Free Get Off the Unicorn by Anne McCaffrey Page A

Larak-focus to destroy Sodan, yes. But the killing thrust was yours, Damia; you were the only one capable of doing it. And every T-rating in the Federated Worlds will vouch for that. Your touch, my dear, is indescribable. Further, without you to throw
us
into high gear, Sodan could have destroyed every Prime in FT & T.”
    Damia heard an approving, admiring murmur from Rowan.
    â€œWill my touch come back? I can’t feel anything,” and in spite of her control Damia’s chin quivered and she started to sob with fear.
    â€œOf course it’ll come back, dear,” said the Rowan, who elbowed Jeff aside to kneel by her daughter and stroke her hair tenderly.
    â€œYou’d better go knit some more sleeves of ravelled care,” Isthia suggested with therapeutic asperity. “You knit like this,” and Isthia inserted a visual demonstration of the technique of knitting into Damia’s mind. It was an adroit change of subject, but Damia, with a flash return of perception, saw the three were evading her.
    â€œI must be told what has happened,” she demanded imperiously. A wisp of memory nagged at her and she caught it. “I remember. Sodan made one last thrust.” She closed her eyes against that recall, remembering too, that she had tried to intercept it and, “Larak’s dead,” she said in a flat voice. “And Afra. I couldn’t shield in time.”
    â€œAfra lives,” the Rowan said.
    â€œBut Larak? Why Larak?” Damia demanded, desperately striving to touch what she felt they must still be hiding from her.
    â€œLarak was the focus,” Rowan said softly, knowing, too, that Damia would never absolve herself of her brother’s death. “Afra was supposed to be the focus, being the experienced mind, but the old bond between you and Larak snapped into effect. You tried to shield Larak, but his mind was too unskilled to draw help from you. Jeff and I felt it because we were part of the focus, too, and we tried to help divert it. We could cushion only Afra in time. Sodan’s was a very powerful mind.”
    Damia looked from her mother to her father and knew that that much was true. But another reservation hovered in their eyes. . .
    â€œYou’re still hiding something,” she insisted, fighting with exhaustion. “Where’s Afra?”
    â€œOkay, skeptic,” Jeff said, lifting her into his arms. “Though why his snores haven’t kept you awake, I don’t know.”
    He carried her down the hall. Pausing at an open door, he swung her around so she could see into the room. A night light hung over the bed, illuminating Afra’s quiet face, deeply lined with fatigue and pain. Denying even the physical evidence, Damia reached out, touching just enough for reassurance the pained mental rumble that meant Afra still inhabited his body.
    â€œDamia, don’t do that again,” Jeff said, carrying her back to her room.
    â€œI won’t but I had to,” she replied, her head ballooning with agony.
    â€œAnd we’ll see you don’t again until you’re well enough. Out you go, missy,” and she slid into blackness.
    Â 
    An insistent whisper nibbled at the corners of her awareness and roused Damia from restoring sleep. Cringing in anticipation of the return of pain, she was mildly surprised to feel only the faintest discomfort. Experimentally, Damia pushed a depressant on the ache and that, too, disappeared. Unutterably pleased by her success, she sat up in bed. It was night and she was in her family’s home. She stretched until a cramp caught her in the side.
    Heavens, hasn’t anyone moved me in months?
she asked herself, noting that her mental tone was firm. She lay back in bed, deliberating.
Poor Damia
, she said in a self-derisive tone,
ever since that encounter with that dreadful mind-alien, she’s been nothing but a T-4, T-9? T-3?
Damia tried out the different grades for size and then