The Bloody Sun

  Now, as they landed, she drew her cloak over her bright hair; he held her arm on the hard and unfamiliar metal steps. He must seem resolute for her sake, even if he was not. “I know it is strange to you, darling. But it won’t be strange for long.”

  “No place will be strange to me where you are,” she said valiantly. “But—but will they allow this? They won’t—won’t separate us?”

  On that he could reassure her. “I may be Darkovan under your laws,” he said, “but I have Terran citizenship and they cannot deny me that. And any woman who legally marries a citizen of the Empire is automatically given citizenship.” He remembered the bored, incurious clerk in the Trade City at Port Chicago who had married them three days ago. Port Chicago was beyond the Domains; the clerk had glanced briefly at Jeff’s identity disk, heard Elorie give her name as “Elorie Ardais” without a ripple of interest; probably he had never heard of the Comyn, or of the Arilinn Tower. He brought in a woman in his office to witness the marriage; she had been chirpy and friendly, saying to Elorie that with their two red heads they should have quite a crop of redheaded children. Elorie had blushed, and Kerwin had felt a great and unexpected tenderness. The thought of a child of Elorie’s touched him in a way he had not thought he could be moved.

  “You are my wife in Empire law, wherever we go,” he repeated. He added, gently, “We may have to leave Darkover, though.”

  She nodded, biting her lip. The Comyn might be as anxious, now, to have Jeff deported as, before, they had been anxious to prevent it.

  Kerwin secretly felt it would be better that way. Darkover could never be, for either of them, more than a reminder of what they had lost. And there were worlds enough, out there.

  Nervously, he approached the barrier. He might, just possibly, be taken into custody as a man under sentence of deportation. There were certain legal formalities he could invoke, appeal, delays to which he was legitimately entitled. It hadn’t seemed worth it, for himself. For Elorie, he would do all he could to evade the summary judgment, turn it in his favor.

  The tall Spaceforce man in black leather stared at Kerwin’s shabby Terran clothing, at the shrinking, veiled girl on his arm. He glanced at Jeff’s identity certification.

  “And the woman?”

  “My wife. We were married in Port Chicago three days ago.”

  “I see,” said the Spaceforce man, slowly. “In that case there are certain formalities.”

  “Just as you like.”

  “If you’ll come inside the HQ, please.”

  He led them inside, Jeff squeezing Elorie’s arm reassuringly. He tried to hide the apprehension he felt. The marriage would have to be recorded through Records, and once Jeff surrendered his identification, the computer would immediately come up with the information that he was under sentence of deportation and suspension.

  He had considered returning to the Terran Zone anonymously, at least for a day or two. But the peculiarity of Empire law concerning native women and marriage made that unthinkable. She had insisted, when he explained, that she did not care. But Jeff said firmly, asserting himself over her protest for the first time, “I care,” and had left her no room for argument.

  The Empire Civil Service consists largely of single men; few Terran women care to accompany their men halfway across the Galaxy. This means that on every planet liaisons with native women, both formal and informal, are taken for granted. To avoid endless complications with various planetary governments, the Empire makes a very clear distinction.

  An Empire citizen may marry any woman, on any planet, by the laws of her own world and her own customs; it is a matter between the individual Terran, the woman, her family, and the laws under which she lives. The Empire has no part in it. Whether the marriage is formal or informal, temporary or permanent, or no marriage at all, is a matter for the private ethical and moral standards of the parties involved. And that man is carried as single on the Records of the Empire, making such provision for his wife as he privately chooses; although he may, if he wishes, file for citizenship for any child of the marriage, and obtain certain privileges for him. As the elder Jeff Kerwin had done for his son.

  But if he chooses to register the marriage through Terran records, or signs any Empire document speaking of any native woman on any world, legally, as his wife, she is so in fact. From the moment their marriage contract was signed, and went through the Records, Elorie was entitled legally to all the privileges of a citizen; and if Jeff had died in the next breath after signing, she would still have been entitled to all the privileges of a citizen’s widow. Kerwin was uncertain as to what the future would hold; but he had wanted to protect Elorie and provide for her in this way. Words spoken in bitterness still rang in his ears and turned up in his nightmares.

  In the old days it would have been death for you, Elorie— and death by torture for him! And an old terror was upon him. There were those who might feel compelled to avenge the honor of a Keeper.

  Kennard had said—what had Kennard said? Nothing. But still, Jeff was afraid without knowing why. So he watched with relief as a registry clerk took his thumbprint, and Elorie’s, and tapped out information for Records. Now there was no way for the long arm of the Comyn to reach out and snatch Elorie from him.

  He hoped.

  Watching the details disappear into the computer, he was sure he had set trouble in motion for himself. Within a few hours he would have questions to answer, he might have to face deportation. He had a blot on his record, but he was a civilian, after all, and leaving his job without formal permission was only a minor offense against his seniority, not a crime. Somehow, he had to arrange to make a living. He had to decide whether to go to Terra or take a chance on another world—he was fairly sure his Terran grandparents wouldn’t really welcome Elorie—but all those details could wait.

  Most of his knowledge of Thendara was of bars and similar places, where he couldn’t take Elorie. He could have claimed quarters in the HQ, putting in a requisition for married personnel, but he wouldn’t do that until he had to. Equally unwise would be to find quarters in the Old Town—he had had a taste in Arilinn of how the Comyn were treated when recognized. A hotel in the Trade City was the obvious temporary solution.

  He pointed out to her, as they passed, the Spaceman’s Orphanage. “That’s where I lived until I was twelve years old,” he said, and let the silent puzzlement strike him again: Or did I? Why, then, did the place have no records of me?

  “Elorie,” he asked, when they were alone in their hotel, “did the Comyn have anything to do with destroying my records in the Orphanage?” A matrix, he supposed, could easily wipe out the data on a computer. At least, with what he knew of computers and matrixes, he could easily have devised a way to do it.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I do know we got Auster back from them when he was a small child, and his records were destroyed.”

  Kennard had referred to that as a curious story, and had implied that he would tell Jeff about it sometime. But he hadn’t.

  Long after Elorie slept, he lay awake at her side, thinking about the false leads and blind alleys that had obscured his search for his own background. When the Comyn found him, he had abandoned the search—after all, he had found out the main thing he wanted to know; where he belonged. But there were still mysteries to be solved, and before he left Darkover forever—and he supposed, now, that was only a matter of time—he was going to have a last try at solving them.

  He told Elorie a little, the next day.

  “There was no record of me there; I saw what the machine gave out. But if I could get into the place and check—there might even be someone there, one of the matrons or teachers, who remembered me.”

  “Would it be dangerous—to try and get in?”

  “Not dangerous to life or limb, no. But I could be arrested for trespassing, or for breaking and entering. I wish to hell I knew a way a matrix could make me invisible.”

  Her smile was faint. “I could barricade you— thro
w what they call a glamour over you, so you could pass in among them unseen.” She sighed. “It is unlawful for a Keeper who has given back her oath to use her powers. But I have broken so many laws already. And certain powers—I have lost.”

  She looked pale and wretched, and Kerwin felt his heart turn over at the thought of what she had given up for him. But why should it make so much difference? He would not ask, but she picked the question up directly from his mind, and said, “I do not know. I—I have always been told that a Keeper must be—must be virgin, and resigns her powers if she gives back her oath and takes a lover, or a husband.”

  Kerwin was startled by her acceptance of this; she had defied so many superstitions, had refused to accept her ritual authority, had hated the word sorceress when applied to her. But this one, perhaps, was so deeply ingrained in her that she could not resist it.

  Kennard had called it superstitious rubbish. But whether she had really lost her powers, or only believed she had, the effect would be much the same. And perhaps there was some truth it, too. He knew the terrible exhaustion and nervous drain of matrix work, even on his newcomer level. Kennard had counseled him to avoid sex for some time before serious work in the screens. It made sense that the Keepers must remain always at the peak of strength, guarding their powers in seclusion, sparing no energies for any other ties or concerns.

  He remembered the day she had collapsed in the matrix screens; how he had thought her heart had stopped. Kerwin took her in his arms, holding her tight, thinking: At least she is safe from that, now!

  But he had touched her, that day; had lent her strength. Had that contact destroyed her as Keeper?

  “No,” she said quietly, knowing his thoughts as she so often did. “From the first moment I touched you through the matrix, I knew that you would be— someone special, someone who would trouble my peace; but I was proud. I thought I could keep my control. And there was Taniquel; I envied her, but I knew you would not be too much alone.” Her eyes suddenly brimmed over.

  “I shall miss Tani,” she said softly. “I wish it could have been different, that we could have—could have left in a way that would not leave them hating us. Tani is so dear to me.”

  “You aren’t jealous? Because she and I—”

  She laughed a little. “Oh, you Terrans! No, darling. If things were different, if we could have lived among our own people, I would willingly have called her bredhis, it would have been Tani that I chose for your bed if I were ill or pregnant—does that seem so shocking to you?”

  He kissed her, without speaking. Darkovan customs were idealistic, but they took some getting used to. And he was just as glad to have Elorie to himself.

  But that made him think of something else.

  “Taniquel was no virgin, certainly. And yet she worked in the matrix circle—”

  “Taniquel was not a Keeper,” Elorie said soberly, “and she was never required to do a Keeper’s work, never required to gather the energons of the circle and direct them. Such vows, and such—such abstinence—were not required of her, nor of Neyrissa, no more than of any of the men. And a few generations ago—in the time of the Forbidden Tower —there was a Keeper who left Arilinn to marry, and continued to use her powers; it was a great scandal; I do not know all the story, it was such a tale as they did not tell to children. And I do not know how she did it.” Quickly, as if she feared he would question further, she said, “Some things, I am sure, I can still do with my own matrix. Let me try.”

  But when she had taken it from the tiny leather case in which she kept it, wrapped in its insulating silks, she hesitated.

  “I feel so strange. Not like myself. I don’t seem to —to belong to myself any more.”

  “You belong to me,” Kerwin said firmly, and she smiled.

  “Are your Terran wives property? No, I think not, love; I belong to myself; but I will willingly share every moment of my life with you,” she said.

  “Is there a difference?” Kerwin asked.

  Her soft laugh always delighted him. “To you, perhaps not. To me, it is very important. If I had wished to be some man’s property, I could have wedded someone before I was out of childhood, and would never have gone to the Tower.” She took the matrix in her hand; but Kerwin saw the tentative way in which she touched it, contrasting her hesitation with the sureness she had shown in the matrix chamber. She was frightened! He wanted to tell her he didn’t give a damn, put it away, he didn’t want her to touch the accursed thing—she was too precious to risk—and then he saw her eyes.

  Elorie loved him. She had given up her whole world for him, all she was and all she could have been. Even now, Kerwin knew, he had only the dimmest, outsider’s perception of what it meant to be a Keeper. If she needed this, he had to let her try. Even if it killed her, he had to let her try.

  “But promise me, Elorie,” he said, taking her shoulders in his hands and tipping her head back to look into her eyes, “no risks. If it doesn’t feel right, don’t try.”

  He felt that she hardly heard him. Her slight fingers curved around the matrix; her face was distant and abstracted. She said, not to him, “The shape of the air here is different, we are among the mountains; I must be careful not to interfere with his breathing.” She moved her head, an imperious small signal, and he felt her drop into rapport; intangibly, like a caress.

  I don’t know how long I can hold it, when there are Terrans around, but I will try. There. Jeff, look in the mirror.

  He rose and looked into the mirror. He could see Elorie perfectly well, in her thin grey dress, her bright hair bent over the matrix in her hand; but he could not see himself. He looked down; he could see himself perfectly well, but he did not reflect in the mirror.

  “But, but, I can see myself—”

  “Oh, yes, and if anyone bumps into you, they will know perfectly well that you are there,” she said with a sting of a smile. “You have not become a ghost, my love of a barbarian, I have only changed the look of the air around you, for a little while. But I think it will hold long enough for you to get into the orphanage unseen.”

  Her face held the triumph of a gleeful child. Jeff bent down to kiss her and saw the strangeness in the mirror, Elorie evidently lifted up and resting on nothing. He smiled. It was not a difficult matrix operation; he could probably have done it himself. But it had proved to her…

  “That I’m not blind and deaf to it,” she said, picking up his thought, and her voice sounded tight, though she was still smiling the childish smile. “Go, darling, I’m not sure how long I can hold it, and you shouldn’t waste any time.”

  He left her there in the Terran hotel room, passing silently and unseen down the corridors. In the lobby people passed him, unseeing. He had a curious, lunatic sense of power. No wonder the Comyn were all but invincible—

  But at what cost? Girls like Elorie, giving up their lives…

  The Spacemen’s Orphanage looked just as it had looked a few scant months ago. A few of the boys were doing something to the grounds, kneeling around a patch of flowers, supervised by an older boy with a badge on his arm. Silent as a ghost, Kerwin hesitated before walking up the white steps. What should he do first? Go unseen into the office, check files and records? Quickly he dismissed that notion; he might be invisible, but if he started handling books or punching buttons, the people in the office would see something even if it was only books and papers moving of their own accord; and sooner or later they’d start investigating.

  And sooner or later someone would bump into him.

  He stopped and considered. In the third-floor dormitory where he had slept with five other boys, he had carved his initials, at the age of nine, into a window-frame. The frame might have been repaired or replaced; but if it hadn’t, and he could find the carving, it would prove something, to his own satisfaction; at least he wouldn’t have to carry around the sneaking suspicion that he never had been there, that he had imagined the whole thing, that all his memories were hallucinations.

  And a
fter all, the dormitory was an old one and many of the boys had done the same thing. The Darkovan nurses and the children’s counselors had left them a good deal of freedom in some areas. In his day the dormitory had been battered, orderly and clean enough, but bearing the imprint of many childish pranks and experiments with tools.

  He went up through the halls, passing an open classroom door, trying to tread lightly, but two or three heads turned as he passed. So they heard someone walking in the halls, so what? Nevertheless, he rose on tiptoe and tried to make as little noise as possible.

  A Darkovan woman, hair coiled low on her neck and fastened with a leather butterfly-clasp, her long tartan skirt and shawl faintly scented with incense, went along the hall, singing softly to herself. She went into one of the rooms and came out with a sleepy toddler cradled in her arms. Kerwin froze automatically, even though he knew himself invisible, and the woman seemed unconscious of him, still humming her mountain song.

  “Laszlo, Laszlo, dors di ma main …”

  Kerwin had heard the song of his own childhood, a silly rhyme about a little boy whose foster-mother stuffed him with cakes and sweets until he cried for bread and milk; he remembered, once, being told that the song went back to the historical period called the time of the Hundred Kingdoms, and the Hastur Wars that had ended them, and that the verses were a political satire about over-benevolent governments.

  Kerwin drew aside as the woman passed him, feeling the rustle of her garments; but as they passed each other, she frowned curiously, and broke off her song; had she heard his breathing, smelled some unfamiliar scent from his clothing?

  “Laszlo, Laszlo …” she began to croon her little song again, but the child in her arms twisted, turning his face over the woman’s shoulder, looking straight at Kerwin. He said something in baby-talk, thrusting one chubby fist at Kerwin, and the nurse frowned, turning.