Lyon's Pride by Anne McCaffrey

brilliant primary produces stress you may not realize until you are away from it. A little distance might help you resolve some of the ambiguities that bother you. You are not the only one—of us or in the Human-settled worlds—to have them
.
    Oh, Dad, I don’t consider me unique.
Her tone held the quaver of a laugh but immediately altered.
Sometimes…sometimes I don’t know
what
to believe. Then I do, and then something shakes me up again. I really
ought
to know my own mind by now
.
    Your mind you know, Laria, my dear
, Afra said with an affectionate chuckle.
It’s your emotions and changing perceptions that cause problems. I’d hate to think your ideas were graven in granite at not quite twenty-three.
BrieflyAfra remembered instances of his Damia’s captiousness which her eldest daughter certainly had not inherited.
And change IS a constant we must all bear with. At least
, and he let a grin color his mental tone,
we are not locked immutably into a cultural pattern as the Hivers are
.
    Gee, thanks for that, Dad!
    You’re welcome
, he said with equal mockery. But he also caught the steadier quality of her mental tone. She’d talked out some of what bothered her. If he and Damia had trouble rationalizing the matter, how hard it was on Laria, a Prime who had not yet found a personal companion to sustain her in arduous, and so often, deeply troubling times.
Now inform Earth Prime of the fact that Clarissia’s not working out and why. Either inadequacy is ample cause for replacement
.
    Actually, Laria was as strong a T-1 as the Rowan had ever been: a T-3 or even a good T-4 would be adequate support if they were compatible. One never knew until one tried different combinations. He’d always been slightly amazed that he, Afra Lyon of Capella, had been acceptable to Callisto Tower Prime Rowan. Maybe…He cut off that thought. He had had parents interfering with him: he and Damia had taken great pains not to repeat such manipulation.
    When Laria signed off, he made his muscles go slack from the unconscious effort of such long ’pathing. He told himself it had more to do with the nature of the exchange than age, since the Rowan was older than he, and still going as strong as ever. That was when he also felt a bit of the framework on the left side of the couch, coming through the cushioning. How long had the couches been in use now? Nearly four decades. About time to replace the padding.
    He reached out for Damia’s mind but she was joyfullyretrieving the scurriers she’d brought down with her accuracy with her slingshot. He smiled as he felt Morag’s envy and Ewain’s amazement at their mother’s casual skill. They could discuss Laria’s conundrum later. Bringing her home for a brief respite from all those pressures and conflicting theories would certainly rest her mind and buffer her when she returned to duty.
    They might be, as so often Talents said between themselves, only a thought away: but that was not precisely accurate. Contact, yes, but similarity or mutuality or harmony of thought was another matter: so was a cuddle when one was depressed.
    Afra found himself at odds with his older son on many points on the issue of the Hivers, and even more puzzled by the bizarre actions and notions of his daughter, Zara. Fortunately her grandmother and Elizara, the T-1 medic for whom she was named, were coping with her and she had passed through a difficult hormonal transition to young womanhood and stability. He knew Rojer was still fighting a private battle with grief, and a harder one with the guilt at having put Gil and Kat in fatal jeopardy. Laria could not escape being sympathetic to the Mrdini interpretations, even if these were considered biased by other, less involved citizens.
    Afra swung his long legs off the Tower couch, feeling again the worn place—worn by just this action—where the framework was no longer adequately padded. Just like the