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.
That first six days were occasionally upset by minor adjustments which the Rowan would have solved much differently at Callisto, and in the days before she had met Jeff Raven.
You've had a soothing effect on me, love, she told him in one of their conferences. Late night Altair was often early morning on Callisto and she easily pictured him in her bed, hands clasped behind his head, blankets pulled up to his chin.
One day, he began, his mind tone deep and sensual, I might be able to enumerate the colossal alterations you've effected on this poor ill boonie boy. What mischief have you been up to today?
Mischief? When was I ever allowed to get into mischief?
But I did clear all of Siglen's junk and got the bedroom repainted. So tonight I'll have no more nightmares about those ghastly vines and flowers trying to eat me alive.
The Rowan had not wanted to take the Prime's accommodations. Not after her first horrified look at the main lounge. Siglen's bazaar tastes had never improved and the Rowan wondered how the crippled, obese old woman had managed to move about without knocking things off tables. Shuddering at the clashing colors and hoarded junk, the Rowan had closed the door, whooshing some of the heavy musky scent Siglen had been fond of into the hall. She would have preferred to move back into her old accommodation, now occupied by Bastian, Maharanjani, and their two children. But Siglen's quarters had to be redone for the Rowan to feel comfortable in them. At that, about all she could afford was to strip off the ghastly wallpaper and paint the rooms. She had spent well into next year's salary on Deneb's needs.
Those furnishings she had not had sent on to Callisto.
Despite fresh paint and sparsely furnished rooms, the Rowan spent a few uneasy nights before she settled in.
You're sure you don't want anything from here? Jeff asked.
I can ship you anything you want.
I'd rather see you enjoying them, Jeff, she said in a wistful tone.
Oh, I do! Though it's your Station equipment that I really covet!
He imagined himself, rubbing his hands, a caricature of a greedy expression and an unctuous grin.
Don't bother. Covet Altair when you get here. Though anything would be an improvement on what you made do with on Deneb. HOW you managed so much with that one puny little generator, I'll never know.
Reidinger doesn't realize just how powerful you are!
Me? There was such genuine surprise in Jeff's tone that the Rowan stifled a flash of envy. Her lover really didn't appreciate his unique strength.
The way Reidinger referred to Jeff in such uncomplimentary tones, the old man evidently hadn't realized Jeff's full potential. Odd that Reidinger, usually so quick in matters of Talent, should have missed it. He'd been in the mind merge, too. Or had he simply assumed that the merge had made Jeff Raven so omnipotent?
Yes, you, love. You're a Prime and a half I realize it: if no one else does. But don't let any one else realize it. Not yet, at any rate.
Which reminds me: it's a good thing I've got Afra and Brian coaching me on all that FT amp;T protocol nonsense… The Rowan grinned at his disgust: Jeff found those nuances and niceties the hardest part of his new duties. Deneb was too young, raw, and struggling a colony to waste time on conventions or unnecessary priorities of rank and precedence. Otherwise I'd have made a right drone-brain of myself!
May I live to see the day you're really droned! The Rowan knew from a chance comment of Afra's that the Callisto crew found him a lot easier to work with than she. He had assimilated procedures and the subtleties of dealing with freight and passenger captains as if he'd been trained as Prime since his early teens. He was adapting more easily to Callisto than she was to the greater responsibilities of Altair. But then that ineffable Raven charm was a considerable asset.
Are you coming home this weekend?
I really shouldn't. I'm still settling in. The Rowan remembered with a twinge of conscience the bruising schedule that Siglen had maintained.
That got her dead, didn't it? Jeff remarked, reading easily into the more private areas of her mind. Come to think of it, it would be more educational for me to visit Altair. Reidinger is so hot on extending my abilities and horizons, and Jeff chuckled with pure malice, I'm only too willing to oblige.
Besides, this weekend, I have a whole big thirty hours to "rest" unless I've misread Callisto's orbit.
He hadn't and she told Gerolaman to turn off the generators. He did a repeat of his act at Callisto Station, only this time the Rowan listened in. Just to see how he managed to charm so many people so completely in so short a time. He imaged her as a tiny mascot tucked over his ear as he talked Gerolaman into a buoyant mood.
He was nearly as fast charming both Bastian and Maharanjani, despite the fact that they had recognized him as heavy Talent and suspected his true identity.
When she heard him meekly admit that the Altairian Prime had sent for him, she responded with a mocking laugh that preceded her into the main office.
"And if you believe everything a Denebian tells you," she said as she entered, "I'm thankful there's only one in FT amp;T."
When she saw Maharanjani blush furiously, she knew the woman had caught some of the very vivid, naughty imagery which was Jeff's response to that insult.
"So you're Deneb's Prime?" Gerolaman asked, too bemused by the Raven charisma to take offense at the little charade.
"Callisto's," Jeff said with a little bow. "I take whatever leavings that drop from this one's fair hands." His blue eyes were glinting with such mischief that the stationmaster chuckled. "Can I help you clear up any last little chores, Rowan?" he asked, all politeness as he gathered her proprietarially under his arm.
"I do believe," and she announced magnanimously, "that our work day is finished. Altair will resume operations in thirty-two hours. Enjoy your respite." They exited, leaving the Station crew bemused by their vivid delight in each other.
Halfway through the next day, the Rowan asked Jeff to accompany her. He knew instantly where she meant to go and kissed her gently on the cheek, compassionately supporting her.
At their destination, the smell of the minta, heavy in the air, made the Rowan shudder with memory.
"Rather a remarkable odor. Hard to forget." Jeff's nostrils flared at the reek.
In the quarter of a century that had passed since the devastating mudslide, minta had grown to formidable size on the mud-filled valley that had once been the site of the Rowan Mining camp. She found nothing to recall here, yet somewhere, fifty meters below where they stood, Angharad Gwyn had lived for three years. Though Jeff had fractured the mind block, she remembered little more than her name and an impression of faces peering down at her, no sharp details at all, though she knew some of the faces had to be her mother, father, and brother. She remembered the rag rug on which she had often played in front of a screened fireplace. And the permeating stench of minta.
"Not much truly memorable happens to a child of three." "Unless she gets very unlucky," Jeff said gently. "Where did they finally locate you?" Jeff asked, knowing this return had to be played out in its entirety.
She took him down to the Oshoni valley, to the ledge where her rescuers had landed. The little hopper had long gone to scrap. The tongue of mud had dried in the ensuing years and was much eroded by rain, sun, and wind. She had a more vivid, if brief, memory of her release from the little broached hopper.
"There should be something more than this," she murmured, unable to express her unease on any level. "I don't even remember more of that awful journey than the rolling and bumping and then I was knocked unconscious.