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    Stars of Darkover: Darkover Anthology
    Stars of Darkover: Darkover Anthology
    Stars of Darkover: Darkover Anthology
    Ebook412 pages6 hours

    Stars of Darkover: Darkover Anthology

    By Deborah J. Ross and Elisabeth Waters

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    Return to the world of the Bloody Sun 

    Over fifty years ago, master story-teller Marion Zimmer Bradley introduced readers to a compelling new world. Darkover, a distant planet circling a red sun, was home to telepaths and rebels, lovers and rivals, nonhuman races both friendly and deadly, ancient traditions and even more ancient feuds, and psychic gifts of unimaginable power, channeled through starstone gems and capable of changing not only individual lives, but the entire world. 

    Generations of fans have fallen in love with Darkover, and many of them have gone on to notable literary careers of their own. Now editors Deborah J. Ross and Elisabeth Waters have gathered together luminaries of fantasy in this star-studded anthology of original stories that illuminate Darkover's rich history and culture. From the Ages of Chaos to re-contact with the Terrans, from the Dry Towns to the back streets of Thendara to the horse pastures of Armida, these tales offer action, courage, and humor, set in the wondrous world that is Darkover. 

    This volume contains stories by Robin Wayne Bailey, Rachel Manjia Brown, Barb Caffrey, Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald, Rosemary Edghill and Rebecca Fox, Leslie Fish, Gabrielle Harbowy, Steven Harper, Shariann Lewitt, Vera Nazarian, Diana L. Paxson, Janni Lee Simner, Kari Sperring, Judith Tarr, Ann Sharp and Elisabeth Waters.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMarion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust
    Release dateJul 24, 2018
    ISBN9781386911289
    Stars of Darkover: Darkover Anthology
    Author

    Deborah J. Ross

    Deborah J. Ross is an award-nominated author of fantasy and science fiction. She’s written a dozen traditionally published novels and somewhere around six dozen pieces of short fiction. After her first sale in 1983 to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword & Sorceress, her short fiction has appeared in F & SF, Asimov’s, Star Wars: Tales from Jabba’s Palace, Realms of Fantasy, Sisters of the Night, MZB’s Fantasy Magazine, and many other anthologies and magazines. Her recent books include Darkover novels Thunderlord and The Children of Kings (with Marion Zimmer Bradley); Collaborators, a Lambda Literary Award Finalist/James Tiptree, Jr. Award recommended list (as Deborah Wheeler); and The Seven-Petaled Shield, an epic fantasy trilogy based on her “Azkhantian Tales” in the Sword and Sorceress series. Deborah made her editorial debut in 2008 with Lace and Blade, followed by Lace and Blade 2, Stars of Darkover (with Elisabeth Waters), Gifts of Darkover, Realms of Darkover, and a number of other anthologies.

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      Stars of Darkover - Deborah J. Ross

      INTRODUCTION

      by Deborah J. Ross

      For readers and aspiring writers of my generation, as well as the generations that followed, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover represented the best of science fiction/fantasy: the world we wanted to run away to, the place we wanted to write adventures in, and the people we wanted to know and to be. In the early years when copyright infringement was not an issue, Marion was immensely generous with her sandbox, welcoming fans to create their own stories in her wonderful world. From the magazines and newsletters put out through the Friends of Darkover to the series of professional-level anthologies edited by Marion and published by DAW Books, Darkover has nourished the imaginations of readers and writers alike.

      I cannot claim to have sold my first professional short story to a Darkover anthology. Midwife in Free Amazons of Darkover was my second sale (the first being to the first volume of Sword & Sorceress, another of Marion’s anthology series). Even before those sales, I had the honor of receiving Marion’s kind words of encouragement on stories I submitted to Starstone, the Friends of Darkover fiction magazine. Over the decades that followed, Marion became not only my teacher and mentor but my friend and co-writer. Or maybe I became hers, the relationship was so mutual. Collaborating with her on a series of Darkover novels, and then continuing the series under the supervision of her Literary Works Trust, presented an extraordinary opportunity to carry forward her vision of this world and its people.

      I have gone on to create my own world and characters, as well as editing a number of anthologies. Marion influenced my editing as well as my writing style, and I hope I have been as supportive to the many writers who over the years have entrusted me with their stories as she was to me. In a fannish corner of my heart, I always hoped that someday I might get the chance to edit a Darkover anthology. This anthology, the first of a renewed annual series, pays tribute to Marion’s legacy, both in the world of the Bloody Sun and in the community of superb writers who began their careers with her.

      I did not restrict the lineup to authors whose first sales had been to Marion’s anthologies and her fantasy magazine. In the marvelous way that we are all connected, every contributor has benefitted, either directly or through the tradition of paying it forward, from Marion’s commitment to young writers. As she wrote, One generation plants the trees, the next eats the fruit.

      We follow in the footsteps of those who have gone before us, forging the trail and planting the Yellow Forest. An anthology of short fiction by different writers offers a landscape of the secret places, minor but fascinating characters, and hidden histories that novels can suggest but not explore. Editing such an anthology is an unfolding wonder as themes, histories, races human and nonhuman, Gifts, and Domains are woven together in a dance, sometimes echoing and complementing one another, other times offering sharp contrasts, but always engaging and exciting.

      I invite you to come with me on a journey of time and space and heart, whether you are a traveler new to the world of Cottman IV, popularly known as Darkover, or whether you have a treasure trove of dog-eared paperbacks from the 1960s, when Lew Alton, Regis Hastur, and many other beloved characters first saw print. Here you will find strangers and friends, and even stranger beings and happenings, for Marion never shrank from tackling difficult issues with courage and sensitivity, and we who walk in her footsteps can do no less. I hope these tales of wonder and despair, of love and betrayal and hope, will delight and challenge you as much as they did me.

      DEDICATION

      To Marion, in gratitude

      ALL THE BRANCHING PATHS

      by Janni Lee Simner

      Many of us began our love affair with Darkover with The Sword of Aldones (1962). This was not the first published Darkover novel—The Planet Savers had come out in 1958 in Amazing—but in many ways it was the origin of all the adventures that followed, for Marion had conceived the story when she was only fifteen. The front matter to The Sword of Aldones introduces one of the most memorable and complex characters in the series:

      Lew Alton was returning to Darkover...a Darkovan on his father’s side and a Terran on his mother’s....

      And his mother was not just any Terran, but the daughter of Wade Montray and Mariel Aldaran, and the sister of Larry Montray, who as a teenager met and befriended Kennard Alton. In the skillful hands of Janni Lee Simner, the story of Kennard and Elaine comes alive.

      Janni Lee Simner is one of the many writers who sold her first short story to Marion Zimmer Bradley—for the anthology Leroni of Darkover more than two decades ago. She’s gone on to publish more than three dozen short stories and eight novels, including the post-apocalyptic Bones of Faerie trilogy and the Icelandic-saga–based Thief Eyes. Visit her online at simner.com.

      ––––––––

      He wouldn’t meet her eyes.

      That was the first thing Elaine noticed, when he walked in three weeks late for the autumn term, his gray Terra Academy uniform stiff with first-day creases. She forced herself to look up with the rest of the class, though the Terran habit of meeting gazes still didn’t come easily to her.

      She took in a shock of red hair, proud gray eyes—and then he looked down. Not as if he was embarrassed for himself, with all those eyes on him. As if he was embarrassed for them.

      Not that her Terran classmates seemed to notice. Off-worlder, one of them whispered, as the boy stalked to his assigned seat. By lunchtime, the whispers had become more specific. Darkover.

      In the cafeteria, Elaine focused on her lit tablet while her friends debated why he was here. She deflected the occasional glance they cast her way by furrowing her brow and swiping a finger across her screen. Better to let them think she was engrossed in her studies than to have to explain that no, she didn’t know every last motive of a Darkovan boy she’d never met, because she’d been raised on Terra and was no less Terran than them. Never mind that the boy must have come in on the same big ship as Dad—most of her friends didn’t know her father had spent the past year off-world, either.

      From across the room, uneasy laughter drew Elaine’s attention away from the star map on her screen. She looked up and saw the new boy staring at the cafeteria food dispenser with cold disdain, as if he were better than any machine made of plastic and steel. A line had formed behind him, but he didn’t seem to care.

      Just turn the knob, one of the waiting students said.

      Didn’t they teach you anything on that Class D backwater? another sniggered.

      The boy stiffened and reached toward his belt. For his knife, Elaine realized, though of course he didn’t have one here.

      More laughter. The boy’s arm fell, and he turned slowly around. The glint in his eyes made the cafeteria’s gleaming metal floor and walls appear warm by comparison. I’m sorry, but I am still learning your language. The temperature-controlled room seemed to drop ten degrees at his words. Would you care to repeat that? Elaine knew then—knew—that he wasn’t going to avenge these insults with a few cutting words.

      She was on her feet, not sure when she’d gotten there. She had full Empire citizenship, but if this Darkovan boy didn’t, fighting at school would get him thrown off-world so fast it’d make his head spin, and he’d never even understand why.

      She raced across the room, putting herself between him and the line behind him. Here! Let me help! She turned the dispenser’s knob and pushed buttons at random. A tray shot out, and several vacuum-sealed cubes of food clunked on to it, loud in the suddenly-silent cafeteria. It’s really quite simple, once you get the hang of it.

      The boy’s fists had been raised. He lowered them as Elaine dropped her eyes. It was a Lowland custom for men and women to never look directly at one other, but her mountain-bred mother had insisted on it when they came to Terra, saying that Terrans were unpredictable and could not be trusted.

      Thank you, Lady. The ice hadn’t left the boy’s voice. Elaine remembered, too late, that no Darkovan boy would appreciate having his honor defended by a girl.

      This wasn’t Darkover. He could adapt, just like she had. "Z’par servu," she said, not without irony.

      At her perfect casta the boy started and looked up, like one of the deer on the reserve where her mother worked. Elaine lifted his tray and offered it to him, her own gaze still cast modestly down. She wanted to get out of there, to snatch up her tablet and flee the cafeteria before her friends could ask her, with words and with glances, just how Darkovan she really was.

      Elaine shoved the tray toward him. Her hand brushed his, and she felt a short, sharp shock, like lightning bridging the space from land to sky. She jerked away, nearly dropping the tray, only the boy caught it in time.

      She fled back to her table thinking, What in any world was that?

      The boy was truly Darkover-bred. He didn’t even try to follow her.

      ~o0o~

      By the time school was out, Elaine wanted nothing more than to go home and shed her itchy school clothes. But Dad had asked her over for dinner, which meant staying Terran a while longer yet. She caught a pod from school to his new apartment complex, wondering whether once she was there he would answer the questions he’d avoided by phone. Like why he’d transferred away from his civil service job on Darkover as unexpectedly as he’d accepted it, and why he’d left her brother Larry behind when he did.

      Outside Dad’s apartment a camera took her retina scan while the gleaming metal door cast her reflection back at her, dark Terran hair and Terran eyes so like Dad’s. It was Larry who’d inherited Mom’s Darkovan features. That was pretty much the only Darkovan thing about him. That he got to go return to the world of their birth while Elaine remained grounded on Terra was obscene.

      The door chimed as it slid open. In a few years Elaine would be an adult, and then she’d find her own way off-world. She stepped into the apartment’s small entryway. In the gray-carpeted, gray-walled living room beyond, a boy looked up from his school tablet. The Darkovan boy from school.

      You? Elaine didn’t know which of them was more startled.

      His ears turned bright red as he dropped his gaze, stumbled to his feet, and fled the room. If meeting a woman’s eyes was improper, talking to her with none of her kinsmen present was grounds for a blood feud. At least that was what Mom said. Elaine had left Darkover before she could speak, and she had no memories of any Darkovans who weren’t blood kin.

      She walked over to the Darkovan boy’s tablet. He had a Level 1 reading lesson up, the sort of thing most kids mastered in grade school. Elaine felt a twinge of sympathy as she scanned the basic exercises. Mom, who spoke Terran Standard passably enough, still sometimes needed Elaine’s help with written passages. On Darkover, she’d had scribes to read for her.

      Hey, kid.

      Elaine whirled at her father’s voice, and he grabbed her into a bear hug. Elaine hugged him back, inhaling the faint metallic scent that had clung to him even when he did his translation work in spaceports here on Terra. Elaine’s own comfort with the written word had come from Dad, during the handful of years he and Mom were together.

      Hey Dad. Been a while. Since the divorce, she’d only seen him a few times a year, mostly around holidays. She’d been surprised how much she missed him once he was gone.

      He held the hug longer than he would have before he’d left. Maybe he’d missed her, too. Crazy year, he said when he pulled away. He glanced down the hall and called, You can come back in, Ken! More quietly he told Elaine, I should have known better than to leave him alone here, but this is an education for me, too.

      What’d you do, Dad? Trade my brother in for a newer, more Darkovan model?

      Something like that, Dad said, which wasn’t the answer Elaine was looking for.

      The boy returned to the room and moved politely to Dad’s side, looking uncomfortable in his gray Academy uniform. A copper chain disappeared beneath his tunic. Mom had one just like it, attached to a silk pouch whose contents she’d refused to show Elaine as surely as she’d refused to explain why she wouldn’t go back to Darkover, not even for a visit, not even when she missed it so much.

      Okay, time to do this right. Dad switched from Terran Standard to casta, which Elaine had never heard him speak. Kennard-Gwynn Lanart-Alton, allow me to introduce my daughter, Elaine Montray-Aldaran.

      "S’dia shaya." The rote casta phrase felt strange on Elaine’s tongue, standing in Dad’s cramped Terran apartment as she was. Casta was for Mom and for home, Terran Standard for Dad and school and all the rest of the wide world.

      The honor is mine, Yllana. Kennard spoke the Darkovan version of her name, which no one but Mom ever used. That was more than strange, and it set off a sharp electric jolt beneath her skin, familiar and unsettling at once. As if they’d met before, or else would meet again. Except that made no sense.

      There. Dad kept talking in casta. He’d gotten better at it while he was away. Now you two can talk without poor Ken here worrying I’m going to challenge him to a duel. He laughed. Though given my poor fencing skills, I really don’t see what he’s worried about!

      Kennard looked relieved, and that told Elaine, more than anything else, that all Mom’s talk of unforgiveable insults and duels to the death was more than just talk, after all. Lerrys did not tell me he had a sister. Kennard used the Darkovan version of her brother’s name, too. Let alone one who spoke as if she were one of us.

      That’s my brother for you, Elaine said. Not much of a talker. When Mom and Dad had split up, they’d split the kids with them—Elaine going to Mom, Larry going to Dad—and Larry had found the whole business so uncomfortable he never visited Mom and barely spoke to Elaine outside of her visits to Dad, even though they still went to school together.

      Had gone to school together. "Dad, where is Larry? Is he in some sort of trouble? What’s going on?"

      Lerrys is well, Kennard said.

      What’s going on, Dad told her, is that Larry’s accepted his Darkovan heritage. Your mother was right. I had no right to keep that heritage from either of you.

      So Larry went native? Skinning his own bears, living off the land, that sort of thing? Elaine couldn’t even picture him speaking casta or wearing Darkovan clothes.

      We do not know bears on Darkover. Kennard stumbled over the Terran word for the animal.

      Not even in the mountains? Elaine asked wryly.

      Kennard smiled. More likely to meet a banshee in the Hellers, and I’m told they make bad eating. He had a cute smile, kind of shy and entirely different from the sharp pride she’d seen at school.

      I’m afraid banshee isn’t on offer locally, Dad said. You’ll have to settle for some ordinary Terran hamburgers. Should be out of the food dispenser in five, but I’d better go check on them. They say you can’t burn anything with the newer models, but this wouldn’t be the first time I proved them wrong.

      Kennard sighed as Dad disappeared into the kitchen, and his hand went to the chain around his neck, the one Darkovan thing he wore.

      Let me guess, Elaine said. Terrans using machines to do things they’re perfectly capable of doing for themselves? It was one Mom’s biggest complaints about Terran life.

      Kennard’s shoulders slumped, making him look suddenly young. How can you stand it?

      It’s easier for me. I just... Elaine had never put this into words before. I switch, depending on where I am. Or who I am. Most of the time, I don’t think about it. It just happens, the way—the way the food dispenser switches from hot to cold drinks and back again.

      Kennard laughed, as if that were the most ridiculous image ever. You are more than some mere Terran machine, Lady.

      That was sweet and awkward and embarrassing all at once. "So you see, when I’m at Dad’s, overcooked burgers are just normal, and I wouldn’t know what to do with anything else. But when I’m at home—well, my mom doesn’t rely on machines. Especially not for cooking. Even an ancient microwave was too modern for Mom, who’d only reluctantly accepted electric burners in place of open flames. You should come over for dinner sometime."

      Kennard’s face lit up—she caught a glimpse at the edges of her sight—but he kept his voice carefully neutral. If your mother were to extend an invitation, I would be honored to accept.

      Of course. An unmarried girl inviting an unmarried boy into her home wasn’t proper either, even if they intended to nothing more scandalous than go over their astrophysics homework together. It had all seemed so romantic back when Mom had explained it to her, perhaps because Elaine had never known a boy she actually wanted to invite over. Without thinking about it, she’d always understood that her Terran friends, boys and girls both, were for school. Bringing them home to Mom would have felt as wrong as, well, speaking casta in her father’s apartment.

      Dad came out with the burgers, sparing Elaine from having to put any of that into words. Over a properly tasteless Dad-cooked meal he explained everything to her: how Larry and Kennard had met by chance on the streets of Darkover, become friends, and had adventures together—the sort of adventures that involved kidnapping and bandits and yes, even banshees. Surviving all that had left Larry as mad to learn about Darkover as it had left Kennard mad to learn about Terra, so they’d arranged an exchange program. To help build a bridge between our worlds, Dad said.

      So now your father is my foster father. Kennard politely took another bite of the bland, processed meat. And your brother is my foster brother. And you— He stopped abruptly, and his ears turned nearly as red as his hair.

      If Elaine was his foster sister, meeting her eyes or accepting her dinner invitations or talking to her without a chaperone wouldn’t be a problem. With a word, she could erase the awkwardness between them. They’d be kin.

      But never more than kin. Elaine’s burger grew cold in front of her. She fought the urge to look at Kennard, to see if his thoughts echoed hers. It wasn’t as if you could ever really know another person’s thoughts, anyway.

      I’ll talk to my mother about dinner, she said instead.

      ~o0o~

      A proper first invitation needed not only to come from the head of Elaine’s household, but to be delivered to the head of Kennard’s. That meant Mom had to talk to Dad, something they both did as little of as possible.

      The resulting argument was all about Mom giving Dad hell for taking Larry off-world and leaving him there. Elaine heard you never consulted me and he’s my son, too and Terran custody laws be damned and if only you knew what I saw. She had no idea what that last even meant.

      But at the end of Dad’s yelling and Mom’s bitter, hissed accusations, Mom issued an invitation, Dad passed it on to Kennard, and Kennard accepted it.

      He showed up a week later at their house near the city’s edge, far enough from the city center to have real grass out front. Mom worked even further away, with horses and hawks and other animals at a reserve dedicated to keeping dying Terran species alive.

      Kennard halted at the edge of the property, staring at that patch of green as if it could slake some deep thirst. He wore leggings and a tunic almost the same shade of green, and his long cloak, embroidered with an eagle atop a rocky cliff, set off his bright hair and fair skin. He didn’t look uncomfortable in those clothes. He looked—Elaine’s skin grew hot as she thought about how he looked, and she forced her gaze to her feet. It was all she could do to stand there and let her mother cross the lawn to greet him alone.

      Mom’s bright scarlet cloak bore the same double eagles as Elaine’s own. She gave Kennard a formal bow as she spoke in casta. Kennard-Gwynn Lanart-Alton. Your mother and I met once, when we were young. That was news to Elaine. Be welcome in my home.

      "My thanks, domna." Kennard returned the bow, while behind them the sun grew red as it touched the horizon. Watching in her full scarlet skirt and gold-laced black blouse, Elaine inhaled the evening air and let herself believe, just for a moment, that she was a Darkovan woman standing on the world of her birth, like she and Mom used to pretend at sunset, when Elaine was small.

      She opened the door to let them inside, and though he didn’t look at her, Kennard’s small smile echoed Elaine’s own. She followed in time to see Kennard take in the first floor of their home, with the floor-to-ceiling windows that let in the setting sun, the airy and translucent screens that took the place of walls. Mom said no civilized person should live huddled in the dark, no matter what world they lived on.

      The chandelier that hung over the dining room table had real candles in place of bulbs, and they cast soft orange light. More candles flickered in the sconces Mom had installed around the room. If Elaine switched from Terran to Darkovan and back again without thinking, that didn’t change the fact that coming home to this, after the harsh yellow lights of school, was as restful as shedding her itchy Terran clothes.

      Kennard drank in the Darkovan furnishings with stark hunger before turning to Elaine’s mom with another bow. "Domna, I bring you a gift." He drew a small package from his cloak and handed it to her. Elaine caught a whiff of something that smelled a little like chocolate and a little like coffee and a lot like neither one.

      "Jaco! Mom said, and formality gave way to a warm smile. Do you know I’ve never found a Terran drink that even came close? Coffee is a poor substitute. You are doubly welcome here, young man."

      I like coffee, Elaine said.

      Mom didn’t seem to hear. I imported seeds once, at great expense, she told Kennard. They came up well enough, but the taste was entirely wrong.

      Kennard nodded soberly. Some things can only grow properly on their home soil.

      What would I be like? Elaine wondered. If I were grown on my home soil?

      You would be splendid, Kennard said. Elaine looked at him, startled, but he still spoke to her mother. He hadn’t—couldn’t have—spoken aloud.

      Because she hadn’t spoken aloud, either.

      ~o0o~

      Over a dinner of roast rabbit, which Mom and Kennard agreed tasted almost like Darkovan rabbit-horn, Elaine and Kennard talked about school and their classes. Elaine was focusing on mathematics and celestial dynamics. She hoped one day to serve as an astronavigator on one of the big ships, and so to see other words—including Darkover, but not only Darkover—for herself. With Kennard sitting there, Mom spared Elaine her disapproving speech about how if you traveled among all the stars, you could never belong to any one of them.

      Kennard was focusing on learning to read well enough to master other subjects. Elaine offered to help him after school.

      Consider our home your own. Mom seconded the invitation, making it one he could accept. She liked him, Elaine realized, as she’d never liked any of the Academy students she’d met at school events.

      You lend me grace. Kennard bowed his head.

      As Elaine looked between him and Mom, she felt dizzy, balanced between the worlds of her Terran father and her Darkovan mother. The air blurred, and for an instant she saw herself stepping off one of the big ships whose courses she hoped to chart, onto a world whose noon sun was red as a Terran sunset. Darkover.

      "Domna, have you had your daughter tested for laran?" The image faded as Kennard spoke.

      "What’s laran?" Elaine asked.

      Elaine’s mother snorted, a rather un-Darkovan sound. How would I do that here?

      Of course. Kennard’s ears flushed. I know it is none of my concern, but by your leave... He drew the chain from beneath his tunic, cradling the silk bag that hung from it. I’m no Tower technician, but I’d be happy to perform some basic tests.

      If I wanted that done, I’d have done it myself. I’ll kindly ask you not to speak of it again. Mom forced a smile as her hand brushed the silk bag that hung from her own neck. "Now, let’s try that jaco, shall we?" Mom’s skirts swirled around her as she swept from the room,

      What was that about? Elaine asked.

      Kennard’s hands fidgeted in his lap. I’ll not defy your mother in her own home. Please don’t ask me to.

      You’re too damn honorable, Elaine thought.

      Without honor, what’s left? Kennard muttered, as if to himself. Elaine must have spoken aloud without realizing it, both now and earlier.

      Without honor you’d be just another Terran boy, she thought, and found she wanted that no more than he did.

      ~o0o~

      They didn’t need to talk about laran, whatever that was, to have enough things to talk about.

      In the weeks that followed, after school at her mother’s house, Elaine explained the vagaries of Terran verb conjugations and Terran social customs to Kennard, while Kennard spoke about his Darkovan life to Elaine. Years of retelling had worn her mother’s stories down to smooth familiarity, and Elaine found herself as hungry for Kennard’s new tales as he was for airy rooms and home-cooked meals.

      Kennard talked about helping his father raise horses in the hills of his family estate, about serving in the city guard, about fighting on the fire lines beside Elaine’s brother—hard work, grueling work, real work. He talked about living in a place where people didn’t spend their teens hunched over tablets, but learned adult work out in the adult world.

      If she were a Darkovan astrogator, Elaine thought once, she’d already be on a big ship, learning alongside those already doing that work. Except there were no Darkovan astrogators. Not yet. Why shouldn’t she be the first? Again Elaine saw herself stepping off a big ship and onto a world with a deep red sun, only this time she could tell it was like no big ship she’d ever seen, its lines sleeker and more graceful than any Terran-made craft.

      Kennard smiled, as if whatever she saw, he saw it, too. His hand moved towards hers, not quite touching. Elaine had the strangest feeling then, a feeling she’d never had with any Terran friend.

      Like they didn’t really need to speak. Like they could move beyond words, if she could figure out how.

      No one could move beyond words. Weeks gave way to months, and it was through words that she and Kennard became friends, at her mother’s house and at her father’s, too. She saw more of Dad now and thought of him less as a stranger and more as, well, her father.

      What would it take to become more than friends? Words had little power when put up against Darkovan customs that seemed designed to set walls between them, customs that prevented the slightest casual touch or held gaze and that wouldn’t even let Kennard talk to her at school, because she had no kinsmen there. Elaine couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a missing piece that could breach those walls, some piece she didn’t understand.

      Yet she and Kennard were friends, and she treasured that as its own true thing.

      She reminded herself that one day, surely, he would leave again. But as the years passed, Kennard showed no more sign of leaving Terra than Elaine’s brother showed of leaving Darkover and coming home.

      ~o0o~

      She was in her final year at the Academy when everything changed.

      She was sitting in her Multispace Group Theory class—a class she and Kennard didn’t share, since he was more interested in balancing household accounts than higher mathematics—when out of nowhere, red-hot pain seared her side.

      Elaine screamed, barely aware she was doing it, as that pain burned through muscles and shot into her stomach. Images flashed before her. Swords ringing. Steel piercing cloth and skin. Her brother, falling to the ground. Blood, far too much blood.

      Ms. Montray, are you all right?

      She clung to her teacher’s voice like the lifeline it was, forcing herself past those horrid visions to focus on the woman in Terra Academy grays who stood beside her desk. There was no blood. There was only a class full of Terran students, staring at her.

      Filthy Terranan. Don’t need a spaceship to send you back to the stars. The voice rang through Elaine’s head, loud as the clashing of swords.

      Except there was no voice in her head. There couldn’t be. I’m okay. Elaine’s side burned, but she forced the words out. I just...don’t feel very well. I can get myself to the medic’s office.

      She fled the room, but not for the medic. If she showed up in his office with no visible injuries, he’d want a psych evaluation, and emotional stability was one of the things the astrogation schools she’d applied to looked for. Better to let everyone think she’d just ditched class. It’d be her first offense in all her years at the Academy, and she could serve detention for it later.

      She ran out the door and down one of the city’s long alleyways, clutching her side, though there was no good reason, because she hadn’t been hurt. Yet she did hurt. She hurt so much. She fell gasping to her knees, while around her the city’s high-rises caught the yellow afternoon sun.

      Yllana! Kennard knelt before her, steadying hands on her shoulders. Kennard, who never spoke to her at school or when they were alone, Kennard who never, ever touched her. Pain fled as he lifted her chin and looked right into her eyes, and Elaine found she could breathe again.

      It’s my fault, Kennard said, his own eyes anguished. I should have had better control, only I never imagined the connection between me and my foster brother could travel so far. Zandru’s Hells, what’s happened to him? He was in so much pain.

      No. Kennard didn’t say any of that. He thought it. Staring straight at him, his hands trembling against her face, there was no denying it. Kennard, what’s going on?

      "I’m sorry. He spoke aloud now, his lips moving like they were supposed to. I’ve grown so accustomed to living among head-blind Terrans that I stopped worrying about what I might be broadcasting. He’s so far away, Yllana. I cannot protect him this time."

      "Protect

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