feeling of real collision, although—she had also heard that the will of a powerful enough telepath could transform illusion into reality. Which leant a certain verisimilitude to the tale of dying from a dream fall.
She shivered, her head aching. Had it been a dream, or could it have been an
earthquake, that had given her the illusion of falling in sleep and triggered the nightmare?
No, it could not have been an earthquake; she realized that as soon as the thought occurred. The Tower around her was altogether quiet. Without even thinking about it, reflexively, her mind scanned the Tower residents. Fiora slept quietly, and the little girls slept in Melora’s room, curled up together like kittens. Only the single young woman in the relays was awake, and she was so far from ordinary consciousness that she might as well have been on one of the faraway moons. The room around Leonie was cool and
quiet, a wind from outside barely ruffling the curtains. Yet the sense of disaster persisted, the feeling that somehow, she had struck hard against something.
As her shivering stopped, and she began to analyze her vague memories, strange
and alien phrases rang in her mind.
Landing gear’s gone…we’re not going anywhere…
But what was “landing gear,” and why would she want to go anywhere?
And now that her own fear was ebbing, why was she filled with this sense of
confusion? Why was her mind filled with a feeling of failure?
This was Dalereuth, not the mountains—there would be no snow here for some
time—so why were her memories plagued with the impression of bitter, punishing
winds, against which she must somehow battle for survival?
Wind shear. Another alien phrase. What was that? And why did it fill her with such a sense of panic?
As she sought to wrest meaning from these unfamiliar words, she realized
suddenly that they were not in a language she knew, and that somehow she had sensed their meaning without knowing precisely how they were spoken.
That simple fact gave her a grasp on a portion of the truth, and the beginning of understanding; the thoughts, perhaps even the falling and the impact, were not her own.
Somehow she had picked them up from someone else.
Leonie relaxed a trifle. As a telepath, although she was not yet formally trained, she was more or less accustomed to thoughts creeping into her mind from unexpected sources. In fact, she was so used to thinking of the meaning of what was being said that she all too seldom thought at all about the actual form of words.
For a moment only, she felt calmed by the solution to her puzzle. But then she
thought again: she had not understood the words. Foreign thoughts, couched in words she did not understand—that frightened her all over again.
“What is happening to me?” she asked aloud, clutching her bedclothes to her
throat.
She recalled the night before she arrived at the Tower, and her feeling, while
watching the four moons, of impending peril.
Something threatens us; something is coming to us; it is coming to us from the moons.
She did not know what she had meant by it then; she did not know now, but she
did know that something threatened her world, her whole way of living.
She closed her eyes, and tried to isolate her sense of foreboding. She could
identify only an unfamiliar snow-covered landscape which might as well be one of those same moons she feared.
But there is no air on the moon…
Leonie had never known that the moons were worlds until her brother had told her
—but this was different. She had never pictured the moons as worlds, had never thought about it. But now she knew it, as a fact, from that same unknown source, and the knowing frightened her.
No air—people could not live there. Why should the moons be a source of peril?
And how could they be linked with this?
For a telepath of Leonie’s skill, learning often came with little or no effort, as she assimilated the thoughts of those around her. She acquired things
She shivered, her head aching. Had it been a dream, or could it have been an
earthquake, that had given her the illusion of falling in sleep and triggered the nightmare?
No, it could not have been an earthquake; she realized that as soon as the thought occurred. The Tower around her was altogether quiet. Without even thinking about it, reflexively, her mind scanned the Tower residents. Fiora slept quietly, and the little girls slept in Melora’s room, curled up together like kittens. Only the single young woman in the relays was awake, and she was so far from ordinary consciousness that she might as well have been on one of the faraway moons. The room around Leonie was cool and
quiet, a wind from outside barely ruffling the curtains. Yet the sense of disaster persisted, the feeling that somehow, she had struck hard against something.
As her shivering stopped, and she began to analyze her vague memories, strange
and alien phrases rang in her mind.
Landing gear’s gone…we’re not going anywhere…
But what was “landing gear,” and why would she want to go anywhere?
And now that her own fear was ebbing, why was she filled with this sense of
confusion? Why was her mind filled with a feeling of failure?
This was Dalereuth, not the mountains—there would be no snow here for some
time—so why were her memories plagued with the impression of bitter, punishing
winds, against which she must somehow battle for survival?
Wind shear. Another alien phrase. What was that? And why did it fill her with such a sense of panic?
As she sought to wrest meaning from these unfamiliar words, she realized
suddenly that they were not in a language she knew, and that somehow she had sensed their meaning without knowing precisely how they were spoken.
That simple fact gave her a grasp on a portion of the truth, and the beginning of understanding; the thoughts, perhaps even the falling and the impact, were not her own.
Somehow she had picked them up from someone else.
Leonie relaxed a trifle. As a telepath, although she was not yet formally trained, she was more or less accustomed to thoughts creeping into her mind from unexpected sources. In fact, she was so used to thinking of the meaning of what was being said that she all too seldom thought at all about the actual form of words.
For a moment only, she felt calmed by the solution to her puzzle. But then she
thought again: she had not understood the words. Foreign thoughts, couched in words she did not understand—that frightened her all over again.
“What is happening to me?” she asked aloud, clutching her bedclothes to her
throat.
She recalled the night before she arrived at the Tower, and her feeling, while
watching the four moons, of impending peril.
Something threatens us; something is coming to us; it is coming to us from the moons.
She did not know what she had meant by it then; she did not know now, but she
did know that something threatened her world, her whole way of living.
She closed her eyes, and tried to isolate her sense of foreboding. She could
identify only an unfamiliar snow-covered landscape which might as well be one of those same moons she feared.
But there is no air on the moon…
Leonie had never known that the moons were worlds until her brother had told her
—but this was different. She had never pictured the moons as worlds, had never thought about it. But now she knew it, as a fact, from that same unknown source, and the knowing frightened her.
No air—people could not live there. Why should the moons be a source of peril?
And how could they be linked with this?
For a telepath of Leonie’s skill, learning often came with little or no effort, as she assimilated the thoughts of those around her. She acquired things
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