THE HERITAGE OF HASTUR by Marion Zimmer Bradley

“It sounds like nonsense,” Thyra said.

“Not a bit of it,” I said. “The Keeper takes and channels all that energy from all of you. No one who has ever handled these very high energy-flows wants to take the slightest chance of short-circuiting them through her own body. It would be like getting in the way of a lightning-bolt.” I held out the scar again. “A three-second backflow did that to me. Well, then. In the body there are clusters of nerve fibers which control the energy flows. The trouble is that the same nerve clusters carry two kinds of energy; they carry the psi flows, the energons which carry power to the brain; they also carry the sexual messages and energies. This is why some telepaths get threshold sickness when they’re in their teens: the two kinds of energy, sexual energies and laran, are both wakening at once. If they aren’t properly handled, you can get an overload, sometimes a killer overload, because each stimulates the other and you get a circular feedback.”

Beltran asked, “Is that why—”

I nodded, knowing what he was going to ask. “Whenever there’s an energon drain, as in concentrated matrix work, there’s some nerve overloading. Your energies are depleted—have you noticed how we’ve all been eating?—and your sexual energies are at a low ebb, too. The major side effect for men is temporary impotence.” I repeated, smiling reassuringly at Beltran, “Temporary impotence. Nothing to worry about, but it does take some getting used to. By the way, if you ever find you can’t eat, come to one of us right away for monitoring; that can be an early-warning signal that your energy flows are out of order.”

“Monitoring. That’s what you’re teaching me to do, then?” Beltran asked, and I nodded. “That’s right. Even if you can’t link into the circle, we can use you as a psi monitor.” I knew he was still resentful about this. He knew enough by now to know it was the work usually done by the youngest and least skilled in the circle. The worst of it was that unless he could stop projecting this resentment, we couldn’t even use him near the circle. Not even as a psi monitor. There are few things that can disrupt a circle faster than uncontrolled resentments.

I said, “In a sense, the Keeper and the psi monitor are at the two ends of a circle—and almost equally important.” This was true. “Often enough, the life of the Keeper is in the hands of the monitor, because she has no energy to waste in watching over her own body.”

Beltran grinned ruefully, but he grinned. “So Marjorie is the head and I’m the old cow’s tail!”.

“By no means. Rather she’s at the top of the ladder and you’re on the ground holding it steady. You’re the lifeline.” I remembered suddenly that we had come far astray from the subject, and said, “With a Keeper, if the nerve channels are not completely clear they can overload, and the Keeper will burn up like a torch. So while the nerve channels are being used to carry these tremendous energy overloads, they cannot be used to carry any other form of energy. And only complete chastity can keep the channels clear enough.”

Marjorie said, “I can feel the channels all the time now. Even when I’m not working in the matrices. Even when I’m asleep.”

“Good.” That meant she was functioning as a Keeper now. Beltran looked at her with half shut eyes and said, “I can see them, almost.”

“That’s good, too,” I said. “A time will come when you’ll be able to sense the energy flows from across the room—or a mile away—and pinpoint any backflows or energy disruptions in any of us.”

I deliberately changed the subject. I asked, “Precisely what do we want to do with the Sharra matrix, Beltran?”

“You know my plans.”

“Plans, yes, precisely what do you want to do first”? I know that in the end you want to prove that a matrix this size can power a starship—”

“Can it?” Marjorie asked.

“A matrix this size, love, could bring one of the smaller moons right down out of its orbit, if we were insane enough to try. It would, of course, destroy Darkover along with it. Powering a starship with one might be possible, but we can’t start there. Among other reasons, we haven’t got a starship yet. We need a smaller project to experiment with, to learn to direct and focus the force. This force is fire-powered, so we also need a place to work where, if we lose control for a few seconds, we won’t burn up a thousand leagues of forest.”