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"It does not matter. It is your child."
Resentfully, accepting the fact, I glowered at the little girl. She sat up,
tense as a scared small animal, and it wrenched at me with sudden hurt. I had
seen Marjorie look like that. Small, scared. Lost and lonesome.
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r r
I said, as gently as I could, "Don't be afraid of me, chiya. I'm not a very
pretty sight, but I don't eat little girls."
The little girl smiled. The small pointed face was suddenly charming; a tiny
gnome's grin marred by a dimple. There were twin gaps in the straight little
teeth.
"They said you were my father."
I turned, but Ashara was gone, leaving me alone with my unexpected daughter. I
sat down uneasily on the edge of the cot. "So it would seem. How do they call
you, chiya?"
"Marja," she said shyly. "I mean Marguerhia--" she lisped the name, Marjorie's
name, in the odd old-world dialect still heard in the mountains sometimes.
"Marguerhia Kadarin, but I just be Marja." She knelt upright, looking me over.
"Where is your other hand?"
I laughed uneasily. I wasn't used to children. "It was hurt, and they had to
take it off."
Her amber eyes were enormous. She snuggled against my knee, and I put my aim
around her, still trying to get it clear in my mind.
Thyra's child. Thyra Scott had been Kadarin's wife--if you could call it that.
But everyone knew he was rumored to be half-brother to the Scotts, Zeb Scott's
child by one of the half-human mountain things. Back in the Hellers,
half-brothers and sisters sometimes married; and it was not uncommon for such a
marriage to adopt the child of one by someone else, thus avoiding the worst
consequences of too much inbreeding. I scowled, trying to penetrate the gray
murk which surrounded part of the Sharra affair in my mind. I had never probed
that partial amnesia; I had felt, instinctively, that madness might lie there.
Perhaps I had been drugged with aphrosone. I knew how that worked. The one
drugged lives a life outwardly normal, 15ut he himself knows nothing of what he
does, losing continuity of thought between each breath. Memory is retained in
symbolic dreams; a psychiatrist, hearing what was dreamed during the time spent
under aphrosone, can unravel the symbols and tell the victim what really
happened. I had never wanted to know. I didn't now.
"Where were you brought up, Marja?"
"In a big house with a lot of other little girls and boys," she said. "They're
orphans. I'm not. I'm something else. Matron says it's a wicked word I must
never, never say, but I'll whisper it to you."
"Don't." I winced slightly; I could guess.
And Lawton, in the Trade City, had told me; Kadarin never goes anywhere--except
to the spaceman's orphanage.
Marja put her head sleepily on my shoulder. I started to lay her down. Then I
felt a curious stir and realized, abruptly, that the child had reached out and
made contact with my mind!
The thought was staggering. Amazed, I stared at the tiny girl. Impossible!
Children do not have telepathic power--even Alton children! Never!
Never? I couldn't say that; obviously, Marja did have it.
I caught my arms around her; but I broke the contact gently, not knowing how
much she could endure.
But one thing I did know. Whoever had the legal right of it, this little girl
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was mine! And no one and nothing was going to keep her from me. Marjorie was
dead; but Marja lived, whoever her parents, with Marjorie's face sketched in her
features, the child Marjorie would have borne me if she had lived, and the rest
was better forgotten. And if anyone--Hastur, Dyan, Kadarin himself--thought they
could keep my daughter from me, they were welcome to try!
Dawn was paling outside the tower, and abruptly I was conscious of exhaustion. I
had had quite a night. I laid Marja down in the cot; drew up the warm covers
under her chin. She looked up at me wistfully, without a word.
On an impulse I bent and hugged her. "Sleep well, little daughter," I said, and
went very softly out of the room.
CHAPTER TEN
The next day, Beltran of Aldaran, with his mountain escort, came to the Comyn
Castle.
I had not wanted to be present at the ceremonies which welcomed him; but Hastur
insisted and I finally agreed. I'd have to meet Beltran sometime. It had better
be among strangers where we could both be impersonal.
He greeted me with some constraint; we had once been friends, but the past lay
between us, with its grim shadow of blood. I was grateful for the set phrases of
custom; I could mouth them without examining them for a hostility I dared not
show.
Beltran presented me, ceremoniously, to some of his escort. A few of them
remembered me from years ago; but I looked away as I met a dark familiar face.
"You remember Rafael Scott," Beltran of Aldaran said.
I did.
There is no such word as endless, or the ceremonies would still be going on.
However, at last Beltran and his people were handed over to servants, to be
shown to rooms, fed, and permitted to recuperate for the further formalities of
the evening. As we dispersed, Rafe Scott followed me from the hall, and I turned
to him brusquely.
"Listen, you," I said, "you're here under Beltran's safe-conduct, and I can't
lay a hand on you. But I warn you--"
"What the hell's the matter?" he demanded. "Didn't Marius explain? Where is
Marius, anyhow?"
I looked at him, bitterly. This time I would not be taken in by the confiding
manner that had gulled me before, when I was sick from space and too trusting to
doubt him.
He laid rough hands on me. "Where's Marius, damn you?" It got to him, through
the touch. He let me go and fell back. "Dead! Oh, no--no!" He covered his face
with his hands, and this time I could not doubt his sincerity. That momentary
shock of rapport had at least convinced us that we were telling the truth to
each other.
His voice was not steady when he spoke. "He was my friend, Lew. The best friend
I had. May I die in Sharra's fire if I had a hand in it."
"Can you blame me for doubting you? You were the only one who knew I had the
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r r
Sharra matrix, and they killed him to get it."
He said evenly, "Believe what you like, but I haven't seen Kadarin twice in the
last year." His face was wrung with grief. "Didn't Marius ever get a chance to
explain it to you? Damn it, if I wanted to hurt him, would I have loaned him my
pistol? He gave it to the Ridenow boy--Lerrys--because he was afraid to take it
into the Terran Zone. Like I said, it has the contraband mark on it. I have a
permit but he didn't. When you thought I was Marius, I pretended--I thought, if
I could only get a chance to keep the two of you apart, until you understood
what was going to happen--"
I could not disbelieve his sincerity. After a moment I put my hand on his
shoulder. Had we been Darlcovan men, we would have embraced and wept; but we [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]