Beltran said harshly, “Are you saying it has corrupted me?
I looked squarely at him and said, “Yes. Even your father’s death has not made you see reason.”
Kadarin said, “You talk like a fool, Lew. I hadn’t expected this sort of whining cant from you. If we have the power to give Darkover its place in the Empire, how can we shrink from anything we must do?”
“My friend,” I pleaded, “listen to me. We cannot use Sharra’s matrix for the kind of controlled power you wish to show the Terrans. It cannot be used to power a spaceship; I would not trust it even to control the helicopter now. It is a weapon, only a weapon, and it is not weapons we need. It is technology.”
Kadarin’s smile was fierce. “But if a weapon is all we have, then we will use that weapon to get what we must from the Terrans! Once we show them what we can do with it—”
My spine iced over with a deadly cold. I saw again the vision: flames rising from Caer Donn, the great form of fire bending down with a finger of destruction…
“No!” I almost shouted. “I’ll have nothing to do with it!”
I rose and looked around the circle, saying desperately, “Can’t you see how this has corrupted us? Was it for war, for murder, for violence, blackmail, ruin, that we forged our link in such love and harmony? Was this your dream, Beltran, when we spoke together of a better world?”
He said savagely, “If we must fight, it will be the fault of the Terrans for denying us our rights! I would rather do it peacefully, but if they force us to fight them—”
Kadarin, coming and laying his hands on my shoulders with real affection said, “Lew, you’re foolishly squeamish. Once they know what we can do, there will certainly be no need to do it. But it places us in a position of equal power with the Terrans for once. Can’t you see? Even if we never use it, we must have the power, simply in order to control the situation and not be forced to submit!”
I knew what he was trying to say, but I could see the fatal flaw. I said, “Bob, we cannot bluff with Sharra. It wants ruin and destruction … can’t you feel that?”
“It is like the sword in the fairy tale,” Rafe said. “Remember what it said on the scabbard? ‘Draw me never unless I may drink blood.'”
We swung to look at the child and he smiled nervously under all our eyes.
“Rafe’s right,” I said harshly. “We can’t loose Sharra unless we really mean to use it, and no sane human beings would do that.”
Kadarin said, “Marjorie. You’re the Keeper. Do you believe this superstitious drivel?”
Her voice was not steady, but she stretched her hand to me. “I believe Lew knows more about matrices than any of us, or all of us together. You pledged, Bob, you swore to Desideria to be guided by Lew’s judgment. I won’t work against it.”
Beltran said, “You’re both part-Terran! Are you two on their side then, against Darkover?”
I gasped at the old slur. I would never have believed it of Beltran. Marjorie flared. “It was you, yourself, who pointed out not a moment ago that we are all Terran! There is no ‘side,’ only a common good for all! Does the left hand chop off the right?”
I felt Marjorie struggle for control, felt Kadarin, too, fighting to overcome his flaming anger. I had confidence still in his integrity, when he took the timr to control that vicious rage which was the one chink in the strong armor of his will.
Kadarin spoke gently at last: “Lew, I know there is some truth in what you say. I trust you, bredu.” The word moved me more that I could express. “But what alternative have we, my friend? Are you trying to say that we should simply give up our plans, our hopes, our dream? It was your dream, too. Must we forget what we all believed in?”
“The Gods forbid,” I said, shaken. “It is not the dream I would see put aside, only Sharra’s part in it.” Then I appealed directly to Beltran. He was the one I must convince.