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.
"Well, none of the Primes travel well, and none of them ever teleport themselves any great distance," Interior replied thoughtfully.
"But the Rowan child will be a lot better off away from Siglen's sort of discipline." "I'll just get back," Lusena said, rising and looking apprehensive. "She was napping but I'd hate for her to wake up and find me gone."
"You've done marvels with her, Lusena," Interior said warmly.
"You'll find a tangible reward from the Council when you've delivered her safely to Earth." "She's a taking little thing, really," Lusena said, smiling with affection.
"A bit odd-looking with that whitened hair and those enormous brown eyes in that thin face," and the Medic looked uncomfortable.
"Gorgeous eyes, lovely features," Interior said hastily to cancel Lusena's dismay at the Medic's blunt description.
"And you'll be all right with her tomorrow?" "I think the less fuss made the better," Lusena replied.
All the fuss the next day was due entirely to the Rowan child's total reluctance to enter the passenger vessel. She took one look at the portal of the ship and dug her heels in, literally and mentally.
From her mind came a single high note of abject terror. From her lips a monotonous, "no, no, no, no, no." Purza, clutched so tightly around its middle that Lusena feared for some of its programming, was purring in loud response to the little girl's distress.
"Sedation?" the ship's medical officer suggested to the distraught Lusena, who vainly tried to persuade her charge that no danger existed on this ship.
"We might have to keep her sedated the entire trip," Lusena murmured. "Even the most intensive therapy does not seem to have significantly reduced her trauma. It's entering a ship that's upset her so. Not that I blame her." One moment she had her arms wrapped about the struggling body, the next moment the Rowan child had disappeared, even the pukha discarded in her haste.
"Oh, my word, where can she have gone?" Lusena cried in panic.
"I warned you," came the ominous voice of Siglen. "The child shouldn't leave Altair."
Lusena's attention was caught by Siglen's phraseology, mindful of Yegrani's clairvoyance. "She has a long and lonely road to go before she travels." "Oh, lords above," Lusena murmured, her sympathies entirely with the child.
"Nor will you force such a young and powerful mind to leave the planet of her birth," Siglen intoned. Then she added, sounding almost sympathetic, especially as she has just proved that she is telekinetic as well as telepathic.
"But that child has got to receive proper training," Lusena cried, suddenly fearful for her.
"And I, mindful of my responsibility to my Talent and to preserve this planet's resources, will undertake her education."
"Not if you treat that child the way you have been, Siglen," Lusena cried, startling the people on the boarding way as she waved her fist in the air. There was an audible pause, a thickening of the air about the small group, a palpable silence.
"She has been a very naughty, badly behaved little girl," was the somewhat chastened reply. "She must learn manners if she is to be my pupil. But I will not have her terrified out of her mind by traveling in space. You will be reassigned as her companion, Lusena."
"Guard the guardian," Yegrani had said. Lusena had not had the slightest notion that events would conspire to appoint her to that gratuitous position. She sighed but, when Secretary Camella implored her to be the Rowan's nursemaid, she agreed. She genuinely cared for the little orphan who needed a staunch friend to deal with the stresses and tensions which Lusena could foresee without a vestige of clairvoyance in her Talent.
"Go and collect her from your room in the hospital," Siglen told her, but rather more politely than she usually delivered orders. "That seems to be the only place she knew to go."
"I'll collect her," Lusena said, scooping up the pukha.
"But you had better be kind to her. Don't you dare be anything but kind to her, Siglen of Altair!" "Of course, I will be kind to her," Siglen said, chidingly.
"What is her name?"
"She calls herself," and Lusena paused significantly, "the Rowan." She felt the slightest resistance and opened her mouth to retort.
"She'll find something else more suitable when she has been in my Tower awhile," was the soothing answer. "Kindly bring the Rowan to me now, Lusena. She is weeping on a very broad band."
In point of fact, the Rowan child did not take up residence at Siglen's Tower for nearly nine years. Lusena had two children of her own - a girl nine and a boy fourteen with minor but valid Talents.
Lusena urged the Secretary of the Interior to let her keep the Rowan at home, taking a temporary leave of absence from the Port Hospital. It was a pleasant enough house which was, as most Talent residences were, already shielded. Lusena distrusted Siglen for no reason she was ever able to articulate so she accepted, even encouraged the procrastination for a variety of excuses: hers and Siglen's.
"The child isn't really settled yet after that fright." "She's just getting over a cold." "I'd hate to disturb her just yet, she's integrating so well with her play group." "Her current teaching program ought not to be interrupted." "She would miss the support and companionship of Bardy and Finnan." Next year Siglen never protested too hard: adding her own delays.
There would have to be a suitable apartment for her student, as she felt the child would be more comfortable away from the busyness of the Tower and all the bustle of her support staff coming and going.
When Interior ordered plans to be drawn up for the facility, Siglen found exception with each submission, sending the plans back for minute revisions. The exchanges continued for nearly two years before the foundations were laid.
Meanwhile the Rowan became integrated into Lusena's family, for Bardy, the daughter, and Finnan, the son, were old enough to be kind and naturally caring of the waif. The Rowan played with non-Talented children her own age in a specially supervised group and learned NOT to manipulate her peers. Most of them were so "deaf" they were unaware of her subconscious attempts to control them. Their unawareness also resulted in making the Rowan vocalize in their presence. Toward the end of that first year, the Rowan would occasionally prop Purza on the sidelines of particularly active games but otherwise the pukha was within fingertip reach. Three times the feline had to be peeled from the sleeping child to replace its furry covering, worn or damaged receptors, and to update its programming.
Siglen did keep her promise about not suppressing the Rowan, though she sent pointed enough reminders that she was keeping her word and that Lusena and the others had best see to it that the Rowan did not distract her. As the Rowan matured, outbursts diminished.
Gradually, Purza spent more and more time on a shelf in her room, but was always on the pillow beside the Rowan at night.
On the day that the Rowan finally came to live with the Prime, she did not appear to be in awe of Siglen. She clutched Purza tighter to her side as the Prime towered above her, smiling in the fatuous way of someone unaccustomed to young persons. Secretary Camella of Interior, who had driven Lusena and the Rowan to the Tower in her own vehicle, wanted to strangle Siglen.
"Aren't we a little old to be dependent on a stuffed animal?" Siglen asked. "Purza is a pukha and she's been mine a long time," the Rowan answered, hefting the pukha behind her in a proprietary way.
Both Lusena and Interior tried to warn Siglen, but the woman was concentrating with formidable intent on the Rowan. Lusena caught Bralla's eye and the woman raised her eyebrows in a despairing arc.