Thendara House (19 page)

She was tempted not to go to the reception at all. But it was part of her job…
obey any lawful command of my employer
… and Magda would have turned herself out stunningly because, if Magda had been doing the work she was doing, Magda would have seen herself as the appointed assistant of the Guest of Honor and known she must do him credit.

The cafeteria level had been rearranged into a gala banqueting hall, already filling with brilliant uniforms, costumes from a dozen different worlds. There was a bar at one end, dispensing drinks which looked delicious, brightly colored and cool. Waiters were carrying trays of little tidbits, and the cafeteria tables had been moved, combined into formal patterns, draped with linen and adorned with flowers. Real flowers. Well, thanks to Lady Rohana, she knew how to behave at a formal banquet. A man she knew slightly from Communications offered her a drink from the bar and she accepted it, saying a few formal words of small talk without hearing herself. She looked around for Peter, but he had not yet appeared. She thought of him in the clutches of the curious beauty-shop machines, having his hair and beard attended to, and cringed.

“Jaelle?” It was Wade Montray, bowing to her. “You look very beautiful tonight.” She accepted the compliment as the social noise it was, hardly personal at all. “Sandro Li is looking for you. See - over there by the head table, next to the Legate.”

She made her way through the crowd toward him, brushing aside greetings. Crowds had never bothered her before this, and certainly this was not as crowded as Midsummer in Thendara, but for some reason she felt strange, taut, and it seemed to her that too many people were looking at her,
there’s that Darkovan girl, the one Haldane married, some sort of Darkovan nobility, no I heard she was a free Amazon, a soldier, a fighter, look at the knife scar on her cheek…

Aleki bowed to her. He was wearing some sort of formal clothing strange to her, dark-red, with gold lace and decorations on his breast; she supposed it was suggestive of his Imperial rank. He was very unlike the informally dressed man she knew from the office.

“I told you to make yourself beautiful for tonight, but I did not realize that you would dazzle us all,” he said, smiling at her, and for a moment it seemed that he was ready to seize her, to grasp at her… no; he was smiling courteously, he had not touched her, why was she so intensely, painfully aware that he desired her, that he had not touched a woman for a long time and that he wanted her? The Amazon in Jaelle cringed, but he had said nothing, his manner was perfectly correct, why was she so open to him just now? She felt as if the room were full of a ringing silence.

His voice seemed to reverberate from very far away. For an instant it seemed that the few sips she had had of her drink were nauseating her and that she would disgrace herself by vomiting here before the whole assembly. She grabbed at vanishing self-control and said as calmly as she could, “I didn’t hear you, sir. It’s a little noisy in here.”

He looked around cheerfully. “We
are
a noisy crowd tonight, aren’t we? I asked if you could hunt up Peter Haldane for me.”

She had had no chance to warn Peter against this man, who was so alert to find out what she had no wish to let him know about Darkover. Her eyes searched the crowd for Peter’s familiar shape, and she braced herself to cross the crowded room through the onslaught of mental voices.

How do the Comyn who have full
laran,
like Lady Rohana, ever manage to appear anywhere in a crowd
? For the first time in her life, she wished she had had some of the training given routinely to the telepaths of the Comyn, to control her
laran
. … but then, it had never seemed to her that she had enough
laran
to be worth training! She moved through the crowd, carefully keeping her face blank, she would not stare about her in panic like a mushroom-farmer in the big city for his first Festival!

She knew Peter would be wearing gray, the steel-gray which was so becoming to his red hair and gray-green eyes. She looked through the crowd and finally saw a red head. She made her way to his side and touched his arm.

“Alessandro Li wishes to speak with you,” she said formally.

“Let’s not keep him waiting, then,” he said, and took her arm. She pulled upright, bracing herself.

“I can walk by myself,” she said stiffly.

“Honey, are you still mad at me? Let’s not fight, not here at a party!”

She drew a long breath. She said, “Piedro, listen to me, please. Li is very curious about the Comyn; he’s determined to find out what lies behind it. For three days he has been after me with his questions; don’t underestimate him. I did. And I don’t know what he wants, but I am not sure it is good for Darkover. I may have told him too much already; be careful what you say to him.”

Peter grimaced He said “I can’t afford to play games with an Imperial bigwig. I’ve got to cooperate. Montray - the Coordinator, not Monty, Monty’s a decent sort - old Montray just threatened me - he wants to send me offworld.”

“Peter!” Suddenly she forgot her quarrel with him, at the shocking thought that she might somehow lose him. “What? Why?”

“They’ve located a planet something like Darkover - feudal setup, low technology, all that - and he says with my experience here, I’d be a good one to send there. Personally, I think he’s afraid I’ll have his job if I stay here, I know twice as much, ten times as much, about Darkover as he does and he’s afraid somebody will find it out. And if I can convince Sandro Li that I’m really needed here to unravel this mystery - do you see?” He swung around and caught her wrist. “Jaelle, I’m fighting for my life, as much as you were when you and Mag met the banshee on the trail. Won’t you back me up? I want to stay on Darkover - with you. Help me, don’t fight me, beloved!”

People slid by, on either side of them. In this crowd, so filled with voices she did not really hear, voices that penetrated her mind brutally, she could not think clearly. She swallowed hard and said “Come along; just - just be careful what you say, or even what you hint, or he’ll get it out of me.”

Li greeted Peter with great cordiality, indicating, as people began to move toward the banquet tables, that Peter and Jaelle were to be seated near him at the head table.

She was aware, at least partly from the subliminal chatter of telepathic sound, that the Terrans here in Thendara Spaceport regarded Li much as the common people of Thendara would have regarded the Heir to Hastur; here to judge them, in authority over them. Peter was talking to Li with all the charm of which he was capable, emphasizing to the Imperial investigator that he knew more about Darkover than any other man working here. She could tell that Aleki was impressed. She also realized what neither Montray nor Peter had bothered to tell her; that on Li’s report depended, not only the future status of Darkover in the Empire, but the future of the Terran installation. He had the power to withdraw the Empire entirely, except for a few officials to tend the spaceport; or to increase the HQ staff until it was a full colony administration; he could open the world to trade, or close it completely.

The fate of Darkover in relation to the Empire is in this man’s hands. Even the Hasturs have little to say about it. This is too much of a responsibility for me! It is too great a responsibility for anyone!

At one point in the dinner, when the main course had been finished and they were lingering over sweets and tiny, delicious glasses of variously-scented and colored cordials, Aleki said, “In your work I have found frequent mention of Miss Lorne’s work. Why is she not on the station? Is she on leave offworld? I found her name on the
inactive
roster.”

Cholayna Ares, tall and elegant in low-cut draperies of fire-red which accented her smooth dark skin and frost-white hair, leaned across to them and said, “She is on detached duty in Thendara, Sandro; she is in the Renunciate Guild House.”

“I am extremely eager to meet her,” Li said. “Do you suppose that I could request her to come in for an interview?”

“I doubt it,” Jaelle said, “she is serving her housebound time among the Amazons; she is not allowed to leave the House for that period -

“But that is barbarous!” Li said. “To imprison an Empire citizen - “

“Hardly imprisonment,” Jaelle said calmly, “since it is voluntary.”

Peter leaned forward. He had, Jaelle suspected, drunk a little too much. He said “I can tell you anything Magda could tell you, Sandro. Most of the places she went, she managed to go while she was under my protection. You don’t realize yet how many doors are closed, here, to any woman. Magda’s a fine agent; If she’d been born a man, she’d be the Legate by now! But here on Darkover, no woman could be accepted that way. And now she’s gone over the wall, gone native. I can fill in most of Magda’s reports for you.”

“Can you really?” Li’s face was sharp, and intent.

“I can and I will.” Peter reached for another drink.

“I’ll take you up on that,” Sandro Li said, and turned to listen to the speaker at the head of the table.

An hour later, Jaelle faced Peter across the small room they shared. She knew he had drunk too much; his face was flushed, his speech incoherent, but he was not so drunk he could disclaim responsibility for what he had done.

“Peter, don’t you realize? That man is out to destroy Darkover - the Darkover we know - to turn it into another Terran colony! And you’re helping him!”

“I think you’re exaggerating. In any case, what does it matter? He’s only here to investigate how well the HQ is doing its job on Darkover. I owe him cooperation; so do you and so does Magda. If it weren’t for men like him, there would be no Empire.”

“Would that be such a misfortune?”

He took her shoulders and turned her toward him. She permitted it, not sure why she didn’t kick him away.

“There’s no reason Darkover can’t accept what’s good about the Empire while keeping what’s good in its own way of life. It’s not wrong to hate ignorance and poverty. Look,
chiya,
I was born on Darkover, it’s my home too, I love it - I want to stay here, be part of it.” He bent to kiss her, burying his face in her scented hair. “I was fighting - I
am
fighting - for the right to stay here, as any man would fight for his land, his home, his wife. I do it with words instead of a sword, that’s all. But I
am
Darkovan. You heard what Cholayna said when she heard about our wedding?”

She had heard; somehow it had nested in her heart, almost with pain. Cholayna had said;
with your red hair and Peter’s, what beautiful children you will have
.

“I want a son,” he whispered, “as much as any man of the Hellers would want a son. A son to live here on Darkover, our world… Jaelle, Jaelle…”

He picked her up and carried her to the bed. She allowed it, even enjoyed his touch; he laid her down, whisked away the filmy green of her dress, flinging it unheeded to the floor. As he drew her into his arms once again he was wholly open to her. She could feel it in him, like an eternal and unhealed wound, Magda’s refusal to give him the child he desired. His body possessed hers but it was she who possessed his mind, he was at her mercy…

…
and suddenly she knew him as Magda had known him, he really believed that he could treat her as valet, comrade-in arms, personal servant, breeding-anima, and somehow repay it all just with the ardor of his lovemaking
… the rage that boiled up in her then cut off thought; she twisted aside, a knee, a shoulder, both arms stabbing up, and he rolled helplessly aside, shocked and vulnerable. She sprang up, crouching into a defensive posture, and he lay stunned, staring at her in absolute disbelief.

“Sweetheart - what’s wrong?”

“Next time,
ask
me if I feel like making love!” The confusion and outrage on his face felt good to her. “Next time I might even agree to bear you a child. But ask. Don’t - don’t take!” She felt she could not endure to look at him. He thought he had only to caress her and she was enslaved to his will!

He was sitting on the bed, drunk and miserable. “Jaelle, what did I do wrong? Tell me!”

She did not know. What did happen to love? Now she only wanted to hurt him, to lash out at him, to jeer at his vulnerability! She said, low and hard-faced, “Don’t ever -
ever
- take me for granted,
Terranan
!” and slammed the door of the bath behind her, turning on the water full force. She stood under the shower and cried, cried till she felt empty and helpless as she had left Peter there. When she came out of the shower he was asleep, a bottle empty on the floor beside him; he reeked of the cheap Darkovan wine from the port. She threw the bottle down the disposal chute, pulled her cloak from the closet and fell asleep on the floor by the bed.