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Damon sighed and sat down, leaning his head on his hands. “I doubt if I can explain. You’re not matrix-trained, you haven’t the language, you don’t even have the concepts.”
Andrew said grimly, “Just put it in words of one syllable.”
“There aren’t any.” Damon sighed and was silent, thinking. Finally he said, “I showed you the cha
Andrew nodded, remembering those glowing lines of light and their pulsing centers, so clear in Ellemir, so inflamed and sluggish in Callista.
“Basically, what ails her is overload of the nerve cha
“I think so.” He pictured her whole sexual system made nonfunctional so that she could use her whole body as an energy-transformer. God, what a thing to do to a woman!
“Well, then. In the normal adult the cha
“Well, then, if an ordinary Keeper — a fully functioning Keeper, with conditioning intact and cha
Andrew said numbly “God!”
It isn’t you I don’t trust, my husband…
“She must have believed she was ready, or she would never have risked it. And when she realized she was not ready — in that split second before she blasted you with the reflex she couldn’t control — she took a backflow through her own body. And that saved your life. If that whole flow of energy had gone through you, can you imagine what would have happened?”
Andrew could, but discovered he would much rather not.
“It must have been that shock which brought on her menstruation. I watched her carefully until I knew she wasn’t going into crisis, but after that I thought the bleeding, and the normal energy drain of that time in women, would carry off the overloading and clear the cha
“Are you afraid she will blast me again?”
Damon shook his head. “I don’t think she has the strength for that now. In a way it’s worse. She is reacting to you physically, but the cha
“I feel more muddled than ever,” Andrew said, dropping his head in his hands, and Damon set to work to simplify further.
“A woman trained as Keeper sometimes has to coordinate eight or ten telepaths. Working in the energon rings, she has to cha
They heard it together, an echo in Damon’s mind: In the old days the Keepers of Arili
“Keepers aren’t neutered anymore, of course. They rely on vows of virginity, and intensive antisexual conditioning, to keep the cha
“So why didn’t she?” Andrew demanded.
“I don’t know,” Damon said, in despair. “I have never seen anything like it before. I would not like to believe that Leonie had altered the cha
Andrew covered his face with his hands. “And I begged her…” he said almost inaudibly.
“You couldn’t know,” said Damon gently. “She didn’t know either. She believed she was deconditioning normally, or she would never have risked it. She was willing to give up the psi function of the cha
Andrew muttered, “I’m not worth it. All that suffering.”
“And so damned u
“So what’s to be done?” Andrew demanded. “She can’t go on like this, it will kill her!”
Damon said reluctantly, “I will have to clear her cha
“Why not?”
Damon did not answer at once. Finally he said, “It’s usually done under kirian, and I have none to give her. Without it, it’s hellishly painful.” This made Callista sound like a simple coward, and he was reluctant to give that impression, but he did not feel capable of explaining to Andrew what Callista’s real objection was. His eyes fell with relief on the rryl in its case.
“But if she is well enough to ask for that, perhaps she is really better,” he said with a glimmer of hope. “Take it to her, Andrew. But,” and he paused, said at last, reluctantly, “don’t touch her. She’s still reacting to you.”