The Tower and the Hive Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  one

  two

  three

  four

  five

  six

  seven

  eight

  nine

  ten

  eleven

  twelve

  thirteen

  Praise for the bestselling novels of Anne McCaffrey’s Rowan series

  The Tower and the Hive

  “Readers looking for intelligent, heroic adventure will find it here, and Rowan fans will be especially pleased at this felicitous closing of a popular SF series.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “McCaffrey maintains the high quality of characterization of humans and aliens alike, and, once again, she skillfully interweaves the plot threads, making it easy to follow the action on all fronts. A rousing conclusion to a most satisfying series.” —Booklist

  “Fans of the series will plunge right in.” —Kirkus Reviews

  “The fifth installment in the author’s Rowan series brings to a satisfying culmination the tale of three generations of a uniquely gifted family while leaving room for future novels. McCaffrey’s skillful storytelling and fluid writing ... make this a necessary purchase.” —Library Journal

  The Rowan

  “A well-told tale ... McCaffrey’s popularity is immense and justified.” —Booklist

  “Charming ... A warm and vivid picture of a struggling frontier society.” —Publishers Weekly

  “One of the best McCaffrey novels to come along in years.”

  —Locus

  Damia

  “McCaffrey is in fine form ... Interesting ... Amusing ... tempestuous.” —Locus

  Damia’s Children

  “Winning, carefully developed young characters, an attractive alien society, and an enemy drawn with more than a touch of mystery.” —Publishers Weekly

  “McCaffrey’s fans won’t be disappointed... Hugely enjoyable ... Fascinating in its exploration of the brain’s potential and untapped powers.” —Calgary Sun

  Lyon’s Pride

  “Another exciting episode in the thrilling epic of the Rowan ... Read and enjoy!” —Romantic Times

  Also by Anne McCaffrey

  RESTOREE • DRAGONFLIGHT • DECISION AT DOONA • ALCHEMY & ACADEME (COMPILED BY ANNE MCCAFFREY) • THE SHIP WHO SANG • MARK OF MERLIN* • DRAGONQUEST • RING OF FEAR* • TO RIDE PEGASUS • OUT OF THIS WORLD COOKBOOK • A TIME WHEN • KILTERNAN LEGACY* • DRAGONSONG • DRAGONSINGER • GET OFF THE UNICORN • THE WHITE DRAGON

  • DINOSAUR PLANET • DRAGONDRUMS • CRYSTAL SINGER • THE COELURA • MORETA, DRAGONLADY OF PERN • DINOSAUR PLANET SURVIVORS • STITCH IN SNOW* • KILLASHANDRA • THE GIRL WHO HEARD DRAGONS • THE YEAR OF THE LUCY* • NERILKA’S STORY • THE LADY (AKA THE CARRADYNE TOUCH)*

  • DRAGONSDAWN • RENEGADES OF PERN • SASSINAK (WITH ELIZABETH MOON) • THE DEATH OF SLEEP (WITH JODY-LYNN NYE) • PEGASUS IN FLIGHT • THE ROWAN • ALL THE WEYRS OF PERN • GENERATION/WARRIORS (WITH ELIZABETH MOON) • CRISIS ON DOONA (WITH JODY-LYNN NYE) • DAMIA • DAMIA’S CHILDREN • LYON’S PRIDE • FREEDOM’S LANDING • DRAGONSEYE

  • FREEDOM’S CHOICE • ACORNA’S QUEST (WITH MARGARET BALL) • FREEDOM’S CHALLENGE •

  *not science fiction or fantasy

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume and responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  THE TOWER AND THE HIVE

  An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright C 1999 by Anne McCaffrey.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

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  eISBN : 978-1-440-67432-7

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  acknowledgments

  I have excellent reason to be particularly grateful to four experts in writing this conclusion of the Talent (aka The Tower and the Hive) series. Dr. Jack Cohen of the University of Warwick and I discussed how I could solve the problem of colonizing Hivers. So I had a structure to begin with. I was dumbfounded to discover that my dictionary had only five lines about the very complex subject of pheromones. The Web came to my assistance and I asked for help, which was quick in coming from Jonathan Brecher and Louis Culot of CambridgeSoft on their special expertise, both as generalists and for specific knowledge about pheromones. We had some lively E-mail exchanges, since Jonathan knew of Lyon’s Pride when I approached him for assistance. His colleague Louis Culot supplied additional details. I wish also to thank Bibb Graves from Hewlett Packard Houston for a description of gas chromatographs, which register the strength and composition of pheromones. We extrapolated—as is the function of science fiction—that the future would miniaturize what are actually large and cumbersome instruments. But then most current gas chromatographs (GCs) have altered considerably from their original forms, and no doubt will have altered even more by the time of The Tower and the Hive.

  I am also grateful to my readers—Mary Jean Holmes, Lea Day and my daughter, Georgeanne Kennedy—who try to spot any inconsistencies, typos and grammar problems which might occur in the fifth of a series that was first started in 1990. I am indebted to my editor, Susan Allison, and her staff of copyeditors, for their valuable comments and assistance overall.

  This book is affectionately and gratefully dedicated to

  Graham Hamilton

  For blue Jaguars and Eddie Stobbart Hauliers

  what has gone on before...

  When an unknown enemy threatened all Human life on Deneb, Jeff Raven shouted—telephathically—for help a
nd reached the Rowan,1 the lonely Lady in the Tower at the Callisto Tower of Federated Teleport and Telepath (FT&T). With her help as Callisto Prime Talent, Jeff freed his planet of invasion. He also became the next Earth Prime.

  The Rowan and Jeff Raven had five children. The precocious Damia, the second daughter of their marriage, emerges as a Prime Talent too, and is sent to occupy the Tower at Iota Aurigae’s new mining planet.2 There she encounters an intelligence on a distant spaceship, known as Sodan. He tries to lure her into giving him directions to her planet. Her family becomes suspicious of her enchantment with this “mind” and sends her brother, Larak, and Afra to divert her. In the ensuing meeting of minds, Larak is killed by a brutal telepathic bolt from Sodan, who is only a mind. Damia and Afra are seriously injured too. While recuperating on Deneb, Damia and Afra are contacted by the “dreams” of the Mrdini. An alien race, they have been fighting the dread spheres of the Hiver queens, who were the invaders which Jeff and the Rowan had thwarted.

  The Mrdini are exceedingly impressed by the fact that Deneb was able to defeat the attacking Hiver sphere without loss of life. They have been fighting the Hivers for two centuries and only suicide squadrons are able to penetrate and destroy the spheres.

  In order to cement relations between the two species, Mrdini young are placed with Human young and grow up learning each other’s language and culture. Damia’s children, 3 starting with young Laria, each have a pair of Mrdini young.

  When Laria reaches sixteen years of age, she is sent to Clarf, one of the five Mrdini worlds. On Clarf, Laria teaches Basic to Mrdinis and learns their “adult” language, accompanied by her two ’Dinis, Tip and Huf. At eighteen, she takes over as FT&T Prime at Clarf Tower as the Star League Alliance of Human and Mrdini continues to track down or resist the Hiver incursions.

  Then three Hiver spheres penetrate League Space and three pursuit squadrons of mixed Human and Mrdini ships are sent after each of the Hiver ships, to track them to their separate destinations. Another group is sent to trace their ion trails back to their planet of origin. In order to continue these searches most effectively, FT&T is asked to supply the flagship of each group with a Prime, or sufficient lesser Talents, to keep in touch with the League Base and to “receive” additional supplies of food and material on what could be long voyages.

  Young Thian Raven, Laria’s brother, is sent to the Vadim, under the command of Captain Ashiant, as he and the ships backtrack the fleeing Hiver spheres. Thian himself comes under threat when the nova-blasted, derelict Great Sphere of the Hivers is found in space. A jealous latent Talent attacks him while he is part of a team exploring the dead sphere, and he is nearly killed. Damia assists him in identifying his assailant.

  Meanwhile one of the queens fleeing the Great Sphere has been captured and is incarcerated in an unused facility on Heinlein Moon Base, where she can be studied from a viewing station carefully placed safely out of her reach in her “prison.” Mrdini and Humans alike await her exit from the pod. Attempts to contact the huge, mantislike queen are futile, as she does not recognize any other species. All hopes to establish negotiations and thus curtail Hiver incursions in the Star League are thwarted.

  The Mrdini are not convinced that the nova which had devastated the Great Sphere has destroyed the Hiver homeworld and wish to have proof. Thian, bravely recovering from the attack, agrees to accompany the Mrdini ship the KLTL in its Search, thus making sure of supplies and contact during what is possibly a yearlong trek. By doing so, he will prevent any young Mrdinis from “going on the line”—a Mrdini euphemism for self-sacrifice to feed their crewmates.

  The League decides to try to salvage what they can of the Great Sphere to learn more about Hiver space engineering.

  Afra accompanies his second-born son, Rojer, to the Genesee under Captain Etienne Osullivan, for special duty when a sphere is tracked to a Hiver-occupied system identified on Mrdini maps as Xh-33. Despite being of the same species, the sphere is fired upon from the planet and its queens are destroyed as they try to escape the bombardment of their ship in pods.

  Back on Iota Aurigae, Zara Lyon, sister of Laria, Thian and Rojer, becomes quite upset about the condition of the queen in Heinlein Base and determines to assist the captive. She manages to sneak a ride to Earth’s Moon. Her interference results in saving the life of the captive queen, who has been slowly freezing. Even before this incident, Damia and Afra have worried about Zara’s potential as a Tower Prime. Jeff and Rowan Raven agree that Zara might be better suited to another profession and Zara is, with Elizara Reidinger, as a dedicated medical T-1.

  Despite orders from the High Council to maintain a watching brief,4 a Mrdini ship’s captain attempts to coerce Rojer into teleporting the ship’s missiles to destroy Hiver settlements on Xh-33. Rojer’s two ’Dini friends, Kat and Gil, are killed defending him from the Mrdini captain. Rojer barely escapes with his life. His mother, Damia, arrives to succor him and removes him to his grandmother’s quiet home on Deneb Five to recuperate from the loss of his dear friends.5

  The Rowan, arriving on the Genesee in the Xh-33 system, helps Captain Etienne Osullivan execute a daring plan to “steal” the refugee sphere, and to destroy the two Hiver vehicles in orbit about Xh-33. She requires the assistance of Thian, returned from his post on the Mrdini ship, and Flavia, a T-1 from the Rowan’s native planet, Altair. With the use of Talent, the sphere is purloined from the system and sent on its way to the League, thus giving the Alliance a relatively undamaged Hiver spaceship for Mrdini and Human engineers to examine. Teleported explosives blow up any chance for the Xh-33 Hiver population to leave the surface. The smaller Hiver scout ships that emerge from an underground hangar to fight back are also destroyed. The Alliance sets up on one of the Xh-33 moons to monitor the surface.

  Once the intact sphere ship is moored off Phobos Moon Base, teams are set up to examine it in detail. This is best accomplished with the help of Talents. To avoid the aggravating “sting-pzzt” emanating from Hiver artifacts, the Talents control the exploration from a distance. Thian heads the team that includes the newest engineering graduate, his brother Rojer, Flavia and other assorted Talents, including several latent ones (Lieutenant Commander Semirame Kloo) who discover that they are bothered by the sting-pzzt emanations of Hiver artifacts. (Only Talents are affected by this phenomenon.)

  While the Talented team is able to search the intricate labyrinth of a Hiver ship, including the “bridge” apparently staffed by twelve queens, they are unable to power it up. The Talents decide that the only recourse is to teleport the Heinlein Base queen into the bridge and see how she activates the ship. Ever watchful of his grandchildren, Jeff Raven, Earth Prime, approves of this ploy and comes along to be sure the queen does not escape. She shows the watching Primes the power-up sequence and is then deftly ’ported back to her prison.

  Meanwhile, other squadrons are following a sphere designated Number Three, which seems uninterested in many likely M-5 worlds that it passes. These are briefly investigated by Talents, in one instance by T-2 Kincaid Dano, whose capacity is overtaxed by the scope of the mission. Before he can be burned out, either by his duties and by the unfortunate struggle for his attentions by officers on the ship, he is transferred to Laria’s Tower on Clarf with his ’Dinis, Nil and Plus. He insists, despite his fatigue, on contacting Earth Prime with a report that there are more Hiver-occupied worlds than previously suspected: Hivers now occupy four of the twenty likely planets he has probed. He recommends that these worlds be examined by the League as possible colonial worlds to relieve the pressure on overpopulated Mrdini planets.

  Consequently, while the main squadron under Captain Ashiant continues to follow the sphere so obviously headed in a special direction, another group, under the command of Captain Vestapia Soligen on the Columbia, is staffed to explore the four M-type worlds: Talavera, Waterloo, Marengo and Ciudad Rodrigo. Prime Talent Flavia, Zara Lyon and Lieutenant Rhodri Eagles, T-3 and incidentally cousin to the Lyon children, are part of tha
t contingent.

  Suddenly more spheres are identified, some uncomfortably close to the Columbia while others speed to join or assist the Hiver that Captain Ashiant is tracking. This unexpected development suggests that the Hivers do have some form of communication. It would appear that this sphere is searching for a star as near to their homeworld’s primary as possible. But what are the parameters? From records of earlier star maps in the general area of the nova, the signature of the primary, before it was destroyed by its primary, is verified. Thus the searchers are able to discover exactly what sort of primary the Hivers are looking for.

  Following Number Three, the astrogators spot a primary with the requisite signature and Captain Ashiant engages some of the enemy spheres in a space battle. At first the Human/Mrdini ships are overwhelmed, until Thian realizes that Talent can end the battle by teleporting explosives to detonate the fuel tanks of the Hiver ships. As Talents are not supposed to engage in defensive, or offensive, maneuvers, there is some criticism of Thian’s actions. However, the explosives do destroy the spheres. Captain Soligen’s squadron, also being pursued by Hivers, is able to use this method, too, to destroy the spheres. In contrast to a direct confrontation, the Hivers do recognize other spaceships as threats, so the Hivers are prevented from establishing a new homeworld.

  While that threat is eliminated, many more Hiver worlds have been located during the chase. All of them must be identified, and since the ethics of the Human/Mrdini Alliance do not include species genocide, how can the Hivers be prevented from following their cyclic behavior of overpopulating their planets and looking for new worlds to inhabit? How can FT&T under Jeff Raven’s capable management find enough suitable Talents to keep up with the ever-expanding demand for Primes?