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.
The first thing she did when she got back to the cottage was get an update on the weather pattern. She knew that he had not accessed his ship's facility so she was intrigued to find that a new low-pressure pattern was forming in the arctic. How in the name of all the holies had he known something which was happening thousands of klicks away? And his family had never tested for Talent?
Curiouser and curiouser! The Rowan made up her sailing pack, and stuffed in wet-weather and a few non-essentials that might prove useful.
With her pack slung over her shoulders, she cycled down in the faint light of the dawn, grateful she knew every rut and hole in the road to the main wharf. When she hailed the Miraki, moored fore and aft to the wharf and gently rocking in the outgoing tide, her voice seemed overloud.
"Stow that cycle and loose the aft line, mister," Turian said, emerging from the cabin and pacing to the cockpit.
"Now, stand by the forward line and we'll get underway." Laughing at how nautical Turian had become, the Rowan did as she was bid and neatly jumped to the deck to coil the forward line as the Miraki's blades took hold and propelled her away from the wharf.
"Stow your gear, mister, and grab us both a cup of the brew. We'll need it," he said, "while we're clearing the harbor." As she cheerfully did his bidding, she was positive that this was going to be a glorious day, certainly a highspot in the past year. She hadn't an ounce of precognition in her Talent but there were moments, and this was one of them, when you didn't have to be clairvoyant to know the auspices were good.
Once clear of the harbor and beyond the fishing boats chugging more slowly out to their day's labors, Turian ordered the sails hoisted. The exhilaration in being under sail in a stiff breeze and hull down in the sea thrilled the Rowan and she caught Turian's tolerant grin at her abandonment to the experience.
"I thought you said you'd sailed before," he said, half teasing as they sat in the cockpit, Turian's capable hand on the tiller between them.
"I have, but never quite like this. Always on "outings", not adventures like this." Turian threw back his head with a hearty guffaw.
"Well, if a common ordinary shakedown sail is an "adventure" for you, then I'm glad to have offered you this rare occasion." "Poor kid," his mind said, though his glance on her was kind, if this is all the adventure she's ever had.
However, he intended to give her full measure of the experience and in doing so, forgot his own weather prediction. He had filed a day trip to Islay, the largest of the nearby coastal islands, but they made such good speed to their destination that he decided to continue on, picking up the Southerly Current. That should carry them neatly to the southern tip of Yona, then they'd swing nor'west and come up the coast back to Favor Bay. That would make it more of an adventure for her.
Meanwhile he took great pleasure in seeing the girl so eager and vivacious: She didn't relax much and, although he approved her diligence, she got far too tense doing the simplest jobs. The odd time or two she had spoken with an authority and maturity that surprised him yet at other times she seemed even younger than she looked.
The purple mountains of Islay Island, with Yona just south of it, were on the horizon when Turian sent her below to her galley chores.
By the time they had sated their sea-sharpened hunger, he had steered in close enough for the settlement on Islay to be visible.
They picked up the current and the girl's eyes widened at the way the Miraki drove now, spume flying the bow, heeled over. He had her furl the jib and he close-hauled the mainsail. Just as she came aft again to join him in the cockpit, he heard the chatter of the Met-alarm.
"Grab the printout, would you, Rowan," Turian said, "and get us something warm to drink." He craned his head about, but there weren't many clouds yet on the northern horizon.
"You were right about a weather change," she said, coming back on deck with steaming mugs in her hands.
"Low-pressure ridge making down from the arctic, crowded isobars so the winds are likely to be gale-force." She pulled the printed sheet out of her pocket and handed it to him. "But you knew about a change yesterday."
He laughed as he read the Met report, cramming it into his pocket to take the mug in his free hand. "My family have been seafarers for centuries. We've got a kind of instinct for the weather." "You're weather-Talents?" He gave her a very odd look. "No, nothing formal like that." "How do you know? Didn't you get tested?" "Why? All the men in my family have the weather sense. We don't need to be tested." He shrugged, taking a cautious sip of the hot soup in the mug.
"But… but most people want to be Talented." "Most people want more than they need," he replied. "As long as I've a ship to sail and an ocean to sail her on, enough money to keep her safely afloat, I'm satisfied." The Rowan stared at him, bemused by his philosophy.
"It's a good life, Rowan," and he gave an emphatic movement of his head. Then he smiled at her. "There have to be some like us on every world, who are content with what they have, and not bored by sitting on their butts all day in an office, shuffling papers about." She caught in his mind an acceptance of that ineffable consciousness which was not at all a lack of ambition: but a totally different life-style. It was part of his innate honesty and ethics. Briefly she envied him his certitude. She had no argument against it though she could never have been allowed to live as he could. That she almost resented.
From the moment she was rescued from the little hopper, there was no alternative path for her to follow.
"You're a lucky man, Captain Turian," she said, with a twisted envious smile.
"Why is it, Rowan, that sometimes you seem decades older than you can possibly be?" "Sometimes, Captain Turian, I am decades older than I should be." That puzzled him, and she smiled to herself. If naught else works, being enigmatic might.
"We'll have to alter our plans, however," he said, hauling out the sheet and rereading it. "We haven't a chance of making it back to Favor Bay before those winds arrive. And I don't want to be caught on this side of the Islands.
"We have a choice, and I'll leave that up to you, mister," he shot her a challenging glance. "We can go through the Straits," he pointed ahead to the fast approaching end of Islay Island, "and shelter on the lea side of Yona. There's a nice little bay on Yona's Tail. We'll be safe there, and tomorrow we can make our way back. Or we can go back to Islaytown, moor her against the blow, and go ashore for the night." "You're the Captain." "Passage through the Straits can be hairy at high tide and that's what we've got."
"The Miraki would be safer on the lea side of the island, though, wouldn't she?" His smile answered her. "Then it's the Straits." Her grin answered his challenge.
Turian hesitated a moment longer. Islay Straits at high tide was a testing passage. She might have sailed a bit on her holidays, but she wouldn't have encountered the boiling cross currents and riptide.
He'd done it often enough in the Miraki and had complete confidence in his own seamanship and his craft. She wanted an adventure: she was about to get one.
So, when the Miraki rounded the Gut Rocks that bordered the entrance to the Straits, he ordered her into her wet gear and life vest, stopping any argument from her by shrugging into his own.