Thendara House, Page 2

  “It’s not only that,” Magda said. “The Oath has become very real to me. I feel myself a Renunciate at heart—I think I would always have been one, had I known such a choice existed. Now—” How could she explain it? She drained the cold coffee from the cup and concluded helplessly, “It is something I must do.”

  Cholayna nodded. “I can see that. I don’t know if there is a precedent. I’ve heard of men going over the wall, going native, on some of the Empire planets. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a woman doing that, though.”

  “I’m not exactly going over the wall,” Magda pointed out.“If I were, would I be here in your office, formally turning in my resignation?”

  “Which I do not intend to accept,” Cholayna said. “No, listen to me—I listened to you, didn’t I? There’s no precedent for this; I don’t think there’s any way to give up Empire citizenship for a sworn-in civil servant, and you made that choice when you accepted three years training in the Intelligence School—”

  “I’ve done enough work to repay the Empire—”

  Cholayna silenced her with a gesture. “Nobody questions that, Magda. I am perfectly willing to put you on inactive status, if you must have your six months—half year—how long is the Darkovan year anyhow? But something has come up which ties in very well with what you have told me.”

  She turned to her desk and took up a file of printouts.

  “As it happens, I have a transcript of that Council here,” she said, and Magda glanced at the printouts—the Council where Lord Hastur had been forced to accept the validity of a Terran’s Oath and where the Guild Mothers had arranged that the Terrans should engage the services of the Renunciate Jaelle n’ha Melora to work in Magda’s place in the Terran Headquarters, prior to the employment of a dozen Free Amazons. “—Oh, very well, Renunciates,” Cholayna amended quickly, “to be trained in medical technology by our Medic Department, and possibly in other sciences and skills. With Jaelle working among us, and you in the Guild House, it seems to me that during this half year you will be especially qualified to determine personnel practices for Darkovan employees in the Empire, especially among women. We are prepared to put you on detached duty. Living among Darkovan women, you can find out which women could handle the culture shock of living among Terrans, as well as letting us know how we ought to treat them for the best communication between Terrans and Darkovans. You are the only person who is qualified to do this, actually living in a Guild House.”

  Finally Magda said, “If you already know all this, Cholayna, why did you have me tell it to you?”

  “I only knew what you had said,” Cholayna replied, “and what the Guild Mothers had said about you. I did not know how you felt about it. Because the student was the right kind of girl when I knew her, doesn’t mean the woman who had become a trained Agent was the kind we could trust.”

  Somehow the words softened Magda’s anger, as Cholayna went on. “Can’t you see? This is for the good of your Renunciates, as well as for the Empire—to cushion them against the worst of culture shock when they come here? Even, if necessary, to know which Terrans we can trust to deal fairly with them? You know, and I knew before I had been here a tenday, that Russ Montray is no more fit to be Legate, when they get a Legation here, than I am to pilot a starship! He doesn’t like the planet, and he doesn’t understand the people worth a damn. And I can tell, from the way you speak, that you do.”

  Is she trying to flatter me, to get me to do what she wants? Or does she mean it? Magda knew, of course, that Montray was considerably less fit than she was herself. Yet on a planet like Darkover, with its strictured traditional roles for men and women, Magda knew she could never be a Legate, or hold any comparable post, because the Darkovans would never accept a woman in such a position. Cholayna herself could hold her post in Intelligence only because she would never come into direct contact with Darkovans, but only with her field Agents.

  “Magda, I can tell from the way you’re looking at me, that something about this bothers you—”

  “I do not want to seem to spy on my sisters in the Guild House—”

  “I never thought of asking that,” Cholayna replied, “only that you create, for us, a set of rules for Terrans who must come into close contact with Darkovan women in general, particularly with Renunciates in the service or employ of the Empire. This will benefit us, certainly—but I would think it would benefit your—your Guild Sisters even more.”

  There seemed no way to refuse that. She would indeed be doing just the kind of service for Darkover, and the Guild House, which the Guild Mothers had said, at that Council, that they would welcome. She remembered what the Guild Mother Lauria had said:

  “We have come here today to offer you our lawful services in fields suitable for better communication between our two worlds. As mapmakers, translators, guides, or any work for which the Terrans require workers and experts. And in return, knowing that you of the Empire have much to teach us, we ask that a group of our young women be placed as apprentices among your medical services, and taught those, and other scientific skills …”

  And this had been a real breakthrough. Before this day, the men of the Empire had been able to judge the culture of Darkover only by the women they met in the Spaceport bars and the marketplace. When she had heard Mother Lauria say this, she had realized that she would be one of the first to come and go, building bridges between her new world and her old one. She bent her head in capitulation. She was still an Intelligence Agent, no matter how she might resent it.

  “As for your resignation—forget it. That isn’t the kind of thing you could do without a lot more thought than you’ve given it. Leave the doors open. Both ways.” Cholayna reached out and patted Magda’s hand, an unexpected gesture, and somehow it softened Magda’s hostility.

  “We need to know how we should treat these Renunciates when they are employed by the Terrans. What are their criteria for good behavior? What would offend or upset them? And while you are in the Guild House, we may ask you to make the final choice of which women we can accept, which women are qualified for Medic apprentices, women with open minds, flexible toward changing customs—

  Magda said patiently, “Do you really believe that most of them are unenlightened savages, Cholayna? May I remind you that for all its Closed B status, Darkover has a very complex and sophisticated culture—”

  “With a pre-space, pre-industrial technological level,” Cholayna said dryly. “I’m not doubting they have great poets and a fine musical tradition, or whatever else it takes to make you Communications people call a culture sophisticated. The Malgamins of Beta Hydri have a highly sophisticated culture too, but they embody ritual cannibalism and human sacrifice. If we are going to give these people our own highly sophisticated technology, we must have some notion of what they’re going to do with it. I suppose you are familiar with Malthusian theories, and what happens to a culture when you start—for instance—saving the lives of children, in a culture where population control cannot proceed, for religious or other reasons, at an equal level? Remember the rabbits in Australia, or don’t they teach that classic example of Anthropology 1-A any more?”

  She had only the vaguest memory of the classic example, but knew what the theory involved. The expansion of population, taking the brakes off predators or increasing survival at birth, created exponential expansion and resultant chaos. Terrans had been widely criticized for denying medical knowledge to native populations for just that reason. Magda knew of the policy, and the hard necessities behind it.

  “I think, when you’ve had time to go over it in your mind, you’ll know why you have to cooperate with us, even for the sake of your own sisters in your—” she hesitated and groped for the word, “Guild House.” She stood up and her voice was crisp.

  “Good luck, Magda. While you’re on detached duty you’ll get two rises in pay, you know.” The gesture put Magda back in the service, and she wondered dimly if she ought to salute.

  And I didn’t man
age to do what I came to do, I didn’t resign. I needed, so desperately, to be one thing or the other, not torn between them like this. The real me, the truest me, is Darkovan. Yet too much Terran to be true Darkovan…

  She had never really belonged anywhere. Perhaps, in the Guild House, she would find out where she belonged—but only if the Terrans would let her alone.

  She went out of the Intelligence office, briefly debated going to her old quarters to retrieve a few cherished possessions. No. They would be of no use to her in the Guild House, and would only proclaim her Terran. She hesitated again, thinking of Peter and Jaelle, who would be married this morning as freemates— the only marriage lawful for a Renunciate. Jaelle would want her at the wedding; and Peter, too, in token that she bore him no grudge because he now loved and desired Jaelle. I do not want Peter. I am not jealous of Jaelle. As she told Cholayna Ares, the marriage had been broken before she had ever known Jaelle. And yet somehow she felt she could not endure their newlywed happiness.

  She hurried toward the gate and went through, taking off her Terran HQ identity badge and dropping it into a trash can as she went.

  Now she had burnt her bridges; she could not return without special arrangement, for she would not be admitted as an employee. On a Closed Status planet, there was no free access between Terran and Darkovan territory. What she had done had committed her, irrevocably, to the Guild-House and to Darkover.

  She hurried through the streets until she saw the walled building, windowless and blind to the street, with the small sign on the door:

  THENDARA HOUSE

  GUILD OF RENUNCIATES.

  She rang the small, concealed doorbell, and somewhere, a long way inside, she heard the sound of a bell.

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWO

  « ^ »

  Jaelle n’ha Melora

  Jaelle was dreaming…

  She was riding, under a strange ominous sky, like spilt blood on the sands of the Drylands… Strange faces surrounded her, women unchained, unbound, the kind of women her father had mocked, yet her mother had once been one of them… her hands were chained, but with ribbon links which broke asunder, so that she did not know where to go, and somewhere her mother was screaming, and pain crashed through her mind…

  No. It was a noise, a blaring, somehow metallic noise, and there was a glaring yellow light cutting through her eyelids. Then she was aware that Peter was nuzzling her shoulder as he leaned over her to cut off the blaring sound. Now she remembered; it was a signal, a rising bell like the ones she had heard on her one visit to the Guest house at Nevarsin monastery. But a sound so harsh and mechanical could not be compared with the mellow, tempered monastery chime. Her head ached, and she remembered the party last night in the Terran HQ Recreation area, meeting a few of Peter’s friends. She had drunk more of the unaccustomed strong drinks than she intended, hoping she would be able to relax her shyness before all the strangers. Now the whole evening was only a blur of names she could not pronounce and faces not attached to names.

  “Better hurry, sweetheart,” Peter urged, “don’t want to be late your first day on a new job, and I can’t afford to—one bad black mark against me already.”

  Peter had left the shower running. Her back ached from the strange bed; she wasn’t sure whether it had been too hard or too soft, but it hadn’t felt right. She told herself that was ridiculous. She had slept in all kinds of strange places, and certainly a good, icy shower would wake her up and make her feel refreshed. To her surprise the water was warm, lulling rather than bracing, and she could not remember how to adjust it for cold. Anyhow, she was awake, and went to dress.

  From somewhere Peter had produced an HQ uniform for her, and she struggled into it, the long shaped tights that made her feel uncomfortably as if her legs were bare, the ridiculously low and thin shoes, the short black tunic piped with blue. His own tunic was like it, only piped with red. He had told her what the different colors meant, but she had forgotten. The tunic was so tight she could not pull it over her head, and it took her some time to figure why they had put the long fastener in the back where she had trouble reaching it, instead of in the front where it would have been sensible. Why would anyone want a dress that tight, anyhow? Cut looser, and with the press-together seam in the front, it would have been an admirable dress for a woman if she was breast-feeding a child, but this way it seemed a waste of materials—cut a few inches looser, it would have slipped over her head without needing the fastening at all. It felt rough against her skin, since no under-tunic was provided, but at least it had warm knitted neck-folds and tight sleeves. She was frowning at herself in the mirror when he came up behind her, already dressed, and took her shoulders, looking at her in the mirror and then hugging her hard.

  “You look marvelous in uniform,” he said, “Once they see you, every man in the HQ will be envying me.”

  Jaelle cringed; this was exactly what she had been taught to avoid. The dress was cut immodestly close to the curve of her breast and her narrow waist. She felt troubled, but when he turned her around and held her close, she buried her face against him, and in his arms, all the tension seemed to flow out of her. She sighed and murmured, “I wish you didn’t have to go—”

  “Mmmmmm, I do too,” he murmured, caressing her, burying his lips in her bare neck—then, abruptly, raised his eyes and stared at the chronometer on the wall.

  “Ouch! Look at the time! I told you I didn’t dare be late back, this first day,” he said, and made for the door. She felt icy cold, in spite of the hot shower, as he mumbled, “Sorry, love, I’m late, but you can find the way down alone, can’t you? I’ll see you tonight.” The door closed, and Jaelle stood alone. Still roused from his touch and his kiss, she realized that he had not even waited for the answer to his own question. She wasn’t at all sure she could get down to the office where she had been told to report this morning, in the bewildering labyrinth of the HQ.

  She stared blindly at the chronometer, trying to translate Terran time into the familiar hours of the day. It was, as nearly as she could reckon, not yet three hours after sunrise. She remembered a flippant comment of Magda’s:

  I don’t think you’ll like it much in the Terran Zone, the other woman had said. Sometimes they even make love by the clock.

  But she, too, had duties this morning. She could not stand here, staring uneasily at her image in the mirror. Nor could she imagine going among strange men, Terrans, in this immodestly tight dress. Not even a prostitute would go out in such attire! With shaking hands, she unfastened it and got into her ordinary clothes. The uniform was not warm enough, either, for the late-spring weather outside; inside the buildings, heated to almost suffocating warmth, the uniform might be sufficient, but she had to go outdoors—she stared at the little map of the HQ Peter had left her, trying to puzzle out the confusing markings.

  She found her way, shivering in the morning drizzle, to the main building and showed the pass Peter had given her. The Security man said, “Mrs. Haldane? You should have gone through the underground tunnel, in this weather,” and she looked around, seeing, indeed, no one on the elaborate walks and ramps.

  She managed to puzzle out the signs—Peter had given her a crash course in reading the most common signs, and she had been taught a little Standard, which was not really so very different from casta—she had been told once that they had descended from a common language group before Darkover was settled, that casta was similar to the most common Terran language. She felt reluctant to ask directions from any of the men and women moving around in the rabbit-warren buildings; they all seemed to look alike, in tights, tunics of varying colors and trim, low, thin sandals. She rode up and down a time or two in the elevator until she figured out how it worked. It was not complicated, once you could understand why anyone would bother. Did the Terrans suffer from a racial paralysis of the legs, or something, that they could not walk up and down stairs? She supposed it made sense when there were twenty or thirty floors to a building, but
why build it so high? They had been given enough room on the spaceport HQ to build rationally!

  There was nothing wrong with Peter’s legs, at least, she thought smiling; perhaps Terrans were just trained to be lazy.

  Outside the section Peter had marked on the map—it was marked, too, with one of those signs that spelled, she knew, the Terran word for COMMUNICATIONS—she presented herself before a man stationed there. She said, “My name is Jaelle n’ha Melora,” and proffered her pass.

  “Just go over there and present it to the screening device,” he said indifferently. She slid the pass through the slot, and the glass screen began to blink with a strange beeping sound.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  She stared helplessly at the blinking, beeping screen. “I don’t know—” she began, “they slid my pass back out at me—” and she picked it up, bewildered, from the slot.

  He glanced at it and at the screen. He frowned and said “You’re out of uniform, and the scanners don’t recognize you from the picture—see? And the name you said doesn’t match the name on the pass. Miss.” She puzzled this out to an honorific, roughly equivalent to damisela. Should she correct him? He pointed patiently to the name on the pass and said “You have to repeat the name in the form it’s on the pass. See? Haldane, Mrs. Peter. Try saying it like that.”

  She started to protest that her name was Jaelle, that it was forbidden by Oath to a Renunciate to take a man’s name, but quickly stopped herself. It was none of his business and how could she explain it to a Terran anyhow? Meekly she repeated “Haldane, Mrs. Peter,” before the screen, and the door slid back and let her in. She remembered that some of Peter’s friends last night—not the best friends—had called her Mrs. Haldane and she had had to correct them. But that was Magda’s name too, then?