And if it were to be much longer, she might better not return at all, for she would be too changed.
The sun had crept high and was burning through the glass. I straightened finally, -sweat dripping down my face, and said wearily, “Where are Regis and Dio — the boy and girl who came with me? Get them.”
They came in, softly, and stopped, appalled, looking down at the limp Marja. I said, despairingly, “It’s a last resort. We were in rapport with a matrix almost identical to Sharra.” When Sharra smashed, and the Gate was shut, everyone sealed to Sharra was flung into that world — except me. I had been held to this world by a power stronger still. There was a chance we could still reach Marja with a triple touch. Her body was here, and that was a powerful tie. I had fathered that body, and that was another. But she could not force her way back alone.
“Regis. Can you hold me if I go out after her?”
His eyes held momentary dread, but he did not hesitate. Dio stretched a hand to both of us and for the last time that threefold consciousness locked between us; an extension of myself which went outward, farther and farther, through spaceless, timeless distance.
Shadows flickered, cold and malign. Then something stirred there and fluttered, something twitched drowsily away from my touch; something dreaming, happy, unwilling to wake — .
Swiftly, with a harsh roughness that made Dio sob aloud, I smashed the fourfold rapport and caught Marja in my arms, with the feverish relief after deathly despair.
“Marja!” I heard my own voice, husky, broken, “Marja, precious, wake up!”
She stirred in my arms. Then her lashes fluttered and she smiled, sleepy and sweet, up at me.
“Chi’ z’voyin qui?” she murmured drowsily.
I don’t know what I said. I don’t know what I did. I suppose I behaved like any man half crazy with relief. I know I hugged her till she whimpered; then I sat down, cradling her in my lap.
She pouted, “Why is ev’body looking at me?” And, as I tried to speak through my choked throat, she complained pettishly, “I’m hungry!”
In sudden, weak reaction, I realized I hadn’t eaten for two days. I felt an almost insane relief at the chance to end this whole thing on a note, of the most ridiculous anticlimax.
“I’m hungry too, chiya” I said weakly. “Let’s all go and find you something to eat.”
“And that,” said Dio, lifting Marja easily by her little nightgown, “is the first sensible thing you’ve said since you came back to Darkover. Let’s all go and eat. Matron, will you find this child some clothes?”
Two hours later, washed and fed and clothed, we made a respectable group around Lawton’s desk in the HQ. He waved a spaceform at me.
“This just came over the relay,” he said, and read it aloud. “Abandon leads on Darkover. Katherine Marshall discovered on Samarra, slight amnesia, unharmed. Haig Marshall.”
“Allowing for the time lags in the relay,” he said grimly, “she turned up on Samarra about half an hour after I talked to her here. Times, I’m tempted to throw up this job and turn spacehand.” He looked at Regis’ white hair; at Dio; at Marja, sitting in my lap. “You owe me an explanation, Lew Alton.”
I looked back, gravely. I liked Dan Lawton. Like myself, he was a child to two worlds; but he, too, had chosen his path, and it was not mine. “Perhaps I owe you that,” I said, “but it is a debt I fear that you will never collect.”
He shrugged, tossing the spacegram form into a basket. “So I’ll always have something coming. We’ve got to talk, anyway. Darkover’s years of grace are over.”
I nodded in slow agreement. The Comyn had won against Sharra, but it had lost, too.
“I got word from GHQ; I’m to start setting up a provisional government here, under Hastur — the Regent, not the kid. Hastur’s sound, and honest, and the people trust him.”
I agreed. The Hasturs had been the strength of the Comyn for generations; Darkover would be better off without the rest of us.
“You, young Regis, will probably come after him. By the time you’re your grandfather’s age, the people will be psychologically ready to choose your own rulers. Lew Alton—”
“Count me out,” I said shortly.
“You have your choice. Exile — or staying and helping to keep things in order.”
Regis turned to me, earnestly. “Lew, the people need Darkovan leaders, too. Someone who’ll work wholly on their side. Lawton will do the best he can, but he’s been Terra’s man, all his life.”
I looked sorrowfully at the young Hastur. Perhaps that was where he belonged. Ruler, even a figurehead; working for Darkover, stemming the tides of Terra as best one man could. Perhaps I belonged at his side.
“Won’t you help me, Lew? We can do so much together!”
He was right. But all my life I had walked between two worlds, accused by each of belonging to the other. Neither would ever trust me.
“If you go, it’s for good,” Lawton warned. “Your estates will be confiscated. And you won’t be allowed to come back. We don’t want any more Kadarins!”
The words hurt, with their truth. That was the flaw in the Comyn. Misguided patriotism, self-sufficiency, the lack of some steadying balance — perhaps just the inability to see good in an enemy.
But I was Comyn. I had not asked to be born so, but I could not change. I looked away from the entreaty in Regis’ eyes. “No,” I said, “we’ll go. I only want three things. Can I have ’em?”
“Depends,” said Lawton. “I hope so.”
I took Dio’s hand. “To be married by our own people before we go,” I said quietly, “and to straighten out the adoption papers on Marja. She’s mine. But there are some mixed—”
He put out a hand to stop me. “Good God, let’s not get tangled up in those weird family relationships again! Yes, I’ll arrange it, unless—” he glanced at Rafe, but Rafe shook his head, a little regretfully.
“What could I do with a kid? It would just be the orphanage again.”
Lawton nodded. “What else?”
“A passport to clear space for four people.” Four; Andres would not care to see the Terrans take over, I thought, even though it was the only right and logical way to end the story of the Comyn.
Regis asked, “Where will you go?”
I looked at the steady courage in Dio’s eyes. I knew where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do, but could I ask it of Dio? Undecided/1 looked at her. After all, I had lands and an heritage on Terra, which I could claim, and live there at ease.
Marja wriggled on my lap, clambered down and ran to Dio. She laid her mop of curls on Dio’s shoulder, and Dio put both arms around her, and suddenly I made up my mind.
Halfway across the Galaxy there were pioneer worlds, where the name of Terra was a vague echo and Darkover a name unknown. There went all those who could find no place in the static Empire world, those who longed for a place outside the stylized universe of today.
If the Empire ever came so far, it would not be in our lifetime.
I went to Marja and Dio and circled them both with my arms.
“The farther, the better,” I said.
Lawton glanced at me. For a moment I thought he would protest. Then he changed his mind, smiled in his friendly, reserved way, and rose. Regret and farewell were in the gesture.
“I’ll arrange that, too,” he said.
Three days later we were in space.
Darkover! Bloody sun! What has become of you? My world is fair, but at sunset there are times when I remember the towers of Thendara, and the mountains I have known. An exile may “be happy, but he is an exile, no less. Darkover, farewell! You are Darkover — no more!