Freedom's Fury (Spooner Federation Saga Book 3) Page 9

  Well...

  —At the moment, the Relic is your very own private domain. Your personal retreat and safe harbor. No one can get there without your approval and assistance. No one can interfere with you from Hope’s surface. Were you planning to change that any time soon?

  I’m not sure what you’re implying, Grandpere.

  —You just ended a war single-handed. You’re planning to exact justice from an unknown group of its initiators. What—

  Grandpere, how do you know about all that?

  —You’ve thought about only four subjects since you came within range, Althea. I’ve been fully aware of all of them for quite a while. So: what do you plan to do afterward? Settle back into Morelon House as if nothing had happened? In your position, I’d treasure the possession of a refuge no one else could reach.

  Grandpere...

  —Yes, dear?

  Wasn’t it you who counseled me against making myself an agent of justice?

  “Althea?”

  “Hm? Oh, sorry, Claire.” She finished descending the ladder and waited as her friend did the same. “Woolgathering again.”

  Claire Albermayer’s eyes had filled with questions. At the bottom of the ladder, she staggered momentarily, wrapped her arms around Althea and hugged her gently. Althea returned the embrace.

  “Is something wrong, love?” Claire whispered against her cheek.

  “No...no. Just...adjusting. I think it will take a while. I’ve been away for a long time, you know?”

  “Ladies?”

  The reminder that they were not alone made Althea release her friend with instantly regretted suddenness. “Hm?”

  Adam Grenier smirked. “If you’d like to use the rest rooms, you’ll find them over that way.”

  * * *

  Claire donned her safety helmet, gingerly mounted the passenger seat of Adam Grenier’s hovercycle, and grinned back at Althea.

  “I can’t wait to hear how your kin react when you walk into Morelon House unannounced.”

  Althea smiled, and Grenier started the cycle’s ground-effect motor. The roar of the fans forced her to shout. “You’ll get all the details if I get yours. See you in a few days, okay?”

  Claire nodded and waved farewell, Grenier wheeled the cycle about, and the two streaked off toward the Hallanson-Albermayer compound. Althea watched until they’d rounded the curve into the forest pathway. A pang went through her as they disappeared from view. She turned and strode down the westward path toward Morelon House.

  I do love her. Maybe even as much as I love Martin.

  —It’s well to be candid with yourself about such things, dear.

  I worked that out all by myself, Grandpere.

  —I’m still very proud of you, you know.

  Glad to hear it, but what makes you say so now?

  —You’ve made exactly the right decision about how to manage your two loves.

  Really? Great! Now tell me what it is, because I’ve hardly dared to think about it.

  —(humor) Now, now, youngster. Don’t you think your old Gramps might have a bit of insight into the way people reach their decisions about critical matters?

  Maybe. But I dispute that you can read them from thoughts I haven’t had yet.

  —(humor) Which is why you were surprised at my claim to know them. But this is the sort of decision where your rational powers, as huge as they are, can contribute virtually nothing to the outcome.

  Althea began a snotty reply, halted herself before the thought was fully formed.

  You’re right. It’s about obligations and their priorities. We don’t really reason about those things.

  —A very little, at most.

  But the ability to form and feel an obligation is a big component of what raises us above nonsentient animals. If we can’t reason about them, what brought us to the top of the evolutionary ladder?

  —Do you seriously think Man’s reasoning powers are his sole advantage over the beasts, dear?

  It stopped her a second time.

  Althea had never given much thought to her conscience and the role it played in her decisions. She knew right from wrong, and she knew that she knew. It occurred to her for the first time that she did not know how she knew. She could not say whence the knowledge came, or what made it self-demonstrating.

  If we didn’t—can’t work that stuff out rationally, how did we come by it? How is it that just about everyone agrees on it?

  Her grandfather remained silent.

  Grandpere?

  —Yes, dear?

  It’s a gift, isn’t it?

  —Yes, dear. A pure gift. Built into the human organism at a depth that no one has ever plumbed.

  A gift from...God?

  —That is for you to decide.

  New vistas, painted in exquisite detail and vivid color, exploded in her mind as she pondered it.

  Grandpere, I have a story to tell you. About what happened on my trip. What I saw and heard and learned. What Claire and I have been doing up on the Relic. Why I decided to love her.

  —I’m listening, dear.

  ====

  Later on December 35, 1325 A.H.

  Nora Morelon was in the hearthroom of Morelon House, tidying up the mess from the previous evening, casually making plans for the next evening’s Sacrifice Day banquet, and musing over her clan’s sluggish return to normality, when she heard the knock on the mansion's front door. It straightened her up at once. She scampered to answer it.

  Bart didn’t say we were expecting anyone.

  Though Clan Morelon was large and regionally important, it didn’t enjoy a great frequency of casual intercourse with other clans. Nearly the whole of the leisure society among adult Morelon kin occurred within the clan. Its minor children indulged a somewhat wider engagement with Jacksonville society, though even they rarely brought a chum home to meet their parents and relatives. Drop-in visitors to Morelon House were a noteworthy event.

  Nora composed herself to her public mien, donned a welcoming smile, pulled open the tall oaken doors of the mansion, spied a grinning Althea Morelon perched on the front stoop, and collapsed upon the instant.

  “Nora? What’s wrong?” Althea crouched over Nora as her consciousness faded, put two fingers to the pulse point in her neck, straightened and loosed a bellow.

  “MORELONS!”

  * * *

  “You should have told us you were coming down,” Barton said, as mildly as he could.

  Althea cocked an eyebrow. “You mean I was supposed to know that my unheralded arrival would throw Nora into a faint?” She crossed her arms over her breasts. “I thought I was welcome here.”

  “Althea,” Bart said, his expression pained, “we were hoping to...prepare you for a few things.”

  Her gaze flicked to the stump of his arm. “Like that?”

  “Not exactly.” He glanced into the hearthroom. Nora had revived. She was sitting up on the old masonwood sofa, with Patrice’s arm wrapped around her. She was still pale, and her eyes were painfully wide.

  At least it wasn’t a genuine emergency.

  He mouthed a kiss at her, and she nodded.

  Most of the twenty-odd Morelon kin who’d come running to Althea’s shout had returned to their work. Dorothy Morelon, Cecile Dunbarton, Jacqueline Morelon and Chuck Feigner had remained, whether out of fear for Nora or because nothing quite that exciting had happened in Morelon House for twelve years.

  Since the day Martin toted Althea in here looking like a fresh corpse.

  He glanced over his shoulder at them. “The action’s over, folks. Our prodigal daughter’s surprise return didn’t kill my wife after all. You can go back to your tasks. We’ll catch up with Althea this evening at dinner and celebrate her return tomorrow night.”

  “Should we make something special?” Cecile murmured.

  Barton grinned. “Whatever you come up with will be fine, I’m sure.” He inclined his head toward Althea. “Al’s been living on concentrates, remember?�
��

  Althea snorted. “Well, actually—”

  “Come to my office with me, Al?” He gestured toward the stairs.

  “Uh, sure. Wait, can’t I look in on Martin first?”

  He strained not to show his discomfiture. “Not yet. Let me fill you in about a few things first.” She balked, and he laid his hand on her arm. “Please.”

  The others stepped aside to let them pass.

  * * *

  “New love seats?” Althea said as she settled onto one.

  Barton nodded. “The council approved them this past Triember.” He closed the office door carefully and sat on the facing unit. “I couldn’t get the stains out of the old ones, and they were getting pretty ragged anyway.” He hunched toward her, eyes downcast.

  “Bart...”

  “Things aren’t quite right, Al.” He shrugged his stump at her. “This isn’t the worst of the injuries we sustained.”

  Althea’s pulse quickened.

  He has to mean Martin.

  “I know about the fatalities,” she said. “I heard about your arm. Inasmuch as you haven’t radioed me since I got the siege lifted for you, I assumed that your medipods managed to cope with everything else. I know Martin was badly hurt—”

  Barton raised his hand. “You haven’t heard the most important part.”

  Althea’s mouth tightened involuntarily.

  “I don’t know how to soften this, Althea—”

  “Just say it straight out, Bart.” She braced herself.

  He nodded. “Martin’s injuries included a head wound. His medipod healed him physically. But he suffered a weird form of amnesia. In the simplest terms, he can’t remember any of his emotions or emotional relationships.”

  Althea’s heart began to race. “Does he remember...me?”

  Barton nodded. “Every factual detail about you, including that the two of you are husband and wife. But he doesn’t remember loving you.” A spasm of anguish flitted over his face. “Or anyone else. Apparently, the head wound destroyed his memory of his emotional attachments completely.”

  His hand clutched spasmodically at his knee. “There’s more. Before the siege, Martin had become the regular celebrant at evening worship. You remember the gift he had for evoking the passion of the Gospel stories. He could bring us to tears with a few dozen words. The whole clan came to hear him every evening, without fail. That’s gone, too. In fact, he can’t remember ever having faith. It’s the one seeming deletion from his factual memory.”

  “It fits,” Althea whispered.

  Barton frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “He told me...long ago...that faith isn’t a conclusion you reach by deduction or induction. It’s an event.” She began to tremble. “It happens inside you, in the part of you that comes before reason, holding it up from underneath. The part that’s in touch with the inner workings of things, the real laws of the universe.” She closed her eyes briefly and fought for self-command. “We call it the conscience. Just about everyone knows when it’s talking to him...but we seldom think much about what it is, or where it comes from.”

  Barton’s gaze had grown intense. “You had that event, didn’t you? While you were between the stars.”

  She nodded.

  “Would you be willing to tell me how it came about?”

  “Later, Bart.” She sniffled. “I have to see Martin first...see if there’s anything I can do to bring him back in from the cold.” She met his eyes. “Can you wait?”

  He smiled wanly. “I’ve waited many years, Al. A lot of those years I had no understanding of my faith. Today I have very little more. It hasn’t harmed me. I suppose I can wait a few hours longer.”

  He rose, took her hand and raised her from her seat.

  “Go to your husband. See if you can teach him to love again.”

  * * *

  Althea paused at the door to Martin's workshop. The sounds from within spoke of a powerful tool in active use. She waited until it had died away, knocked thrice sharply, and stepped back.

  The door opened. Martin stood there, eyes questioning. She stood rigidly still against the urge to leap at him and throw her arms around him.

  “Hello, Althea.” He stepped aside and gestured welcome. “Please come in.”

  He perched himself on the elevated chair that stood before his workbench. The bench was littered with innumerable projects in indeterminate states of repair. He’d obviously been keeping himself as busy as possible. She sat in his metal guest chair, folded her hands in her lap, and waited as he adjusted to her arrival.

  “I didn’t know you were back,” he said.

  She grinned crookedly. “No one did. I guess you didn’t hear the commotion.” His eyebrows rose, and she continued, “I didn’t bother to radio from the Relic. No one knew I was re-entering today. Nora fainted when she opened the front door and saw me standing there.”

  “Ah. I assume she’s all right?”

  Althea nodded.

  “How are you?”

  “I’m all right,” she said. “I heard what happened to you. Bart says the medipod healed you physically, but...”

  “But I don’t care about anyone,” he said. “I can’t grasp why anyone should care about me.”

  “You feel no emotion whatsoever. Nothing for or against anyone.” She swallowed. “Including me.”

  He nodded. “I can tell it has the rest of the clan badly upset, but I can’t quite figure out why. I know you and I are married, but...” He shrugged.

  They passed an interval in silence.

  Presently he said “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Neither do I, except—”

  —Have you forgotten your special powers and skills, Granddaughter? Have you forgotten how to think as well? Have you forgotten everything I taught you?

  What? Grandpere, this isn’t—

  —Yes it is. Think, for Rand’s sake.

  “Althea?”

  “Just a moment.” She clenched her jaws, stared at her knees, and thought furiously.

  “Martin,” she said, “are you able to feel new emotions?”

  “Hm?”

  “Have you reacted emotionally to anything since you came out of your pod? Affection, gratitude, envy, humor, anger, sadness, happiness?”

  His brow furrowed. “I don’t think so. At least, I can’t remember any such. I’ve been in my bedroom or in here, except for meals. Why do you ask?”

  She rose and stood before him. “May I...examine you?”

  He hesitated, then nodded. She put her fingertips to the sides of his head and turned it gently counterclockwise. He did not resist.

  She found the wound site at once. It was clean and smooth, with a hint of new hair slowly growing in over it. The HalberCorp medipod had done a creditable job of repairing the physical damage.

  As far as I can see, anyway.

  —You have more than eyes to see with, dear.

  I know, Grandpere. Let me work.

  She closed her eyes, set her viewpoint free, and passed it into her husband’s skull.

  Martin’s cranial vault appeared unbreached. It was properly filled with clear cerebrospinal fluid. His meninges and the vessels that traversed them appeared normal in every respect. She probed deeper, into the nervous tissue that would have been traumatized by the projectile that struck there.

  At first his brain appeared entirely sound. She examined it at increasing magnification, and found an inexplicable declivity. It descended into a curving defile that separated a small volume of brain tissue between the temporal and occipital lobes from access to the region’s fluid passages.

  Is that normal?

  —You have a second brain handy for comparison, dear. Why not use it?

  Oh. Right.

  “Do you see anything?”

  “Patience, Martin. I need a moment more.”

  Her own brain revealed no such formation.

  Maybe Claire’s little wonders called it quits a wee bit early.

&nb
sp; If that gap were bridged over so the isolated volume had the services of those vessels, maybe his emotional capacity would return. I could do it easily.

  But I don’t know for sure. I don’t even know what that little ball of tissue is supposed to do. Maybe it’s isolated that way for a reason.

  Do I dare?

  —Do you dare not?

  I’m not a neurosurgeon, Grandpere.

  —Indeed not. You’re far more.

  I don’t want to hurt him!

  —Althea, Martin’s injury has confined him to the reach of his five senses and his body’s perceptions of its animal needs. Your husband is unable to feel. Unable to bond. Can you imagine a non-physical handicap that would be harder to bear? Can you imagine what his life would be like if he should never be healed, never recover? If your positions were reversed, would you want him to hold back?

  All right, all right! If he consents.

  —Althea—

  Later, Grandpere.

  “Martin,” she said, “I think I see the problem. Do you remember the...special things I can do?”

  He glanced sideways at her and nodded slowly.

  “I might be able to fix it. I can’t be sure it will work. If it works, it might not bring back your...emotional memory. But it might make you able to feel new emotions. That is, if I don’t hurt you even worse.” She turned him face-forward and laid her palms along the sides of his face. “Are you willing to let me mess with your head?”

  “Do your special abilities extend to micromanipulation that delicate?” he said.

  She nodded. “I’ve done it before. On myself, in fact.”

  “On your brain?”

  She grimaced. “No.”

  He looked briefly away.

  “You love me,” he said.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Which means what?”

  Her mouth fell open.

  Challenges layered with conundrums. Heaped so high that I can’t see past them. And the person most important to me in all the world demanding the answers.

  “It means,” she said slowly, “that your well-being is as important to me as my own. That I take delight in pleasing you, making you happy. That I would never knowingly cause you unhappiness.” She blinked back tears. “That I make no decision more important than what color underwear to put on without first asking myself how it would affect you. That I would willingly step between you and anything that might threaten you, regardless of the consequences.” She swallowed. “That I would kill without hesitation or regret to protect you from harm.”