Bradley,Marion Zimmer - Darkover 26 - Exile's Song

EXILE'S SONG

A Novel of Darkover

MARION

ZIMMER

BRADLEY

DAW BOOKS, INC.

DONALD A. WOLLHEIM, FOUNDER

375 Hudson Street New York, NY 10014

ELIZABETH R. WOLLHEIM

SHEILA E. GILBERT

PUBLISHERS

Cover art by Romas Kukalis

DAW Book Collectors No. 1024

DAW Books are distributed by Penguin U.S.A.

Book designed by Stanley S. Drate/Folio Graphics Co., Inc.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly

coincidental.

If you purchase this book without a cover you should be aware that this book may have been stolen property and reported as

"unsold and destroyed" to the publisher. In such case neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this

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"stripped book."

First paperback printing, April 1997 456789

DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES -MARCA REGISTRADA HECHO EN U.S.A.

Printed In The U.S.A. For Adrienne Marine-Barnes,

who created the character Margaret Alton,

and worked on this book with me.

1

There must be some way to travel between the stars that doesn't nauseate me-some drug to which I'm not sensitive. If

only I weren't allergic to so many things. If only I had chosen a career in agronomy or journalism.

The woman on the thrust couch smiled grimly without opening her eyes as she tried to ignore the nausea

and dizziness. It was an old thought, one she had replayed many times. Years before, when she had left

home for University, she had actually considered those two professions as career possibilities, along with

accounting and several others she couldn't remember now. It had taken her less than a semester to realize

that she had a rather black thumb, and hated the idea of reporting the miseries of others. She found she had

little skill with words, and numbers were boring, although she had fine mathematical skills, and could have

become, she thought, a rather successful embezzler. This made the smile widen into a grin, and a little of

the tension in her face slackened.

Beneath the turquoise-colored cuff of her black Scholar's uniform, she could feel the itch of the patches

on her skin. One was to supply her with the drug, hyper-drome, that prevented space sickness, and the

other was to counteract her allergy to hyperdrome itself. Silly, really, that she was allergic. Her father was,

too, so she must have inherited it from him. She really was his daughter, even if she didn't feel that way

most of the time.

She moved her head back and forth against the vile-smelling cushions of her couch. The knot of very fine

but abundant red hair piled atop her head chose that moment to escape from the pins that held it in place,

and began to slither down her neck. She could feel the

tension in her body and tried to will herself to relax. The faint smell of disinfectant that hung in the stifling,

dry air of the third-class compartment was disgusting and made her squirm.

As long as she kept her eyes closed, she had the illusion of privacy and was a little less aware of the

eleven other people who shared the cramped quarters with her. The presence of other people nearby,

people as anxious as herself, made the terrible, grinding nausea she was trying to ignore even worse. It had

always been this way, ever since that first voyage away from the place to which she was now returning.

She had only a few, vague memories of her childhood, but that first trip was more vivid and powerful than

the others. The smells and sounds of a space vessel, and of a belly which felt as if demons were dancing in

it, were associated with something dreadful that she could not remember clearly. She never actually

became ill, but hovering at the edge of nausea for endless hours was just as bad, or perhaps even worse.

Few people would believe that a Federation Senator's daughter would travel third class. They tended to

think that such people lived glamorous lives of parties and diplomatic soirees. But she was a Scholar of

University, and academicians rarely traveled any other way. She was a seasoned traveler now, ten trips

and more than a hundred jumps, yet her body still refused to adjust to the drugs, and she had resigned

herself to the discomfort. At least she was not forced to endure the agonies of steerage again-as she had

on her first solo trip, from Thetis to Coronis a sixteen-jump nightmare. And traveling first class, as she had

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once, was not much better- the air still stank and the drugs made her mouth dry.

I am like a fine wine-I don't travel well at all. I wish this drug really put you to sleep the way it's

supposed to. There's Professor Davidson, snoring away like a baby, bless him. How does he do it?

Will this be our port-of-call? I've lost count. Is this the sixth jump or the seventh? Mother of Oceans,

let it be the seventh.

She began to play the Game. She and her stepmother, Dio, had invented it on that half-remembered first

voyage, when she was very small. It consisted of naming every goddess and god she could think of. When

Dio had taught it to her, she had only known a few-Zandru

and Aldones, Evanda and Avarra. By the time they had reached their destination, she could name more

than a hundred, and knew some of their stories. The list had grown as she had gotten older and learned

more, until it included names of deities that dated back to the days when Terra had really been an Empire.

She had added the names of deities learned from fellow students, names from planets she had visited and

places she had never been. Sometimes she looked for rhymes in the names, or tried to put them in

alphabetical order-anything to distract her from the rebellions of the flesh. She had never run out of names,

but she was not sure whether this was through repetition or not. The exercise gave her something to focus

on, rather than listening to the sound of the great ship around her and smelling the acrid scent of her fellow

travelers.

The stomach-turning surge of the ship itself began to slacken. The machinery sounded different, the

whine of something ceasing. The noise always made her tense because it meant they were leaving the void

between the stars and entering the gravitational pull of some world. The steady boom of the planetfall

engines kicked in-a slightly-out-of-tune A flat-that made her shiver.

The professor gave a sputtering snort on the couch beside her, coughed, and stirred. He was awake.

Years of enforced intimacy with the old man had familiarized her with his every grunt and gesture. She did

not need to open her eyes to know he was flexing his fingers over an imaginary keyboard.

How accustomed we have become to one another, she thought. He likely knows all my little habits,

too. It was rather comforting to feel the easy familiarity of her companionship with Ivor Davidson, her

mentor and practically her foster-father. His wife, Ida, had been like a mother to her, and she decided that

in spite of the vile feeling in her middle, she was really very blessed. She was doing the work she loved in

the company of a dear friend she respected. Who would dare to ask for more?

The loudspeaker above her couch whined and hummed, and Margaret winced. Damn her extra-sensitive

ears! They made possible her studies, her scholarship, and her career as a musicologist. But damn-and

double damn- the sloppy communications officer-who was probably

tone deaf-who had made the last three landfalls pure agony. After some tinny clicking and a sharp squeal

that made her shiver with discomfort, a nasal recording, in the heavy accent of some backwoods planet,

began to drone. It was old and needed replacement. She had to force herself to listen and not just tune out

the noisy thing.

Then the recording switched off, and something resembling a human voice, speaking in Terran Standard

with a fearsome accent which drawled the words, started.

"We are now on final approach to Cottman Four, called Darkover by the inhabitants." There was

something almost disdainful about that word, as if the speaker imagined Darkovans to be naked savages or

some such. Typical Terran arrogance. "Passengers are reminded not to unfasten restraints until the all-clear

has sounded. For those passengers in steerage and third class in need of assistance, a steward will be ready

to assist you soon after landfall." After the voice had given the instructions to the passengers in Standard, it

began to repeat them in half a dozen other languages, those she was able to recognize rather obviously

mangled.

Darkover! Their destination at last. The planet of her birth. But the sound of the word in her mind

triggered the strange apprehension she had felt ever since she had found out she was going there. It was

something akin to dread, and it was completely illogical! She had been to other planets with Ivor during their

work, and never had she felt such crawling unease.

Margaret took several deep breaths and made herself relax. The muscles in her shoulders were tense,

and they loosened reluctantly. But her relaxation exercise worked, slowly, and she gave a little sigh of relief

and stopped listening. Her attention wandered. She was accustomed to being told everything a dozen times.

As a Colonial, she had a healthy contempt for the regimented and closely-governed ways of the Terran

Federation. While valuing its technological achievements, which allowed her to study music on a dozen

worlds in a single lifetime, she bore with Terran arrogance for the sake of her scholarship and the freedom

it afforded her. But she did not like it at all, and she thought she probably never would.

Her father would have been happy to send her to any

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of several Colonial colleges, but the University on Coronis had not numbered among his choices. She

remembered the row which had exploded when she first suggested it. To say her father hadn't approved

was a masterpiece of understatement, and worse, he would never explain why. Dio, her stepmother, had

intervened as she always did, keeping the peace between father and daughter as well as she was able, but

she had endured what felt like weeks, though it was only days, of anxiety and brooding silences before the

Senator had given his consent. She wished she understood him better-or at least understood his strange

mixture of distance towards her and fierce protection of her. The Old Man (as she thought of him) and Dio

were absent a great deal, being forced to attend Senate functions and do the business of the Federation.

With his own allergy to hyperdrome, the Senator didn't come back to Thetis very often, and when he did, he

avoided her as much as possible. It was almost as if he loved her and hated her at the same time.

For no reason she could discern, thinking of those dreadful days waiting for the Senator to give her

permission to go to University, Margaret was suddenly reminded of another time, when she had been much

younger, thirteen or fourteen. Dio had found her sitting on the shore of the Thetan Sea of Wine, weeping.

She couldn't quite recall what she had been crying over, but the words she had said suddenly came back.

"I'm ugly," she sobbed, as the older woman tried to comfort her. "Father never hugs me, or lets me go

anywhere, and I know it is because I am ugly. Why can't I have pretty hair, like you. Why do I have skin

that gets spotty in the sun? And you and Father are gone so much, and when you are home, he never

touches me, or talks to me, or anything! What's wrong with me?"

The memory made her shiver all over as the ship gave out a huge roar. Then it made a sort of metallic

sigh, almost as if it were tired, and she thanked the Goddess she was no longer thirteen, and subject to the

horrors of adolescence. All those years when she had been convinced that the Old Man's attitude toward

her was due to something she had done wrong, or failed to do, even though Dio told her it had nothing to do

with her, and everything to do with the Senator himself. Dio did her

best to comfort her, and said that Margaret was not ugly. The Senator did love her in his brooding way,

Dio insisted. But she had somehow never gotten around to explaining why he was so distant, nor why she

looked so unlike both of them. It wasn't until a long time later that she learned she was not Dio's child at all,

but the Old Man's by his first marriage.

Margaret could still remember her utter shock at this revelation, just before she left for University. She

had never imagined that her father had been married before. There were so many things she did not know

about her own past and her father's. She started to shudder and stopped herself. She was not the heroine of

some trashy romance, with dark secrets lurking in the background. So, why did she have the strong and

terrible sense that there were not only things she did not know, but things she did not want to know.

Foolishness! She was just tired from the long trip, and ill from space drugs.

No, it was more than that. She was returning to the planet where she had been born more than

twenty-five Terran years before. Margaret had only the vaguest memories of it, and even thinking about it

gave her a mild sense of discomfort, a slight headache and the sensation of the air just before a storm.

There were so many troubling things about it. Her father was the Senator for Darkover, but he did not live

on the planet, and, so far as she knew, he had never set foot on the place since he left over twenty years

before. The mother she had known for most of her life was not really her mother, and Dio was adamant in

her refusal to reveal more than the barest generalities about her real mother.

There was a moment of silence, except for the blessedly on-pitch chime of the all-clear. After this came

the thumps of a clumsy technician inserting the landing announcement, and the chatter of half the

compartment informing one another of the obvious fact of their arrival. It was almost as if they could not

believe anything unless they told someone else about it.

"We have now arrived at Thendara Spaceport on Cottman Four and passengers with this as a final

destination are cleared to disembark at their convenience. Our stop here will be brief, so passengers

continuing to Wolf-Phi Coronis Four-are advised not to disembark

but to remain in your restraints. Passengers for Sagan's Star, Quital, and Greenwich are requested to

disembark here and consult a uniformed Spaceforce Attendant for the transit information to your final

destination. Please prepare immediately for disembarkation. A Medic will enter your cabin at once to

administer hyperdrome for all continuing and newly boarded passengers. Repeat; we have arrived at

Thendara Spaceport; passengers for . . ." The voice went on and on.

Margaret ignored the mild headache, and her unspoken desire to stuff a rag into the loudspeaker. She

ignored the itch of the dermapatches on her left wrist. Instead she started to unbuckle the straps which held

her against the couch, eager to be away from the smell and sound of the ship as quickly as possible. Well,

not as eager as usual. The sense of dread remained, just at the back of her mind, and she had to force her

attention away from it. Once free, she turned to her companion.

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Professor Davidson was fumbling clumsily with his restraints. His eyes were a little glazed from the

drugs, and, as usual, he was slightly disoriented. She watched him struggle with one buckle and bit her lip.

The first thing she had noticed when she first met him were his hands-beautiful hands, like those of an angel

in some old painting. Now they were twisted and bent, hardly able to manage the simple chords on a guitar.

It seemed to have happened overnight, but she was sure it had been slower than that. He could play almost

any instrument developed for humanoids-and even some fashioned for nonhumans-but he had always been

hopeless with simple things like catches and buckles, and he hated it if she reminded him of his clumsiness.

Finally he gave her a look of helplessness, defeated by the stupid thing. She sat up-a little dizzily against the

brief rush of postural hypotension-and reached over to help him as a steward came into the cabin.

"What would I ever do without you?" he asked, his seamed nut-brown face wrinkling in the smile that

never ceased to delight her, even when she was aggravated with him.

"Hire another assistant, of course," she answered dryly. His ever-increasing dependence on her

distressed her more than she wanted to admit. It was as if their

year-long sojourn on Relegan had drained away the last of his vigor, leaving behind a dried-up husk of a

man. She forced herself not to show the sense of helplessness and rage she always felt when she noticed

his rapid decline. She owed Ivor Davidson more than she could ever repay. Not in anything so vulgar as

credits, but in affection and loyalty. During her first, terrible year at University, while she had floundered in

search of some subject she could master without boredom or frustration, she had met Ivor in the library.

She had been singing softly, much to the annoyance of some of the nearby students-quite unconscious that

she was doing so. He had taken her in hand, tested her with a kind of savage thoroughness, then brought

her into his home. Ivor and his wife Ida had nurtured her both as a musician and as a woman, giving her a

sense of confidence she had never gotten with Dio and the Old Man. In the end, he had arranged an open

fellowship for her, made her first his protégée, then his assistant. It was the sort of position that was highly

prized in University circles, and she knew she was very fortunate.

She shivered a little as she remembered how insecure she had been then. It had taken so much of her

energy to escape from her father's inexplicable combination of distance and over-protectiveness. The pair

of them made her welcome, as they had done with generations of students during their lengthy careers. Ida

had taught her the manners of University culture, and Ivor had taught her musicology, and his passion for

his field. They had both given her an unconditional affection that she had never experienced before, and she

had mistrusted it at first. Their persistence had worked, and somewhere along the way she had ceased to

be a wild Colonial girl, and become instead a respected scholar. It was not anything like she had imagined

when she lived on Thetis, but she liked her job, and she loved the old fellow.

For more than a decade the Davidsons had been her family, and she felt blessed to have found them.

Thetis, her homework!, she pushed into a back room in her mind, remembered only when she had to fill out

the various forms to which the Terran bureaucracy seemed addicted. She worked very hard at erasing all

memory of her father, that bitter, silent, one-handed man and

even those of her gentle, laughing stepmother who was so ready a foil for the Senator's moods.

When she did recall her childhood, she usually remembered the pleasant things. The roar of Thetis'

waters, rushing along the shore of their island home, and the smell of the flowers which bloomed in spring

outside their door; the taste of the first-caught delphina of summer; the intense blue color of the azurines,

the marriage flowers of Thetis, as they curled in the pale hair of couples. The color of azurines always

made her throat grow tight with tears, for no reason she could discern. Margaret had rather a large store of

such images, because she had been alone a great deal during her childhood. The Senator and Dio were

gone for months at a tune, much to her guilty relief. She was always so anxious when he was there. She

still had only the vaguest idea what he actually did, and no interest whatever in it. Odd, now she thought

about it. The few friends she had made at University all had a lively curiosity about their parents, and a

great deal of pride in whatever it was that Daddy or Mommy did.

"No, I don't think so, my dear." Ivor Davidson's voice broke into her troubled reverie. "I don't think I could

ever accustom myself to having someone new around me. I hope I do not have to. Selfish of me, I know. I

should be thinking of you, of your future, not my own. A beautiful young woman like yourself should have a

beau or several, should be bearing children instead of bearing with an old man's crotchets and grumbles.

But the truth is I could not get along without you-and I am very glad you are here with me."

Margaret looked at him with a start of unease. She realized she had been avoiding seeing how old he had

become, had been denying his increasing decrepitude. Old at ninety-five-like some Prehistoric. The last

rejuvenation treatment hadn't taken, hadn't worked. His hands, his angel hands, were turning to stone and

she could hardly bear it. Ivor, please stop getting old. . . .

"Nonsense!" She spoke briskly, to conceal her emotions. "That filthy hyperdrome always makes you

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melancholy. Let's get out of this flying coffin." This last remark unfortunately made in her full voice, the

trained voice of a singer, earned her a duty look from one of the

continuing passengers. She felt herself blush to the roots of her red hair, and she lowered her voice, before

continuing. "You'll feel better after a drink and a bath," she said. Cottman IV was described as primitive in

the little information she had been able to get her hands on, but Margaret knew perfectly well that this only

meant, in Terran bureaucratese, that there were not com booths on every corner, or a vid-deck in every

home.

She had a sudden, very clear memory of a huge vat of a bath in a room that smelled of something she

could not name. Through a door on one wall she saw a tall man step into the room. He was slender and his

hair was pale, kind of silvery. There was something about him that made her stomach lurch, and she

shivered all over.

Margaret forced herself to shut away the disturbing image and turned her energy to mentally cursing

departmental politicking and academic funding for sending them to Darkover. They had only been back

from a very tiring year on Relegan a brief month when the command had come from the head of the Music

Department to dash off, ill-prepared and still exhausted, to save the department's bacon. All the work they

had done among the Relags had had to be abandoned, or handed over to associates, just because their

colleague Murajee had gotten himself involved in a scandal of some sort. The Department Chair, the overly

ambitious and politically conniving Dr. Van Dyne, had sent them because there was no one else available

with the credentials to do the job. It had been that or lose the funding, and Dr. Van Dyne never lost funding.

She had been frustrated at every turn, trying to get information about Cottman IV. It was most peculiar,

and she had taken it rather personally. She kept finding the notation "Restricted" on files in the University

Library, and even trying to use her father's access codes had not worked. She had sent word to Dio, asking

for information, but no answer had arrived before they left.

It almost seemed to her that the computers were keyed to keep her ignorant. Which was ridiculous, of

course. Margaret had managed to get a basic language tape, a disk on customs of the Trade City, and the

printout of what she suspected was a piece of fiction, though

it had come from the history section. At least My Tour of Several Worlds by Claudean Tont read more

like a romance than anything else. She had discovered that Cottman IV was a Protectorate, not a colony

per se, and that information about it was largely inaccessable. She almost wished she had paid more

attention to the Old Man's occasional bouts of loquacity.

She was too tired to fuss over an insoluble problem. Margaret slung her flight bag, and Ivor's, too, across

her right shoulder. Then she grabbed the seemingly skimpy all-weather cloaks-which weren't-in her hands.

The only thing she looked forward to was getting out of her loathed Scholar's uniform and into whatever the

locals wore. University frowned on its scholars "going native," but she was sufficiently experienced to know

that the best way to do research in the field, here collecting samples of native music, was to appear as

ordinary as possible. It was the reason she was there, and damn the stuffy rules.

They went into the green corridor. It spiraled down ahead of them, and her nausea returned in force, so

she gripped the cloaks tightly in her hands. After what seemed like an eternity of stairs and slanted ramps,

and corridors whose walls changed colors in some manner that had meaning only to the builders of the ship,

they arrived at a portal and exited onto a broad expanse of tarmac.

A sudden blast of icy wind with a few drops of moisture in it stung their eyes, then died away. It cut

through the cloth of her uniform, chilling her completely. Margaret stopped, ignoring the mutter of someone

behind her, and draped Ivor's cloak over his shoulders. The impatient passenger who had followed them

growled and stepped around them. She watched him stride away, toward the cluster of Imperial buildings

across the tarmac, square and foreboding.

Beyond them lay an eerily familiar horizon. The huge red sun was just at the edge of the sky, but whether

rising or setting she could not be certain. Her usually reliable sense of orientation seemed to be on the blink.

She wasn't sure what time it was locally, although they had probably mentioned it during the disembarkation

announcement. Stupid. She should have paid more attention!

The sun made a bloody blot in the sky and etched the nearby buildings in carmine. Margaret squinted at it,

and the sense of deja vu nearly made her stagger. Tears welled in her eyes and she blinked them away

quickly, pretending to herself it was just the stinging of the wind against her cheeks that made them prickle.

Why not? I was born here after all. I haven't been back since I was four or five, but it's not so

strange I should recognize the sun, even if I didn't expect to react. My father is the Senator from

Darkover-how could I not have known this sun! The dull headache which was a leftover from the

hyperdrome increased suddenly, so there were stabs of pain behind her eyes. She whispered a fine

collection of curses, in the polyglot of tongues she knew, and hurried to catch up with the professor. Each

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step made the stabbing pain hurt more, and she glanced at the sun over her shoulder. It seemed to her that

something within her troubled mind was afraid of that sun, as if it roused memories better left alone.

They found the Administration Building, and took their place in the line that had formed. "Hurry up and

wait" was just as true now as in the dark days when the phrase had been coined. Out of the intermittent

wind, and away from the sun, Margaret found her headache subsiding, and decided she must be even more

tired than she had thought. A bored clerk stamped their permits and papers, and gave a wave toward yet

another corridor, nearly identical to the others they had traversed.

Eventually she saw a sign that directed them toward the baggage area. Their sparse luggage and the

foam crates containing Ivor's guitar and Margaret's small harp were sitting on a platform. She broke the

seals and hauled out yards and yards of gray biodegradable packing plastic. It was awful stuff, but it was all

that was allowed in or out of class-D planets. A few hours beneath even the fading sun of Darkover would

reduce it to a few grams of clean-burning waste. She dumped it in the allocated bin, stripped the two drug

patches from her wrist, and dropped them in as well. She handed Ivor his cased instrument and slung her

harp in its cloth covering across her back. Then she picked up the two bags.

Ivor shifted his guitar from hand to hand as she made a pack animal of herself. She knew that even the

minimal weight of the instrument was painful for him, but he would not give up carrying it. It was almost

two hundred years old, made by the hands of a long-dead craftsman, and Ivor cherished it as another man

might love a woman.

They followed corridors and arrows until they finally emerged into a cool dusk. She felt marginally better

now that she had an idea of what tune it was. Now to solve the problem of finding the place they were to

stay in Thendara Old Town, before they rolled up the sidewalks for the night, without the nicety of ground

transport. She knew from the tapes she had listened to that skycabs and motored vehicles were nonexistent

here.

Ahead there was a high wall, made of Terran concrete blocks. Through an arched opening, she could see

a cobbled area that flickered with torchlight, contrasting sharply with the bright, actinic glare of floodlamps.

The two light sources crossed, making huge shadows, and the dread she had managed to force into the

back of her mind returned, flooding her with apprehension. On this side of the wall, she knew who she was,

but beyond it,' Margaret suspected, she did not. She had a powerful sense that once she crossed that

boundary, she would be different, and it was not an appealing prospect.

Then a gust of wind touched her, and she recalled her duties. This was no time to be standing around

having the jitters! Margaret swallowed hard as her hair blew around her face. She dropped her burdens and

thrust her wind-blown hair viciously into the collar of her uniform, where it tickled her neck. It was a relief

to have something to be angry at-her flyaway hair! Then she regathered the bags and marched toward the

gate, Ivor trailing beside her wearily. 2

Beyond the gate, Margaret set the bags down again and put on her own cloak. She repositioned Ivor's

again, and tucked it around the guitar as well as she could. She knew it would get much colder as the sun

went down, and after the tropical warmth of Relegan, it was close to painful. Ivor looked at her with misery

in every line of his face. She had never known him to look so old and tired and ill. She bit her lip and looked

away.

Margaret looked around for some form of conveyance, a cart or pedi-cab, perhaps. This was where the

taxi stand was at most spaceports. All she found were a couple of keen-eyed youngsters in tunics and

trousers and calf-length cloaks. She found herself staring at them both with interest, and a cautious eye.

The boys returned her stare with open curiosity.

"Hey, lady, you want some help with your stuff?" one shouted in Trade City pidgin, as if he expected that

she was ignorant of his language and thought that speaking more loudly would bridge the gap. She managed

to make out what he meant, though his accent was broader than on the tapes she had listened to. His

companion grabbed him roughly and whispered something urgently, then came forward with an awkward

little bow.

"May I be of service, domna?" This was more like what she had heard, and Margaret felt a little less

helpless. The bow bothered her, as did the sudden change in attitude, but she was just too tired to think

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about it now.

"I was hoping to find some sort of conveyance," she stammered. The first boy, the taller one, seemed to

find this very amusing. "A cart or a horse or something."

"You won't get one here," he stated with the finality of the very young.

Margaret felt foolish and a little angry. "No, of course not."

The second boy glared at the first. "I could go for a horse car, but it is easier to walk. The rest house is

right over there." He pointed to the edge of the square. There was an ugly little cluster of buildings perhaps

two hundred feet away. They were typical Terran architecture- fortresslike and forbidding.

"We are not staying at the rest house," she said slowly, forming her mouth into patterns that seemed to be

right on the tip of her tongue, but were hard to get out. Once, she knew, she had probably been fluent, or as

fluent as a five-year-old could be, but since neither the Old Man nor Dio ever used anything except Terran

Standard on Thetis, she had nearly forgotten what she knew. Worse, she realized, when she listened to the

language tapes, her mind seemed to resist grasping the words, and she had to struggle as she had never

done before.

"Do you know the way to Music Street?" There was something wrong with her phrasing, she was

certain, but the boy appeared to get her meaning. His eyes widened slightly. She could almost hear him

thinking Why are these people going there? Damn her active imagination anyhow.

"Yes, domna." The answer was polite, but she could see that the lad was very curious.

"Is it far? My companion is very tired. We have traveled a long way." Wasn't that a masterpiece of

understatement.

"Not too far, if you don't mind walkin'. Pretty far, for Terrans. What would you be wanting in Music

Street?"

A gust of wind crept under the nape of her neck, caught the loose strands of her hah-, and the last of the

pins beside her ears slithered out of it. Silky strands of red blew across her face in the chill breeze, blurring

her vision. Margaret dropped the bags and grabbed for her escaped hair as the boys watched her with

amusement. With a few small curses which she hoped they didn't understand, Margaret grabbed at the

flying strands and yanked them back with chilly fingers. She coiled them into a knot, and one of the lads

gathered the fallen pins and handed them to her. One of the few things her step-

mother had told about their home planet was that unbound hair was the mark of a common streetwalker,

an invitation to trouble. Odd, she thought, that Dio would tell her that. "We are staying in Music Street with

Master Everard. Do you know the way there?"

"We can take you." The second boy spoke. He was courteous enough, but Margaret felt uneasy. Their

bags held few clothes, but all their disks and recording equipment. On a low technology world like this, they

were wealth beyond price. Not to mention the hell there would be to pay if they were stolen. She and Ivor

were replaceable; their equipment would be a form-filled nightmare to recover. The thought made her rage

as she often did at Terran arrogance and paternalism.

Margaret knew she was too tired to think straight, and finally realized that her anxiety must be due to

sleep deprivation. It certainly wasn't hard to understand. She had not really slept for days.

The second boy was dark and had an honest sort of face, but after all these months with nonhumans, she

no longer trusted her own assessment of faces. And a confidence man by definition had an honest face. It

was -his stock in trade. It was growing colder by the minute, and she couldn't stand there being indecisive.

Ivor couldn't bear it even if she could.

"Lead on, MacDuff," she said with more vigor than she felt. She picked up the two bags herself, still

wary in case these seemingly nice boys were really thieves.

"Naw," the dark-haired one answered. "I don't know any Macduffs. 'Tis MacDoevid. You know any

Mac-duffs, Geremy?"

"Not me," Geremy said, and made a gesture toward her luggage. "You want some help with those?"

"MacDoevid, eh?" Margaret ignored the offer out of sheer pigheadedness. "Professor, is he a relative of

yours?" The old man forced a feeble smile. He was having trouble following the exchange of words

between Margaret and the boys, and it showed in his face.

Ivor didn't answer immediately, and then he seemed to understand her question. It took time for the

sounds to make sense in his mind, she knew. "Perhaps. The sons of David have always been a widespread

tribe," he

said with a real grin, as if he found the whole thing enormously amusing.

The boy MacDoevid tilted his head to one side to stare at the old man. "What did he say?" There was a

glint of interest in his eyes, curiosity and intelligence combined.

Margaret sighed. Ivor always had a terrible time at first in learning local dialects. One of the many ways

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in which Margaret was invaluable to him was her ability to pick up new languages quickly. She knew that

what she had learned was basic and simplistic. The language disks had contained typical phrases that

arrogant Terran tourists considered important to know: "Where is the Sky-port? How much does that cost?"

and other equally inane but universal matters. She had nevertheless been able to obtain a rudimentary

knowledge of the common Darkovan tongue. Ivor had obtained a disk of complex musical terms, but she

had not had a chance to listen to it, because of the haste of their departure. Besides, musical terms would

be of little use with these lads.

Margaret drew a long breath, disciplining herself to go slowly, even though the chill of the sunset wind

made her want to hurry. "Permit me to make introductions," she said, choosing the words with care.

"Professor Davidson, meet young MacDoevid. You see, your names are akin." She emphasized the vowel

sounds, so the youngster could hear them, and was rewarded by a widening of eyes and a nod that told her

he had understood. Clearly a bright lad.

"Huh, wait till I tell my father 'bout that," responded the boy. "But what is 'Professor'?"

Margaret realized that for want of enough vocabulary she had used the Terran title. From the little she

had learned thus far, she had not found any mention of anything like a college or university on Darkover,

and realized that there was no immediate equivalent to use. Her weary brain fumbled with words for a

moment, before she realized the answer was much simpler than she had thought. "He is a-a teacher. Of

music." She was rather pleased with herself. It both answered the question and explained why they were

going to Music Street.

Ivor gave her a tired and rather forlorn look. He never managed to master pidgin anything. For weeks he

would mumble like an illiterate, expecting Margaret to translate everything. Then one morning he'd wake up

speaking the language almost like a native, and chatter to make up for lost tune. But he won't be here long

enough for that.

Margaret scolded herself immediately. Where did that thought come from, anyway? She did not believe

in premonitions; such beliefs were illogical and unscholarly. She was only tired and worried about her

companion. And she was cold and hungry, too, which just made her dark thoughts worse. They were going

to be on Dark-over for a year or more, and Ivor would be fine, as soon as she got him to Music Street. If

only she could shake the sense of dread she had that had been gnawing at her for weeks. If she had just

been able to get in touch with Dio, she was sure she wouldn't be so apprehensive. Why hadn't her

stepmother answered any of her costly telefaxes? She had always responded before. What if something

was wrong with her-or the Old Man? Stop borrowing trouble, she told herself furiously.

They had left the wall around the spaceport buildings behind them, and now passed a gray stone structure

that made her skin crawl when she looked at it. The windows were screened from the street, and it was

squat and silent and hideous. "What is that? A jail?" As she spoke, she knew it was not. There was

something utterly familiar and vile about the place.

"Na, that's the place where they put extra children. The Terrans are very strange. They put children

there and leave them." Geremy answered her question, his young voice dripping with condemnation.

"He means, domna, that it is the orphanage." That was the MacDoevid boy, his voice a little deeper than

Geremy's in the growing darkness.

Now she could see a lighted sign which read The John Reade Orphanage for the Children of

Spacemen. Of course! She had lived behind those screened windows once, when she was small and alone

and helpless. But her father was not a spaceman. He was an Imperial Senator. He had never been a

spaceman either, as far as she knew, so it didn't make any sense. Why couldn't she remember? Her

stomach tightened, and she had to swallow several times. Despite the chill of the air, she

felt sweat break out on her forehead and under her arms. Why, oh why, had the Old Man and Dio been so

secretive?

Stop this! There must have been reasons, probably good reasons, why they never told me anything

about this world. And they never thought I would return to Dark-over, did they? They don't even

know I'm here now, unless they got my last communication. They probably think I am happily

ensconced at University, or off somewhere doing music research. And they probably have no idea

that I need them right now. The Old Man is busy with the Senate, and Dio is . . . no, I must be

imagining something. Dio is fine, just fine. Despite her logical insistence that her stepmother was all

right, Margaret had a nasty feeling that something was very wrong, at that very moment, and she did not

like it at all.

"You idiot," MacDoevid said, shoving his companion on the shoulder. "Extra children, indeed! Stop

showin' off or I'll tell Auntie how rude ye' were, and when she finishes skelpin' ye', she willna let ye' meet

any more ships."

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"Do you boys come here every day?" Margaret asked, too exhausted and disoriented to try to make any

sense of this byplay.

"Na, domna, only when there's a passenger ship. Lots o' ships land here, but most of 'em aren't people

ships." It took a moment for her tired brain to realize he meant cargo ships and transfer ships, which were

more common and more frequent visitors to Darkover than the passenger ships. Darkover was well

situated as a transfer point, but most people never left the spaceport. "We get money for luggin' stuff," he

hinted broadly, gesturing at the bags she clung to stubbornly. "We have to be people the Officer knows. He

tells us when one is coming, because he knows us, and knows we is trusty. Strange ones might be thieves,"

he added, as if he knew her reluctance to surrender her load was fear of just that.

She understood the boy's hints perfectly well, and wished she felt more comfortable about trusting them.

Margaret had some local money in her belt pouch. She had cleaned out the University branch of Rothschild

and Tanaka, Moneychangers, of their entire stock of Cottman currency. It was the equivalent of about

twelve

standard credits. What that meant in the local economy was anyone's guess. She tried to flog her tired brain

into useful channels. What should she give them for being guides, always assuming they were not going to

lead them into a dark alley and rob them. She dismissed that thought as unkind. Geremy would certainly not

be bashful about telling her if she was stingy, she decided. He seemed irrepressible, and she envied his

confidence.

Ahead, she saw another wall, a lower one this time. It seemed to separate the loathsome orphanage from

the rest of the city. They passed beneath an arch where a black-leathered guard lounged comfortably. He

waved to the boys as if they were a familiar sight, and gave Margaret and the professor no more than an

indifferent glance. She guessed he saw all the few tourists there were. Once beyond the arch, they were

surrounded by stone houses and cobblestoned streets that seemed to run together at crazy angles. No

wonder there were no wheeled vehicles! These streets were too narrow for any Terran car.

The cold was intense now and seemed to pierce her bones, even through the cloak. The somewhat

crabby agent at the University travel service had grudgingly told her it was spring on Cottman IV, which

had conveyed to her mind something warm and balmy, not this icy reality. She envied the boys their

comfortable wool tunics. When I lived here, I. must have worn that sort of wool, and furs, too. I think I

had a fur tunic when I was very small-funny I never remembered it before now. It was rust-colored,

the color of my mother's hair.

Margaret shook herself. How strange to think that her tunic was the color of her mother's hair. The

memory was fugitive, fault, and maddening, and she shivered. Then a small grin curled her lips for a

second. She wished she had a fur tunic now!

Margaret tried to dispel the unease the memory of that tunic brought her. Instead, she remembered

something Dio had said years before. "The Terrans can dash between the stars, but they have yet to invent

any synthetic which is as comfortable as wool or silk. I do wish they would stop trying!" That made her feel

better, even as she cursed the clinging material of her Scholar's uniform. It was, in theory, comfortable in

any climate or

weather. Like many theories, it worked better in the lab than in the field, and was typical of the Terran

passion for technology, and their disdain for nature. All-weather was a concept, like "one size fits all,"

probably made up by some idiot who never left the weather-conditioned environment of a Terran

compound. Despite her fatigue, Margaret started to feel a little better. There was something so satisfying

about sneering mentally at Terrans and their fondness for the unnatural.

"How would you like to help me out tomorrow, Master MacDoevid? It would be after school."

Both lads looked at her, and she realized that they had the same last name. It was not the dark one who

answered, but the fairer and taller boy. He had almost red hair in the flickering torchlight, and gave her a

shy grin. "My father is Master MacDoevid, domna, I'm just Geremy. I dunna go to school, domna, but I'd

be honored to be of service." He eyed her in the light that spilled from a nearby wineshop. She glanced up

at the sign outside the place, and saw something like a tree wearing a crown. Until that moment the actual

meaning of "preliterate," which was how the meager information she had described Darkovan culture, had

not sunk in. It was one thing to know something intellectually, and quite another to meet the actuality.

Margaret was rather surprised at herself, realizing she had unconsciously assumed that young people

went to school during the day, even though she knew that on many planets, this was not the case. She had

become a scholar, and while she and Ivor had done a great deal of field work in the past decade, she still

thought of things as a person from University, not a girl from Thetis or Darkover. And somehow she had

imagined that the world of her birth would be more like University or Thetis. It was a profoundly disturbing

realization, and she knew she was going to have to spend some time rethinking things.

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Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Darkover 26 - Exile's Song

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