The Sword of Aldones (6 page)

“Are you ready to leave?” Marius asked. “I’ve made all the arrangements, unless you’ve some reason for staying here.”

“I’ve got to pick up my matrix certification at the Legation,” I said. “Then well go.” Maybe the sooner I got out of here, the better—or half of Darkover would be bursting in on me playing games!

“Lew,” Marius asked abruptly, “do you have a gun?”

Rafe’s question—and it grated on me. I was readjusting my thoughts, taking the fake Marius—Rafe—out of my thoughts and putting my brother where he belonged in them. I said curtly, “Yes,” and let it go at that. “Will you come to the Legation with me?”

“I’ll walk across the city with you.” He looked around the closed-in room and shuddered. “I couldn’t stay in this beast-pit. You weren’t going to sleep here tonight, were you?”

The Trade City had grown during my absence; it was larger than I remembered, dirtier, more crowded. Already it seemed more natural to call it the Trade City than by its Darkovan name, Thendara. Marius walked at my side, silent. At last he asked “Lew, what’s it like on Terra?”

He would ask that. Earth, home of the unknown forefathers he resembled so much.

I had resented my Terran blood. Did he?

“It would take a lifetime to know Terra. I was only there for three years. I learned a lot of science and a little mathematics. Their technical schools are good. There was too much machinery, too much noise. I lived in the mountains; trying to live at sea level made me ill.”

“You didn’t like it there?”

“It was all right. They even fixed up a mechanical hand for me.” I made a grim face. “There’s the Legation.”

Marius said, “You’d better give me that gun,” then stared, in consternation, as I turned on him. “What’s the matter, Lew?”

“Something very funny is going on,” I said, “and I am getting suspicious of people who want me unarmed. Even you. Do you know a man called Robert Kadarin?”

When Marius looked blank, that dark face could be a masterpiece of obscurity, as unrevealing as a pudding. “I think I’ve heard the name. Why?”

“He filed an intent-to-murder on me,” I said, and briefly drew the pistol out of my pocket. “I won’t use this. Not on him. But I’m going to carry it.”

“You’d better let me—” Marius stopped and shrugged. “I see. Forget I asked.”

I rode the lift upward in the HQ building, past the barracks of Spaceforce, the census bureau, the vast floors of machines, records, traffic, all the business of the Empire. I walked down the corridors of the top floor, to a door that said: DAN LAWTON-Legate of Darkovan Affairs I’d met Lawton briefly before I left Darkover. His story was a little like mine; a Terran father, a mother from the Comyn. We were remotely related—I’d never figured out how. He was a big, rangy redhead who looked Darkovan and could have claimed a place in Comyn Council if he’d wanted it. He hadn’t. He’d chosen the Empire, and was one of the top-ranking liaison men between Terran and Darkovan.

No man can be honest who lives by Terra’s codes; but he came closer than most.

We shook hands in the Terran fashion—a custom I hated—and I sat down. His smile was friendly, not overhearty, and he didn’t evade my eyes—and there are not many men who can, or will look a telepath square in the eyes.

He shoved the plastic chip across the table. “Here. I didn’t need this; I just wanted a good excuse to talk to you, Alton.”

I pocketed the certification, but I didn’t answer.

“You’ve been on Terra, I hear. Like it?”

“The planet, yes. The people—no offense—no.”

He laughed. “Don’t apologize. I left, too. Only the dregs stay there. Anyone with any enterprise or intelligence goes out into the Empire. Alton, why did you never apply for Empire citizenship? Your mother was Terran—you had everything to gain by it, and nothing to lose.”

“Why did you never accept a seat among the Hasturs?” I countered.

He nodded. “I see.”

“Lawton, I don’t fight Terra. I don’t much like having the Empire here, but Darkover just doesn’t fight by cities and nations and planets. If an Earthman were my enemy, I’d file an intent-to-murder, and kill him. If a dozen of them burned my house or stole my stud animals, I’d get my com’ii together and we’d kill them. But I can’t feel anything at all about a few thousand people who have never done me either good or ill, just because they’re here. It isn’t our way.

We do our hating by ones, not by millions.”

“I can admire that psychology, but it puts you at a disadvantage against the Empire,” Lawton said, and sighed. “Well, I won’t keep you—unless there’s something else I can do for you?”

“Maybe there is. Do you know a man who uses the name of Kadarin?”

The reaction was immediate. “Don’t tell me he’s in Thendara!”

“You know him?”

“I wish I didn’t! No, I don’t know him personally, I’ve never actually set eyes on him. But he pops up everywhere. He claims Darkovan citizenship when he’s in the Terran Zone, and somehow manages to prove it; and I understand he claims to be a Terran, and prove it, outside.”

“And we can’t deny him his Thirteen Days.”

I chuckled. I had seen Terrans on Darkover baffled, before this, by the seemingly illogical catch-as-catch-can of the Thirteen Days. An exile, an outlaw, even a murderer, had an inalienable right—dating from time out of mind—to spend one day in Thendara, thirteen times a year, for the purpose of exercising his legal rights. During that time, provided he commits no overt offense, he enjoys absolute legal immunity.

“If he stayed one second over his limit, we’d grab him. But he’s careful. We aren’t even able to hold him for spitting on the sidewalk. The only place he ever goes is the Spacemen’s Orphanage. After which, seemingly, he vanishes into thin air.”

“Well, you may be rid of him soon,” I said. “Don’t prosecute me when I kill him.

He’s filed intent-to-murder on me.”

“If I could only be sure it wouldn’t work the other way,” Lawton smiled, as I rose to go.

But as I crossed the threshold, he called me abruptly back. The friendliness was gone; he strode toward me, wrathfully.

“You’re carrying contraband. Hand it over!”

I handed the gun to him. There must, of course, have been a clarifier screen there. Lawton clicked the chambers; then he stared, frowned and handed it back to me.

“Here. Take it. I didn’t realize.”

He thrust it at me, impatiently. “Go on, take it! But get out of here before anyone else catches you. And give it back. If you need a permit, I’ll try to get you one. But don’t go around carrying contraband!” He pushed the gun back into my hand and virtually shoved me out of the office. I turned it over, baffled, as I walked toward the elevator. Then my name fell on a small name plate: RAFAEL

SCOTT.

And suddenly I knew I was not going to ask either Dio or Marius for an explanation.

“Very well, my lords. I will do as you wish!”

The woman’s voice stopped me, cold, as I parted the curtains and stepped into the enclosure of the Altons, in the Council Hall of the Comyn.

We had come late to the Hidden City; so late that there had been no time to send word to Old Hastur, or even to make my presence known to Linnell who, as my nearest kinswoman and foster sister, would have been informed at once. Marius, who had never been accepted in Comyn Council, had parted from me outside the council hall, and gone to take his place in the lower hall among the lesser nobles and younger sons. I had climbed the stairs to the long gallery, intending to slip quietly through the curtains into the enclosure assigned to the Altons of the Comyn hierarchy.

I stood there, startled; for it was Callina Aillard who was speaking.

I had known her all my life, of course. She was my cousin, too; Linnell’s half sister. But when I saw her last, six years ago—I shied away from the memory—she had been a girl, quiet, colorless. Now I saw that she was a woman, and beautiful.

She was standing, her head flung back, before the High Seat; a slender woman with fair fragile features, in a dark robe. Gems were braided into her long hair; gold chains about her slender throat and a golden chain about her waist,, giving her somehow the look of a prisoner, hung with fetters and yet defiant.

Her voice rang out again, clear and angry.

“When before this has a Keeper been subject to the whims of the Council?”

So that was it!

Marius hadn’t told me there was a new Keeper in Comyn Council; and I hadn’t thought to ask.

In fact, he hadn’t told me much. I looked down now, slipping into my seat behind the railings, at the Council Hall of the Comyn.

It was a high, vaulted room, filled with shadows and sunlight. In the lower hall, the lesser nobles were ranged; along the dais, or gallery, were the Comyn, each family in its own enclosure, ranged in a semicircle. In the center, in the High Seat, old Dantan of Hastur, Regent of the Comyn, was standing; behind him, in the shadows, was a young man I could not see clearly. Beside him, I recognized young Derik Elhalyn, Lord of the Comyn—ruling under Hastur until he reached his majority next year, Derik, lounging in a chair, looked bored.

I looked around, getting my bearings quickly. Dyan Ardais glanced up, with an enigmatic grin, as if he sensed my presence. Beyond him Dio Ridenow was seated among her brothers; I saw my cousin Linnell, but from where she sat I knew she could not see me.

But my eyes came back to Callina. A Keeper!

Not for years had there been a Keeper seated in Comyn Council. Old Ashara had kept to her tower during my lifetime, during my father’s lifetime. She must be unbelievably ancient now. During my childhood, for a short time, there had been a frail flame-haired girl, veiled like a shrouded star, before whom even the Hasturs showed reverence. But when I was still a boy she had died or gone into seclusion, and since that day no young girls had been trained in the secrets of the master-screens. A few sub-keepers and matrix mechanics—I was one, when I cared to take my place among them—kept the relays working. It was hard to realize that my cousin Callina was the Keeper, holding in her frail hands all the incredible power of Ashara.

Yet I knew her courage. The thought roused painful memories. I didn’t want to remember how and when I had last seen Callina.

Old Hastur spoke sternly.

“My lady, times have changed. In these days—”

“In these days they have changed indeed,” she said, throwing back her head with a little silvery ringing of jewels, “when we have slavery on Darkover, and a Keeper can be sold like a shaol in the market place! No, hear me out! I tell you, we would do better to hand over all our secrets now to the accursed Terrans than to ally with the renegades out of Aldaran!”

Her eyes searched and abruptly met mine in the shadows, and unexpectedly she raised her arm and pointed a slender finger at me.

“And there sits one who can prove what I say!”

But I was already on my feet. Ally with Aldaran? I heard my own voice, unbidden.

“You damned, incredible fools!”

Abrupt silence was followed by a sudden stir, a murmur of voices, and a growl; and in dismay I realized what I had done. I had’ jumped feet first into an affaif I really knew nothing about. But the name Aldaran was enough. I looked straight at Old Hastur and defied him.

“Did I hear you say “ally with Aldaran”? With that renegade clan whose name stinks all over Darkover? The men who sold our world to the Terrans.” My voice cracked like a boy’s.

Beside Hastur, young Derik Elhalyn rose to his feet. He made a sign to Hastur and spoke informally.

“Lew, you’re forgetting yourself,” he said. Then, leaning forward, the sunlight gleaming on his red-gold hair, he spoke to the whole council, with a charming smile.

“Look here! A Comyn Lord comes back to us, after six years, and we do nothing to welcome him, but let him creep in like a mouse coming to his hole! Welcome home, Lew Alton!”

I cut through the round of applause he was trying to start. “Never mind that,” I said. “Lord Hastur—and you, my prince, consider this! Aldaran’s men were Comyn, once, and held council voice here. Why were they exiled? Ask yourself that! Or has the old shame been turned into a bedtime tale for children? Who gave the Terrans a foothold on Darkover? Are we all mad here? Or did I hear someone say—ally with Aldaran?”

I turned here and there, searching the shadowed faces for a sign of comprehension anywhere. “Do we want the Terrans on our doorstep?”

Then, desperately, I made my last appeal. I raised the arm that ends in a pinned-down sleeve, and I knew my voice was shaking.

“Do we want Sharra?”

There was a short, ugly silence. Then they all began talking at once. They didn’t want to hear about that. The voice of Dyan Ardais rose, clear and cheerful, over the rest.

“That’s your hate speaking, Lew. Not your good sense Friends, I think we can excuse Lew Alton for his words. He has reason for prejudice. But those days are gone; we must judge by today’s facts, not yesterday’s old grievances. Sit down, Lew. You’ve been away a long time. When you know more about this, maybe you’ll change your mind. Listen to our side, anyway.”

There was a general murmur of approval. Damn him! Damn him, anyway! Shaking, I sat down. He had hinted— no, he had said right out—that I was to be pitied; a crippte with an old grudge, coming back and trying to take up the old feud where I left off. By skillfully focusing their unspoken feelings, he had given them a good reason to disregard what I said.

But the Aldarans had been at the center of the Sharra rebellion! Didn’t they even know that?

Or didn’t they want to know? The Sharra rebellion had only been a symbol, a symptom—like all civil wars—of internal troubles. The Aldarans were not the only ones on Darkover who were lured by the Terran Empire. The Comyn stood out, almost alone, against the magnet-like attraction of that star-spanning federation.

And I was an easy scapegoat for both sides. The Comyn conservatives distrusted me because I was half Terran, and the anti-Comyn faction distrusted me because my father, Kennard Alton, had been the staunchest leader of the Comyn. And they both feared what I knew of Sharra. In their minds I was still part of that terror which had flooded the countryside with leathered Terrans wearing blasters, instead of honest swords, and making the clean night rotten with the spew of their rockets. They had never forgotten or forgiven that. Why should they?