I could sense you near by which confused everyone but you wouldn’t – then I realized – couldn’t respond.’ Her face mirrored the anxiety she had endured.
`But the larvae weren’t touched?’ `Indeed not! Their discovery will provide inestimable data on Hivers. Incalculably valuable.
However, not as valuable as you are to us. Your life would not have been a fair exchange for that data.
And I was horrified not to be able to locate you: you were there and you weren’t. You couldn’t be located here on the Vadim but I knew approximately where your body should be. It was Alison who thought of the pods. Why ever did you go there?’ `Abandon ship drills,’ Thian said, managing a slight grin which surprisingly didn’t hurt, though his face muscles still ached. `Are you great-grandmothering me?’ he asked, realizing that her subtle soothing strokes were purposeful and he was feeling drowsy again.
`A bit of,’ she said with a grin. `Glad you can feel it working.
Isthia swears it brought Dad back to life.
And you’re in need of more healing.’ Gravy was his attendant the next time he surfaced.
Testing his mental health, he found it sufficiently cured so that a light mental cast located his mother, fast asleep near by.
`Gravy?’ `So you’re awake, are you?’ And she moved to the side of whatever sort of a tank they had him floating in. `By any chance, would you be hungry?’ `You must be reading my mind.’ Her smile was radiant. `Nab, you should be hungry about now, if the treatment’s working.’ His first meal was only broth but it was more delicious than any he remembered.
`That’s because you’re hungry,’ she said.
`I didn’t say anything,’ he replied, giving her a long look.
She grinned, wrinkling her nose at him. `That’s something, isn’t it? I’m picking up more than ever I did before. Only short-range but that’s fine by me!
Damia says sometimes fright triggers or expands Talent. And I won’t lie that I wasn’t terrified when they reported you couldn’t be found at the wreck.
Lieutenant Kiely set up an awful stink. Then your mother arrives in an unscheduled capsule, knocking a drone out of its cradle. The watch in the shuttle bay thought they were being invaded by Hivers and she’d have been charred if she hadn’t paralysed their hands so they couldn’t fire on her. Then she compliments the captain on such an alert crew and insists that the larvae be preserved… Which is the first Captain Ashiant had heard about that! But he got Vandermeer on the blower which was smart, because they were having quite a time, keeping the `Dinis off `em while they planted charges because they thought destroying the things,’ and Gravy shuddered, `was the right thing to do.’ Then she grinned. `I think your mother made herself known to Vandermeer and that was that! End of problem!
I heard Vandermeer say she found herself removing the charges before she knew what she was doing. Can Talents do that? Make someone do something?’ `It’s not considered good manners,’ Thian began, enjoying the vision of his mother manipulating the sturdy and strong-minded security commander as easily as she’d have controlled an errant child. `It’s an invasion of privacy and not something Talent would consider except under very unusual circumstances.
`which those were! Crims, Thian,’ and Gravy’s eyes sparkled with excitement, clearing her mobile face of more solemn considerations, `even the guys who were for charring the larvae are now patting themselves on the back for being in on such a find. But the glory’s all yours!’ `Mine?’ Thian hesitated only one brief moment before he said as earnestly as he could. `But Kiely was first down the tube, not me,’ he said in perfect truth.
`Kiely?’ Gravy was astonished.
Thian nodded once emphatically. `Kiely was first down that tube.’ She stared at him, puzzled. `But I thought..
`Kiely deserves the glory for being first. I wasn’t even sure what the things were. I called Commander Vandermeer because I thought she should see what Kiely’d found’ `And here Kiely’s been down-playing his part…’ Gravy trailed off and then her grin was smug. `Well, we’ll just see about that!’ Thian was well pleased.