Eric Flint's Blog, page 176

Alexander Inheritance – Snippet 05

Alexander Inheritance – Snippet 05

Chapter 2

Off Formentera Island

9:00 PM, September 15, 321 BCE

The voice over the loudspeakers was calm and matter-of-fact, as if the ship’s officer was simply reporting on the weather:

“Ladies and gentlemen, using astronomic instruments, we have determined the date. It is the year 321 Before the Common Era, and it is September fifteenth by our calendar. Also, we believe we are in the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Spain. We have no idea how this has happened, but the captain has decided that for all our safety, we need some sea room. We will be moving away from the docks to insure that boarding by the locals is more difficult.”

All around the ship everyone reacted individually, as their natures dictated. There were cases of panic, but more often than panic was disbelief. There was consternation and curiosity. The phones of passengers all over the ship were turned on and 321 BCE was looked up. Other people shrugged and went on with their gambling, shopping, dining, or other entertainments.

* * *

Jason Jones pulled out his cell phone and tried to call his mother. He got a “no signal” message. Then he tried to call his father, who was just five feet away, sitting on his bed with his laptop opened. Dad’s phone rang with the Lone Ranger theme and he looked over at Jason.

“I can’t get Mom,” Jason explained.

Dad’s face got a pinched look on it and Jason got even more scared. Almost in desperation Jason asked, “Dad, if I can’t get Mom, how come I can get you?”

“Good question!” Dad seemed relieved. “It could be that the phones are in range of each other. A cell phone is a small radio combined with a computer, and good ones like ours have the ability to talk directly back and forth if they are close enough. That’s how we can share photos when our phones get close to each other. But it might be the ship. I think the cell providers have restrictions built in. Let’s look it up.”

That was Dad’s answer to everything. “Let’s look it up.” Dad called up the ship specs and got a rate listing, a chart of how much cell calls, wifi, and internet cost per minute or megabyte. A couple of links below that was a description of how it worked. The Queen of the Sea was wired to a faretheewell, with hotspots and wired connections all through the ship. Those led to the ship’s Communications and Data Center. That, along with mirror sites and catching, constituted the ship’s cloud. All phone and internet access first went into the ship’s cloud. A phone call from one cell phone on the ship to another never left the ship’s cloud. But you still got charged for the call as though it were going through the satellite. That was even true on some of the ports, because the Queen of the Sea had its own cell tower, called a repeater. In fact, it had three. One forward, one amidships, and one near the stern. Each station had a satellite link, a cell repeater, ship-to-ship, and ship-to-shore radios. That gave the ship’s cloud considerable range, so if you were on an island excursion and called someone on the ship, it usually went through the ship’s cloud. The reason there were three was to ensure that there was adequate bandwidth, and as a safety feature, redundancy in case of accident. Finding all that out took time, and long before they finished, a history professor decided to take a hand.

* * *

In Stateroom 601, Marie Easley, a small woman with black hair and just a touch of gray, looked over at her daughter. Josette Easley was looking frightened. She was recently divorced and, as amicable as it had been, she needed to get away for a while. Marie got dragooned into accompanying Josette because she didn’t want to go alone. And now it looked like the trip was going to be a lot more life-changing than either of them had thought. Not that Marie hadn’t had enough life-changing since being widowed three years ago.

“Mom,” Josette asked, “what was going on in 321 BCE before the common era?”

It was a perfectly reasonable question, since Marie had a doctorate in history with a specialization in Ptolemaic Egypt.

“Well, Alexander is dead, and so is Aristotle. A shame, that. I would have liked to meet the philosopher.”

“Not Alexander?”

“Didn’t you ever listen to our discussions around the dinner table, Josette?” Marie grinned. “Alexander the Great may well have been the greatest man of his time, but almost anyone who comes down in the history books with ‘the Great’ attached to their name has piled up a very impressive body count. Alexander was certainly no exception. He was anything but a good man by any modern standard of ‘good.’ He and his cronies make the characters in Game of Thrones seem positively benign.”

She thought for a moment, her lips. “Well, Epicurus was alive — is alive, and I suspect I would like to meet him. Perhaps even more than Aristotle.”

“Do you think the captain and crew can get us back home?”

Marie considered. It seemed highly unlikely on the face of it. And if the captain and crew were unlikely to be able to do so, how likely was it that anything would take them home? There was a tightness around Marie’s abdomen as she considered the world they were now in and the possibility…no, face it squarely, Marie…the almost certainty that they were here permanently.

“No, dear, I don’t. Wait here. I need to speak to someone in the crew about this. There is information they are going to need and they are going to need it sooner rather than later.” Marie grabbed her laptop as she left the room and headed for the information desk.

* * *

The Help Desk was, unsurprisingly, swamped by people asking questions that the staff was in no position to answer. So Marie answered them. “No, Alexander the Great died two, possibly three, years ago in Babylon.”

“What about the Romans?”

“Rome owns a strip of the west coast of Italy, but not much more.” Marie stopped and thought. She wasn’t nearly as familiar with Rome in this period as she was with Greece and Egypt but, yes, this was the middle of the second Samnite War. She wasn’t sure, but she thought the battle of the Caudine Forks was either about to happen or was recent —

Never mind. “Rome is a republic of sorts, but it makes banana republics look good. Also, it doesn’t control enough territory to be of much use.”

A teenager was scrolling through his phone. “What about Carthage? Aren’t they the great sea power of the age?”

“Very little of Carthage is known. But, honestly, young man, most of what is known isn’t very complimentary. At this point, we are between the second and third of the Greek-Punic wars.”

By now there was a crowd around Marie, and the clerk at the Help Desk called her over and asked about her credentials.

* * *

“Captain, we’ve found an expert,” Jane Carruthers said. “Professor Marie Easley is a professor with a specialization in the history of Ptolemaic Egypt and we are in the time of the first Ptolemy.”

“Fine, Jane. Get her up here. We need to decide what to do, and soon.”

Jane knew that better than the captain did. Even though they were limiting portions now — which might cause resentment among the passengers and crew — they were going to run out of food in no more than a fortnight. They needed a supply base and they needed it now.

* * *

Jane escorted Marie toward the captain’s conference room, explaining the situation, what they knew of it, and what they needed.

“We need to go to Egypt,” Marie said, as soon as they’d entered the conference room. Everyone sitting at the table in the center looked at her.

“Please explain why,” said the man at the head of the table. He had a Scandinavian accent but it wasn’t pronounced. Marie wasn’t quite sure of the meaning of the various insignia on his uniform, but she thought this was the ship’s captain. Although she cautioned herself not to jump to conclusions. She might be influenced by the fact that he was distinguished-looking and rather handsome, in a late middle-aged sort of way — the way a ship’s captain was supposed to look.

 

Gods of Sagittarius – Snippet 35

Gods of Sagittarius – Snippet 35

CHAPTER 21

Tabor opened his eyes, spent a moment focusing them, and found that he was lying on a stone floor, facing an open doorway. He placed a hand to his head to assess the damage, winced at the touch, and frowned, trying to remember exactly what had happened.

“Damn!” he muttered. “You’re always nailed by the one you didn’t see.”

He got carefully to his feet, stared out the doorway at a long corridor with numerous open doors lining it, and prepared to leave the cold stone room in which he found himself.

“I wouldn’t do that,” said a harsh voice from behind him.

He turned and found himself facing a very large and heavily-muscled creature. Its overall appearance was vaguely reptilian, but that was mostly due to the scaly, armored, crocodilian hide. The creature’s face wasn’t the least bit like that of a reptile’s. It was quite flat, with no sign of a nose at all. Four bulging orange eyes rested above a gaping maw which had insectlike mandibles instead of jaws. What looked like a rasping tongue covered with spines substituted for teeth.

The monster was a quadruped as far as locomotion was concerned, but had six tentacles emerging from the shoulder area. Four of them were supple and ended in a delicate trifurcation, suited for complex manipulations. To make up for it, the remaining pair of tentacles were thick and ended in flat palps covered with brutal-looking hooks. Those were clearly designed for grappling and rending.

In short, it boasted the worst features of a pocket dinosaur, a giant praying mantis and a walking squid combined in one package. Its epidermis was mottled, the colors best described as jaundice-yellow, puke-green and disemboweled-entrails-pinkish-red. A sensitive enough interior decorator would probably drop dead just at the sight of the creature.

“Who the hell are you?” demanded Tabor.

“A fellow prisoner,” was the reply. Tabor now spotted something that looked like gills just above the tentacle ring, from which the voice emerged. But these organs were apparently designed for speech rather than breathing. Or maybe they could do both, if the monster was submerged.

“What prison?” said Tabor. “We’re in some room somewhere, and I’m about to walk out.”

The creature picked up a plate that had once held its breakfast and tossed it through the open doorway. There was a crackling sound and a flash of light, and the plate totally vanished.

“Iron bars do not a prison make,” said the creature. It gaped its mandibles wide, which Tabor interpreted as its way of grinning. “I heard that somewhere.”

“So we’re in prison?”

It made no reply, but the quasi-grin became even wider.

“You’re a Vitunpelay, aren’t you?” continued Tabor. “I’ve seen images but never met one of you in person.”

“I am indeed a Vitunpelay.”

Tabor extended his hand. “I’m a Human. My name’s Russ Tabor.”

“Rusty Bore?” repeated the Vitunpelay. He gazed at Tabor’s outstretched hand but made no move toward it. “I like you already!”

Tabor decided not to correct him. He withdrew his hand, just as glad the huge alien hadn’t touched it. “You got a name?”

“Certainly,” came the reply. “What day of the week is it — any kind of week you prefer to use?”

“Tuesday.”

“And the month?”

“I think it’s November on Earth,” said Tabor. “It’s Sixth Month on my home world, and who the hell knows what it is on this dirtball?”

“Splendid!” enthused the creature. “My name is Jaemu.”

Tabor stared at his curiously. “Why is that splendid?”

“Who wants to go through life with just one name?” answered Jaemu. “If you didn’t have names for the months of your year, I couldn’t change mine every month, and that would have left me with just the merest handful of names.”

“So Jaemu is just one of your names?”

“One of my two hundred favorites.”

“Does it mean anything in your native language?”

“Shameless Footkisser Who Betrays His Friends,” answered Jaemu.

“And you’re pleased with that?”

“Certainly. It is unique among my acquaintances.”

Tabor stared at him for a long moment. “You are a very strange critter from a very strange race.”

“Perhaps,” agreed Jaemu. “But I wasn’t preparing to walk through a forcefield that could reduce me to dust in a microsecond.”

“You got a point,” admitted Tabor.

“What are you doing in here?” asked Jaemu.

“Waiting for my friend to make my bail, I suppose.”

“I mean, why were you incarcerated?”

“I slugged a few policemen,” answered Tabor. Jaemu frowned.

“Murder, huh?”

“Just disorderly conduct, I should think.”

“You didn’t kill them?” said Jaemu, surprised.

“No, of course not.”

“Why not?”

Tabor stared at him, and decided that he was even more alien than he looked. “I’m almost afraid to ask what you did?”

“Oh, something exceptionally trivial,” answered Jaemu.

“Trivial?” repeated Tabor.

The Vitunpelay shook his head. “Yes. And once the survivors get out of the hospital, I’m sure the insurance policies on the others will pay for their artificial limbs and keep them in comfort for the remainder of their lives.”

Tabor stared at Jaemu for a long moment. “Fucking clown,” he muttered.

“You see?” said Jaemu. “You don’t have to be Jarkko Jarvinen to call us that.”

“How long have you been in here?”

“Eleven days,” answered the Vitunpelay. “Or twenty-two exceptionally vile meals. Or half the life expectancy of that no-legged thing that is crawling alongside your foot.”

Tabor looked down, saw a large worm or small snake opening its mouth to take a bite out of his toe, shoe and all, and stomped on it with his other foot.

“Well, half the life expectancy if he was eleven days old,” continued Jaemu.

“Just out of curiosity,” said Tabor, “what are you doing on Cornwallis IV?”

“Am I?”

“Are you what?”

“On Cornwallis IV?”

“Yes,” said Tabor.

“How comforting to know,” said Jaemu. “Anyway, I was invited to come here.”

“By the government?” asked Tabor.

“Well, by a government.”

“They have more than one here?”

“You are understanding me too fast,” said Jaemu. “It was suggested I come here by the government of Batelliot VII.” He paused thoughtfully. “And I’m pretty sure the government of Milago II was in full agreement.”

“I take it you’re not the most popular clown in the galaxy,” said Tabor.

“Not even the second most popular, if truth be known,” answered Jaemu. He paused thoughtfully. “What planet or planets were you thrown off of?”

“None.”

“Really?” said Jaemu, surprised. “Then what are you doing here?”

“I told you,” replied Tabor. “I slugged some police officers.”

“I mean, what are you doing on this planet at all?”

 

Darkship Revenge – Snippet 35

Darkship Revenge – Snippet 35

We had dinner that evening, the three adults together, after we’d given the young men food, and Fuse asked, “They’ll live now?  They’ll live.”

“They’ll live,” I told him.  “The doctor said they would.” Part of me thought it was very easy for him to say it, when he hadn’t had to actually nurse them through the illness.

After dinner, I received a Com from Luce.  It was a hologram call, and I could see him, sitting at a vast desk, piled high with papers.  He looked tired and old.  I knew he was ten or fifteen years older than Nat and I and the rest of my broomers’ lair, but I’d never thought of him that way.  Till now.  He looked like he had aged years since I’d seen him a week and a half ago.  “I wanted to know how the boys were doing?” he asked.

“Oh, they’re recovered,” I said.  “They’re fine.”

His fingers drummed on his desk.  It was odd, because he was staring at me through the hollo communicator, but his fingers were drumming on the desk as though they had no connection at all with his mind, as though they were an automatic gesture.

I could sense something troubling him, something deep and unexpressed, but all he said aloud was “They have no other symptoms, now?  They are fully recovered and have no other symptoms?”

“No.”

“No symptoms as though of a hemorrhagic fever? Blood seepage through skin? Organ failure?”

I was horrified.  “Light! No.  Why?  Do other people have those symptoms?”

He opened his mouth, snapped it shut.  “Some.  A good number of the people who caught this… flu.”  He looked more distressed than what he’d said warranted.

I thought I knew the only thing that could make him this tired, so I asked, “Nat?”

He raised his eyebrows at me, as though trying to make me feel I had no right to ask.  Then he sighed.  “No.  Well — He has the flu as I do.  But no.  It’s …. It’s just a great number of people have those symptoms and a lot are dying, and we can’t seem to stop it. And Julien has thrown all sorts of resources at it, but we still can’t stop it.  We can slow it down by constant blood transfusions, but our supply is not unlimited, and artificially produced blood seems to have deleterious effects, in mass quantities.  Julien has tried everything.  His wife is very ill.”

“Wife?” I asked, surprised.  It had never occurred to me that my scapegrace friend had married.  Who had he married?  His wife couldn’t be one of us.  Of course neither had my surrogate mother been, or any of the surrogate mothers of my friends, but somehow it seemed wrong.  For that matter, Nat wasn’t one of us, one of the clones of Good Men.  So I didn’t think that Luce wanted to hear my ideas on it.

Luce sighed again and shook his head.  “Oh, it’s just… He picked her from a row of beauty contest winners, and she was supposed to be a show wife, a trophy of the Emperor, to show how vastly powerful and attractive he was, but Thena, I think he’s come to love her, and you know Julien was never that stable.  He’s really tried everything.  And if she should die this could affect his emotional well being, and in turn put our position in jeopardy.” He gave a mirthless laugh.  “Not that it matters, since we’re losing so many people, I think everything will be destabilized.  The whole world.”   He seemed to bring himself to a halt with an effort and shrugged.  “Look, I’m probably depressed because of this flu thing. I’m probably worrying for no reason.”

“Is there any reason to think anyone will die?” I asked.  “We weren’t even really worried for the boys, and, having grown up in an insular environment, they were more likely to lack the resistance to –”

Luce pursed his lips. “Oh, people are dying.  A lot of people.  I don’t know if it’s the same flu the boys had, though –” He paused.  “I have this feeling it might be.  “Whatever it is, though, it’s going through the troops on both sides, both the Good Men and us and our allies, and there have been…”  He frowned.  “Something sets in after people recover or when they’re recovering from this flu.  They… The med techs say they don’t make enough palettes, in the blood.  The upshot is the blood doesn’t coagulate as it should.  It hits some people differently from others, and some just get bruises and fatigue and jaundice, but we’ve had people die from sudden strokes, as a bleed let loose in their brains.  Watch the boys.  We don’t know if it’s the same thing, but…”

“You’re worried.  About the boys.”

“Not about those three particularly,” he said, but was frowning, as if in deep thought.  “But yes, about them, too.  It’s just that…  We’re losing people we can’t afford to lose.  And even just the ones who are ill…  Never mind, that is my worry, and not part of yours. We’re a smaller fighting force, holding out in the face of a much larger enemy, and the truth is they can afford to lose more people than we can before our force becomes non operational.”

“It’s not that I don’t care about your battle.  A free Earth is preferable to — But I don’t know what I can do.”

“No, of course not. Your worry is, I suppose, to go home, once those boys are out of danger.”

I tried to think of it.  Going back to Eden, without resolving this situation…

I hated to admit it.  I never wanted to be a mother.  I truly never wanted to be a mother, and I hated being responsible for anyone else.  But something had happened between giving birth to Eris and finding little brother, yes, and Laz too.  These boys were probably worse raised than I’d been.  I didn’t know what they were doing on Earth, but I was sure that those who had sent them didn’t care if they lived or died.  And I knew if we left them to their own devices, in war-torn Earth, between rival factions, they’d be lucky to remain alive.

From the things they’d muttered while raving out of their minds with fever, I gathered Laz had spent a long time protecting these and others of the boys.  I couldn’t be less of a parent and protector than a half grown stripling, who could never have been taught any principles.

“I don’t know,” I said.  “I don’t think we can leave like this.  For one.” I hesitated.  “It’s possible we’d be taking contagion back to … To the colony.  For another, I feel strangely responsible for the boys.”  There were other reasons.  In the upheavals in Eden, the role that Kit and I had played had left us under suspicion of creating dissension and less than popular with most people.  I didn’t want to go back to Eden just yet.  Oh, I’d have to face public opinion at some point, and I did miss Kit’s family, but right then, going back, with Eris, was like going back into confinement.  Sure we could live again to gather powerpods, but how long could our little family hold out against the world?  Did I really want to raise a child in an enclosed ship with just Kit and I?  An upbringing even more artificial than mine?

“But it is dangerous for you to remain on Earth,” Lucius said.

“I know.  Doctor Dufort told me.”

“Did he?”

“Yes.  He said I could become a prize of contention among Good men, but it doesn’t matter.  He gave us lenses, if Kit should need to leave this refuge, and I have survived on Earth a long time. What can I do?  What do you want me to do?”

He took a deep breath.  “We’re going on the assumption that the flu was brought by the children.  Doctor Dufort thinks –”

“Yes?”

“Doctor Dufort thinks that there is something different about this flu.  Something wrong.  He thinks that it’s a designer disease, though he can’t figure what it was designed to do.  But that strange after-effect of your palettes count dropping and dropping worries him.  And he thinks it might be the intention in the long run.  But whatever it is, defies his attempts at figuring out so far.”

“And?”

“And getting more of the boys would help.  Also establishing some sort of quarantine.  At least prevent the spread of this to our side, until we can cure it.  If we only knew where the others were.  Didn’t they talk?  Tell you anything?”

I shook my head.  “No, I genuinely don’t think they know.  It was all targets of opportunity, and finding someone who would lead them to the council of Good Men.  Look how they latched on to Kit, whom anyone born on Earth would identify as an outsider.”

Lucius sighed.

“This is not what you want to hear, I know, I said.  Have you tried figuring out – I’m sure you have spying operations – where the disease is propagating from among the Good Men?  The centers of those should be where the other boys are.”

He made a face.  “A lot of our spies are down too.  A constant worry that those in the field speak when they’re out of their minds.  But our cyber spying, and breaking into hospital record centers is at least so-so.  We might be able to get something from that.  I’ll put some of my kids on it… My subordinates.  Most of them are so young.  Hard to think of them as anything but kids.  They’re used to doing that sort of analysis for public opinion, though, so they should be able to do it for this.  It’s a little different but they’re adaptable.  More adaptable than I.  Thank you.  I hadn’t thought to use them that way, and most of our other leaders are too sick to think straight.  I shall do it.”

He had worried me enough that I played with the com devices in the compound to get news of the rest of the world.  By the next morning, the news were full of this strange disease tearing through the various armies of the world.  It was rumored that the Usaian troops were particularly affected, though I wasn’t sure how they were getting those news.

The boys started improving almost immediately.  Two days later, Eris caught the flu.  The boys recovering without showing signs of the secondary infection.

And on the sixth day, the news were full of stories about how Yolande St. Cyr, Empress of Liberte, crowned by the Emperor’s own hands, had died.

And that night, I found that my thinking was becoming fuzzy and confused, and I went to bed.  I thought I’d slept through the night, nothing else, but I woke with two men speaking by my bed, and a smell of something burning.

 

Darkship Revenge – Snippet 34

Darkship Revenge – Snippet 34

The First Horseman

“It is the flu,” Doctor Dufort said.

I don’t know what I expected.  A colossus of some sort, a man whose very presence bent reality around him.  Or someone whose knowledge of science and medicine was so overpowering that all must recognize it.

Instead, he was a lithe middle aged man, very calm and completely unperturbed to be sent across the globe to examine three children in a secret facility.  If he found it strange, he gave no indication.  “I will leave some anti-virals.  It seems to be a very virulent case.”

I had heard of him, before, or at least not precisely of him, but of the private doctors of Good Men.  My own late, unlamented father had had some on retainer.  I’d been made by one of them.

Somehow I’d never expected one of them to be so unprepossessing and so calm.  The ones who had served my father had been somewhat more … showy.

He had taken the three boys’ vitals through a med-examiner that looked quite a lot more advanced than when I left Earth.  I wondered what had been happening in my absence. Other than, of course, civil war and unrest.

“Do you think they caught it from us? Somehow?  Sim — Julien, maybe, if he was incubating something…”

Dufort shook his head, then shrugged.  “The emperor was in the best of health.  I know, because he insists I see him every other day.”  At my widening eyes and look of shock, because hypochondria had never been one of Simon’s issues, as many has he had, he said, “Ah, no, not about his health.  About other matters I supervise for him.  I am the one who insists on taking a look at his vitals when we meet.  He has taken on much too much, and has a tendency to burn the candle at both ends.  He always had.”

I almost asked him how he had known what the Emperor Julien always had, since the constructed story I’d skimmed said that he had grown up as an humble man of the people.  But I met his eyes, and there was no deception there, and we were perfectly understood.  He knew who the Emperor was as well as I did.  And he knew who all of us were too.

I hadn’t ever thought of Simon as someone who burned the candle at both ends, either.  Simon, at least to me, had appeared as a bon vivant, who strode through life seeking his own pleasure and his own advantage, and trying to do as much of the unpleasant “work” as humanly possible.

It occurred to me, not for the first time, but the most forcefully it ever had, that I might never had known the real Simon, but a constructed personality designed to be seen and appreciated by such as me.

Maybe there wasn’t even a real Simon.  Maybe he just had a series of personalities, of acts, that he put on for different people.

Certainly, another thing I’d found out on the trip here, that Kit’s “sister” – a female clone of Jarl Ingemar created and raised in Eden – had married one of Simon’s subordinates and disappeared somewhere into Olympus’ North American territories, instead of marrying Simon, as we’d all assumed she would, lent credence to the idea I’d never known Simon.  He’d made light of it, shrugged and said they hadn’t suited, but I suspected when it had come to the sticking point he just couldn’t commit to anyone or anything. Not even for love.  Not even for self-preservation.

“They should pull through fine,” Doctor Dufort said, as he set a handful of vials on the counter.  “I gave them a dose, just give them the next dose in two days, and then another one.  They are all healthy specimens, the… ah… body decorations notwithstanding.  Whatever else they are – and from what the Emperor told me, they are more or less feral – they are near-perfect physical specimens. Just keep them hydrated and fed.  These vials will tip the scales a little in their favor and shorten their healing time. I’m leaving extra vials should any of you get ill.  And this,” he set down smaller vials.  “In case the infant should contract this.”  The idea of Eris getting that sick made my hair attempt to stand on end.

He gave me and Kit the instructions on administering the medicine, without saying anything about Kit’s eyes, the obvious mark of his bio-engineering, and without saying anything about knowing who we were.

But when I walked with him to the front of the complex, where he’d left his flyer parked in a vast expanse of robot-maintained lawn, under green trees, beside the murmuring river, he said, in the tone of one who had hesitated a long time, “Patrician Sinistra — ”

“Yes?”

He sighed.  “Two things, and please forgive me for bringing them up at all.  I will only plead that you don’t know what has happened on Earth in your absence and that I have reason not to want either of you caught in it, if nothing else because it would embroil my– The Emperor, and he’s having all he can do to keep Liberte from the main strife because after the revolution, we’re not ready to…  We’re not ready to fight.”  He looked at me.  “If you’ll forgive me, Madame,” He pronounced it Mah-dah-m in the French way.  “I have here a pouch with lenses which will alter the appearance of your husband’s eyes.  I would just prefer that if you leave this space no one knows what you are. That you don’t attract attention. Oh, I’d love to examine his eyes and know precisely how they were made, and how – the Emperor tells me it was a virus – something was designed to change mere human DNA in that way.  Just as I’d love to know how you were made, after a long string of failures and sterile female mule clones.  But I will not speak of it, not unless someone wishes to share the knowledge with me.  There isn’t even a need of creating female mules for ah… Biolords to reproduce.  It is possible to bridge the gap of reproduction with humans in the laboratory.  The idea of making females was, I think, predicated on a perhaps natural desire for the mules to replace normal human population. A thought that their species was the next step as it were.”

“My father did name me Hera,” I said.  “Athena Hera Sinistra.  As Nat pointed out, the woman without a mother, and the mother of a race of gods.”

Dr. Dufort looked at me, evaluating.  “Just so, Madame.  Your… ah… father… had his notions.  But the thing is, right now, to prevent the other Good Men from hunting you down and trying to figure you out.  And from trying to do harm to your husband.  So if he would wear the disguising lenses, and you’d try to… ah, not be very obvious.”

“Why?” I said.  “I mean, sure, they know that I am missing and perhaps think I’m dead.  But I grew up on Earth and none of them tried to seize me.  Even if they had contracts with father that said they got to sire a child or something, I never heard of Good Men trusting each other in contracts, and surely — ”

Doctor Dufort gave me something I’d rarely seen: an exasperated smile.  It was as though he’d tried to combine the appeasement of an obsequious smile with exasperation at my slowness of mind.  I wondered, for the first time, what it was like for the scientists and techs who worked for the Good Men.  They had to know they were a lot more trained than the men they served, but the men they served had been designed to have greater potential.  Did they think that they deserved better treatment at the Good Men’s hands?  Did they think that the Good Men could have done their job and easily and only didn’t for some arcane reason?  What did people feel who kept the secrets of unreasonable autocrats who might kill them for any reason or none at all?  “Madame, yes, while you were growing up you were a point of curiosity, and perhaps hope for the future, but you must understand that, as you said, the Good Men never trust each other.  Ever.  This means that they didn’t trust your father’s assurances, or perhaps his doctors’ assurances that you were indeed fertile.  Which in the end meant you were a point of curiosity but not covetousness.  But now, well… Now you have a daughter.”

“Oh,” I said.  I led him to his flyer, and saw him get in, and saw him take off.  Kit had given him the getting out codes.

I came back into the room to find the boys were worse, in the throes of delirium, and that Kit and Fuse were having trouble subduing them.

It was a full week and a half before we saw them improving again.  Looking after three teenagers who were delirious, unable to function on their own, left us no time to do anything but fall asleep, exhausted, usually one at a time, while the other two stayed on duty.

Nonetheless, in our times awake together, I noticed that Fuse was coming to himself; becoming more adult… No, more himself by the day.  And though he worried about Thor, perhaps most of all, he could now be trusted to look after the other two also, and to come to us if he couldn’t handle it.  The only time he woke one of us, it was Kit, because Laz was fighting in his delirium and Fuse could not hold him down alone.

At the end of what seemed like an endless succession of days, I woke up and Kit was standing by the bed, “The fever broke,” he said. “They’re asleep.  Fuse is keeping an eye on them.”

That was early morning, the first day in the refuge when I was aware of daybreak.  I drank coffee outside, looking at the fake sun climb the holographic sky, and listening to the river and the birds, and feeling… relief?  No.  I didn’t want the boys to die, but what had made these days grueling was not the fear they’d die, so much as the sheer amount of work, the grueling effort of looking after three incapacitated juveniles.  I savored my moment with my coffee, and then Eris cried to be fed, and I hurried to look after her.

It seemed this was a time for me to look after everyone else, and that I wasn’t going to have any time for myself, ever, ever again.  Life would be a never end of caring for other people, younger people, people who were dependent on me.  I never wanted to be a mother.

And then Kit had woken up and taken Eris from me, and reminded me that the bedrooms upstairs contained a sybaritic bath.  I had slept in the immense bathtub, relaxing in more warm water than we could afford in Eden, or transport in the Cathouse.

 

Alexander Inheritance – Snippet 04

Alexander Inheritance – Snippet 04

But Charlene had wanted “romantic,” and her mother agreed with her. Darn Doris, with all her silly romance novels. And now some sort of disaster had happened. They were stuck out here on the company’s island and he wasn’t being allowed to make a call back to Washington to get some help. Wiley didn’t believe for one minute that the ship’s communications with the rest of the world were out. Any sort of disaster that would cause that would have wrecked the ship entirely. The lights were working. Hell, his phone had bars, all five bars, and if his phone was working, the only reason he wasn’t getting through to Washington was that damn Norwegian captain was blocking his calls. That had to be it.

Al’s mind cycled back around. Maybe it was a conspiracy. Royal Cruise Lines had screwed the pooch somehow and were trying to cover it up. He called Amanda, his aide. “Amanda, you get me a meeting with that captain. Not the hotel manager, the captain.”

“Yes, sir,” Amanda Miller agreed.

* * *

Amanda stopped pacing when her cell rang with the congressman’s ringtone. After he finished, she sat down on the bed in her stateroom and called Jane Carruthers. She made the request as tactfully as she could. “I know that this is an emergency situation, Ms. Carruthers, but the congressman is on several committees that have oversight over corporations like Royal Cruise Lines. So, if you could free up a few minutes for the congressman to make sure he and the captain are reading from the same playbook…Believe me, it will save us all trouble in the long run.”

“I’m sure you’re right, Miss Miller. And under other circumstances, the captain would be happy to make time for the congressman. But we are still trying to figure out what’s going on.” She sighed audibly — and intentionally, Amanda was sure. “There isn’t anything that the captain could tell him that hasn’t been part of the announcements already made.”

Amanda bit her lip. There had been announcements, one almost immediately after the event, explaining that the ship was in no immediate danger, but that something out of the ordinary had happened and for the moment the crew asked that people stay inside and off the Promenade Deck. Fifteen minutes later, the prohibition against going on the Promenade Deck had been removed, but shore excursions were still off limits. Amanda had immediately gone up to the Promenade Deck and looked out on a disaster. The dock was tilted, actually tilted, and the block or so of buildings behind it were in ruins. The crew was running around doing rescue work, trying to save the people who had lived and worked in those buildings. She reported to the congressman and Al immediately tried to call Washington to get some help. It was the fact that he couldn’t get through that made the congressman so angry. He wanted to help, and they weren’t letting him.

By now, Amanda was convinced that the satellite receiver on the ship was down for some reason. And it was clear that something drastic had happened to Royal Cay Island. “You need to get the captain to tell the congressman what the problem is with the phones.”

“We don’t know what’s wrong with the phones,” Jane said. “Whatever it is, it’s not on the ship. Everything on the ship is working just fine. The problem is…Amanda, I honestly think the problem is with the satellites.”

“That’s impossible. Nothing could take out the satellites, not even a nuclear war. So unless we’ve been invaded by Martians, it can’t be the satellites.”

“Amanda, the sun moved,” Jane said. “Look at your watch. It’s supposed to be 10:00 AM in December in the Caribbean. The sun should be to our southeast — but it’s west of us, and obviously a lot closer to sunset than sunrise. It’s also farther south than it should be, by a considerable margin. Like fall in Maryland or Spain.”

Amanda did look. She knew where the sun should be and she saw where it was. “Thanks, Jane. For telling me.” She hadn’t noticed till Jane mentioned it, too focused on the broken buildings and injured people. Now she did notice and became truly frightened.

Then, perhaps for the very first time since she had gotten her job with Congressman Wiley, Amanda put herself before the congressman. She turned off her phone, went to the bar, and got plastered.

Off Formentera Island

After nightfall

September 15, 321 BCE

The sun had gone down. Elise Beaulieu, the first officer for navigation, adjusted the sextant with careful fingers. Instruments from fifty years ago were being brought into play and combined with ship’s computers. So far they had found that the North Star, Polaris, was not in the right place. Even in the two hours since sunset, they had been able to detect motion in Polaris. That was enough to tell them that they were before the birth of Christ, or at least not that long after it.

The planets were giving more precise data, and as soon as Mars came up they ought to be able to get a year…

And there it was, just on the horizon. Elise plugged the numbers into the slate’s program and got a date. According to the computer, they were in the year 321 Before the Common Era. That was using the standard calendar of the twenty-first century and counting backward, using modern knowledge and technology.

She tapped another icon and called the captain. “Captain, we’re in 321 BCE. From the moon, September fifteenth.”

* * *

Lars Floden nodded. “Thanks, Elise.” He tapped off the phone. “Did you get that, Jane?”

Jane Carruthers pulled up the date from the encyclopedia. “The experts aren’t in agreement about how the dates line up with the events of this time. It’s a safe bet that Alexander the Great was — is — dead, but whether he’s been dead for six months or six years is less certain.”

The Queen of the Sea, in order to save bandwidth, updated the most popular — read, most accessed — web locations every time they hit the Port of Miami. It saved the satellite link for things like email and instant messages. They had a complete and up-to-date mirror of Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britannica, online New York Times website, and even Google Earth, all stored on a set of computers in the IT section of the ship and accessible instantly through the ship’s wifi or any of the half-dozen internet cafes on board. “Alexander the Great is two years dead. Rome is a republic, but what they meant by republic isn’t what we mean by it. Besides, Carthage is the big dog in the Mediterranean.”

“What about the rest of the world, Jane?” the captain asked.

Jane clicked the mouse, then read for a moment. “China is a bunch of warring nations. Qin Shi Huang won’t be born for a couple of hundred years.” She looked up from the computer. “In the Americas, the Olmec have collapsed and, according to Wikipedia, it was because something happened to the land so it wouldn’t support farming.”

That doesn’t sound like good news, Lars thought, because we are going to need farmers. We have almost five thousand people to support, and we can’t feed them on nothing except fish.

“Any idea where we are?”

“Best guess, Captain, somewhere in the Med,” Anders said. Then he got a distracted look. “Give me a second.” He called up a camera view. “I know where we are, Captain. We’re on the south end of Formentera Island, about seventy miles off the coast of Spain. My wife and I vacationed on the island of Formentera for our second honeymoon. About two years ago. Nothing else is the same, but the coastline is.”

“So what’s happening in Spain in 321 BCE?”

“Nothing we want any part of, Captain,” Jane Carruthers said. “I think the Carthaginians owned it at this time in history, and if I recall my third form history, they sacrificed babies to their gods.”

“Is there any place in this time where they didn’t?”

“I’m not sure, Captain. But we can’t just sit here forever.”

“All right. I’ll talk to Joe Kugan and we’ll get some sea room. Meanwhile, find me someone who knows something about this time.”

“Also, Captain, we need to tell the passengers and crew what we have found out.”

“I don’t want a panic, Jane.”

“Better one now than one later. One later, that is laced with mistrust because we were hiding things. Panics wear themselves out, sir. If nothing drastic happens, then people get back to business.”

 

Gods of Sagittarius – Snippet 34

Gods of Sagittarius – Snippet 34

CHAPTER 20

“They should pay us to sleep on those goddamned beds!” growled Tabor as the sun hit him in the eyes through the shadeless window. “Hey, Rupert — get up.”

“Who could sleep?” replied Shenoy, drying his face with what passed for a towel as he emerged from what passed for a bathroom.

“Got a question,” said Tabor, who’d slept above the covers in his clothes, and began pulling on his boots. “The Old Ones were bright enough to master space travel, right?”

“Possibly not the way we do it — in ships and such,” answered Shenoy. “But yes.”

“And they mastered magic?”

“I think that yes, they did.”

“So one could say that they were reasonably bright?” persisted Tabor.

“Definitely.”

“Then what the hell did they come to Cornwallis for?” said Tabor. “Or, having come, why didn’t they turn right around and leave?”

“That’s what we’ve come to find out.”

“Well, if and when you find them on this godforsaken dirtball, I’ve got some questions of my own to ask them.”

“Finish your ablutions and let’s be on our way,” said Shenoy. “I’m anxious to see what’s out there.”

“More anxious than I am to wash in the brown gritty stuff that passes for water in our sink,” said Tabor, walking to the door. “Let’s go.”

They walked back to the main room, where the same Paskapan was at the desk.

“Don’t you ever sleep?” asked Shenoy.

“Not on these beds,” answered the innkeeper with a look of distaste. “I’ll sleep when I go home at midday.”

“First intelligent thing I’ve heard since we landed,” muttered Tabor.

Pippibwali was waiting for them just outside the building, which Tabor refused to think of as a hotel.

“I trust you slept well,” he said.

Tabor merely glared at him.

“As well as could be expected,” replied Shenoy. “And now we’re ready to proceed with our mission. You’ll want the coordinates of our destination, of course.”

“Of course,” agreed Pippibwali.

Shenoy rattled them off to him.

“That’s eight hundred and fifty qubisks from here,” said Pippibwali. “We’ll need to rent or purchase transportation.”

“Get a translation first,” said Tabor. “On this world, a qubisk is as likely to be a meter or even an inch as a mile.”

“I heard that,” said Pippibwali.

“I wasn’t trying to hide it from you.”

“A qubisk is one-point-zero-three-seven-nine-four kilometers,” said the Paskapan. “Approximately.”

“Approximately?” said Tabor, frowning.

“Give or take,” answered Pippibwali.

“How do you suggest we get there?”

“We shall rent a skimmer.”

“Which is?” persisted Tabor.

“An airborne vehicle which skims approximately a meter above the surface, making for a very smooth ride.” He offered the Paskapan version of a smile. “I have anticipated your need and have reserved one for our use.”

“How much?” said Tabor suspiciously.

“Just one. We’ll all fit on it.”

“I said how much, not how many?”

“Ah!” replied Pippibwali. “I have even had them translate the price into your primitive and confusing economic system. It will come to four thousand eight hundred and twelve credits.” Then he added: “Each way.”

“I think not,” said Tabor before Shenoy could reply.

“You’d prefer to walk?”

“Certainly not,” said Tabor.

“Then what — ?”

“You will carry us for two thousand, four hundred and six credits each. Both ways.”

“That’s out of the question! I am only flesh and blood!” Pippi paused. “And muscle, and green blood cells, and enamel on my teeth, and — ”

“Okay, if you can’t accommodate us, you can’t accommodate us,” said Tabor.

“Good,” said Pippi, relaxing. “I’m glad that’s over.”

“It certainly is,” said Tabor. “You’re fired. Where do we get another guide?”

“Uh . . . let’s not be hasty, good sirs,” said Pippi quickly.

“I’m not being hasty,” said Tabor. “I’ve thought about it all night, and I knew that if you charged us an exorbitant amount and then refused to carry us, I’d have to replace you.” He smiled. “I hope this won’t leave too big a blot on your record.”

“Let me speak to the sled owner,” said Pippi. “The nerve of that scum, charging so much for a little two-hour trip! I’ll talk him down to an acceptable price, you can be sure of that!”

“I already am,” said Tabor. “Sure of that, I mean.”

The Paskapan stalked off to the center of the town and returned five minutes later.

“It’s all settled,” he announced. “One thousand credits each way.” He held out his hand. “Payable now.”

Tabor shook his head. “Payable when we return. What if he only gave us enough fuel to get there? What if you plan to take the sled back and leave us stranded there?”

“Me?” said Pippi in shocked tones. “You cut me to the . . . well, to whatever people cut other people to. I am shocked that you should think such a thing!”

“Surprised, anyway, I’ll wager,” said Tabor. “Now get the sled and let’s be on our way.”

Pippi seemed about say something, thought better of it, and stalked off. He was back shortly, sitting aboard an open sled that hovered perhaps thirty inches above the ground.

“Ready to go,” he announced. “All aboard.” Then: “I actually don’t know what it means, but the last humans to ride on one of these said that and it sounded vigorous and positive.”

“We’ll get aboard,” said Tabor, slinging their luggage onto the back of it, “but lower it to ground level so my friend doesn’t have to climb up onto it.”

The sled lowered, Tabor helped Shenoy on, then got on himself.

“Has this thing got protective shields to protect us from the wind?” asked Shenoy.

“Certainly.”

“I’d like to get there as fast as we can, without the wind blinding me,” continued Shenoy. “Put them up, please.”

“Or we may have to deduct fifty percent of the price for our discomfort,” added Tabor.

“Done,” said Pippi, hitting a control and raising the shields. He turned to Tabor. “I don’t like you very much.”

“Well, darn,” said Tabor. “I’ll just have to live with it.”

They rode in silence for the next ninety minutes. Shenoy spent the time studying his notes on his pocket computer, while Tabor watched the totally uninteresting, even banal, landscape and wondered why the hell anyone, god or man, would want to spend one minute on this world.

There was a village perhaps every fifty miles, almost no traffic between villages, no lakes or oceans, mountains or valleys, splashes of color or repositories of wildlife.

Tabor closed his eyes to rest them, and was suddenly being shaken awake by Shenoy.

“What is it?” he asked.

“You fell asleep for more than an hour. We’re almost there.”

Tabor looked out and saw they were approaching a city that was every bit as nondescript as the one they had left in the morning.

“This is the place?” he said.

“Almost,” replied Pippi.

“Let me guess,” said Tabor. “We have to land here and get permission — let me amend that: buy permission — to go to the location my friend needs to see.”

“I do believe you’re starting to adjust to our economic system,” said Pippi.

“Let me ask a question,” said Tabor. “Does your world even have an economy that doesn’t involve fleecing visitors?”

“Fleecing?” repeated Pippi with an amused smile. “You don’t even have any fleece.”

“My mistake,” said Tabor with a heavy layer of sardonicism that was lost on the Paskapan. “Well, let’s see whoever we have to see and get it over with.”

They landed in the middle of the city — a small town or large village, actually — and Pippi led them to the largest building. They entered, walked past a number of Paskapans seated at desks working on primitive computers, and finally came to a small office. The door slid into a wall, allowing them to enter, and they found themselves standing before a long table, behind which sat five Paskapans. One was much shorter and more angular than the others, and of a somewhat richer color, and Tabor assumed he’d met his first female of the species. Always, he added mentally, assuming it possessed two or more sexes.

“Yes?” said the one seated in the middle.

“These immigrants wish — ” began Pippi.

“We are not immigrants,” interrupted Tabor.

“You’re certainly not natives,” said the Paskapan.

“We are scientists, here to study the ruins of the city of Malthos,” said Shenoy.

“Never heard of it,” said the Paskapan.

“You wouldn’t have,” replied Shenoy. “It was created millennia ago, and was not native to your world.”

“Ah, the ancient city in the desert to the east of us!” said another Paskapan.

“And you really think there’s something of interest out there?” said the first Paskapan.

“I think there may be,” answered Shenoy.

“And of value?”

“Value is a very elastic word,” interjected Tabor when he saw their faces alight with sudden interest. “What may be valuable to a starving person may be all but valueless to one who’s just eaten.”

“Even the sated person must eventually eat again,” said the first Paskapan. “This is most interesting.”

“Anyway,” concluded Shenoy, “we seek your permission to examine the grounds and the buildings.”

“The buildings?” said a third Paskapan.

Shenoy nodded. “Indeed, I need to examine everything.”

“Well, we might as well get started. Bakkamidi here” — he indicated the small, angular Paskapan — “will give you the necessary forms to fill out for exploring the area. Then, when you’ve completed those — it shouldn’t take more than a day — you’ll require all the essential permission slips for whatever else you think you might wish to do when you reach the site. And of course you’ll need both an immigrant’s and an explorer’s license for your vehicle, and . . . ”

He droned on for another ten minutes, and since there was nothing to do but comply with the rules and regulations Shenoy spent the next three days filling out forms while Tabor spent the time pulling every trick and threat he could think of to lower the exorbitant fees.

Finally, on the morning of their fourth day in the area, they climbed aboard the sled. Pippibwali wasn’t licensed to pilot it in this jurisdiction, and instead Bakkamidi sat at the controls. They sped across the landscape for about fifteen minutes and then landed next to what appeared to be a brand new village made of angular quartz walls and roofs.

“We’re in the wrong place,” said Shenoy, walking slowly around one of the buildings…

“This is the exact location you asked for,” said Bakkamidi.

“But this village can’t be twenty years old!” protested Shenoy.

“Fourteen,” she corrected him.

“But I’m looking for an ancient town filled with alien artifacts!”

“I know.”

“Then why did you take us here?”

“These are the coordinates you gave us,” replied Bakkamidi.

“But . . . but you’ve torn everything down and built over it. That’s . . . that’s . . .”

He was about to say “sacrilege,” but Bakkamidi merely smiled and said, “Yes, that’s progress.”

“That’s outrageous!” yelled Shenoy. “You’ve destroyed something more important than your whole insignificant world! What a bunch of total idiots!”

He kept screaming, and suddenly he found himself surrounded by half a dozen uniformed Paskapans, each with a glowing tag hanging around their necks that Tabor assumed marked them as police.

“What’s the trouble?” asked one of them.

“He seems to be having an emotional episode,” replied Bakkamidi. “Calm him down.”

“Certainly.”

Tabor quickly saw that their notion of calming someone down was pretty much the same as his notion of beating the crap out of him. They came after Shenoy with clubs and something that looked like the Paskapan equivalent of brass knuckles.

The first to reach Shenoy cracked him alongside the head, and blood spurted out, almost blinding the scientist.

“That’s enough!” said Tabor ominously.

When the policeman began swinging the club again, Tabor blocked him and shoved him aside, then decked the two Paskapans who tried to intervene. He reached back for the club swinger and spun him around until they were facing each other.

“Don’t you know that hurts?” he growled, throwing a punch that knocked the Paskapan down and out. He turned to Shenoy. “Are you okay, Rupert?”

Shenoy stared at him, eyes wide open, peering through the stream of blood coming down from his forehead. “Duck, Russ!” he yelled.

That was the last thing Tabor heard before he collapsed onto the ground.

 

Gods of Sagittarius – Snippet 33

Gods of Sagittarius – Snippet 33

“We’ll live with the inconvenience,” said Tabor. “Now, we’re going to need lodgings tonight before setting out.”

“Certainly, sir. I know just the place.”

“And I would be very annoyed if I were to find out that you received a fee for recommending this particular lodging over all others.” He shot Pippi a humorless smile. “Do we understand each other?”

“Absolutely,” replied the Paskapan. “But I want you to know that I am not responsible for some of our trifling little rules and regulations.”

“We’ll take that into consideration,” said Tabor. “Now let’s get to our lodging.”

“Certainly, sir,” said Pippi. Then: “Do you sleep burrowed in the ground?”

“No.”

“Hanging upside down?”

“Certainly not,” said Shenoy.

“Well, then, perhaps . . . ”

“Wouldn’t it save time if you just asked us?” said Tabor.

“A splendid suggestion, sir!” said Pippi. “What accommodation would you find most copasetic?”

“You know what a bed is?”

“I believe so, sir.”

“Describe it for me, so I’ll know we’re on the same page.”

“We’re on the street, sir,” replied Pippi.

“Just do it!” snapped Tabor.

The Paskapan described a bed.

“Very close,” said Tabor. “But they’re on a stand, not on the floor. Am I going to have to describe a bathroom to you?”

“A room for bathing?” suggested Pippi.

“Never mind,” interjected Shenoy. He turned to Tabor. “If they’ve got beds, they’ve got bathrooms or the equivalent, and I’d like to get there before morning.”

“Okay, Pippi,” said Tabor. “Lead the way.”

They proceeded down the street, that seemed to twist and curve for no discernable reason, and after they’d passed some two dozen buildings, including a few with no doors or windows, they stopped at what looked like a farmhouse out of ancient America’s Midwest.

“Here we are, sirs,” announced Pippi. “You will register at the desk in the front, and I shall be on call all night.”

“Let me guess,” said Tabor. “You never sleep.”

“Not so, sir,” said Pippi. “I sleep whenever I’m not employed.”

The three of them entered the house, and Pippi stood aside while the two men approached the desk.

“Welcome, welcome, welcome!” enthused the Paskapan behind the desk. “We shall do everything within our power to make your stay on Budaline enjoyable.”

Shenoy frowned. “Budaline?”

“Oh, dear, I’ve made a mistake.” The Paskapan innkeeper peered intently at him. “Shamoran? No, that’s not right.” He leaned forward until his face was just inches from Shenoy’s. “Ah!” he cried happily. “You’re humans! Welcome to Cornwell!”

“Thank you,” said Shenoy, who saw no sense in correcting him.

“And how long will you be staying with us?”

“With the hotel? Just tonight.”

“All right,” said the Paskapan. He touched a hidden button, which was followed by a whirring sound, and suddenly a printed piece of paper appeared on the desk, followed by eleven more.

“What is this?” asked Shenoy.

“Why, your guest registration form, of course.”

“Twelve pages?”

“I know it seems incomplete,” apologized the innkeeper, “but you’re only staying one night. If you were here for longer, we would of course be more thorough.”

“All right, all right,” muttered Shenoy. “Show us to our room and I’ll fill it out there.”

“I can’t do that, sir. You might be aliens. I need the form first.”

“We are aliens, goddammit!”

“I mean, undesirable aliens,” replied the Paskapan.

Tabor snarled. “You want undesirable aliens, just try to keep us down here for the length of time it takes to fill your fucking form out!”

“On the other hand,” said the Paskapan quickly, “we’re all friends here, are we not, so surely it can’t hurt to bend one little regulation.”

“You’ve no idea how much it might hurt not to bend it,” said Tabor.

“Down the hall, third room on the left,” said the innkeeper.

“Fine.”

“And you’ll want a key.”

Tabor stuck out his hand. “Let’s have it.”

“Would you prefer a paper, glass, or cheap metal one, sir?” said the Paskapan.

“What’s the difference?”

“The paper one is half a credit, the glass one is half a credit, and the cheap metal one is ten credits.” He paused. “I would recommend the cheap metal one. The paper one tends to tear on first use, and I can’t recall the glass one ever not shattering when turned in the lock.”

“May I ask a question?” said Shenoy.

“Most certainly, sir.”

“Have you ever had a repeat customer?”

“Not to my knowledge,” admitted the innkeeper. “But I’ve only worked here for seventeen years.”

“Before we pay for a key, I want to make sure it works,” said Tabor. “Show us.”

“That’s a most unusual request,” said the Paskapan. “I don’t know . . . ”

“If you don’t demonstrate it, I’ll assume that the key doesn’t work and report you to the authorities.”

The Paskapan shrugged. “Very well, sir. We certainly don’t need to trouble the authorities.”

“They’re probably too busy counting their money,” muttered Tabor under his breath as the innkeeper came out from behind his counter and led them down the corridor. He paused before the third door on the left, inserted the key, a musical note chimed, and the door swung open.

“Okay, it works,” said Tabor.

“Will there be anything else, sir?”

“Yeah,” said Tabor. “Close the door.”

The innkeeper shot him a puzzled look. “Close it?”

Tabor nodded.

The innkeeper shrugged, reached a hand out, and pulled the door shut.

“Now open it again.”

“Certainly,” said the innkeeper. “But you can do it yourself, sir. It’s not locked.” He reached out and opened the door.

“Very good,” said Tabor. “I’m quite impressed. This seems like an ideal place to spend the night.”

“Fine,” said the Paskapan. “Now, if I may trouble you for ten credits, I will turn the key over to you and return to my station.”

“Not necessary,” said Tabor.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Keep the key. You’ve got an honest face. I have boundless faith in this place and the integrity of the staff.”

“But this is unheard-of!” protested the innkeeper.

“Shall I say it louder?”

“No one has ever refused a key before!”

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll be safe even with the door unlocked,” said Tabor. “And if anyone dares to enter our room while we’re in it” — he waved his large fist in front of the innkeeper’s face — “you just tell us how Paskapans dispose of their dead and we’ll be happy to lend a hand.”

“Yes, sir. Very good, sir. As you wish, sir.”

“And tell Pippi to be waiting for us an hour after sunrise.”

“Uh . . . I am unfamiliar with that measurement. How long is that in local time, sir?”

Tabor smiled at him. “You and Pippi will have all night to figure it out.”

“Yes, sir. One something after sunrise.”

“Good,” said Tabor, opening the door. “We don’t wish to be disturbed before then.”

“Absolutely, sir!” said the innkeeper. Suddenly his complexion darkened several shades. “I mean, absolutely not, sir!” he shouted as he turned and ran back to his desk.

Shenoy followed Tabor into the room and shut the door behind them.

“What do you think?” asked the older man.

“I think the Old Ones and their artifacts had better be as valuable as you hope they are,” replied Tabor grimly. “This expedition has already cost the life of your assistant Basil and we can only hope that Andrea survived whatever stuck her down.”

 

Darkship Revenge – Snippet 33

Darkship Revenge – Snippet 33

I don’t know how long this had been going on.  It felt like years, or maybe centuries, but in retrospect, it must have been something short of two days. Maybe three or four, at the most.

And then at some point, I found Kit guiding me to bed.  I don’t remember dropping to sleep.  I woke up with Eris crying.  She was soaked, and obviously starved.  I wondered if there was any formula around, that Kit could feed her when I slept.  Clearly, she didn’t get any bad effects from three hundred year old formula.

By the time I was done feeding her, she had fallen asleep.  I tucked her away in the box we were using for a crib.  And then went in search of formula.  Surely, Jarl hadn’t had a need to feed babies, but some of his guests might have.

I struck gold in one of the storage rooms, with vacuum packed, sealed bags of baby formula, but when I came back, carrying it in triumph, Fuse was waiting for me outside my room wringing his hands together and looking distraught…

Why is it our fears always go to those we love the most?  In my case, my fears went to Eris.  Had Fuse tried to pick her up and dropped her, or something equally disastrous.  I couldn’t even manage the voice to ask, but he said, “Thena, the boys need a doctor.  A real medtech, not us.”

Fuse seemed to have aged again overnight till he seemed his real age, except that sometimes he missed words or had trouble pronouncing something or seemed excessively frustrated.  I thought he seemed older because he was looking after others.  Not that he hadn’t always been a nice person, but not usually the adult in charge of sick people.  For one because in the time I’d known him putting him in charge of sick people would mean he’d build some sort of explosive to blow them up, thereby solving the issue.

Now, though, he behaved like a rational human being.  A caring one. He moved from bed to bed, providing water, food, help to the bathroom.

“Why?  What happened?” I ask.

Fuse shook his head.  “They’re not coming out of this.  Their fever is too high.  I’m afraid they’ll be damaged.  In the head.” He touched his own head, with a finger, as though to indicate the place of danger, or perhaps the disastrous results that could ensue. “Athena, we should com Simon.  Simon has doctors.  Stands to reason. Emperor.”

“You’re not supposed to call him Simon,” I’d said out of reflex.

Fuse sighted.  “No. But Thena, I don’t want Thor to die.”

“I don’t want any of them to die.”

Fuse shook his head.  “No, he said.  But… different.  Thor is… is my brother.  Is what I was, before… before I got sick.  He’s the only family I have.  Father never family. I’m — I’ll be damned if Thor has to run from someone who wants to steal his body.  I’ll be damned if he blows himself up before he can learn what is dangerous.  I’ll be damned if he’s going to be hurt anymore.  They’ve… they’ve been very badly treated, Athena.  Worse than us.  And treated each other very badly. They’ve been taught very badly.  They’ve been taught they’re things. Might still save them, change them, teach them better, but only if they live. Call Simon.”

I called Simon.  We weren’t equipped to deal with this alone.  Morgan looked like he’d faded into his pillows, a pale little shade so thin and transparent, you fancied you could see his bones through his flesh.  The blue hair and piercings which had looked almost threatening now looked just like a child’s costume, put on for a party and not discarded when illness struck.

So I dialed the new code Simon had given me. The link rang a long time.  I knew it was Simon’s personal link and in the past he’d answered almost instantly. We’d seen him just a few days ago and I couldn’t imagine that his duties as Emperor were very different from his duties as Good Man.  I waited.  At long last I gave up and called Olympus.  I didn’t have Lucius’ code, but I had his name, and he was part of a military.  I had a vague memory of numbers in Olympus, the area code used for official business.  I doubted they’d changed that. Most revolutions alter but don’t abolish the previous bureaucracy.  I called a lot of codes and considered revising my assumptions, before a valid com rang.  I asked the rather bewildered person who answered for the codes for the military installation that used to be the Patrician’s palace: and lucked out.  The person who answered me was one of Lucius’ secretaries, and had heard of me even if not recently.  I’m going to assume at some point in the past he’d heard me too, because he never doubted it was my voice, but instead put me through to Lucius.

Who answered sounding like death warmed over, “Head cold, I think,” he told me.  “Though Si — Julien seems to have a more severe case of it.  He collapsed during one of the morning ceremonies and the doctor has been called.  His own particular doctor, Doctor Dufort.”

“The boys have a very severe case,” I said.

There was a long silence.

“I don’t know what to do,” I said.  “We don’t want to lose them.”

“The doctor here reassured me it was just a flu virus,” Lucius said.  There was another silence.  “We’ve been getting very odd, very long lasting diseases, things that we thought were almost entirely vanished from the world, like flu and colds.  The war, and the aggregation of people into tiny spaces, let alone the stress and sometimes insufficient sanitation…”

“And I think the boys caught something their immune system isn’t prepared for.”

“Likely.  Let me call Doctor Dufort” Lucius said.

“To come here?  Would that be safe?”

“He’s– He’s an Usaian.  I’ll talk to him.  Quite safe. He… was the St. Cyr physician.”

“That,” I said.  “Is hardly a recommendation.”  I’d found out, on our flight from the algae station that an acephalous clone had been killed instead of Simon, and that there were any number of these, as well as people who were effectively mules or close to it, created.

Lucius hesitated.  “No.  I suppose not, but he — He’s an Usaian.  Without him, the revolution in Liberte would have gone very wrong indeed, and Liberte would have been taken back by the Good Men.  He’s solid.”

More than solid, I though, if his mere presence could prevent Liberte being taken by the Good Men who still controlled most of the world.  What had he done?  Created armies of Usaians to the cause, out of vats?  I didn’t ask, though.  I suspected all Lucius meant by it was “he is a believer in my faith.”  I thought that if both Lucius and Simon trusted him, he would perhaps be all right.  And if he weren’t, we could keep him here with us, after all.  I mean, what could he do if we confined him in here with us?  And the boys did need medical care.

I went back to the room where we’d put the three boys, to tell Kit that we were going to get a real doctor to come here.

I had Eris strapped to the front of my chest, in a sling, as I did most of the time I was awake.  As I approached the room, I heard a scream, and then Laz’s voice saying, in a rush, “Me, me, not them.  Not them.”

It woke Eris, who started crying, so that by the time we entered the room, Laz half-awakened, and turned, away from us, looking as though we had disturbed something intensely private.

“What was that all about?” I asked Kit, who looked more somber and grave than when the Cathouse had problems.  We were leaving the room the boys slept in.

“You don’t want to know,” he said.  And, to my enquiring look.  “They’ve been talking in delirium again, but he seems quite out of his mind. You really don’t want to know.”  He looked tired too.  None of us were trained doctors or even medtechs.

 

Alexander Inheritance – Snippet 03

Alexander Inheritance – Snippet 03

Not these circumstances, though. “How are the passengers doing, Jane?” he asked.

“Congressman Wiley is threatening to have our whole company barred from operating out of the United States.” Carruthers twitched a half smile for a moment. “I’m fairly sure that he’s playing for the camera phones, though, since he’s not stupid and knows perfectly well that isn’t going to happen.”

Her smile died. “There was one heart attack — not fatal, thankfully — and quite a few panicked passengers, and some falls.”

Jane turned to Doctor Laura Miles, the head of the ship’s medical department. Miles had two doctors, five nurse practitioners, and five registered nurses as well as nurse’s aides, in her department. It wasn’t exactly a hospital aboard ship, but it was a decent emergency room.

“The heart attack is stable and only one of the falls resulted in a broken bone,” said Miles. “So far we haven’t lost anyone on board. The docks didn’t fare so well. It was too early for the shore activities, but a lot of the shops were getting ready. We had over fifty injuries over there and four deaths when the buildings came down. The fatalities included Anne O’Hare, who apparently had an arm cut off when whatever it was happened. She was in the back of a shop and the building collapsed on her, making it impossible for her to do anything or for anyone to reach her in time. At least it was probably quick. She would have bled out in minutes and lost consciousness even faster.”

She looked at Floden. “Captain, that many injuries put a major strain on our supplies. We need resupply and we need them soon.”

Staff Captain Anders Dahl cut in. “We have all the shore side personnel on board for now. It’s unsafe on the docks and worse in the shops behind them.” Anders paused for a beat. “Captain, should I have people going through the ruins for salvage?”

Lars Floden looked back at his number two. Staff Captain was the same rank on a cruise ship that executive officer would be on a warship. The cruise lines did it that way so they could have two captains, and thus two captain’s tables. Regardless of the titles, the staff captain had much the same job as a warship XO, including bringing questions to the captain that the captain would rather avoid.

Questions like this one. They didn’t have a clue what had happened. It was possible that they were going to need everything in those buildings, down to the toilet seats. But the buildings over there were half-collapsed and Lars wasn’t prepared to send his sailors into a situation like that if he didn’t have to.

“No, at least not yet, Anders,” he said. “I doubt there’s anything over there worth risking our people’s lives for.”

“The Cabana Drugstore,” said Doctor Miles. “Unless we can get medical supplies, we are going to start losing people to chronic conditions that are treated with drugs.” She looked at Lars. “And one of the losses is going to be me. Our supply of warfarin is very limited, and my prescription won’t last forever. We can use aspirin and it will help, but people like me who have heart issues are going to be in real trouble if we can’t get back in touch with civilization, Captain. Most of our passengers aren’t nursing home ready, or at least they weren’t before this. But a lot of them were assisted living ready.”

“Sorry, Doc,” Anders said. “I was over there just after the event. The part of the Cabana that held the drugs was on the other side of the –” He paused, apparently looking for the right word. “– line of demarcation. Whatever brought us here left the drugs in the Cabana Drugstore behind. There was some of the over-the-counter stuff on this side of the line.” Anders looked over at Captain Floden.

“Sure, Anders. Grab anything that’s out in the open. Just don’t risk our people digging through stuff.”

“Captain, where are we?” Daniel Lang, the chief security officer, blurted.

The sun hadn’t set, though it had shifted in the moment of transition from early-morning to mid-afternoon, east to west. Time of year was harder to say. It depended on where on Earth they were. There were people on the island they were next to but they were staying out of sight, at least for now. The sun was farther south than it should be even in midwinter in the Caribbean. If the compass readings were right, they were in the northern temperate zone, not the tropics.

They had lost satellite communications. Both radio and GPS were gone. So were all the familiar works of man, aside from the Queen of the Sea, the Reliance, the dock and about a block of Port Berry, the little town on the company’s private island. The dock and the block or so of town weren’t in great shape. They had ended up partly over water instead of land and had tilted. Most of the buildings had collapsed.

Lars couldn’t help feeling that whatever had happened had to be the work of someone or something, because it didn’t make sense that any sort of natural occurrence would pick up his ship and the fuel barge and not chop them into little pieces. The lozenge-shaped zone of transference had to be just the right size and shape and had to have just the right orientation. To have that happen by accident was like having an avalanche build the Taj Mahal. Well, not really. But it sure wasn’t the sort of thing that happened by chance.

He’d read a magazine article a couple of years ago analyzing the Grantville and Alexander disasters, which had included speculation by some scientists that whatever caused the catastrophes didn’t seem to be simply random cosmic accidents. But he couldn’t remember any of the details. When he had time, he’d have to see if he could find copies of the article — or, better yet, find a passenger who had some real expertise on the subject. The odds that such a passenger was aboard the ship were actually not bad. People who went on cruises tended to be better educated than average and included a fair percentage of scientists and academics.

All of that had been circulating through Lars’ mind since the event, bouncing off his assumptions and being modified as more information was added. The ship’s sonar was working just fine and the bottom of the ocean was different in an oval-shaped patch below the ship. Or, more accurately, the bottom of the ocean was different outside that oval-shaped patch just under the ship, taking into account the chunk of dock and shore that had come with them.

Lars looked back at Daniel. “I don’t know. I don’t even know what universe we’re in. It appears we’re at least on an analog of Earth, but we clearly aren’t in the same place we were” — Lars looked at the clock on the wall — “three hours ago. For all I…” He took a breath and reined in his speculation. “We may know more after the sun goes down and we get a look at the night sky. In the meantime, we need to keep the passengers and the crew as calm as we can and avoid useless speculation.”

Lars turned to Staff Captain Anders Dahl. “Anders, where are we on food?”

“We have seven days’ worth without rationing. We can stretch that a day or two by just limiting the servings in the all-you-can-eat buffets, and with real rationing we can double it. With severe rationing, starting right now, we might last a month. That would be pushing things a lot. We’re going to need resupply of food probably sooner than drugs.”

The meeting continued and not much new was discovered. However, things that were minor before had suddenly gained much greater significance.

* * *

Congressman Allen “Al” Wiley, Fourth District, Utah, sat in his stateroom and fumed. He was here because his daughter Charlene was marrying that moron, Dick Gibson, and wanted to be married by a ship’s captain. Romantic, she called it. Al called it crap, though never in public. They could have made a lot of political capital out of this wedding if they had just stayed in Provo and done it there.

 

Alexander Inheritance – Snippet 02

Alexander Inheritance – Snippet 02

Chapter 1

Port Berry, Royal Cay, Bahamas

6:15 AM

At dawn, the Reliance was alongside and the fuel lines were being attached. Dag Jakobsen watched through his camera feed. There were three flat screen monitors set into the wall next to his desk. One was showing the fuel line hook up, the second would show the fuel flow and fuel levels in the form of a bar graph as soon as fueling started. And there it goes, Dag thought. The third was his computer monitor, which had a form that Dag would be filling out as the fueling proceeded. There was a leak in the fuel line coming from Barge 14, but it seemed to be very minor. Dag zoomed in on the connection and saw that it was only a few drops. He made a note on the form.

The Reliance and Barge 14 together made up an ATB, articulated tug barge. While attached they were one ship, but the Reliance could detach from Barge 14 in a few minutes to perform other functions while Barge 14 was being loaded or unloaded.

Dag was lucky to get this slot on the Queen of the Sea. The newest ship of Royal Cruise Line had flex fuel engines and was larger than any other in the line. This was a load of fuel oil, just as a matter of price. They had gotten a bargain on the oil, while the methanol was still pricy. The great thing about flex fuel engines was they could burn anything: fuel oil, ethanol, methanol, even gasoline or crude oil. If it was liquid and would burn, they could use it for fuel.

Then the power went out. Dag lost his video feeds and heard a boom. The boom was followed by a crunching sound, and the ship shook.

That was bad. This was a four thousand passenger cruise ship. It didn’t shake. Not unless there was very, very heavy weather or a tidal wave. Dag was already out of his chair, running for the fuel-loading area, when the emergency power came on.

* * *

Arriving at the forward fuel loading station, Dag heard a welter of shouted arguments. The room was a large one with pipes painted in bright colors to indicate the type of liquid they carried, but even on a new ship and with a good crew this was a working area. Dirt, smudges of oil, and the other natural byproducts of work being done were present and so was a bucket with a mop in a corner, ready to fight the never-ending battle against the oil and grime. Sunlight poured into the space from an opened porthole the size of a garage door. Four fifteen-centimeter-wide fuel lines went from the red pipes out the porthole.

“What was that?” Bayani Pascual asked.

“Dammit, Bayani. The Princess is gone, and so is that bar on the point. Hell, the point is gone. Will you stop asking what it was?”

“But what was it?” Bayani almost whined.

And suddenly Dag was afraid. Because while Bayani wasn’t the brightest crewman on the refueling detail, he was perhaps the most phlegmatic. Bayani was nearly two meters tall and weighed upwards of a hundred kilos. He was the biggest Filipino Dag had ever met, and as calm and unflappable as you could hope for. Besides, Romi Clarke was sounding belligerent, and the little Jamaican was not someone Dag would want to meet in a dark alley.

“Then tell me, Romi. What happened?” Dag shouted over the hubbub.

Romi spun, and then visibly got himself under control. His dark skin was gray under the normal color, and he pointed out the port. “The Princess of the Sea is gone, Mr. Jakobsen. Just gone. Like it was never there. There was a flash, like lightning way too close and a clap like thunder right on it. Then everything was different. And something’s happened dockside.” Dockside was the other side of the ship. The Reliance had pulled up along seaside, as was standard practice. “And the Point Bar is gone. Hell, Mr. Jakobsen, the point is gone.”

Dag almost called Romi a liar, but by then he’d reached the port and could see for himself. To avoid panicking, he focused on his job. He checked the fuel lines. They were still attached. He leaned out the port and looked at the Reliance. Tug and barge were still locked to one another and still tied up to the Queen, but Barge 14’s cylindrical fenders were compressing like marshmallows, as Barge 14 bounced against the hull of the Queen of the Sea. The fenders were big, heavy, rubber cylinders which meant that Romi was probably right about that, as well. Something was disturbing the water and that almost had to be something on shore. There was a shore line visible ahead of the ship, but it wasn’t the shore that should be there. And, sure enough, their sister ship was gone. A vessel weighing almost 150,000 tons had just…vanished.

Dag headed to the wall and pushed the intercom button. “Bridge, what’s going on? Should we stop refueling?”

“We don’t know, Dag,” Apprentice Deck Officer Douglas Warren said. “I’m looking out at a town that ain’t there anymore. I don’t mean it’s wrecked, except the part right next to the docks. I mean it’s gone. As though it had never been built. Even the land is different.”

“Right, Doug. The point is gone. We can see that from here.”

“It’s not the point. It’s us. Us and the docks, and maybe half a block of the port. We’re not where we were anymore. Hell, Dag, the sun’s not where it was a minute ago. Look, no one knows what’s going on yet, but it’s a safe bet we are going to need full fuel tanks. Captain says to top them up.”

“We’ll do that, Doug.” Dag turned away from the ship’s intercom. “You heard, people. We continue refueling.”

It was then that the regular lights came back on.

Dag got on the radio and called Joe Kugan, the captain for the Reliance. The Reliance, with Barge 14 attached, had roughly one hundred fifty thousand barrels of fuel bunkerage, a crew of seven and a top speed of twelve knots.

* * *

Captain Joe Kugan was in the pilot house when whatever it was happened. He was looking at the Queen, not at the shore, so he was only momentarily blinded by the flash, but nearly lost his footing as not just the Reliance but also Barge 14 rocked violently.

When he regained his balance, he looked around and saw that the world had been replaced by a new and different place. Instead of the flat landscape typical of islands in the Bahamas, he was looking at an island which didn’t have much in the way of elevation but had more than he’d been looking at a short time before. The vegetation looked wrong, too, although he couldn’t have said exactly why. Kugan’s knowledge of botany was abysmal and his interest even lower.

For a moment, he felt a strong desire to panic or beat the crap out of someone. By the time he was back under control, the radio call from Dag was coming in. Given the circumstances, Joe was tempted to tell Dag to screw himself and stop the pumping till they knew what was going on. But he didn’t. There were contracts involved and if he refused to finish the refueling, he would be in a lot of trouble. The Reliance or Barge 14 was still bouncing against the Queen, but most of the wave front was gone on out to sea. The waves had stirred up the water and what had been fairly pristine Caribbean ocean was now a lot cloudier.

Off an unknown island

Late afternoon

Lars Floden, the captain of the Queen of the Sea, looked down the table at the assembled staff. The conference room on the bridge deck was full. It was on the port side, just aft of the bridge and had one wall of smart glass windows. Right now the windows were set to opaque white. The opposite wall had cabinets and a counter top to hold whatever was needed from snacks to papers. Also a projector, so that the smart windows could be used as large display screens if needed.

Jane Carruthers was doing a really good stiff upper lip. He wasn’t surprised, as she was very British, even for a Brit. A thin woman, with a ready smile that hid her thoughts admirably. The hotel manager was not in the chain of command, but was — in a sense — second only to Lars in real authority, and in some circumstances, she might hold even more.