Homecoming

XIV

Dr. Celia Uithoudt stepped into the little cabin.

“Ram?”

“What?” He responded without looking away from the tape screen.

She looked at her husband thoughtfully before continuing. “Did you read my mind just now?”

“You know I can’t do that at will.” He turned to her. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you sound grumpy-like a refusal waiting for a request. I thought maybe you knew I was going to ask you to do something.”

“I guess maybe I did. Do what?”

“Talk to Ilse.”

“What point is there in that?”

“Courtesy, if nothing else.” For those four words her tone had sharpened. Now it softened again, but the words were candid. “Ram, you should know what the point is without being told. With Matt gone, you’ve undertaken to direct the off-ship activities as well as the ship itself. And Alex is willing to let you, even though he was Matt’s second, because he’s not the command type and doesn’t feel up to the circumstances. And because you’re willing and he has respect for your… ”

“And you don’t like the way I’m handling things,” Ram interrupted roughly. “Maybe you ought to try it.”

“Let me finish talking, you sarcastic bully!” Her burst of open anger startled Ram, even shocked him. She seldom argued, rarely criticized bluntly, and he’d never seen her blow up before. He respected and appreciated her patience even more than her intelligence. To have broken that patience alerted him to how badly the situation had affected his frame of mind.

At a deeper level she had jabbed a hidden sore of self-distaste. He sometimes did use sarcasm to bully her, and despised this trait of his.

“Sorry, Cele,” he said quietly. “I’ll listen.”

She stood uncomfortably for a wordless moment, her anger gone. “If you’re going to make the decisions,” she said at last, “you need to know as much as possible about the people and circumstances you’re dealing with. And Ilse is a storehouse of information. She may seem like a primitive-I guess she is, in one sense of the word-but she’s from a pretty wise culture. The Kinfolk have kept alive quite a bit of the old knowledge. They’re scattered throughout feudal Europe and keep one another more or less informed of what goes on there. They’re sophisticated politically and they’ve been influencing feudal politics and culture for generations, so they have a lot better feel for intrigue and conflict than we do. They’ve retained a lot of twenty-first-century objectivism and rationalism, too, and on top of that she’s learned a lot about the Northmen and at least something about the orcs.

“Besides, with your occasional periods of telepathic sensitivity, you might find it interesting to know a trained and highly functional telepath.”

“You’re right,” he said. “And I will talk to her. I guess I let my frustrations get me down.”

She bent and kissed her seated husband on the forehead.

“I’ve never seen you so impressed by anyone before,” he went on. “Certainly not on just a few days’ acquaintance.”

“Don’t let the greasy deerskin breeches mislead you,” Celia said. “Besides, I’ve had some things sewn together for her, a bit lighter and easier to clean. She’s too pregnant for any of our jumpsuits.

“You’ll be impressed with her too, I promise. She’s not only highly intelligent and magnetic, but she seems so, so integrated. When I talk with her I feel positively-outclassed-and you know inferiority isn’t part of my self image.”

Ram shook his head.

“Listen, Cele,” he said. “For whatever it’s worth, I apologize for being such a lout. Introduce me to Ilse. I’ve barely met her, and I need you to start me out. I hope she’s used to people that run off at the mind. I can usually control my mouth, but… ”

Cele had been right: magnetic was the word. And striking, almost handsome. On New Home, with its centuries of racial blending, her honey-blond hair and high color would have drawn immediate attention. But her real impact was of strength and composure. Even advanced pregnancy failed to make her seem weak or vulnerable. Yet she was very much a woman-swollen but physically attractive. And the sense of presence she radiated had affected Ram before she’d said a word.

He’d been surprised at her Anglic. On New Home, with its cultural conservatism and literary tradition, the language had not changed much, but he wouldn’t have expected so little change in it on Earth. The Psi Alliance had kept it as their primary language, she explained. It helped maintain unity among the farflung members.

They’d nurtured it also among the people around them as a second language understood almost everywhere in feudal Europe. The Merchant Kin and the powerful Inner Circle had been instrumental in establishing Anglic among the upper classes, where the advantages of an international language maintained it. The monastic “Wandering Kin” had even kept it alive, if not exactly vigorous, among the peasantry. A deliberate policy of linguistic homogeneity, plus a strong oral and literary tradition, had kept it largely unchanged for more than seven hundred years.

And Ram could not doubt her telepathy. For the most part she waited for him to voice his questions and statements, but she’d openly anticipated him several times.

Although they did not seem pertinent to his problem. Ram found the Kinfolk especially interesting. “Do you mean to say,” he asked, “that there are hundreds of psis in Europe forming a complete and intercommunicating culture and the populace as a whole doesn’t know it?”

She nodded. “They know of the Wandering Kin of course, but they don’t realize what they are. The peasants regard them as seers and counselors, and look to them for advice, and that is as close as anyone comes to understanding them. Members of the Merchant Kin and the Inner Circle are thought of simply as shrewd individual merchants or advisors.”

“And the Northmen don’t know either?”

“Only Nils does; they have known of telepathy for only a few years. They were isolated for a long time in their northern land, and the Kinfolk have never been among them.”

“What do they think of telepathy?”

“Their Yngling is a telepath, so they accept it. And it’s their nature not to fear the new and unfamiliar. They have great confidence in their resourcefulness, their ability to handle whatever comes up. They may reject something as undesirable, but not from fear of its strangeness.”

“You said their-something. Their Ingling? What’s an Ingling?”

“Many of them believe my husband, Nils, is the Yngling. Long ago ‘yngling’ simply meant a youth in their language. Anciently, Anglic had a cognate, ‘youngling.’ All three Northman tribes share a legend of a young man, an yngling, who appeared in a time of danger perhaps three hundred years ago, when constant warring threatened to destroy them. They had no warrior class then; all men fought. The southern tribe, the Jotar, had gained the upper hand. It seemed they would kill or enslave the Svear, and perhaps the Norskar as well. But an yngling appeared among the Svear who became a great raid leader and war chief, and before long it seemed they would destroy the Jotar instead. Then an yngling came among the Jotar and saved them. Soon he made himself known as the same yngling who had saved the Svear and Norskar. He said he belonged to no tribe or clan, but to all Northmen. And he had great power over them by his wisdom and truth and justice, and gave them the bans that set limits on warring and feuding, the bans that let them live as men without fear and hate.

“But the yngling was killed by a Jytska chief who did not want to change, who hated him for the bans and struck him with a poisoned knife. And instead of making a burial mound, they put the body in a canoe and set it on the Jota Alv, which floated it down to the sea.

“Only then they realized that no one in all the clans knew his name, so they called him the Yngling. After that it was no longer used as a word, but reserved to be his name. And it was widely held that if the tribes were ever in such need again, he would be reborn. A year ago the need was great, and Nils, who had been exiled earlier for a killing, returned and led them through their danger. So many of the People believe he is the Yngling.”

An interesting bit of folklore. Ram thought. “And from what you said a bit ago,” he commented, “I gather that all you know about the orcs is what he’s told you.”

“Not exactly; I have it by more than telling. He can re-picture things just as he experienced them, when he wishes. So he has rerun most of the time among the orcs for me to see, and hear and feel. It is much like having been there as him.”

“Feelings and all! Do you experience them as the participant, or do you retain your separate identity with feelings of your own?”

“I perceive his feelings but remain myself.”

“Has it been hard to adjust to Northman customs and thoughts?” he asked. “After all, your own people are much more advanced.”

She smiled slightly. “All my life many ways of thinking have been exposed to me. And knowing Nils, experiencing him, has changed me. I am much like he is now. I know as he knows.”

And what was that like, Ram wondered? Was she losing her identity? Becoming a female mental reflection of a sweaty telepathic warrior? I know as he knows. As, not what. But it was himself she looked at now, seeing into his mind as if his skull were glass, his thoughts a reading tape. The realization embarrassed Ram, not because of his exposure but because she might be offended by what he’d been thinking.

Her eyes and mouth joined in smiling, and he felt relief.

“Ram,” she said, “I believe you’re the only one of your people on this ship who has meaningful psi potential. Perhaps I can teach you to use it, if you’d like.”

“What did you think of her?” Celia asked.

“Pretty remarkable. Damned remarkable. Thanks, Cele, for pushing me. She’s not only a walking reference library; she’s going to train my psi potential.”

“I thought you found your occasional flashes of telepathy painful-wished you didn’t have them.”

“You know the background, the reason for that. But it’s like having sight and keeping your eyes closed; I need to face up to it now, to what I am and can be.”

His expression changed. “Would it bother you, Cele, if I became a functional telepath?”

“I can’t be sure. You’re-not always nice, Ram, and I don’t know how it would be, not being able to keep secrets from you. But I think you ought to do it. We’ll work things out later if we need to.”

He looked at her soberly for a moment. “Good,” he said quietly. He kissed her gently on the corner of her mouth where it nestled against the smooth curve of her cheek. “I guess I better go to the bridge now.”