Ambition and Alavidha (40 page)

“I, I don’t
understand father,” said Liam.

“I’m not
surprised, I couldn’t quite believe it myself at first. I’m now
going to explain where the other place is and while I do, I wish
you all to consider well what I am saying. You see, as a member of
the Avuzdel, I too have been given the choice of going or staying.
The choice also extends to my family.”

* * * * *

After he had
finished there was a long silence as his audience digested the news
and the full import of what he was saying.

“You wish us to
go?” asked Robain at last.

“It is your
choice son, to go or to stay. I will not influence you but remember
that that those who go, go for ever and also remember that our
planet will change with the Lind, Lai and Larg gone. The
prohibitions the Lai kept in place will be lifted. Development of
new technologies will advance and I should think very fast. I have
been informed that some of the technological knowledge we brought
with us has been destroyed, including the data which gives us the
information to make destructive weapons but I have a feeling that
man will work it all out again, given time. If you stay it will be
your job to keep it under control, by force if necessary.”

“Are you
going?” asked his daughter Elizabeth, widow of the slain Charles
Karovitz. She was dressed in black, as befitted her new status.

Her mother
answered on Paul’s behalf. A Princess of the Blood, although from a
cadet branch, Duchess Elizabeth had always been imposing. She
looked even more so now. She flicked a quiet smile at her
husband.

“Your Father
and I both intend to stay,” she said. “We are older and believe
that this adventure is for the young. Also, your father will not
leave his people and I will not leave him.”

“They need us,”
explained Paul, “as does Queen Antoinette and her daughter, to help
them get through what must lie ahead but you children must decide
on your own.”

The Duchess
looked first at Elizabeth, her eldest. “Elizabeth, what do you say?
Charles is gone so you must decide both for yourself and for your
sons.”

There was
silence as Elizabeth pondered. She raised her head at last and
gazed fearlessly and steadily at her mother. “I will go with the
children,” she said. “There is little for me here with Charles gone
and I would like both Charles and Michael to grow up in a peaceful
place without the threats of assassin’s swords behind every
corner.”

Duchess
Elizabeth then turned her attention on Liam, the next oldest who
gulped and looked at his wife Marie. She shook her head.

“We stay,” he
declared, “like Father and you Mother, we feel that we have a duty
to remain. Marie?”

“Agreed,” she
did, nodding her head so hard that her head-dress tilted itself
over and smiling at her mother-in-law.

Now it was
Robain’s turn. He was smiling at his very pregnant wife, Pauline,
the Daughter-Heir to the Duchy of Gardiner.

She looked at
her sister-in-law Elizabeth, all dressed in black and made her
decision.

“I would like
to go Robain,” she said. “I never wanted the duchy anyway.
Grand-uncle Vincent can find another heir, whoever he thinks
best.”

Robain nodded.
He looked pleased. He was the most adventurous of Paul’s two sons
although he was not in the same league as Jill.

“We go.”

Now it was the
turn of the two youngest, eighteen year old Judith and sixteen year
old Jill.

They were
sitting on the couch next to their mother and were holding hands.
They had always been close these two. They had always known that
they would be separated one day, either by marriage or the cloister
but this was different.

“I wish to stay
Mother,” said Judith with a rosy blush.

“Philip will be
pleased,” her mother answered with an understanding look.
Negotiations were well in progress, indeed they were almost at the
signing stage for her marriage and Judith obviously wished to marry
him.

“Jill?” she
asked.

“I want to go,”
Jill declared, a sparkle in her eyes. She caught her father’s eye
and he nodded. He was the only other person in the room who knew of
her meeting with Maru. He had expected this choice but gods, but he
would miss her.

Judith turned a
stricken face to her sister but Jill couldn’t meet her eyes.

Thus the two
inseparables as they were called, became separated in that instant,
although they continued to hold hands.

“How long will
the journey take?” asked Elizabeth Karovitz.

“About seven
years I’ve been told,” Paul answered.

“Will they be
able to return, at some time in the future?” asked Judith.

Paul shook his
head. “The re-location is a permanent one, there is no going
back.”

“When?” she
asked.

“The day after
the day after tomorrow,” he answered, “the time between knowledge,
choice and leave-taking, is, of necessity short. The final
spaceships will all leave at the same time, on all three
continents. Most of the Lind, Lai and Larg are gone already.”

* * * * *

“Where do we
take it now that we’ve got it?” asked Daniel the next morning,
“north? Or back to Dagan?”

“I’ve received
my orders,” she answered, “Susa Malkum and Freya were very
insistent, Daniel, I think this is goodbye.”

“Goodbye or
farewell?” queried Daniel who knew Thalia by now. There was
something in her face that was telling him it was the latter.

: You should
tell him :
advised Josei. He wasn’t referring to the imminent
departure of the spaceship and Thalia knew it.

: Why? It would
only upset him :

: He loves you
:

: He’s torn
between the life he knows and in his heart wants and me. He needs
to go home, back to the life he knows, to his family :

: Vya says
that he no longer thinks of Jill Hallam and it is
you
he
talks about,
you
he cares for :

: He cannot go
with us Josei :

: He could and
he would go with us if you asked him. Is it so difficult to admit
that you love him as much as he loves you? :

: He’s younger
than me :

: What
difference does that make? :

: I can’t do it
to him Josei :

“It is a
farewell,” Thalia told Daniel, tears pricking, “you are right.
Josei and I, well, we’re leaving.”

“Leaving for
where? Vadath?” asked Daniel, “I can come with you. Don’t do this
to me Thalia, please. Don’t you see how much I care for you?”

“You don’t
understand,” the words burst from Thalia’s lips.

“Not if you
don’t tell me.”

: Tell him
:
commanded Josei.

“Me and Josei
are leaving Daniel, we’re leaving the planet.” There, she had done
it, the secret was out. “Some have already gone. There have been
spaceships arriving and departing for years now.”

“How long have
you known?” asked Daniel.

“Only a few
days. The Larg began to leave first.”

“When we met
the Largan he knew and didn’t tell us?”

“Yes. There
must be only about a few thousand Larg left on the planet,” she
laughed, “seemingly the Largan has been hard pressed to give us the
impression that Larg numbers were intact.”

“But where are
you going? And who’s taking you?”

“To a planet a
long way away from here.”

“Will you be
coming back?” Daniels’s voice was breaking with bereft emotion.

“No, we won’t
be coming back.”

Daniel gulped,
“and the who?”

“The Lai,”
Thalia answered. “They came from a planet a long time ago. It was
dying and they sent out spaceships to find a replacement. One
succeeded. However, some that they sent out got, I suppose you
could describe it as lost. They’ve been looking for then. These
ships wouldn’t have known that a new Diaglon was found. For eons,
they’ve been looking for the ships and the descendants of those who
went. They were on the trail of the
Ammokko
for years,
generations; the Dglai attack on us two hundred years ago shouldn’t
have happened but they couldn’t prevent it because their spaceship
was damaged and they lost contact for a while. By the time they
found the trail it was too late. They arrived here about sixty
years ago, found the destroyed remains of the
Ammokko
and
went looking for the creatures who had managed to destroy it, most,
if not all, places the Dglai attacked you see, they won.”

“Go on,”
ordered the fascinated Daniel.

“The Lai here
have been looking after us for thousands of years. Since the defeat
of the Dglai they have been observing the rising tension between
humans and the Lind and Larg as well as how we are developing. They
decided that war will be inevitable and that the losers would be
the Lind and the Larg. They believe that as human technology
advances, advanced weaponry they call it, the Lind and Larg will be
wiped out. They’ve been trying to slow down advances but have
realised that they can’t do this indefinitely. Then the Diaglon
came and found them.”

“Bet they were
surprised.”

Thalia laughed,
“they probably were, anyway, they decided that the Lind and the
Larg, and the Lai themselves, should leave. The majority of the
Larg went first and the Lind of the rtathlians began their journeys
last summer. The evacuation is well under way. The Vada and their
families are joining them.”

“All of
them?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t any want
to stay?” asked Daniel, unable to envision the world without the
presence of the Lind and the Larg.

“We all leave,”
interrupted Josei.

“Even the
old?”

“Yes. We are
sad to go but the place we are going to is beautiful. We will live
in peace there, without being threatened.”

“You’re going
to co-habit a planet with the Larg?”

“The hate and
distrust between us is over. The humans who come with us, they are
as one with us, they share our beliefs and our hopes. Most are
mind-bonded or have children who will be.”

“I want to go
with you.”

“You can’t,”
said Thalia.

: I still think
I should ask if he may go. He has earned the right to go, if he so
wishes :

: No! :
was Thalia’s fierce response.

* * * * *

-60-

THE STRONGHOLD
OF THE VADA - VADATH

Tara stumbled
away from Alyei on a mission to find a place, any place where she
could cry out in her misery. All her hopes and dreams for the
future had disappeared in a flash. She and Alyei had not been
destined for each other. There had been no burst of discovering
each other’s mind, no chance of forming a bond, in fact neither had
felt anything at all.

How could Dsya
have got it so wrong? Now there was no chance of her pairing with a
Lind and leaving with him for the stars. She would be left behind
here at the Stronghold when the final group left at the end of the
tenday.

Then what? She
would be sent back home, back to the life her father wanted for
her.

“I can’t bear
it,” she cried as she stumbled into the cubicle in the cadet
barracks which had been allocated to her when she had arrived. The
cubicle was on the ground floor and one of only three occupied. The
junior cadet pairs who usually inhabited the lower level were gone.
They had gone as escorts for the previous train when it had left
under the command of Weaponsmaster Alkin. With them had left the
new-paired who had accompanied Tara and Dsya to Vada. Tara missed
them, Louis the baker’s son especially and skinny Jak who had been
a laugh a heartbeat.

She flung
herself on to her bed face down and the tears poured, soaking her
pillow.

So distressed
was she that her mind was had she known it, transmitting her
distress a considerable distance away. Dsya had been right about
the empathic part of her if she had been wrong about the fact that
her relation might prove suitable.

Not knowing
anything about this Tara continued to cry until at last, she dozed
off.

* * * * *

Some miles
distant, a male Lind called Kolyei by his mother after one of the
most famous Lind of all time stopped and pricked up his ears.

At last! After
over a season searching he could sense a human’s mind. A human
female too! Where was the emotive send coming from? Kolyei sniffed
at the air.

Vada!

It was coming
from the direction of Vada!

He was
surprised. He had left Vada not long before and when he had been
there, why, there had been nothing. His special human had not been
at the Stronghold when he had left to rejoin his rtathen for the
exodus. He was sure of that. How had she got there? The borders
were closing, they might be barred by now.

Kolyei shook
himself and wiped the blood off his muzzle. He would leave the
carcass of the elderly kura buck. Hunger didn’t matter. He would
have to hurry back to Vada before it was too late.

Run fast
Kolyei my lad
, he told himself as he stretched his legs. His
amble towards Vada became a canter and the canter turned into the
easy lope of the Lind. He would stop for nothing except to drink,
not even for food.

Kolyei was
running.

He would reach
her in time, he would, he must!

* * * * *

Tara woke, her
mouth like sandpaper and her head pounding and looked in misery
around the cubicle. There was not much in it, some well used
furnishings and the few possessions she had brought with her plus
the few items the store man of the Vada had issued to make her stay
more comfortable.