The Tower and the Hive (21 page)

Vagrian was not the least nervous once he settled onto the couch, which fit him as if it had been custom-made for his tall, wide frame.

“What's first, Keylarion?” Damia asked. One of the screens brightened. “Maltese Cross, huh?” She turned to her left, to Vagrian. “You have been trained in merge techniques, haven't you?”

“Of course,” he said, and tightened his inner shields.

“Let Afra take you into the merge. And relax!”

He felt the gentle push of Afra's mind against his and did manage not to resist. He was still unsure of merging despite the practice sessions at Blundell. But this was almost effortless and he could relax. And he did, then felt the incredible strength of Damia joining and picking up the existing merge. Afra increased and drew him to a higher level. An unexpected excitement began deep inside him to respond to the draw on his Talent.

Easy, Vagrian,
Damia said.
Now follow my lead to our target. We'll need your heft... DAVID, coming your way... at top speed! NOW!

As if he were part of the drone they were manipulating, Vagrian felt its dead weight, felt the merge lifting it with incredible ease and then shifting it until he, within the merge, felt the contact of another merge, taking the drone the rest of the way to Betelgeuse.

He was aware then of the generators, dropping from the height at which they had assisted the gestalt of mind and direction.

Well done, Vagrian,
Damia said, grinning at him.
Keep in mind we've five more of these brutes to shove. Allow me to draw the heft as I need it. Don't anticipate. It'll take even you a little time to feel the needs of a merge.

The second screen brightened with the second target. “Trefoil Mine, this time, and then back to Maltese Cross.”

Afra was still in merge with him, and Vagrian had to appreciate the experienced delicacy of the other T-2's touch. But then, the man had decades of practice, first with the Rowan at Callisto Station and then twenty-six or more years with his wife. No matter, the Capellan's deftness was remarkable and most certainly did not give Vagrian any sense of violation or intrusion. He had thought that most merges occurred with the focus mind initiating the process, then including the others involved.

Ready?
Damia asked.

When you are,
said another male voice that must be David of Betelgeuse.
Who've you got throwing today? Certainly not Petra and Ewain.

Vagrian Beliakin,
Damia said. Are
you ready, David?

This time Vagrian was ready for the sensation and the weight, and remembering not to anticipate, he found this thrust was indeed easier.

By the sixth and final 'portation, Vagrian knew he had worked hard. There was sweat on his forehead from the mental and physical effort. He was somewhat reassured to notice that Afra was mopping his forehead and there was a glow of perspiration on Damia's composed and beautiful face.

Keylarion came up the steps with a tray of tall drinks, handing one to each of them. She grinned at Vagrian.

“I see you survived to tell the tale,” she said with a grin. “Didn't even have the generators at max either. Xexo's going to love having you here.”

He was debating a retort, when Keylarion turned to Damia. “Some incoming scheduled in half an hour. Okay?”

“You bet,” Damia said, tipping her glass at Vagrian. “We could damn well push to the Magellanic Cloud with this one assisting.”

“All in a day's work,” he said, taking refuge in a trite reply because he hadn't expected such approval. After all, she had had to tell him to exercise restraint. And she was Laria's mother? Would he have made such a balls of it at Clarf if Damia had been the Tower Prime?

“Work's not over yet,” she said teasingly, and took a long drink.

He did too, knowing that the stimulant would restore the energy those heists had taken, even if he didn't feel them ... yet.

 

He concluded his first day's work at Iota Aurigae Tower well pleased with himself and this assignment. This was a real challenge for any Talent, and for the first time since he discovered he had Talent, he felt he had used his mental muscles. It was also the first time he had not had a night-marish flash of that mud slide. He was glad that little reminder was receding. He'd been one of the senior wardens of a large game preserve on Altair, accompanying a big group of hunters, and he had managed to include in their number his current female companion. Alcibaca had claimed an enthusiastic interest in hunting—feigned, he suspected, in an effort to capture his attention. For once, his suspicions were false. She'd kept up with him and the others he had escorted on a regular basis. Without a murmur of complaint, she'd done her share of camping chores and had bagged three of the largest beartards, skinned and dressed down the meat properly.

They were on the fourth day of the week, and its third rainy one, when he led them, carefully, up a steep slope to a narrow valley he knew was the home of a large enough “bear” clan which needed to be culled. He had his charges spread out across the slope, since he was well aware of the dangers of mud slides in these hills. What with keeping an appreciative eye on the rear view Alcibaca presented and the other on the weakest hunters of his group, he did not see three of them closing up, ahead of him. Nor did he see the avian that one of them, who ought to have known better, fired at. The sharp crack was all that was needed to set the treacherous ground moving.

The three men had time to leap to the far side, clinging to the nearest saplings and bushes, but the slide, once it started, picked up momentum in an awesome, inexorable cataract of moving mud, heading right at the rest of the hunting party. Horrified, Vagrian kept his wits, saw that there was one chance to protect himself and his group. The slide was heading toward a granite outcropping. If there was only a way to push the slide to the opposite side of that, instead of over it, the mud would head harmlessly into the valley below. With every ounce of body language, he valiantly pushed the bulging, rippling head of the slide, and when it actually did pass on the far side of the rock, he fell to his knees, gripping his head against the most appalling, blinding headache he'd ever experienced.

Alcibaca and one of the executives had the good sense to call in their position and airlift the hunting party out—all of them. The one who had fired without checking with him was served with a lifetime ban at that preserve. Vagrian had been interviewed by a T-4 and the outcome was sufficient to alter the course of his life. His one regret for the precipitous way in which he was 'ported to Blundell for further assessment was that he hadn't been able to persuade Alcibaca to accompany him. She had expressed gratitude to him for saving her life in a time-honored fashion and she was his sole regret in leaving Altair for Earth.

Laria's delight in having her sisters come was sufficient for her to be the one to open their personnel carrier in the dawn cool of Clarf. She hugged them both, introduced them and their 'Dinis to those doing the yard duty.

All of a sudden, Morag pulled out of her sister's embrace and, her jaw working in astonishment, pointed skyward. “What's sparkling up there? Or is it my imagination?” She squinted toward the distant but visible shining point. “Or do you have a morning star I didn't know about?”

“Oh, that,” Laria said dismissively, without bothering to look up. “That's a Hiver sphere!”

Kaltia's eyes widened with some apprehension as she too peered at the sparkling spot.

“It's empty, though occasionally Mrdinis go up to prowl around for the fun of it,” Laria said. “That's the one Captain Klml brought back as a trophy for its color. Then every other 'Dini world had to hijack one to maintain the honor of their colors.”

Morag, eyes still on the sphere hanging like a malignant metal moon in the morning sky, shook her head. “Thing still looks dangerous.” Then she wiped the beads of perspiration that the relative cool of very early morning oozed out of her pores.

“Wouldn't think that would have bothered you, Morag,” Laria said, somewhat concerned.

“It's not the sphere that made me break out in sweat. It's what you call climate here.”

“Why, it's cool right now,” Laria replied.

“You call this
cool?”
Morag demanded.

“All is relative,” Laria said, grinning. “You'll gradually get acclimated and I don't expect you'll want to go out much at first, but the Tower's set to Iota temperatures. Don't worry about the duffels. The 'Dinis'll bring them in.”

Laria paused only long enough to ‘port the personnel carrier into the storage shed, where its interior wouldn't heat up when the full sun appeared. Then she turned both girls, who were still staring up at the sphere, firmly toward the Tower as eight 'Dinis argued over who was to carry which duffel.

EACH OF YOU GRAB ONE END. THEN CART THEM TO ROOMS THREE AND FOUR, WILL YOU PLEASE? Laria told them so she could introduce her sisters to her Tower crew.

“You know Kincaid, of course,” she said, “Lionasha here is our expediter and Vanteer our engineer. And that's all of us, bar the 'Dinis. We've got four off in hibernation—mine . and Kincaid's—but they're about due to come home.”

Lionasha hugged both girls, Van treated them to a bow and a kiss on their hands, grinning mischievously when Morag gave him a mock scowl and Kaltia pretended to swoon at such courtesy. Standing slightly to one side of the others, Kincaid appeared uncertain as to what form his greeting should take, but Morag dragged him down by the shoulder and kissed his cheek, laughing at his startled expression.

“Missed you hunting with us, Kincaid,” she said, winking at him.

Kaltia, less the hoyden, extended her hand, and when he took it, folded her other hand over for a closer contact. She grinned up at him.

“My sister hasn't worked you to death then...”

“Not yet,” Kincaid replied with a mock grimace. “But your presence will make my demise much less likely. I couldn't believe it when Laria said your mother had relented.”

“I thought it was Grandfather's idea,” Morag said, looking from Kincaid to Laria..

“His idea, but Mother had to agree to parting with you,” Laria said, linking an arm about their shoulders and hugging them into her. “Oh, but it's good to have family here. Now, are you hungry or do you want to settle in? You may, once you've got accustomed to Clarf, wish to take an apartment together in the Human Compound because there's a lot more going on there than here. I've asked for another ground car since I know”—she cocked a finger at Morag—“that Dad passed you for driving years before he let me solo.”

“Had to,” Morag said with a grin.

“We can settle in later. We came here to work,” Kaltia said, rubbing her hands together with a roll of her eyes.

“You will,” Lionasha said, gesturing to the load of disks. “We've some heavy drone freighters to go...”

“Ah, piffle,” said Morag, with a toss of her heavy dark hair, the silvered lock that was the family's trademark falling neatly down the center of her tresses. “We've done big-daddy ore drones until it's second nature.”

“Why else do you think you're here?” Vanteer remarked dryly, but he was grinning at the ebullience of the sisters, which had lightened the semigloom that had emanated from Laria since she'd 'ported the unwanted T-2 back to Blundell. Surprised as he had been at Laria's precipitous removal of Yoshuk's brother, he had been intensely grateful. Vanteer had just a touch of prescience in his Talent, and warning ripples had gone down his spine the moment the man entered the Tower. Morag and Kaltia, by their very presence, eagerness to work and delight in being able to help their sister, had dispelled the last of that unpleasantness. He knew that Kincaid had visited the Lyon home on Iota Aurigae, and both girls were obviously glad to renew the acquaintance. The nebulous worries that he recently sensed in the Tower dissipated in the giggles of two more Lyons. “Is there anyone left at home?” he added.

“Sure, Ewain and Petra,” Kaltia said, and dismissed them with a wave. “But they're still too young, so Grandfather sent in a strong kinetic T-2 to help Mother and Dad.”

“Really?” Kincaid said, to break a stunned silence, since all the adults in the Tower had a good idea just who that T-2 could be.

“We had to leave but he's supposed to have more than enough heft for the big daddies. And Mom and Dad will break him in property.”

“Yes,” Laria said, an odd look on her face, “I'm sure that they will.”

Lionasha suddenly started sorting disks, Vanteer retreated to the generators, and if Morag caught some undercurrent, Laria quickly urged them to follow her to their quarters.

“We won't really have much time before the Tower's busy, but as near as I can remember, you'd've left home at about nine-thirty?”

“On the nose, sis, or do we have to call you Prime?” Kaltia said.

“Have you ever called Mother Prime?” Laria retorted, chuckling.

“Only Grandmother,” Morag said pertly.

“Oh, but I
am
glad to have you here!” Laria repeated.

“And we're glad to be allowed out,” Morag said, “but that sun is incredible!”

They all heard the unmistakable sound of generators turning over and speeding up.

“I don't think you'll have more than time to look into your rooms,” Laria said, sliding open a door on one side of the hall and pointing to the one just opposite it. “See which one your duffels are in, wash your faces or whatever, but come on back to the Tower. Today'll be so
easy.”