Stars of Darkover Read online

  “I’m afraid banshee isn’t on offer locally,” Dad said. “You’ll have to settle for some ordinary Terran hamburgers. Should be out of the food dispenser in five, but I’d better go check on them. They say you can’t burn anything with the newer models, but this wouldn’t be the first time I proved them wrong.”

  Kennard sighed as Dad disappeared into the kitchen, and his hand went to the chain around his neck, the one Darkovan thing he wore.

  “Let me guess,” Elaine said. “Terrans using machines to do things they’re perfectly capable of doing for themselves?” It was one Mom’s biggest complaints about Terran life.

  Kennard’s shoulders slumped, making him look suddenly young. “How can you stand it?”

  “It’s easier for me. I just...” Elaine had never put this into words before. “I switch, depending on where I am.” Or who I am. “Most of the time, I don’t think about it. It just happens, the way—the way the food dispenser switches from hot to cold drinks and back again.”

  Kennard laughed, as if that were the most ridiculous image ever. “You are more than some mere Terran machine, Lady.”

  That was sweet and awkward and embarrassing all at once. “So you see, when I’m at Dad’s, overcooked burgers are just normal, and I wouldn’t know what to do with anything else. But when I’m at home—well, my mom doesn’t rely on machines. Especially not for cooking.” Even an ancient microwave was too modern for Mom, who’d only reluctantly accepted electric burners in place of open flames. “You should come over for dinner sometime.”

  Kennard’s face lit up—she caught a glimpse at the edges of her sight—but he kept his voice carefully neutral. “If your mother were to extend an invitation, I would be honored to accept.”

  Of course. An unmarried girl inviting an unmarried boy into her home wasn’t proper either, even if they intended to nothing more scandalous than go over their astrophysics homework together. It had all seemed so romantic back when Mom had explained it to her, perhaps because Elaine had never known a boy she actually wanted to invite over. Without thinking about it, she’d always understood that her Terran friends, boys and girls both, were for school. Bringing them home to Mom would have felt as wrong as, well, speaking casta in her father’s apartment.

  Dad came out with the burgers, sparing Elaine from having to put any of that into words. Over a properly tasteless Dad-cooked meal he explained everything to her: how Larry and Kennard had met by chance on the streets of Darkover, become friends, and had adventures together—the sort of adventures that involved kidnapping and bandits and yes, even banshees. Surviving all that had left Larry as mad to learn about Darkover as it had left Kennard mad to learn about Terra, so they’d arranged an exchange program. “To help build a bridge between our worlds,” Dad said.

  “So now your father is my foster father.” Kennard politely took another bite of the bland, processed meat. “And your brother is my foster brother. And you—” He stopped abruptly, and his ears turned nearly as red as his hair.

  If Elaine was his foster sister, meeting her eyes or accepting her dinner invitations or talking to her without a chaperone wouldn’t be a problem. With a word, she could erase the awkwardness between them. They’d be kin.

  But never more than kin. Elaine’s burger grew cold in front of her. She fought the urge to look at Kennard, to see if his thoughts echoed hers. It wasn’t as if you could ever really know another person’s thoughts, anyway.

  “I’ll talk to my mother about dinner,” she said instead.

  ~o0o~

  A proper first invitation needed not only to come from the head of Elaine’s household, but to be delivered to the head of Kennard’s. That meant Mom had to talk to Dad, something they both did as little of as possible.

  The resulting argument was all about Mom giving Dad hell for taking Larry off-world and leaving him there. Elaine heard you never consulted me and he’s my son, too and Terran custody laws be damned and if only you knew what I saw. She had no idea what that last even meant.

  But at the end of Dad’s yelling and Mom’s bitter, hissed accusations, Mom issued an invitation, Dad passed it on to Kennard, and Kennard accepted it.

  He showed up a week later at their house near the city’s edge, far enough from the city center to have real grass out front. Mom worked even further away, with horses and hawks and other animals at a reserve dedicated to keeping dying Terran species alive.

  Kennard halted at the edge of the property, staring at that patch of green as if it could slake some deep thirst. He wore leggings and a tunic almost the same shade of green, and his long cloak, embroidered with an eagle atop a rocky cliff, set off his bright hair and fair skin. He didn’t look uncomfortable in those clothes. He looked—Elaine’s skin grew hot as she thought about how he looked, and she forced her gaze to her feet. It was all she could do to stand there and let her mother cross the lawn to greet him alone.

  Mom’s bright scarlet cloak bore the same double eagles as Elaine’s own. She gave Kennard a formal bow as she spoke in casta. “Kennard-Gwynn Lanart-Alton. Your mother and I met once, when we were young.” That was news to Elaine. “Be welcome in my home.”

  “My thanks, domna.” Kennard returned the bow, while behind them the sun grew red as it touched the horizon. Watching in her full scarlet skirt and gold-laced black blouse, Elaine inhaled the evening air and let herself believe, just for a moment, that she was a Darkovan woman standing on the world of her birth, like she and Mom used to pretend at sunset, when Elaine was small.

  She opened the door to let them inside, and though he didn’t look at her, Kennard’s small smile echoed Elaine’s own. She followed in time to see Kennard take in the first floor of their home, with the floor-to-ceiling windows that let in the setting sun, the airy and translucent screens that took the place of walls. Mom said no civilized person should live huddled in the dark, no matter what world they lived on.

  The chandelier that hung over the dining room table had real candles in place of bulbs, and they cast soft orange light. More candles flickered in the sconces Mom had installed around the room. If Elaine switched from Terran to Darkovan and back again without thinking, that didn’t change the fact that coming home to this, after the harsh yellow lights of school, was as restful as shedding her itchy Terran clothes.

  Kennard drank in the Darkovan furnishings with stark hunger before turning to Elaine’s mom with another bow. “Domna, I bring you a gift.” He drew a small package from his cloak and handed it to her. Elaine caught a whiff of something that smelled a little like chocolate and a little like coffee and a lot like neither one.

  “Jaco!” Mom said, and formality gave way to a warm smile. “Do you know I’ve never found a Terran drink that even came close? Coffee is a poor substitute. You are doubly welcome here, young man.”

  “I like coffee,” Elaine said.

  Mom didn’t seem to hear. “I imported seeds once, at great expense,” she told Kennard. “They came up well enough, but the taste was entirely wrong.”

  Kennard nodded soberly. “Some things can only grow properly on their home soil.”

  What would I be like? Elaine wondered. If I were grown on my home soil?

  You would be splendid, Kennard said. Elaine looked at him, startled, but he still spoke to her mother. He hadn’t—couldn’t have—spoken aloud.

  Because she hadn’t spoken aloud, either.

  ~o0o~

  Over a dinner of roast rabbit, which Mom and Kennard agreed tasted almost like Darkovan rabbit-horn, Elaine and Kennard talked about school and their classes. Elaine was focusing on mathematics and celestial dynamics. She hoped one day to serve as an astronavigator on one of the big ships, and so to see other words—including Darkover, but not only Darkover—for herself. With Kennard sitting there, Mom spared Elaine her disapproving speech about how if you traveled among all the stars, you could never belong to any one of them.

  Kennard was focusing on learning to read well enough to master other subjects. Elaine o
ffered to help him after school.

  “Consider our home your own.” Mom seconded the invitation, making it one he could accept. She liked him, Elaine realized, as she’d never liked any of the Academy students she’d met at school events.

  “You lend me grace.” Kennard bowed his head.

  As Elaine looked between him and Mom, she felt dizzy, balanced between the worlds of her Terran father and her Darkovan mother. The air blurred, and for an instant she saw herself stepping off one of the big ships whose courses she hoped to chart, onto a world whose noon sun was red as a Terran sunset. Darkover.

  “Domna, have you had your daughter tested for laran?” The image faded as Kennard spoke.

  “What’s laran?” Elaine asked.

  Elaine’s mother snorted, a rather un-Darkovan sound. “How would I do that here?”

  “Of course.” Kennard’s ears flushed. “I know it is none of my concern, but by your leave...” He drew the chain from beneath his tunic, cradling the silk bag that hung from it. “I’m no Tower technician, but I’d be happy to perform some basic tests.”

  “If I wanted that done, I’d have done it myself. I’ll kindly ask you not to speak of it again.” Mom forced a smile as her hand brushed the silk bag that hung from her own neck. “Now, let’s try that jaco, shall we?” Mom’s skirts swirled around her as she swept from the room,

  “What was that about?” Elaine asked.

  Kennard’s hands fidgeted in his lap. “I’ll not defy your mother in her own home. Please don’t ask me to.”

  You’re too damn honorable, Elaine thought.

  “Without honor, what’s left?” Kennard muttered, as if to himself. Elaine must have spoken aloud without realizing it, both now and earlier.

  Without honor you’d be just another Terran boy, she thought, and found she wanted that no more than he did.

  ~o0o~

  They didn’t need to talk about laran, whatever that was, to have enough things to talk about.

  In the weeks that followed, after school at her mother’s house, Elaine explained the vagaries of Terran verb conjugations and Terran social customs to Kennard, while Kennard spoke about his Darkovan life to Elaine. Years of retelling had worn her mother’s stories down to smooth familiarity, and Elaine found herself as hungry for Kennard’s new tales as he was for airy rooms and home-cooked meals.

  Kennard talked about helping his father raise horses in the hills of his family estate, about serving in the city guard, about fighting on the fire lines beside Elaine’s brother—hard work, grueling work, real work. He talked about living in a place where people didn’t spend their teens hunched over tablets, but learned adult work out in the adult world.

  If she were a Darkovan astrogator, Elaine thought once, she’d already be on a big ship, learning alongside those already doing that work. Except there were no Darkovan astrogators. Not yet. Why shouldn’t she be the first? Again Elaine saw herself stepping off a big ship and onto a world with a deep red sun, only this time she could tell it was like no big ship she’d ever seen, its lines sleeker and more graceful than any Terran-made craft.

  Kennard smiled, as if whatever she saw, he saw it, too. His hand moved towards hers, not quite touching. Elaine had the strangest feeling then, a feeling she’d never had with any Terran friend.

  Like they didn’t really need to speak. Like they could move beyond words, if she could figure out how.

  No one could move beyond words. Weeks gave way to months, and it was through words that she and Kennard became friends, at her mother’s house and at her father’s, too. She saw more of Dad now and thought of him less as a stranger and more as, well, her father.

  What would it take to become more than friends? Words had little power when put up against Darkovan customs that seemed designed to set walls between them, customs that prevented the slightest casual touch or held gaze and that wouldn’t even let Kennard talk to her at school, because she had no kinsmen there. Elaine couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a missing piece that could breach those walls, some piece she didn’t understand.

  Yet she and Kennard were friends, and she treasured that as its own true thing.

  She reminded herself that one day, surely, he would leave again. But as the years passed, Kennard showed no more sign of leaving Terra than Elaine’s brother showed of leaving Darkover and coming home.

  ~o0o~

  She was in her final year at the Academy when everything changed.

  She was sitting in her Multispace Group Theory class—a class she and Kennard didn’t share, since he was more interested in balancing household accounts than higher mathematics—when out of nowhere, red-hot pain seared her side.

  Elaine screamed, barely aware she was doing it, as that pain burned through muscles and shot into her stomach. Images flashed before her. Swords ringing. Steel piercing cloth and skin. Her brother, falling to the ground. Blood, far too much blood.

  “Ms. Montray, are you all right?”

  She clung to her teacher’s voice like the lifeline it was, forcing herself past those horrid visions to focus on the woman in Terra Academy grays who stood beside her desk. There was no blood. There was only a class full of Terran students, staring at her.

  Filthy Terranan. Don’t need a spaceship to send you back to the stars. The voice rang through Elaine’s head, loud as the clashing of swords.

  Except there was no voice in her head. There couldn’t be. “I’m okay.” Elaine’s side burned, but she forced the words out. “I just...don’t feel very well. I can get myself to the medic’s office.”

  She fled the room, but not for the medic. If she showed up in his office with no visible injuries, he’d want a psych evaluation, and emotional stability was one of the things the astrogation schools she’d applied to looked for. Better to let everyone think she’d just ditched class. It’d be her first offense in all her years at the Academy, and she could serve detention for it later.

  She ran out the door and down one of the city’s long alleyways, clutching her side, though there was no good reason, because she hadn’t been hurt. Yet she did hurt. She hurt so much. She fell gasping to her knees, while around her the city’s high-rises caught the yellow afternoon sun.

  “Yllana!” Kennard knelt before her, steadying hands on her shoulders. Kennard, who never spoke to her at school or when they were alone, Kennard who never, ever touched her. Pain fled as he lifted her chin and looked right into her eyes, and Elaine found she could breathe again.

  It’s my fault, Kennard said, his own eyes anguished. I should have had better control, only I never imagined the connection between me and my foster brother could travel so far. Zandru’s Hells, what’s happened to him? He was in so much pain.

  No. Kennard didn’t say any of that. He thought it. Staring straight at him, his hands trembling against her face, there was no denying it. “Kennard, what’s going on?”

  “I’m sorry.” He spoke aloud now, his lips moving like they were supposed to. “I’ve grown so accustomed to living among head-blind Terrans that I stopped worrying about what I might be broadcasting. He’s so far away, Yllana. I cannot protect him this time.”

  “Protect who?” But Elaine already knew. She’d seen her brother fall. “Larry’s half a galaxy away. Did he send you a message? Is that what you...broadcast?” Text or video, it didn’t matter. Messages took weeks to travel among the stars.

  “He reached out to me, in his need and in his pain,” Kennard whispered. “And I’m helpless to do a damned thing about it!” Elaine heard—heard and felt—the anguish in his voice.

  That was impossible. “Are we both going mad?”

  An untrained telepath is a danger to herself and all those around her, Kennard thought, clear as speaking. I have to tell her.

  “Telepath.” Elaine should have been surprised, but she wasn’t. “That’s what you are.”

  “Not only me.” He let his hands fall, and it was all Elaine could do not to reach for him again. “Laran.” He spoke the h
alf-forgotten word from her mother’s house years ago. “That’s what the Gift is called. Most of our people have it. Living among head-blind Terrans as you are, your own Gift lay mostly dormant until I woke it, much like your brother’s did. Your mother will be very angry. I am sorry.”

  “I’m not.” Now that she’d met his gaze, she never wanted to look away again. She didn’t know why her mother had kept this knowledge from her, but if laran was the reason for this new thing she felt between her and Kennard, so much closer than touch, she wasn’t sorry at all. No more distance. No more loneliness. Had she known she was alone before now?

  “Without a starstone, your powers will be limited.” Kennard drew the silk pouch from beneath his shirt. “But I’ll teach you the basics. How to control and block your thoughts, if nothing else, so that you don’t broadcast in turn.”

  I don’t want to hide my thoughts from you. This new closeness left no room, no desire for secrets.

  Kennard laughed, and the sound echoed somewhere deep inside her. Trust me, Yllana, no telepath wants their thoughts laid bare all the time. Aloud he said, “We need to tell your father about Larry.”

  They didn’t hold hands as they caught a pod to Dad’s apartment. They didn’t need to.

  Lord of Light, I’ve been alone too long, Kennard thought.

  You’re not alone anymore, Elaine thought.

  She didn’t know which of them thought, Now neither of us need ever be alone again.

  ~o0o~

  Kennard didn’t know much, only that Larry had fallen to another man’s sword and been sorely wounded. Their contact had broken before he could learn whether Elaine’s brother had survived those wounds. There was no way to find out but to wait for either Larry or Kennard’s father to send a message—a message that would tell them whether Larry’s attempt to build a bridge between worlds had killed him instead.

  So Elaine waited. There was nothing else she could do.

  Kennard taught her enough control to hide her laran from her mother, who would surely banish him from her house if she knew. He still wouldn’t talk to her at school, but it no longer mattered. Elaine felt his presence, every moment of every day, and she knew that he felt hers. She’d had no idea how alone she really was, trapped within the silence of her own thoughts, until they were silent no more.