The Rising Flame: Box Set: Defender of the Flame + Herald of the Flame
From the Reviews of
The Rising Flame
On Book One: Defender of the Flame: "This book reaches back to the brio and speculation of Engdahl’s classic books of the Seventies. . . The reader will be taken on an exciting and suspenseful ride. . . With an admirable protagonist and many interesting and well-drawn characters major and minor, Defender is satisfying on multiple levels. . . I expected to like this book; I was startled that I loved it. A must read.” —Nicholas Birns (author of Understanding Anthony Powell)
On Book Two: Herald of the Flame: “A futuristic ride that has many parallels in today’s society. This is a ‘thinking man’s’ science fiction book—the type we need more of today!” —The Feathered Quill
On the Series: “These novels are not so much genre ‘Romance’ or even just ‘Science Fiction’ as they are Literature. These are novels about life.” —Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Alien Romances: Reviews 14
The Rising Flame
An omnibus including
Defender of the Flame and Herald of the Flame
by
Sylvia Engdahl
Copyright © 2013, 2014 by Sylvia Louise Engdahl
All rights reserved. For information, write to sle@sylviaengdahl.com or visit www.sylviaengdahl.com/adstellae. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only, and may not be resold, given away, or altered.
The Rising Flame, Ad Stellae Books, 2016
Trade paperback edition, ISBN 978-1534673809
(libraries can order from Baker & Taylor)
Defender of the Flame, Ad Stellae Books, 2013
Trade paperback edition, ISBN 978-0615804347
Herald of the Flame, Ad Stellae Books, 2014
Trade paperback edition, ISBN 978-0692293768
All three paperbacks available at Amazon.com
Signed copies available from the author
Cover art © by Philcold / Dreamstime.com
Author website: www.sylviaengdahl.com
This duology can be read independently of the Hidden Flame duology, Stewards of the Flame and Promise of the Flame, which are about the founding of the colony Maclairn more than two centuries earlier.
Contents
Defender of the Flame
Part One: Titan
Part Two: Maclairn
Part Three: Promise
Part Four: Ciencia
Part Five: Estel
Herald of the Flame
Prologue
Part One: Ciencia
Part Two: Centauri
Part Three: Vagabond
Part Four: Stelo Haveno
Part Five: Earth
Part Six: Wayfaring
Part Seven: Ydoril
Part Eight: Homecoming
Afterword
About the Author
The Rising Flame, Book One
Defender of the Flame
* * *
What then of the prospects of our evolution? . . . Are we stations on a not yet fully traveled road? Is there reason to hope, as so many have, that great leaps beyond still await us? . . . A growing store of remarkable facts declares the presence of unknown faculties in the species and unknown energies awakening in our midst. There is enough information for speculating on our possible psychic evolution—enough evidence to prove that marvelous breakthroughs are possible. The problem is that we fear breakthrough and are addicted to the known and the familiar. —Michael Grosso, Frontiers of the Soul, 1992
* * *
Fate is strange. . . . We plan our lives according to a dream that came to us in our childhood, and we find that life alters our plans. And yet, at the end, from a rare height, we also see that our dream was our fate. It’s just that providence had other ideas as to how we would get there. Destiny plans a different route, or turns the dream around, as if it were a riddle, and fulfills the dream in ways we couldn’t have expected. —Ben Okri, Astonishing the Gods, 1995
Part One: Titan
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10
~ 1 ~
Titan! He still couldn’t believe it. How could he, Terry Radnor, a full lieutenant in Fleet and due to be in command on his next explorer mission, possibly have been sent back from Centauri Ops Center to the desolate training base on Titan? It must be a mistake. Fleet was, to be sure, a ponderous bureaucracy noted for mistakes when it came to personnel placement, at least in terms of young officers’ preferences. He had been extremely fortunate to get explorer duty on receiving his commission instead of being assigned to a freighter crew. He was not willing to accept the thought that his luck had run out.
Gloomily, Terry stowed his gear under the bunk he had been assigned and then sprawled on it, wondering why he did not have a room to himself. He was entitled to one. Even aboard explorers, small ships with crews of four, there were private staterooms. On Titan instructors generally had them, and what could he be here for if not to instruct? He had had his tour as a trainee on Titan long ago, just after leaving the Academy.
He hadn’t minded then—it had been exciting, his first trip to an alien world; he’d never before been further from Earth than Fleet headquarters on the moon. Titan’s weird methane lakes, the strange murky sky, and the odd sensation of handling a ship in the thick air had been enough of a novelty to compensate for the cramped, uncomfortable quarters within the ancient domed structures. And while flying outside the atmosphere the overwhelming sight of ringed Saturn, huge against the blackness of space, had thrilled him. But he had since visited worlds of quite a few stars, and in any case you didn’t see anything from inside the domes. It was unlikely that he would be able to do much flying; the only ships stationed on Titan were trainers, and he did not have an instructor’s rating.
Nor did he want one, Terry thought bitterly. With a flying instructor’s rating he might be stuck here for years, when he should be out exploring, collecting data on unopened worlds—possibly even getting rich. Fleet allowed crews a fair share of valuable finds, lest they turn to smuggling despite the draconian penalties they would incur if caught at it. Somehow he would have to wangle a transfer before anybody took note of his more-than-adequate academic qualifications for classroom instructing. That was a deadly job for a top-notch pilot and one not usually given to any officer so young. It was work for people near retirement. Either there was a glitch in a computer somewhere, or they were shorthanded.
The door slid open and a tall, lanky lieutenant appeared, presumably his roommate. “Hi, I’m Drew Larssen,” he said. “Welcome to the dumping ground. Don’t take it personally, but why they’ve sent us another warm body with nothing to do but kill time is beyond me.”
“I just now got here,” said Terry. “I won’t be killing time for long.”
“Yes, you will. Before the week’s out you’ll be stir-crazy like the rest of us.”
This was not good news. Evidently the base was not shorthanded, and if it was being used as a dumping ground for superfluous personnel, his own performance rating might not be as good as he had assumed. “What do they claim we’re here for?” he inquired.
“They don’t. Oh, they’ll find a job for you. I’m babysitting engineering trainees myself, which their section leader would be doing anyway. They pulled me off drive maintenance on Alpha for this!”
“You’re not a pilot, then.”
“You are? God, if they’re bringing in pilots it’s worse than I thought.”
“I don’t suppose it does any good to apply for a transfer.”
“What do you think?” Drew frowned. “It’s a funny thing, though—the CO doesn’t mind
people asking. He acts like he doesn’t know any more than we do why we’re here.”
Definitely a snafu then—if it were not, the CO would know. “Is he much of a pain to work under?”
“Oh, Derham is okay. If it weren’t for him, things could be a lot worse.”
“Derham?” Terry was astonished. Admiral Derham had been the CO when he’d been here before, and one of the best officers he had ever encountered; everybody had liked him. A man of his caliber should have moved on to a more desirable command by now.
“I’ve heard he took a three-month leave a while back,” Drew went on. “The old-timers were afraid he might not return—though the XO acting for him, Commander Vargas, is all right too.”
Two exceptionally good commanders at a base otherwise viewed as a dumping ground exceeded even Fleet’s reputation for mismanagement. Terry was still puzzling over it when, the next morning, he reported to Administration to receive his work assignment. He didn’t expect the CO to see him personally, but to his surprise Admiral Derham greeted him warmly and even remembered him from the ceremony at the end of his training tour, when he had been awarded top honors.
“I know you’d rather be flying, Lieutenant,” Derham told him, “and I can’t arrange that right now. We have more pilots than we can use. You’ll be programming simulations for the time being. Just be patient, and something more to your liking may turn up.”
Programming sims—well, that was better than instructing. At the Academy Terry had downplayed his very considerable programming talent for fear that he would be permanently assigned to AI maintenance instead of pilot training. Later he had learned that it was an asset, since all members of explorer crews were required to be proficient in at least two fields. Simulating emergencies at a training base didn’t require much talent, since the AI was already programmed to do most of the work involved; but at least he would have direct access to the supercomputer.
Would he dare make creative use of that access? he wondered. He had not done any hacking since high school and his expertise had even then been carefully hidden. It had been his main interest for several years, making up for the lack of social life resulting from his reputation as a loner. He had never enjoyed social activities, not because he didn’t like people but because he couldn’t seem to connect with them. There was a gulf he’d never been able to cross, as if some bridge should be there that he didn’t know how to step onto. In his relationship with computers he felt in charge. And so he had cracked many of the largest systems on Earth’s Net, never doing any damage, never touching the data he could easily have altered, but simply taking satisfaction in his ability to get in. Now, though, if there were a way to assign himself to duty somewhere other than on Titan . . .
No, he decided. Derham would know. If it were anyone else he might have risked it, but he did not want to lose the respect of Admiral Derham.
Terry did, however, take a look at his own record to see if there was some error in it that might have led to this inexplicable interruption of his career. There wasn’t. He rated high in just about everything, and there were no unfavorable notations.
That was why he was incredulous when a few days after his arrival he was ordered to report to the medical department for psychological evaluation.
~ 2 ~
Terry did not like psych officers. What spacer did? In his case, any such summons was particularly distasteful because he was aware that his loner status might be considered grounds for investigation. He had noticed hints of this during his entrance exams and training evaluations, though there had never been any complaints of discord with his messmates. He had been viewed as standoffish, but not disliked. And he had been too busy for his superiors to care that he was not especially eager to take part in the few recreational activities cadets were allowed time for.
Now, however, he was not busy. The psychiatrists were probably not busy either, which meant that they might want a subject to analyze who could be easily spared from work. He could see no other reason why they would have decided to test him again. And there were things he was not at all eager to have them pry into.
He was so preoccupied with this thought that he nearly got lost in the search for the office to which the med reception screen had directed him. Titan Base was old, having been established long before the development of interstellar travel, and by now it was a maze of cramped interconnected compartments under domes too small for the facilities it contained. It had not been thought worthwhile to replace them, since the only operations retained here were those connected with the training of new Academy graduates to live and work under less than ideal conditions, not only in the harsh outside environment but in quarters no more roomy than they would find aboard a ship. Thus every inch of space was utilized—but not efficiently. Various departments had grown, others had shrunk; and as a result, the compartments allocated to them were not always adjacent. The office of Dr. Aldren, to whom he was referred, proved to be nowhere near the rest of the medical complex. It could not have been harder to locate if it had been deliberately hidden.
The outer office was tiny, and was nearly filled by the receptionist’s desk. She was a tall, slender woman with striking silver hair that must have been intentionally changed from its natural color, for though she certainly wasn’t young, she did not seem old enough for it to have turned gray. And she wasn’t in uniform, which seemed odd. He had not thought there were any civilian employees on Titan.
“Hello, Lieutenant,” she said, smiling. “You can go right in; Dr. Aldren’s expecting you.”
Resolutely, Terry entered the inner office. He hoped this would be over quickly. He hoped he would not be required to talk much; the inevitable AI interview would be bad enough. “Lieutenant Radnor, reporting as ordered, sir,” he said.
To his amazement, the man who stood waiting for him might have been the twin of the receptionist. He appeared to be ageless—tall, trim and full of vitality, yet silver-haired and with penetrating eyes that suggested years of accumulated wisdom. And he, too, wore civvies. Quickly Terry realized that these two people were not in fact alike; their features were quite different. Only build and hair color had given that impression. Yet there was something more, a warmth, a welcoming manner, that made him feel some sort of affinity with them.
“You don’t have to call me ‘sir,’” Dr. Aldren said. “I’m not a Fleet officer, just a friend of Admiral Derham. He has asked me to do what I can to improve the morale here.”
The morale at the base certainly needed improving, Terry thought, but it wouldn’t take a psychiatrist to figure out why. Any of the surplus officers could have told him, and in fact Derham must already know. Was he so powerless to transfer them that he hoped an outsider could find some new way to keep them from dying of boredom?
The room didn’t seem anything like a medical office. The desk was crowded into one corner, looking as if it hadn’t been recently used, and there were two standard-issue chairs, also pushed aside. Filling most of the space was a blue mattress of the kind used aboard spaceliners, laid directly on the floor. “As you see, I’m not much for observing conventions,” Dr. Aldren said. He proceeded to sit down on the mattress, inviting Terry to join him.
It was impossible to sit stiffly erect there, as he would have preferred to do. He waited, puzzled, as the doctor added, “Just make yourself comfortable. I’ll have Roanna bring us some coffee.” He spoke with a slight accent that Terry couldn’t place, affecting not his choice of words but only their pronunciation. Where, he wondered, had Admiral Derham met him? On Earth during the admiral’s long leave, perhaps?
Almost immediately the woman appeared, though Terry had spotted no form of signaling. Was there a hidden mike that would pick up everything he said? He took the steaming cup she offered him, realizing that since there was no flat place to set it down, he was effectively barred from nervously clenching his hands. To his surprise he didn’t feel as nervous as he’d expected to. There was something about this man that inspired trust.
/>
“I’d like to hear your impression of the problems here,” Dr. Aldren said. “You don’t need to tell me that you’d rather be someplace else; I’m aware that you and a good many others were brought to Titan against your will. I can’t change that, but maybe I can find some means of making duty at this base more tolerable.”
“Do you have any idea why we’re here?” Terry ventured. “I’ve heard that extra people have been coming in for weeks.”
“Well, Fleet’s top brass doesn’t confide in me,” Aldren said, “and since for the present you are here, we’ve got to make the best of it. What do you do in your free time?”
“Not a lot. Work out in the gym sometimes, or read. Or play video games.” He did not mention that he played them on the supercomputer when nobody was watching; he had covered his traces well. The rec room did not attract him; it was crowded and there wasn’t much to do there if you didn’t have friends to chill out with.
“How about chess? I’d guess that you’re a good player.”
Terry shook his head. He was too good at chess; he could always anticipate his opponent’s next move, which took the fun out of it and did not make him popular. He had the strange feeling that Dr. Aldren knew this, and to change the subject he said, “On shore leaves I used to hike. But of course that’s not possible here.” For officers stationed on Titan there was no weekend escape because there was nowhere outside the domes to go. In any case, he’d had leave just before arriving; after a brief visit to his mother he had spent it camping in the Yellowstone Reserve, the chance to hike in Earth’s remaining patches of wilderness being the one advantage to his recall to its solar system.