John Dalmas Yngling 3 The Circle of Power

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cast toward them. When a call was detected, other members of the Circle were
sent for if necessary; five was adequate, even four in a pinch. And a runner
rushed to the palace to inform the emperor.
With Tenzin as a guide, the Circle created a conduit, with the emperor the
receiver. He would come at once, even if asleep when sent for, and sit in the
middle of the Circle in what a twenty-first-century psychologist might have
called a trance state, but in fact was a state of heightened, focused
sensitivity.
Meanwhile Fong waited. Those who worked closely with the emperor had their
patience well-developed. When he felt the emperor s psychic touch, Fong began
their mental dialog: Your Reverence, the barbarian you are interested in has
arrived here at Urga. With the raven.
The man s appearance is as Tenzin read it from the bird -- very large, very
powerful, and seemingly a great warrior.
Certainly a superior telepath.
His talents go much beyond that, however. He has great force of personality,
and he is clever. Then he reran mentally the man s conversation with Kaidu,
up to the time when the chief had cleared the ger of its other guests. At
that point, Fong said, it was required that I
leave. And as I am accompanied at all times by guards who both protect and
constrain me, I could not loiter near the chief s ger and listen through the
mind. The raven was there, however. Tenzin can learn for you what happened in
my absence.
The emperor nudged his envoy s mind with a question.
Where he will go from here, Fong answered, he did not say, any more than he
did in the hearing of the raven. Perhaps he spoke the truth to his companions
last winter, when he said he didn t know, beyond accompanying the Mongol to
his people. Perhaps he is someone who simply desires to see new places.
But Your Reverence, there is something about him that makes him unusually
interesting and perhaps even dangerous. He seems not to think to himself. I
discern no internal monologue.
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. . . No, Your Reverence, it is not a matter of screening. I would know if
he screened. He simply does not carry on an internal monolog, and beneath his
words, his mind seems still. It s as if he were in deep meditation constantly,
even while talking and moving, seemingly alert. Obviously alert. The raven was
not able to tell us that, of course. It could only show us his movements, let
us listen to his words.
There was little more to the psychic conversation; then the emperor
discontinued it. He next took a brief report from Tenzin Geshe on what the
raven had seen. As he returned to his apartment, Songtsan Gampo felt a thrill
run through him. This barbarian was indeed interesting. More than interesting:
exciting! Tenzin had sensed the man as a threat, but Tenzin was always
cautious. And opportunities often entailed danger. The barbarian held some
special significance, it seemed to Songtsan, some special promise. Perhaps
from him he d learn something new and powerful, a key that would open the
world to his grasp.
For just a moment, as if standing on an exhilarating height, he felt
possibilities he couldn t quite perceive.
Marvelous possibilities that went well beyond conquest!
Then the height sagged, and he lost his certainty.
But Songtsan Gampo was a man of spiritual strength as well as vast material
power. And of great patience, when it suited him. He would wait, see, react,
and take the initiative when the time came.
TWENTY-TWO
From -- Modern China, by Giulio Matsuda.
University Press, A.C. 832.
. . . . No written records have been found of the post-plague Tibetan
migration into those parts of China previously peopled by Chinese, that is,
by people ethnically Chinese. Certain assumptions and conclusions can safely
be made, however. Considering the physical appearance of the ethnic Tibetans
in modern China, they presumably came from the eastern
Tibet-Qinghai Plateau and adjacent mountain districts.
One might ask how there came to be so many.
According to the Terran census of A.D. 2100, the last available, the total [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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