Heritage and Exile (100 page)

“So this is . . . Linnell's identical twin . . . ?”

“More alike than that; only once in a million times or so would a twin be the duplicate under Cherilly's Law. This is her
real
twin; same fingerprints, same retinal patterns and brainwave patterns, same betagraphs and blood type. She won't be much like Linnell in personality, probably, because the duplicates of Linnell's
environment
are duplicated all over the Galaxy.” I pointed to the small scar beside her chin; turned over the limp wrist where the mark of Comyn was embedded in the flesh. “Probably a birthmark,” I said, “but it's identical with Linnell's Seal, see? Flesh and blood are identical; same blood type, and even her chromosomes, if you could monitor that deeply, would be identical with Linnell's.”

Callina stared and stared. “She can live in this—this alien environment, then?”

“If she's identical,” I said. “Her lungs breathe the same ratio of oxygen in the air as ours do, and her internal organs are adjusted to the same gravity.”

“Can you carry her?” Callina asked. “She'll get a dreadful shock if she wakes up in this place.”

I grinned humorlessly. “She'll get one anyhow.” But I managed to scoop her up one-handed; she was frail and light, like Linnell. Callina went ahead of me, pulled back curtains, showed me where to lay her down on a couch in a small bare room—I supposed the young men and women who worked in the relays sometimes took a nap here instead of returning to their own rooms. I covered her, for it was cold.

“I wonder where she comes from?” Callina murmured.

“From a world with about the same gravity as Darkover, which narrows it a little,” I evaded. I could not remember the nurse's name, some barbaric Terran syllables. I wondered if she would recognize me. I should explain it all to Callina. But her face was lined with exhaustion, making her look gaunt, twice her age. “Let's leave her to sleep off the shock—and get some sleep ourselves.”

We went down to the foot of the Tower. Callina stood in the doorway with me, her hands lightly resting in mine. She looked haggard, worn, but lovely to me after the shared danger, the intimacy created by matrix work, a closeness greater than family, greater than that of lovers. . . . I bent and kissed her, but she turned her head so that my kiss fell only on a mouthful of soft, fine, sweet-scented hair. I bowed my own head and did not press her. She was right. It would have been insanity; we were both exhausted.

She murmured, as if finished a sentence I had started “. . . and I must go and see if Linnell is really all right . . .”

So she, too, had shared that sense of portent, of doom?
I put her gently away, and went out of the Tower, but I did not go to my rooms to sleep as I meant to do. Instead I paced in the courtyard, like a trapped animal, battling unendurable thoughts, until the red sun came up and Festival dawned in Thendara.

The morning of Festival dawned red and misty; Regis Hastur, restless, watched the sun come up, and asked his body-servant to arrange for flowers to be sent to his sister Javanne.

It was simple enough to arrange that baskets of fruits and flowers should be sent, but he felt profoundly depressed and, paradoxically, lonely.

There was only one person in Thendara, he reflected, whom he really wished to send a gift; and because of custom, he could not do that. He would not degrade what was between Danilo and himself by the pretense that it was the more conventional tie. He sat at his high window, looking out over the city, pondering yesterday's end to the Council, frightened because he had done what he had done, manifested the Form of Fire before them all. Somehow, without training more than the barest minimum, so that he could use his
laran
without becoming ill, he had acquired a new Gift he did not know he had, nor did he know what to do with it. He knew so little of the Hastur Gift and he suspected that his grandfather knew little more.

If only Kennard had still been alive, he would have gone to the kindly kinsman he had learned to call “Uncle” and set his puzzlement before him. Kennard had spent years in Arilinn and knew everything that was known about the Comyn powers. But Kennard was dead, under a faraway alien sun, and Lew seemed to know little more than himself. Moreover, Lew had his own troubles.

At this point he was summoned to breakfast with his grandfather. For a moment he considered sending a message that he was not hungry—he had made a point with his grandfather and was not inclined to give way on it—but then he remembered that it was, after all, Festival, and kinsmen should put aside their quarrels for the day. In any case he would have to confront his grandfather at the great ball tonight; he might as well meet him in private first.

Danvan Hastur bowed to his grandson, then embraced him and as Regis took a seat before the laden table, he noticed that his grandfather had ordered all his favorite delicacies. He supposed this was as near to an apology as he would ever have from the old man. There was coffee from the Terran Zone, in itself a great luxury, and various honey cakes and fruits, as well as the more traditional fare of porridge and nut breads. As he helped himself, Danvan Hastur said, “I ordered a basket of fruits and candies sent to Javanne in your name.”

“You might have trusted me to remember, sir,” said Regis, smiling, “but with that brood of children, the sweets won't go to waste.”

But thinking of Javanne set him to remembering again the eerie power he had somehow acquired over Javanne's matrix when it had been possessed by Sharra. . . . He did not understand and there was no one to ask. Should he go and demand the audience with Ashara which Callina had denied him?
Lew's matrix was overshadowed by Sharra; perhaps I would have power over that too. . . .

But he feared to try and fail. And then he remembered that there was another matrix, and one within his own reach, which had been overshadowed by Sharra; though at a greater distance than Lew's; Lew had been in the very heart of Sharra's flames . . . Rafe Scott was concealed in the Terran Zone, and Regis didn't blame him. But did Rafe even know that Beltran was here, threatening all of them? Yes, he would pay a call upon Rafe this morning.

He declined another cup of coffee . . . although he was grateful for the gesture his grandfather had made, he did not really like it . . . and pushed his chair back, just as the servant announced:

“Lord Danilo, Warden of Ardais.”

Hastur greeted Danilo with affable courtesy, and invited him to join them at the table; Regis knew that his grandfather was underlining a conceded point. But Danilo, bowing to them both, said, “I am here with a message from Lord Ardais, sir. Beltran of Aldaran has brought his honor guard within the city walls and has invited you to witness his formal giving up of Terran weapons into the hands of his promised wife, Lady Aillard.”

“Send a messenger to tell him I will be there within a few moments,” said Hastur, rising. “Regis, will you join me?”

“Please excuse me, Grandfather, I have an errand elsewhere,” Regis said, and though his grandfather did not look pleased, he did not question Regis.

“I'll leave you two alone, then,” he said, and withdrew. Regis discovered his appetite had returned; he poured himself the coffee he had refused and some for Danilo too, and passed the platter of honey cakes. Danilo took one, and said, sipping curiously at the coffee, “This is a Terran luxury, no? If Lord Dyan has his way, there will be no more of this . . .”

“I can well do without it,” Regis said. He took a handful of candied blackfruit and offered it silently to Danilo; Danilo, accepting the sweetmeats, smiled at him and said, “No, and I have no Festival gift for you, either. . . . I am not Dyan, to send presents to his favorites as I would do to my sister if I had one.”

Regis said aloud, breaking the moment of intimacy that was more intense than any physical caress, “I must go to the Terran Zone, Dani; I must see if Captain Scott knows what is going on . . .”

“I will go with you, if you wish,” Danilo offered.

“Thank you, but there is no need to anger your foster-father,” Regis said, “and if you go there against his will, he will take it as defiance. Keep the peace, Dani; there are enough quarrels within Comyn, we need no more.” He put his honey-cake aside, suddenly losing his appetite again. “Grandfather will be angry enough that I am not there to witness the Aldaran men giving up their Terran weapons. But Beltran will never love me, no matter what I do, and I would as soon not be there to see this—” he searched for a word, considered and rejected “farce,” then shrugged.

“Dyan may trust Beltran; I will not,” he said, and left.

Some time after, he gave his name and business to the Spaceforce guard, black-leathered, at the gates of the Terran Zone. The Spaceforce man stared, as well he might—one of the powerful Hasturs here with no more escort than a single Guardsman? But he used his communicator, and after a moment said, “The Legate will see you in his office, Lord Hastur.”

Regis was not
Lord Hastur
—that was his grandfather's title—but there was no use expecting Spaceforce men to know proper courtesy and protocol. Lawton, in the Legate's office, rising to greet him, used his proper address and got his title right, even saying it with the proper inflection, which was not all that easy for a Terran. But then, of course, Lawton was half Darkovan.

“You honor me, Lord Regis,” Lawton said, “but I hadn't expected to see you here. I suspect I'll be at the ball in Comyn Castle tonight—the Regent sent me a formal invitation.”

“It's Rafe Scott I came to see,” Regis said, “but I didn't want to do it behind your back and be accused of spying, or worse.”

Lawton waved that aside.

“Would you rather see him here? Or in his own quarters?”

“In his quarters, I think.”

“I'll send someone to show you the way,” Lawton said. “But first, a question. Do you know the man they call Kadarin by sight?”

“I think I'd know him if I saw him.” Regis remembered the picture he had seen in Lew's mind, the day the Alton townhouse had burned.

“What kind of chance would we have of finding him, if we sent Spaceforce into the Old Town? Is there anyone there who would try and hide him from justice?”

“He's wanted by the Guardsmen there too,” Regis said. “It's fairly certain that he was responsible for a fire and explosion with contraband explosives . . .” Briefly, he outlined to Lawton what he had seen.

“Spaceforce could find him faster than your guards,” the Terran Legate suggested. Regis shook his head.

“I'm sure they could,” he said, “but, believe me, I wouldn't advise sending them.”

“There ought to be a treaty that we could at least look for a wanted criminal,” Lawton said grimly. “As it is, once he sets foot in the Old Town he's safe from our men—and if he somehow sneaks into the Trade City, safe from your Guardsmen. I'd like to know why we can't have that much cooperation at least.”

So would I, sir. If I were in charge, you'd have it. But I'm not, and Grandfather doesn't feel that way.
Regis realized suddenly that he was ashamed of his grandfather's views. They had indeed sworn to a certain amount of cooperation with the Terrans, many times over the past years; more especially after the epidemic in which the Terran Medic division had sent an expert to assist them. But now Kennard, who had started this kind of cooperation, was dead, and it seemed the informal alliance was falling apart; Regis wished Lawton had enough
laran
so that he need not explain all this, through the slow and clumsy medium of words.

He said, fumbling, “It's—it's not a good time to ask for that, Mr. Lawton. It would take a lot of arranging. We'll deal with Kadarin if we find him, and I assume you will if you catch him here. But this is not the time to ask for formal cooperation between the Guard and Spaceforce. The important thing is to catch that man Kadarin and deal with him—not argue about whose jurisdiction he should be under.”

Lawton struck the desk before him with an angry fist. “And while we argue about it, he's laughing at both of us,” he said. “Listen here. A few days ago, the Orphanage in the Trade City was broken into, and a child's room was entered. No child was hurt, no one was kidnapped, but the children in that dormitory had a dreadful fright, and they described the man to Spaceforce—and it seems likely that Kadarin was the one. We don't know what he was doing there, but he managed to escape again, and he's probably hiding out in the Old Town. And now I've heard that Beltran of Aldaran has brought an army down to Thendara—”

This was Comyn business; Regis had no wish to argue it with a Terran, however friendly. He said somewhat stiffly, “Even as we stand here, sir, Lord Aldaran is making a solemn oath to observe Compact, and giving up all his Terran weapons. I know that old Kermiac of Aldaran was a Terran ally, but I believe Beltran feels otherwise.”