“God!” Andrew breathed. “What was that?”

“Convulsion,” Damon said briefly. “I was afraid of that. It means we’ve really run out of time.” He bent to check her pulse, listen to her breathing.

“I knew I should have cleared her channels.”

“Why didn’t you?” Andrew demanded.

“I told you: I have no kirian for her, and without that I don’t know if she would be able to stand the pain.”

“Do it now, while she’s unconscious,” Andrew said, and Damon shook his head.

“She has to be awake and consciously cooperating with me, or I could damage her seriously. And… and she doesn’t want me to,” he said at last.

“Why not?”

Damon said it at last, reluctantly: “Because if I clear the channels, that means she goes back to the normal state for her, a normal state for a Keeper, with the channels completely separated from the normal woman’s state — cleared for psi and fixed that way. Back to the way she was before she ever left the Tower. Completely unaware of you, sexually unable to react. In effect, back to square one.”

Andrew drew a harsh breath. “What is the alternative?”

“No alternative now, I’m afraid,” Damon said soberly. “She can’t live long like this.” He touched the cold hand briefly, then went into his room where he kept the supply of herb medicines and remedies he had been using. He hesitated, but finally chose a small vial, came back, loosened the cap and poured it between Callista’s slack lips, holding her head so that it ran down her throat.

“What is that? What are you giving her, damn it?”

“It will keep her from going into another convulsion,” Damon said, “at least for the rest of the night. And tomorrow…” But he shrank from finishing the sentence. Even when he was doing this work regularly in the Tower, he had no liking for it. He shrank from the pain he must inflict, shrank, too, from the need to face Callista with the stark knowledge that she must sacrifice what little gain had been made with her maturing, and return to the state Leonie had imposed on her, unresponsive, immature, neuter. He walked away from Callista, rinsing and replacing the vial, trying to calm himself. He sat down on the other bed, looking at Callista in dismay, and Ellemir came to his side. Andrew still knelt by Callista, and Damon thought that he should send him away, because even in sleep Callista was conscious of him, her channels reacting to his physical presence even if her mind did not. For a moment it seemed as if he could see Andrew and Callista as a series of whirling, interlocking magnetic fields, reaching out toward one another, grasping, intertwining polarities. But where the energies should reinforce and strengthen one another, the forces were swirling and backing up in Callista, draining her strength, unable to flow freely. And what was this doing to Andrew? It was draining him too. By main force Damon turned off the perception, forcing himself to come back to the surface, to see Callista just as a desperately sick woman who had collapsed after a convulsion and Andrew as a concerned man, bending over her in dread and despair.

It was for this kind of thing that Leonie sent him from the Tower, he knew. She said he was too sensitive, that it would destroy him, he recalled, and then, for the first time in his life, rebellion came. It could have been a strength, not a weakness. It could have made him even more valuable to them.

Ellemir came and sat down beside him. He stretched out a hand to her, thought, with an almost anguished need, how long it had been since they had come together in love. Yet the long discipline of the matrix mechanic held firm in his mind. It did not occur to him to think of breaking it. He drew her down, kissed her gently, and said, “I have to save my strength, darling, tomorrow is going to be demanding. Otherwise…” He laid a kiss into the palm of her hand, a private memory and a promise.

Ellemir sensed that he was pretending a cheerfulness and confidence he did not feel, and for a moment she was outraged, that Damon did not believe she knew, or that he thought he could pretend or lie to her. Then she realized the hard discipline behind that optimism, the rigid courtesies of a telepath worker. To give any mental recognition to such dread would reinforce it, create a kind of positive feedback, spiraling them down into a self-perpetuating chaos of despair. She was, she reflected with a touch of cynicism, getting some hard lessons in what it was like to be bound so closely to a working telepath. But her love and concern for Damon overflowed. She knew he did not want pity, but his greatest need, just now, was to be freed of concern about whether he would have to compensate for her dread.

She must carry her own burden of fears, she cautioned herself. She could not lay them on Damon. She took his hands in hers, leaning over to return his kiss very lightly.

Gratefully, he drew her down beside him, holding her in the curve of his arm, a comforting, wholly undemanding touch.

Andrew glanced around at them, from where he knelt beside Callista, and Damon caught his emotions: fear for Callista, dread, uncertainty — can Damon really help her? — distress at what it would mean if she were to be wholly Keeper again, all her old conditioning intact with the cleared channels. And, seeing Ellemir lying close against Damon, curled up in his arm, a confused emotion that was not, really, even jealousy. Callie and he had never had even this much… Damon’s pity for Andrew went so deep he had to cut it off, stifle it lest it tear at him and lessen his strength for what he had to do tomorrow.

“You stay close to Callista. Call me if there’s any change, no matter how slight,” he said, and saw Andrew draw a chair close to Callista, lean forward, lightly holding her limp wrist in his own.

Poor devil, Damon thought, he can’t even disturb her now. She’s too far gone for that, but he has to feel he’s doing something for her, or he’ll crack. And the comfort he felt in Ellemir’s closeness was gone. With rigid discipline, he made himself relax, lie quietly at her side, loosen his muscles and float into the calm state needed for what he had to do. At last, floating, he slept.

It was well after daylight when Callista stirred, opening her eyes in confusion.

“Andrew?”

“I’m here, love.” He tightened his fingers on hers. “How are you feeling?”

“Better, I think.” She could not feel any pain. Somewhere — a long time ago — someone had told her that was a bad sign. After the suffering of the last days she welcomed it. “I seem to have slept a long time, and Damon was worrying because I didn’t.”

Did she even know she had been drugged? Aloud he said, “Let me call Damon,” and stepped away. On the other bed Damon lay stretched out, lightly holding Ellemir with one arm. Andrew felt that cruel stab of agonized envy. They seemed so secure, so happy in the knowledge of one another. Would Callista and he ever have this? He had to believe it or die.

Ellemir’s blue eyes opened. She smiled up at him, and Damon, as she stirred, was instantly awake.

“How is Callista?”

“She seems better.”

Damon looked at him skeptically, got up and went to Callista’s side. Following him, Andrew suddenly saw Callista through Damon’s eyes: white and emaciated, her eyes deeply sunken into her cheeks.

Damon said gently, “Callista, you know as well as I what has to be done. You’re a Keeper, girl.”

“Don’t call me that!” she flared at him. “Never again!”

“I know you have been released from your oath, but an oath is only a word, Callista. I tell you, there is no other way. I cannot take the responsibility—”

“I have not asked you to! I am free—”

“Free to die,” Damon said brutally.

“Don’t you think I’d rather die?” she said, and began to cry for the first time since that night, sobbing stormily. Damon watched her, his face like stone, but Andrew took her up in his arms, holding her against him, protectively.