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.
"Jeff knows how much family means to you," Elizara said.
"Family?" The Rowan found the wording odd. Jeff never referred to their unborn as "family": usually it was "his" or "their" son, or Jeran when they finally decided on a name for him. But the child's arrival would indeed make them a family!
"There was once a time," Elizara went on in her lilting voice, "when the mother and father of a newborn were totally unprepared for it, or the effect it would have on them and their own relationship. Of course, parenting has become so much a part of early education, that many of the iniquities of earlier centuries can no longer be perpetrated on young, unformed minds. But the highpotential Talent child needs special care and handling, especially at birth and in the first three months." "I know that. I know that! I've been made aware of that by just about everyone in the whole damned Central Worlds. The only one who hasn't alluded to this is Capella and right now I could almost trade places with that dried up old virgin!" "Rowan! If she should hear you!" "She is," the Rowan acidly replied, "probably the only Talent in the entire FT amp;T network who doesn't contact me half a hundred times a day to ensure I'm still all right and the child is alive and kicking! Which he is right now!" "Then calm down!" Elizara exuded an authority that the Rowan found as impossible to evade as Jeff"s. So she found herself initiating meditation in obedient response. Elizara's inner serenity extended itself to the Rowan and the flare of anger and frustration was soothed away.
"Oh, by the way," Elizara said when the Rowan was tranquil again, "I took another liberty on your behalf." She hesitated.
"Why not?" Elizra touched her hand in gentle rebuke. "I've managed to trace the Gwyn family. Just in case there might be some genetic flaws that we should know about in advance." "You did?" the Rowan exclaimed. "But I tried…" "Yes, you tried from Altair," and Elizara gave a little smile, "but not from Earth. And not consulting the original immigration files, only the Altair entries." "They were useless. And?" "Genetics prints were made of all outgoing settlers; genotypes and blood profiles. You could only be the child of Ewain and Morag Gwyn." Shyly Elizara slipped two small holograms from her pouch to the table. "As you'll notice, the tendency to premature silver hair affected both parents." With a reverence akin to awe, the Rowan looked down at the two faces: Despite the fact that her father could have been no more than thirty, his hair was silver while eyebrows and mustache were as black as coal. He had a strong face, and his brows were drawn in a faint scowl. Her mother's hair had silver streaks from a center parting: she looked more worried than anxious, but she had bequeathed her gray eyes to her daughter and the narrow face.
Elizara, if you knew what this gift means - Ah, love, I do! And Elizara laid her hand gently on the Rowan's bowed head.
What's wrong? was Jeff s sudden demand. He was never out of touch with her and he was as grateful to Elizara as she was. That girl's a wonder! Give her a hug for me! I don't dare do it myself or I'll have you to answer to!
I'm much too happy at this moment we knew that, my love!
In her mind was a fiendish chuckle. Warn her!
The Rowan didn't, but smiled happily to herself, her eyes resting on the two holograms until they were indelibly imprinted in her mind.
She had parents now: and it was enough to know that she had had a brother. She could console herself wondering whether he had resembled father or mother more. Maybe Mauli, who was deft with pencil and paint, would draw her a likeness of what her brother might have been.
On one count did the Rowan prevail against Reidinger's over protectiveness: she was allowed to continue working Callisto Station.
Torshan and Saggoner were needed on another colonial outpost, and Elizara, backed by all other medical consultants, reassured Reidinger that the Rowan's mental abilities were in no way affected by the pregnancy.
Nor was her normal occupation affecting her unborn child. The Rowan proved that more conclusively by a suspension of the pyrotechnics which had often disturbed the Station personnel during her moody periods. For this everyone on the Station was grateful.
As soon as her pregnancy became common knowledge, Brian Ackerman had braced Afra, wanting to know if the Rowan would be "OK". "If by OK you mean is she likely to be as difficult as she was before Jeff arrived," Afra replied in a droll tone, his yellow eyes reflecting considerable amusement at the question, "I'm told that pregnant women are often more quiescent and docile." "The Rowan docile? I'd find that hard to believe," was Brian's reply. "But that Elizara's sure a nice person. Does the Rowan like her?" "I believe they are compatible personalities. Elizara is an extremely gifted practitioner. If I were having a baby, I'd like her beside me." Brian regarded the Capellan with a startled glance.
"You're no mutant!" "No, and I'm as male as you are!" Afra stared back at Ackerman.
"I didn't mean… I mean, I know you… Oh, hell. I figured you were gone on the Rowan. Elizara's pretty, young, and…" "I'll make my own match, if you don't mind, Brian, but I appreciate the concern." And Afra retired to his own quarters, leaving Brian wondering if he had mortally offended him and wishing he'd never started the conversation in the first place.
As the delivery date approached, the Rowan spent a lot of time in the Dome's pool. It was the only place she did not feel awkward and unwieldy. She had even discussed a water delivery with Elizara.
"Wherever and however you feel comfortable," the Medic replied.
"This isn't going to be a huge production, is it? I'm not going to have Reidinger shooting more experts up the moment I go into labor?" "Whenever, however, and whoever you need to make birth easy for you and the young Raven," Elizara assured her so firmly that the Rowan let herself be convinced. She appreciated the irony of Reidinger's ban on any travel that precluded her having the child in one of the highly specialized clinics on Earth.
She was aware of all the discreet monitoring devices that had been installed; in her couch in the Tower, her quarters, lining her bed, the pool, the rocking chair which Jeff had made for her with his own hands, the couch in front of the fire, even in the food preparation area.
That was quite enough surveillance but having a baby should be a private affair, not a matter of interest to the inhabited galaxy.
The Rowan suddenly knew of one other presence she wanted very much to have with her: Isthia Raven, with her deep r and her loud voice. The notion surprised her and yet it had a calming effect on her. A matter of con…
"Whoever you need," Elizara repeated, tactfully advising the Rowan that her thoughts were clear.
"But would she come?" The Rowan was inhibited by an odd reticence.
Isthia Raven would be harvesting Deneb's first post ET crop on the family's holdings.
Ask her, Jeff advised when the Rowan timidly tested the notion on him. She'd be honored, and she'd be helpful. She's been taking instruction on that metamorphic treatment that worked so well on me.
Does that stuff help in childbirth?
Would you ask her for me?
What? The redoubtable Rowan is afraid of her mother-in-law?
Well, you are!
Not often. Not since I met you. There was a snide chuckle at the end of that thought.
I don't know why I put up with you!
Because you adore me, of course! Which is reciprocal. The chuckle was replaced by a vision of him as a callow mooncalf.
Isthia Raven was flattered by the Rowan's request and exchanged considerable information with Elizara. She had been rather worried about the Rowan who was, to her mind, not the optimum shape for easy childbearing. She said that she would come as soon as she was needed.