“That hurt? I was afraid so,” Damon apologized. “And I can’t even clear the channels. There’s no kirian in the house, is there? You’d never be able to stand the pain, otherwise.”
This was all Greek to Andrew, but he could see the turgid, dull-red swirl which, in Callista, replaced the smooth luminous pulses he could see in Ellemir’s body.
“Don’t worry about it now,” Damon said. “It may clear itself after you’ve slept.”
Callista said faintly, “I think I could sleep better with Andrew holding me.”
Damon replied compassionately, “I know how you feel, breda, but it wouldn’t be wise. Once you have actually begun responding to him, there are two conflicting sets of reflexes trying to work at once.” He turned to Andrew, with grave emphasis. “I don’t want you to touch her, not at all, until the channels are clear again!” He added sternly to Callista, “That means both of you.”
Ellemir got into bed beside Callista, covered them both. Andrew noticed that the swirling luminous channels had faded to invisibility again and wondered how Damon had made them visible. Damon, picking up the thought, said, “No trick, I’ll show you how it’s done sometime. You have enough laran for that. Why don’t you get into Callista’s bed and try to sleep? You look as if you need it. I’m going to stay here and monitor Callista until I know she’s not going into crisis.”
Andrew lay down in Callista’s bed. It smelled, still, with the faint fragrance of her hair, the scent she always used, a delicate flowery perfume. For a time he lay awake in restless misery, thinking that he had done this to Callista. She had been right all along! He could see Damon, silent in the armchair, brooding, silent, watching over them, and it seemed for a moment that he saw Damon not as a physical being, but as a network of magnetic currents, electrical fields, a network, a crisscross of energies. At last he fell into a restless doze.
Andrew slept little that night. His head ached unendurably, and every separate nerve in his body seemed to be screaming with tension. Now and then he started awake, hearing Callista moan or cry out in her sleep, and he could not help nightmarishly reliving his failure. It was getting light outside when he saw Damon slip quietly from his chair and go toward his own room. Andrew slid out of bed and followed him. Damon, in the half-light looked exhausted and grave. “Couldn’t you sleep either, kinsman?”
“I was asleep for a while.” Andrew thought that Damon looked terrible. Damon picked up the thought and grinned wryly. “Riding all day yesterday, and all the hullabaloo last night… but I’m fairly sure she’s not going into crisis or convulsions this time, so I can slip away and get a nap.” He turned into his own half of the suite. “How do you feel?”
“I’ve got the great-granddaddy of all splitting headaches!”
“And a few other aches and pains, I should imagine,” Damon said. “Even so, you were lucky.”
Lucky! Andrew heard that, incredulous, but Damon did not explain. He went to the window and flung it wide, standing in the icy blast and looking out into the white flurry of snow. “Damn. Looks like we’re set for a blizzard. Worst thing that could possibly happen. Now, especially, with Callista—”
“Why?”
“Because, man, when it snows in the Kilghard Hills, it snows. We could be weathered in for thirty to forty days. I had hoped to send to Neskaya Tower for some kirian — I don’t think Callista’s made any yet — in case I have to clear her channels. But no man could travel in this; I couldn’t ask it.” He slumped, exhausted, on the windowsill. Andrew exclaimed, seeing the icy wind stirring his hair, “Don’t go to sleep there, damn it, you’ll get pneumonia,” and closed the casement. “Go and rest, Damon. I can look after Callista. She’s my wife, and my responsibility.”
Damon sighed. “But with Esteban disabled I’m Callie’s nearest kinsman. And I put you two in rapport under the matrix. That makes it my responsibility; by the oath I took.” He stumbled, felt Andrew catch him by the shoulder and support him upright. He said blurrily, “But I’ll have to try to sleep or I won’t be able to help if she needs me.”
Andrew steered him toward the tumbled bed, and he caught a thread of Andrew’s thought, a troubled memory, conscience-stung, that Andrew had been for a time voyeur to Damon’s lovemaking with Ellemir. Damon wondered fuzzily why that bothered Andrew, was too tired to care. He crawled into the disheveled bed. He forced himself to clarity for a moment. “Stay near the women. Let Callista sleep, but if she wakes and she’s in pain, call me.” He rolled over on his back, trying to see the Terran’s face clear before his blurring eyes. “Don’t touch Callista… damnably important… not even if she asks you to. It could be dangerous…”
“I’ll take my chances, Damon.”
“Dangerous for her,” Damon said urgently, thinking, damn it, if I can’t trust him I’ll have to go back…
Andrew, picking up the thought, said, “All right, I promise. But I want you to explain that, when you can,” and Damon said, with a weary sigh, “That’s a promise,” and let himself fall into the blankness of sleep. Andrew stood beside him, watching the drawn lines of weariness smooth into sleep, then covered his friend carefully and went away. He instructed Damon’s body-servant to let him sleep, then, on an impulse, since Ellemir was always awake so early, and it would be awkward to have someone come looking for her, he told the man to send a message to the hall-steward that they had all been awake very late and no one was to disturb them until sent for.
He went back and lay down on Callista’s bed. After a time he fell asleep again. He woke suddenly, aware that he had slept for hours. It was daylight but still dark, the snow blowing and flurrying past the windows. Callista and Ellemir were lying side by side in his bed, but as he watched, Ellemir sat .up, crawled carefully over Callista and tiptoed to his side.
“Where is Damon?”
“Sleeping, I hope.”
“Has no one sent for me?” Andrew explained what he had done, and she thanked him. “I must go dress. I will use Callista’s bath if you don’t mind, I don’t want to disturb Damon. I’ll borrow something of hers to wear too.” Moving like a shadow, she collected clothes from Callista’s wardrobe. Andrew watched with unfocused resentment — would she rather disturb Callista than Damon? — but evidently the familiar presence of her twin did not penetrate Callista’s heavy sleep.
Without volition, Andrew recalled Ellemir standing over Callista last night, naked and unconcerned about it. He supposed that if someone was used to having his or her mind completely open, physical nakedness would not mean all that much. But he found himself recalling a moment last night when it seemed that it was Ellemir in his arms, warm, willing, responding to him as Callista could not… Disquited, he turned away. Scalding heat flooded his face, and a twinge in his body reminded him painfully of last night’s fiasco. Did Ellemir know, he wondered; that he was part of her lovemaking, was she aware of him too?
Ellemir watched him for a moment with a troubled smile, then, biting her lip, went into the bath, trailing an armful of blue and white linen.
Andrew, fighting for composure, looked down at his sleeping wife. She looked pale and tired, with great dark circles like bruises under her closed eyes. She was lying on her side, one arm partly covering her face, and Andrew recalled, with surging pain, how he had seen her lying like that, in the dim light of the overworld. Prisoner in the catmen’s hands, her body in the dark caves of Corresanti, she had come to him in spirit, in sleep; bruised, bleeding, exhausted, terrified. And he could do nothing for her. His helplessness had maddened him then; now he felt again all the torment of helplessness, at her lonely ordeal.