The Rowan
- Автор: Маккефри Энн
- Серия: Tower and the Hive #1
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Rowan». Краткое содержание книги:
The kinetically gifted, trained in mind/machine gestalt, are the most valued citizens of the Nine Star League. Using mental powers alone, these few Prime Talents transport ships, cargo and people between Earth's Moon, Mars' Demos and Jupiter's Callisto.
An orphaned young girl, simply called The Rowan, is discovered to have superior telepathic potential and is trained to become Prime Talent on Callisto. After years of self-sacrificing dedication to her position, The Rowan intercepts an urgent mental call from Jeff Raven, a young Prime Talent on distant Deneb. She convinces the other Primes to merge their powers with hers to help fight off an attack by invading aliens. Her growing relationship with Jeff gives her the courage to break her status-imposed isolation, and choose the more rewarding world of love and family.
"I've told Ray that we're going back separately. Now, c'mon. There're plenty of cars." Goswina was quite willing to let the younger girl take the initiative. She collapsed into the corner of the car which monotonously inquired the destination "The Tower." "The Tower is restricted."
"I am the Rowan." The car responded by lifting from the road and smoothly turning south-east, gaining altitude quickly and speeding toward the now visible configuration of lights about the Tower complex.
"You're not a T-4, are you, Rowan?" Goswina asked in a quiet voice.
"No. I'm not."
Goswina sighed then, relief and satisfaction emanating from her.
"So you're the reason this course is being held on Altair. You're a potential Prime so you can't travel." "I don't know that I'm the reason…" Goswina uttered a noise of disbelief. "You'll need a Station support team. You'll need people you can trust and empathize with. Building a team takes a lot of time and experimentation. I know. My parents are Capellan support personnel. That's why they let me come, in the hopes that I'd be acceptable… to you when you're Stationed." The Rowan could find no immediate reply. But Goswina's explanation made a lot of sense. How many of this group had guessed the purpose? And her real Talent stature. Barinov? That made more sense than his developing a true attachment for an odd-looking adolescent.
"Please, Rowan. I like you very much and I'm very grateful to you but we would not work well together. I… I frighten easily and you're very strong. That's good," Goswina said hastily, lightly touching the Rowan's arm and the girl could see Goswina's gentle smile, "for you. You must be strong. I don't honestly think I'm the sort of person who should be in a Tower. But my parents wanted me to have this chance. My younger brother, Afra, he's only six but he's already shown considerable potential. At the least, T-4, in both 'path and 'port. He adores going to the Tower with my father and Capella's always teasing him that he's going to take over from father." The Rowan chuckled and briefly clasped Goswina's fingers in hers, emphasizing her appreciation and friendship. Goswina was delicate blue and florally fragrant.
"I think we'd better deal with the present, Goswina. Now, you're not to say anything when we get back except that I didn't feel well. The place got so loud and stuffy…" "It was open air, Rowan…" "The noise! And all that lighting gave me a headache. That's what you're to say…" "But those…" "Thugs?" the Rowan filled in wryly "They'll know they've been acted against. And you hurt them." "Let them explain why - if they give anyone the chance to ask." The Rowan refused to relent. She was furious that, having assured Goswina that Port Altair was a safe place, they had actually been assaulted.
And Goswina, too, whose empathy made her the least able to have to cope with nastiness.
"You were much braver than I would have been." The Rowan snorted.
"Not brave. Angry. Here we are."
"Occupants: identify." "The Rowan here and Goswina of Capella," and the car was permitted through the security web. "Now, you see me to the Tower, Goswina, and then the car'll take you to your quarters. That way we keep to the story," the Rowan said, giving the necessary directions.
"Remember now, Goswina," she said as she got out at the Tower entrance. "And when he's old enough, I'll make sure Afra takes the course here, too." "Oh, would you?" Then the car carried her away.
The Rowan told Lusena about her headache caused by the blinding flickering lights and meekly agreed to having her eyes tested the next day. While Barinov was concentrating on the problem that Gerolaman had given them to solve, she had no compunction about probing in past his public mind. She didn't know his source but it was clear to her that Barinov was deliberately cultivating her because he'd learned that she was a potential Prime. She had no further hesitation then about competing against him, or any of the others. A Prime ran the Station: sentiment did not enter into its management.
So during the last week of the course, she ran Barinov a very subtle dance which occasionally caused the gentle Goswina to flush.
Over the next four years, other courses were given by Gerolaman at Altair which the Rowan was not specifically required to attend. She often dropped in when it came to the troubleshooting: She liked matching wits with the other students but she never permitted herself to become too friendly with any of them. She ignored overheard insinuations that she was cold, aloof, too haughty, conceited, stuck-up. She was pleasant enough to everyone, even those she genuinely liked, but she kept those preferences to herself. Sometimes Gerolaman would invite her into his office to have an informal chat and discuss her opinions about this or that student.
At some point after each course had finished, Reidinger would contact her for a talk, discussing various aspects of the material covered, and the problems proposed and solved.
The Rowan told Lusena that she felt as if she was being given a long-distance final exam.
"Well, I'd say you were lucky, young lady, to have his personal interest. Bralla says," and here Lusena grinned with some malice, "that he expects monthly reports from Siglen about your progress." "Oh, is that why she suddenly allows me to handle the ore drones?" The Rowan was not completely satisfied to be given the chore since the routing was usually pretty basic transferral. "How many years will she keep me on inanimates before I'm allowed a real job?" Lusena had no adequate consolation. Instead, backed by Reidinger's authority, she could and did arrange for the Rowan to take time away from the Tower. When Tower traffic was very slow, they went camping on long weekends on Altair's scenic Eastern Shore and several times on the Great Southern Wasteland which, the guide showed them, was teeming with all sorts of insect and invertebrate life forms, fantastic flowers that blamed at night or in the dawn-lit hours, drooping and dying once the blazing Altairian primary seared the planet's equatorial areas. The Rowan enjoyed water sports the most so that the executive house at Favor Bay was a frequent holiday site: Bardy and her husband, or Finnan and his wife and young children joining them.
The summer of her sixth year at the Tower coincided with the scheduling of a larger than average group, some of whom were older personnel from planetary as well as interior stations, taking the course as a refresher. By this time, most of the students knew that the Rowan was an unusually strong telepath and teleporter: the likelihood was that she would make Prime.
Where, in the Nine-Star League, was the real quandary.
Plainly, it would not be Altair for there was no deraliction of Siglen's sure handling of her Tower; David was firmly entrenched at Betelgeuse, Capella at her Station. Procyon's Guzman was aging but still years away from retirement.
There was no possibility of her acceding to Earth Prime but the rumor strengthened that Reidinger might settle some of his more onerous duties on her. Or that League Council might be considering a Station at Deneb, one of the newest colonies, though that was most unlikely. A colony had to have both exports and the credit to purchase imports from League members as well as sufficient off planet correspondence, or a trade route, to justify the expense of establishing a Tower. Right now, Deneb had no surplus of material or credit.
"I've told Reidinger," Gerolaman said to Lusena the evening before the new group was to arrive, "something's got to be done for the Rowan.