His grandfather sat silent, head on handa, for so long that Regis wondered if he had said the unforgivable, if the next thing Danvan Hastur did would be to disown and disinherit him as a traitor.
But everything I said was true, and he is honest enough to know it.
“That’s right,” said Danvan Hastur, and Regis was, guiltily, startled; he had grown used to the knowledge that his grandfather was only the most minimal of telepaths, and never used mindspeech if he could possibly help it; so little, in fact, that sometimes he forgot there was any laran they shared.
“I should be as witless as Derik if I tried to pretend that Darkover alone could stand out against anything the size of the Terran Empire. But I absolutely refuse to let Darkover become a Terran colony, and nothing more. If we can’t retain our integrity in the face of Terran culture and technology, perhaps we don’t deserve to survive at all.”
“It’s not that bad,” Regis pointed out. “That’s one reason Kennard was educated on Terra in the first place—to point out that our way of life is viable, even for us, and that we don’t need the worst of their technology—that we needn’t adopt it, for instance, to the level where our own ecology suffers. We can’t support the kind of technology they have on some of the city worlds, for instance; we’re metal-poor, and even too-intensive agriculture would strip our topsoil and forests within two generations. I was brought up with that fact and so were you. The Terrans know it, too. They have laws against world-wrecking, and they’re not going to give us anything we don’t demand. But with all respect, Grandfather, I think we’ve gone too far in the other direction and we’re insisting that we keep our people in a state—” he groped for words—“a state of barbarism, a feudal state where we maintain hold over people’s very minds.”
“They don’t know what’s good for them,” Hastur said despairingly. “Look at the Ridenow! Spending half their time on places like Vainwal—deserting our people when they most need responsible leadership! As for the common people, they look at the luxuries Terran citizenship would give them— they think—and forget the price that would have to be paid.”
“Maybe I trust people more than you do, sir. I think that if we gave them more education, more knowledge—maybe they’d know what they were fighting and know why you were refusing it.”
“I’ve lived longer than you have,” pointed out the old man dryly, “long enough to know that most people want what’s going to give them the most profit and the least effort, and they won’t think about the long-range consequences.”
“That’s not always true,” said Regis. “Look at the Compact.”
Hastur said, “That was forced on the people by one singleminded fanatic, when they were already frightened and exhausted by a series of suicidal wars. And it was kept only because the keepers of those old weapons destroyed them before they could be used again, and took the knowledge to their graves. Look how it’s been kept!” His lip curled. “Every now and then someone digs up an old weapon and uses it— or so they say—in self-defense. You’re not old enough to remember the time when the catmen darkened all the lands of the Kilghard Hills, or when some of the forge-folk—I suppose—raised Sharra against some bandits a couple of generations ago. If the weapons are there, people are going to use them, and to hell with the long-range consequences! Your own father was blown to pieces by smuggled contraband weapons from the Terran Zone. So much for the strength of our way of life against the Terrans!”
“I still think that could have been avoided if people had been dully warned against the consequences,” Regis said, “but I’m not saying we must become a Terran colony. Even the Terrans aren’t demanding that.”
“How do you know what they want?”
“I’ve talked with some of them, sir. I know you don’t really approve, but I feel it’s better to know what they’re doing—”
“And as a result,” said his grandfather coldly, “you stand here and defend them to me.”
Regis fought back a surge of exasperation. He said at last, “We were speaking of Derik, Grandfather. If he can’t be crowned, what’s the alternative? Why can’t we just marry him to Linnell and rely on her to keep him within bounds?”
“Linnell’s too good for him,” Danvan Hastur said, “and I hate to see him come any further under the influence of Merryl. I don’t trust that man.”
“Merryl’s a fool and a hothead,” said Regis, “and dangerously undisciplined. But I imagine Lady Callina can help there—if you don’t tie her hands by letting Merry marry her off. I don’t, and won’t, trust the Aldarans. Not with Sharra loose again.”
“I cannot go directly against the heir to the Throne, Regis. If I cause him to lose kihar—” deliberately, Danvan Hastur used the untranslatable Dry-Town word meaning personal integrity, honor, dignity—less and more than any of these, “before the Council. How can he ever rule over them after that?”
“He can’t anyway, Grandfather. Will you let him marry off Callina to save his face before Council? If you have to crown him—and I think perhaps you do—you must let him know before he’s crowned that the Council can always veto his decisions, or you’ll have him playing the tyrant over us in all kinds of foolish ways. Callina Lindir is Head of a Domain in her own right, and has been Keeper of Neskaya and Arilinn, and now here under Ashara. What about Callina’s loss of kihar?”
His grandfather scowled; Regis knew, though it was not— quite—telepathy, that Hastur was reluctant to allow Callina also that much Council power.
Not unless he’s sure she’ll support him and his isolationist notions. Otherwise he’ll marry her off just to get her out of the Council!
“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to marry her yourself?”
“Callina?” he asked in horror, “She must be twenty-seven!”
“Hardly senile,” said the old man dryly, “but I was speaking of Linnell. She’s too good for that fool Derik.”
Evanda’s mercy, is the old man harping on that string again? “Sir, Derik and Linnell have been sweethearts since Linnie’s hair was too short to braid! And you’ve encouraged it. She’s the only woman Derik would, perhaps, consent to be ruled by. You’d break both their hearts! Why separate them now?”
“I’d like to be firmly allied to the Aillards—”
“We’re that already, sir, with Linnell handfasted to Derik. But we won’t be if you alienate them by losing face for Callina by marrying her off against her will—and to Aldaran,” Regis said. “And you’re forgetting the most important thing, Grandfather.”
“What’s that?” The old man snorted, getting up and pacing the room restlessly. “All this business about Sharra?”
“Don’t you see what’s happening, Grandfather? Derik did this behind our backs, and Beltran will be here on Festival Night. Which means he’s already on the road, unless he’s patched things up enough with the Terrans to get an aircraft or two, and it’s not very easy to fly through the Hellers.” He remembered someone telling him that they had been, profanely, dubbed worse things than that by the only Terrans to try to fly over them in anything slower and lower than a rocketplane; they were a nightmare of updrafts, down-drafts and wild thermal patterns. “So when he gets here, what do you say? Please, Lord Aldaran, turn around and go home again, we’ve changed our minds!”
Old Hastur grimaced. “Wars have been fought for a lot less than that on Darkover.”
“And the Aldarans haven’t always observed the Compact that well,” Regis pointed out. “Either we have to let him marry Callina—or we have to insult Beltran by saying, maybe in public, ‘Sorry, Lord, Aldaran, the woman won’t have you,’ or by telling him that our Prince and Ruler is a ninny who can’t be entrusted even with the making of a marriage for his paxman! Either way, Beltran will have a grievance! Grandfather, I find it hard to believe you couldn’t have foreseen this day!”