Kathy Tyers - Firebird 2 - Fusion Fire

Fusion Fire

Kathy Tyers

To Linda Peavy, Jo Sykes, and Jane Yolen,

My first teachers.

Thank you.

FUSION FRE A Bantam Spectra Book I November 1988

No part of this book max be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical. including

photocopying, recording, or in anv mfannatkm storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher For

information address. Bantam Books.

ISBN 0-553-27464-3 Published simultaneously at the United States and Canada

Baiaam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubteday Dell Publishing Group. Inc Its trademark, consisting

of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in VS. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries

Marca Regisirada, Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10103

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMEUCA

0 0987654321

Contents

1. The Lost of Auria.

tema

2… Will Find Her People.

moderate sussurando

3. Phoena's Choice

marcato

4. Daughters of Power

duo senza amore

5… In Spirit and in Flesh.

rubato

6. Born an Angelo

vivace expressivo

7. Waste the Man

sinistro

8. Tellai

risoluto assai

9. Outsider

schietto

10. From New Life.

stringendo

11. Will Spring Death.

appassionato

12. Two-Alpha

trio bravura

13. Echo Six

allegro energico

14. For Phoena's Sake

qffertorium

15. Well Rewarded

allegro malinconico

16. The Call

accelerando poco a poco

17. The Dreams

con molto affetto

18. The Holy Tale

lucernarium

19. Three Zed

setnpre crescendo

20… A Pyre for the Enemies of Thyrica

stretto confuoco

21. Beyond the Wall

delicatamente

The ideal condition

Would be, I admit, that men should be right by instinct;

But since we are all likely to go astray,

The reasonable thing is to learn from those who can teach.

Sophocles

Chapter 1

The Lost of Auria…

tema - theme

==========

Firebird Mari Caldwell had been a pilot, once.

And will be again, she vowed. Standing on an outer walkway that led to the main dome of Thyrica’s

major military base, she watched as a pair of elegant black intercept fightercraft screamed over her from

behind. One day, when she was no longer grounded from military flying, she would shamelessly use her

husband’s pull to get on the pilot-training list for those beautiful, deadly fighters.

A second pair closely followed the first: the light, quick, killing birds of the Federacy. She’d flown against

these dual-drive, space-and-atmosphere fighters once. It had been a strategic disaster.

Never again. You’re a Federate, now.

All four fighters vanished over the line of gray clouds that swirled against the Base’s weather-control

zone, and Firebird sighed. The gray-and-green, soaking wet world of Thyrica had its lovely moments, but

it was not her home.

Well. She would make it her home. She had no choice. We have no choice, she corrected herself, and

one of the twins kicked agreement against her ribs. After half a day struggling to write a sonata for the

small N’Taian harp, she was coming to meet Brennen for dinner.

Brenn. At least you’ve still got m-flight clearance.

She never would have believed she could so miss a person she lived with. This was the down side of pair

bonding: She no longer felt whole when she was alone. Something inside her felt drained,

emptied—stolen.

The sky shone deep, clear blue overhead, but dampness squeaked between her fingers and made her

loosely belted Thyrian skyff cling to her legs. Thyrica’s huge ocean had given the planet life, but like some

primeval god, the sea also drove its weather. Man could contain it, but never master it.

Firebird shivered and hurried on.

She slipped inside the dome’s reception area, where a smoked glasteel ceiling curved high overhead,

letting fading daylight bathe the broad reception quadrangle. On her left, two workers in green coveralls

pushed a service cart between them toward a corridor; from her right, a husky, dark-haired man

approached. He wore the four-rayed shoulder star of her husband’s kindred, Thyrica’s telepathic

minority: the Sentinels.

Her heart sank when he came close enough to recognize. Oh, glory, she groaned. Not Terrell. Not now

!

Like other telepathic Sentinels, Staff Officer Bosk Terrell could not use youth implants without crippling

his “epsilon” neural system, so he looked his age: midforties, a little out of shape from twenty years of

desk service, hair freshly cut. His hands worked constantly, as always, down at his sides.

Terrell turned a wide, charming smile toward Firebird and made a small bow. “Mistress Caldwell. How

good to see you.” Two of his fingers twitched into a half-fist. “You’re well?”

“Yes. Thank you.” A chill seemed to suck warmth from the quad. She stepped aside.

“How goes your composition for the clairsa?”

Leave me alone, she thought, and then blanked it quickly, hoping Terrell maintained a normal cloud of

emotion-shielding epsilon static. Rude though she felt, she didn’t want him to pick up her antagonism, but

even with shields down, the Sentinel could not have picked up her vocalized thought unless he was

probing, and Firebird knew the subtle, invasive sensations of mind-access. Terrell was keeping his

epsilon energy to himself.

Firebird planted her feet squarely. “I’m… stuck on the middle section.”

She glanced at his hands. That constant restlessness hinted at energy that was barely controlled,

ambitions that had escaped his grasp. “It wants to shift back into major too soon,” she went on, “and I’m

afraid I’ll have to rewrite the whole passage.”

Abruptly she realized she had never run into Staff Officer Bosk Terrell with Brennen along. She would

have to remember to ask Brennen what he knew about Terrell, when she saw him—

Which had better be soon. Glancing down at the lights on her wristband, she feigned surprise. “Oh.

Excuse me, Officer Terrell. I’m late.”

“Of course, Mistress.”

She did not look back as she strode to the clearing desk that guarded the office pod at one corner of the

quiet quad. A slender captain in Thyrian-blue shipboards sat busy at a computer screen. Firebird touched

one fingertip to the woman’s long desk of bright, red-grained ironbark. “General Coordinator Caldwell?”

“One moment.” The clearing captain wore a line of patches and cords on her sleeve that chronicled an

honorable career in Thyrian service—and told Firebird she was not one of the telepathic few, who wore

only the Star. She glanced up as she reached across her desk toward another console. “You’re looking

well, Mistress Caldwell.” Her long fingers tapped a series of panels on her left.

Easing sideways toward a deep white chair in the waiting area, Firebird exhaled her frustration. Oh, yes.

1 look wonderful. A tank looks wonderful when you need groundside defense, but that doesn’t

make it pretty.

She had been slender, a few months ago, small and slight. A long curl of her auburn hair fell over her

shoulder as she leaned forward, and simultaneously she was punched soundly from inside. She

straightened. Another pair of intercept fighters came in low.

The captain glanced aside at Firebird. “You may go in.”

Firebird was grateful the Thyrian woman did not stare. Six months pregnant, she felt as if she were

waddling in a two-gravity simulator. She didn’t like wearing ringlets, either, but in this alien dampness it

was easier to let her hair have its own way. Behind the captain’s desk, a smooth black door slid open,

and she walked through.

Wholeness: contentment: union: strength: Firebird sensed Brennen’s presence before she saw him,

the moment she passed inside his range of telepathic projection. Eight months ago, when he had pair

bonded with her in his people’s way, their emotions had become indissolubly linked, and now, though

she was no Sentinel and never could be, she read his feelings as plainly as another Sentinel would discern

them, whenever she was near him.

And he was glad to see her, no matter how heavily she walked; as he tucked a stylus into his left cuff, his

feelings of completeness echoed hers and built a resonance between them. Was that relief he felt, as

well? She’d interrupted something, something that disturbed him. Brennen stood beside his desk, a

slender, middle-sized Thyrian who looked even slimmer wearing the deep midnight blue of the Thyrian

forces. On his right shoulder gleamed an eight-rayed Master Sentinel’s star.

A second Sentinel stood a few steps to his right. Taller, blond, more heavily muscled than the typical

Thyrian, he wore the four-rayed Sentinel’s star. “Air Master Dardy,” she exclaimed. “You’re back.”

Dardy inclined his long body slightly, his broad, whole-hearted smile making the thirty-year-old look ten

years younger than Brennen. “I understand today is a celebration, my lady. Congratulations on the

occasion.”

Firebird laughed. It was just like Damalcon Dardy to call her by her N’Taian title, on this anniversary in

N’Taian years of her birthday.

“Twenty-four on the real calendar.” She tilted her chin and smiled up at him. Way up—her head did not

even reach his shoulder height. “I’m aging well, don’t you think?”

“For nineteen Standard.” Dardy reached down for her hand and held it.

Firebird laughed again. “Actually, at present I prefer the old Thyrian calendar over either Federate or

N’Taian. By that one I’ll be pregnant only seven months.”

Brennen stepped backward, smiling on the inside (she could feel it), a lock of light red-brown hair

dangling over one dark brow. From where she stood, the squadron of gold-sealed training certificates on

the wall framed his face and shoulders—a nice effect, she thought, if a little overdramatic.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” she said.

Dardy shook his head. “Not on your birthday, Mistress. There’s no need to dampen your mood.”

“My mood?” She glanced over at Brennen. “What were you talking about?”

Brennen hesitated only a second; then, evidently sensing her annoyance, he smoothed the errant strand of

hair. “Tell her what you’ve been telling me.”

The tall blond man dropped her hand and crossed his arms. “I’ve just returned from Ixthic, Firebird.

Minor system, off the usual trade routes, but under Federate protection because its third planet is

inhabited by a small, semi-intelligent race.”

Firebird set both hands on the back of the large black chair beside her. She hated to sit all that way

down if she were just going to get up again, but her legs were so tired.

“Pruupae. Small, pink-eyed, gray-furred creatures.” Brennen sat down on a desk corner. “Mentally

primitive, but sentient. All the same, they haven’t risen to ante-Federate technological levels. We protect

them anyway.”

“From the Shuhr, I suppose,” she said quietly to Dardy, “if you’re involved.”

Dardy nodded and leaned one shoulder against the warm-toned ironbark paneling. He belonged to

Thyrica’s small group of Alert Forces, who kept watch on the starbred families’ renegade relatives.

Psionic outlaws. The Shuhr.

“The Shuhr raid Ixthic,” Dardy said, “to kidnap pairs of the little creatures—the pruupae. We thought

we’d tightened our security adequately by leaving a patrol at the major settlement, but the patrol was

wiped out and half the young population gone.”

Gray-furred creatures, pink eyes… The hormones of pregnancy made her emotional, Firebird knew. She

sank into the chair. “What do the Shuhr do with them?” Stretching out her legs, she flexed her ankles.

“Do you know?”

Brennen rested one hand on his desk. “We’ve found crippled adults left behind after raids, sometimes.”

He kept his even features relaxed, his emotions under Sentinel-trained affective control. “Apparently the

Shuhr keep a breeding population, amputate the pups’ limbs, and give the pups to their own children for

practicing psychic domination.”

A soft tone sounded at one corner of Brennen’s desk. He turned his head. “Yes?”

“Message for you, sir.” The desk spoke in an excellent imitation of the clearing captain’s voice. “Captain

Kinsman, on ‘personal.’ ”

Ellet. Startled, Firebird glanced aside in time to see a smile crinkle Dardy’s lips. Then Brennen’s

head-turn snagged her peripheral vision, she caught a glint of his blue eyes, and a caressing inquiry

touched the edge of her awareness. Guiltily, she tried to suppress her jealousy—

“Ask if it can wait until morning, please,” Brennen told the desk.

Firebird bit her lip. When would she learn to control her reactions? She’d prefer to be present any time

Ellet spoke with her husband. Ellet Kinsman had wanted Brennen, had once deliberately endangered

Firebird while assigned to protect her. And Ellet, like Brennen and Dardy, was a telepath. Pair bonding

might last for life, but the depth and ease of communication Brennen shared with other Sentinels was

something denied Firebird. It made her —yes, she admitted, letting the feeling rise again: jealous.

Mentally shaking herself, she saw Brennen and Dardy stare-locked, communicating while her attention

wandered, but the instant she focused her attention on them, they broke off the stare.

Brennen was nothing if not well trained.

Dardy rubbed his chin. “I think I know what she wants. You’re mentioned in the monthly report from

Federate Regional Command.”

Brennen swiveled on the desk’s slick top. “Yes?” He maintained a casual pose, but Firebird felt his

conflict of inner feeling at the mention of his former superiors.

“It identifies your new position,” Dardy said. “ ‘Lieutenant General Brennen D. Caldwell, formerly of

Special Operations, has accepted a position with the Thyrian Home Forces, as General Coordinator,

serving as a liaison between the Sentinel College, Aerospace Academy, and Home Forces.’ ”

Formerly of Special Operations, Firebird echoed to herself. She didn’t even try to mask her bitterness,

though Brennen would feel it. Ten years of Federate service. The best intelligence officer they ever

had, and they let him go. All because his superiors wouldn’t admit that my people were about to

create a terrible disaster.

Brennen flicked one hand, and a stack of papers slid aside. “At least they acknowledge that I exist,

again. For four months it looked like I had permanent deep-cover here.” Firebird caught his glance. A

man with intelligence and initiative, rising quickly in the ranks, was bound to tread on someone’s toes,

and last year Brennen had done it—though Firebird and Dardy (and who else on Thyrica?) guessed the

Federates’ acceptance of his forced resignation was temporary, and would one day be rescinded.

Dardy touched his own four-rayed star. “We’re going to have a Sentinel on the Federate High Command

some day, Caldwell, and you happen to be the best candidate this generation.”

Firebird snorted inwardly. Sometimes Dardy sounded like Ellet Kinsman. He certainly shared her

convictions regarding the ascendancy of Sentinel ideas; even Brennen admitted tiring of his friend’s ultra

conservatism.

“Time to get home.” Dardy picked a pair of scan cartridges off Brennen’s desk and slid them into his

paper case.

“Good to see you, Dardy.” Firebird clasped his hand.

After Dardy had gone, Brennen bent down behind his desk.

“Man?” When he straightened, he held his hands cupped. “Something for you. He walked slowly around

the desk, then bent down in front of her and opened his fingers.

Between them nestled a lily. Eight intensely blue-green petals framed its yellow center, and its heady,

honey-rich odor made her blink. “Brennen.” She looked up. “It’s beautiful. What’s it called?”

“Remember the mira lilies at Hesed?”

At the Sentinels’ pastoral sanctuary world, they had been married, eight months before. They hadn’t

stayed long, but comforting impressions of Hesed always lingered below the surface of her mind. “Aren’t

mira lilies white?” she asked.

“The blue lilies are rare, but look how this sets off your coloring. It will stay fresh indefinitely in this

climate, if you give it enough light. It only needs air and a little moisture.”

He tipped the lily off his hands onto hers. Gingerly, she examined the delicate blossom. Behind the bloom

curled a short, pale green root, covered with a network of brown lines.

Brennen reached into a pocket of his wide belt. “If we’re careful, you can wear it in your hair.” He pulled

out a silver clip, took back the lily, and wove its succulent root through half the clip. “—For special

occasions, such as your birthday dinner.”

Firebird held her breath while he pinned the bloom over her left ear. “There.” He arranged her long

red-brown curls about her shoulders and then stood back.

She felt his wash of approval and returned gratitude… and arousal. He knew—he felt—her response

whenever he toyed with her hair. He offered her a hand up out of the chair. “We’d better go. Our

reservations are for ten minutes from now.” He waved off the room lights.

As Firebird passed out into the central quad, now illuminated by a series of shining strips where

light-colored walls joined its ceiling, she caught sight of…

I don’t believe it. Terrell, again!

Brennen, ahead of her, saluted in midstride. “Tomorrow, Terrell,” he said casually.

The husky officer smiled steadily at Firebird. “What a beautiful blossom. Hesedan, isn’t it?”

The clearing captain beckoned to Brennen, who stepped over to her station.

“Yes.” Firebird touched the flower. “I’m told that it is.”

Why did it have to be this way, that the only Sentinel who seemed to take a personal interest in

her—other than Brennen and Dardy—disturbed her so deeply? But there it was again: her niggling

premonition about Bosk Terrell. There was death in his keen brown eyes. Whose death? She didn’t

know.

Holding a pair of scan cartridges, Brennen rejoined her, and she caught his sidelong glance. “Did she tell

you it’s her birthday?”

A net of smile lines sprang up around Terrell’s dark eyes. “Congratulations, Mistress Caldwell. You’re a

lucky man, Caldwell. Good evening to you both.”

Seeing Terrell step toward the elevator, Firebird paused to examine a gold-hued glass sculpture that lay

on a table between two waiting couches. It was a relic of the plague-scattered Aurian race, the Sentinels’

telepathic ancestors, brought aboard their transport of last hope across the light years.

When she looked up, Terrell had gone.

Brennen touched the small of her back. “You’re agitated. What’s wrong?”

She laid her arm on his. “Staff Officer Terrell bothers me, Brennen. It’s difficult to explain, but I always

have the impression that… there’s something not quite focused about him, not quite true. He’s one of the

strong ones, isn’t he? Why doesn’t he wear a Master’s star?”

His dark brows arched. “He’s only a Staff Officer. Not particularly strong, an A.S. forty. I rather like the

man.”

Firebird started. “Really?”

Brennen barely nodded. “Why not?”

“He treats me oddly.” Firebird stared at the sculpture. “And he feels strong. When he talks to me, it’s…

it almost feels like an interrogation, as though everything I said needed… No, I know he’s not using

mind-access, but…”

“He’s a good officer,” Brennen said blandly.

“At his age, he’s still only an aide? Someone else has taken a disliking to him, I’d guess.”

The pair bonding had helped them through many of the misunderstandings of new marriage; each always

understood precisely how the other felt, and it had proven a blessing many times over, as she and

Brennen—raised on different worlds, in very different cultures—tried to forge a relationship that would

endure the lifelong commitment.

“Mari, I know the man. I work with him. He’s good enough at what he does. Maybe he has refused

promotion to keep a position he likes.”

His protest rose at the back of her perception, carried by the pair bond, then abruptly vanished under a

wash of epsilon static.

Pained, she met his stare. She knew how much effort it cost him to hide his feelings from her. Heartily she

wished Terrell had left the complex ten minutes sooner.

Touching the mira lily in her hair, Brennen shook his head. Probably he wished the same. The emotional

resonance returned in a slow, careful crescendo. She reached for his hand, and a flicker of his epsilon

strength stroked her thoughts. “Aren’t you hungry, Mari?”

Firebird’s stomach grumbled. “Always,” she said.

Chapter 2

… Will Find Her People…

moderate sussurando - moderately, whispering

==========

In a pleasant, slowly awakening haze, Firebird lifted her cup of steaming cruinn and breathed deeply.

She’d paid dearly in Federate gilds for two kilos of the N’Taian beverage, and she meant to savor every

whiff. The heavy, sweet scent brought back such a swirl of memories: all she once had been, images of

her rooms in the Angelo palace on Naetai, friends she missed dearly—and unpleasant memories, too, the

constant weight of impending martyrdom for her homeworld’s honor. She had been so proud to carry

that weight, to expect to die young.

Firebird raised her cup and toasted the memory, then sipped. It was good to live free of that weight. To

carry life. Some small limb punched her insides. She felt like a dance hall, sometimes. Her life had turned

canard-over-tailfin during the war, but adjusting to pregnancy was the most challenging task of all. Never

in her life had she hoped for children.

She padded on soft slippers to the dining table. A Thyrian dekia, ten days, had passed since her birthday.

Against the long sweep of windows that made the north wall of their home, Brennen sat finishing his

breakfast. Built into the side of Trinn Hill by a retired messenger captain who’d spent too much time in a

tiny Brumbee courier ship, the house’s expansive upper story centered on a decorative stairwell that was

half-walled in glass and densely grown with vines, and its northern windowall overlooked Soldane, when

the area was scheduled for sunshine.

As Brennen ate, he eyed a small bluescreen on the tabletop and occasionally jabbed at its keyboard.

Here on Trinn Hill, in the hillands between Soldane city and the forbidding, coastal Dracken Range,

Brennen had invested all his Federate severance pay in the most secure location he could find, then seen

to it that the home’s sec system was the best available, to protect them both —and their children,

soon—from Shuhr, and other enemies Brennen had collected in ten years of service. All approaches

could be monitored from terminals in every room, and a person indoors could dispatch an intruder at any

entrance.

Firebird glanced over Brennen’s shoulder at the bluescreen. He was using the terminal merely to access

the home database and preview his day’s work. Cradling her cruinn cup, she sank onto the opposite

chair and gazed out the window. Rain—still. The region’s dry dekia would not begin for another twelve

days. Their home was spacious, though, and she could escape to the coastal Base when she ached to see

the sun. Beyond the security-gridded glasteel kitchen wall, little puddles collected on an ironbark deck

and dripped between slats onto mossy ground below. Watching the rain made her sleepy again—she

took another sip of cruinn —but watching Brennen was far more interesting. Already smartly uniformed,

he stared thoughtfully at the screen, pressed a key, then lifted another bite of smoked fish to his mouth.

The bright blue light of the screen gave his face an odd cast and shone wild and bright in his eyes: an alien

look.

Did he imagine an alien when he looked at her, too? Or just a once-slender, small-featured woman,

whose body now swelled with his sons?

Firebird swirled the cup and slid into memory again. Apprehension had nearly kept her from marrying

him. He had been a Federate officer—an intelligence officer, Thyrian and therefore alien in her

homeworld’s view—and she had been taken prisoner. Naetai might one day forgive her for accepting the

ideals of its Federate conquerors, for the Federates had ruled Naetai well and fairly these months, but

marrying a Thyrian Sentinel?

Unthinkable.

She had been warned that marriage with any of Brennen Caldwell.’s kind would mean an intimacy far

beyond the physical, a linking of souls at appalling depth. For days after the wedding,

Brennen had remained the center of her consciousness. Tenderly he cared for her until she emerged from

bonding shock, a separate entity again.

She recovered fully, but remained keenly aware of the change that had taken place: a kind of emotional

stereo programmed permanently into her perception. The pair bonding had proven far different from the

dehumanizing continuous telepathy Firebird had dreaded. The best of it came at night, for he knew

exactly what pleasured her…

What would be on that screen now? She took another sip. She knew he had found the overseeing of

procurement and maintenance people tedious, but occasional inspections and test flights enlivened the

cycle of personnel duties. He was working full-schedule at a half-time shared position, learning the ropes

and accruing leave time, because he intended to stay home for at least a month once the twins were born.

Revising Provost Dankin’s flight-training program absorbed more of his interest and consequently more

time, but she suspected other projects, too, and conscious of military security, she kept her peace when

she could.

“Brenn?” She stared past him into misty forest. “Dardy mentioned yesterday that Staff Officer Terrell

wasn’t born on Thyrica. Where is he from?”

He curled his fingers around his kaffa mug. “He’s offworld born, but his family relocated while he was still

young enough to be tested and Sentinel trained.”

“But where—”

“Bishniac.”

Firebird waited for him to explain. Perhaps she should have opened conversation on some other subject

this morning, but she sensed no irritation in his response. “Where’s that, Brenn?”

“Griffin region, just south-spinward of Caroli. There’s a small Thyrian enclave there.”

She slid downward in the chair. “Brenn,” she said carefully, “I caught him looking at me yesterday,

staring, the way Vultor Korda used to do. But as soon as I opened my mouth he changed. It was as if

I’d sneaked a glimpse around a barrier. There’s power in his stare, Brennen. He’s so much like you,

yet… Oh, I don’t know.”

“Mari, we’ve been through this before.” He fingered the rim of his mug.

“He tests only forty on the Aurian Scale. A.S. forty: solid but not exceptional,” she quoted the guide he’d

given her. “No, Brenn. I mean…” She groped momentarily to control her resentment.“I know this sounds

pretentious, Brenn. I’m not trained in Sentinel ways and I know it, but would it be possible to deliberately

test lower than your true potential?”

Brennen blanked the bluescreen, and the eerie light in his blue eyes flickered out. He looked at her

solemnly: a man’s face, man-colored. This was no alien, regardless of what her people thought. “Lower?

Mari, everyone tries to test high, to increase his eventual rank and influence.”

Kathy Tyers - Firebird 2 - Fusion Fire

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