A half-caste boy, a bastard, Comyn by special grace only because my father had no Darkovan sons, I had been easy prey for the rebels and malcontents swarming under the rallying cry of Sharra. Sharra — the legend called her a goddess turned daemon, bound in golden chains, called forth by fire. I had stood at those fires, using my telepath gifts to summon forth the powers of Sharra.
The Aldarans, the Comyn family exiled for dealing with the Terrans, had been at the center of the rebellion. I was a kinsman of Beltran, Lord of Aldaran.
Faces I had tried to forget, marched relentlessly out to torment me. The man called Kadarin, rebel extraordinary, who had persuaded me to join the rebels of Sharra. The Scotts; drunken Zeb Scott who had found the talisman matrix of Sharra, and his children. Little Rafe, who had followed me about, his hero; Thyra, with the face of a girl and the eyes of a wild beast. And Marjorie…
Marjorie! Time slid away. A frightened girl with soft brown hair and gold-flecked amber eyes stole to my side through the strange firelight. Laughing, she walked the streets of a city that was now smashed rubble, a garland of golden flowers in her hand…
I slammed the memory shut. That wouldn’t help. The thrum of the braking jets hurt my ears; out the window I could see the stubby towers of Thendara, rosy in the pink sunlight; a bright spot on the dark plains, patched with forests and low hills. We dipped lower and lower, and I saw lakes flash like silver mirrors; then the skyscraper peak of the Terran HQ building flashed past the window, the glare and whiteness of the spaceport struck my eyes, there was a jar, and a bump, and we were down. I tore at my straps. Now for Dyan—
But I missed him. The airfield was a scrabble of humans from thirty planets, jabbering in a hundred languages, and as I pushed my way through the crowd, I ran with smashing force into a thin girl dressed in white.
She stumbled and fell, and I bent to help her to her feet. “Please forgive me,” I said in Standard, “I should have been looking where I was going—” and then I got a good look at her.
“Linnell!” I cried out joyfully, “by all that’s wonderful!” I caught her up clumsily, hugging her. “Did you come to meet me? But, little cousin, how you’ve grown!”
“I beg your pardon!” The girl’s voice was dripping with ice. Suddenly aghast, I set her on her feet. She was speaking Darkovan now, but no Darkovan girl ever had such an accent. I stared at her, appalled.
“I’m sorry,” I said at last, dumbfounded. “I thought—” but I kept on staring. She was a tall girl, very fair, with a soft heart-shaped face and soft dark brown hair and gentle gray eyes — but they were not gentle now; they were blazing with anger.
“Well?”
“I’m sorry,” I repeated numbly, “I thought you were one of my cousins.”
She gave a cool shrug, murmured something and moved away. I followed her with my eyes, still staring. The resemblance was fantastic. It wasn’t just a superficial similarity of coloring and height; the girl was a mirror image of my cousin, Linnell Aillard. Even her voice sounded like Linnell’s. A light hand touched my shoulder and a gay girlish voice said, “Shame, Lew! How you must have embarrassed poor Linnell! She brushed past me without even speaking! Have you been away so long that you have forgotten all your manners?”
“Dio Ridenow!” I said, startled.
The girl beside me was small and pert, with flaxen-gold hair fluttering about her shoulders, and her green-gray eyes were aslant with mischief. “I thought you were on Vainwall!” I said.
“And when you said good-bye to me there, you thought I would stay alone to cry my eyes out,” she said saucily. “Not I! The space lanes are free to women as well as men, Lew Alton, and I, too, have a place in Comyn Council, when I choose to take it. Why should I stay there and sleep alone?” She giggled. “Oh, Lew, you should see your face! What’s the matter?”
“It wasn’t Linnell,” I said, and Dio stared. “Who, then?” She looked around, but the girl who looked like Linnell had vanished into the crowds. “And where is my uncle? Have you quarreled with your father again, Lew?”
“No!” I said roughly. “He died on Vainwal!” Didn’t anyone on Darkover know it yet? “Do you think anything less would bring me back here?”
I saw the mirth go out of Dio’s face. “Oh, Lew! I’m sorry! I didn’t know!”
She touched my arm again, but I shied away from her sympathy. Dio Ridenow was high explosive where I was concerned. On Vainwal, that had all been very well. But I knew, if she didn’t, how quickly that old affair could flare up into passion again. I had troubles enough without woman trouble, too.
Once again I had failed to barricade my thoughts. Dio’s fair face etched itself with crimson; and abruptly, catching her teeth in her lip, she turned and almost ran toward the spaceport barriers.
“Dio!” I called after her, but at that moment someone shouted my name.
And right there, I made my first mistake. I didn’t go after her — don’t ask me why. But someone called my name again.
“Lew! Lew Alton!”
And the next moment a slender, dark-haired boy in Terran clothing was smiling up at me.
“Lew! Welcome home!”
And I couldn’t remember his name to save my life.
He looked familiar. He knew me, and I knew him. But I stood warily back, remembering how I had recognized Linnell. The youngster laughed.
“Don’t you know me?”
“I’ve been away too long to be sure about anybody,” I said. I reached for telepathic contact, but the drug was still fuzzing my brain; I sensed only the fringes of familiarity. I shook my head at the kid. He’d have been only a child when I left Darkover; he was still so young that I don’t think he’d started shaving yet.
“Zandru’s hells,” I said, “you couldn’t be Marius, could you?”
“Couldn’t I?”
I still couldn’t believe it. My brother Marius, the younger brother who had cost our Terran mother her life — could I possibly fail to recognize my own brother?
He was grinning up at me shyly, ,and I relaxed. “I’m sorry, Marius,” I said. “You were so young, and you’ve changed so much. Well—”
“We can talk later,” he said quickly. “You have to go through customs, and all, but I wanted to get to you first. What’s the matter, Lew, you look funny. Sick?”
I leaned hard for a minute on his suddenly-steadying arm, until the vertigo passed. “Procalamin,” I said ruefully, and at his blank look elucidated. “They shoot us full of it, on starships, so we can take the hyperdrive stresses without coming apart at the seams. It takes a while to wear off, and I’m allergic to the stuff anyhow.”
I caught his sidewise glance and my face grew grimmer. “Do I look that bad?That’s right, you haven’t seen me, have you, since I lost my hand and got my face cut up. Well, get a good look.”
His eyes slid away, and I tightened my arm around his shoulders.
“I don’t mind you staring,” I said more gently, “but damned if I want you sneaking a look at me when you think I won’t notice, because I always do. See?”
He relaxed and studied me frankly for a minute, then grinned. “Not pretty, but you never were much of a beauty, as I remember. Let’s go.”
I looked past the skyscraper of the HQ, and the tall buildings of the Trade City. Beyond them rose the vast, splintered teeth of the mountains; and poised, “far above the plain, the loom of the Comyn Castle, topped by the tall spire of the Keeper’s Tower.
“Are the Comyn already assembled in Thendara?”