Part 21 (1/2)

Damia basked in her father's praise. He didn't give it lightly.

I'll send Afra on directly, he added, spoiling her pleasure. I can trust his impartiality, and to Damia's amazement, her father chuckled.

She stabbed at his mind to find the basis for the amus.e.m.e.nt, but met a blankness as her father had turned his mind to some other problem.

'Impartiality? Afra?' The sound of her own voice in the little personal capsule startled her.

What on Earth was that supposed to mean? Why would Afra's impartiality be trusted - above hers - in identifying or evaluating an alien aura?

But Afra was to come to Aurigae.

After he had broken contact with Damia, Jeff did not immediately turn to other problems. He mulled over the subtler aspects of that vivid contact with his daughter.

Damia's mind was as brilliant as Iota Aurigae, and right now blazing with excitement over the contact. He didn't like her recklessness but, in this instance, he could only be relieved that she had been in position to catch the aura.

Odd that she could still be so angry about being sent to Isthia.

Odder still, that she could still deny that it had been Afra she'd clung to, and cried for, not her mother.

Jeff knew very well that, once Damia had settled in with her grandmother and her cousins, she'd been extremely happy and benefited tremendously by the Special School for Talent that Isthia had set up.

Jeff sighed. The decision to send Damia to Isthia had been one of the hardest had ever had to make, personally and professionally. But she'd come early into her extraordinary mental powers, frightening everyone on the station with her antics and incredibly dangerous use of telekinesis. Only Afra had any control over her and even his patience had ended with her capsule stunt.

Under Isthia's calm, unruffled discipline, and with a huge planet to roam in and myriads of cousins to keep tabs on her, Damia had learned how to use her Talent without abusing it, herself, and anyone in her immediate vicinity. She became sincerely fond of her grandmother and would obey Isthia where she argued every request from her parents, especially her mother. Strange that it was the Rowan whom Damia still blamed for fostering her.

Rowan, Jeff called out to Callisto Tower and sensed that his wife was resting as the interchanges on Callisto's cargo cradles filled from Earthside.

Her mind linked with his gladly, just as if they hadn't breakfasted together on Callisto a few hours earlier.

I've a message of extreme importance to impart to you, luv. Open to me.

Damia's made contact with an alien aura? The fleeting maternal concern was quickly supplanted by professional curiosity as the Rowan scanned Damia's recent experience beyond Aurigae. Of course Afra goes.

I can't think of anyone better. Her tone was slightly ironic until she caught the thought that Jeff tried to lose. But why on Earth Damia would think that you can't a.s.sign Afra wherever he's needed, I just don't understand. Oh, well. I don't understand that child. I'll take a pair of those T-2s you're training until he comes back. Twins, huh?

Well, Mauli and Mick have been a superb team, and Jeran and Cera accustomed me to fraternal language. She added with a sigh, I'll miss him.

You always do, Jeff replied teasingly, to divert the Rowan from scanning the recent conversation too deeply, Good thing I trust that yellow-eyed Capellan -- Jeff Raven, there has never been an improper thought between Afra and myself even before you lurched in from Deneb Jeff laughed and she sputtered at him indignantly.

Actually, she continued, it'd be a relief for me to know that Afra's out with Damia. I really do worry that she might get besotted with one of those brawny Aurigaen types she plays about with.

The last thing Afra'd do is interfere with her pleasures.

The Rowan let out an exasperated sigh. But those pleasures do nothing to relieve her loneliness. Sometimes.

I know, said her husband with considerable sympathy and then his tone hardened. She wouldn't BE lonely if she hadn't been so heavy-handed with every other high T young male She resents our matchmaking as much as I resented Reidinger's.

There's no guarantee she won't find a Denebian, too, you know, Jeff replied, allowing his voice to become so lascivious that the Rowan pretended shock. When can you spare Afra from doing your work?

Afra? Doing MY work? Just wait till you get home. And she pretended to ignore his response to that threat. Afra?

Jeff requires your attention.

Jeff caressed her with a genuinely affectionate thought before he felt Afra's mind touch his.

Are you sure you're still only a T-3? he asked, surprised at the firmness in the Capellan's contact.

I'm in gestalt, after all, Afra replied, adding a mental shrug at Jeff's surprise. What else could you expect after twenty years of proximity to two of the strongest Talents in explored s.p.a.ce? It's no wonder I've learned a few tricks from the pair of you. From the expression on Rowan's face, I'd hazard that Damia has lately been discussed. What's she up to now?

Damia had just returned to Aurigae when she heard the Rowan giving the Tower official warning of the transmission of a personal capsule.

Afra? Damia exclaimed, reaching back along her mother's touch to Callisto.

Damia! Afra said warningly but too late.

Without waiting for the Rowan to launch the capsule towards Aurigae, Damia blithely drew the carrier directly from Callisto, ignoring her mother's stunned and angry reaction to such bad manners.

Damia regretted her impulsiveness immediately. But Afra's capsule was opening and he was swinging himself out. She could not have missed his trenchant disapproval if she'd been a mere T-15. He stood, looking down at her though she was tall enough to look most men in the eye, as imperturbable as ever. As aloof and contained as always. Did Afra never alter? Did he never give vent to his feelings? Did he have any?

Unfair of her for she knew he did - even if he seemed to expend most of them on barque cats and c.o.o.nies. She really shouldn't have s.n.a.t.c.hed his carrier from her mother: that had been childish and she so wanted Afra to notice how well she managed Aurigae Tower with a minimum of Talented staff and a maximum of efficiency. She sighed for she knew she hadn't impressed Afra at all.

Instinctively, she straightened as if to minimize the difference in their heights. Even so, she still only came to Afra's shoulder.

'You will apologize to your mother, Damia,' Afra said, his unexpectedly tenor speaking voice a curious echo of his quiet mental tone. 'Isthia taught you better manners even if we never could.

'You've been trying to lately, though, haven't you?' The retort came out before she could stop it. Why did she always feel like an errant child in Afra's presence? Even when she wasn't at fault.

He c.o.c.ked his head to one side and regarded her steadily.

She sent a swift probe which he parried easily.

'You were distressing Jenna unnecessarily, Damia. She appealed to me because she did not wish Jeff to know of your indiscretion.

'She chose well.' Damia was so appalled at the waspishness of her tone that she extended her hand to him apologetically.

She could feel him throw up his mental barriers and, for a second, she wondered if he might refuse what was, after all, the height of familiarity between telepaths. But his hand rose smoothly to clasp hers, lightly, warmly, leaving her with the essential cool-green-comfortable-security that was the physical/mental double-touch of him.

Then, with a one-sided smile, he bowed to indicate he was flattered by the compliment of touching but allowed a recollection of herself, clad only in dypers, cross his public mind.

She made a face at him and subst.i.tuted Larak's son.

Afra blandly put 'her' back beside her nephew.

'All right,' she laughed. 'I'll behave.' 'About time,' he said with an affable grin. 'Now apologize to your mother.

Damia made a face but she sent a suitably contrite message to the Rowan who accepted it with only a modic.u.m of disapproval. When she had done that, Damia saw Afra looking about him. He would have seen Aurigae through the perceptions of herself and Keylarion, her T-6.

The Tower occupied a position beyond the edges of, and on a height above, the sprawling colony town which had been built on both sides of the river that flowed into Aurigae's southern sea several kilometres beyond. A fine straight road linked Tower and town, but there was little traffic on it now in the early evening.

Unlike other Towers, there was no staff compound, for most of the Talents preferred quarters in the nearby town.