Damia by Anne McCaffrey Page B

scrutinized the man. He was tired but carried himself with a composed air marred only by a slight wistfulness and a greater nervousness.
    “Hey, Afra, want you to meet Jeff Raven.” Ackerman’s voice called him back to awareness. Raven, Afra noted to himself. Deneb, another part responded coolly. Deneb here? Afra had trouble believing it: Primes did not travel. Jeff Raven’s eyes met his.
    “Hello,” Afra murmured, rueful that his introspection had betrayed him.
    “Hello,” Raven returned, his grin altering imperceptibly. Afra kept his expression fixed but he
knew.
He flicked his gaze away, unsure of his continued control.
    What the hell is happening down there?
asked the Rowan with a tinge of her familiar irritation.
Why
 . . .
    And then, in violation of all her own rules, she was there, standing in the middle of the room. She flicked a quick glance to Afra, who jerked his head in the direction of Jeff Raven.
    Deneb stepped to her side and gently touched her hand. “Reidinger said you needed me.”
    Reidinger said you needed me
, the words rang through Afra’s mind like bells. He watched closely as the Rowan reacted. Well inside his shields, half-ecstatic, half-destroyed, Afra thought:
Give her the care she needs! Give her what she will not take from me!
    And then the two Talents left, making their way up the stairs to the Rowan’s once lonely Tower. Afra broke the awed silence of the other Station crew by grabbing a cake from the box in Ackerman’s motionless hand.
    Eyes watering with the conflicting emotions that tore athim, Afra called out: “Not that that pair needs much of our help, people, but we can add a certain flourish and speed things up!”
    *   *   *
    Over the next few days Afra spent his free time adjusting to the fact that he no longer needed to worry or hope that the Rowan might one day come to him for more than verbal comfort. Then he recognized, with growing anxiety, that despite all his hopes and fears the Rowan was stuck in a terrible limbo: loving but unable to be in the arms of her lover. Jeff Raven had shown that Prime Talents could cross the void of space without the terrible disorientation that Siglen’s travel trauma had imposed on all her charges, but the Rowan still had to conquer that imposition in herself.
    Afra was delighted, if exhausted, when the Rowan awoke him early one morning to demand his aid in overcoming the neurosis. As much as he wanted to help her immediately, he recommended that she rest first and start the new attempt the next morning.
    With two hours before Callisto cleared Jupiter’s shadow and the Station could begin its workday, Afra gently nudged the Rowan’s capsule out, using his gestalt with the station generators to push it slowly into a Mars orbit.
    Afra was delighted when he heard the Rowan’s sour comment.
    I can’t just sit here in the cradle
 . . .
    You’re not, you know
, he told her.
You’re hovering near Deimos.
    She panicked and Reidinger screamed at him, but it was worth it. Afra was sure that in time he could help her break her fear, for he perversely determined that, now she had found her mind-mate, she was going to be free to be with him on Deneb.
    When Afra brought her capsule back to the Station, palmed open its door, he took her hand and pumped her energy levels back up. He was careful to replace his shields before she could read him: not just because he didnot want her to know his plans but also because he still was not completely sure of his emotions.
    You don’t need to treat this as so commonplace an occurrence, you know
, she said with some asperity.
    Why not? It should be!
He returned with a smug grin. She pinched him.
Yow!
He sidled away from her.
    His pleasure was short-lived, however. The next morning, when the Rowan thought of going to Earth, he balked.
    “We’ve got some pretty heavy stuff to shift,” he warned her. But she glared at him, and Afra found himself wondering if he could endure her during the