The Rowan Part 1

The Rowan.

Anne McCaffrey.

Prologue #

Numerous Summits of the late 80s and 90s, governments turned to other researches and the western world's s.p.a.ce program began to catch up with Soviet experiences. What few people knew was that Talents were instrumental in the promulgation of honest monitoring of the disarmament and monitoring processes, thwarting many attempts to subvert the program. Many Talents lost their lives to secure the world peace which enabled humans to turn their energies and hopes to s.p.a.ce exploration.

More Talents were mustered to colonize this solar system and to bridge the gap between this and other systems with habitable planets When young Peter Reidinger made the first mind machine gestalt, pus.h.i.+ng a light s.p.a.cecraft by telekinesis from orbit to Mars, a new era dawned for the parapsychic Talents in which they found themselves celebrated instead of shunned, admired instead of feared, and necessary to every aspect of the surge forward from the crowded and resources-poor planet Earth.

To extend the interstellar gestalt, special installations were built for the Talents, terraformed habitations on Earth's Moon, Mars's Demos, and on Jupiter's Callisto From these stations were kinetically launched the great survey and exploration s.h.i.+ps that colonized the nine stars that had G-type planets, suitable for humans.

Though the Talents abhorred notoriety and opted for political neutrality, it was inevitable that their abilities should contribute to the stability of the interstellar government. 'Probity and neutrality'

was both motto and method and a new kind of honest diplomacy resulted in spite of attempts to subvert the Talents. Many Talents died rather than dishonor their calling: the few who were corrupted were so swiftly disciplined by their peers that such treachery was eschewed as profitless. The Talents became' incorruptible.

The need for Talent became chronic, far outstripping the supply.

For those potential few, the training was arduous; the rewards did not always compensate Talent for the unswerving dedication required by their taxing positions.

PART ONE

ALTAIR.

Torrents of rain covered the western side of the great Tranh mountain range of Altair, streaming in muddy runnels down slopes already saturated with nine days of steady precipitation. The st.u.r.dy minta trees were bloated and their root systems bulging to the surface, adding the slime of their overload of sap to the rivulets which increasingly dislodged the shallower root systems of the few brush varieties that could flourish in such rocky soil.

Little brooks matured into streams, then rivers, into cascades of increasing volume and force, filling up blind canyons until such deposits also overflowed. And the minta slime seemed to grease the watery ways.

After seven people had slipped and broken bones on the main street of the Rowan Mining Company's small settlement, the manager had ordered miners and their dependents to curtail all outdoor activities and arranged door-to-door deliveries for supplies, using the Company's st.u.r.dy hopper vehicles. Operations in the several producing shafts had already been suspended when the pits began filling. When the unceasing torrents began to interfere with transmissions, there weren't even entertainment circuits to amuse those immured in ever-dampening and cramped quarters.

In the same lugubrious vein, Met reports gave no hope of an alteration in the deplorable conditions. The records show that, on the tenth day, the mine's manager asked his home office in altair Port for permission to evacuate all nonessential personnel until the weather improved. His report pointed out that the accommodations were rather primitive and had not been constructed with excessive rainfall in mind.

He cited an alarming number of respiratory ailments among his people, almost epidemic in proportion. Enforced idleness and substandard conditions had also seriously undermined morale. He put in an urgent order for pumps to drain the shafts when, and if, the rain ever did stop.

The records showed that the directors debated withdrawal. That particular installation of the Rowan Company was only just showing some profit which would be wiped out by the cost of a perhaps unnecessary expense.

Meteorology was duly consulted and long-range satellite forecasts indicated that the rains were to abate within the next seventy-two hours, though arctic and antarctic pole conditions did not suggest any break in generally overcast weather, much less sunny intervals, within the next ten days. Approval to evacuate was withheld but advice on treatment of the respiratory complaints and appropriate medication was dispatched immediately to the Rowan Company's coordinates by the FT&T Prime.

It was early morning when the mudslide began, so high above the plateau on which the Rowan camp stood that it was not detected. A few people were already cautiously abroad, using their a.s.signed hour with a hopper to do necessary errands, to the small infirmary for medicine for their sick, to the commissary for supplies. By the time the instrumentation in Operations registered the incident, it was already too late. The entire western face of the mintaclad slope was in motion, like a tsunami of mud, rock, and pulpy vegetation. Those outside saw their fate bearing down on them. Those inside their homes mercifully were unaware. Only one, a child still in the hopper while her mother carried her parcels quickly through the unabating rain to the house, escaped the disaster.

The st.u.r.dy little hopper was borne up on the lip of the sludge river, its ovoid shape an advantage, its heavy plastic hull slipping over, under, and along the inexorable slide of heavy, wet mud. Its occupant was bounced about, bruised, and knocked unconscious as the hopper rolled and caught, was freed and carried over a precipice, its fall cus.h.i.+oned by the mud that had preceded it. Nearly a hundred kilometers from the Rowan camp, it became wedged on an outcropping, covered by the vast river of sludge as the slide flowed on until its impetus was dissipated into the long deep Oshoni valley.

The crying began sometime after the mud ceased its downward flow.

A pleading, quavering appeal to a mother who did not answer. An announcement of hunger and hurt, sporadic at first, then increasingly insistent.

Abruptly the cry was cut off, and a whimpering took its place, a whimpering which rose in volume and intensity.

Was silenced again, during which time everyone with a psi rating of 9 or more experienced relief, for the nondirectional sound grated on the mental ears of the sensitive.

Throughout the settlements of Altair, a search was conducted to discover the injured, abandoned, or abused child whose distress was being broadcast planet wide.

'I've children of my own,' the Secretary of the Interior Camella told the Police Commissioner as the Colonial officials met in the Governor's office in emergency session, 'and that is the cry of a frightened, hurt, hungry child. It's got to be somewhere on Altair.

'We've done street searches, checked the hospital records of any potential psi children born within the last five years . . .' He shook his head over failure. He didn't himself have any Talent but he had a great respect and admiration for those who did.

'The crying pattern, the incoherency, the repet.i.tion, suggests an infant of two or three years,' said the Chief Medical Officer. 'Every sensitive on my staff has been trying to make contact.' 'What I don't understand is why it cuts off so suddenly,' the Commissioner said, riffling through the reports he'd brought with him to show the extent of the search.

Opened for colonization a scant hundred years before, Altair did not have a large population - the present density surrounding Altair Port and City amounted to some five million, two hundred and fifty-three thousand, four hundred and two people. Another one million, seven hundred thousand and eighty-nine people were beginning to carve additional settlements, generally mining concerns exploiting the mineral and ore wealth of the great planet, across the planet's immense main continent.

'Reports are a bit slow coming in from all the Claims,' Secretary Camella said, her voice puzzled. 'That freak weather pattern is moving eastward towards us. But we must identify the child: Someone this strong so young must be carefully monitored.' Involuntarily she glanced out toward the FT&T installation at the far edge of the Port s.p.a.ce Field. A puff of dust, followed rapidly by half a dozen more, indicated that the incoming freight was being racked up by the kinetic abilities of Altair's major a.s.set, Siglen, the T- 1 Prime. Her mental kinesis augmented by a gestalt with the powerful generators that encircled her installation, Siglen could pick up messages from as far away as Earth and Betelgeuse, could locate and land freight drones as easily as others lifted the ordinary artifacts of everyday living.

Mankind's exploration of s.p.a.ce had become feasible because the major psionic Talents of telepaths and teleporting kinetics were able to span the vast intersystem distances, providing reliable and instantaneous communication between Earth and its colonies. Without the Primes in their tower stations, constantly in mental communication with other Primes, able in the gestalt to s.h.i.+ft both export and import material, the Nine-Star League would have been impossible. The Primes were the kingpins of the system. And such Talents were rare.

Without the Federal Telepath and Teleport network, Mankind would still be trying to reach its nearest spatial neighbors. The Earth Government, once a centralized, world-wide authority had finally been achieved, had ordained an irrevocable autonomy to FT&T, thus ensuring not only its impartiality but its effectiveness in keeping contact with the now far-flung colonies of Mankind. When the Nine-Star League had been formed, it had ratified that autonomy so that no one Star System could ever hope to control FT&T, and with it, the League.

Most communities took pride in the number and variety of Talents among their inhabitants. The fear and distrust of paranormal abilities had been submerged by the obvious benefits of employing Talented folk.

There were, of course, many degrees of Talent, with micro- and macro applications. Naturally, the stronger Talents were the most visible and the rarest. The strongest in each area of expertise were accorded the t.i.tle of 'Prime'. The rarest of Primes were those who combined telepathic and kinetic abilities and became the main link between Earth and the planet on which they served.

'We may well be witnessing the emergence of a Prime!' Interior couldn't quite stifle that burgeoning hope and the somewhat vain dream that this new Talent might eclipse Siglen. She might be Altair's greatest a.s.set but a p.r.i.c.kly one. Camella had to deal with her and found no joy in that aspect of her duties. Her predecessor, now happily fis.h.i.+ng in the eastward foothills, had christened Siglen 'the s.p.a.ce stevedore', an epithet which Interior tried very hard to forget in Siglen's more trying moments.

For Altair to have produced a Prime Talent so soon would be most prestigious. If the child's potential was properly developed, and the strength inherent in its manifestation augured well, Altair would attract the best sort of colonist, hoping that something in the atmosphere of the planet nurtured Talent. (No-one had ever proved that connection. Or disproved it.) Altair had been fortunate enough to have a reasonable range of Talents in the original complement of settlers: precognitives; clairvoyants; 'finders' with strong metal and mineral affinities who had discovered the high-a.s.say ores and useful minerals, increasing Altair's exports; the usual range of minor kinetics, macro and micro who could s.h.i.+ft, connect or manipulate things; a good range of the healing Talents, though no Primes yet, in the medical field, and the more ordinary empaths who were invaluable in any sort of employment which might generate boredom or minor dissension. Empaths and precogs were also members of the Constabulary arm of Civil Government, not that there was much criminal activity on Altair: people were generally far too occupied in carving out their personal bailiwicks on Altair's broad and fertile acres, or exhuming its hidden treasures. The planet was too new to have developed the 'civilized' crimes of densely populated and deprived urban areas.

Altair was lucky in its spatial position in the Nine-Star League and, because it was central to several new colonial ventures, had been one of the first colonies to receive a full Federal Telepath and Telekinetic Station with a Prime telepathic kinetic, Siglen. That advantage had greatly boosted Altair's appeal to both individuals and industrial concerns. To have developed a Prime Talent would fill the Governmental cup to overflowing. So the Secretary of the Interior turned to the Medical Officer.

'That's all well and good, but first we have to have the child,'

the Medical Officer said, voicing her very thought though the man was unTalented. Then he cleared his throat testily. 'My advisors suggest that the child is injured - yet there's been no report anywhere in the medical system of a wounded or shocked infant victim.' 'Demonstrably there IS one,' the Governor said, bringing his fist down on the table.

'We'll find it, and know why an infant was allowed to cry so long without attention.

New lives are the most valuable resource this planet has.

Not one should be squandered.

A wail, a piteous, mind-scoring wail cut through his rhetoric.

MOMMEEEEE! MOMMEEE! MOMMEEEE, WHERE ARE. . . The plaint was abruptly severed.

In the ensuing silence, the Secretary pressed careful fingers against temples which still reverberated from that mental shriek. The most perfunctory of knocks was made at the Council Chamber door which opened to admit an anxious administrative a.s.sistant.

'Secretary, Siglen wishes urgent communication with you.

Interior exhaled in relief. Siglen could as easily have inserted her message into Interior's mind but the Prime was a stickler for protocol - for which the Secretary now blessed her.

'Of course!' The screens all around the Council room came on, lending considerable immediacy to this event. Siglen made few demands on the Council. Now, as the angry woman stared out at them, her eyes seemed to penetrate deep into the thoughts of each of those present.

Siglen was a slab of a female, soft from a sedentary life and a disinclination to exercise of any kind. She was in her Operations room, the hum of the gestalt generators a background noise.

'Interior, you are to find that child wherever she is, and discover who has abandoned her and deal with them to the full extent of the law.' She had large eyes, her best feature, and they were wide with indignation and frustration. 'No child should be allowed to broadcast on such a level. I cannot keep interrupting my flow of work to deal with what is clearly a parent's responsibility' 'Prime Siglen, is it fortunate that you are free to contact us 'I'm not at all free. I'm falling behind on today's s.h.i.+pments . . .' She gestured impatiently behind her.

'That simply is not good enough. Find that child. I can't waste time silencing her.' Interior muttered something dire under her breath but composed her expression, and sank her thoughts. 'We were about to ask you to help us find Siglen's indignant expression interrupted her.

'I?.

a.s.sist in finding a child? I a.s.sure you I am no clairvoyant. I will endeavor to keep her quiet enough to allow me to discharge my duties to this planet and the service to which I have committed my life. But you .

and a bejeweled finger, its tip enlarged by perspective so that the whorl pattern was clearly visible, 'will locate that appallingly bad-mannered infant!' The contact was abruptly cut. The child began to whimper and that was also abruptly cut.

'If she keeps shutting the child up, how are we going to find her?' Interior asked sourly. 'You've had your clairvoyants on it, haven't you?' she asked the Commissioner.

'Indeed I have, but you know as well as I do,' he replied somewhat defensively, 'that a clairvoyant requires "something" on which to focus.' 'Yegrani didn't,' the Medic said ruefully 'Yegrani's been dead for years,' Interior said with real regret and then caught a look on the Commissioner's face.

The wail began again, piteous, gasping, begging for help. They could hear it falter, pick up again with an overtone of outrage.

'Ha! Siglen's met her match. She can't silence the brat.

'It's not a brat,' Interior said, 'it's a frightened child and it needs all the help we can muster. Look, these days children are simply not left alone for . . 'she checked the digital on the wall, '. . .

days. There has to have been an accident. You have no reports of any in Port or City, let's concentrate on the Claims. There are quite a few isolated mining settlements on this planet where a child might be left alone. Don't we have reports of an unseasonal rain in the west?'

'Five thousand miles is a long way to "throw" a mental cry,' the Governor remarked, then looked startled at what his own words implied.

'My word!' 'Indeed there could have been an accident. Earthquake, or flood perhaps with the recent appalling rainfall.' Interior rose resolutely, nodding courteously to the Governor. 'We have the resources, people - let's use them.' As they all left the chamber for their own offices, Interior caught the Commissioner's arm.

'Well? Is Yegrani still alive somewhere?' Being careful to check that no-one had heard her or paid them any particular attention in the general departure, he gave her an almost imperceptible nod. 'Surely she would help us save a young life?' 'Under the circ.u.mstances, she might very well, but she's outlived Methuselah by another lifetime and hasn't much strength. We'd best try to narrow the search down to one area.' That took less than an hour once every element of civil service became involved. First satellite pix were reviewed and the 150 kilometer-long swathe of destruction could not be mistaken. Interior herself phoned the industrial concern which had laid claim to that section. They were swift to open records to the Incident inquiry.

They had not heard from the mine manager and were beginning to be concerned.

'Not concerned enough to send us an alert, I notice, Interior remarked caustically. Then she turned to the Commissioner. 'What I don't understand is why you didn't have a registered precog on this disaster.

'It isn't what could be called a gross personnel disaster, he replied with a look of chagrin. 'I mean, I know a substantial number of people have obviously lost their lives but their deaths don't affect all Altair in a knock-on situation. Unfortunately. Then, too, most of our precogs have urban affinities,' he added apologetically.

'I think I'll introduce a fine for companies that do not keep in twenty-four contact with their field installations,' muttered Interior, jotting down a note in capital italics.

'Say again?' 'Look!' she said as the Company's personnel files scrolled past. 'Fifteen kids between the ages of one month and five years. How much detail does your clairvoyant need?' 'I don't even know if she'll help us,' the Commissioner said ruefully. 'She hasn't opened a connection to my calls.' The crying started up again, was cut off, and continued with a desperate edge to the wail.

'That child is growing weaker,' the Medic exclaimed as he barreled into the Incident room. 'If she's buried in a mudslide, she's got no food or water - and maybe not much air left.' The printer murmured to itself, smoothly extruding new copy. Interior bent over it, groaning with a note of despair in her voice.

'I ordered a comparison survey of the terrain before and after the slide. There' re ravines fifty-meters deep now with mud and debris.

The slide is sixty-klicks wide in places. If she's buried in any depth of mud, she'll be asphyxiated soon. Particularly if she keeps crying like this, using up her oxygen.

The Commissioner moved to a console, gesturing for the others to step back. 'I'm adding a Mayday to her private code but whether she'll answer or not 'Yes?' The guttural voice dwelt on the sibilant. No picture appeared on the screen.

'Have you heard the crying?' 'Who hasn't? I could have told you Siglen wouldn't help.

It's beyond her capabilities. Bouncing parcels from place to place requires no finesse, since the gestalt does all the work.' As there was no visual contact, the Commissioner rolled his eyes at the bite in Yegrani's tone. For years, there had been enmity between the telekinetic and the clairvoyant, though the Commissioner happened to know the original fault was more of Siglen's making than Yegrani s.

'There is fear that the child is running out of air, Yegrani. The mud is fifty-meters deep in places along a 150-klick swathe. We've plenty of.

'Look to the left above the Oshoni valley, on a ledge, approximately two klicks from the tongue of mud. She's not deeply entrenched but the hopper skin has been fractured and sludge is oozing in. She is frantic. Siglen has done nothing to rea.s.sure the child as a sensitive, caring person would have done. Guard this one well. She has a long and lonely road to go before she travels. But she alone will be the focus that will save us from a far greater disaster than the one she has escaped. Especially guard the guardian.' The connection severed but as soon as Yegrani had 'sighted' the child's position, the Secretary of the Interior had forwarded a printout of the conversation to the rescue teams, waiting in their special vehicles.

The Governor himself requested the launch and gave Altair's Prime the coordinates. She did not ask how they had been obtained but faultlessly sent the mission speeding to its destination.

'Did she mean "left" looking at the b.l.o.o.d.y thing, on its left?'

demanded the captain as the rescue team emerged after their journey.

Their sh.e.l.ls had slid to a halt on the valley floor, just where the out thrusting 'tongue' of mud ended. 'Phaugh!' he pinched his nostrils, 'the stench of minta's enough to choke you! Let me see that geo print.' 'The ledge should be there!' his second in command exclaimed, pointing to their right. 'Solid ground, too, from which to work.' 'Get the two klick fIx,' the captain ordered, pointing to the scan operator. Stay off that mud! Anyone who falls in has to walk home.' The team scrambled to the stone out thrust above the ledge and brought their detectors to bear in careful sweeps. An intrusion was detected approximately ten meters out in the mud. The medic extended his sensitive equipment and caught vital signs. The digger boom was rigged and swung out. Two volunteers, on cables linked to the boom, descended into the ooze above the point of detection and began to shovel the muck away. As fast as they shoveled, the uncooperative sludge slid back in.

'I want that suction tube and now!' cried the captain, inwardly well satisfied with the instant obedience to that order.

The hopper, wedged on to the outcropping, was not deep and once a large enough surface was cleared, the tractor beam was attached. It fought the suction of the mud while the shovel team worked with desperate speed, muttering about kinetics never being where you needed them. Suddenly sufficient air got under the hopper to break the seal, and only the quick reflexes of those on the bank kept the craft from colliding forcefully with the tractor arm. The little vehicle swung and b.u.mped about before finally settling to solid ground.

Mud sheeted off the hull and oozed from the fracture, as the entire team watched anxiously. How much of that stuff had seeped into the interior? Everyone was immensely relieved to hear a thin, tremulous cry, mental and physical. As one, the team attacked the battered door to wrench it open.

'Mommie?' A tattered, bruised, mud-encased child crawled to the threshold, sobbing with relief, squinting in the sudden daylight.

'Mommie?' The team medic leapt forward, radiating rea.s.surance and love.

'It's all over, honey. You're safe. We've got you safe.' She pressed the hypno spray to a muddied arm before the child could realize that her parents were not among those cl.u.s.tered around the hopper. At that, the sedative was not quite fast enough to allay the anguished mental yowl which all Altair heard from the orphaned Rowan child.

'We've done as much as we can,' the Chief Medical Officer said in a slightly defensive tone.

'We know you have,' Interior replied, radiating all the approval she could project.

'The fact remains that the Rowan child is not cooperating,' the Governor remarked with a rueful sigh.

'It's only ten days since the tragedy,' Interior added.

'And there are definitely no relatives to take charge of her?' the Governor asked.

Interior consulted her records. 'We have the choice of eleven parents of similar genotype because many of the miners were from the same ethnic background. The Company headquarters did not keep backup files of the infirmary records, so we don't even know how many children have been born since the camp was established ten years ago. So, no immediate relatives. There are doubtless some back on Earth.

The Governor cleared his throat. 'Earth has more high ranking Talents than any other planet.' 'We do indeed need to guard our natural resources, Interior replied with a slight smile.