorie, all my life I’ve had this—thisfantastic compulsion to get back to Darkover. It was an obsession, a hunger; I could have made a life formyself on other worlds, but Darkover was always at the back of my mind. Calling me. Now I begin towonder if it was really me—or if the pushing-around really started way back during the time I can’tremember anything.”
He did not go on, but he knew Elorie followed his thoughts. If his hunger for Darkover was not real, buta compulsion implanted from outside, then what was he? A hollow man, a tool, a mindless booby trap, aprogrammed thing no more real than the mechanical taped voice of the communicator. What was reality? Who and what was he?
She nodded gravely, understanding. “I’ll try, then,” she promised. “Later. Not now. I’m still tired fromthe illusion. And— ” she smiled faintly—“hungry. Can we get anything to eat in this hotel or near it, Jeff?”
Remembering the dreadful drain of matrix work, he took her to one of the spaceport cafés, where sheate one of her enormous meals. They walked about the Terran Zone for a little, and Jeff made a gestureat showing her some of the sights of the Zone, but he knew that she cared no more than he did.
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Neither of them spoke of Arilinn, but Jeff knew that her thoughts, like his, kept returning there. Whatwould this failure mean to Darkover, to the Comyn?
They had located and clarified the mineral deposits in the contract; but the actual work of mining was stillto be done, the major operation of lifting them to the surface of the planet.
Elorie said once, as if at random, “They can work it with a mechanic’s circle. Rannirl can do most of thework with the energons. Any halfway good technician can do most of a Keeper’s work. They don’t needme.” And at another time, apropos of nothing at all, she, said, “They still have all the molecular modelswe made, and the lattice is still workable. They ought to be able to handle it.”
Jeff pulled her to him. “Regretting?”
“Never.” Her eyes met his honestly. “But—oh, wishing it could have happened another way.”
He had destroyed them
. He had come back to the world he loved, and he had destroyed its lastchance to remain as it was.
Later, when she took the matrix between her hands, he was filled with sudden misgiving. He recalled thematrix mechanic who had died in trying to read his memory. “Elorie, I’d rather never know, than riskharming you!”
She shook her head. “I was trained at Arilinn; I risk nothing,” she said with unconscious arrogance. Shecupped the matrix between her two hands, brightening the moving points of light. Her ruddy hair fell like asoft curtain along either cheek.
Kerwin was feeling frightened. The breaking of a telepathic barrier—he remembered Kennard’sattempt—was not an easy process, and the first attempt had been painful.
The light in the crystal brightened, seemed to pour in a thick flood over Elorie’s face. Kerwin shaded hiseyes from the light, but he was caught in the brilliant, reflecting patterns. And suddenly, as if printed plainbefore his eyes, the light thickened and darkened into moving shadows that suddenly cleared into colorand form…
Two men and two women, all of them in Darkovan clothing, seated around a table. One of the women,very frail, very fair, bending over a matrix…
he had seen this before
! He froze, terror clawing at him, asthe door opened, slowly, slowly… on horror…
He heard his own cry, shrill and terrified, the shriek of a frightened child from the full throat of a man, justin the moment before the world blurred and went dark.
… He was standing, swaying, both-hands gripping at his temples. Elorie, very white, was staring up at
him, the crystal fallen into the lap of her skirt.
“Jeff, what did you see?” she whispered. “Avarra and Evanda guard you, I never dreamed of such a shock!” She breathed deeply. “I know now why the woman died! She…” Elorie swayed suddenly, fell back against the wall. Jeff moved to steady her, but she went on, not noticing. “Whatever she saw—and
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I’m not an empath, but whatever it was that struck you dumb as a child, that poor woman evidentlycaught the full backlash of it. If she had a weak heart, it probably stopped, literally frightened to death bysomething you saw more than a quarter of a century ago!”
Jeff took her hands. He said, “Let’s forget it. It’s too dangerous, Elorie, it’s killed one woman already. Ican live without knowing whatever it is.”
“No,” she said. “I think we have to know. There have been too many mysteries. No one knows how Cleindori died, and Kennard knows but has been sworn not to tell. I don’t think he killed her,” she went on, and Kerwin stared at her in shock;
that
had never occurred to him.
“No. I’d stake my life on Kennard’s honesty.” And, Kerwin thought, his very genuine affection for them
both.
“I’m a trained Keeper, Jeff, there’s no danger for me. And I’m as eager to know as you are. But wait, give me
your
matrix,” she added. “It was Cleindori’s. And let’s start with something else. You said that you had only a very few memories before the orphanage; let’s try and go back to them.”
She looked into Kerwin’s matrix; as always when it was in a Keeper’s hands, Jeff felt only the faintthreading of Elorie’s consciousness through his own. He shut his eyes, remembering.
The light in the matrix brightened. There were colors, swirls like mist; there was a blue beacon shiningsomewhere, a low building gleaming white on the shores of a strange lake that was not water, a ghost ofperfume; a low and musical voice singing an old song, and Kerwin knew, with a thrill of excitement, thatthe voice was the voice of his mother, Cleindori, Dorilys of Arilinn, renegade Keeper, singing a lullaby tothe child who should never have been born.
Wrapped in a cloak of fur, he was carried through long corridors in the arms of a man with blazing redhair. It was not the face of Jefferson Kerwin, familiar to him from pictures on Terra; but Kerwin knew, inthe strange alienated corner of his mind that was his adult self, that he looked on the face of his father.
But whose son am I, then
? He saw, briefly and in a glimpse, the face of Kennard, younger, unlined, agay and light-hearted face. Other pictures came and went; he saw himself playing games in a tiledcourtyard among flowering plants and bushes, with two smaller children, as alike as twins, except thatone had the red hair of their caste, like his own, and the other was small and dark and swarthy. Andthere was a big burly man in strange dark clothing, who spoke to them in a strangely accented voice, andtreated them all with rough kindness, and the twins called him father, and Jeff called him by a word verylike it, which meant, in the mountain tongue, foster-father or Uncle; as he called Kennard; and thegrown-up Jeff Kerwin felt the hair rising on his head as he knew that he looked on the face of the manwhose name he bore; he was not like his pictures in the household of his grandparents, but this was theelder Jeff Kerwin. More hazy were the memories of the fair-haired woman, more blonde thancopper-haired, and of another woman whose hair was dark with red glints in the sunlight, and of the hillsbehind the castle, sharp-toothed mountains, and an old high tower…