Part 25 (1/2)

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 rea.s.surance. 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 s.h.i.+elded 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 compa.s.sion, 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 s.p.a.ce?

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 h.e.l.l? 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 sh.e.l.l.

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 s.h.i.+p said respectfully when they entered the control room, 'we have located the debris of the alien s.h.i.+p. 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.