Sharra's Exile Read Online Free PDF

from the far corners of the Empire.
    Lerrys, pouring the wine he had ordered, went on, taking up the conversation he had interrupted, “After all, we are Terrans; we deserve all the privileges of our heritage. Everyone in the Domains could benefit from Terran medicine and science—not to mention education! I happen to know you can read and write, Regis, but you must admit you are a happy exception. How many, even of the cadets, can do more than scribble their names and spell their way through the arms manual?”
    “I think they have enough education for what they must do in the world,” said Regis. “Why should they burden themselves with idle nonsense, which is what most written matter turns out to be? There are enough idle scholars in the world— and in the Empire, for that matter.”
    “And if they are uneducated,” Lerrys said with a sardonic smile, “it is easier to keep them in superstitious bondage to the Comyn, fabulous tales about the God-given rulership of the Hasturs, kinfolk to the Gods—”
    “Certainly I would agree with you that there is no excuse for that kind of mental slavery,” said Regis.
    “If you heard what I was saying before, you would hear that I was protesting against that sort of tyranny. But you cannot say that we are Terrans and no more.” He reached across the table; took Lerrys’s hand and laid his own palm-to-palm with it, counting the six fingers; then touched the small leather bag at his throat, where the matrix stone rested; a small warmth, a pulse…
    “The powers of the Comyn are real.”
    “Oh— laran ,” said Lerrys with a shrug. “Even some of the Terrans who come among us have developed it; it, too, is part of our Terran heritage, and we can teach them something of this, too… Why should it be limited to the Comyn? In return we will have their sciences; knowledge of weather control, which would be like a blessing from the Gods in some of the country across the Hellers; the Dry-town desert, perhaps, reclaimed for agriculture, and some of the impassable mountains across the Wall Around the World, brought into contact with the Domains; astronomy, star-travel—and in return, laran and knowledge all through the Galaxy—”
    “That could be dangerous, too dangerous to spread indiscriminately through the Empire,” said one of Lerrys’s young companions diffidently. “Were you there when Caer Donn burned, Lerrys?”
    “I was,” Regis said, and looked sharply at the young stranger. “I know you. Rakhal—Rafe—”
    “Rakhal Darriell-Scott, z’par servu ,” said the young man. “They call me Rafe Scott, in the Terran Zone.
    I saw then what laran uncontrolled can do—and hope never to see it again!”
    “No fear of that,” Lerrys said. “The Sharra matrix was destroyed. As far as we know, that was the only one of those old matrixes from the Ages of Chaos left on our world. Besides, if there are such things, we should learn how to control and use them, not hide like banshee-birds in the sunlight, and pretend they do not exist. Believe me, the Terrans are no more anxious than you to see laran out of control that way.”
    “And, no matter what happens, there will always be those who can use laran and those who cannot,”
    said another youngster. There was something familiar about him, too; Regis thought he was probably one of Rafe Scott’s kinsmen. He was not eager to remember that time at Castle Aldaran, and the frightful time when Sharra had raged and ravened in the hills across the river. He and Danilo, escaping from Aldaran, had come near to dying in those hills—
    “Still, we are all Terrans,” said Lerrys, “and the Empire is our heritage, as of right, not a privilege; we should not have to ask for Empire citizenship or the benefits of Empire. They gave us Closed World status, but it’s high time to rectify that mistake. Before we can do that, we must acknowledge that the Terran Empire is our lawful government, not the local bigwigs and aristocracy!