The Sword of Aldones Read Online Free PDF Page B

said, startled.
    The girl beside me was small and pert, with flaxen-gold hair fluttering about her shoulders, and her green-gray eyes were aslant with mischief. “I thought you were on Vainwall!” I said.
    “And when you said good-bye to me there, you thought I would stay alone to cry my eyes out,” she said saucily. “Not I! The space lanes are free to women as well as men, Lew Alton, and I, too, have a place in Comyn Council, when I choose to take it. Why should I stay there and sleep alone?” She giggled. “Oh, Lew, you should see your face! What’s the matter?”
    “It wasn’t Linnell,” I said, and Dio stared. “Who, then?” She looked around, but the girl who looked like Linnell had vanished into the crowds. “And where is my uncle? Have you quarreled with your father again, Lew?”
    “No!” I said roughly. “He died on Vainwal!” Didn’t anyone on Darkover know it yet? “Do you think anything less would bring me back here?”
    I saw the mirth go out of Dio’s face. “Oh, Lew! I’m sorry! I didn’t know!”
    She touched my arm again, but I shied away from her sympathy. Dio Ridenow was high explosive where I was concerned. On Vainwal, that had all been very well.
    But I knew, if she didn’t, how quickly that old affair could flare up into passion again. I had troubles enough without woman trouble, too.
    Once again I had failed to barricade my thoughts. Dio’s fair face etched itself with crimson; and abruptly, catching her teeth in her lip, she turned and almost ran toward the spaceport barriers.
    “Dio!” I called after her, but at that moment someone shouted my name.
    And right there, I made my first mistake. I didn’t go after her—don’t ask me why. But someone called my name again.
    “Lew! Lew Alton!”
    And the next moment a slender, dark-haired boy in Terran clothing was smiling up at me.
    “Lew! Welcome home!”
    And I couldn’t remember his name to save my life.
    He looked familiar. He knew me, and I knew him. But I stood warily back, remembering how I had recognized Linnell. The youngster laughed.
    “Don’t you know me?”
    “I’ve been away too long to be sure about anybody,” I said. I reached for telepathic contact, but the drug was still fuzzing my brain; I sensed only the fringes of familiarity. I shook my head at the kid. He’d have been only a child when I left Darkover; he was still so young that I don’t think he’d started shaving yet.
    “Zandru’s hells,” I said, “you couldn’t be Marius, could you?”
    “Couldn’t I?”
    I still couldn’t believe it. My brother Marius, the younger brother who had cost our Terran mother her life—could I possibly fail to recognize my own brother?
    He was grinning up at me shyly, ,and I relaxed. “I’m sorry, Marius,” I said.
    “You were so young, and you’ve changed so much. Well—”
    “We can talk later,” he said quickly. “You have to go through customs, and all, but I wanted to get to you first. What’s the matter, Lew, you look funny. Sick?”
    I leaned hard for a minute on his suddenly-steadying arm, until the vertigo passed. “Procalamin,” I said ruefully, and at his blank look elucidated. “They shoot us full of it, on starships, so we can take the hyperdrive stresses without coming apart at the seams. It takes a while to wear off, and I’m allergic to the stuff anyhow.”
    I caught his sidewise glance and my face grew grimmer. “Do I look that bad?That’s right, you haven’t seen me, have you, since I lost my hand and got my face cut up. Well, get a good look.”
    His eyes slid away, and I tightened my arm around his shoulders.
    “I don’t mind you staring,” I said more gently, “but damned if I want you sneaking a look at me when you think I won’t notice, because I always do. See?”
    He relaxed and studied me frankly for a minute, then grinned. “Not pretty, but you never were much of a beauty, as I remember. Let’s go.”
    I looked past the skyscraper of the HQ, and the tall