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.
David of Betelgeuse could clearly remember being nursed at his mother's breast. Capella swore she remembered her birth trauma.
Which, David had acidly remarked, was why Iron pants refused to mate, unwilling to inflict such horror on a child from her womb. Well, that was her excuse.
Once again, the Rowan tried to force her memory back, before that aborted departure. All she knew about her early childhood was what she had been told: that her parents had died in an avalanche, that she had been the sole survivor of the Rowan disaster. She had never questioned those facts. She had devoutly wished that she had known something of her background: her real name, what her family had been like, if she'd had any brothers and sisters. It hadn't been until she'd been in Turian's company that she realized what she might have been lacking.
She did remember being taken from the hopper, and immediately sedated. She most certainly remembered telling Siglen that she was the Rowan, because "they" all called her "The Rowan Child". Now that she knew that this whole fufurrah about Primes traveling in space was an imposed neurosis, she was more than halfway to restoration. Or that was the often repeated theory. She stilled her restlessness, found a comfortable position in her half-empty bed, and initiated her sleep pattern.
The next morning she was awakened by the rumble of generators warming up.
We've two hours before we clear Jupiter, Afra said in his customary dry tone.
I know. Odd how she always did. Callisto's orbit in its relation to its primary was a permanent fixture in her consciousness. She dressed quickly, remembered to drink a sustaining meal, and jogged down the passageway to the bunker where the personnel carriers were stored, saw hers missing from its rack and went on to the launch cradle in which it now rested.
She didn't feel the least bit altered from the last time she had lain on the padded couch. Shouldn't she?
Feel different? Afra echoed and gave her a chuckle.
[Why had she never realized that Afra was warm brown, velvety smooth, and faintly citrony of scent?] YOU yourself haven't altered, Afra went on through her private observation of him. Just your perception of the process.
Did you ever suspect that it was a psychosis engendered by Siglen's lack of equilibrium?
[Mental shrug.] A T4 does not delve into the exalted mechanics of the Primes, my dear. Afra snorted at the mere thought of such blasphemy.
But what do you think about, or Brian Ackerman, or any of those I whip back to Earth, when they're being transported?
I don't listen in, and Afra added an admonitory chiding.
You're being obstructive. Well, be objective. What do YOU think about?
During a kinetic displacement? Generally, I concentrate on getting where I'm supposed to go. Where did you plan to go today, Rowan?
I would prefer to go to Deneb, she answered in a very meek and subdued voice.
Not unless Jeff Raven is there to catch you, and he isn't.
And even with the gestalt, I can't send you very far. You're said in that respect, he added quickly when he felt the first tinge of terror in her mind. It will take time, you know, to condition you to space travel.
I can't just sit here in the cradle - You're not, you know, Afra said very gently. You're hovering in Demos's orbit above Mars.
WHAT? In her fright, the Rowan projected such an almighty scream that Afra slapped his hands, instinctively but ineffectually, to his ears.
WHAT are you doing, Rowan? came a roar from Earth Prime. Afra, I'll flay your yellow skin and hang the meat from your bones out to dry! What ARE you doing with her?
Leave him alone, Reidinger, was the Rowan's prompt and equally agitated response. Afra's obeying my orders and your stated wishes that THIS Prime will learn to travel in space. Stop blustering. Here I am orbiting Demos and that's further than I've ever been able to come before. But, and while she forced herself to admire the view, she found herself "looking" straight ahead, unable/unwilling to turn her eyes from the sight of Demos's pitted surface with Mar's red/orange bulk beyond. As long as she had only that view to contend with, she could manage it. Demos looked exactly like its hologram.
I think that's enough for now, she added, spacing her words carefully, as if one of them might alter her head a fraction, forcing her to see more of the open space all around her shell which could be a prelude to the godawful spinning she'd felt on her first space voyage.
Shut up, Rowan, that was a Siglenish imposition. Nevertheless, she felt sweat trickling down her face.
You did very well, Afra said calmly and the next thing she knew she was back in the cradle.
Did you really send me all the way to Demos, Afra? She felt totally spineless and couldn't move a hand to blot the perspiration on her face.
I certainly did, and you suffered no significant trauma according to the monitors in the shell. Just stop thinking about Siglen.
Afra did not have to sound quite so smug, she thought deep inside her head. He had royally fooled her, that treacherous T-4.
"What's the Rowan's capsule doing out here?" Ray Loftus yelled and he had flipped up the canopy before he noticed her lying inside. "Hey - whaaaaat?" He stared down at her, his face gone white. "Are you all RIGHT, Rowan?" He didn't appear to know what to do, waving one hand impotently.
"Stop dithering and give me your hand," the Rowan said. "I've been to Demos and back - for my sins!" Ray willingly assisted her out of the capsule and, then almost too solicitously for she was drained by the experience, supported her up to the Tower building. His incredulity and several odd, unsortable fleeting emotions were inescapably projected to her through the physical contact. But she also caught pride and relief.
Afra palmed open the door, took her hand and, with a brief kinetic surge, renewed her energy. Before she could read him, he had his shield up again.
You don't need to treat this as so commonplace an occurrence, you know, she added, piqued.
Why not? It should be! Yaw! He sidled away from the pinch she gave him.
Now, if fun and games are over for this morning, can I please review the day's schedule? came the acid tone of Reidinger. There are a few alterations.
That night as the Rowan lay in her double lonely bed, she reviewed that lift. She had felt nothing: not even that spinning - once she'd shut her mind away from the notion - that had consumed her on the 'portation from Altair to Callisto. But, in the light of present knowledge, was it any wonder she responded as she had during her first space voyage? Hadn't Siglen wept and moaned and wrung her hands and carried on as if she was sending the Rowan to her death? And all those preventive shots and medicines which, since her middle ear was not impaired at all, had probably produced the nausea, the spinning and disorientation because she hadn't needed them. Siglen had done one fine job of preconditioning her to react exactly as she had.
She'd get Afra to take her back to Demos tomorrow and this time she'd look at it - and around her. There was absolutely no physiological or psychological reason why she should be affected by space travel.
No, there's not. Keep telling yourself that, honey. Keep saying it until you believe it with all your heart and mind, Jeff's voice said, gently inserted into her mind.
Oh, your touch is so fragile… She worried that the tasks set him were too much for his so recently acquired abilities.
No, not at all, he replied, deepening his tone. I didn't want to startle you.
Don't try to deceive me, Jeff Raven. I know you're exhausted.
You shouldn't even be trying to contact me in that state… Aren't you glad I have? [His mental smirk was accompanied by a very delicate caress.] Wherever you are, no matter how tired I am, I shall always reach out to you.