The Tower and the Hive (17 page)

Reliable male!
Jeff pretended to be affronted.

I could wish—
the
Rowan ignored that
reaction—
that more Denebians could bring themselves to explore their latent Talents. You are unique, dear heart, but there must be some male for my granddaughter. And you know your homeworld keeps ignoring their most exportable assets.

I have to, love, with Operation Search expanding in all directions. However
—he forestalled the objection she didn't even have to think at him—
I'm formulating a valid
reason for Asia to accompany Rojer, if that partnership is coming along as well as Flavia thinks it is.

If
—the Rowan's thought was tinged with criticism—
he'll
stop acting like her protector and more like
a
lover.

I'm not so sure we can manage a communication level based on smell, m'dear. Jeff guffawed. Unless we find a stink that drives them out of their lairs or exterminates them.
Then
he
turned serious.
But I have been wondering how we could capitalize on the fact that only Zara, of all the specialists who have tried to establish communications with the Hiver species, has been able to sense some
thing ...
even if it was only that the Heinlein queen was suffering from hypothermia.

Jeff sent reassurances to her, sensing her distress over a large, very vocal faction which was growing stronger and stronger, especially since estimates of the number of planets occupied by Hivers were also increasing as the Fourth Fleet went farther on their segment of the Search, in the opposite direction of the First Fleet. Three species were vying for the same sort of new M-type worlds to ease population densities. Fortunately for Humans, their Mrdini allies preferred the hot-sun worlds that could scorch the hide off Human beings. The marginal, semitropical worlds might cause contention that could become a serious issue. And each new settlement insisted on having the benefit of FT&T, causing Jeff Raven, as Earth Prime, more and more headaches as he tried to accommodate the growing pressure of requests. There were only so many Talented minds available and he was sensible of the risks overburdening could cause. Overburdening and the same sort of problem which the emergence of a flawed T-2 like Vagrian Beliakin could cause. Federated Teleport and Telepath had enough to cope with, without internal dissension.

We'll find a solution,
the Rowan said, in her turn reassuring her beloved husband.

We usually do,
was his equable response.

They both turned back to their separate responsibilities, each gaining strength and courage from their momentary rapport.

Jeff allowed his chuckle a lascivious edge.

The Rowan sent an image of a saccharine smile on her face.
No better woman to pour salve on a wounded male. On the other hand, I hope Damia doesn't know that Laria rejected Beliakin.

“My father's up to tricks again,” Damia told Afra.

Afra turned amused yellow eyes at his wife of twenty-seven years, patiently awaiting further explanation.

They had completed the day's stint at Iota Aurigae Tower and were walking back to their house, which sat well above the bustling, growing capital, its noise muted by the distance.

“Because he's offered us a strong kinetic T-2 in return for sending our daughters to their sister?” A slight smile tilted one comer of the Capellan's narrow, attractive face. He had the kind of features that improve with maturity. He reached for Damia's hand, as much to reinforce their intimacy as to fathom her remark.

“I'll bet you anything this Vagrian Beliakin, for all he's Yoshuk's younger brother, poses a problem we're supposed to solve for Earth Prime.”

“What's wrong with that?”

Damia didn't need to shoot him an annoyed glance: he could easily feel her agitation.

“Haven't you solved enough Gwyn-Raven problems, Afra?”

His answer was to throw his arm about her shoulders and drag her close against his lean body. Being so much shorter than he, she fit in under his arm quite easily.

“I admit to things being a little dull lately ...”

“Oh, you ... you ... methody Capellan,” she said in exasperation, making a brief attempt to slip from under his arm, but he was far stronger than she and she couldn't escape. Not that she really wanted to. “We're enjoying such a nice respite, with even Petra able to manage without constant supervision ... and isn't training our own Aurigaeans enough of a challenge? If we
needed
yet
another
one?”

“Then you don't object to Morag and Kaltia getting some experience at Clarf?”

“Not at all. Summers on Deneb are well enough, and Isthia is superb with them, but they haven't really left home, as it were, for something completely alien.”

“Clarf's that, even if they've been raised with 'Dinis,” Afra admitted in a droll tone. He frowned briefly. “Will Kaltia's very fair skin be at risk?”

“Sunblock helps and she already knows she has to be careful after that awful case of sunburn she had on Deneb. And that primary's not at all as harsh as Clarf's...” Damia's voice trailed off, and she frowned slightly. “Well, she's old enough to know to keep out of the sun.”

“That's right, my dear, and she could always make parasols fashionable on Clarf.”

“They are. But to get back to this Beliakin T-2 ...”

“Let's worry about him when he gets here. Didn't Jeff say that Gollee's giving him some extra training?”

“Gollee doesn't train, dear, he tests.”

“Hmmm. For what?”

That casually dropped remark from her father was what really alerted her to a possible contretemps. “If the fellow's already been passed through the assessment process, why is Gollee handling him and not one of the regular trainers?” Damia asked, lengthening her stride to match her husband's long-legged pace.

“We'll know soon enough ...” They both heard the staccato rhythm of hoofbeats on the path winding up the hill behind their home. “There they go ...” They caught sight of their four younger children, galloping out to hunt. “Oh well, dinner's soon enough to give them the good news.”

Afra tightened his grasp on her, pulling her closer yet, looking down at her.

“It'll be good to have the house all to ourselves for a while,” he said.

Damia caught the gleam in his eye and put her arm about his lean waist. “Yes, it will. How convenient that Tri and Fok are hibernating. We really will be alone again.” She sighed in gratitude.

“Except for the tribes of Darbuls, slithers and Coonies that infest our house,” Afra teased her.

“This time of day they'll all be asleep. Let's hurry.”

Laughing, they 'ported into their spacious room at the top of the house.

 

They were grateful for that respite by dinnertime when they informed their ecstatic daughters Morag and Kaltia that they were to go to Clarf and assist their sister's Tower team with the vast loads still being poured onto the planet Talavera.

“So we're going to do something more than push big daddies,” Kaltia said, her unusual yellow eyes, legacy of her Capellan father, glistening like miniature suns.

“Huh. We'll be pushing just as much around, and Laria'll be bossing us,” Morag replied sourly.

“Laria has never been bossy,” her mother said firmly. “And if you need bossing, you'll take it, young miss, if it comes from a Tower Prime.”

“I'm going to be a Tower Prime when I'm old enough,” Kaltia informed them with the complacency of her youth.

“That remains to be seen,” Afra said, for he was methody enough not to condone bragging. Kaltia gulped, subsided and concentrated on eating.

“Kincaid never bosses,” Morag said, affecting a pose, “even when he's hunt leader.” She got on well with her sister's T-2. She'd been impressed with how well he rode and what a good shot he was. She considered him a very comfortable person to be with. “Is Vanteer still engineer?” Her sly attempt to wheedle information from her mother was duly noted.

“Yes, and we'll have no gossip, Morag,” Damia said firmly. “Lionasha's Tower expediter.”

“Have they 'Dinis?”

THEY DO, THEY DO, chorused Kev, Su, Sim and Dar at once. WE'LL GO TO CLARF. The four of them started to do cartwheels and other acrobatic antics around the dining table.

WE'LL HIBERNATE IN CLARF ITSELF, said Dar, springing up and down with more height than one would expect from a 'Dini.

WE'LL SEE TIP AND HUF, AND NIL AND PLUS.

“You'll have to help in the yard,” Morag said sternly. “No running off to your color houses whenever you want to.”

NO, NO, WORK IS FIRST. ALWAYS, Dar assured her, and then began to twirl Sim round and round until Morag was dizzy watching them.

“So, who's this T-2 you'll have to do
our
work?” Kaltia asked in a proprietary tone.

“Yoshuk's younger brother,” Damia said.

“Isn't Yoshuk the T-2 with Nesrun at Sef Tower?” Kaltia asked. “Thought so,” she added when Damia nodded. She was silent a moment. “There won't be ponies, will there?”

“No, not on Clarf, silly. No room. 'Dinis there use flying belts,” said Morag.

“And you will not,” Afra said, pointing an admonitory finger at Morag, who was more athletically inclined, and reckless, than Kaltia. “You already drive a ground car and they've the same models there. Or you can 'port.”

“That's not bad manners on Clarf?” asked Kaltia, surprised. On Deneb it was, but then, on Deneb they had had ponies.

“You will first inform anyone in the immediate vicinity what you intend to do,” Damia said firmly. “Otherwise it's just as ill-mannered as it would be here or on Deneb.” When Kaltia made a long-suffering grimace, her mother added, “Not that I want you out in the Clarf sun any longer than is absolutely necessary.”

“I know, I know. I must use enough sunblock. Why”—her tone turned petulant—“did I have to get the fair skin and freckles in the family? No one else has them.”

“Grandmother says you're a throwback,” Ewain said, as helpful as teenage brothers generally are.

“And you're a ...”

“That's enough,” Afra said firmly, and the three subsided and resumed eating.

“I think it's great,” Petra said suddenly. “There'll just be you and me, E, and no one to tell us which pony we can't ride.”

“Yeah, but we'll have to do all the hunting.”

Petra grinned. “But we won't have to hunt so much with just four of us here ...”

“Possibly five,” Afra said, “unless Vagrian Beliakin chooses to live down in the city instead of here.”

“Forgot about him,” Petra said, turning glum. “Do we have to have him here? It's E's and my turn to have you,” she added, looking sternly from one parent to the other. “We've waited long enough.”

“When were you ever neglected?” demanded Morag tartly.

“I said, that's enough,” Afra repeated, adding a mental quietus. “Good hunt, today? Where'd you go?”

“Laria's valley. It hasn't been hunted in just ages,” Morag said.
“It
has been neglected ...” She cast a daring glance at her father. “So the hunting was good.”

Afra regarded his daughter with such a long thoughtful look for her impudence that she turned her whole attention to her dinner plate.

She needs more work and responsibility, Damia said, though her tone was amused by her daughter's clever wordplay.

The rest of the evening passed without incident, Damia and her daughters making certain the guest quarters, private from the main living area, were in order for the new arrival. Both Afra and Damia felt that a man of twenty-four would want to live nearer the city with all its possibilities of entertainment, though he would need to stay at Tower House until he'd found accommodations.