The Rowan Part 17

zerrs occupied at a suitably sedentary task that'll keep him out of mischief A little fresh air and exercise will do you good.

'No time like the present,' the Rowan replied, deciding to ignore the fact that Isthia was manipulating her as easily as she did everyone else around her. Why weren't you made Governor?

The rich sound of Isthia's chuckle echoed in the Rowan's skull. A nursing mother would make an awkward Governor. Otherwise 'I can detach Zathran only two days. Then he'll be needed at the mine, when we've got the adit cleared.

Sooner we get a mine running, sooner we'll have something to cheer about.' 'You've already done marvels,' the Rowan a.s.sured him, slightly distracted by Isthia's asides. Then she wondered if she would manage.

She'd never done anything like this before.

You'll do fine! Jeff told her. His mental tone was considerably more vibrant today than his physical condition. The Rowan knew that he struggled to overcome his injuries. And when you're stuck, you can always call on me to bail you out!

Ha!

By the end of the first day the Rowan found herself exceedingly encouraged by the result. With a half dozen mid-teens, she had gone through the open sheds where the salvaged items were stored. She had reviewed her requirements with Jeff, to see what he thought she might be able to find among the salvage. Having quick-witted kids who knew where to look among the bewildering aisles and sheds was one advantage: being kinetic and able to shift what was found immediately out to the Tower shack was another. The list of needed parts was reduced drastically by the end of that day. But before she could make the best use of Zathran Abita, she needed items like carbon brushes, two more large magnetic coils and slip rings, as well as small transducers and some circuit boards, which she could only get with Reidinger's a.s.sistance.

The unexpected fillip in the day was discovering three burgeoning Talents in her young team. The oldest girl, Sarjie, had a definite metal affinity and could a.s.say metallic content, discern metallic fatigue or flaw in any piece she handled. She tossed more into the meltdown bins than on the pallet for transfer to the Tower.

Fourteen-year-old Rences could s.n.a.t.c.h the shape of what the Rowan wanted from her mind and unerringly locate it among hundreds of rods, pipes, fittings, coils, and other 'junk'. Morfanu was struggling to understand a kinetic ability and the Rowan deftly guided her efforts into more positive channels.

Sarjie had no telempathy: Rences' was limited to shape finding (he preferred to see drawings or pictures of what was required), and Morfanu could not project. They needed years of training to refine their innate abilities.

For someone who had always worked with mature, trained Talent, and those mainly kinetic or telepathic, the Rowan found the a.s.sociation with new abilities a fascinating experience.

You've got a lot of patience with them, Jeff said approvingly.

You've tired yourself out, the Rowan accused, furious that she hadn't been keeping a watch on him along with her salvage operations.

It wasn't my head that was opened. Jeff sounded irascible and, remembering Isthia's cautionary words, the Rowan aborted a scathing retort. Sandy's read me the riot act. But the drafts for the mine reopening are finished. She felt his sense of satisfied achievement.

He was a difficult patient, hating to be incapacitated when he was most needed, railing at medical restrictions and supervisions.

The day after major surgery, he had insisted on taking on paperwork: freeing up uninjured personnel. Sandy slipped enough of a sedative into a 'restorative' drink to send him to sleep for several hours. That night, fretting because he hadn't finished the task he'd set himself that day, he refused to stop work. So, the Rowan simply shut him down into sleep.

In the small hours of that night the Rowan, tapping as lightly as possible into the generators that supplied the hospital's power, contacted Afra with the order for the most urgent items. He was rea.s.sured by her touch and rea.s.sured her that all was still functioning smoothly there, but he wasn't certain how long that would last.

Relieved, the Rowan then curled up on the cot beside Jeff's bed and told herself to go back to sleep.

Don't try that on me again, Rowan, Jeff told her when she finally let him wake up late the next morning. He was livid at her high-handedness.

At least you've the strength today to get mad, she replied, unrepentant. There was more color in his face and more vigor visible in the monitoring graphs. And quite likely strength enough in that fist of yours to handle a spoon. Your breakfast's ready.

He glared at her, his eyes glinting as he imaged what he would like to do to her.

Tsk, tsk! How bizarre! she responded very sweetly. With careful kinesis, she lifted his upper-torso, inserting several pillows behind his back before she spread a napkin over his chest. Any day now you're strong enough to try that, my own true love, I shall give in gracefully to the inevitable. Will you return the compliment now? Here's your breakfast!

'Now,' she went on pleasantly, 'I have to figure out when is the best time to use the tower, so as not to brown out.

Reidinger caught up with her on her fourth morning on Deneb.

ROWAN! HOW IN h.e.l.l DID RAVEN GET YOU THERE WITHOUT MY PERMISSION?.

It was as well, the Rowan thought with grim humor, that she was on Deneb instead of Callisto. He'd have singed her shields out with that roar.

Perhaps I was wrong to a.s.sume that you would prefer Jeff Raven alive? she asked acidly and grinned at such a suave throttling of Reidinger's officious outrage. She wished she could have seen his face at that moment. She followed up that shock by a clear image of Jeff as she had first seen him, adding a macabre view of the gaping chest wound.

She followed this with Jeff's current appearance, palely sleeping after his chest wound had been dressed. Even with her a.s.sisting Rakella's kinetic manipulations, it hadn't been an easy ten minutes for Jeff. The medical facilities here were reduced to the medieval by the bombardment. Which reminds me . . . I sent in a Top Priority Emergency order for replacement parts and unless you want me lodged permanently here on Deneb, they'd better be 'ported out this way NOW!

At that it will take me another six days to organize a Tower I'd risk myself with. It is also, she added, suppressing a desire to smirk, too far for you to lift me.

She knew that Reidinger was listening, and hard, for she could feel the throb of continued contact between their minds. Since she had his attention, she continued.

What you cannot have appreciated, as you haven't been on this planet and none of that irrelevant armada on retrieval patrol would think to mention it, is that Jeff Raven had only a very elderly jury-rigged generator for his gestalt when he was lobbing back missiles and repelling three alien vessels. Just think what he could do with the kind of equipment most Primes consider absolutely essential before they tax their lobes.

Deneb's broke, Reidinger roused sufficiently to growl at her.

I'm not, the Rowan replied in her sweetest tone. That order's paid for and should be ready for shipment today. Any time you have a spare moment. Oh, and if you'd send Afra a couple of T-2s, he'll see that Callisto Station operates as efficiently as if I were there.

And how long, came the slow acid tone of Earth Prime, do you fiel this new Denebian emergency is going to last?

Well, until I have a Tower facility of an operational standard.

If Raven was that badly wounded, who brought you in?

Reidinger's tone was suspicious.

Pure luck, I think, she replied soberly now that she had had plenty of time to poke about in the tower. When she realized what little formal kinetic training Isthia Raven had had, and all the things that could have gone wrong, she'd been horrified. Desperation can produce amazing stimulae. I'm not about to risk a return without properly drilled personnel. She felt curiously reticent with Reidinger and unwilling to disclose just how many strong Talents existed on Deneb. If Jeff Raven had not informed Earth Prime, she wouldn't.

There are some Talents with enough range for short-range stuff But nothing is really short-range to Deneb, is it? Not until Jeff is recovered. Desperation got me here but calm, cool reflection is unlikely to get me back to Callisto!

That was little more than the truth. In the first place, she was not leaving Jeff until she was certain of his complete recovery. In the morning he would be transferred to a private room. He had already taken a very short walk, gritting his teeth until his endorphin level compensated for the pain of sore tissue and muscle. The Rowan had had to exercise a stern control over the almost overpowering desire to support him kinetically. But Isthia flicked her a warning glance so the Rowan had endured the mental echoes of Jeff's discomfort without interceding.

In the second place, she wasn't at all sure that she was sufficiently confident enough to push herself, coldmindedly, out on such a long kinetic haul. She wondered if she could try Reidinger's patience enough to wait until Jeff could handle gestalt again.

If you don't have a generator, Reidinger said with dangerous logic, how can you expect to catch a shipment?

My immediate need is light stuff I've access to a small generator.

Toss it out to reach here at 0300 Deneb time, and I'll catch.

If you're trying an unpowered catch, you little -- Burning my mind out is the last thing I want, I a.s.sure you, Reidinger, but I must have those parts or we don't get the tower functioning. If there isn't a proper tower here, you don't get me back at Callisto! Understand?

I'll deal with you later, you may be d.a.m.ned sure of that, Rowan child!

Despite her valiant words, the Rowan shivered delicately at the malice in those last two words. A Reidinger threat was never idle.

But no threat could be severe enough to remove her from Deneb right now. Besides Jeff Raven, the planet was eminently worth any effort on her part. Like her devoted team of scroungers, Isthia, and other intangible things, like sunsets.

For ten years, she had seen none. Here, Deneb's primary went down with blazing red and orange clouds, the hectic colors fading slowly to a bleached-blue sky until the sharp peaks of the mountains that ringed the plain stood out with incredible clarity. Though starscapes were nothing new to her, the night sky was equally brilliant.

Deneb VIII had three small moons whipping about it and an asteroid belt beyond their orbits that was the remains of a fourth. But it was the crispness of the night air, scented with pungent and unfamiliar fragrances when the wind blew down from the mountains, which the Rowan found truly remarkable. She liked the feel of it riffling her hair, caressing her face, pressing gently against her raised hands. Callisto had no breezes. She hadn't realized how much she had missed them until now.

So she didn't mind standing out in the dark, waiting for the shipment, ready to gestalt with the hospital's generator, taking an atavistic pleasure in the night.

Reidinger sent exactly what she ordered: not a brush, bar, or board more. It took the Rowan and her team a long day to get the generator cleaned and repaired, to reconfigure the control panel, and strengthen an adequate link to the Kenesaw hydroplant. Scarcely an aesthetic installation when finished, but it worked. Zathran Abita worried about the drain on the City's power. As the electronics expert had no notion of how Talent worked, she had to explain that the tight focus of gestalt required a short burst of power: Flow rate and pressure altered slightly with the distance and/or the weight of the object 'ported, but the actual 'use' of power was split-second.

Finishing the Tower gave Deneb one more short step toward independence. The Rowan's team had broadcast her efforts so that she was greeted wherever she went on the streets or in the hospital. She was both slightly embarra.s.sed - since Talents preferred nonent.i.ty - and delighted. Morfanu followed her about, which could have been a nuisance, except that it allowed the Rowan more opportunities to train the girl's innate Talent.

Had every single Talent instructor been killed? Or was it a result of Deneb's rather off hand colonial mind-set? On Central Worlds, parents had their children tested at birth for any sign of viable Talent. (Birth trauma often produced a measurable spark even if the ability did not mature until adolescence.) Talented children were a.s.siduously guided and trained, even as she had been.

So far only Jeff Raven was formally contracted to the FT&T, and the Rowan knew that he was determined to keep it that way. It was also obvious to her that Deneb needed to keep every useful citizen on the planet, to ensure its revitalization. But they ought to be trained.

Was it fear of the exploitation by FT&T that Jeff had mentioned to her which inhibited training? But if you liked what you were doing, did it well, was that really exploitation? She had everything she wanted, anything she asked for, including tonnes of generator parts and comm equipment. Apart from her intense loneliness and isolation which had always been with her - as Callisto Prime, she enjoyed enviable privileges along with her responsibilities.

Once Jeff was in a private room, he had almost nonstop visitors: additional works.p.a.ce had to be sent for to accommodate files and monitors. He seemed always to be conferring with some group or other 'I thought Makil was Governor,' the Rowan remarked acidly to Isthia, seething with worry that Jeff would work himself sick again. 'Can't you do anything to curb him?' 'He's one of the best engineers we have,'

Isthia said, though her thoughts echoed the Rowan's worry about Jeff's stamina. 'So much needs to be organized for us to get through this winter. You know how short his time is.' Short? The Rowan demanded of Isthia with sudden panic, probing to comprehend her qualification.

Easy, girl, and Isthia bounced the probe back. You know he's under contract to FT&T. When the Fleet is satisfied they've swept sky and surface clear of alien artifacts, they'll go and Jeff will be transferred elsewhere. Deneb's not due for a Prime.

Reidinger made that clear to Jeff in their initial interview.

The Rowan had forgotten about that. If he's trying to work himself into a relapse to stay here longer, Reidinger can invoke punitive measures. He wouldn't like that. I wouldn't like that for him.

Then make him stop working, my dear. I'm only his mother!

And, grinning at the Rowan's astonishment, Isthia left the room.

And you have measures that I can't use! Then her laugh echoed merrily in the Rowan's ears as the girl suddenly realized what she meant.

The Rowan waited until the current delegation left, then she closed and locked the door.

'Now don't start on me again, Rowan,' Jeff said, looking up from the files he was scanning preparatory for his next appointment.

'You have ten minutes free-time right now,' she began, affecting a provocative posture, 'and it's mine!' She snuggled up to him in the bed. 'Everyone on this planet gets a piece of the action but me,' she went on, 'and I 'Rowan,' he began, not quite masking irritation at her form of interruption. Then, he took a deep breath and smiled. 'I do have a lot to do.' 'You'd do more if you give yourself a chance to rest Was rest what you had in mind? His startlingly blue eyes began to sparkle.

Well, it's plain you've got your mind on many things far more important. . He laughed then, and dropped the films on to the bedside table, putting his good right arm about her.

And while cerebral activity is all you' re able for .

'We've got ten minutes alone and I'll just prove what I'm able for, my darling,' and that is just what he did, with considerable invention to overcome the handicap of his injuries.

When he was totally relaxed, she subtly nudged his mind into a sleep pattern and postponed his next appointment. His nap was brief but he ruefully admitted that it had done him so much good, he wouldn't fight her on that point again.

By the end of that week, healing had progressed so well that Jeff was allowed to move to the Ravens' accommodation. The Rowan was amazed to see so many people living so congenially in such cramped quarters.

The room she shared with Jeff was smaller even than the one she had occupied in Lusena's neat apartment. There was s.p.a.ce for the bed, a works.p.a.ce and monitors, and one had to step around the foot of the bed to get in and out of the room.

'Of course, we don't need much s.p.a.ce,' Isthia remarked as she easily read the Rowan's dismay despite a quick shield to hide it. 'We don't have much in the way of possessions at the moment,' and she gave a wry laugh.

'Except for Ian, none of us have more than one change of clothes right now.' At the best of times the Rowan rarely paid much attention to what she wore, but footwear, appropriate for walking between Tower and her quarters on Callisto, was coming apart at the seams.

'I think I can help you there,' Isthia said and pa.s.sed Ian over to the Rowan who had never held a baby in her life.

The child regarded her with solemn wide eyes and his fist crept up to his mouth.

You can trust me, the Rowan said carefully, wondering how you rea.s.sured a nonverbal infant. She was rewarded by an astonishingly jubilant smile so infectious that she grinned back in an idiotic fashion.

'Yes, he has that effect on one,' Isthia remarked, rummaging in a small chest that also served as seating.

'Ah. You've small enough feet. Maybe these will fit.' The Rowan had grown accustomed to Isthia's openness so that when it shut down completely, as Isthia handed her a pair of country boots, she looked at her questioningly.

'A granddaughter's,' was Isthia's terse response. Then she repossessed Ian, who squirmed about to watch the Rowan try on the boots. 'She'd be thrilled to think her beloved uncle's wife could use them. Put them on.' The moment of closure pa.s.sed, but the grief behind it had not.

The Rowan carefully put them on, folding over the flap and standing up to test the fit. A little loose but a thicker pair of socks would solve that problem.

'I should have some socks around here, too,' Isthia said and those, too, were pa.s.sed on to the Rowan.

'This is becoming a most salutary visit for me,' the Rowan said.

'One gets accustomed to taking ordinary things for granted, like socks and shoes and a change of clothes.' Isthia smiled warmly at her, taking Ian's fist out of his mouth. 'A new baby helps, too,' she added in the same thoughtful tone. 'A new life means continuity. In one way I'm sorry he's the last of them. However, an even dozen was all I promised their father.

The Rowan felt an unexpected shaft of pure envy for Jeff. To be one of a large and, from what she'd now seen, extremely congenial, loving family was truly enviable.

Lusena's two children, Bardy and Finnan, had been much older, so she'd missed a true sense of family. Turian had also had a similar deep familial attachment.

'You had no family at all?' Isthia asked, surprised.

Shaking her head, the Rowan dropped the eye contact.

'I was the sole survivor of a mining camp that was buried in a freak mud avalanche,' the Rowan said quietly.

'The Company office narrowed it down to three possible sets of parents --'But surely, you'd remember?' 'I was three. When I cried for my mother, an entire planet heard me.' The Rowan managed a weak chuckle.

'They had to shut me up so all memory of the tragedy was blocked out.' 'And no-one's removed the block?' 'Yes, they tried once,' the Rowan said, frowning as she remembered the occasion. 'The block was well constructed. I resisted and they couldn't go deep enough. So,'

and she firmly changed mood, 'that's it.' 'Is it?' Isthia remarked cryptically as she left the room.

Startled, the Rowan probed but she came smack up against Isthia's formidable shield.

It took the concerted effort of his entire remaining family to get Jeff, complaining that he had a lot of catching up to do, to retire at a reasonable hour. But he surrendered gracefully. 'Not that I had any choice,' he muttered to the Rowan as she preceded him into their room.

'At that, we're lucky,' he added.

'We are?' and the Rowan heard the faint sibilant shushes and loud whispers for 'silence' 'We've got a room with a lock.' He yawned mightily, wincing. The wounds across chest and ribs remained tender.

Cautiously he lay down on the bed, then negligently reached out to draw her close to him. 'I made them all promise to knock, too. 'Will they?' the Rowan asked, experiencing a sudden inhibition. She'd been looking forward to some privacy after the comings and goings of the hospital. 'Will they, Jeff?' A gentle snore informed her that the convalescent was already asleep.

Living in the boisterous Raven household was at first a novelty for the Rowan, totally foreign to anything in her experience. His various brothers and sisters, their mates, children, occasionally in-laws, orphaned nieces, nephews, and some elderly relations of both Isthia and Josh Raven lived happily in each other's pockets. The accommodation wasn't even quiet late at night since some of the residents worked late shifts. While there may have been an understanding about knocking on the door, in practice a knock was usually immediately followed by the door being opened to admit anyone who wished to speak to Jeff The first day, the Rowan took it in good part: she remembered what Isthia had said about 'sharing'. But she was unused to continual babble and certainly all the touching that went on, friendly though it was and meant in the nicest possible way, made her edgy. She firmly suppressed the irritation and sublimated it into hard work.