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.
He tucked her head under his chin and held her against his body.
She put her hands about him with an experimental lightness. His body was firm. She liked it. That's good! She also felt the weariness permeating muscle, sinew, blood, and bone.
"Come!" she said and jumped them into the main room of her quarters.
"Rather special," Jeff said, looking about the spacious room with appreciative eyes. "I think you'll find it easier to shrug off Siglen's silly conditioning than you believe. Look, steps all over." He gestured at the various levels, for the dwelling had been built into Callisto's stony landscape.
"I designed it myself." She spoke with pride, sensing his flattering approval as she followed his gaze, from the small conversation pit around the archaic hearth with an imitation fire, to the dining level that had a three-sided view of the gardens and the little copse, to the sound and vision wall, to the corridor leading to the wing.
"Well done! Very well done! And it proves conclusively to me that your agoraphobia was Siglen's imposition. She didn't tolerate steps anywhere. As you must know." Then he yawned convulsively. "What a lover you chose!" "You get the bath," and she pushed him in the direction of the bathing room. "I'll fix a meal guaranteed to raise all known energy levels. Then you may sleep as long as you need to." She "saw" him as he shucked off his clothing: very privately she compared him to Turian's heavier build and the Captain's deep tan.
Then she decided that she liked his spare build, lean, muscled back and narrow hips; bulky people irritated her.
With good reason, Jeff remarked as he eased himself into the steaming pool. She had half-expected him to dive in, for it was deep enough, and heard his denying chuckle.
Another time, he told her with a sigh of total relaxation as he floated. Fix me that food, love, or I'll starve to death in my sleep.
She sent the water pillow to hold up his head and felt her lips tingle with an impressed kiss. She smiled as she collected the necessary foodstuffs from storage. Siglen may have adored eating for its own sake, but the Rowan had learned the fundamentals of good nutrition and the value of well-prepared and presented food.
"What will people think of me when they see you so thin, Rowan? Eat more! It's really delicious. If you'd only force yourself to eat…" Siglen's wheedling tone resounded in the Rowan's ears.
It was, however, infinitely more satisfying to prepare something for Jeff Raven. So involved was she in making certain that all nutritional elements had balanced tastefully that the Rowan was astonished to feel the rhythms of profound sleep emanating from her lover. A moment's pique was soothed by her realization that she would indeed have all the time in the world to prove her worth as a cook.
Now she'd better keep him from inadvertently drowning.
Unexpectedly she felt some fatigue from the day's excitements.
Gently she lifted the inert form of her lover from the water, swathed him in warm, soft, scented towels, and conveyed him to her wide bed. Being telekinetic had, for once, practical applications she had not heretofore considered, she thought, tenderly gazing down at his sleeping face. All the stress and fatigue lines were smoothing away and Jeff Raven looked younger.
His wasn't actually a handsome face: without animation, the harsh planes looked uncompromising, the nose prominent, jutting out from a wide and high brow. His eyes were far more deepset than she had realized. He had a very strong jaw - no getting around this man with specious argument. She wondered if he'd jut his chin out when annoyed.
His lips, too, showed firmness for all they were well-shaped, if a trifle on the thin side, but he had smiled so often, that detail had escaped her. In all, a strong, vital face and exceedingly attractive to her.
Sternly she suppressed unusual clamorings of body and blood.
Eighteen-year-old Rowan might have planned to challenge Captain Turian but she wouldn't ever be silly enough to dare Jeff Raven. She placed water, fruit juice, the "supper" she had made him in a heating cocoon, in easy reach on the bedside table.
What would their children be like? Despite her solitude, she suddenly blushed. Once Turian had been cajoled out of his regrets, they had enjoyed each other thoroughly.
But no-one since then had aroused her. Not even the high Talents Reidinger kept sending to Gerolaman's courses, or to Callisto Tower on specious errands.
For a long while, the Rowan had held the firm conviction that, once her long training had been accomplished, her "travel" would resolve all her problems.
Instead, she had gone from one lonely tower to another.
Yegrani's "long and lonely road" had been before her a long and lonely time. Even the cryptic "seeing" seemed fulfilled.
She had been the focus. Was her reward Jeff Raven?
Would she "travel" now with him?
He stirred slightly, as if responding to her thought; her heart caught in her throat. Then, with a smile, he sank more deeply into his much needed rest. She curled beside him on the wide bed, not needing to touch, content to be in his presence. And then fatigue overcame all her new sensations and wonderings.
The startlement of being kissed woke the Rowan abruptly, and it took a moment to recall the extraordinary events of the previous day.
"Honey, I am sorry to the death to have to wake you, but duty calls!" Jeff's tone and expression were regretful - and so was the clinging touch of his mind in hers, all spicy.
"Why?" She resented "duty" with an intensity that blazed from every pore.
"Easy, girl," and Jeff chided her. "When we so blithely destroyed those ET vessels, we left a lot of debris at spatially unsafe distances for the good of my poor planet." She saw in his open mind the visual report from Deneb.
"Some of it's extrapolated to come thunking down in settled areas. My kin are good, but not that good." "Can I help?" She dressed quickly.
"You can, indeed, and I'm counting on it. Reidinger has got Earth to release our colony a lot of much-needed supplies, and I need you to relay them out to me without splitting the packets. The High Command also wants samples of what we so indiscreetly made piecemeal." "But Jeff, what about us?" The sheer terror of renewed solitude sounded in her cry. He pulled her into his arms, once again tucking her head under his chin. He rocked her slowly, wrapping her in such deep and tender regard that she truly realized physical separation was no barrier to their rapport. Then he tilted her chin up and kissed her lips, a contact that was made far more poignant by his mind-touch and the scenes he projected of how they would make love when "duty" permitted.
She was vibrating with a sensuality which he then completed with an intimate mental touch, and she clung to him in amazed relief. He grinned down at her, pleased by the effect he had on her.
"The chemistry's right between us, love, and I can't wait to prove it time and time and time and time again. However," and his manner altered as, with deep mental and physical regret, he released her, "while I'm gone, work hard on overcoming Siglen's impositions. I'll be back as soon as I've done garbage detail. We'll be transporting some mighty queer stuff. I'd have a good look at it when it comes through Callisto were I you, honey. If there's one group of space traveling animosities, there may be more.
He released his physical hold of her and guided her to the door.
"We'll walk across this time. Gives us a few more moments." She matched strides with him and was unaware of anything on the way to the Tower but the touch of his hip and thigh against hers, his fingers laced in hers. For once she wasn't even aware of the great generators' start-up whine.