'You do look tired,' she said with concern. 'Let's all push over to the house and have dinner. Larak, why are you here?' 'Oh, Dad wants Afra to pinch-hit on Procyon. Those two Ts who're buffering Guzman are down with one of the local viruses and traffic is backing up. You know we have to jolly Guzzle along but he hasn't much stamina these days.

He's complained that I'm too young for such responsibility,' and Larak's grin was pure malice. 'Say, what's this alien ship of yours like? Crew or full automation for a void trek?' Hand poised over the cooking dials, Damia hesitated.

She regarded her brother with a blank expression.

'Oh, you men are all alike. Details, details!' 'Details like that may bore you, sister heart, but they fascinate me. But if you want to continue on the abstract level, let me catch such mundane details for myself.' 'You can't reach that far.' To Afra her tone was protective as well as defensive.

'Let me hop a ride with you tomorrow, then.' Larak snagged a raw vegetable stick from the crisper and seemed more interested in its taste than her agreement.

Damia hesitated, looking for support from Afra, who shrugged 'why not' as he followed Larak's example and savoured a crunchy white root with a slightly aniseed flavour. She caught no more than that from Afra's mind when she sent a swift probe. And, he was certain, no more than that from Larak's if she tried her brother. Even as close as they were, her probe was a poor imitation of her customary mental dig.

'C'mon, sis, what's to be coy for?' 'I'm not being coy!' Her temper flared in irritation, then subsided. 'It's just that just that... these are very delicate stages in establishing a rapport 'Delicate? Rapport?' Larak blurted out, staring at her as if he couldn't believe his ears. 'You're making a first contact, not a first date! That is, if it's even marginally humanoid.

'His is a true mind, brilliant, powerful,' she said haughtily.

'The form is immaterial.' 'Oh?' Larak's mobile face expressed extreme doubt.

'Never thought you'd fall for the cerebral type, Damia, not the way you've developed.' He eyed her, not as a brother, but as an interested male.

Damia reddened, half with fury and indignation, and half with a sudden virtuous embarrassment for her brother's accurate jibe.

'Ever since you and Jenna propagated a child, you've turned insufferable! Why, if I hadn't been out here, we wouldn't have been warned at all.' 'Warned?' Afra leapt on the choice of word. Perhaps she was not as completely bedazzled as they'd thought.

'Of this momentous occasion,' she went on, oblivious to the implication. 'You've touched Sodan, Afra. Don't you agree that his feat of crossing to another galaxy is momentous?' 'Yes, it is,' Afra said tactfully. 'Only a brilliant mind could accomplish such a feat.' Damia caught an undertone he wasn't quick enough to suppress. 'Oh, you! You're jealous! Jealous?' Damia eyed Afra closely, plainly struggling with this new dimension to her oldest ally.

'And you're also letting dinner burn,' Larak said, pointing to a sizzling pan.

'Don't either of you know better than to distract a cook with stupid questions?' she demanded, quickly shifting the pan. 'It's a mercy nothing is burned!' She served them, irritated that her dinner was not as perfect as usual, and the two men could think of no way to break the strained silence, especially as both had to concentrate on maintaining a convincing level of trivial surface thoughts. They hardly needed to use such a subterfuge because Damia went off into a private reverie, ignoring them completely.

Finally, Larak pushed back his plate, having finished every scrap on his plate and what was left over in the pans.

'Even with half your mind on what you're doing, sis, you're a great cook,' Larak said, wiping his mouth and sighing with repletion.

'So! This Sodan entity is clearly not a new reconnaissance device of the Deneb Beetles?' Larak looked from Damia to Afra who shook his head quickly in denial.

'No question of that,' Afra replied. 'Totally different mentality ---' he ignored Damia's snort, 'and vehicle.

There is an impression of immense distances traversed, far longer than the twenty years since the Deneb Entanglement.' Larak whistled appreciatively, as if this was news to him.

'You didn't happen to catch any details about propulsion and power which my sweet sister would not deign to notice?' 'No, actually, for there were no obvious visual images to be sensed and I was only concerned with identification.

Clearly this entity isn't a Beetle.

'Stop calling Sodan an "entity",' Damia said. 'That's rude. And he has eyes,' she added defensively. 'We've discussed the concept of sight. You must take into consideration that he is also in control of the ship, and the drain on his energies to reach me as well as manage ship function and crew is enormous. It certainly is on me.' 'Yeah.

You could do with some beauty sleep, sis,' said -Larak.

'Thanks muchly,' she said, bridling.

'Children! Cut it out!' Afra intervened out of habit.

Larak and Damia glared at each other, but the long habit --of obeying Afra held.

I'Get to bed, the pair of you,' he added. 'Snarling at each other in the worst example of sibling rivalry I've seen since you graduated from Isthia's fosterage,' and now he gave --Damia his full disapproval.

'Makes me wonder how your father dared install you as Aurigae Prime.

'If there's anything that annoys me more than Larak acting fraternal, it's you, Afra, being avuncular.' She spoke coolly, but her flare of temper had been controlled.

Afra shrugged, relieved that his diversion had worked before Larak inadvertently disclosed to Damia why he was fielding these particular queries.

'At least this avuncular entity has sense enough to go to bed when he's out on his feet,' he murmured. As he passed Larak, the boy winked.

The next morning at breakfast, no-one looked particularly rested by a night's sleep. Afra kept a surface rumble going on his mind to mask both tension and anxiety. Larak delivered a running monologue about his son's developing intelligence and Jenna's maternal charms.

Damia was also closely shielding. When the three reached the Tower, Damia took the most cursory glance at station business, noting that cargo was light and the few messages were standard communications.

'I'll take you out now, Larak, and then you'll be free to handle the afternoon despatches.' 'Fine. Dad wants Afra on Procyon as soon as I've taken over from him.

Damia hesitated, then jutted her chin out. 'I suppose you want to come along again, too,' she said, flinging the challenge at Afra who merely shrugged.

'I wouldn't mind another gawk. Fascinating mind,' Afra said casually. He was intensely grateful to whatever quirk had prompted her to make such an offer. He'd thought he'd have to surreptitiously follow Damia and Larak. With such distances to travel, he'd been nervous of losing even their combined touch.

'You two get settled. I can follow if Damia's leading,' Afra said, boosting the generators to their peak. Xexo had got the ailing one back on line, for which Afra was extremely grateful.

As Damia and Larak left the Tower for their capsules, he contacted Jeff and the Rowan to stand by, then settled into his own shell, reassured by their sustaining presence in his mind.

Is there any possible chance we're wrong about Sodan's intentions, or the depth of Damia's emotional commitment? the Rowan asked hopefully.

Less and less, Afra told her grimly. We'll know soon for certain.

Larak needled her last night. She'll have to check to make sure he's wrong about Sodan.

Then Afra touched Damia and Larak, and all three went the mere half light-year further to the ship, and Sodan.

You have rested well and are strong today, was the cool greeting after an instant's welcoming flash.

Damia instinctively covered against the discovery of her co-riders, but the greeting stuck in her mind. She could not escape the inference that Sodan was displeased with her strength, yet a tinge of relief coloured that fleck of thought.

You come nearer to physical contact with us every day, she began.

Us? Sodan queried.

My planet, my people me.

I'm only interested in you, he replied.

Damia was unable to censor from Afra and Larak the pleasure she felt in that qualification. That is between us but my people will be interested in you, she said adroitly.

There are many people on your planets? he asked.

Planet.

Doesn't your sun have several lift-supporting satellites?

That is why I must know more about your physical requirements, Sodan, Damia replied smoothly. After all, my home world may not have the proper atmosphere.

My physical needs are admirably sustained by my ship, Sodan said brusquely, with the slightest of emphasis on the second word.

It was the Rowan who caught the infinitesimal break in his shielding, and simultaneously all four minds stabbed at the gap to widen it. Sodan, torn by this powerful invasion, lashed back in self-defence with a vicious blow at Damia who, he thought, had perpetrated the onslaught.

No! No! Not I, Sodan, she shrieked. Larak, what are you doing?

Struggling frantically, Afra tried to become the focus of the other minds, only to find himself caught in Larak's mind with the Rowan and Jeff, as the curious bond between brother and sister snapped into effect.

He must be destroyed before you, Damia, the Larak-focus said, tingeing its inexorable decision with the regret it felt.

No! I love him. His mind is so brilliant, cried Damia, pitting her strength against her peers to defend her lover.

The Larak-focus staggered, unable to prosecute their attack against such a combination.

Damia, he is only a mind!

Stunned, Damia hesitated, and the Larak-focus plunged forward again, battering against Sodan's shielding.

Only mind? she gasped, begging Sodan to deny it.

Why no vision? Why no sound? He is only a brain, devoid of all except remembered emotion. He is slowly depleting your strength so that he is free to attack this system. You are its only defence. Did you never realize that? Feel the dangerous substances this ship carries? Is that customary for a peaceful exploratory expedition?

You're against me, against me. No-one wants me to be happy, cried Damia, suddenly aware, terribly aware of her loving blindness. He loves me. I love him.

If he has nothing to hide, he will reveal his reason for crossing the void, the Larak-focus said, implacably intent.

Is it truly peaceful? Or is it acquisitive? Why do we search out new worlds? Or is it because his galaxy is so depleted that he must search elsewhere for the rare metals that are required for more vessels like his?

Reassure me, Sodan, Damia pleaded, desperately, hopefully. Tell them you come in peace? To find other sentient beings, to establish friendly relations?

For what seemed an eternity, Sodan hesitated.

If I could, I would, he said softly and with honest regret.

Like a vengeful blade, her mind, freed from the infatuation which Sodan had artfully fostered and, strengthened by her righteous indignation, launched itself with the others to destroy the aggressor.

For Damia could now comprehend Sodan's purpose and knew his disembodiment.

The battle was waged in the tremendous space between two heartbeats. Sodan, his mind fortified by the exotic power of his ship, was stronger than their conservative estimates. Almost negligently, he held the Larak-focus at bay, his mind laughing at what he considered their puny efforts.

Then, the veil of her romantic illusions stripped from her perceptions, Damia increased her pressure and aligned herself with the Larak-focus. Sodan called for more power within himself. The scorching blaze that fed through Damia's resurgent and catalytic mind flashed through and stripped him bare, lashing beyond to trigger the metallic structure of the ship into instability. Involuntarily, and for a microsecond, the Larak-focus caught a glimpse of what Sodan had been.

Once, generations ago, embodied, he had breathed an alien air, propelled his curious body along alien roads; until his brain had been chosen to undertake the incredible enterprise of crossing the galactic rift.

In my fashion have I loved you, he cried to Damia as he felter reach the fuel mass. But you never really loved me, he added with intense surprise as her mind, vulnerable in the instant of that massive thrust, was open to him. And he shall not have you!

With his last strength, Sodan sent out one final mental flare just as the ship exploded.

Even as Damia felt herself blacking out from the tremendous battering, she frantically tried to deflect that shaft.

As a kingpin flattens a row of its fellows, so Sodan's blast, striking through the Larak-focus, caused a wave of mental agony to roll backwards to Aurigae where station personnel grabbed at their skulls in anguish and all four generators seized up in overload; to Earth and Callisto where T-ratings cringed in pain and on to Procyon where old Guzman's valiant heart stopped. Horrified crews found Jeff Raven and the Rowan unconscious in their Tower couches and sent for Elizara and her teams. Jeran on Deneb had certainly been aware of an incredible psionic backlash. He was hastily summoned to Earth since FT&T command devolved to him in the emergency. Jeran took time to assure himself that with sufficient rest his parents would recover, then he officially informed the Nine Star League of the event. He was requested to join, and 'port units of a Fleet squadron to Aurigae. In his turn, he sent for his grandmother, asking Isthia to bring the specialists she had trained to revive over stressed Talents. With Elizarars help, he and Isthia were able to extract gently from Jeff's taxed mind the position of the three personnel shells.

As the Fleet squadron neared the relevant spatial coordinates, Jeran and Isthia on board the flagship could 'hear' nothing. Then the ship's sensitive equipment located the three capsules.

It is possible, Isthia said, trying to be positive in the absence of any mental aura from the shells, that all three are in very deep shock. The power in Dam ia's final thrust!

Damia cannot be dead. Jeran allowed himself the luxury of believing in his grandmother's optimism. We cannot lose her! He had forced himself to accept other losses. Sodan may have been powerful but is there a T-rating in the galaxy who didn't feel her hit him?

'Ah!' Isthia gave a sharp gasp. I have them. And she signalled for Jeran and her team to assist, leaning into the ship's engines to 'port the capsules aboard.

'Damia's alive,' Jeran cried in relief, having made that his first priority. I thought I felt them all die.

'Afra lives, too, but he's very faint. Larak... and Isthia's voice faded. Why did the focus have to snap through him?

They opened Afra's capsule first, and sighed with pity at the lean form drawn up in the foetal position of complete withdrawal. Jeran thought his heart would break, remembering the vibrant man who had been as much a part of his life and learning as his parents.

'He's so badly hurt, Isthia. Can we save him?' Should we -..

:f he'll be psionically numb for the rest of his life? he asked on the tightest possible band.

Isthia raised her eyebrows in a scathing rejection of that suggestion. 'I've pulled minds back from worse than this, Jeran Gwyn-Raven. Move aside.' With a touch skilled and delicate, she put her hands on Afra's temples. Jeran saw her eyes cloud with anxiety.

She sighed, for a brief moment depressed by her examination. His dominant desire is death. Which is so totally unlike Afra that I shall ignore it. I don't intend that he should succumb to death right now.

However, his life force is critically low and must be carefully revived.' She gave rapid mental orders to the medics standing by so that, within seconds, Afra was receiving emergency injections and two highly skilled metamorphic practitioners began the routines that had once restored her son, Jeff, from a nadir that bordered extinction.

Afra'll need some subtle encouragements, Jeran, to overcome that death wish. Divorce your emotions, Isthia told him sharply. Put your fingers over mine. Help me reach him.

We have to reverse that wish before it succeeds.

Jeran gave himself a stern shake and, holding his breath, placed his fingers lightly over Isthia's at Afra's temples.

He let his mind be guided by hers in the gentlest of probes, ignoring the mental anguish they experienced at having to touch so torn a mind. Uppermost was the thought that both Larak and Afra had shared: Sodan striking at them and Damia, exhausted, trying to block his final shaft.

He'll kill her! He'll kill her! was the repeated cry of terror, a curious melding of both Larak and Afra, swirling in the pain of Afra's mind. No, Damia! Don't try! I waited too long. No, Damia!

You'll be killed. You mustn't. Why did I wait so long? Too long.

No, Damia. Don't try... and the sequence was repeated.

Damia lives! Damia lives! Isthia accepted the fact that Afra would not care to live if he thought Damia was dead. But she was alive and he must be convinced of this'.

She urged Jeran to reinforce her message. He provided a baritone level to her soprano chant. Damia lives. Damia lives, Afra. Damia lives!

Damia lives? Damia lives, Damia lives. The response was the merest whisper of hope from an overtaxed psyche.

Isthia caught Jeran's eyes, hope widening hers.

Yes, that's exactly what he needed to know. Let's reinforce it.

Together they repeated their encouraging litany. Afra, Damia lives.

She rests. She waits for you. Damia lives, Afra.

She waits for you.

Sleep, Afra, Isthia added then with the most delicate urgency.

Sleep and rest. Damia lives.

Damia lives? Damia lives? Damia lives!

With a shudder, Afra's subconscious finally accepted that reassurance. His body relaxed from its foetal curl.

For one terrifying moment, he was absolutely still. Gasping, Isthia dipped way down into the suddenly tranquil mind before she realized that Afra had merely slipped into deep sleep.

'He's badly hurt, Isthia admitted sadly as they watched the medics wheel Afra away to a tightly shielded room where no mental noise could intrude. 'But he'll live.' Jeran did not try to read whatever reservations she might entertain.

They opened Damia's capsule together. She lay on her side, looking very young, but there were marks that showed the effects of that meeting of minds. She had bitten through her lower lip; a trickle of blood had made a scarlet line across her cheek. Her face was streaked with tears. Her fingernails had cut into her palms when she had clenched her fists. Her closed eyes looked bruised by deep and dark circles.

With great compassion, Isthia turned the girl on to her back and laid both hands lightly on Damia's temples.

I can't reach them. I can't get there in time. I hurt. I've got to try. I burn. Oh, will I lose them both? Isthia could hear the words, a faint loop of thought in the deepest recesses of a scorched and overstretched mind.

With a sigh of relief, Isthia straightened.

She's badly burned? Jeran asked anxiously, having waited outside Isthia's contact but aware it had been made.

Scorched, overstretched right now, and deeply hurt. Damia '5

been reduced, Isthia remarked ruefully, in the terrible way that only the very bright and very confident can be diminished.

Diminished? Jeran was both Prime and brother at that moment.

In pride and self-confidence, Isthia qualified with a sad smile.

Her Talent is far too robust to suffer any permanent effect. Her ego, however, will. She'll never forget that she underestimated Soda n's potential danger because she became infatuated with her perception of him.

For all of that, if she hadn't touched him first, where would we be with such a menace zeroing in from space?

That's the Prime in you speaking, Isthia said, but her tone was complimentary. Although let's hope that eventually Damia can see this incident from that perspective. Right now she'll grieve terribly because her lapse in judgement caused Larak's death and has seriously injured Afra.

But, Isthia, once the attack on Sodan began, nothing could have saved Larak as focus-mind. Death is far kinder than being burned out.

She's not to blame for that.

Isthia shook her head sadly. She'll never see it that way.

But I devoutly hope that it never occurs to her that, in the final moment, instinct overrode reason and it was Afra she struggled to save.

Afra? What the hell? Jeran stared at her blankly before he followed her thought to its conclusion. Sodan tried to kill Afra?

Wasn't he aiming at the entire focus?

Not from what I gathered from Jeff and Rowan.

Isthia signalled to the medics to administer deep-sleep drugs and intravenous nourishment to Damia.

With great reluctance then, they turned to Larak's shell.

Because they had to, they opened it and saw with some little relief that there was no mark of the violence of his death on the young face. A curiously surprised smile lingered on his lips.

Isthia turned away in tears and Jeran, too numbed by the total tragedy to display his own sorrow, put his arm around her to lead her away.

'Prime,' the captain of the ship said respectfully when they entered the control room, 'we have located the debris of the alien ship. Permission to recover the fragments?' 'Permission granted.

Isthia and I will return to the Tower. Signal when you're ready to be 'ported, Captain.' 'Very good, sir,' the captain said and stiffened to a rigid attention. The unashamed tears in his eyes and his very crisp salute expressed wordlessly his pride, his sympathy and his sorrow.

Struggling against a will determined to keep her asleep, Damia fought her way to semi-consciousness.

'I can't keep her under. She's resisting,' a remote voice rang in peals.

As distant as the sound was, like a far echo in a subterranean cavern, each syllable fell like a hammer on her exposed nerves.

Sobbing, Damia struggled for consciousness, sanity, and a release from this agony. She couldn't seem to trigger the reflexes that would divert pain, and an effort to call Afra to help her met with not only the resistance of increased agony but a vast blackness. Her mind was as stiff as iron, holding each thought firmly to it as though magnetized in place.

'Damia, do not reach. Do not use your mind,' a gentle voice said in her ear. She recognized the voice as Isthia's and her grandmother's presence restored her wavering sanity. She felt the touch of Isthia's cool capable hands on her forehead.

Damia opened her eyes and tried to focus on the face above her.

With trembling, weak hands she pressed Isthia's fingers against her temples in an unconscious plea for relief of pain.

'What happened? Why can't I control my mind?' Damia cried, tears of weakness streaming down her face.

'You rather stretched yourself, destroying Sodan,' Isthia said.

'But you did get him, you know.' 'I can't remember,' Damia groaned, blinking away tears so she could at least see clearly.

'Every rating in FT&T does.' 'Oh, my head. It's all blank and there's something I've got to do, Isthia.' Damia tried to rise but, though Isthia exerted little pressure, she sank weakly back into the bed. 'I've got something I must do only I can't remember what it is.' 'You did do what you must, dear, I assure you. But you've suffered a tremendous trauma, and you must rest,' Isthia said, her voice in the croon that had soothed Damia as a rebellious child. Cool hands stroked her face and she welcomed the relief for her skin felt so hot and hard.

Each caress seemed to lessen the terrible pain inside her skull.

'I'm putting you back to sleep now, love,' and Damia felt the coolness of an injection pop into her arm. 'We're very proud of you but you must sleep. Only sleep can heal your mind.' "Great nature's second course, that knits the ravelled sleeve of care." What's knitting, Isthia? I've never known.' Even Damia recognized that she was babbling as the cool scalliony taste in her throat heralded the spread of the drug.

Again, after what seemed no passage of time at all, Damia was inexorably forced to consciousness by her indefinably relentless need.

'I can't understand it,' came Isthia's voice. This time it did not reverberate across Damia's pained mind like tympani in a closet.

'That last dose was enough to put a city to sleep.' 'She's worrying at something and probably won't rest until she's resolved it.

Let's wake her up and find out.' The second voice was masculine and sounded vaguely familiar, also vaguely annoyed. With a grateful smile, she labelled it 'Dad'. She felt her face gently slapped and, opening her eyes, saw her father's face swimming out of an indistinct background.

'Dad,' she pleaded, not because he had slapped her but because she had to make him understand.

'Dear Damia,' he said with such loving pride that she almost lost the tenuous thought she tried to hold.

Her body strained with the effort to reach out only a few inches a mind that once had blithely coursed light-years, but she soon managed to communicate her crime.

Larak and Afra! They were ahead of me in the focus. I killed them when I had to destroy Sodan. I must have killed them because I'm still alive!

Behind Jeff she heard her mother's cry and Isthia's exclamation.

'No, no,' Jeff said gently, shaking his head. He placed her hands on his forehead to let her feel the honesty of his denial. 'You're not at fault, dear Damia. Yes, you drew power through the Larak-focus to destroy Sodan and succeeded. Only you were capable of such a magnificent thrust! Furthermore, without you to throw us into high gear, Sodan could have destroyed every Prime in FT&T.

And that's the truth your mother will verify.' Damia heard the Rowan murmur affirmatively.

'But I can't hear anything right now,' and in spite of herself, Damia felt her chin quiver and tears of pure terror welled out of her eyes. 'Have I lost my mind?' to 'Of course you haven't,' and the elbowed Jeff her hair back from her flushed and tear-stained face.

'You saved us, you know. You really did.' Isthia moved the Rowan gently but firmly to one side.

'You must go knit some more sleeves of ravelled care, Damia,' Isthia said with therapeutic asperity. 'You knit like this,' and she inserted a visual demonstration of the technique of knitting into Damia's mind. It was an adroit gambit, designed to fragment concentration but Damia saw it for the evasion it was.

'I must be told all that happened, she demanded imperiously. A wisp of memory nagged at her and she caught it. 'I remember. Sodan made one last thrust at us. She closed her eyes against that recall, remembering too, that she had tried to intercept it and, 'Larak died,' she said in a flat voice. 'And Afra. I couldn't shield in time.' 'Afra lives,' the Rowan said in a steady voice.

'But Larak doesn't. Why Larak?' Damia demanded, desperately striving to uncover what she felt they were still hiding from her.

'Your brother was the focus, Damia,' the Rowan said softly, knowing, too, that Damia would never absolve herself of Larak's death.

'Afra was supposed to be the focus, being the experienced mind, but the old bond between you and Larak snapped into effect. You tried to shield Larak but he couldn't draw sufficient help from you. Your father and I also tried to support him but he was the focus. Without you to help, we couldn't even have cushioned Afra in time. Sodan's was truly a powerful mentality.' Damia looked from her mother's face to her father's and knew that they spoke the truth. But a reservation hovered in their eyes and their manner.

'You haven't told me everything,' she said, fighting both immense fatigue and the drugs.

'All right, sceptic,' Jeff said, lifting her into his arms.

'Though there's nothing wrong with your hearing so why it hasn't been assailed by his snores, I do not know.

Everyone else is using ear plugs,' he added as he carried her down a dim hall.

Pausing at an open door, he swung her so she could see into the room. A night light hung over the bed, illuminating Afra's quiet face, deeply lined with fatigue and pain.

Denying even the physical evidence, Damia reached out, touching just enough for reassurance the distressed mental rumble that meant Afra inhabited his body.

'Damia! Don't do that!' Jeff roared, hurting more than her ears as he bore her back down the hall to her room.

'I won't again but I had to,' she sobbed, her head ballooning with agony.

'And we'll make sure you don't until your mind is completely healed. Out you go, missy,' and she was powerless against the three minds that reinstated the welcome oblivion of sleep.

An insistent whisper nibbled at the corners of her awareness and roused Damia from restorative sleep. Cringing in anticipation of the return of pain, she was mildly surprised to feel only the faintest discomfort. Experimentally, Damia pushed a depressant on the ache and that, too, disappeared.

Unutterably pleased by her success, she sat up in bed.

It was night and the gentle breeze wafted scents which she recognized as Denebian. She stretched until a cramp caught her in the side.

Heavens, hasn't anyone moved me in months? she asked herself, noting that her mental tone was firm. She lay back in bed, deliberating. Poor Damia, she said in a self-derisive tone, ever since that encounter with that dreadful alien mind, she's been nothing but a T4. T-9? T-3? Damia tried out the different ratings for size and then discarded them all, along with her melodrama. You idiot. You'll never know till you try.

Tentatively, without apparent effort, she reached out and counted the pulses of another - no, two other sleepers. Afra's was the faint one. But, Damia realized in calm triumph, it was there. Which brought her up sharp against the second fact.

She slid from her bed to stand by the window. Sometime during her last deep slumber, she - and Afra - had been moved to Deneb, to her grandmother's forest retreat. This room looked out on to the back of the clearing in which the house stood. Beyond the lawn of ever grass, beyond the bank of the ttn, - where the forest began her the trail led And stopped when she saw the white oblong. Instinct told her that Larak was buried there and the thought of Larak buried and his touch forever gone broke her. She wept, biting her knuckles and pressing her arms tightly into her ribs to muffle the sound of her mourning.

Out of the night, out of the stillness, the whisper that had roused her tugged at her again. She stifled her tears to listen, trying to identify that sliver of sound. It faded before she caught it.

Resolutely now, she laid her sorrow gently in the deepest part of her soul, a part of her but apart for ever. No matter what Jeff and the Rowan said, she had caused Larak's death, and maimed Afra. Had she been less preoccupied, less self-centred, she would not have been dazzled by the fancy that Sodan was her Prince Charming, her knight in cylindrical armour.

Such a spoiled child she'd been: egotistical, arrogant, proud, making demands she had no right to request, wanting privileges she had not earned, rewards she was too immature to appreciate The whisper again, fainter but somehow surer. With a startled cry of joy, Damia whirled from her room, running on light feet down the hall. Catching at the door frame to break her headlong flight, she hesitated on the threshold.

She caught her breath as she realized that Afra was sitting up.

He was looking at her with a smile of disbelief on his face.

'You've been calling me,' she whispered, half questioning, half-stating.

'In a lame-brained way,' he replied with a wry half-smile.

'I can't seem to reach beyond the edge of the bed.' 'Don't try.

It hurts,' she said quickly, stepping into the room to pause shyly at the foot of the bed.

Afra grimaced, rubbing his temples. 'I know it hurts but I can't seem to find any balance in my skull,' he confessed, his voice uneven, worried. 'Even as a child, I always had that.' 'May I?' she asked formally, unexpectedly timid with him.

Closing his eyes, Afra nodded.

Sitting down as if her slender frame might jar the bed, Damia lightly laid her fingertips to his temples, and touched his mind as delicately as she knew how. Afra stiffened with pain and Damia quickly established a block, regardless of the cost to her own recent recovery.

She drew away the pain, laying in the tenderer areas a healing mental anaesthesia. Jealously, she noticed someone else had been tending the damage.

Isthia... has... a... delicate... touch, too. He sent the thought with deliberate and slow care.

'Oh, Afra,' Damia cried for the agony the simple phrase cost him.

'You aren't burned out. You're no lame-brain either. As if!

would let you be. You'll be just as strong as ever. I'll help.' Afra leaned forward, his face close to hers, his yellow eyes blazing.

'You'll help?' he asked in a low intense voice as he searched her face. 'How, Damia?' Her fingers plucking shyly and nervously at his blanket, Damia could not look away from an Afra who had altered disturbingly. Damia tried to fathom the startling change in this familiar figure. Unable to resort to a mental touch, she saw afra for the first time with only physical sight. And he was suddenly very different. Very masculine! That was it.

Mi at once, Afra appeared startlingly male to her.

She was appalled to think that she had blundered about so, looking for a mind that was superior to hers: a mind that demanded her respect and admiration, that could lead hers, and support her with sure understanding and empathy. And that mind had always been available!

Every time she had needed it - on Deneb, on Callisto, everywhere she'd ever been. Only she hadn't looked for it.

'Damia? Speechless?' Afra teased her, his smooth tenor voice tender.

She nodded violently as she felt his warm fingers closing around her nervously plucking hand. Immediately she experienced a profoundly sensual empathy.

'Why, you wanted me even then, on Callisto, when you denied me?

Didn't you? You just waited - and waited... Whatever for?

I've always needed you, Afra!

Always! Why do you think I've been so lonely?' The words burst from her.

With a low triumphant laugh, Afra pulled her into his arms, cradling her body against his and settling her head against his shoulder.

'Familiarity breeds contempt?' he asked, mocking her gently with her own words 'And how could you - a T-3... manage to mask she went on, fuelling her indignation.

'Familiarity also bred certain skills, Damia.' And he chuckled, holding her firmly despite her half-hearted attempt to struggle free.

But he was physically stronger than she imagined, delighted by that as well.

'You and that aloof attitude of yours. When you wouldn't take me on Callisto I was sure it was Mother-' 'Your mother was no more for me than Sodan was for you,' Afra said, his eyes stern as she stared up at him, shaken by his harsh tone.

His expression altered again, his arms tightened convulsively as he bent his head and kissed her with an urgent, lusty eagerness.

'Sodan may have loved you, in his fashion, Damia,' Afra's voice said in her ear, 'but mine will be far more satisfying for you.

Trembling, Damia opened her mind to Afra without a single reservation.

Their lips met again as Afra held her tightly in what shortly became far more than a mere meeting of minds.

3" Damia roused the morning, aware first of having slept very deeply. Then of feeling unusually refreshed, relaxed and self-satisfied. Having established those states, she was abruptly aware of what had transpired the previous night.

And sat up in the bed Curled on his side and still sound asleep was Afra, his long arms dangling over the edge of the bed. She couldn't see his face but she gave him just the briefest mental touch and sighed with relief: his mind-tone had noticeably improved overnight.

That can be a fringe benefit of loving, you know, said Isthia in a whispery mental voice.

Grandmother! Even as Damia bridled at Isthia's amused observation, she also noted that receipt of the carefully tendered message caused her mind no pain.

I would have had to be mute or dead not to hear the way you two were vibrating. Isthia kept her 'voice' quiet but Damia could not miss the amused quality of it.

The two of us? Then Afra's able to 'path?

Well, let's just say that there are certain emotions that broadcast in spite of themselves. Just let him find his own balance.

Isthia appeared in the doorway, a cup in each hand.

Entering the room quietly, she gave Damia one cup and then went to the other side of the bed, to scrutinize Afra's sleeping face. Damia bristled possessively Down, girl, Isthia said with an ironic smile, I'm on your side. Afra has been special to me, too, for vastly different reasons.

Damia wanted to discover them but Isthia waggled a finger at her the moment she felt Damia's pressure.

Don't, Damia. Enough that I'm on your side.

Damia tried a different tack. What did you mean then?

Let him find his own balance?

Isthia's expression became rueful. I couldn't help overhearing your very creditable offer to him last night. But that won't be needed. Nor any notion of yours to sacrifice yourself to restore him.

Now, now, don't hackle at me. Professionally, I've every reason to believe that he'll make a full recovery, given time and plenty of quiet. That's one reason I convinced your parents to let me bring you both here to Deneb. Callisto's far too frenetic a place for mental convalescents.

Any Tower would be, Damia thought, and sipped at the hot brew, eyeing her grandmother speculatively Then what did you mean - you're on my side?

Isthia regarded her with exaggerated incredulity. You mean, you think you can jump from mooning over that Sodan character to a liaison with Afra and not expect repercussions?

It's NOT a liaison. It's a bonding! Damia said in an unequivocal tone. You should know that Isthia held up one hand in rebuke. I closed my mind when I realized which way your... ah suddenly discovered rapport was heading. I do practise discretion as well as metamorphics, you know.

Mother will object. Damia gritted her teeth. During last night's passionate consummation, she certainly had had no time to consider 'repercussions' Well, she has had Afra's support for many years and she'll be annoyed at having to replace him but I suspect you'll find that your father might have more cogent objections.

Dad? Why should he mind? He's far more likely to suggest that Afra will be just the stabilizing influence I need!

Possibly.

Damia frowned, regarding her grandmother with apprehension.

Isthia had a habit of predicting reactions.

How could they object to Afra? They both know him so well.

And he's a T-3.

He's also nearly a quarter of a century your senior.

Don't put it like that, Isthia. It's not as if age makes that much difference for Talents! Damia was openly scornful. I know Mother won't like it.

Isthia perched on the low chest, sipping her drink.

Nonsense, although you may hear words like 'backlash', 'martyrdom', 'self sacrifice', 'compensation'. You'll improve your position if your attitude towards him is devoid of guilt or the least tinge of reparation for the Sodan disaster.

Damia flinched, hunching against the pain of that reminder.

Sorry, love, Isthia shot back in sincere apology.

Do they hate me? For not saving Larak?

Slipping off the chest, Isthia embraced Damia in tender, loving arms. No, love. No-one hates or blames you for that.

Nothing could have saved Larak. Unfortunately!

I will never, never, NEVER, let anyone else be focus!

Damia said resolutely.

The focus-mind is always at risk in a merge, Damia love, and never is a long time. Don't store guilt for future use.

Afra stirred and Isthia rose to her feet.

Get him out of that bed and to my kitchen table. He hasn't eaten properly since we got him here. And you've both got to start moving about on your own. Now mind, no mental games until I give the go-ahead! Isthia stood, but her piercing gaze and stern face stressed that prohibition, and the force of the tone she used, no longer a whisper, set Damia's mind to throbbing: the clearest possible demonstration of her invalid state. Then her whisper returned. I shouldn't even be talking to you like this now, but you're able for short distances and I wanted to clear the air privately, she added as she left the room then.

Mulling over what Isthia had said, Damia watched as her lover restlessly turned on to his back, and flailed an arm against her. That woke him and he shot upright in the bed, anxious eyes seeking hers, a hesitant, shy smile on the lips that had tantalized her the night before. She found herself blushing and evaded his gaze. Giving herself a stern shake, she lifted her head and met his eyes.

Damia blushing? he teased her, lifting his hand to caress her cheek in a lingering fashion.

'You're not supposed to 'path, Afra,' she scolded, more because his 'tone' was so weak compared to the mental touch he had always projected.

His expression altered subtly and his hand dropped to her bare shoulder.

My love, I will do what I can with what I have, and his tone chided her. And what I have is much better this morning, thank you.

'Thank you!' he added aloud and, tilting his head, kissed her pursed lips.

The intimate touch was shatteringly electric and once again swept away any half-formed resolution of circumspect behaviour while Isthia was in range.

Hold breakfast, she managed to convey to Isthia on a tight thought.

Was that Afra's soft chuckle for her willing compliance in her mind or Isthia's for their delay?

'Actually, it's lunch,' Isthia said blandly when they finally did appear in the kitchen. It was a very pleasant room, south-facing, with windows that opened on to the front with a view of the lane that wound through the forestry to the major link road with Deneb City. Isthia preferred to know who was approaching her retreat so that she could take evasive action if necessary. When she had begun a profound enquiry into metamorphic treatments, she had needed such a refuge. She had no neighbours nearer than sixty kilometres and that family had absolutely no Talent.

With the courtesy that was second nature to him, Afra settled Damia into a chair at the long table that was work-space as well as dining surface. Then, turning his chair around he sat, his arms crossed on its back. He didn't appear to be watching Isthia intently but Damia knew that he was. Of Isthia's earlier observations, Damia had only told him that Isthia had said she was on their side.

One of his eyebrows had quirked slightly and his lips had twitched but he didn't make any further comment. With Isthia's emphatic ban on 'pathing, Damia did not try to 'hear' what thoughts had crossed his mind.

As Isthia served them coffee, she wondered how her mother and father handled that intimate aspect of their life together. She knew they always kept a light touch but, in each other's minds constantly?

Of course, right now, even the most delicate link could exacerbate.

But she could watch him, learn every subtle nuance of his body language: had Afra always had such an expressive face? Droll, humorous, pensive, observant? Though he was listening to Isthia, he winked at her, 'I think you two are now able to handle your own convalescence,' Isthia was saying, ladling one of her hearty soups into bowls. She brusquely waved Damia back into her chair when she started to rise and help.

'I've laid in plenty of supplies. Damia, you are not to "reach" for anything yet. Use the communit,' and she grinned as she pointed to the unobtrusive set in one corner of the big room. 'Prosaic, I know, and nowhere near as swift as "lifting" something but, if I feel either of you "lifting" anything, I'll slap you back into deep sleep again.

Your minds have to rest to recuperate, have to be free of even the pulse of other minds. You won't be bothered by casual visitors because this place is known to be off-limits and I've made it plain that I'll flay anyone who disturbs you. Anything you should require,' and her tone suggested that she'd be surprised if she hadn't anticipated every need, 'can be delivered.' Afra nodded, glancing at Damia to be sure she was as obedient. 'What I don't know is how long we'll be convalescing.

I have absolutely no idea how much time has already elapsed.

Damia winced at even that tactful reference and, her appetite abruptly disappearing, she put down her spoon.

Isthia gave one of her evasive sniffs. 'Sleep,' and she bent a stern look on both Damia and Afra, 'was the best remedy. You've been kept quiescent - when we could-' and there was an element of exasperation in her manner as she pinned Damia with her stare, 'for sixteen days.' 'Oh!' Isthia laid a comforting hand on Damia's head as she put her own bowl on the table and sat down beside her granddaughter.

Afra gave an odd chuckle. 'No wonder my legs are rubbery.' Isthia gave one of her sniffs. 'A great wonder you've been able for anything!' He refused to rise to the jibe.

'Mother and Dad?' Damia asked anxiously, irritated that it was only now that she thought to enquire.

'I kept them asleep for four days. You deflected a lot of that final thrust, Damia, and saved them from the worst of it. Believe me, you did,' Isthia added when Damia seemed to droop further, remembering who she hadn't been able to save.

'Who ran FT&T then?' Afra asked in a brisk tone.

'Jeran?' Isthia nodded. 'With Cera. They made a formidable team.' Afra chuckled. 'I expect they did. So long as they didn't noticeably improve on what Rowan and Jeff can do.' 'Some detractors,' Isthia said with a snort of disapproval, 'feel that the Gwyn-Ravens have far too much power in FT&T chain of command.' 'Then let them breed up their own Prime Talents,' Afra replied abruptly. 'Meanwhile, they should be immensely grateful that Jeffs planned for every contingency.

Who's working Callisto with the Rowan? Gollee?' When Isthia nodded, he shrugged. 'In that case, I have no need to hurry back.

Frankly, this will be the first proper holiday I've had, bar the occasional weekend, since I had the gall to apply to the Rowan twenty-eight years ago.

Damia stared at him, appalled. 'Twenty-eight?' Afra regarded her levelly. 'That's right, love. That's how long I've been Towered. Not that I minded, for I'd nothing else to do with my spare time.' 'Nothing?' asked Isthia sardonically 'Nothing,' he said, giving her the same level regard, 'that mattered. Unlike you dilettantes, we Tower folk become dedicated-' 'I'd call it enslaved,' Isthia said with a sour look.

'Inseparable from the needs and deeds of our particular Tower.

'Who's managing Aurigae?' Damia asked in a guilty panic.

Isthia chuckled, her eyes sparkling. 'They're going to appreciate you when you return, Damia!' 'They do want me back? I will go back?' She hadn't quite dared to ask yet.

'Since they have to tailor their exports to the abilities of a young T-4

'Who?' Damia was abruptly jealous of anyone taking over her Tower, however briefly.

'Oh, Capella lent a promising trainee: your oldest nephew, I believe, Afra; your sister Goswina's son 'Veswind?' Afra was mildly surprised. 'Yes, I suppose he is old enough for responsibility.

Gossie would be pleased. I wonder she never mentioned it.' 'They wouldn't, would they?' Isthia said in a mildly barbed voice.

'No, come to think of it,' Afra replied and broke off a piece of bread to soak up the soup juices at the bottom of his bowl.

'How soon?' Damia asked Isthia.

'How soon what?' 'How soon can I go back to work?' Eyebrows raised quizzically, Isthia favoured her granddaughter with a very long and piercing look. Then sent a mental probe that made Damia gasp with pain.

'When you no longer have that sort of reaction, my dear. I repeat, since you have a hard time absorbing the information, you'll both recover, and with no reduction in potential. But it will take time, peace, quiet and no messing about.' Isthia waggled a finger first at her granddaughter.

'Have I made myself plain?' Damia swallowed, her head throbbing.

'Completely.' Immediately she felt a kinder touch and the throbbing was reduced to a minor ache.

'Have I made myself plain to you, too, Afra?' Isthia now turned on Afra who had gone slightly paler. 'Yes, I see I have. Now, will you both stop worrying about the galaxy and eat my nourishing soup? You need to reintroduce your abused stomachs to real food instead of nutrient sprays. I've prepared a diet sheet which,' and again she pinned them with her forceful stare, 'you will both follow assiduously.' When they nodded meekly, she went on.

'I'll leave tomorrow since a third party is unnecessary or should be. You certainly are adult enough, Afra, as well as old enough to admit, and yield, to your current physical and mental disabilities.' She gave a sniff. 'And to bore each other in close proximity. Nothing like that to demonstrate compatibility.' 'Grandmother!' Damia cried in protest for she knew that Afra and she were already bonded.

'Damia, stop doodling and start eating. You'll have more soup, Afra,' she said in one of her quick shifts of mood.

'When you've finished, I suggest that a gentle walk about the cabin will be about all the physical activity you'll be able for today.

THEN,' and she shook a stern finger at each, 'you will rest in the porch hammocks so I'm sure that you are resting.' 'No quarrel there,' Afra said with a droll grin of apology to Damia.

'Hear me, Damia? Give him a chance to regain his strength!' 'Grandmother!' 'Don't grandmother me, young woman. Learn the joys of anticipation!' A slight shake of Afra's head cooled Damia's heated response. And the warm look in his yellowy eyes promised her that he'd make it all up to her later.

'It is peaceful here,' Afra said as he and Damia obediently took their stroll. He had linked his warm long fingers in hers and such tactile contact was unusually reassuring, and curiously satisfying.

Almost as good as the now forbidden mental link would be.

Especially since the touch-sense of Afra had taken on an added dimension - no longer merely cool-green-comfortable-secure: a vibrancy threaded through the cool-green, and 'comfortable' had definitely lazy-sensual elements, while 'secure' had intensified into a deeply rooted foundation that could never be attacked Occasionally Afra's long thigh brushed against her leg, and their bodies swayed together, to touch at the hip, while her shoulder often encountered his arm.

Damia took in little of their surroundings during that slow saunter: she just revelled in the purely physical contact with a subtly altered Afra. She still couldn't believe her stupidity. But then, Afra'd always been part of her life: how could she have known he'd assume such a vital role in the rest of her life? She refused to consider problems. Nothing must mar this tranquil moment.

They rounded the corner of the cabin and made for the short flight of stairs to the veranda where two hammocks swung idly in the afternoon breeze. The few stairs put an unexpected strain on her thighs. She thought of the big daddies she had once so effortlessly transported.

Well, she'd do them again! She was even panting a bit when they reached the porch. So was Afra so she didn't feel quite so decrepit.

But this was a splendid spot for napping, shaded as it was from the direct rays of the sun.

Afra held the cords of one hammock while she eased herself into it. Then he bent and, at the last moment, altered his target and kissed the side of her neck.

'Your mouth, love, is far too inviting,' he said with a low laugh and set her hammock to rocking.

'Why are the swings set so far apart? I want to keep in touch,' she complained, extending her arm as far as it would go towards him.

He laughed as he settled himself and, with one quick push, set his hammock into a gentle swing.

'We're to rest, remember, love? And since I want nothing more than to be rested ---' and he laughed softly, suggestively, 'I'll obey.' Surprising her, Afra began to hum a melody she faintly recognized. And hearing it, she fell asleep.

Afra almost botched his attempt to invoke that old preconditioning: in the first place, he couldn't sing and laugh at the same time and then, when Damia's breathing obediently slowed to a sleep rhythm, he was both surprised and gratified that that old trigger still worked.

He let the lullaby die away, watching Damia's face which still showed the marks of her ordeal and grief. He hadn't liked to see her so painfully thin, either, but Isthia's threatened diet ought to repair that damage. He wished he could restore her as easily as he had put her to sleep.

He sighed, and clasped his hands behind his head, shifting his gaze to the cabin's incredibly serene setting. Gradually he became aware of discrete sounds; Isthia moving about inside; insect and bird song drifting from the trees; the soughing of the breeze. He was also calm within himself for the first time in years: perhaps, he amended, in his adult life. Certainly since Damia's ripening sexuality had stunned him - what was it, only seven years ago?

Last night had been completely unexpected: a boon he could never have anticipated - a boon which might yet cause him more anguish than he had already endured.

And yet, this time Afra Lyon had no intention of standing patiently by and permitting Damia's incredible gift of love to be wrenched from his grasp.

Hadn't she come to him of her own volition? Seen him with eyes no longer clouded by old perceptions and the anathema of 'familiarity'?

And her dear nonsense about sharing her mental strength with him?

Well, he'd just see if that was ever needed! How devoutly he hoped that Isthia's prognosis was correct! Keeping up with Damia would require Afra Lyon in top form.

On the other hand, Damia might have turned to him as an anodyne to the devastating experience of misjudging Sodan, and Larak's loss. They had been so close, those two. Had she turned to her oldest and most trusted friend only for solace? No, Afra told himself, he had not misjudged the look on Damia's face, the amazement in her eyes as she had really looked at him, Afra Lyon, the way her hands had caressed him were revelations for them both. She had undergone a shift, a realignment of senses, a translation of preconceptions that had been far-reaching.

That he had shifted from old family friend to potential lover years before was immaterial: in her eyes, she herself had made the final adjustment to accepting the steadfast and silent love he had for her.

Afra smiled wryly. He had stunned Damia with his mention of twenty-eight Towered years. But his love had to face the fact that he was twenty-four years her senior. Rowan would mention it and possibly Jeff. He did wonder how they were going to receive the news. He could hear the Rowan roaring - she'd have to break in a new assistant unless she could persuade Gollee to stay. Or install Veswind?

Would she be willing for another from the Lyon line?

Afra smiled again as he remembered how often Jeff had teased him about starting his own family. Jeff had never had Damia in mind for Afra's mate but would he really object? Damia was younger by over two decades but how much could that matter?

Especially now that Damia had gone through such a tempering and maturing crisis. Afra saw it in the lingering sadness in her eyes, heard it in her subtly altered voice, felt it in her abandoned response to their impassioned consummation. He wished she had not been subjected to such a harsh, unforgiving, sacrificial rite of passage.

He could have wished it had been easier on her - but surely both Rowan and Jeff would recognize her new maturity. Afra shifted restlessly, his thoughts turning to the unexpected victim. Dear, dear Larak! That vibrant, amiable, loving boy, gone in a flash of alien anger. Afra forced himself to face that hideous moment, if only to defuse the emotional burden, but his mind refused to focus. In fact, it hurt - Afra, came Isthia's admonition, don't think about that yet.

You can't alter what has happened He didn't try to reach her telepathically, just let his reply sit in his public mind. I must, however, confront what did happen and sort it out for peace of mind.

Not now, not today or for several weeks to come, Isthia replied, and what she did next, Afra never knew, but sleep overcame him. To achieve the restoration of her patients, Isthia wouldn't cavil at planting a few irresistible suggestions of her own.

'Tomorrow you can catch your own,' Isthia told them as she served them a dinner of fish, tiny vegetables and a salad of mixed greens, 'and scavenge your greens from my garden. I ask only that you eat everything you catch and pick. You know the drill on Deneb, Damia.' 'Waste not, want not,' Damia dutifully chanted as the delectable odour of the pan-fried fish made her mouth water. 'Fish is brain food, Afra,' she added pedantically.

'High protein, low fat. Is there a limit on a day's catch?' Isthia snorted. 'Of course not. I stocked the lake myself so it's not part of the official resources.' Damia leaned across the table to Afra, her eyes dancing with mischief, 'That means that Isthia reserves the right to fish the lake to herself. Deneb can't use it in time of famine.

'Deneb hasn't endured a famine, has it?' Afra was astonished enough to stop eating.

'Of course not,' Damia said.

'Famine and planetary emergency.

'Such as the Beetles?' Afra asked.

'Exactly,' and Isthia looked slightly grim, 'first they filled our lakes with contaminants, then they blasted them dry. Took years to get our reservoirs rebuilt and full. So a fish-stocked lake can be considered a natural resource and could be added to planetary food reserves. Fortunately, I made sure I had a few perks.' 'This isolated site is one?' Afra asked.

'Took me nearly a year to find exactly the right land when the grant was bestowed,' Isthia said, 'but it's worth every bit of the fuss it caused.' 'Fuss? With all you've done for Deneb?' Damia said, indignant.

'That's why there was so much fuss,' Isthia replied and related to them the struggles she had had with local and central administration, builders, naturalists, as well as medical boards which did not want her so far from population centres. 'I was blocked on minor points for nearly another two years. But I got the place I wanted, where I wanted it, and no-one can revoke my title to it, nor my heirs' 'What do we fish for?' Afra asked.

'Rainbow sparklers,' Isthia replied. 'Bait your hooks and throw 'em in. The fish eventually get interested.' 'It's a novel idea to catch one's dinner, too,' Afra added.

'You can, though, can't you? It's not something Capellans are against?' Damia asked, realizing how little she really knew about Afra Lyon.

'No,' he assured her with a grin, 'nothing in my upbringing prevents me from fishing for food.' 'I'll show you the lake after we eat. There'll be light enough,' Isthia said. 'In fact watching the sunset there can be rather spectacular.' And that evening Deneb put on quite a display for them.

The lake was reached by a narrow track that threaded its way through a thick stand of Denebian softwoods: single trunk spires with short, full-leaved branches. The lake, dewdrop in shape, was deceptively large for Isthia led them out at its narrow end where the tributary stream flowed down from the hills to their right.

'I've constructed a perch,' Isthia said, directing them along the bank to their left where several large flat black rocks formed an irregular bench.

Some sort of spidery multi-legged insects skimmed across the lake and occasionally an aquatic denizen broke the surface into ripples, snagging the water runner. Sleepy avian and nocturnal bug noises punctuated the evening air as they seated themselves.

Afra threw a jacket across Damia's shoulder, for the air at the lakeside was chillier than at the protected cabin.

She leaned into his touch, avid for physical contact. He settled his arm about her shoulders and drew her against him as if this casual sort of contact was long established.

Afra was having no trouble, she thought, with their new relationship. His fingers pressed against her arm and she glanced at him, suspicious that he was disobeying Isthia.

He bent his head towards her.

'A touch is just a touch, Damia love, he said quietly, s6 don't get fussed. More than you, I can't afford to risk the healing process.

Damia shot a quick look at her grandmother who was sitting, with the discretion of a duenna, at the opposite end of the rock couch.

Isthia gave every evidence of ignoring them. Which, Damia realized, was probably genuine. Isthia would hate having to leave this place with its ensured solitude. She must remember to thank her for that sacrifice.

'Sacrifice,' Damia thought, her heart heavy. So many little things reminded her of Larak. Once again Afra's fingers took a new hold on her arm and she shook her head of such wounding reflections.

'See!' Isthia pointed at the cloud formation now tinged with a delicate shade of peach as the sun began its final descent behind the hills.

So they watched, awed by the beauty, by the silence of the wood and lake about them, a reverence for the display and for the tranquillity of the night to come. When the last colour faded from cloud and sky, Isthia sighed, a sound of intense satisfaction, and rose.

'Don't stay too long. There's a chill in the night air, she said, and thrusting one handlight at them, she departed, playing hers on the track as she made her way back to the cabin.

For Damia, who had always been physically restless, this sort of inactivity was novel, yet she would not have broken the quiet mood for anything on any world she had ever trod. What was even more amazing was that she was sharing - truly sharing - this magical serenity with Afra.

From the corner of her eye she snuck a peek at him and saw, in the crepuscular twilight, that he reflected her own tranquillity. Why had she never noticed what a strong profile he had: a high straight forehead, a straight nose jutting at a fine angle, the generous gap between nose and upper lip, and the strong well-modelled wide mouth, the firm chin and jawline. He had nice ears, too. But there were undeniable flecks of white in his blondy hair. Not much, but noticeable.

Self-consciously, she fingered back the white-flecked lock that always fell across her face.

'I've got more white hair than you,' she remarked.

'But not in the same number of years, love,' he replied equably.

'Is that going to matter?' she asked anxiously.

He looked down at her, smiling at her concern. 'It oughtn't but it's bound to come up. Does my seniority bother you?' 'You're always "Afra" to me,' she said, surprised at how she identified him within herself.

He chuckled. 'As you have always been inimitably "Damia" to me.

D'you know? I heard you protest your birth.' 'That's not fair!' She did not like him to remind her of moments like that.

'When does "fair" enter into any relationship? Suffice it to say, that I have known you since the first breath you drew and, strangely enough, it makes you dearer to me.' The look in his yellowy eyes, the tenderness in his mouth, the appeal in even the way his shoulders inclined towards her, and Damia had to admit that she could have no objection to what lay behind that soft declaration 'Oh, Afra! Why did you wait so long?' His lips turned up and his eyes danced. 'I had to.

Until you were ready to look at Afra.' With such laughter in his eyes and mouth, he had a careless boyishness about him that cancelled further discussion of age.

Larak had been little more than a boy at his death.

Unbidden, the comparison had crossed her mind.

Afra's hand covered hers instantly. 'I can see that you're thinking sad thoughts again, love. What this time? Tell me!' Damia smiled ruefully up at him. 'As I told you all my small troubles?' 'I'm able for the big ones now.

'I keep thinking of ' She faltered.

'Larak,' and his fingers caressed her gently. 'I think of him a lot myself Damia burrowed her head into his shoulder, hooking one hand about his neck as she had done so often as a child.

But it was not as a child that she clung to him now.

'I'm told such pain eases with time,' he said quietly, 'and there has not been enough of that between us and his death.' Damia sat upright. 'Who is taking care of Jenna right now?' Her tone was stricken for she had been thinking more in terms of her own grief and loss from this wretched Sodan affair.

'Isthia can tell us... no, don't reach,' he said and Damia let out an exasperated sigh. 'We'll go and ask.' 'It takes getting used to, this limitation,' she replied caustically 'In a good cause, love,' he said and, smoothly rising from the warm rock, pulled her to her feet.

'Jenna?' Isthia said, surprised at the question when they returned to the cabin. 'Jeran sent Ezra to her, but she has a big family and they're Talented enough to give her comfort and sufficient solace to ease her heart.' Isthia's expression altered to one of amusement.

After all, she has not only her son but also another child on the way.' Damia stared at her grandmother. 'Oh!' she exclaimed indignantly.

'Larak didn't? Why, he's...' She stopped short. 'Under the circumstances, I guess I'm glad. Lord, but we Gwyn-Ravens are prolific 'Tell me about it,' and Isthia threw her head back and howled with laughter. 'Remember, separate rooms tonight.

I'm not going to explain that to your parents, Damia!' When Isthia entered Deneb Tower, her grandson Jeran had just finished with the incoming traffic.

'How are they?' he asked urgently, rising from his conformable chair and embracing her. She rather liked his strong young arms about her: made her remember Jerry.

'They will both recover completely,' she said, and then gave him a warning glare, 'if they are allowed to recover at their own rate. No unexpected visits, no shafts of enquiry, no exercise of 'path or 'port whatever!' 'How's Damia taking that kind of a prohibition?' Jeran asked, raising his eyebrows.

Isthia considered, careful not to let any of her more recent conclusions be accessed by her clever Prime grandson. 'Better than you'd expect,' she replied, with just a slight emphasis on the pronoun.

'Of course, once she regains her health-' 'What?' Jeran's exclamation of alarm was genuine.

'Oh, she's battered physically as well as psychically, Jeran. And genuinely distraught about Larak. It'll all take time Jeran frowned.

'How long?' Now an FT&T Prime spoke 'As long as it takes, said Isthia with a shrug. 'I'd like to reassure Jeff and Rowan-' she added, gesturing towards the board.

'Certainly,' Jeran said, stepping well away from the conformable chair. 'It's break time for me anyway. Will you be going right back?' 'Heavens, no,' and Isthia grinned as she settled into the chair. 'When I meant no mental exertion, I meant none, which includes me leaking metamorphic theory all over them. Physically, they're well able to take care of themselves, and each other.' She shook her head, thinking of how true that was and trying very hard not to chuckle at her private merriment. 'You're stuck with this white man's burden again 'Never stuck, Gran, glad to have you any time.

Isthia snorted, knowing perfectly well that Jeran was rapidly reviewing how to conduct his current affair with his grandmother in the same house. 'Or, I can always move into Kantria's digs. Yes, that makes sense and she's on the outskirts of the City anyway. Do be tactful and ask her first, Jerry.' She laughed as she caught the quickly-suppressed ripple of consternation from Jeran as he hurriedly closed the shielded door behind him. That should divert him sufficiently from speculating further about his sister and Afra Then she settled back in the chair and, picking up the pulse of the generators, sent her mind ranging the long distance to Callisto.

Isthia? the Rowan caught her up immediately and did not moderate her understandable anxiety. Damia was foremost in her mother's mind.

They're both well and they will both recover, Rowan.

Mother? Instantly Jeff's mind joined the link. Without loss?

Afra's recuperation worried Jeff more but only because he felt Afra had been in more jeopardy than his daughter.

I don't foresee any diminishing in either mind. As I told you, rest from any mental stress, plenty of sleep and solitude will cure them.

Relief flowed from them to her and back again.

Any idea when their cures will be complete? Jeff the Prime spoke.

I haven't a clue, Isthia blithely reassured them and felt their misgivings. Heavens, I've never treated such overextended minds before. Metamorphically, Damia buffered Afra and you two cushioned her even as she blocked and destroyed Sodan.

There was a brief pause. Does she blame herself for not saving The Rowan's voice faltered.

Yes, but that was inevitable and we cannot spare her that grief.

You will be surprised when you do see her, and Isthia was rather glad there was no-one in the Tower room to see her smile. She liked and admired her son's mate.

It was scarcely Angharad's fault that she had overcompensated her children for the vicissitudes of her early childhood.

Surprised? Jeff asked.

Agreeably, Isthia replied. She might as well predispose them.

The incident has matured the girl.

Rite of passage? Jeff asked.

A rocky grievous one, to be sure, but considering Damia's 33i personality, only that sort of experience would produce the proper tempering.

Aren't you being hard on Damia? the Rowan began.

I'm being objective, I assure you. You should be grateful for her fortitude and resilience. She could have been consumed and broken.

But she is well? She will recover?

Given time. No more headaches, Angharad, or lapses of concentration? Isthia asked, skilfully diverting the contact into a new channel.

No, because we ve cut down the traffic, Jeff replied brusquely.

Sometimes FT&T expects too much of its Primes.

Both of us, and he sent his mother a rueful grin, are letting our assistants handle inanimate stuff. Gives them a feeling of accomplishment and us a brief respite. And Aurigae got their ears bent for the sort of loads they were having Damia 'port. She's not to do that again. You did say that Afra's going to be all right?

Isthia chuckled. Oh, you'll notice a change in him, too.

All for the good. Then, before her inner amusement broke through, she hastily ended the contact. Goodbye now. Jeran wants his chair back. I'll keep you informed.

Because they were so isolated and because they had been in the habit of being wide-open in every sense to each other, Damia and Afra both experienced the first tendrils of query.

Damia censored the incident. Afra ignored it. Neither mentioned it; Damia because she wasn't going to get caught twice the same way; Afra because he didn't trust his mind.

Not only had Isthia left them a diet sheet - easily digestible foods at first, graduating to some of her more esoteric and exotic combinations - but also she had left them a work sheet. As her note reminded them, the cabin was not automated.

'Nothing to tax your energies but light chores to keep the place ticking over and to combat boredom.' 'I'm not sure that I like her going on about boredom,' Damia told Afra as they looked over the roster.

Afra's eyes gleamed, but his finger running down her cheek took the sting out of his words. 'We both know our quick-silver Damia, restless, curious -'I need rest,' and Damia pretended a haughty air, 'and I got an overdose of curiosity too recently to indulge in another.

I shall vegetate, right along with you, Afra Lyon!' 'We are not precisely vegetating, love,' Afra said and demonstrated.

They were, however, scrupulous about doing the various tasks Isthia had set: keeping the cabin neat and clean, tending the garden planted around it, weeding the vegetable plot, reinforcing the guard fencing to prevent forest Damia's eyes widened in protest. 'But you are respected life from browsing the young plants, and fishing. The lake was stocked with many tasty varieties.

Damia liked fishing, liked the excuse to sit beside Afra, shoulders and legs touching as they sat on the bank waiting for the sparklers to rise to the bait. The enforced idleness of angling permitted Damia to satisfy her insatiable interest in every facet of her lover's childhood and early training, though she forcefully denounced such heartlessness.

'I guess I was a lot luckier in my parents than I knew,' Damia had to admit when he had finished with his early childhood trials.

'Even being sent away as an infant to Deneb?' Afra asked, his eyes intent on her expression She grimaced with chagrin. 'Yes, I was a right wagon, wasn't I?' 'Heavy duty big daddy wagon.' 'You don't have to agree!' 'Why not? I knew what you admit to.' 'But you're not supposed to agree!' Afra chuckled. 'If it's true, why not? It's perspective that counts, love. It isn't that I don't know your faults as I have tried to admit to mine - it's that I love you more because of them.' 'Love me for my faults? How stupid!' 'Should I ignore them because I love you?' 'Well.

'Nonsense. It's those odd quirks of yours that are endearing, not your very stellar qualities which I respect and admire. That could get tedious 'You mean, boring?' Damia suggested, eyeing him speculatively 'No, tedious, because then I'd have to watch everything I said and did, trying to be equally respectable and admirable.' and admired.' 'By you?' His soft voice was entreating and his look made her melt.

'I think,' she said in a deliberate way, playing with the long fingers that held one of her hands captive, 'that I have always admired and respected you, Afra. You always listened to me, even when I was a baby. You always made me feel as if you had time for no-one else in the Tower.' 'That's true enough, love.

'Did you love me then as a baby?' Damia could not quite erase the wistfulness.

'I loved you as a baby, but as a man loves an adorable, winsome child. I love you now as a man loves a vibrant, talented, sexually aware young woman.

'Love me then, do.

At first, they kept about the house. Afra taught Damia how to do complicated origami until she was almost as fast fashioning them as he was. She taught him - or tried - to ride ponies from the small herd that often drifted to the lake in the evening. He had to keep his long legs either drawn up, nearly under his knees, or straight out on either side of the pony or they would drag on the ground. Damia found either position hilarious but mastered her mirth rather than prejudice Afra against the ponies as transportation.

As physical strength returned, they ranged wider; in part in response to the list of Isthia's chores. She was keeping track of some Earth species which had been judiciously added to Deneb's ecology. One such species were breeding pairs of raptors which had been established in the rough hills above her cabin. Isthia wanted to check on the nests and the success rate of fledging. With her maps and backpacks of food and trail supplies, Damia and Afra took advantage of a fine bright morning to accomplish that task.

'You have the longest legs,' Damia told him, somewhat admiring them, lightly haired, well-shaped, sinewy and tanned from long sunning.

'Nice knees.' 'I can say the same of yours, love,' he responded equably.

'Can't I ever get a rise out of you?' 'Oh, you do indeed,' Afra said mischievously, 'you do indeed.

'I didn't mean that! But you never lose your temper, or is that your Methody upbringing?' 'Losing one's temper over a trifle would definitely be considered unmannerly,' he replied.

'Maybe I'm the one who should have been raised by your parents,' she said with some exasperation.

'No, love, no!' he replied so fervently that she turned to look at him over her shoulder and managed to collide with a tree. 'Are you hurt?' 'What? From that little bump?' she demanded, annoyed with herself for being so clumsy. The sapling had caught her from cheek to knee and the impact had stung. She rubbed herself fiercely, gave the tree a pat. 'I probably hurt it far worse. Look, I've taken off all its new growth!' 'Hmmm, so you have. Let's hope Isthia does not intimately know every tree she planted.' Damia watched her way after that, wondering just how the bruises would come up. But shortly she was far more interested in the beautiful landscape for they had left the sheltering belt of forestry and were out on the rough hillsides, stepping from rock to grassoid clump, or cutting through a bracken-like vegetation which, bruised by their hiking boots, gave off a pungent astringent odour.

They rested often, in deference to slack muscles and their convalescent state, but by midday had reached the craggy outcroppings where the raptors had nested. Using the high-power binoculars, Afra located the right cliff and the first nest 'No birds, no egg shells.

Is that good?' He passed the glasses to her 'We might try looking at the base of the cliff,' she said after a careful sweep. 'Seems to me the raptors clear the debris from the nest.' They had to climb over uneven ground to reach their objective but found nothing beyond fragments of shells and bones, many of those cracked for the marrow.

They pushed on to examine the other four nests Isthia had listed and found two more before they came across a gushing mountain stream where they decided to eat their lunch. They had appetite for everything they'd thought to bring, washed down by the clear cold water of the creek.

Then they went on, still climbing up the tumbled greystone cliff.

When they finally came out on the height, Damia paused and, shielding her eyes, turned slowly, taking in the panorama below and almost all around them.

'It's breathtaking,' Afra said. 'I'd forgotten there could be so much world to see from one spot.

'It's a far cry from Callisto, that's for sure, Damia replied.

'And yet,' she added loyally, 'I'm fond of that moon!

All the world I knew until I...' she cut off, frowning.

'What's wrong?' She was turned towards the rise beyond the saddle on which they stood. She bit her underlip, puzzled, twitching her shoulders restlessly.

'There shouldn't be any more. There shouldn't be any more here.

'Any more what?' 'Well, I've got to go see, don't I?' she said enigmatically.

'See what, Damia? I can't read your mind, you know.' 'You don't really want to, Afra, but you'd best come see.' She started scrambling up the steep rock face and gestured for him to follow.

'what should! be looking for?' he asked tactfully.

'You should be sensing it,' she replied, her tone almost angry.

'Beetle stuff. Don't you feel the 'Sting-pzzzt?' he asked, half amused.

'Yes,' and she was very angry, 'the sting-pzzzt. It's very loud.' Afra paused, trying to sense what she did. 'I hear insects buzzing.' 'No, you feel Beetle metal. Look around, do you see any insects up this high?' Now that Damia had mentioned it, he didn't, but she was setting quite a pace and he had to work to keep up with her. When they reached the top of the next rise, he looked about him expectantly but Damia turned right and started purposefully up the next slope and abruptly halted, staring at a groove in the fine grey granite - a groove that was not natural and from which protruded a ragged shaft of metal.

The buzz that Afra had thought insectoid was louder, and every breath he drew had a sharp metallic taste to it.

'Sting-pzzzt is really accurate, he said, gazing down at the artifact. Then he paced it out, along the impact split in the rock.

'Fifteen metres visible.' He knelt down and, somewhat gingerly, poked his finger at the nearest surface.

'Part of a hull?' 'Looks like it,' Damia replied, beginning to take an interest in it. 'Pitted. I didn't think there'd be anything left to find. My Uncle Rhodri spent the last nine years of his life tracking pieces down.' 'This is a rather inaccessible spot,' Afra observed.

Damia sighed. 'We'd better get back and report this.' 'Why? It's been here twenty-odd year' 'One reports finds like this. And it's awfully near the fourth raptor nest.' 'There'd be a problem?' Damia shot him an irritable glance. 'Can't you taste it in the air? Feel it? Can you imagine what effect it would have on hatchlings?' 'There is one?' He curbed a growing irritation with her cryptic remarks. 'I may have helped blast Beetles out of the sky but that contact was at an exceedingly long range.' 'Well, there's nothing long range about the way this metal affects me,' she replied tersely and started to climb down. 'I can't get away from here fast enough.' 'Oh, is that what's wrong with us?' 'Yes, indeed!' She snapped that out, almost spitting the ds at him. 'Let's get away from here!' Her tone was desperate.

He bit back an angry comment about how fast she'd climbed to get to the artifact. Damia did not slow her descent until they were back at the stream, panting for breath and sweating with exertion.

'I think that's far enough,' she said in gasps and flopped down by the stream, to splash water on her face and neck and then grinning with a return of good humour, at him.

They both drank deeply, washing the metallic aftertaste out of their mouths.

'Why did you let me eat all my lunch?' Damia asked.

'I'm starving.' 'I saw some berry bushes,' Afra suggested.

'Hmm. Good idea. Sorry about the temper, Afra, but Beetle metal really agitates.' 'What I find amazing is that it retains that effect so long.' Damia grinned. 'Uncle Rhodri was determined to find out why.

He wasn't sure if it was caused by emanations of the alien ore or vibrations induced by the Beetles for defence. He suspected the latter since it would be very difficult for attackers to approach the vessel when grounded.' 'What was his final conclusion?' 'Oh, he died before he arrived at one. High Command took over the project. They're still here. They're the ones I'll call when we get back to the cabin.

C'mon.

Though Afra did not protest the brisk pace Damia set back to the cabin, they were both exhausted when they got to the clearing. Afra paused long enough to get a drink but Damia went immediately to the communit and dialled the number.

'Damia Raven-Lyon,' she said to his astonishment and delight, 'I've found an artifact, buried in the hills above Isthia Raven's cabin.' She gave them the coordinates from Isthia's map. 'Yes, it's still emanating. Couldn't leave the area fast enough. You could land a vtol on the saddle below it. Yes, about fifteen metres long, maybe more. It buried itself into the ravine. Looks like hull.' She grimaced. 'Feels like hull. Yes, of course, we'll be here.' Afra handed her a cool juice drink as she replaced the handset.

'Damia Raven-Lyon?' he asked softly as he slid an arm about her shoulders to pull her close.

She gave him a sideways glance, her blue eyes sparkling in her tired, sweaty face.

'Well, it'll be obvious!' An officer rang through, requesting permission to land at the cabin clearing. On the porch to greet him, Damia and Afra saw the giant removal unit, the jagged hull piece suspended from massive cables, as it thumped ponderously east towards the naval research facility. One of the escort vehicles peeled off and landed.

'That was a grand find,' the lieutenant-commander said, beaming from ear to ear as he presented himself and saluted smartly. 'Thought we'd gathered up all the debris. Let us know if you find anything else, will you?' Damia felt a convulsive shudder go down her backbone.

'We certainly will. Don't want so much as a sliver of that stuff nearby.' 'How do you mitigate the effect, Commander?' Afra asked.

'What effect, sir?' The man was surprised. 'Oh, you'd be Talented then.' He gave them a slightly patronizing smile. 'Doesn't affect us types at all. But I'd heard it can be pretty potent for sensitives.' Fortunately he turned away then, and trotted back to his skycar.

'The nerve ---' Damia began. 'Potent for sensitives Indeed.' Afra chuckled. 'At least we know we're sensitive again.

Damia blinked. 'I hadn't thought of that aspect.' Then her face brightened. 'D'you think that means we're healed?' 'On our way to it, certainly.; The dreaming began that evening. And, at first, Damia did ascribe it to the alien metal. Yet these weren't nightmares: more pictures imposed on her dreaming mind, a kaleidoscope of images. She didn't wake in an uneasy state of mind, but she could vividly recall the night's fantasies.

She did get in touch with Isthia, mentioning the Beetle find and its effect on them.

'I would say that you are healing well. Don't rush it, Damia.

Too much is at stake.' 'We've been here seven weeks.' 'Bored yet?' 'Grandmother! I'm not bored. D'you want us to go back and see what effect the Beetle fragment had on the last nest on your list.

'Hmmm. Yes, there could be problems. Leave it until the next good rainstorm, let that taint wash away. You don't need alien pollution at your stage of repair.' 'Are you so eager to get back to a Tower, Damia?' Afra asked when she broke the contact.

She chuckled. 'No, I'm not. Nor am I bored. Isthia say 'I heard her-' 'Afra!' Concerned, Damia seized at his shoulder.

'I'm not deaf and Isthia was perfectly audible without any "sensitive" assistance.

After two weeks of nightly episodes, Damia was getting worried.

Her uncle had never been able to explain how the Beetle metal could continue to emanate but he had insisted that all fragments be contained in shielded bunkers with six-foot walls of the toughest plascrete. He had recommended that those with any vestige of Talent be barred from the research compound. But the substance of her nocturnal images held neither threat nor malice. In fact, they seemed to repeat in a pattern, unusual enough in itself, and gradually the pattern became so predictable that Damia could step from one sequence to the next.

as if she were turning pages.

Easing from their bed early one morning, Damia slipped to the kitchen and dialled Isthia's number. Her grandmother was an early riser. Contact came on the third ring.

'Grandmother, did Uncle Rhodri ever discover a long term contamination from Beetle metal?' 'What do you mean exactly?' To Damia, her grandmother sounded so casually alert that she felt no further reluctance in bringing the phenomenon up.

'I've had dreams for the past two weeks, ever since that hull piece was found, only they're not threatening, or evil, or particularly unnerving. They are repetitions of the same images.

'What images?' And again Isthia's detached query suggested to Damia that the phenomenon might not be limited to herself.

'I get a pleasant setting, then figures - too distant and fussy to be described - coming up a long road to another group of six figures.

Both sets sit down.

The atmosphere is peaceful and it seems to be as if the two groups are talking. Then the visitors, for that is the impression I get of them, turn and go back the way they came to what looks like a vessel of some kind.' 'What kind?' 'I can't discern that, Isthia. I just identify it as a vehicle. An opening appears and the visitors go in it.

Then everything starts all over again. Now, tell me that other people are having this same dream?' 'I am,' Afra said, having entered the kitchen quietly.

'Afra says he is.' 'That doesn't surprise me, Damia. What does surprise me is that you two would be among those contacted.' 'Those?

How widespread is this?' Damia wasn't certain whether she was relieved or annoyed.

Isthia chuckled. 'This time it's not just the females who're getting it.' 'WHAT?' Damia beckoned urgently for Afra to come closer so he could hear what Isthia was saying.

'Well, your Uncle Ian as well as Rakella and Besseva have been having much the same nightly visitations. Yours are the clearest.' 'You said "contact" a minute ago?' 'I did, and that's what I think it is now that you've amplified what the others only guessed.' 'I'm not sure I like this,' Damia said, noticing that her hand was beginning to tremble. Afra put his arm about her waist, and the other hand on her shoulder, steadying her.

She leaned back against him. 'What does Jeran think?' 'Ah, that's it. Jeran isn't included in the chosen,' Isthia said. 'Of course, he spends most of his free time with a blonde he's courting.' 'He's serious?' 'I suspect so. When Jeran makes up his mind, he's unswervable.' 'Have you asked him to try?' 'To dream requires sleep,' Isthia said pointedly.

Afra smothered his laugh in Damia's loose hair, pressing his face against her neck which he then nibbled. She jerked her shoulder, giving him a hiss to behave. He was totally unrepentant.

'So what do we do? Have you told my parents?' 'Hmmm, no, not yet.

It's been too nebulous.' 'I can also hear what the Rowan and Jeff would say, Afra remarked, projecting his voice so Isthia heard him, 'about a third Denebian Penetration.' 'It's not penetration,' both Damia and Isthia said together.

'Really?' Afra regarded his lover with quickened interest.

'An interesting reaction.

'Plainly dream-generated,' Isthia added. 'Look, since you've been having these visitations, and clearer ones than anyone else, I think I'll join you there, if you don't mind.

'If you wouldn't be bored sis the jibe.

'My dear, boredom has a certain appeal for one who has never known what it was. Now, go get me some fresh fish for lunch.' She broke the contact.

'I'm not sure I like this,' Damia said, replacing the handset.

'Why?' And Afra turned her around in his arms, to hold her comfortingly against him. 'I had no impression Damia could not recognise danger or menace or jeopardy. As you did, I had the feeling of visitation, a peaceful one.' Cushioned against her lover's body, Damia sagged against him, unconsciously seeking reassurance which he willingly gave.

'I'm not sure I'm up to another visitor,' she said glumly.

She gave a second convulsive shudder. 'The last one cost us too much.' 'What? My brave Damia sidestepping a challenge?' 'Your cautious Damia not rushing in, blind,' and her tone was sardonic.

'Let's see what Isthia says. Meanwhile, I could use some coffee, and maybe even some breakfast before we go fish for her lunch?' 'You're trying to make light of this whole thing,' Damia accused, pushing away from him.

He disclaimed that immediately. 'Far from it. The prudent would examine the whole imposed dream sequence with an open mind 'If we're allowed. --' Almost absently, Damia began to prepare the coffee and other elements of a breakfast.

'We must be, if we've had the clearest dreams 'But they began the night we found that Beetle artifact 'They did at that,' and Afra frowned over the coincidence as he took the skillet from her hand and started cooking the eggs. 'We'd best weed that front bed, too, or Isthia will have words about negligence.' It afforded Damia some relief to yank out weeds and fork up the soil to be sure she'd got the root systems as well. And, although Damia enjoyed fishing, today it was only a way to pass time until Isthia came. As is sometimes the case when one doesn't care, the fish bit well and they landed ten good-sized white-bellies before they realized they had more than enough. When Isthia arrived with both Ian and Rakella, they had just enough.

Afra hadn't seen Ian for quite a few years and he was surprised at how much the young man resembled his older brother. Though he had not quite the same forceful personality, he had sufficient of the inimitable Raven charm.

'Niece, you've improved past all recognition,' he said, dropping the flat black carrying case to warmly embrace Damia. After giving her a rib-cracking hug, he held out a hand to Afra. His eyes were somewhat paler a blue than Jeff's but as full of vitality, good humour and delight in their company.

'I second that,' Rakella said, kissing Damia's cheek.

'You were in a woeful state when you got here. I helped nurse you, or did Isthia ever bother to mention that?' She did not bear much resemblance to her older sister, Isthia, but the family stamp was in the set of her eyes and her generous mouth.

'For that, my deep gratitude,' Damia said, 'for I've no recollection of much beyond the most thundering headache imaginable.' Isthia clapped her hands sharply together four or five times - claps which Damia heard echoing in her skull and proceeded to order them to gather at the dining table.

Damia noticed that she was also doing a quick check of her premises as she shooed them into the dining-room.

'White gloves, Grannie?' 'I wouldn't need them,' Isthia replied blithely. 'Look, Ian has some sketches to show you. See if you recognize anything from them.

'They're pretty vague,' Ian said, obediently opening the portfolio he had brought with him. He slid pencilled drawings out, across the sleek surface of the table, so that some faced Afra and others Damia.

'I don't always sketch what I dream but, by the fourth or fifth repetition, I felt I had to.' Damia held up one, showing the long road and the two blurs of figures. 'That's exactly what I see, only, there are at least twenty figures advancing and only six receiving, as it were.' 'Six?' Isthia looked pleased. 'That's us, counting in Besseva who couldn't come today.' 'And we're all high Talents, aren't we?' Damia said, glancing at her grandmother for reassurance. Isthia gave a wave of her hand, dismissing Damia's self-doubt.

'Why isn't Jeran affected?' Ian asked and, when Isthia smothered a laugh, he added. 'Oh, I suppose that would affect his judgement, if not his receptivity' 'So what exactly is this?' Damia asked almost petulantly.

'Has it anything to do with that nibbling on the DEW net off Procyon?' Afra asked, startling Damia.

'What nibbling?' Afra regarded her steadily for a moment. 'Larak mentioned it. The Fleet had been sent to investigate and found nothing.' 'From Procyon to Deneb is a long distance, Ian said thoughtfully. Damia caught her breath.

'True, but longer distances have been covered recently,' Afra replied and Isthia nodded.

'And with devastating effect,' Damia said, feeling a tense anger and denial building in her.

'Is it wrong to suppose that all... ah... visitors have to be unfriendly?' Afra asked calmly, reaching under the table to put a steadying hand on Damia's leg.

'We've had more of the one than the other,' Isthia replied mildly.

'I'd certainly prefer that Deneb wasn't always the target.' 'It wasn't,' Damia said in a flat hard voice.

'Two out of three are not good odds,' Rakella said drily, 'but are we sure what these dreams mean? That there's some other species out there, asking to visit?' Isthia gave her sister a sharp look. 'Is that how you'd put it?' 'I think I would,' Rakella said after considering her reply. 'The dreams have not been threatening. They have been quizzical. Yes, that's the word I want, quizzical. Like neighbours who do not wish to intrude but would like to make friends.

'I find myself in agreement with that,' Afra said.

'And I,' said Ian.

Damia stared at the sketch, at the clump of figures struggling up the hill towards those waiting at the summit.

She waved at the drawing. 'I don't know if I want to understand that. I don't know if I'm afraid of what we will discover.' 'That, at least, is honest,' Isthia said but there was approval in her expression.

'Only a fool doesn't learn by mistakes,' Damia said in a bitter tone and felt Afra's fingers tighten, this time warningly, on her thigh. 'Well, we should profit by my mistake in this. They seem to be offering something, too.

'On the contrary, Damia, Sodan offered nothing. And he took subtly and brutally - all your energy, your strength, and your perception,' Afra said, his tone very gentle, his eyes entreating her forgiveness for his candid words.

She stiffened, catching her breath until she could not deny the love, encouragement and understanding which flowed into her mind from all those around the table.

Afra's fingers dug into her thigh, rousing her from her bleakness.

'And my brother,' she added. 'Why should we believe this - this intruder is any different?' 'Well, for one thing, whoever they are have had the courtesy to request admission into this system,' Isthia said.

'That's my interpretation of the dream sequences.

'Who - what - are they?' Damia asked bluntly.

'We'd all like some reassurance on that score,' Isthia said. 'On the way out here, Ian, Rakella and I worked out a plan. Ian's willing to be subject and Rakella and I will implant a response to the dream sequence which ought to give our visitors - not invaders, I think - an answer to their query Damia regarded her young uncle with admiration and some consternation. He was by no means as strong a Talent as she was, nor had he spent much time developing his innate Talent. But she held back her protest. She had no wish to tempt a repetition of the Sodan affair. She did give Isthia a long and worried look.

'Shouldn't we inform Earth Prime?' she asked.

'I'd rather we had something more concrete than a nebulous pattern of dreams,' Isthia replied. 'Jeff's still trying to calm everyone down,' and then she laughed, 'and help Cera deal with the Procyons who feel she is far too young to be responsible for that system 'Cera's the most responsible of us all,' Damia said indignantly.

'Exactly,' Isthia said, smiling at her granddaughter. 'But you can quite appreciate why we must be circumspect with this latest-' She jiggled her hand, searching for the appropriate word.

'Flap?' Afra suggested blandly 'Flap'll do. There're only the six of us, having the dreams. Now if more had been involved - even just Jeran-' 'Good al' prosaic Jeran,' Ian said disparagingly and Damia suppressed a giggle.

'Isn't he just,' Isthia said at her mildest. 'At any rate, until I feel we have sufficient evidence to require an alert of any degree, I think we keep this among ourselves.' She sent a querying look around the table. 'Very well then.

We'll proceed with Plan A. And when is lunch going to be ready?' Of them all that evening, Ian seemed the most relaxed as he submitted to the hypnotic session, woke, joked that he didn't remember a thing, and ate a huge supper, consumed most of a bottle of Isthia's treasured pre-Beetle vintages before taking himself off to his bed. During the afternoon, Afra and Damia had brought two conformable chairs into Ian's room where Isthia and Rakella could be comfortable during their vigil.

Damia had been generous to her own wine glass at dinner but she found it difficult to relax once she and Afra had gone to bed. She couldn't find a comfortable position though she tried several as surreptitiously as possible, not wanting to rouse Afra.

'I can't sleep either,' Afra said, though even his quiet tone startled her in the dark room. He turned her on to her back and gathered her into his long body. 'Shall I sing you a lullaby?' 'I'm not a baby any more, to be lulled asleep by a song, she protested but she did not resist his comfort and settled her head on his chest.

To her surprise, not only did he begin to sing softly but also he rocked her gently against him. And, before she could protest his nonsense, her eyes got too heavy to remain open and her mind darkened responsively.

This time she seemed to be awake even as she started the visitors' dream sequence. And Ian's drawings became part of it - part of it, expanded by it and interpreted in it.

The long uphill road was a dark one, many stars above it, passing by in an endless stream. A small globe appeared and the visitors abruptly stopped their upward progress.

Then, very carefully, several visitors picked the globe up and put it to one side for it apparently impeded their forward progress. Then the file of visitors became twenty separate figures: long, thin, with spindly anterior segments which propelled them and upper extremities which were held forward in entreaty. The dream seemed endless to the sleeping Damia and she felt exhausted by its length, fervently wishing for action. There had been some before.

The visitors had reached the top of the hill and met the six.

The six also extended long, thin limbs but, though they advanced a few steps towards the visitors, no real progress seemed to be made in establishing a contact.

Contact! Damia woke with a start, sitting bolt upright in the bed.

What is it, Damia? Afra asked her, and the question was repeated by Isthia.

We aren't making contact. They wish to make contact.

Then she covered her face with her hands and dropped her head to her bent knees, shuddering violently. She felt Afra's arms enfolding her and she leaned into his protective clasp.

'It's all right, Damia,' Isthia said, gliding into the room.

'What did Ian dream? Did your plan work?' Afra asked her.

'I don't know yet, she said, sitting down on the side of the bed and stroking her granddaughter's hair. 'It's all right, pet.

'I'm not a child any more, Grandmother,' Damia murmured and gave one last shudder before she looked up.

'It's contact they want, though. Afra?' He shook his head. 'I only dreamt the usual sequence.

When Ian finally woke the next morning, he had done no more than that. 'I tried, Mother,' he said ruefully. 'I knew I had something to tell them all night long but I couldn't get a word in edgewise.' Damia felt close to panic and that must have shown in her face for both Isthia and Afra moved to touch her reassuringly.

'I don't want this,' she told them, 'I don't want any part of it.' Then, before she could see the pity in their faces, she slammed out of the house and down the narrow track to the lake.

She had been sitting for a long time in her favorite fishing site before Afra joined her. She could hear him coming, 'heard' his anxiety, too.

'I'm a coward, Afra,' she murmured when he reached her spot. He hunkered down beside her and his 'concern' was a shield between her and the reality she wanted to escape.

'No, but you're understandably cautious. I think we ought to inform Jeff, especially when you had such a definite response.

'It was Ian who was supposed to get one. I'd rather it was he, anyway. I didn't handle the last one very well.' 'Isthia doesn't want you to handle this one at all,' Afra said, a little ripple of amusement in his voice.

Surprised, she looked up at him. 'And?' 'Despite what you may think of your initial attempts at establishing contact with an alien life form, you handled the actual link extremely well.' 'You have the nerve to tell me that?' Shock poured through her and she stared at Afra as if she had learned nothing of the man in the past two months.

'Telling the truth doesn't require nerve, love,' he said with a little laugh. 'The problem lay in Sodan and his long-term plans, not in your management.

'I don't believe what I'm hearing.

'You should,' Afra said blandly. 'You had bridged a communication gap and had established frames of reference. You've always had that gift. Look at how well you get on with barque cats, Coonies and the pony. Not to mention how good you were at teaching. Or have you forgotten Teval Rieseman?' "'Friends don't throw rocks"!' 'These may be friends. And you have to learn their language to translate their message.

Damia took in a long breath, held it, seeking that younger so-self-confident self. Sodan had damaged more of her essential being than she'd realized.

'He has certainly robbed you of self-esteem and confidence,' Afra said. 'I'd hate to think he'd won on that vital count.' She stared at him, her beloved with whom she had shared so much, and here he, Afra the cautious Capellan, was suggesting that she -'You're the only one of us who could make the contact they wish-' 'But-' 'I'm serious, Damia,' and Afra nodded his head urgently, 'you're the only one capable of doing it.' 'Only if you're with me 'That plea came out of her mouth before she could stop it.

'I'd insist on inclusion.' I'll be coming, too, Isthia said.

Are we allowed to think again? Damia asked sarcastically I applaud it.

Was that what your clapping meant? Afra asked as he locked eyes with Damia.

They were both answered by Isthia's laugh.

I had to be certain you'd obey my injunction, so I added a deterrent. Please come back to the house, Damia, Afra. Her request bore no hint of command.

Sighing at the inevitable, Damia got to her feet and, with Afra's long fingers twined in hers, made her way back to the house.

'Are we telling Earth Prime now?' Damia asked as they joined Isthia in the kitchen. Neither Rakella nor Ian were present.

'No, not yet.

'Is that wise, Isthia?' Afra asked.

Isthia leaned forward across the table, still littered with Ian's sketches. 'Look, you two, I have survived two invasions of a highly inimical force, bent on total destruction. I do believe I can tell the difference when - ah - visitors do come in peace.' 'Remembering that the reason for most stellar travel is to provide colonists and mineral wealth for the explorers?' Damia asked cynically.

'I don't have much precognitive Talent,' Isthia surprised them by saying, 'but what I have is straining to make that contact. Ian's dream last night did have one positive result,' and she flicked one of the drawings on the table towards them, 'if you'll notice the stars?' Damia drew the sheet towards her, frowning, for the seemingly random scatter of stars gradually became familiar to her.

'These are the constellations above Deneb !' 'Exactly. And this globe has protuberances suspiciously like the DEW sensors beyond the heliopause.' 'Oh,' and Damia's single syllable came out on a long sigh of denial 'That's not so far to take a personal capsule. Is it?' Isthia asked softly.

'No,' Afra replied equably. 'Damia went much further than the heliopause to reach the Sodan entity.

'I'm not sure,' and Damia spaced her words carefully, 'that I could go that far again.' 'Ah, but you won't be going by yourself, pet,' Isthia said comfortably.

'I shouldn't be going at all.' 'That's why you must,' Afra said, gently pushing his index finger into the soft part of her arm. She felt not only the vibrancy of cool-green but a resolution she could not fight. She'd been terribly wrong once, and Afra had suffered. Afra and Larak. She must trust Afra now if his feeling was that strong.

Isthia was shaking her head slowly. 'I wish we had a reliable way to convey a response.

'What do you mean, Isthia?' Afra asked.

'I mean, I send a message by Ian and Damia gets the answer.

'Send the question by Damia then.' 'If Damia doesn't mind ' Isthia looked hopefully at her granddaughter and Damia conceded gracefully.

'Then we'll try it tonight.' 'Why wait until tonight?' asked Afra.

'Sleep seems to be the vector,' Isthia said.

Afra chuckled. 'Then Damia can go to sleep. 'I what?' Afra rose, took Damia by the hand and, with a perplexed Isthia following, stalked out to the corner of the porch where the hammocks swayed gently in the breeze.

Afra sat Damia down in one, picked her feet up and motioned for her to get comfortable while he set the hammock swaying.

'I can put Damia to sleep any time,' he said, grinning broadly.

'Now, wait a minute-' but Damia's protest was cut off as Afra began to croon the same song he'd sung her to sleep with the night before. She had no choice in the matter but her last outraged thought was that she'd settle this with him when next she was awake.

The sequence started instantly, only this time Damia took control and, as the visitors made their way up the hill, she separated a figure from those at the top and walked it down towards the visitors. She stopped it at the globe. Then, beckoning broadly to them, she urged them to follow her back up the hill. She was then back at the start of the dream and repeated her reassurance, to be sent back to the beginning at which point she was becoming rather annoyed that they couldn't get so simple a message.

She woke up grumpy, her head foggy with sleep.

'Afra Lyon, you stop doing that to me,' she said, shaking a finger under his nose.

'Works, though, doesn't it?' He was not the least bit repentant.

'How?' asked Isthia, mystified, but she regarded Afra with considerable respect.

'Goes back to when Damia wouldn't sleep at night.

The daycare Talent and I used a prudent post-hypnotic suggestion and, with a bit of rocking and a line or two of a lullaby, Damia would drop off to sleep just fine for her mother' 'And it has lasted this long?' Damia was incredulous.

'I've proved it. Mind you,' and Afra's voice held the note that meant he was teasing, 'I wish I'd been fore thoughtful on other matters.

'As well you weren't,' Damia said direfully.

He helped her up out of the hammock and hugged her.

'So, tell us what happened?' Isthia asked, getting back to the more important matter.

'I told them we'd meet them at the DEW, and indicated that we'd welcome them. That's what you wanted, wasn't it?' Isthia nodded her enthusiasm. 'Now, do we get Jeran 5

assistance?' 'We'd have to explain everything,' Damia said with an exaggerated groan. 'You know how Jeran is. A, B, C and D!' 'Damia, did you feel threatened by the dream?' Afra asked, no hint of levity in his expression.

'No. I'd like to believe Isthia's intuition is correct.' 'Like to believe?' Isthia asked.

Afra held up his hand. 'That's fair, Isthia.

'I suppose so. Well, let's tell Ian and Rakella. We'll need their help anyway.' The one vehicle at Deneb Tower which could carry three long bodies was a medium-sized rescue pod with four conformable seats. It had probably been left behind by a liner for its engine was missing but it still had working directional thrusters. They put in fresh oxygen tanks and dusted down the console, rather pleased to have a vehicle that had standard communications as well as a viewplate and external sensors. Jeran was not on duty, which was no problem as Ian and Rakella knew how to run up the generators. Damia could feel her palms sweating and her stomach was griping badly as she settled herself into her chair, Isthia on one side, Afra just behind her.

'I'll make the lift,' Isthia said, settling her hips deeper into the seat. 'You're completely cured, Damia, but you save your strength for the contact.' Damia had a moment of panic for that decision, but Isthia had never lied to her and probably wasn't now. It just would have been so reassuring to push off again, as she used to do so blithely.

You could now, too, love, said Afra in a fine thin tone.

He reached forward to give her shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

Relax!

She was quivering with tension and forced herself to unwind. She could, however, sense the rising keen of the generators and felt Isthia tense as she waited for exactly the right mo She launched them, a good strong thrust that Damia could objectively admire. It was good to be in deep space again. And then the pod's proximity alarm beeped urgently.

'Bring up the screen, Damia, Afra said, leaning forward to peer over her shoulder, 'There it is!' cried Isthia, unnecessarily pointing, her expression exultant.

'It' was not a large ship, which immediately encouraged Damia to believe in amicable motives. 'It' was also a deep-space craft, having the usual haphazard design of ships that were never intended to land.

It did have what looked very much like weaponry: wide-mouthed orifices that were stained with old fires and long snouts pointing outwards and looking effective.

Ian, turn off the DEW, Isthia said. We don't want the Fleet charging out here and blowing us and our visitors up. Yes, that bunch of toggles under the red rimmed glass panel. Turn 'em all off. The disconnection won't show up for an hour or two.

At which time we'll know one way or the other 'I think I have to go to sleep again,' Damia said drily.

'Will just the song do it, Afra? These seats aren't made for rocking.' 'I could rock the pod,' offered Isthia.

'We'll try without that, thank you,' Afra said and, with his hand on Damia's shoulder, began to sing the potent lullaby.

She knew she was shaking her head as sleep once more claimed her.

The pattern was gone. Instead she was inside the other ship, looking out at her tiny cargo pod. This time other figures were clearly visible and they were definitely alien.

Despite their unusual appearance, she could sense no danger, nothing 'heavy', only relief. The 'visitors' looked to be tall though she had no gauge by which to compare them, save the bulky equipment.

They did not sit, but stood on the three rear appendages, stubby legs which ended in splayed feet with three thick 'toes'. The upper limbs had five longer digits, one on each side of a squat 'palm' and three along its top. The heads were long, tapering to what appeared to be a muzzle but she could not see a mouth. One eye of a composite nature crowned the thick 'head'. There seemed to be dorsal ridges along the backbone. Maybe one of the three feet was actually a caudal appendage.

Their skin or pelt, she couldn't discern which, was sleek and varicoloured, ranging from greys through green, brown and a slaty blue.

Some were definitely taller than others but she didn't think the smaller ones were immature or of another sex.

Instantly her dream self turned towards a flat surface, set at a distance above the deck. This surface abruptly lit up and images began to form. More of this species, racing to enter what she had to identify as shuttles.

These took off into space and she watched them link up with larger versions of the ship she was dreaming on. In a massed array, this fleet left its orbit, obviously in battle readiness.

To her shock, she saw their objective: a Beetle Hive Sphere. She watched the battle, saw 'her' ships being destroyed, saw the Hive Sphere send its fighters out, watched them being destroyed and then, with great relief, saw the Hive ship suddenly explode, sending huge chunks spinning off, sometimes colliding with 'her' ships and demolishing them.

Abruptly those scenes segued into huge fragments turning end over end against. -- Suddenly the background changed and it was the Denebian system from which the twisted detritus escaped.

Then all the dream figures turned inwards to face her and she was overwhelmed with a sense of urgency, of interrogation, of fear.

In yet another wrench of perspective, she was back in the pod, crying out.

'They know about the Beetles. I saw them destroy a Hive. Then there was all this debris spinning in space, away from Deneb.' She turned first to Isthia and then to Afra for a reassuring interpretation of what she'd seen.

'Are they warning us then?' asked Isthia.

'No, they know we've been attacked and survived, as they have survived,' Damia said, choosing her words slowly.

'Then what do they want of us now?' Isthia wanted to know.

'Just don't put me back to sleep again,' Damia said flatly, rubbing at her temples.

'It seems an admirable way of communicating between species,' Afra said, teasingly, but he patted her arm sympathetically.

'The universe doesn't have to be full of species who are inimical,' Isthia said. 'Perhaps what these folk need are allies against the Hives. We've survived an attack so we'd make good allies.' 'They've certainly gone to great lengths to explain,' Damia admitted.

She was beginning to believe that Isthia could be right. Her mind had not been overwhelmed or raped during this closer encounter. They had managed to convey vital information.

'Isthia, can you put me into a hypnotic sleep?' Afra asked. 'I was part of both mind-merges: the first Rowan focus, and then the B-Raven section that sent the Hive Sphere into the sun. I can at least give them our battle account.' Then he settled himself in the conformable and linked his hands across his thin waist.

Damia had an impulse to protest but Isthia unfastened her safety harness and drifted to Afra, holding herself down with one hand while she placed the other firmly on his left temple. Afra seemed to collapse into sleep.

She turned to look out at the visitors' ship, now noticing how pitted its surface was, how worn and scratched the symbols on what she took to be its bow. There were other ideograms elsewhere, some more legible than others. A complicated language rendered in bars and dots and occasionally cross strokes. Not as complex as some of Earth's oriental scripts, if that was the right word for them.

'How long did I sleep that last time, Isthia?' 'About half an hour. I didn't think to time it,' she said, floating back to her own chair. 'Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating.' Then she let out a big sigh. 'I suspect my son is going to be vastly annoyed with his old mother,' and the eyes she turned on Damia hadn't the slightest gleam of repentance. 'I really should have taken training much earlier. I could have been Deneb's Prime.' Damia regarded her grandmother with wonder, 'We tend not to make the most of our chances,' she went on.

Extending a hand, she lightly touched Damia's arm.

'Make the most of yours, dear child. But then, you are, aren't you?' 'Do you think they are emissaries of an altruistic species?' 'I'm quite attached to that notion,' Isthia said comfortably. 'I wish we'd thought to bring some provisions.' Damia laughed. 'This was sort of a scramble. Oh ho!' Her throat went too dry for more words and she could only point at the vessel which was clearly moving under power.

'Let's get out of its way,' Isthia said and frantically reached a hand out to Damia.

Damia, following Isthia's thought, pushed the pod back so forcefully that the vessel became only a darkness.

'Not that far 'It's following us,' Damia decided after a moment's observation. 'What is Afra telling them to do?' 'Come on in, the water's fine,' Isthia replied facetiously.

'This must be the right way to handle this.

'I thought it was, too.

'This time it is right, Damia.' 'Yes, it is,' Afra said, though his words were slightly slurred. 'At least I have extended the invitation. I've no gauge to guide me but they appeared to be amazed at how we conduct our battles. I think that's a good impression to give them 'Now, what do we do?' Damia asked, watching as the alien vessel continued to close with them.

'Now, we inform Earth Prime that we have concluded opening talks with an alien species,' said Afra so calmly that Damia knew he was very nervous.

Deneb Prime Jeran gave them a prolonged demonstration, at the top of both lungs and mind, of what they might expect from Earth Prime.

The local Fleet Commander appeared at the Tower, apoplectic to have found an alien ship orbiting the planet when the warning system hadn't so much as burped.

I TOLD YOU WHY IT IS NECESSARY TO PURSUE THIS COURSE OF ACTION, Afra roared with such vehemence that Isthia and Damia regarded him with astonishment. Cut off in mid-spate by Afra's uncharacteristic bellow, Jeran glared at the Capellan.

'You had no authority to do so,' Jeran said in a terse tone, clipping his words; expression and stance illustrating his indignation.

'He obeyed me,' Isthia said calmly and took the conformable seat.

Ian and Rakella were still backed in the corner where they had retreated from Jeran's angry harangue.

Somewhat to her surprise, Damia could regard the scene with objective detachment - or perhaps, she amended, she was merely too stunned by the whole episode to be able to react.

Jeran turned on Isthia. 'Grandmother,' he began.

'Did you bother to inform Jeff or have you just been enjoying this exhibition of vituperation too much?' Isthia had a distinct gift for putting people in their places.

'I have first,' Jeran said in a loud voice, enunciating very, very clearly, 'to ascertain just what has transpired before I can send a rational report. They,' and he jerked his head at his uncle and great-aunt, gave me some boodle-hoop about dreams and being called.

Dreams, and his scorn would have scarified a lesser personality than Isthia Raven, 'hardly constitute an intelligent reason for admitting strangers past our perimeter defences.' 'The dreams constituted a contact which cleverly surmounted a language barrier,' Afra replied, 'and provided us with sufficient information to wish to investigate more thoroughly, up to and including personal confrontation.' Jeran stared at him, his nostrils flaring, fists on his belt, one foot tapping as he struggled to leash his temper.

'Between Isthia, Afra and myself,' Damia said coolly, rather delighted to see her phlegmatic brother moved to temper, 'you must admit, Jeran, that we would have experience in recognizing threat.

This species does not pose one. In fact, hostility is furthest from their thoughts. Their worlds have suffered from Hive attacks.

They urgently desire to know how we repelled the Leviathan.' 'As I was part of that assault, I explained how we contrived,' Afra went on conversationally. 'The Mrdinis were very impressed that we had needed no recourse to armaments to destroy it.' Jeran rolled his eyes, noting the distraught expression on the commander's face. 'That was even stupider, Afra.

Giving away information about our defence? That's the most horrendous breach of security that --- that - Words failed him.

WE'RE COMING IN, and Jeff's words rang in everyone's ears. Damia had to blink, because her father's bellow did not reverberate in her head. She glanced anxiously at Afra who closed one eye in reassurance.

You see, you can even take my son's bellow without wincing, Isthia said in a finely-tuned thought. I did make one slight error though, and Damia and Afra turned to her in surprise for her expression was fleetingly rueful. I set a sending constraint in your minds so you wouldn't inadvertently 'path, but I didn't restrict receiving. Never thought you would be in receipt of anything. Everyone knew not to 'path you until I gave permission.

So that's how we were able to receive the Mrdinis' dreams, Damia said and hid her smile behind her hand. How reassuring to know that you can be fallible, Grandmother.

The opposite would make you unbearable, Afra added with no rancour.

'I simply don't understand your reasoning in this,' Jeran was saying, 'any of you. Especially you, Damia, since you nearly-' WE WON'T GO INTO THAT,JERAN! Jeff's forceful words echoed and Jeran bowed his head, scowling blackly at the floor, around him, at anything but his sister.

Jeran didn't have to say it out loud, Damia thought bleakly, though she was grateful to her father for stopping him.

The Mrdinis are an entirely separate affair, Isthia said gently.

Entirely, Afra added and twined his fingers in hers.

Damia shifted restlessly, knowing that Jeran would not be the last to remind her of that Sodan stupidity. When Afra also edged slightly in front of her, Damia realized his intention. It wouldn't be the first time he had protected her from her father's censure but this time she would take her fair share so she eased forward to close the gap.

Abruptly the largest cradle in the Tower yard held one of the fast Fleet courier vessels and the orbital alarms indicated the emergence of four large ships in space above them.

'They are upset,' Isthia murmured, grinning.

Damia envied her grandmother that superb self-confidence but, oddly enough, she began to feel more positive about her part in this encounter.

Wearing a ferocious scowl, Jeff 'ported into the Tower, the Rowan beside him. The next few seconds were full of such heated exchanges of accusation, refutation and explanation that Rakella, never a strong Talent, folded against Ian, moaning.

'Oh, do cool it, Jeff,' Isthia said commandingly, her blue eyes flashing with a reciprocal outrage. 'I most certainly do want you and the Rowan to enter into discussion with the Mrdinis. That's what they're here for. Both Afra and Damia support my evaluation that these are allies, not aggressors. We exhibited reciprocal good faith by inviting them within our defences.' 'That's why I'm raging, Dad.

Letting aliens into Deneb's skies is totally irrational!' Jeran exclaimed, gesturing wildly. 'We haven't yet got over the psychic scars of the Beetle Penetration and then my grandmother-' 'One unarmed vessel? One small unarmed vessel is no threat. It is usually regarded as an emissary,' Isthia replied, her patience fraying. 'Oh, do be sensible, Jeff.' 'Sensible is using the channels and procedures that are set up to deal with occurrences of this sort, Mother,' Jeff began, his temper only just contained.

'Wait a moment, Jeff,' the Rowan said thoughtfully, 'Isthia may have acted impetuously but I can sense the Mrdinis. They are very open. I'm not getting a shred of hostility from their minds and there's certainly nothing "heavy" on this alien ship.' Her glance slid across Damia and back to Jeff. 'I'd know,' she added gently, putting her hand on Jeff's arm so that the contact would emphasize the impressions she had lust gained from her mental probe.

Jeff regarded his wife for a long moment and then the anger seemed to drain out of him. He gestured to Jeran to relax and smiled reassuringly at the pallid Rakella whom Ian was supporting.

'Who made first contact?' he asked, looking from his mother to Afra and then Damia, where his gaze lingered.

'We all had contact,' Isthia said, 'though Damia's was the clearest.

Jeff nodded, accepting the statement without challenge.

'I put a restraint on them 'pathing,' Isthia went on, in a slightly apologetic tone, 'but I forgot to inhibit receipt.

Damia would, of course, be both more receptive and more vulnerable in post-convalescence.' Isthia shrugged. 'After two weeks of nightly dream sequences, I had to accept the fact that the pattern could not be random, had to be an imposition. I couldn't establish a source for it.

I was more than surprised when first Rakella, Besseva, then Ian, and finally Damia and Afra informed me that they were also receiving similar sendings.' Jeff turned to Jeran expectantly: his eldest son shook his head.

'I can't imagine why Jeran didn't receive, too,' Isthia remarked drolly. 'But he didn't. We six got together, to compare notes, and tried to figure out a response to what was patently a friendly overture. Damia volunteered.' When the Rowan looked apprehensive, Isthia raised her hand in a placating gesture, I would scarcely undo the patient work of several months, Angharad. Knowing the martial mind, I decided that we'd check as far as we were able to. The Fleet takes so long to mobilize, doesn't it! So we made visual contact, established communications and extended an invitation to the emissaries. Now you, Fleet and the League can handle future negotiations.' She let out a sigh as she propelled herself out of the chair. 'Now, it's been a busy few hours and I look forward to some unstructured sleep. Come, Damia, Afra! We'll all rest better back at the cabin. I don't want you exposed to the emotional levels that will shortly be rampant around here.' Then she turned to Ian and Rakella.

'You two come as well. You look as shagged as I feel. See you later, dears,' she said, blithely flinging her fingers at Jeff and the Rowan.

'Come on!' and she imperiously gestured for obedience to her orders.

'Dad, Mother,' Damia said with a tentative farewell smile.

As soon as Isthia had admitted to fatigue, Damia had felt it creeping along her nerves. Not disastrously, merely informing her that rest was a good idea. Swift on that thought, she felt Afra's agreement and they both 'pathed back to the cabin's main room. Isthia, Ian and Rakella arrived more prudently on the lawn and joined them inside.

'Plainly you've recovered when you can 'port that neatly,' Isthia said with an approving nod. 'Now, what shall we have for lunch?' Jeff and the Rowan asked permission to join them late that evening.

'Damia, Afra, we've got to whip up a meal,' Isthia said with a show of energy. 'Neither of them have eaten all day.

I wonder if we have anything left after that mountain Ian and Rakella put away at noon.' Damia scurried about the kitchen, checking what was available, remembering that her father was only out of temper when he was hungry. He may have absolved them of an impulsive act in contacting the Mrdinis, but she was certain that some reckoning was due.

Jeff doesn't hold grudges, love, afra murmured, winking at her.

'Shall I uncork some of that excellent mountain white of yours, Isthia?' Isthia grinned. 'Clever Afra.' Five minutes later, the two Primes arrived on the lawn and, daringly, Damia 'felt' for their mood.

Both her mother and father were tired but their public thoughts were tinged with a satisfaction that bordered triumph.

'Well?' Isthia said, handing each a glass of the chilled white wine as they reached the porch. She gestured for them to be seated while Damia offered the small hot pastries she had managed to prepare.

Jeff took a sip of the wine, smiled and nodded appreciatively at his mother.

'One of these days, Isthia Raven, you're going to land out on a limb I can't get you off of,' he said and then he relented.

Isthia looked smug. 'I told you they were not hostile.

Did you have pleasant dreams?' she added slyly.

Jeff laughed and even the Rowan began to smile.

'A novel but effective means of communication. You should be astonished to learn, Mother, that we also got Commander Curran in on one conference... with Rowan doing the hypnotic link.

The Rowan chuckled. 'I don't know who was more surprised, him, me or them. But the conference sank all his irs, ands and buts.' 'So you can now support our contention of their peaceful intentions?' Isthia asked.

'Indisputably,' Jeff said, leaning back in his chair.

'Commander Curran will so inform High Command and put forth an urgent request for priority conferences.' Then Jeff looked keenly at Damia. She returned his gaze calmly, keeping a firm grip on her emotions and hectic thoughts.

'They asked for you, Damia.' 'It's too soon...' the Rowan began.

'No, it isn't,' Isthia said, smiling to soften her contradiction.

'There's nothing wrong with Damia's mind, I assure you. She is completely recovered. So is Afra.' Damia glared at her grandmother for the sly smile on her face.

'I'm relieved to hear that the Rowan began again and then broke off, staring at her daughter.

Damia felt her mother's mental 'nudge', verifying Isthia's medical clearance, felt her mother's inability to get past her shields, 'heard' her mother's annoyance alter to irritation.

'Possibly you will also be relieved,' Afra said as he moved to stand behind Damia, his hands lightly clasping her shoulders. She could feel the intensity of his emotions and knew that he had opened his mind, and his heart, to the two Primes. ' to know that Damia and I enjoy a meeting of minds.' Her mother turned white and her hands grasped the arms of her chair as she stared back at them. Damia received a shaft of denial coloured by a sense of betrayal before the Rowan exerted a clamp on her emotions. Her father did not have quite so violent a reaction but surprise was uppermost in his mind, and consternation, before he closed off.

'The bonding is remarkably complete,' Afra went on in his quiet voice. Only Damia knew that he was trembling, for she could feel it through his hands on her shoulder.

Once she would have been defiant and hurt that her parents had shut their minds to her. 'Though I have known my own heart on this score since Damia returned from Deneb, I could do nothing until she recognized in me a genuine suitor.' 'I do not feel alone any more, Mother,' Damia said with gentle intensity. 'Please understand that.

You should understand that!' 'But with Afra?' cried the Rowan.

To everyone's amazement, Jeff started to chuckle, rubbing the side of his face in a restless gesture and shaking his head. Then his chuckle became more relaxed and his shoulders shook with genuine mirth.

'How often, Rowan dear, have we told Afra that he should form an alliance?

How often have we tried to find the right person for him?

Not to mention trying to pair Damia off to any young, and Jeff emphasized the adjective, 'Talent we could find.

Come, now, Rowan love,' and he leaned across the distance that separated them, 'it's a surprise, even a bit of a shock, but who better than Afra? If you consider it objectively?' Jeff rose then, and took the few steps to the couple.

He kissed his daughter in the most benevolent fashion though he also subjected her to the most intense probe.

Then he embraced them both warmly, his blue eyes sparkling with a mixture of amusement, surprise and Damia noted with intense gratitude acceptance.

'Mother?' she asked, timidly extending a hand in the Rowan's direction.

'I just don't understand it, the Rowan said, not looking at anyone. 'I've known Afra for twenty-eight years and I never expected.

..' She halted. A rueful look crossed her face and, with a huge sigh, she regarded them. 'Afra, you have always been part of our family, a cherished friend. But it's going to take me a little while to get used to thinking of you as a son-in-law.' 'Well, don't make a big thing of it, Angharad,' said Isthia, who had maintained a tactful silence long enough.

'You certainly know that Afra doesn't jump into things 'Oh, but he does, and has,' the Rowan replied, jerking her chin up and reminding Afra of exactly how he had come to Callisto Tower. Then, with a characteristic twitch to her shoulders, she began to relax. 'It'll still take some getting used to. And,' she frowned with some petulance, 'I'll have all the bother of training a new assistant. I'm not sure I'll forgive you for that, Damia.' 'I thought Gollee Gren was working out well for you, Afra said.

'Oh, well enough,' and the Rowan dismissed that notion with a flick of her hand, 'but he's just not you!' 'I could remain at Callisto,' Afra offered and Damia caught her breath, not finding that solution palatable at all for reasons she could not immediately identify.

'No, no,' and Jeff waved that aside, and he began to pace up and down the porch. 'Afra and Damia have to stay here with the Mrdinis so he couldn't come back to Callisto for a while anyhow: at least not until verbal communications have been established between our species.

You work far better with Gollee than you know, luv. Once you accept that the appointment is permanent, you'll relax into a good partnership. Have you any more of those hot pastries, Damia? I'm starved. Never thought sleeping half the day would increase my appetite.' He turned his charismatic grin impartially on all.

'Oh, you!' his wife said, exasperated as well as out manoeuvred.

If the subsequent excellent meal had its moments of tension, Isthia deftly turned the conversation back to the Mrdinis and how to improve communication with them.

'Always supposing that I'm not kicked out of my Tower for this,' Jeff said.

'They couldn't, could they?' Damia asked, appalled at the thought.

'Not likely,' Isthia said tartly. 'They need him, and you all, too much.' 'Well, getting Curran on our side is a distinct advantage, considering his initial reaction at Deneb Tower,' Jeff replied.

'There'll be the usual bureaucratic waltzing about, throat-clearing, data-collecting, hemming-hawing, all that fugue,' he went on, pushing back from the table, tilting his chair on to its back legs, and ignoring his mother's disapproving glare. 'However, their final analysis will have to be that getting a powerful ally in the Mrdinis compensates for any eccentricities.' 'Remember to mention,' Isthia said with one of her enigmatic smiles, 'that the Mrdinis made the initial contact. And, by the way, did you find out why the Mrdinis approached the Denebian system?' 'Yes,' replied Jeff, his expression lighting with a grin.

'Remember in the initial battle how we flung the one ship back the way it had come? As a warning? Well, Mrdinis had been monitoring the Leviathan, to be sure it wasn't headed in the direction of their colonies - and they've been extremely candid about how many they have and what systems they've explored - so they saw the ship return. Which evidently those ships don't do.' 'That made the Mrdinis very interested in whoever had been so bold,' said the Rowan, her eyes gleaming as she took up the tale. 'They took a fix on the Leviathan's course and direction but had to return to their home planet for instructions and provisions. The instructions took longer than the provisioning,' and she grinned maliciously. 'I suspect there might also have been a perfectly understandable reluctance to annoy a species that could lob back a Beetle scout ship.' 'Which is one reason why they were hanging about beyond the heliopause when they found the DEW devices, Jeff went on. 'They weren't even sure they'd got to the right place because, at first, they couldn't find any trace of the Leviathan. In their lexicon, Hive ships are invariably victorious.' He turned to Damia and Afra.

'It was your discovery of the Beetle hull fragment, and then its transportation back to the City, that registered on their equipment.

They've been probing every planet in the system: probes that were too small to register on the DEW net, but sensitive enough to pick up traces of Beetle metal.' 'So that wretched artifact prompted the dreams,' Damia said.

'Exactly. So the Mrdinis broadcast to this area, hoping to make contact with minds that were, as they put it, sensitive to and repulsed by Beetle metal.' 'We were so lucky to be able to turn that Leviathan from Deneb,' the Rowan said, shaking her head at the narrowness of that escape.

'But we'll make that extremely clear when we speak to the League,' Jeff went on. 'The Mrdinis gave us chapter and verse on Beetle colonization procedures: brutal. If we hadn't held...' He reached out, cupping the Rowan 5

silvered head with a grateful and affectionate hand. 'The Beetles are compulsive colonizers, driven by the fact that the queens tend to massacre each other, the winner devouring the eggs of the loser. To prevent that, Hive ships leave the home world - and the Mrdinis are still trying to locate that system - and find likely worlds. First, scouts are sent off to locate planets. On finding one, ships are despatched to 'prepare' the planet for occupation, which means, ridding the surface of any other life-forms. The Beetles are basically vegetarian. The initial force lands and begins digging out caves for the Mothers' eggs. When the Hive ship arrives at the prepared planet, the ships transfer the eggs to the caves: then they are free to repeat the process. When that planet can support no further Hives, the Mother ship is stocked up with appropriate workers, and they go on the prowl again. According to the Mrdinis, there are far too many Mother ships roaming in space. The incredible part is that the Nine Star League has only had the one incursion.

'That's not good news,' Isthia said.

'Not at all,' Jeff replied. 'We've been far too complacent and our luck could run out anytime. That's one reason the Mrdinis had been so urgently trying to warn us, despite their apprehension about our abilities. The Deneb DEW net is all well and good, they tell me, but we all know that not all the League systems are protected.' He frowned, ducking his head as he paused in reflection. 'You know, Damia, Afra, there's no reason you two couldn't as easily work with the Mrdinis language people on Aurigae as here on Deneb.

'First, we have to get League permission, Jeff,' the Rowan reminded him.

He waved aside that contingency. 'I only need to get a few sensitive senators to sleep with the Mrdinis and we'll get some immediate action.' 'Senators?' Isthia gaped at her son, her eyes bright with merriment, 'Sleeping with Mrdinis? Jeff, you are the living end!

'So long as I'm still living in the end, I don't care what it takes to get the necessary done. But we can't have a weak link in the defensive chain and a T-4 isn't sufficient to protect Aurigae.' 'Remember that nibble at the DEWs in Procyon, was that the Mrdinis?' Afra asked.

'I haven't established that yet, Afra,' Jeff replied, 'but it certainly wasn't the Beetles. They'd've just plunged through the system.' 'Dad,' Damia began hesitantly, 'there's no chance, is there, that the Leviathan could have got a message back to other Hives when Mother and you destroyed it?' Jeff shook his head and gave a cynical laugh. 'You mean, like "stay away from here - bad vibes"?' As she nodded, the Rowan answered with a shake of her head. 'No, we had the minds paralysed and nothing left the Leviathan when the Raven-merge plunged it into the sun. The Mrdinis believe that the Beetles are fearless.

They are also numerous.' Her expression turned grim.

'Their basic drive is species-propagation, nothing more.

Jeff turned to Afra. 'Your account of our self-defence made a tremendous impression on them, and reinforced their desire for an alliance with us.' 'Oh?' 'They've been battling the Beetles' incursions for a long time - how long we haven't established yet - but a long time. So far they've found only one effective way to destroy a Leviathan,' Jeff replied, 'and that at great loss of life. It involves suicidal missions of cruiser-class ships diving into the Hive and blowing it up. They have to send as many as forty such ships in the hope that one will survive to penetrate the Mother Hive. That's why they want desperately to know how we effected such a kill.' Jeff grinned.

'Yes, it worked that one time,' Afra began.

'If necessary it will work again,' Jeff said. 'The Beetles have no imagination. They just keep on repeating what they've done before.' 'Nothing succeeds like success?' asked Isthia drolly.

'Theirs or ours?' the Rowan responded. 'Successful or not, I really wouldn't like to have to make a career of merges that exhausting.' 'Wouldn't be exhausting now, luv,' Jeff said in an offhand manner. 'We've three times as many top Talents now as we had then.' He snapped his fingers carelessly. 'We could take out as many Leviathans as we needed to.' 'Jeff!' the Rowan exclaimed in rebuke.

'How much mental power do the Mrdinis have?' Afra asked, curious.

'They understand mind power, but I don't think they are developed enough for a mind-merge or a focus,' Jeff said. 'They have been successful with one or two other species in dream communications. We seem to be the most advanced species they have met. That's another reason for their jubilation. And, frankly, mine. I welcome,' and when Damia felt his eyes on her, she was aware of his compassion, 'the chance to make contact with an alien species.

I will have no hesitation in recommending to the League that we move forward to an alliance with no hesitation and great haste. We are aware of the dangers of the Beetles and we cannot be complacent behind the DEW.' He let his chair down with a thump and stretched his hand across the table to Damia. 'You're needed at Aurigae, daughter.

It's also a very handy place to send the Mrdini delegation for language study. And,' then he flashed her a grin, 'I'm not as hard-hearted as that old geezer Reidinger was. Afra can keep you company 'Father,' Damia began formally with a twitch to straighten her shoulders, 'why would the League trust me with Aurigae?' Jeff Raven blinked in surprise. 'Why shouldn't they?' Then he gave her one of his lopsided grins. 'The miners have been griping over your absence something fierce.' Damia felt her mother's touch, gentle but authoritative.

'I think Damia is concerned with the report on Sodan, Jeff,' the Rowan said.

'Oh,' was Jeff's response, his blue eyes clouded and his face expressionless as he said, 'Earth Prime reported to the Nine Star League that Aurigae Prime contacted an alien ship and, on discovering its hostile intentions, requested sufficient Prime assistance to destroy the intruder, an action that took the life of Larak Gwyn-Raven-' He paused and both he and the Rowan looked towards the peaceful spot where their son was buried '-and severely injured Damia Gwyn-Raven and Afra Lyon.' With an abrupt change, Jeff regarded his daughter with his usual charm. 'Why?' Damia faltered, as much because she felt the ache of Larak's loss as because she didn't want to admit how Jeran's remark in the Tower had affected her.

'Jeran,' the Rowan said cryptically and Jeff nodded with understanding. 'You two have never quite mended your sibling quarrels, have you? Well, Jeran is only human Isthia rolled her eyes. That is still debatable.

'And you did,' the Rowan said bluntly, 'run roughshod over his authority by contacting the aliens without notifying him.' 'We didn't know where he was,' Isthia said slyly 'Oh?' Jeff asked and, as he regarded his mother, his eyes became intensely blue.

Grinning, she waggled a rebuking finger at him. 'Let's not try that on your mother, dear.

Jeff threw back his head and laughed. 'I shouldn't, should I?' 'You're nearly as arrogant and audacious as Pete Reidinger was, Jeff Raven,' Isthia went on.

'He is not,' the Rowan said loyally.

'Not around me, he isn't,' Isthia said.

Earth Prime, and Jeran's formal address reached all the telepaths, you are requested to return to Deneb Tower. Fleet and League representatives are urgently requesting transfer to Deneb to discuss the' alien situation.

With a sigh, Jeff heaved himself to his feet, extending a hand to the Rowan to help her to rise.

'No rest for Earth Prime, arrogant or audacious,' he said, putting on an air of martyrdom and letting his back sag as if he supported an unmerciful burden. 'Will you two be ready to go back to Aurigae tomorrow?' he asked in a serious tone.

'Yes, of course,' Damia said, nodding her head just as Afra, beside her, murmured agreement. His fingers squeezed her.

'Excellent.' Jeff bent to kiss his daughter's cheek, then slapped Afra's shoulder with every evidence of his usual affection for the Capellan. 'That'll soothe ruffled feelings: Gwyn-Ravens nobly respond to the demands of their League!' In taking her leave, the Rowan gave Damia a brief caress on the cheek, her grey eyes thoughtful. 'It will take time, you know,' she said, twitching her eyebrows in annoyance.

She turned to Afra. 'Gollee Gren is good but he just doesn't have your subtlety.' She sighed. 'But I'll manage.

Jeff laughed, gave his mother a swift hug and kiss, and, folding both arms about his wife, 'ported out of the kitchen.

'Show-off,' Isthia muttered before she turned to regard Damia and Afra with a speculative gaze. 'Wriggled your way out of that one, didn't you? Nothing like an emergency to get a family to close the gaps, is there?' 'Isthia,' Afra said, drawling her name reprovingly, his expression amused, 'if Jeff is arrogant and audacious, what are you?' 'An interfering mater familias,' Isthia retorted with an unrepentant grin. 'I'll clear up here. You two have a lot to organize before the morning, as well as getting a good night's rest.' 'I can always try a lullaby,' Afra said and ducked away as Damia swung at him, only half in play.

He continued on out of the kitchen, down the corridor to their room and she followed.

'Afra, is there any way of cancelling that dratted command?' she asked. 'It could become exceedingly awkward.' 'Why?' and Afra's yellow eyes danced with amusement.

'It's been exceedingly useful of late.' Then his expression altered to one of sudden and delighted comprehension as he sent a quick probe which Damia, laughing, did not resist.

In a swift stride, he closed the gap between them, pulling her into his embrace with one arm while he laid the other hand on her abdomen. 'So! How could I have missed this?' Shyly she smiled as she looked up at him. 'Too many lullabies.' Supremely content, she nestled against him.

They were turned towards the window from which she could see Larak's grave.

'Can we call her Laria?' she asked softly.

Afra held her more tightly, opening his mind as completely as she had hers in this special moment, letting her see how long he had yearned for a child of his body - for her child; the blazing joy that burned through him for the gift of her love, for the new life within her, for the end of his solitude. For all this new and unexpected joy, and a restatement of the devotion that was so strong a bond now between them. Within him now swelled the resolve to manage a third generation of Rowan women.

'I'm glad we have a meeting of minds on that score,' she murmured.

And because she felt his urgency rise to hers in that deserving and marvellous moment, their agreement was shortly expressed in another fashion, immensely satisfying to both.

THE END