The Saga of the Renunciates (90 page)

Even before she had come to Darkover, since first she had gone into training for Intelligence work, Vanessa ryn Erin had known of the legendary Magdalen Lorne. She knew most of the story: that she had been born on Darkover, in the mountains near Caer Donn, before the building of Thendara Spaceport, so that Magda had been brought up with Darkovan children and learned the language as a native. She knew that Magda had been trained, like herself, in the Intelligence Academy on Alpha, by Vanessa’s own chief, Cholayna Ares, who had at that time been head of Intelligence Training, and had only later come to Darkover. She knew that Magda had, for a time, been married to the present Terran Legate, Peter Haldane, and that she had been the first woman to do Intelligence Fieldwork on Darkover; one of the very few women who had ever done so. She knew that Magda had been the first to infiltrate the Guild of Renunciates, had even managed to take the Oath, and had quixotically insisted on keeping it, even to serving the full housebound time, which, before the creation of the Bridge Society, had been required in unmitigated form even of Terrans. She knew that, a few years ago, Magda had left the Guild-house and was on some mysterious detached duty at Armida. This she had known of the legend. But she had met the living woman only a few days ago, and still was not accustomed to her. Somehow she had expected her to be larger than life.

In the Guild-house, courtesy demanded that she use only Lorne’s Darkovan name.

“Margali n’ha Ysabet? May I speak with you for a minute?”

“Vanessa? How nice to see you.” Magda Lorne, Margali, seemed tall, though she was not much over average height; in her middle thirties, with heavy dark hair cropped short in Renunciate style, shadowing her forehead; she had deep-set, lively gray eyes which rested on Vanessa curiously. “Here, take some of these, will you?” She shoved some of the armload of melons into Vanessa’s hands; sniffed, and made a wry face. “Smells like tripe stew. You can have my share. Will I ever forget how I hated it, my first few months here? But maybe you like it, some people do. Never mind, there’ll be plenty of bread and cheese, and melons for dessert. Camilla, give her some of those, if you drop them here in the hall we’ll be chasing them all over the place— and if any of them smash open, what a mess to clean away! And I, for one, don’t feel like scrubbing floors this week!”

Camilla, who was even taller than Magda, loaded Vanessa’s arms with some of the melons she was carrying. They smelled sweet and fragrant, with the earthy smell of the greenhouse, but Vanessa resented the intrusion on her mission. Camilla saw her frown.

“What are you doing here, Vanessa? If it is Bridge Society night, I had forgotten. ”

Vanessa thought, irritably, that if one more person said that to her she would swear out loud. “No—but I have a message for you, Margali, from Cholayna n’ha Chandria.” Vanessa used the Guild-house name, and Magda shook her head in puzzlement.

“Damn the woman, what can she want? I talked with her three days ago, and she knew I was leaving. Jaelle and I should have gone this afternoon. In case you’d forgotten, we have children at Armida. ”

“It’s an assignment. She said it was important, possibly a matter of life or death, ” Vanessa told her.

Camilla said, “Cholayna doesn’t exaggerate. If she said
life or death
, she meant it. ”

“I’m sure of it, ” Magda said, frowning. “But do you have any idea what it’s all about, Vanessa? I don’t want to get hung up here. As I said, I’m needed at Armida. Jaelle’s daughter is old enough to be left, but Shaya’s not quite two years old, and if I stay much longer in the city she’ll forget what I look like!”

“I couldn’t say, ” Vanessa evaded, carefully not saying that she didn’t know. She had been briefed on why Magda had left the Guild-house, and something from the most secret and classified files had been made available to her about Magda’s work at Armida, but not nearly enough to understand it.

She could not imagine any conceivable reason why an Intelligence Agent of Magda’s status should want to burden herself with a half-Darkovan child, and like all women who are childless by choice, she judged Magda harshly. Although she admired the legend, she was not yet accustomed to the living reality of the woman. Walking at Magda’s side, it confused her to note that Magda was actually an inch or two shorter than she was herself.

“It’s not all that late. Have we time for dinner here? No, I suppose if Cholayna said life or death, she means exactly that. Let me go and tell Jaelle n’ha Melora that I may not be able to leave at first light, after all.” But her face was grim as she started up the stairs.

“Let me tell you, Vanessa, if this is a nonsense of some sort, Cholayna will wish she had never learned the way to the Guild-house. I’m leaving tomorrow, and that’s that!”

She smiled suddenly as she started up the stairs, and for the first time, Vanessa sensed, behind the matter-of-fact woman, the powerful personality who had become the legend.

“Oh, well, if it had to come, what better time? At least I’ll miss the tripe stew. ”

It was pitch-dark now, and raining, spits and slashes of sleet in the nightly rain. The streets were all but empty when Magda and Vanessa finally crossed the square facing the entrance to the Terran HQ and gave passwords to the Spaceforce man in black leather uniform. He was bundled to the neck in a black wool scarf, which was not regulation, and there was a heavy down jacket over the uniform which was not regulation either, but on this particular planet, at night, should have been. Magda knew they winked at it, but that wasn’t enough; they should have changed the rules to authorize it.

And they think the Darkovan people are unwilling to change their primitive ways!

Magda did not know most of the new Spaceforce people now. Even a year ago, she would have introduced herself; now it seemed pointless. She would be going back to Armida in the morning; that was where her life was laid now. She had remained accessible to Cholayna to help in the founding and implementing of the Bridge Society, but now it was working well on its own. And now she had a child to bind her further to Armida and the Forbidden Tower. Cholayna Ares, Head of Intelligence on Cottman Four, would simply have to get along without her.

If she thinks she can send me into the field at a moment’s notice, she can simply think again
.

Magda had lived so long under the Darkovan sun that she flinched at the bright yellow Earth-normal lights as they came on inside the main HQ building. But she stepped into the elevator without hesitation. She had acquired a certain impatience with these Terran conveniences, but she wasn’t going to walk up forty-two flights of stairs to make her point.

At this hour the sector given over to Terran Intelligence was dark and deserted; only from the office of Cholayna Ares was there a gleam of light, and Magda realized that if Cholayna awaited her in the office, instead of sending for her in her comfortable living quarters, there was something very important in the wind.

“Cholayna? I came as soon as I could. But what in the world—this one or any other—is so important that it couldn’t wait until morning?”

“I was afraid that by morning you would be gone,” Cholayna answered. “I wasn’t eager to send a messenger after you to Armida. But I would have done it if I had to.”

Cholayna Ares, Terran Intelligence, was a very tall woman, with a shock of silver-white hair in astonishing contrast to the darkness of her black skin. She rose to greet Magda; gestured her to take a seat. Magda remained standing.

“It’s good of you to come, Magda.”

“It’s not good at all, you didn’t give me a choice,” Magda retorted irritably. “You said something about life and death. I didn’t think you’d say that lightly. Was I wrong?”

“Magda—do you remember an agent named Anders? Alexis. She came here from Magaera two years ago. Basic Training in Intelligence; shifted here to Mapping and Exploring.”

“Lexie Anders? I didn’t know her well,” Magda said, “and she made it very clear she didn’t want to know me any better. Later, when I suggested that if she wanted to know how to relate to the women here, she join the Bridge Society, she laughed in my face. I must admit I’ve never especially liked her. Why?”

“I think you were too hard on her,” Cholayna said. “She came here and immediately found herself up against the Lorne Legend.” Magda made an impatient gesture, but Cholayna went on, imperturbable.

“No, no, my dear, I’m perfectly serious. You had done more, on a world where in general it was impossible for a woman to accomplish anything at all in intelligence work, than Anders had accomplished in her first three assignments. Whatever she did, she found herself competing with you, and in consequence she knew she was outclassed before she began. I wasn’t at all surprised when she shifted to M-and-Ex.”

“I can’t see why she thought she had to compete—” Magda began irritably; but Cholayna brushed that aside.

“Be that as it may. Her plane went down over the Hellers three days ago. We got a message that she was lost, couldn’t navigate—something wrong with the computer compass. Then nothing. Dead silence, not even a tracking beam to the satellite. Not even a signal from the black box.”

“That seems very unlikely,” Magda said. The “black box,” or automatic recording device in a mapping plane, was supposed to keep sending out signals for retrieval, at least with the newer models, for at least three years after the plane went down. Magda knew Alexis Anders well enough to know that she would not have allowed herself to be sent out with anything less than the very newest in equipment.

“Unlikely or not, it happened, Magda. The plane was giving out no signals, the black box and tracking recorder were silent, the satellite couldn’t trace a thing.”

“She crashed, then?” Magda felt cheap; she had not particularly liked Lexie, but she wished now she had not spoken quite so unkindly of the woman—now, presumably, dead.

Of course, there had been Terrans who had survived the crash of a Mapping plane, and found shelter, and in at least one case, Magda knew, a new life, and a new home. But not in the Hellers, the wildest, most unknown, trackless and uninhabited mountains on Darkover; perhaps the worst on any settled or inhabitable planet. It was almost impossible to survive in the Hellers, at least in winter, for more than a few hours, without special survival gear. And beyond the Hellers, as far as anyone knew (and now the Empire knew Cottman Four considerably better than the Darkovans themselves), was nothing; only the impenetrable mountain range known as the Wall around the World. And beyond the Wall, nothing but barren icy wastes stretching from pole to pole.

“So she’s presumed dead, then? Too bad.” Anything further would be hypocrisy. Lexie had disliked Magda quite as much as Magda had disliked Lexie.

“No,” said Cholayna, “she’s down in Medic.”

“You recovered the plane? But—”

“No, we
didn’t
recover the plane, do you think I would have brought you across the city in a rush like this for a routine rescue or debriefing?”

“You keep telling me what it isn’t,” Magda said, “but you haven’t given me any idea, yet, what this is… ”

Still, Cholayna hesitated. At last, she said, quite formally, “Magda, I remind you that you are still a sworn Intelligence Agent, and are covered by the Official Secrets Provision of Civil Service—”

“Cholayna, I can’t imagine what you’re talking about,” Magda began, and now she was seriously annoyed. What was all this rigmarole? She had never questioned her Oath to Intelligence, except during the painful identity crisis of her first half-year among the Renunciates. There had then been no Bridge Society to help in this kind of transition. She had been the first.

“You know, I fought to keep you on inactive duty status, instead of accepting your resignation,” Cholayna said deliberately. “One of the tenets of intelligence work, and this applies to all Empire planets, incidentally, not just Darkover, is this: when one of ours goes over the wall—goes native, acquires a native spouse and children—the rule of thumb is that it makes him a better agent. Although there is always a question in the record about any decision he might make which could possibly create a conflict as to where his personal interest lies. I’m sure you know that.”

“I could quote you pages of regulations about it,” Magda said dryly. “I was prepared for this. I assume it applies to me because I’ve had a child, though as far as you know I’m not married. Right? Well, you’re wrong.”

“Are you married, then?”

“Not in any way you’d recognize under Terran law. But I have sworn the Oath of Freemates with Jaelle n’ha Melora: by Darkovan law, that creates an analogy to marriage. Specifically, it means that if either of us should die, the other has both a legal right
and a legal obligation
to foster and act as guardian of the other’s child or children, exactly as a wife or husband would do. Specifically this oath overrides, by law, any claim of the children’s fathers. So for all practical purposes, the situation is identical with marriage. Is that clear?”

Cholayna said, her voice hard, “I’m sure Xenoanthropology will find it fascinating. I’ll make sure they get it from the records. But I wasn’t inquiring into the details of your private life.”

“I wasn’t giving them.” Magda’s voice was equally unyielding, although in fact Cholayna was one of the few people alive to whom she might have given such details if asked. “I was apprising you of the legal situation. I assume, then, that those standard assumptions about Empire men with a native wife and children apply to me, and I am expected to behave accordingly.”

“You assume wrongly, Magda. Yes, on the books, it’s true; but in actual practice—and this is classified information I’m giving you—on the occasions, and incidentally they are very rare, when a woman goes over the wall—classified practice is to deactivate her intelligence rating immediately. The reasons given for this are numerous, but they all boil down to the same thing. Official Intelligence policy assumes that a man can maintain an objective detachment from his wife and children, more easily than you or I could, because of—Magda, remember I’m quoting, this isn’t my personal belief—because of her deeper involvement. Presumably, a husband can detach himself from a wife easier than vice versa, and the children are, again supposedly, closer to the woman who bore them than they are to the man who fathered them.”

Magda swore. “I should have expected something like this. Do I have to tell you what I think of the
reish
?” The Darkovan word was a childish vulgarity, which meant literally
stable-sweepings
, but her face twisted in real anger as she said it.

“Of course you don’t. What you think of it and what I think of it are very much the same, but what either of us thinks, is completely beside the point. I’m talking about official policy. I was supposed to accept your resignation the first time you handed it in.”

“I suppose it’s also in those extremely confidential and classified private files that I am reputed to be a lover of women?” Magda asked with a wry twist of her mouth. “I know the
classified
policy regarding lovers of men, among Terrans—legally they’re protected by official policies of non-discrimination. Practically, you know and I know that they’re hassled on any pretext anyone can find.”

“You’re wrong,” Cholayna said, “or at least it’s not true in every case. There’s a legal loophole: a man who is living with a wife and children, no matter what his private preference, cannot officially be classified homosexual. In practice, he’s covered, and can fight any such action. You covered yourself against any such action when your child was born, Magda. Nobody really cares whether you married the father or not. But by immunizing yourself from
that
kind of persecution, you invoked the other one: now it’s assumed that you are completely unsuited to Intelligence work because your loyalty would be to your child or children, and to the man who fathered them. I should, according to the Code, have accepted your resignation the first time you handed it in.”

“I would have been perfectly agreeable to that,” said Magda.

“I know. Goodness knows, you’ve given me opportunities enough,” Cholayna said. “You’ve handed it in so regularly every season that I’ve wondered if it’s just your way of celebrating Midsummer and Midwinter! But I still think I’m seeing a little farther than you do. We can’t afford to lose qualified women this way.”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“By way of explaining to you why this request is unofficial, and why, just the same, you have to listen to me, and help me. Magda, you have the ultimate weapon over me; you can tell me where to go and what to do when I get there, and according to regulations I have no recourse at all. The legal situation is, you’ve gone over the wall, and I have no right to call you in. But I’m bucking regulations because you are the one person who might be able to make sense of what’s happening now.”

“And so, finally, we come around to it,” Magda said, “the reason you hauled me out on a rainy night—”

“All nights here are rainy, but that’s beside the point, too.”

“Lexie Anders?”

“Ten minutes or so before her plane went down, she transmitted a message via satellite; she was approaching the Wall Around the World, and was preparing to turn back. Her final message said she’d spotted something, like a city, which she had
not
found on the radar map. She was descending to five thousand meters to investigate. Then we lost her, and the plane. Nothing more. Not even the black box, as I said. As far as HQ or the satellites know, the plane vanished, black box and all, right out of the atmosphere of the planet. But Lexie Anders appeared this morning at the gates of the HQ, out of uniform, without her identity cards. And her mind had been wiped. Wiped clean. Complete amnesia. Magda, she can hardly speak Terran Standard! She speaks the native language of her home planet— Vainwal—but on the babytalk level. So obviously, we can’t ask her what happened.”

“But—all this is impossible, Cholayna! I don’t understand—”

“Neither do we. And that’s an understatement. And it’s no use questioning Anders, in her condition.”

“So why did you send for me?” Magda asked. But she was afraid she knew, and it made her angry. Although as far as Magda had ever known Cholayna had no
laran
, the woman seemed to sense her annoyance and hesitated; then, as Magda had known she would, she said it anyhow.

“You’re a psi-technician, Magda. The nearest one we have, the only properly trained one this side of the Alpha colony. You can find out what really happened.”