“What man? There’s nobody there, chiy’llu,” she scolded softly, and Kerwin turned and tiptoed down the hallway, his heart suddenly pounding. Could a child’s eyes penetrate Elorie’s illusion?
He paused at the top of the stairs, trying to get his bearings. Finally he turned toward what he thought was the right room.
It was quiet and sunlit, eight small, neatly-made cots in little cubicles around the edges of the room, and in the open play space between, a group of toy figures, men and buildings and spaceships, was arranged on a small table. Carefully stepping around the toys, he saw that a tall white skyscraper had been built at the center of the toy group, and sighed; the children had built the Terran HQ that loomed so large in their thoughts.
He was wasting time. He moved to the windows and moved his fingers along the molding at eye-level. No, there were no carvings… suddenly he realized what he was doing. Yes, he had carved his initials at eye-level, but the eye-level of a nine-year-old boy, not his present two meters and more!
He stooped and felt again at mid-level. Yes, there were carvings in the soft wood; rough crosses, hearts, tick-tack-toe crosses. And then, at the left, in the squarish letters of Terran Standard alphabet, he saw the childish work of his first pocketknife.
J. A. K. JR
Not until he saw the initials did he realize that he was shaking. His fists were clenched so hard that his nails hurt his palms. He did not realize, until now, that he had ever doubted finding them; but now, as he touched the childish, rude gouges in the wood, he knew that he had doubted his own sanity and that the doubt had gone deep.
“They lied, they lied,” he said aloud.
“Who lied?” asked a quiet voice. “And why?”
Kerwin turned quickly toward the door. A short, sturdy, grey-haired man was standing there, looking straight at him. So Elorie’s illusion had worn off; he had been seen, and heard—and found.
Now what?
* * *
Chapter Fifteen: Through the Barrier
« ^ »
The man’s eyes, intelligent and kindly, rested on Kerwin without anger. “We never allow visitors in the dormitories,” he said. “If you wanted to see a particular child, you should have asked to see him in the playroom.” His eyes narrowed suddenly. “But I know your face,” he said. “Your name is Jeff, isn’t it? Kerradine, Kermit—”
“Kerwin,” he said, and the man nodded.
“Yes, of course; we called you Tallo. What are you doing here, young Kerwin?”
Abruptly, Kerwin decided to tell the truth. “Looking for my initials, carved here,” he said.
“Now why would you want to do that? Sentiment? Old times sake?”
“Not a bit of it. A few months ago I came here,” Kerwin said, “and they told me in the office that there were no records of my ever having been here, no records of my parentage—that I was lying when I claimed to remember being brought up here. I don’t blame the matron—she evidently was since my time —but when the computer showed no records of my fingerprints—well, I started doubting my own sanity.” He pointed to the carved initials. “I’m sane, anyhow. I cut those initials here when I was a kid.”
“Now why would that happen?” the man demanded. “Oh, I forgot—I don’t suppose you remember my name; I’m Jon Harley. I used to teach mathematics to the older boys. Still do, as far as that goes.”
Jeff clasped the hand the man held out to him. “I remember you, sir. You stopped a fight I got into once, and bandaged up my chin afterward, didn’t you?”
Harley chuckled. “I remember that, all right. You were a young rowdy, right enough. I remember when your father brought you to us. You were about five, I think.”
Had his father lived so long? I ought to remember him, then, thought Kerwin, but try as he might there was only the elusive blank space in his memory, fragmentary memories of dreams.
“Did you know my father, sir?”
The man said, regretfully, “I saw him only that once, you know, when he brought you here. But, for goodness sake, young Kerwin, come downstairs and have a drink or something. Computers do get out of order, sometimes, I suppose; perhaps we should check the written files and school records.”
Kerwin realized that he should have waited, demanded, tried to see someone who would actually remember him. Like Mr. Harley. “Is there anyone else still here who could remember me?”
Harley thought it over. “I don’t think so,” he said. “It’s been a long time, and there’s a considerable turnover. Some of the maids, perhaps, but I think I’m the only teacher who would remember you. Most of the nurses and teachers are young; we try to keep them young, children need young people about them. I go on and on, old fellow that I am, because it’s hard to get good teachers to come out from Terra, and they want someone who speaks the language without accent.” He said, with a deprecating shrug, “Come down to my office, young Jeff. Tell me what you’re doing these days. I remember you were sent to Terra. Tell me how you happened to come back to Darkover. ”
In the old man’s austere office, filled with the open-window noises of children playing outside, Jeff accepted a drink he didn’t want, fighting unspoken questions to which, he supposed, old Harley wouldn’t have the answer.
“You say you remember my father bringing me here. My mother—was she with him?”
Harley shook his head. “He said nothing about having a wife,” he said, almost prissily.
But, Kerwin thought, he had acknowledged his son, and that wasn’t easy under Terran Empire laws. “What was my father like?”
“As I say, I saw him only once, and it wasn’t easy to tell what he looked like. His nose had been broken, and he’d been in some kind of fight; there was a lot of rioting in Thendara about then; some political upheaval. I never knew the details. He was wearing Darkovan clothing; but he had his Terran identifications. We asked you questions about your mother, but you couldn’t talk.”
“At five years old?”
“You didn’t talk for another year or so,” Harley said, frankly. “To be truthful, we thought you were mentally deficient. That’s one reason I remember you so well; because we all spent a lot of time trying to teach you to talk; we had a speech therapist come from Thendara HQ to work with you. You didn’t speak a word, either in Terran or Darkovan.”
Kerwin listened in amazement as the old man talked on.
“Kerwin—your father—finished up all the formalities for having you admitted here that night,” he said. “Then he went away and we never saw him again. We were fairly curious, because you didn’t look at all like him, and of course you had red hair; and that same week we had taken in another little red-headed fellow, a year or so younger than you.”
Kerwin said, with sudden curiosity, “Was his name—Auster?”
Harley frowned. “I don’t know; he was in the younger division and I never saw much of him, though I know he had a Darkovan name. He was only here for a year or so, and that’s very odd too. He was kidnapped and all his records stolen at the same time… well, I’m talking too much. I’m an old man and it’s nothing to do with you. Why do you ask?”
“Because,” Kerwin said slowly, “I think perhaps I know him.”
“His records aren’t here; as I said, they were stolen, but there’s the record of the kidnapping,” Harley said. “Shall I look it up?”
“No, don’t bother.” Auster was nothing to do with him now; whatever the curious story, and both Kennard and Harley had called it odd, he would never know. It was unlikely that he would have been listed here as Auster Ridenow, in any case. Perhaps Auster too was born of two of the Comyn traitors, who had fled with the renegade Cleindori and her Terran lover. Did it matter? He had been brought up among the Comyn and he had inherited all their powers and he had gone to Arilinn at the appointed time. And he, Kerwin, brought up on Terra, had gone to Arilinn and he had betrayed them…
But he wouldn’t think of that now. He thanked Harley, refused another drink, submitted to being shown
around the new playground and dormitory buildings, and finally took his leave, filled with new questions to replace the old ones.
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 had lived, 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 curious half-memories of dreams—walls, arches, doors, a man who strode proudly, cloaked, through a castle corridor, a woman bending over a matrix, taking it up with a gesture that remained when all the rest of his memory 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 her long-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.”
“What did you find out?”
He hesitated, not sure he should tell her. Would the questions surging in him raise disquiet in her? What did 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 these things with me. As for Cleindori… how can I look down on her? She did only what I have done; and now I know why.” Her smile made Kerwin feel that his heart would break. “Don’t you know that Elorie of Arilinn will be written beside Ysabet of Dalereuth and Dorilys of Arilinn as renegade Keepers, who fled without giving back their oath or asking leave?” He had forgotten that Cleindori had been only his mother’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 moment on Darkover, when he had encountered Ragan and learned what his matrix was, the frustration of his first visit to the orphanage, the matrix mechanics who had refused to help him and the old woman who had died 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, a metallic 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.”
The mechanical voice was proceeding steadily. “Kindly indicate whether you will accept the summons and 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 appeal would 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 a better 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 his words. But he wasn’t sure whether this was the old declaration of persona non grata after which he had fled 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, this would 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, or why 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 with this, Jeff. Kennard said you had a fantastic degree of barrier; that was why he didn’t spot the block in your mind at first. Only—Jeff, why do you want to know? We’re done with the Comyn, and probably leaving 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—this fantastic compulsion to get back to Darkover. It was an obsession, a hunger; I could have made a life for myself on other worlds, but Darkover was always at the back of my mind. Calling me. Now I begin to wonder if it was really me—or if the pushing-around really started way back during the time I can’t remember anything.”
He did not go on, but he knew Elorie followed his thoughts. If his hunger for Darkover was not real, but a compulsion implanted from outside, then what was he? A hollow man, a tool, a mindless booby trap, a programmed 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 from the 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 she ate one of her enormous meals. They walked about the Terran Zone for a little, and Jeff made a gesture at showing her some of the sights of the Zone, but he knew that she cared
no more than he did.
Neither of them spoke of Arilinn, but Jeff knew that her thoughts, like his, kept returning there. What would 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 still to 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 the work with the energons. Any halfway good technician can do most of a Keeper’s work. They don’t need me.” And at another time, apropos of nothing at all, she, said, “They still have all the molecular models we 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 last chance to remain as it was.
Later, when she took the matrix between her hands, he was filled with sudden misgiving. He recalled the matrix mechanic who had died in trying to read his memory. “Elorie, I’d rather never know, than risk harming you!”
She shook her head. “I was trained at Arilinn; I risk nothing,” she said with unconscious arrogance. She cupped the matrix between her two hands, brightening the moving points of light. Her ruddy hair fell like a soft curtain along either cheek.
Kerwin was feeling frightened. The breaking of a telepathic barrier—he remembered Kennard’s attempt—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 his eyes from the light, but he was caught in the brilliant, reflecting patterns. And suddenly, as if printed plain before his eyes, the light thickened and darkened into moving shadows that suddenly cleared into color and form…