“Thank you, Jeff,” she whispered weakly, and her hands tightened on his; then, to his astonishment, she put out her arms, reaching up to him in appeal. Quickly responding, he gathered her close to him, sensing that she wanted the reassurance of contact; he held her for a moment, feeling her close to him, soft and limp, still weak. And then, without surprise, Kerwin felt the soft and exquisite blending of perceptions as their lips met.
He felt it with an intensely heightened dual consciousness, Elorie’s limp slight body in his arms, sensing the fragility mingled with steely strength, the childlike quality blended with the calm, ageless wisdom of her caste and her training. (And dimly through all these things he felt what Elorie felt, her weakness and lassitude, the terror she had known when her heart faltered and she felt herself near to death, the need for the reassurance of contact, the strength of his own arms around her; he felt the lassitude and the eagerness with which she accepted his kiss, a strange and half-understood wakening in her senses; he shared with the woman her own wonder and surprise at this touch, the first touch she had ever known that was not fatherly and impersonal; shared her shy and shameless surprise at the strength of his man’s body, at the sudden rising heat in him; felt her reach out to him, unmistakably, for a deeper contact, and answered it…)
“Elorie,” he whispered, but it was like a triumphant shout. “Oh, Elorie— ” And only to himself he whispered, my love, and for a moment he felt everything in the woman move toward him, felt her sudden warmth and flooding longing for his kiss…
Then there was a spasmodic moment of shattering, convulsive fear, clawing with anguish at every nerve in him; the rapport between them smashed like a breaking crystal, and Elorie, white and terrified, was straining away from him, fighting like a cat in his arms.
“No, no,” she gasped. “Jeff, let me go, let me go— don’t-
Dazed, numb with shock, Kerwin released her; she scrambled quickly up and away from him, her hands crossed in terror over her breasts, which rose and fell with soundless, anguished sobs. Her eyes were wide with horror, but she was barriered tightly against him again. Her childish mouth moved silently, her face screwed up in a little girl’s grimace against tears. “No,” she whispered, again, at last. “Have you forgotten—forgotten what I am? Oh, Avarra pity me,” she said in a broken gasp, covered her face with her hands and fled blindly from the room, half tripping over a stool, evading Jeff’s automatic reach to steady her, slipping through the door and running, running away down the hall. Far away, far up in the Tower, he heard the closing of a door.
He did not see Elorie again for three days.
For the first time, that night, she did not join them for the evening ritual of drinks in the great hall. Jeff, from the moment Elorie fled from him, felt cut off and alone, a stranger among them in a world suddenly cold and strange.
The others seemed to take Elorie’s seclusion for granted; Kennard said with a shrug that all Keepers did that now and then, it was part of being what they were. Jeff, holding his barriers firm against involuntary betrayal (of himself? Of Elorie?) said nothing. But Elorie’s eyes, luminous and haunted with dismay and that shocking, sudden fear, as well as the memory of her warmth in his arms, seemed to swim before his eyes in the darkness every night before he slept; he felt, with an almost tactile memory, her kiss on his mouth, her frail and frightened body in his arms, and the shock after she had broken away and run from him. At first he had been half angry: She had initiated the contact. Why now should she break away as if he had attempted rape?
Then, slowly and painfully, understanding came.
He had broken the strictest law of the Comyn. A Keeper was a pledged virgin, trained lengthily for her work, body and brain given lengthy conditioning for the most difficult task on Darkover. To every man in the Domains, Elorie was inviolate. A Keeper, tenerésteis, never to be touched by lust or even by the purest love.
He had heard what they said—and worse, felt what they felt—about Cleindori, who had broken this vow. (And she, too, with one of the despised Terrans.)
In his old life Kerwin might have defended himself, saying that Elorie had invited his advances. She had first touched him, first raised her lips to his. But after a time of training in the unsparing self-honesty of Arilinn, there were no such easy evasions. He had been aware of the taboo, and of Elorie’s ignorance; he was aware of the forthright way with which she showed affection to the others of her circle, completely confident in the taboo that protected her; to all of them, she was sexless and sacrosanct. She had accepted Jeff in the same way—and he had betrayed her trust!
He loved her. He knew now that he had loved her from the first time he laid eyes on her; or perhaps before, when their minds touched through the matrix and he had heard her soft I recognize you. And now he saw nothing ahead of him but pain and renunciation.
Taniquel—his infatuation with Taniquel now seemed like a dream. He knew now that it had been gratitude for her acceptance, for her kindness and warmth; he was still fond of her, but what had been between them, for a time, could not survive any interruption of the sexual tie between them. It had never been anything like this overwhelming thing that swallowed up his whole consciousness; he knew that he would love Elorie for the rest of his life, even if he could never again touch her and she never showed the slightest sign of returning his love.
(But she had, she had…)
But worse than this was a terrible fear, knifing at his consciousness. Kennard had warned him of the dangers of nervous exhaustion, counseling him to remain apart from Taniquel during the days immediately before a heavy load of matrix work, to avoid depleting his energies. The Keepers, he knew, keyed themselves completely, body and mind, into the matrixes they operated; this was why they must never be touched by a hint of emotion, and far less by sexuality. His memory went back to his first night in Arilinn; Elorie’s dismay at the mildest flirtatious or gallant remark, her comment that Keepers trained lifelong for their work and sometimes lost the ability for it after a very short time. Neyrissa had underlined that there were no other Keepers, so that Elorie, unlike Keepers in the past, was not free to set aside her high office for marriage—or for love.
And now, when perhaps the very fate of Darkover rested upon the strength of the Arilinn Tower—and perhaps upon Elorie alone, when the strength of Arilinn rested upon the fortitude of their cherished Keeper—he, Jeff Kerwin, the stranger in their midst, the outsider they had taken to their hearts, had betrayed them and struck through the defenses of their Keeper.
And at this point in his thoughts Kerwin sat up and buried his head in his hands. He tried to blank out his thoughts completely. This was worse than Auster’s accusation that he was a spy, feeding information to the Empire.
Alone in the night he fought his way to the end of a hard-won battle. He loved Elorie; but his love for her could destroy her as a Keeper. And without a Keeper, they would fail in the work they were doing for the Pan-Darkovan Syndicate, and the Syndicate would take that as permission to bring in the Terrans, experts in the remodeling of Darkover into the image of the Empire.
A traitor part of himself asked: Would that be so bad? Sooner or later, Darkover would fall into line. Every planet did.
And even for Elorie, he told himself, it would be better. No young woman should have to live like this, in seclusion, avoiding everything that made life worthwhile. No woman should have to know that her body is no more than a machine to transform the energies of matrix work! Even Rannirl had rebelled, and Rannirl was the chief technician of Arilinn. Rannirl had said that Keepers like Elorie were an anachronism in this day and age. If the Arilinn Tower and matrix technology could not survive except by the sacrifice of the lives of young women like Elorie, perhaps it did not deserve to survive at all. If their work for the Pan-Darkovan Syndicate failed, then Elorie need not be Keeper, and she was free.
Traitor! he accused himself bitterly. The people of Arilinn had taken him in, a stranger, homeless, exile of two worlds, and accepted him
as one of themselves, given him kindness and love and acceptance. And he was ready to strike at their weakest point; he was willing to destroy them!
Lying there in the night, he willed himself to give up Elorie. She was the one that mattered; and her choice was to be Keeper, and remain Keeper. At whatever cost to himself in renunciation and agony, her peace of mind must never be endangered.
On the morning of the fourth day he heard her voice on the stairs. He had fought himself to acceptance, but at the sound of her soft voice it all surged up; he went back and flung himself down blindly, willing himself to calm through the blind ache and rebellion in him. Oh, Elorie, Elorie… He could not face her yet.
Later he heard Rannirl’s voice at his door.
“Jeff? Will you come down?”
“Give me just a minute,” Jeff said, and Rannirl went away. Left alone, Kerwin fought to apply all the techniques of control that he had been taught, steadying his breathing, forcing himself to relax; and when he knew that he could face them all without revealing his pain or his guilt, he went downstairs.
The circle of Arilinn was gathered before the fire, but Kerwin had eyes only for Elorie. She had put on again the filmy gown embroidered with cherries, anchored at her throat with a single crystal; her copper hair was twisted up in an elaborate coiffure of looped braids, caught with a blue flower dusted with gold; the kireseth flower, colloqually called the golden bell —cleindori. Was she testing his control? Or, he wondered suddenly, her own?
She raised her eyes, and he remembered how to breathe. For her smile was gentle, aloof, indifferent.
Had she felt nothing, then. Had he imagined it all? Had her reaction to him been no more than fear, then, as if he had reawakened the old fear—he remembered Neyrissa’s story; one of her mad father’s drinking-companions had laid rude hands on the girl, and her brother had brought her here for safety and refuge.
Kennard laid his hand gently on Jeff’s shoulder; somehow, through the touch, an unspoken awareness passed through them both. The Keepers are trained, in ways you could hardly guess at, to keep themselves free of all emotion. Somehow, in those three days of seclusion, Elorie had managed to bring herself back to remote calm, untouched peace. Her smile was almost exactly as it had always been. Almost. Kerwin sensed that it was brittle, wary, a thin skin of control over panic; and with a surge of compassion and pain, he thought, I must do nothing, nothing to trouble her. She wants it this way. I must not infringe on her control even with a thought.
She said quietly, “We have arranged the separating operation for tonight; and Rannirl tells me that the trap matrix is ready for you, Auster.”
“I’m ready,” Auster said. “Unless Jeff wants to back out.”
“I said I’d abide any test you gave me. But what the hell is a trap matrix?”
Elorie made one of her childish faces. “It’s a filthy perversion of an honest science,” she said.
“Not necessarily,” Kennard protested. “There are valid ones. The Veil outside Arilinn is one kind of trap matrix; it keeps out everyone not accepted as Comyn and blood-related. And there are others in the rhu fead, the holy place of Comyn. What kind is yours, Auster?”
“Trap set on the barrier,” Auster said. “When we put up the group barrier around our circle, I’ll set the trap matrix in synch with it. Then, if anyone is picking a mind within the circle, it will hold him and immobilize him, and we can get a look at him afterward in the monitor.”
“Believe me,” said Kerwin, “if anyone’s spying through my mind, I’m as anxious to find it out as you are!”
“We’ll start then.” She hesitated, bit her lip and moved to the cupboard where the drinks were kept. “I want some kirian.” At Kennard’s disapproving look she brushed past him, poured it for herself. “Anyone else who doesn’t trust himself tonight? Auster? Jeff? Stop looking at me like that, Neyrissa, I know what I’m doing, and you’re not my mother!”
Rannirl said roughly, “Lori, if you’re not feeling ready for the clearing operation, we could delay it a few days—”
“We’ve already delayed three days, and I am as ready as I shall ever be,” she said, and lifted the kirian to her lips. But she glanced at Jeff when she thought he did not see her, and her eyes struck Kerwin to the heart.
So it was that way for her, too. He had thought himself hurt that she could set it all aside, that she had been able to forget or ignore what had been between them. Now, seeing the hurt in her eyes, Kerwin wished with all his heart that Elorie had been truly untouched by what had happened. He could endure the suffering, if he must. But he did not know if he could endure what it had done to Elorie.
He could, because he must. He watched her finish the kirian liqueur, and went, with the others, upstairs to the matrix chamber.
They were placed as before, Taniquel monitoring, Neyrissa within the circle, Auster holding the group barrier, Elorie at the center, holding in her slender hands the forces that could tap the magnetic field of a planet, gathering up all their joined minds and directing their mingled forces into the matrix lattice designed for this operation.
Kerwin felt the waiting like a pain, bracing himself for control against the moment when Elorie’s grey eyes, turned on him, would pull him into the rapport of the circle. He felt it taking shape around him; Auster, strong and protective; the intangible strength that was Kennard, so at odds with the man’s crippled body; Neyrissa, kindly and detached; Corus a flood of tumbling images.
Elorie.
He felt her firm, directing presence guiding him into the layers of the crystal lattice that somehow, was also the map lying before Kennard and the countryside of the Domains, extending his awareness beyond time and space, sending him out to travel, deep in the core of the world…
He came out of it hours later, coming slowly up to consciousness to see dawn light in the room and the faces of the Tower circle around him. And Auster; drawn, hostile—triumphant. Wordless, he gestured them around him.
Kerwin had never seen a trap matrix before. It looked like a bit of strangely shiny metal, studded with crystals here and there, the glassy surface enlaced with little ribbons of gleaming light deep inside. Auster said, “Tired, Elorie? Take the monitor screen for a minute, Corus, let’s see what we have in here.” He pointed a finger at the beautiful, deadly thing in his lap. “I set it for anyone who tried to work through the group barrier; and I felt the trap sprung. Whoever it was, he’s immobilized here, and we can get a good look at him.”
Fastidiously, as if he touched something dirty, Corus picked up the trap matrix. He moved a calibration on the big monitor screen, and lights began to blink inside it. Then, in the glassy surface, a picture slowly formed. It hovered over the city of Arilinn; passed landmark after landmark. Then, gradually, it centered upon a small, mean room, almost bare, and the figure of a man, bent in soundless concentration, motionless as death.
“Whoever he is, we’ve got him in stasis,” Auster said. “Can you get his face, Corus?”
The picture focused; and Jeff cried out as he recognized the face.
“Ragan?”
Of course. The little bitter man from the spaceport gutters, who had all but admitted being a Terran spy, who had dogged Jeff’s footsteps and taught him to use a matrix and pushed him at every step.
Who else could it have been?
Suddenly he was swept by a great, calm, icy rage. Some atavistic thing in him, all Darkovan, shook loose everything but his wrath and injured pride at having been manipulated like this, his mind picked. Ancient words sprang without thought to his mind.
“Com’ii, this man’s life is mine! When, how, and as I can, I claim his life, one to one, and who takes it before I do, answers to me!”
Auster—braced, Kerwin knew, to fling new challenges and charges, stopped cold, his eyes wide and shocked.
Kennard met his eyes. He said “Comyn Kerwin-Aillard, as your nearest kinsman and Warden here, I hear your claim and allot this life to you; to claim or spare as you will. Se
ek it, take it, or give your own.”
Jeff heard the ritual words almost without understanding. His hands literally ached to tear Ragan limb from limb. He said tersely, gesturing the picture off the screen, “Can that thing hold him long enough for me to get to him, Auster?”
Auster nodded, the trap matrix still held between his hands. Taniquel broke into the silence, her voice shrill.
“You can’t let him do this! It’s murder; Jeff has no idea how to use a sword, and do you think that—that sharug, that cat-spawn, will even fight fair?”
“I may not be able to handle a sword, ”Jeff said tautly, “but I’m damn good with a knife. Kinsman, give me a dagger, and I can take him,” he added, turning to Kennard, who had acknowledged him.
But it was Rannirl who unbuckled the knife he wore at his waist. He said slowly, “Brother, I’m with you. Your foes are mine; let there never be a knife drawn between us.” He held the knife out, hilt first, to Kerwin. Kerwin took it in a daze. From somewhere he remembered that on Darkover this had a very serious meaning. He didn’t know the ritual words, but he remembered that this exchange had the ritual force of an oath of brotherhood, and even through his all-encompassing rage he was warmed by it. He caught Rannirl into a quick embrace. All he could think of to say was, “Thank you—brother. Against my foes—and yours.” It must have been the right thing to say, or something near to it, for Rannirl turned his head and, somewhat to Jeff’s embarrassment, kissed him on the cheek.
“Come on,” he said, “I’ll see fair play done in your name, Kennard. If you doubt it, Auster, come along.”
Kerwin took the knife, balancing it in his hands. He had no doubt in his ability to handle himself. There had been a couple of fights on other worlds; he had found that inside himself there was a roughneck buried, and he was glad, now, to know it. The code of his childhood, the code of blood-feud, seemed to fill him to the roots of his whole being.
Ragan was going to get a damned big surprise.