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The defiance was gone from her face. She fingered the cheek Beltran had struck. 'Truly, Lew," she said,almost in a whisper, "I don't know. I felt we needed someone, and in days past this matrix had known the Aldarans, wanted Kermiac-no, that doesn't make sense, does it? And I felt that I could and I mustbecause Marjorie wouldn't ... I couldn't stop myself, I watched myself do it and I was afraid...." Shebegan to cry helplessly.

I stepped forward and took her into my arms, holding her against me, her face wet on my shoulder. I felta shaking tenderness. We had all been helpless before that force. My own emotion should have warnedme, but I was too distressed to feel alarm. The feel of her warm body hi my arms should have warnedme, too, at that stage, but I let her cling to me, sobbing, for a minute or two before I patted her shoulderstenderly, wiped her tears away and turned to help Beltran rise. He stood up stiffly, rubbing his hip. Isighed and said, "I know how you feel, Beltran. It was a dangerous thing to do. But you were in thewrong, too, losing your temper. A matrix technician must have control, must at all times."

Defiance and contrition warred in his face. He fumbled for

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words. I should have waited for them-I was responsible for this whole circle-but I felt too sick and

drained to try. I said curtly, "Better see if any harm was done to the helicopter when it crashed."

"From three inches off the ground?" He sounded contemptuous now. That also troubled me but I was too tired to care. I said, "Suit yourself. It's your craft. If this is what comes of having you in the circle, II! make damned sure you're a good long way away from it." I turned my back on him.

Marjorie was leaning on Rafe. She had stopped crying but her eyes and nose were red. Absurdly Iloved her more than ever like that. She said in a small shaking voice, "I'm all right now, Lew. Honestly."

I looked at the ground at our feet. It was covered with more than an inch of snow. You always lost trackof time inside a matrix. It was snowing harder than ever, and the sky was darkening. The shaking of myown hands warned me. I said, "We all need food and rest. Run ahead, Rafe, and ask the servants tohave a meal ready for us."

I heard a familiar clattering roar and looked up. The other helicopter was circling overhead, descending. Beltran was walking away toward it. I started to call after him, summon him-he too would be drained,needing the replenishment of food and sleep. At that moment, though, my only thought was to let himcollapse. It would do him good to learn this wasn't a game! We left him behind.

I'd have an apology to make to Kermiac, too. It didn't matter that it had been done against my orders. Iwas operating the matrix. I had trained this circle. I was responsible for everything that happened to it

Everything.

Everything. Aldones, Lord of Light . . . everything: Ruin and death, a city in flames and chaos, Marjorie .

. .

I shook myself out of the maelstrom of misery and pain, staring at the quiet path, the dark sky, the gentlyfalling snow. None of it was real. I was hallucinating. Merciful Avarra, if, after three years at Arilinn, anymatrix ever built could make me hallucinate, I was in troublel

Kermiac's servants had laid a splendid meal for us, though I was so hungry I could as readily have eatenbread and milk. As I ate the drained weakness receded, but the vague, formless guilt remained. Marjorie. Had she been burned by the flare of fire? I kept wanting to touch her and make sure she was there, alive,unhurt Thyra ate with tears running

down her face, the bruise gradually swelling and darkening until her eye was swollen shut. Beltran did not come. I supposed he was with Kermiac. I didn't give a damn where he was. Marjorie self-consciously thrust aside her third plateful, saying, "I'm ashamed to be so greedy!"

I began to reassure her. Kadarin did it instead. "Eat, child, eat, your nerves are exhausted, you need theenergy. Rafe, what's the matter, child?" The boy was restlessly pushing his food around on his plate. "You haven't touched a bite."

"I can't, Bob. My head aches. I can't swallow. If I try to swallow anything I'm afraid I'll be sick."

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Kadarin met my eyes. "I'll take care of him," he said. *'I know what to do, I went through it when I washis age." He lifted Rafe in his arms and carried him, like a small child, out of the room. Thyra rose andwent after them.

Left alone with Marjorie, I said, "You should rest, too, after all that."

She said in a very small voice, "I'm afraid to be alone. Don't leave me alone, Lew."

I didn't intend to, not until I was sure she was safe. A Keeper in training has stresses no other matrixmechanic suffers, and I was still responsible for her. Although emotional upheavals were common enoughwhen first keying into one of the really big matrices, such frightful blowups as this between Beltran and Thyra were not common. Fortunately. No wonder we were all literally sick from it.

I had never seen Marjorie's room before. It was at the top of a small tower, isolated, reached by awinding stair, a wedge-shaped room with wide windows. In clear weather it would have looked out ontremendous mountain ranges. Now it was all a dismal gray, gloomy, with hard beating snow rattling andwhining against the glass. Marjorie slipped off her outdoor boots and knelt by the window, looking intothe storm. "It's lucky we came in when we did. I've known the snow to come up so quickly you can loseyour way a hundred paces from your own doorway. Lew, will Rafe be all right?"

"Of course. Just stress, maybe a touch of threshold sickness. Beltran's tantrum didn't help any, but it won't last long." Once a telepath gained full control of his matrix, and to do this he must have mastered the nerve channels, recurrences of threshold sickness were not serious, Rafe was probably feeling rotten, but it wouldn't last.

Marjorie leaned against the window, pressing her temples to the cold glass. "My head aches."

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"Damn Beltran anyway!" I said, with violence that surprised me.

"It was Thyra's fault, Lew. Not his."

"What Thyra did is Thyra's responsibility, but Beltran must bear the responsibility for losing control, too."

My mind slid back to that strange interval within the matrix-whether it had been a few seconds or anhour I had no way of knowing-when I had sensed my father's presence. It occurred to me to wonder if atany of the towers, Hali or Arilinn or Neskaya, they had sensed the wakening of this enormous matrix,stirring to life. My father was an extraordinary telepath; he had served in Arilinn under the last of theold-style Keepers. He must have felt Sharra's wakening.

Did he know what we were doing?

As if following my thoughts Marjorie said, "Lew, what is your father like? My guardian has alwaysspoken well of him."

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"I don't want to talk about my father, Marjorie." But my barriers had been breached and that furious parting came back to me, with all the old bitterness. He had been willing to kill me, to have his own way. He cared no more for me than a . . .

Mariorie said in a low voice, "You're wrong, Lew. Your father loved you. Loves you. No, I'm notreading your mind. You were ... broadcasting. But you are a loving person, a gentle person. To be soloving, you must have been loved. Greatly loved."

I bent my head. Indeed, indeed, all those years I had been so secure hi his love, he could never havelived a lie. Not to me. We had been open to one another. Yet somehow that made it worse Loving me,to risk me so ruthlessly . . .

She whispered, "I know you, Lew. You could not have lived-would you have wanted to be withoutlaranl Without the full potential of your gift? He knew your life wouldn't have been worth living without it. Blind, deaf, crippled ... so he let you risk it. To become what he knew you were,"

I laid my head on her knees, bund with pain. She had given me back something I never knew I had lost;she had returned to me the security of my father's love. I couldn't look up, couldn't let her see my facewas contorted, that I was crying like a child. She knew anyway. I supposed this was my form ofthrowing a tantrum. Thyra disobeyed orders. Rafe got threshold sickness, Kadarin and Beltran startedslamming each other ... I started crying like a child....

After a time I lifted her hand and kissed the slender fingertips. She looked worn and exhausted. I said, "You must rest too, darling." I was deeply proud of the skill with which she had seized control. She layback against her pillows. I bent and, as I would have done at Arilinn, ran my fingertips lightly along herbody. Not touching her, of course, simply feeling out the energy flows, monitoring the nerve centers. Shelay quietly, smiling at the touch that was not a touch. I felt that she was still depleted, drained of energy,but that would not last. The channels were clear. I was glad she had come through this strenous beginningso well, so undamaged.

I was not, at the moment, actively suffering because she was forbidden to me, that even a kiss wouldhave been unthinkable. I was remotely aware of her but there was no sexual element in it. I simply felt anintense and overwhelming love such as I had never known for anyone alive. I didn't have to speak of it. Iknew she shared it.

If I couldn't have reached Marjorie's mind I'd have gone mad with wanting her, needing her with everynerve in me. But we had this, and it was enough. Almost enough, and we had the promise of the rest.

I knew the answer, but I wanted to say the words aloud.

"When this is over, you will marry me, Marjorie?"

She said, with a simplicity that made my heart turn over, "I want to. But will the Comyn let you?"

"I won't ask them. By then the Comyn may have learned it's not for them to arrange everyone's life!"

"I wouldn't want to make trouble, Lew. Marriage doesn't mean that much to me."

"It does to me," I said fiercely. "Do you think I want our children to be bastards? I want them at Armida

after me, without the struggle my father had to get it for me...."

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Her laugh was adorable. Quickly, she sobered. "Lew, Lew, I'm not laughing at you, darling. Only itmakes me so happy, to think that it means all this to you-not just wanting me, but thinking of all that willcome afterward, our children, our children's children, a household to stand into the future. Yes, Lew. Iwant to have your children, I'm sorry we have to wait so long for them. Yes, I'll marry you if you wantme to, in the Comyn if they'll have it, if not, then any way we can, any way you choose." For a moment, afeather-touch, she laid her lips against the back of my hand.

My heart was so full I could bear no more. I had desired women before, but never with this wholeness,going far

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beyond any moment of desire, stretching into the future, all our lives. For a moment time went out of

focus again . . .

... I was kneeling beside the cot of a little girl, five or six perhaps, a tiny child with a heart-shaped face and wide eyes fenced in long lashes, golden eyes just the color of Marjorie's ... I felt a strange wonder, pain in my right hand, dismayed, torn with anguish . , .

Marjorie whispered, "What is it, Lew?"

"A flash of precognitioo," I said, coming back to myself, Strangely shaken. "I saw-I saw a little girl. With your eyes." But why had I felt so bewildered, so agonized? I tried to see it again, but as these flashes come unbidden, so they can never be recalled. I felt Marjorie's thoughts, and hers were wholly joyful: It will be all right then. We will be together as we wish, we will see that child. Her lashes were dropping shut with weariness and, kneeling beside her, I looked into her face again. She thought drowsily, We should have a son first, and I knew she had seen the child's face in my mind. She smiled with pure happiness and her lids slipped shut. Her hand tightened on my own.

"Don't leave me," she whispered, half asleep.

"Never. Sleep, beloved." I stretched out beside her, holding her fingers in mine, my love encircling her

sleep. After a moment, I slept too, in the deepest happiness I had ever known.

Or was ever to know again.

It was dark when I woke, the snow still rattling the windows. Kadarin was standing above us, holding alight. Marjorie was still deeply asleep. His glance at her was filled with a deep tenderness that warmedme to him as nothing else could have done.

And then, for a moment, I felt his face wrenched, contorted with rage ... It was gone. He said softly,

"Beltran sent to ask if you would come down. Let Margie sleep if you like, she's very tired."

I slid from the bed. She stirred, made a faint protesting noise-I thought she had murmured my name. I

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covered her gently with a shawl, picked up my boots in my hand and noiselessly went out, feeling her

sink back into deep sleep.

"Rafe?"

"He's fine. I gave him a few drops of kirian, got him to drink some hot milk and honey, left him asleep." Kadarin wore his sad, tender smile on his face. "I've been looking for you everywhere. After all your warnings, I never expected-