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.
"I will arrange a watch rota," Isthia said. "There are enough of us to do that. And Rakella, you can see about some sort of medication to dampen the reaction." "Not every woman is experiencing it," Rakella remarked.
Isthia grinned in sudden humor. "So we find out just how much of Deneb's female population have traces of Talent. "'Tis an ill wind that blows no-one good." Rowan, very privately: You're amazing!
Isthia, equally private: Take the good with the bad.
Then Jeran awoke to be fed, so Isthia hustled mother and son back to the rebuilt Raven Farmhouse, where the stock purchased by Jeff's paternity bonus grazed on the lush hybrid grass that had thrived in Denebian soil. What surprised the Rowan about the new residence was that most of it was built underground.
"Once bitten, twice shy," Isthia replied with a shrug and a grin, "as well as being sound home-engineering: energy efficient, cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. And I feel a lot safer. Doesn't mess up the landscape either. You'll find more of Deneb City underground. We'll overfly it on our way back to the Tower. Now, let's feed this hungry young'un. And us! Those long night watches make me ravenous." Once back on Callisto, the Rowan allowed Reidinger to scan her memories of the merge. That he was seriously disturbed was obvious by the fact that he hadn't so much as roared over her abrupt departure.
When she mentioned Yegrani's Sight as verification, he became testy.
You were the merge, he said. You saved Deneb and you've traveled.
I was NOT the focus at Deneb. Jeff was.
Reidinger made a rude noise. Damned clairvoyants are so clever with their ambiguities.
REIDINGER, you are not ignoring this! It was her turn to bellow.
Fat chance I'd have of that when that aggressive Denebian husband of yours is agitating Fleet High Command as well as everyone he's ever met on the League Administrative Panel.
Reidinger sounded disgusted yet there was a hint of pride in his voice, which made the Rowan grin. Should never have introduced him so universally. He's got Fleet in a flap but the units that were stationed around Deneb are insisting that they get the chance to reconnoiter.
Rowan: Jeff said he'd be leading the way.
Reidinger was silent for a moment. He hasn't wasted an ounce of that ingratiating charm of his over the last six months.
He smothered exactly the right egos with it. Consequently he can manipulate the various authorities and agencies that would be involved in an operation of this magnitude. And cut through delays.
The Rowan grinned to herself at Reidinger's grudging admission.
She had learned a thing or two from Jeff about dealing with bureaucracy. More importantly, he could manipulate at a high level.
With Deneb the ostensible target for this new assault, he had every reason to marshal his Talent.
Jeff was very effective: he managed a squadron to reconnoiter.
And, obeying his wife's advice, specified a high complement of female crews on two of the ships.
Damnedest thing I ever heard of, Reidinger complained to the Rowan, Jeff's the most perceptive, and certainly the strongest Talent I've ever encountered - and he had to go some to exceed you, Angharad. Reidinger had taken to calling her by her real name since Jeran's birth because "Angharad" sounded more feminine than a tree name - so he's got xenobiologists from all parts of the League screaming for details about these feminine menaces oil yours.
The female of the species has always been more deadly than the male, Reidinger, the Rowan replied, though she couldn't remember where she'd heard that maxim. It didn't have the same ring as one of Siglen's.
Defending its young. I suppose even beetles can have maternal imperatives! If it IS the same blasted beetles. His grumbling tone faded from her mind.
As the Rowan turned back to some minor domestic chores 'porting fresh water from a Welsh artesian well for the Callisto cisterns, the weekly supply of comestibles and special household orders of those who lived on the Station - she waited with half a mind open for Jeff's progress report.
We're beyond Deneb's heliapause by two AUs, he said. I brought the squadron out myself. Fine Captain, excellent crew, he added with a mental picture of the ZAMBIA's bridge and the exceedingly handsome woman occupying the Captain's chair. The officers seated at consoles were all reasonably young and attractive, too. Picked less for pulchritude and more for vestiges of Talent. You have no competition, my love!
I won't daign: that with a reply.
Then shall I be magnanimous and say they confirm your perceptions about the approaching vesseL Not all the crew's female but those who are have exhibited the same symptoms Isthia reports en masse on Deneb.
I'm feeling distinctly left out of all this and I'm supposed to be highly perceptive!
Be glad you don't pick up on the aura, Jeff. You can really call it evil, or even truly malicious, but it emanates an intensity - an anticipation of destruction - that is frightening. If I were a barquecat, every hair on my body would be standing stark out. And don't call the phenomenon "it". Mauli echoed a "many" - a many which will not be diverted from their purpose.
Exactly how Captain Lodjyn summed up her impression of the intent of this Many. And they're unequivocably headed toward Deneb. I may be slightly paranoid about what happens to my planet, but I really can't quite make myself believe the vessel is going through Denebian space for a shortcut when Deneb VIII will just happen to be in their way.
What I can't understand is how they will avoid impaction at the speed they're going. It takes time to decelerate from the speed at which they're now traveling. Or maybe beetles stand multigravities better than us fleshy sorts?
Rowan, sensing suspicious peripherals from Jeff s mind: Just what are you doing right now?
Taking a look. Too much "noise" on the ZAMBIA.
She didn't like the thought of him in a vulnerable personal capsule, far from the nebulous safety of a multiweaponed scout vessel.
You should have taken the Captain with you. You won't hear a thing.
I did and Mauli's along. And we're in the Captain's gig.
I've some sense for a mere man, my love.
You reassure me no end!
Jeff's tone turned wry. I thought this would, cariad.
Mauli's echo is going to come in real useful.
Like never before!
He was silent though his mind kept contact. So, putting everyone on the Station on a Yellow Alert status, she left the Tower, with Afra, Mick, and Ackerman in charge, to attend to her son. It was soothing to feed Jeran his lunch before settling him down for a nap. Most of the time she did not have to reinforce his natural rhythm with a mental suggestion, but he had been a little off normal schedule since the Deneb 'portation so she gave him a nudge. She gazed down at him for a long moment - he was endlessly enchanting. Then she stretched out on her bed, one arm flung across the side which Jeff usually occupied, and relaxed, clearing her mind.
WOW! The awe in Jeff's voice was sufficient to rouse her totally from the light doze she had entered.
Mauli's reaction was less awed and considerably more fearful.
Jeff: We seem to have a lumpy-surfaced oval planetoid rolling towards us at speeds which make even gestalt assisted movements seem crawler-paced. It is currently twenty AUs out but closing fast enough I like. That defense ring which Fleet is so proud of is going to be no use against a vessel this size. More like a flea trying to swat one of those large men Proceyon breeds. Easy, Mauli. I don't care what instrumentation it might have, it can't see us. We're less than a mote. You may feel it, but if it had sensed us, we'd really be motes.
The Rowan, briefly touching Mauli's panicked mind to reassure the girl, heard Jeff's chuckle.
This may only be a captain's gig but its scanner's the best so Fleet'll have the printout as confirmation. I'm getting no readings on mass or composition. Scanner says "no accurate assessment possible at this distance". That's a lot of comfort.