Eric Flint's Blog, page 209

Through Fire – Snippet 35

Through Fire – Snippet 35

I realized I’d been holding my hands so tightly closed that my fingernails bit into my palms.

I relaxed, taking deep breaths, and became aware that Mailys was awake, sitting up, and staring in frozen horror at the link. Half-glimpsed, behind her, stood Corin, also giving an impression of not noticing anything around him.

I turned to the comlink and it took me a moment to understand what I was watching, because… because I’d never seen anything like it on Eden, nor could I imagine it ever happening on Eden outside of my wildest nightmares.

The scene was a little plaza to the side of the palace. The city had been built with self-conscious, generally “French” architecture, and this plaza looked it, surrounded by tall, stone-built houses with vaguely classical architecture. The houses were probably dimatough, as were the “cobbles” underfoot and the statue of blindfolded Justice in the middle. Whoever built it had seen Paris before the bombing that leveled it, and had set to consciously imitate it.

I’d walked in that plaza before, when all the buildings around it had been filled with shoppers, inspecting clothes and jewelry in the shops, having breakfast at the small cafes whose chairs spilled to the sidewalk, and strolling around the statue.

Now the statue made a strange background — twice as large as life, her eyes blindfolded, a scale in her hand — against which a motley group of people assembled.

Someone had built a platform. It was square and seemed to have been made of imperfectly smoothed black ceramite or perhaps dimatough, except dimatough seemed too expensive for the purpose.

The purpose was… Proof that the sans culottes had in fact read their history and had decided to pay it homage. The contraption puzzled me for a moment, consisting of two large poles with what seemed like a bar of light running across the top.

Then a man I recognized as the Jean Dechausse that Brisbois had tried to kill, and whom he might have emulated himself in the process, announced, “Monsieur Professeur de la Fontaine, et Madame de la Fontaine!”

Two people were pushed forward. They weren’t bound and, in fact, were holding hands. The husband was making an ineffective effort at pushing his wife behind himself, but there were five or six burly men in Liberty caps surrounding them, and at least two hand hands on their shoulders.

The couple was forced forward, forced to kneel, heads down.

The bar of light descended from the top and… their heads rolled. The crowd shouted “Ça ira!” and the song about setting the world on fire erupted again. I stared, not believing it, as the two bodies, still bleeding and twitching, were pushed from the platform, the heads grabbed by young women waiting at the base of the platform, who held them aloft with screams of glee.

“Et Monsieur Jean-Michel Amonette.”

A dark-haired man with a well-trimmed beard, wearing the uniform of Simon’s clerks, was pushed forward, forced to his knees, and the blade fell.

Glee and screams of “Ça ira!”

I realized I was sitting immobile, rigid, thinking this couldn’t be true. This had to stop.

The people dancing on the screen looked not like humans but like blood-drunk demons who had lost every shred of humanity.

“Madame Pascal!” A blond woman in a dress that looked like something she had worn for the ball Simon had given, the ball interrupted by the revolution.

Her impeccably coiffed head had barely been gripped when the announcement went up, Dechausse sounding like a valet at a society party,

“Etienne Robert D’Blogg.” Kneel, slice, “Ça ira!”

“Monsieur and Madame Landry.” They were also in party clothes and must have been among the notables of Liberte. Kneel, slice.

Monsieur Joseph Capdepon, Francois Fleming, Verite Romaine, Jason Delong, Elisabeth Piedligere, Etienne Louis, Monsieur et Madame Vert, Madame Clithero, Monsieur Laurence Michel, Monsieur Marc Algeres.

Push forward, slice, heads lifted aloft.

Mailys found her voice first. Her croaked “Mon Dieu” seemed to wake me from a stupor.

“What is happening?” I asked. “What is this?”

Corin jumped up suddenly and hurried across the room to turn off the com. He stood, shaking. When he turned to face us, he no longer looked nineteen but like he had aged through a long ordeal. “One reads,” he said, “about the revolution and how the aristos were killed by the guillotine and the righteous fury of the aggrieved, downtrodden peasants. But … Why are they doing this?”

“What is it exactly? Do either of you know? Did either of you watch the beginning?”

Corin nodded. He sounded hoarse as he spoke. “I came into the room. You were both asleep. Dechausse…” his voice failed him and he made a sound part clearing of his throat, part hiccup. “He said all these people had been captured either in the palace of the ci-devant Good Man St. Cyr. They were all his servants and all enhanced and now they would pay for their years of good living on the backs of the poor.” He took a deep breath. “I thought they were going to… to fine them or something. But then the platform came out and the machine, and there … the crowd was already there and…” He covered his face with his hands.

Mailys got up and went to him. I’d seen them fight, and I’d seen them as a couple of squabbling children, but now she put an arm around his waist, and as he brought his forehead down to rest on her shoulder, he was every child, every young man, and she the mother-of-all-living consoling him.

She made sounds at the back of her throat, the sounds women make to children and wounded animals.

The ringing of the comlink echoed in the house, startling us all.

I was the first to reach it, fumbling and trembling, till my fingers found the button that accepted the call.

The link came on as a communicator instead of a broadcast unit, and a young bearded man looking like he’d slept rough, his eyes rimmed with red, his dark hair standing on end, stared at me in stupefaction.

“Who are you?” he said.

He was wearing what looked like the remains of a uniform of Simon’s guards. Its red fabric was tattered, the golden trim hanging in pieces, but it looked like it.

“Zenobia Sienna,” I snapped, thinking it was easier.

“You don’t–” he started, then his eyes widened. “I do believe you’re telling the truth.”

“Yes,” I said. “Who are you?”

“Jonathan LaForce,” he said, and saluted, which I didn’t think was strictly appropriate. “I’ve been trying to reach the Bonnaires, Madame, do you know where they are?”

Corin spoke up then, from the side, “They’re dead, Jon. All but Tieri. She’s upstairs asleep. We arrived after they died. She was sealed in the safe room. Crying.”

LaForce’s mouth opened, but it didn’t look like he was trying to speak. It was more like he was trying to process unbelievable information. He said something. Might have been “Mon dieu.” He swallowed hard. “I was hoping to be in time. I’ve been calling the others. There is no answer. No answer from your home, Corin. It was the first on the list.”

“The list?” Mailys joined in.

“Ah. Alors, Mailys. Why are you wearing that horrible cap?”

She put her hand up to touch the liberty cap, which she’d clearly forgotten she was wearing. “Brisbois gave it to me. He said it would help. Seems to have. What list are you speaking of?”

“I found it in Brisbois’ office. There was a data gem. The only data I could get from it was a partial list, headed with your father’s name, Corin. And then there were… others of us. I thought… I thought if I’d got the list then someone else must have. The office had been ransacked. So I thought–”

“You thought you would save those you could save?” Mailys said.

He nodded. “Now I don’t know what to do.”

“Where are you?” Corin said.

“In the old guard rooms,” he said. “The ones–Ah, you won’t know. Mailys will.”

Mailys nodded.

“I don’t know what to do,” Jonathan LaForce said. “A man is trained to fight and to guard the weak, but this… One can’t fight a mob. Did you know they’re conducting executions in the Place D’Harmonie?”

Corin nodded. “I saw them.”

“I can’t fight an entire blood-maddened mob,” Jonathan said, obviously frustrated with this fact.

“No,” Corin said.

I took a deep breath, “Can you come and join us?” I asked. “Is it possible? I think perhaps we can do something, if we plan.”

He looked dubious, but after a while nodded, curtly. “I can come. I shall knock like this.” He made a rhythmic knock on the wall next to him.”

“Come by the back door, though,” I said.

“You have to,” Corin said. “The front door is blocked with a display case.”

LaForce frowned, but nodded. And the link went blank.

 

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 49

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 49

Chapter 8

Dr. Phil Takes the Piss Out Of Grantville

November 1631, Grantville

Tracy sat at the kitchen table of her home and idly played with some small pale blue pills.

“What’s that you’ve got there?’ Ted asked as he walked over to the table.

“It’s a test sample of Dr. Phil’s version of aspirin.”

Ted picked up one of the pills. “Why’re they blue?” he asked as he examined it.

“He insisted that they had to be blue, because blue is a calming and cooling color.”

Ted raised a brow suggestively.

Tracy smiled in response. “Yeah, I know. It’s a load of crock, and the color is going to make it hard to get Americans to buy them.”

“Nah, if they want their aspirin, they’ll buy them. Anyway, I just need to collect my bike and I’ll be off.”

“Off?” Tracy asked.

“Yeah, Jonathan Fortney’s got to deliver one of the APCs up north, and he’s agreed to take me and a load of urine as far as Jena.”

It was Tracy’s turn to raise a brow this time. “He’s allowed to do that?”

Ted shrugged. “He seems to think so.”

Tracy shook her head slowly. “What time do you think you’ll be home?”

Ted shrugged. “Late afternoon probably. I want to check up about that canvas you ordered. What are your plans for the day?”

“After breakfast Belle’s coming round to collect Justin and Terrie, then I’ll drop by Nobili’s Pharmacy and see what Tino thinks about Dr. Phil’s blue aspirin . . .”

“He’ll agree with me,” Ted said.

Tracy glared at Ted. “And then I’ll finish off the last of the order for tents for the Refugee Commission.”

From the road a truck horn sounded.

Ted hurried to the window and looked out. “That’s my ride,” he said as he kissed Tracy goodbye. “See you this afternoon. And in the meantime, stay out of trouble.”

Tracy swatted Ted on the buttocks. “I won’t have time to get into trouble.”

She handed Ted his coat and followed him to the door, where she stood watching as he loaded his bike and cycled down to the waiting modified coal truck. She waved until the truck was out of sight, then turned and returned to the kitchen. She had to get things ready for when Belle arrived to pick up Justin and Terrie.

****

Jonathan Fortney was a tall and lanky twenty-one year old West Virginian male. Like a lot of West Virginian males, he’d been a bit of a shade tree mechanic back up-time, but unlike most of his contemporaries, he’d worked mostly on diesels. That was the influence of his father, who’d had a lifelong love affair with diesel engines. His experience with diesel engines had proved a godsend when it came to finding employment after the ROF.

Back up-time he’d been training to be a collision repair specialist, but post ROF there wasn’t enough demand, and certainly the Army wasn’t employing any collision repair specialists, but they did need diesel mechanics. So he became a mechanic with the Mechanical Support Division.

Today he was taking an APC — actually a 1986 Mack RD688S tandem rear axle coal truck with steel plate welded onto it in strategic areas to provide protection from down-time muskets while the back was enclosed with quarter-inch plate — back to its parent unit. The armor added a lot of weight, but not enough to be a problem for a vehicle designed to haul up to twenty tons, so, naturally, he’d asked around for anyone needing to move a bit of cargo north. Ted Kubiak had made the best offer — a full cargo as far as Jena.

Jonathan pulled up outside the entrance to Ted’s place and sounded the horn. While he waited for Ted to arrive he gazed at the house. If he remembered correctly the property had belonged to a coal company executive who’d sold up when the coal mine on Dent’s run was mothballed, and it looked it. He had to wonder how the Kubiak’s had been able to afford such a flash new house. He shrugged. It was none of his business, but it was an impressive house, nestled as it was into the hillside like that.

He saw Ted cycling down the drive and called out to him when he got to the road. “Tie your bike to the rack at the front.”

A short time later the door opened and Ted Kubiak hauled himself up and in. “Morning, Jonathan. Do you know where to go?” he asked as he laid a scabbarded rifle on the seat and dropped a saddlebag at his feet.

Jonathan nodded. “Though I can’t imagine why you’d want to ship urine to Jena,” he said as he got the truck moving.

“Dr. Gribbleflotz uses it to make Spirits of Hartshorn.”

Jonathan turned to look at Ted. “What’s that?”

“Ammonia. He needs it to make baking soda and baking powder.”

“But urine’s not all ammonia, is it?” Jonathan asked. “So why don’t you turn it into ammonia here before shipping it to Jena? Surely that would reduce the volume you have to send.”

“By at least ninety percent,” Ted agreed. “Unfortunately, Dr. Gribbleflotz doesn’t have anybody trained to do that, yet.”

“Ah, so you plan to do it eventually?”

Ted nodded. “We’d be silly not to.”

****

They picked up the full barrels of urine from a warehouse close to the Freedom Arches and headed for Jena, arriving there just over an hour later. They could have made the trip a lot quicker, but at speeds in excess of thirty miles per hour consumed considerably more fuel, and more importantly, increased wear and tear on the truck tires, the supply of which was extremely limited.

While the barrels of urine were being unloaded Jonathan wandered around the facility. To his surprise he found himself on his own in what was obviously a private laboratory — the fume cupboard and racks of laboratory apparatus gave that away — looking at the containers of chemicals arranged along a wall, “Hey, cooool!” he said when he spotted a jar of iodine. He checked out the rest of the rack, occasionally touching a marked jar in fond memory of the experiments he’d done with the home chemistry set his father had assembled for him.

It was only when he saw Dr. Gribbleflotz’ reflection in the fume cupboard’s sash window that he realized he probably shouldn’t be here. He turned quickly. “I’m dreadfully sorry, Herr Dr. Gribbleflotz. I know I shouldn’t be in here without your permission, but I noticed the jars of chemicals and was curious to see what you have.” He smiled. “You can do a lot of cool experiments with what you have.”

“How did you know that I understand English? Did Herr Kubiak tell you?”

Jonathan did a quick double-take. Firstly, he realized he’d spoken to Dr. Gribbleflotz in English, which given the quality of his German didn’t come as a surprise. But the second question raised the possibility that Dr. Gribbleflotz had been hoping to keep his knowledge of English from the Kubiaks. “No, Mr. Kubiak didn’t tell me. Does he know you understand English?”

“I was hoping that he and his wife were in ignorance of my English skills,” Phillip said.

“They might still be,” Jonathan said.

“Then why did you address me in English?”

Jonathan dropped his head momentarily in shame, then looked up and gave Phillip a rueful smile. “My German isn’t very good.”

“Herr Kubiak and his wife speak acceptable German,” Phillip pointed out.

“Yeah, but they get to practice it more often.” Jonathan shrugged. “Most of the guys in my department are Americans, and the few down-timers are all trying to learn English, so I don’t get to say much more than hello and goodbye in German.”

“I understand.” Phillip smiled at Jonathan. “So, you like my laboratory?” Phillip asked.

“What’s not to like?” Jonathan asked as he waved an all-encompassing hand around the laboratory, “especially when you’ve got iodine and ammonia.”

Phillip asked. “Don’t you mean Spirits of Hartshorn?”

“Yeah, probably,” Jonathan said with a smile. “Where did you learn? You know, to speak English?”

“I spent a number of years in England,” Phillip said as he wandered over to the rack of chemicals and lifted up the jar of iodine. “So, what can you do with this and Spirits of Hartshorn.”

“It makes a cool contact explosive,” Jonathan said.

Phillip hastily put the iodine back. “There is nothing cool about explosives,” he said.

“Oh, it’s not a real explosive,” Jonathan protested. “Mr. Morrison wouldn’t have been allowed to do such a cool demonstration with it in class if it was dangerous. It’s more sound than substance, rather like a kid’s cap gun, except that when it goes off there’s a big cloud of purple vapor.”

 

Castaway Odyssey – Chapter 19

Castaway Odyssey – Chapter 19

Chapter 19.

Xander sensed the information dump hit, stream through him and into his omni, even as he saw the Sergeant slump down and felt as though the bottom was dropping out of his world as it did. No. This can’t happen.

The other three boys were staring at him and the unconscious Sergeant, eyes wide, tears trickling down Francisco’s terrified face. His own terror was clawing at his mind, the thought of facing a world filled with things like that monster without Sergeant Campbell looming up like a monster before him.

But he remembered his mother, years ago…

*****

“Xander, Uncle Phil will take care of you both. But you’re going to have to help him. You take care of Maddox for me, okay?”

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak without crying, without begging her and Dad to stay again – when they’d been through this, through it many times. They didn’t really have much choice, and even at fifteen, Xander understood that this was probably harder on them than it was on him. Finally, he swallowed. “O… okay, Mom. I’ll take care of Maddox. I promise.”

She hugged him so tightly his ribs hurt, but he didn’t complain, just hugged back. “I know you will, Xander. I know you will. And when the second wave comes, when you’ve graduated, you’ll both join us.”

He couldn’t stop himself. “But that will be four years!”

Mom’s body shook, and he heard a repressed sob. “I know. It will be a long time for you, and even longer for Maddox. But you know–”

He pulled away, straightened, wiped the tears away angrily. “I know. I know!” Xander stopped himself from starting the argument again, though it felt like he was trying to shove a plug into a firehose. It won’t change anything. It won’t do any good. We’ll just yell and cry and Dad will come in and try to calm us down and end up crying, and at the end nothing will change. They’ll still be leaving.

“I know,” he said, hating how his voice shook, but saying it quietly, calmly. “And… I want you and Dad to do good out there. I mean do well.”

Mom gave a teary smile at that.

“And I will take care of Maddox,” he said, and that part he didn’t have any doubt of. Maddox might be four years younger, and a big pain in the ass sometimes… but he loved his little brother more than just about anything in the world. “I will, Mom. I promise.”

She hugged him again. “I know you will.”

*****

Xander Bird straightened up, forcing back the tears. At least I don’t have to smile; not a time for smiling no matter who you are. “Sergeant’s unconscious,” he said. “But he’s not dead.” He could immediately see some of the incipient panic … not fade, but draw back, waiting. Better than turning into real panic. “Tav, run back and check the medical supplies; I’m pretty sure we had some folding stretchers –”

“Yes, there were! Sorry! I should have –”

“You’re doing great, you remembered the oxygen. Just go get it now.”

“Can… can I do anything?” Maddox asked, voice unsteady but mostly controlled.

Give him something to do. “Go prep the Sergeant’s bed in the main shelter. Put down one of the self-cleaning sheets at the foot end, in case he bleeds more.” The nanos seemed – for the moment – to be winning the battle against blood loss, but he couldn’t tell what was going on inside. “Francisco, you stay with the Sergeant. It’s important to have someone watching him.”

The smallest boy nodded and hunkered down next to Sergeant Campbell.

Now that I have a few seconds… He turned his attention inward. What the heck did the Sergeant send me?

As soon as he thought the question, his omni responded, displaying the data and annotations on his internal retinal display.

What he saw sent chills through him, because it told him how worried the Sergeant was. He just gave me full authorization over everything – even his medical nanos, the secure ship procedures, weapons locks, everything. He wasn’t taking any chances that he might die and something be unavailable to us.

As far as the ship systems – and even medical nanos and other related systems were concerned – he, Xander Bird, was Chief Master Sergeant Samuel M. Campbell, at least insofar as authority was concerned. The authorization was revocable – if the Sergeant woke up, he had a code to do so – but as long as the Sergeant was out, the authority remained.

Tavana came running up, a small package in his hand. “Here!”

Xander took the folding stretcher, found the release and pulled. The little package swiftly unfolded into a full-size stretcher, including hollow but nicely broad handholds for the bearers; it would easily support someone even twice the Sergeant’s weight, or even more, due to being composed of carbonan weave. “Great!” He checked the Sergeant’s vital signs – not that he knew a great deal about them – and was at least reassured to see none of them had changed too much in the last few minutes. “He doesn’t have any injuries other than the leg wound, so we don’t have to worry about how to get him onto the stretcher too much.”

This was a good thing, since the Sergeant was a very big man. Xander was tall, but the Sergeant topped his 191 centimeters by at least seven centimeters and probably had at least twenty kilos on Xander, too. But Tavana was startlingly strong for a kid who was honest about his preference for working by sitting down, so together he and Tavana got Campbell onto the stretcher pretty quickly. Carrying the stretcher with the unconscious man on it wasn’t easy, but with a couple of pauses to rest, they finally got Campbell into the shelter and onto his bed.

“Do you think… think he’ll be okay?” Maddox asked finally.

Xander hesitated. I can’t lie to these kids. Not about stuff like this. “I don’t know, Maddox. But… check the medical kit. Maybe there’s a diagnostic and treatment database in there somewhere. If I were sending medical kits to pioneer colonies or putting them on lifeboats, I’d sure want to add in reference material for amateurs.”

“That almost makes too much sense,” Tavana said, trying to sound casual and funny. “but we can hope.”

A few minutes later Maddox gave a shout of triumph. “Yes! There is one! It just wasn’t automatically online, it was actually on a chip, if you can believe that!”

“Can your omni –”

“Already loading it, Xander! Everyone should take a copy, just in case!”

That made sense to Xander. “Just a warning – and I’ll bet there’s a warning like this in the database – we’re amateurs, and the best database, even a smart linking one, won’t make us into real doctors.” The local omni network, linked through LS-88, quickly transferred the data.

Now let’s see if I can make sense out of what’s happening with the Sergeant. He pulled up the data feeds from the Sergeant’s medical nanos and fed them to the active database.

The database responded instantly. Envenomation. Two primary components with additional supporting elements; one neuroactive venom and one necrotic.

Xander didn’t know what “necrotic” meant exactly but it didn’t sound good; a query told him that it was in fact worse than he thought, a venom that triggered extensive cell death in a self-destructive cascade. Based on patient data and current status, treatment and prognosis?

The answer came in a set of weighted probabilities, with the database obviously basing its evaluations on known similar venoms, doses, and nano capability. Provide IV fluids and nutrient solution END-5W for support. If subject remains unconscious longer than six hours, support for excretory functions will be needed.

Ugh. Catheters and stuff. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. But now that he thought about it, didn’t their spacesuits come with that capability? If so, he could probably get that part taken care of automatically just by putting the Sergeant into his suit.

Internal nanosupport appears (85% confidence level) to have neutralized 65% of the necrotic activity and is progressing swiftly. 82% of the delivered dose of neurotoxin has been neutralized, and other nanos are attempting to undo the binding on specific active sites. Recommended treatment: two additional nanosupport injections, and maintain oxygen support until the patient becomes conscious. Repair of the wound will require significant time due to necrotic damage. Full analysis of other venom components and interactions are uncertain, but generally positive. Overall prognosis is 79% for a full recovery in between one and five weeks, 9% for a full recovery in between five and nine weeks, 10% for significant recovery with minor remaining damage, 1% for loss of limb due to necrosis, and 1% for worse outcomes.

It required a moment to take that in, but then Xander felt a huge surge of relief. He’s going to make it. Oh, there was that one percent unknown, but much more important was the almost ninety percent chance of full recovery in a couple of months or less. “Everyone, the Sergeant is almost certainly going to be all right!”

“Dieu Merci!” Tavana said in his Polynesian-accented French. Francisco just gave a cheer and clapped.

Maddox sighed and sat down shakily. “So what next, bro?”

“Well…” Can’t stop working just because one of us is down. He’s going to be okay, probably. “First I’m going to get an IV going. Maddox, you get two more of the nanosupport injectors and administer them. Tav…” a thought occurred to him. “Tav, get one of the brush machetes out of storage. I want you to go and first cut the head off that thing.”

Tavana raised an eyebrow. “I guess I can, yes. But why?”

“Because we’re stuck here for at least a while, right?”

“Right…” Tavana agreed, face still clearly puzzled.

“Well, I want to find out if we can eat things that live here. And before we try fillet of monster, I want its head off.”

Tavana’s face cleared. “Oui! That I can do!” He headed out of the shelter.

Francisco made a face. “That thing? But it’s poisonous!”

Xander held the injector for the IV over the Sergeant’s arm; after a moment it pinged and latched on. Relieved, he hung the IV bag on a hook above the bed. “No, it’s venomous. There’s a difference. Venom’s a weapon, something the animal injects into you. Poison’s stuff that kills you if you eat it. Of course I’ll bet most venoms are poisonous, but they’re not through the whole body. I remember reading about people eating rattlesnakes, and they’re venomous.”

“Oh,” Francisco said. “So it isn’t dangerous to eat?”

“That’s what we have to find out,” Xander said.

Maddox looked up from finishing his injections. “How? We don’t have chemical analysis stuff.”

“Well, actually, we do. Just not labeled as that.” He tapped the medikit.

Maddox’ eyes narrowed. “But that only works if it’s in a living body for diagnosis.”

Xander shrugged, trying to look more casual than he felt. “Well, yes. But I’ll only eat a tiny bit at first.”

“No!” Xander was surprised to see that both Maddox and Francisco had spoken. Maddox continued, “You’re the Captain now, right? Now that the Sergeant’s out?”

“Yes, I think so.”

Maddox nodded, folding his arms in the way that he usually did when he’d made up his mind on something and was ready to fight about it. “Then you can’t be the guinea pig. We can’t take a risk on you ending up down too!”

He opened his mouth to argue, then suddenly realized that Maddox was right. He was the only other person qualified with firearms. He was the oldest, the best trained, the biggest, probably the toughest. The others would be in a lot of trouble without him.

Maddox read the expression on his face – as Maddox often did. “You know I’m right.”

“Yeah,” Xander said after a moment. “Yeah, Maddox. You are, a lot of the time.”

His brother’s hazel eyes lit up for a moment with the compliment, then looked serious. “Okay. So that means that I will be the test –”

“No!”

This time it was Xander and Francisco; he glanced at the younger boy, who was looking at both of them fiercely.

“No,” repeated Francisco, holding himself straight and jaw set. “It will be me.”

Xander stared at the smallest of their crew, startled; he could see, out of the corner of his eye, that Maddox’ expression mirrored his own. “Francisco, no, we can’t –”

“Yes you can!” Francisco stamped his foot. “You think I am a baby, but I’m eight years old, and I am a Coronel! I am not a coward and I’m not stupid either!”

“Franky… Francisco, no one thinks you’re a coward or stupid, but you are a kid. Not a baby, but you’re someone we’re supposed to take care of, right?”

Francisco looked down, but then looked back up. His face was scared, but still as determined as it had been. “We… the Sergeant told us the ship is not coming back. Maybe not ever, right?”

He wasn’t going to deny the obvious. “Right.”

“So we all need to do what we can.”

Xander wanted to hesitate, but he couldn’t argue that, either. “Right, Francisco, but –”

“¡Cállate!” shouted the eight-year-old; he was obviously fighting off a crying fit, despite the tears on his face that were bright in the light against his dark skin. “I am not an engineer. I do not shoot or fight. I am not even big and strong like you and T-Tavana. I just draw pictures and things.” He drew himself up to his full one hundred thirty-five centimeters and jabbed his thumb at his chest. “But I eat like everyone else, so I can try food for you, and if it makes me sick, everyone else is not sick and can help me better and help everyone else better!”

Xander found himself unable to speak. He really wanted to. He really wanted to argue against this.

But in cold, hard fact, Francisco Alejandro Coronel was dead right. In their current situation, the eight year old couldn’t contribute too much yet to their survival. But this way he could.

And with the medical nanos, and very small bites, it shouldn’t be a terrible risk. But still…

Finally, after a long pause, he knelt down in front of Francisco, whose teary gaze was still locked defiantly on Xander. He reached out and put his hands on the little boy’s shoulders, like the Sergeant sometimes did. “Francisco… you’re right. You’re one of the bravest people I’ve met, and you are one hundred percent right.”

Francisco’s deep brown eyes widened. “I… I am?”

“You are. We can take care of you better than you can take care of us, and you haven’t had time to learn other things that you can help us with. I know you will… but for now, you’re right that this might just be the best thing you could do. It shouldn’t be too dangerous… but it will be, at least some.”

Francisco swallowed so hard Xander could hear it. “I… I’ll do it anyway.”

“Your parents will kill me for this if they ever find out,” Xander said after a moment. “But… they’ll also be incredibly proud of you.”

Francisco did burst out crying then, but there was a tremulous smile on his face.

 

Through Fire – Snippet 34

Through Fire – Snippet 34

Where Evil Dwells

“To make all equal. To banish from Liberte the fetters of inequality! That is what this revolution is about. The ci-devant Good Man, St. Cyr, he is admittedly a biological creation, a non-natural creature who has for many years behaved as though superior to people created by nature and designed–” The woman screaming in the comcast, in what had been the official channel used by Simon for his announcements, was short, curvy, older than I, and had blond hair in a bun at the back of her head. Her blue eyes shone with intense excitement. And she wore what can only be described as a modified military uniform: a red vaguely military-looking tunic, white pants, and a liberty cap. Only the front of her rather ample chest was covered in medals.

I blinked at the medals, shining in the sun. How could she have won any military decorations?

From what I’d overheard, Liberte was rather traditional in its military forces and preferred all-male troops. There had been no big engagement in which the troops of Liberte had taken part. If anything, the engagement that might happen against the remaining forces of the Good Men still in power would take place between the completely untried troops of Liberte and the seasoned troops of the Good Men. So, where had the medals come from?

Then I noticed the man standing behind her, wearing a matching uniform. He wasn’t wearing a liberty cap, and the sun glinted off his scalp, revealed by his thinning hair in front. He looked familiar.

“I see Dechausse survived,” Mailys said.

“Like cockroaches,” Corin said. “Jean Dechausse is hard to kill. I wonder if Brisbois survived as well.”

Mailys made a sound. I wasn’t sure what it meant, and it occurred to me not for the first time to wonder how attached she was to Brisbois and in what way.

“Who is she?” I asked. “And how can she have those many medals? Are they military medals?”

“They are medals,” Mailys said, in a low growl. “Likely she awarded them all to herself this morning before breakfast. Madame is like that.”

“Madame?”

“Do you really not know her?” Corin asked, as though this were hard to believe.

“I’ve never seen her,” I said, staring at the cast, and thinking of course, I might very well have seen her, around the palace. One didn’t pay any attention to people who were there in an official capacity: gardeners, cleaners, or even secretaries. I’d likely seen the poor people who’d died in this house as well, or at least there was a chance I’d seen them. But when you’re living in a house the size of Simon’s, with the number of retainers and hangers on around us at all times, it’s hard to remember everyone who isn’t one of the residents. “Who is she?”

“Madame Rose Parr,” Mailys said. “She’s the head of Egalite, a sub-organization of the sans culottes which is devoted to eliminating all unfair advantages of wealth, power or even inherited characteristics, in the new republic. For years, she’s given speeches at secret meetings, excoriating biological enhancement and denouncing the existence of biologically enhanced people.”

“But I thought there were no… I mean, other than the descendants of biologically enhanced people, there are no enhanced people, are there? Or at least — She can’t oppose what everyone knows has been forbidden for centuries.”

I had the impression Corin and Mailys, being seated on either side of me, had traded a look behind my back. “Oh, can’t she?” Mailys said. “People resent others they know are better than they are, no matter at what, and it’s easy to tell yourself there must still be enhancements going on.”

I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t the time. But I remembered that both these children could keep up with me when I ran, and I suspected that they were both enhanced. Inheritance, or …? I remembered the underground area of the doctor’s home, the bodies in vats ….

There was nothing necessarily incriminating in this. People had been known to grow replacement parts in Eden, which was why the life expectancy was somewhere north of two hundred years. But on Earth all that type of biological cloning and work was forbidden, because it was an easy step from that to creating enhanced individuals, as had been done in the late twenty first century. And Earth was determined to prevent the ascension to power of more bio-lords, or Mules as the common people called them.

But the doctor had grown body parts. And it was a small step from that to growing individuals.

I remembered Brisbois calling the doctor “father.” It was possible, of course, that the good doctor had had a checkered past that involved the siring of children by some giantess, but I doubted it. It was more possible that he had adopted Brisbois.

But all in all, the fact that Brisbois knew of that underground passage and had made it a point of coming back for the doctor and his wife made me wonder.

“She is Brisbois’ wife,” Corin said.

“Ex-wife,” Mailys snapped. “She divorced him when he was in prison.”

I remembered him kissing me. I thought of his tirades against women. Well. If your wife will divorce you when you’re on death row, it’s bound to embitter you a little. At least a little.

I wondered if he was enhanced and if it was hatred for him that had made her anti enhanced people.

She was still screaming on the com, and I noticed that she was repeating herself. The audience didn’t seem to care. They applauded wildly.

I changed positions to another sofa which allowed me to half recline. It was uncomfortable compared to the sofas in Eden which were bio-based and adapted in temperature and shape when you lay on them. But I was almost used to these lacks in Earth. Almost. So that it only bothered me when I was drifting off to sleep.

I half awoke, disturbed by some noise. Corin was gone from the room. I hoped he was checking on Tieri. At any rate, I trusted him enough, whatever Mailys might say of him, that his absence didn’t surprise or scare me. Mailys was asleep on the other sofa. The com was still on. It showed streets filled with a dancing populace. The old, cruel song of the palace was being sung. Some people carried heads on pikes.

I noticed the voice-announcer was calling it “the glorious people’s” something or other. The word was obscure and my nano implants did not decipher it. Celebration? Dance? Exultation?

Corin rushed into the room, opened a drawer. I awoke completely and said, “What is wrong?”

He shook his head and whispered back, “I’m getting a game to play with Tieri. I’m trying to keep her away from–” he looked at the picture on the com. Then at me. “I’ll come down to check if something is happening that needs us to get out of here.”

“Any word?” I asked.

“From?”

“Your father? Brisbois?”

He shook his head. “I’ll be back.” And rushed back out.

I had the impression of walking in an odd, gray dream, where shapes were meaningless, and everything had nightmare proportions. I fell asleep and momentarily I was back in my ship, with Len, in Earth orbit. He sat the pilot chair, and I stood behind him. He said, “You must be able to save me this time,” and before I could react to it, he turned around and it wasn’t him at all but Simon.

I woke up this time, with a strangled protest in my throat and my eyes prickling as though I needed to cry. I hadn’t cried when I killed my husband. There was no time to feel sorry for myself or for him. It had taken all my ability to limp our ship home to Eden, and by the time I’d arrived I was so tired and so numb that I’d not even cried at his cremation and memorial service, in the garden of his parents’ house. His mother had invited me to live with them. But of course I couldn’t accept. What would the point of that be? I’d always be no more than a memento of Len.

For months, they’d watched me, I suspect in hopes of grandchildren. Len had known our union would not be fruitful. I was too enhanced to breed with normal humans. But he’d never told his parents.

I couldn’t endure their hopes; I couldn’t endure their disappointment. I couldn’t endure seeing Len’s nephews and nieces grow, each with a little bit of him in gesture and word, in look and movement. I couldn’t stand it.

And so I’d turned to my work, and I’d answered gladly the call to go off-world for a good cause. I’d run away from home.

Only to find myself in a perilous situation, with a young man who looked an awful lot like Len, and with another man depending on me. I wondered if Simon was alive; if he knew I’d do my best to save him. He’d sent me away to keep me safe, but did he count on me to come back?

 

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 34

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 34

Chapter 17

Ronz felt the moment shift. The others in the room were immobile for the space of a long breath. Then Aille moved, his head turning to look up at an angle. His companions echoed him.

Terniary-superior Tura looked rather to Ronz. “Something has changed,” she said. “What, though?”

Ronz tilted his head as his angles moved to perseverance-in-darkness. “Undoubtedly the universe will reveal it to us before long.”

He stopped for a moment to consider. That moment; that jar to the Jao time sense, had flipped a counter in his mind. He considered it for a moment, then shifted his angles to a simple resolution.

“I believe it will be best if Aille leads a task force to join up with Caitlin’s expedition.” He looked directly at the younger Jao. “You have perception that even Wrot lacks. And, if it were to come down to it, you have the authority to supersede Caitlin if you think it proper and necessary. I strongly doubt you will need to do so, though. And it is true that she most likely could benefit from your guidance.”

“And it might give Wrot something new to consider, as well,” Aille mused. Yaut’s ears flicked in humor.

Aille’s eyes flickered green with excitement. Ronz was amused. He knew how much the Governor of Earth had hated being left behind when the expedition to Valeron to find the Lleix had been planned, and then again, when Caitlin was sent out to find more sentient allies against the Ekhat. Aille was still young and in his prime. He craved activity, not unlike the humans who assimilated into Terra taif.

And things were fairly quiet here on Earth, Ronz reflected. Aille could be spared for the moment. Reconnaissance patrols had found no evidence of Ekhat in nearby quadrants. The new taif could proceed without him for a while and the experience would temper him, make him an even better leader.

****

Lim stepped through the hatch of the gig and into one of the boarding bays of the Ban Chao. Colonel Tully turned from where he was speaking to a large man wearing Jinau blue and beckoned to her. “Lim, this is First Sergeant Adrian Luff.”

“Nice to meet you, ma’am,” the large man said in a melodious voice. He nodded at her.

She tilted her head and considered Luff. Taller than Tully, bulkier, shaved head, skin a dark brown. From the lines seaming his face, also older than Tully.

“Where are you from, First Sergeant Luff?” she asked.

“Jamaica, ma’am,” he replied with a large smile that showed many white teeth.

Lim nodded. That explained why his voice and accent sounded different from Tully’s. The sheer variety of local accents just in North America, much less all of Earth, had been confusing to the Lleix when they had first arrived at their sanctuary. Now, those of Terralore elian accepted them as if they were part of the natural order. And on Earth, of course, they were. Another manifestation of ollnat, perhaps.

“I’ve asked Sergeant Luff to show you to your quarters and give you a tour,” Tully said.

Lim inclined her head, and looked toward the sergeant.

“Right this way, ma’am,” he said with another of those shining smiles. He extended his hand toward the nearest hatch.

****

Aille, Yaut, and Nath went back to Aille’s office and scanned the ready list of ships available. He decided to take the two newest battleships, and a group of support craft, always necessary. One other ship, a rather special one, made the list. Aille placed a call to Rafe Aguilera.

“Rafe,” Aille said when he contacted Aguilera. “We’ll be taking the Trident with us.” The engineer had already been notified by Yaut of Aille’s mission along with those of Aille’s direct service who were still on Earth.

“Not without me, you don’t!” the engineer said. “She’s my baby!”

This was not meant as a literal statement, of course, though humans often referred to inanimate objects as progeny in an attempt to express their great fondness for them. Jao, though, were not nearly so sentimental about their own children, so statements like that only baffled them until they became familiar with the humans. Then they just ignored them.

The Trident was an experimental craft for which Rafe Aguilera had been part of the design team and the technical manager during its construction project. The Ollnat Works had proposed it after combining some old Jao technology with interesting concepts floated by some naval types who seemed to have the ability to think farther outside the box than most humans.

Of course, all Jao technology was old. Aille was becoming increasingly aware of that fact as the humans of Terra taif obtained more and more access to Jao databanks and used their own systems to perform intensive research queries. “A bad case of cultural paralysis,” he’d heard one human tech mutter to a group of his fellows one day. Aille would, from time to time, marvel that the Jao had managed to survive against the Ekhat when their rate of improvements had been so low. That might be simply because the Ekhat were at least as conservative as the Jao when it came to innovation.

Trident had been designed for one thing, and one thing only: to blockade a star against the entry of hostile ships. Nothing could prevent Ekhat ships from arriving in Terra’s sun, but it would be the mission of Trident and others of her class to see to it that those ships never made it out of the photosphere.

The Ollnat Works and their naval advisors had taken a page from human history and another from the concept behind the design of Ban Chao. Trident was a ram ship, pure and simple. Her main weapon was her hull. More than one human had laughed at the thought of a naval concept that had been old with the Roman Empire becoming the latest innovation in interstellar navies.

The nose of the Trident was a mass of asteroidal iron that had been refined outside the orbit of Mars with solar pumped lasers, then moved to the orbit of Terra where it was mated with a hull that was loosely based on Ban Chao’s design but with some significant differences. It had been massively strengthened, with longitudinal support beams running the length of the hull to the ring of steel that circled the aft hull just before the mouths of the engine nozzles.

And what engines Trident had been given! They were the latest design from the engineering groups, larger and significantly more powerful than the engines powering Ban Chao, much less those driving the Lexington class ships. They occupied not only what would have been the engine room of a Ban Chao assault class ship, but a goodly portion of what would have been the large spaces allocated to the assault troops the assault ship would have carried. The engines not only powered the ship for ramming operations, but they also powered the heaviest radiation screens yet developed for Jao/human ships. Those, combined with the massive heat sinks that occupied the rest of the troop space, meant that a Trident class ship would be able to remain on station within a star for a long time.

 

Through Fire – Snippet 33

Through Fire – Snippet 33

Something in my expression must have given my thoughts away because she sighed. “Yes,” she said. “I suppose sooner or later we will have to talk. But right now I don’t want to get in an argument with Monsieur Dufort in front of the child. And it will happen if I’m the one inside, securing the house.”

Which, having been privileged to watch some of their arguments, made perfect sense. I could well imagine what the little girl would make of the things they might say.

So I helped Mailys carry the two corpses outside. She did her share of the lifting, which connected with her other abilities. I was right. I knew it. Biological improvement had continued, or perhaps lines of biologically improved people had been cloned on into the present, perhaps. But what did this have to do with the situation we found ourselves in?

I set about finding cleaners, cleaning the pools of blood from the floor, and disposing of the used cleaning rags down an incinerator. If I hadn’t seen real middle class families before, when Simon and I had visited his nanny, this would all be alien to me. I had the feeling, I was somehow caught in a tangle amid people who knew each other and who had old scores and old paybacks running through the fabric of the revolution, but I wasn’t absolutely sure how. And I realized that what I didn’t know could kill me. Having cleaned the kitchen, I searched the house for something with which to mend the door.

“What are you looking for?” Corin asked.

“Something to fix or replace the front door,” I said.

He looked at me as though I’d grown a second head. I rounded on him. “We can’t go running around a city, one in a state of disorder and rampaging murder, in the light of day. We most especially cannot while toting a five-year-old and a kitten!”

He opened his mouth, closed it with a snap. “If Brisbois–”

“If you’re going to say that if Brisbois had only waited, you’ll have to explain to me what sense that makes, when he couldn’t possibly have known this family would need him.”

“He knew some… some families would need him,” he said. “But I suppose,” he added, reluctantly, “that he couldn’t be expected to know everyone who would need him in particular, or to make a single trip to rescue every one of them…” He hesitated. “If it’s even his objective to rescue every one of them. Which I don’t know.”

I grew impatient. I’d never known Len at this age. Or rather, I’d known Len at this age, by virtue of our studying in the same general area and in complementary professions. He’d trained as a navigator and I as a pilot. But that wasn’t the same as being involved in a relationship, or even spending time dodging death together. When it came to that, I’d definitely not been in that close a contact with him.

Which meant that I was not ready for someone who looked that much like Len to act as a late adolescent male. I’d never had much interest in the breed, frankly, and this one was no exception. “I’m not analyzing what Brisbois might or might not be doing,” I told him. “I was taught to take care of my own problems, and as much of other people’s as fell within my circle. Right now our problem is to stay safe and keep Tieri safe and, secondarily, to establish a plan of action to… to rescue the Good Man, which is what I came here to do, whether you and Mailys help me or not.”

My mission, imposed on me by Brisbois before he sacrificed himself, was to protect “the children”, and since I assumed these two were the children, I was going to follow through.

Corin’s face worked. I expected him to deliver himself of some blistering diatribe, but instead, his expression became controlled and dignified. He seemed suddenly much older. “What can I do?”

“Do you have any idea how to repair the door?”

He frowned. “I’ll look. There are ways to mend ceramite.”

“It would be better if it still looks broken,” I said. “So any looters think–”

A tight smile. “I don’t think I could make it look whole if I tried,” he said and walked off into a room at the back of the house. He came back in moments, with something resembling a gun, but more like a hand-held hair-dryer, with a sack of some sort attached to the grip. I followed him to the front door where, amid what sounded like French curses but no French curses I knew, he set about joining the broken panels of the door with what looked to be newly extruded, still hot, ceramite.

“Tieri?” I asked him, as I pitched in, holding one of the pieces so he could drip ceramite along the break. He somehow managed to get a bit on his finger, yelped, and sucked at his finger, as I made use of my extra speed to grab the implement midair and keep it from dripping ceramite on his legs.

He pulled his finger from his mouth, examining critically a bubble forming on it. “Thanks for catching it,” he said. “How about you fix it and I hold up the pieces? I swear, I need to have three arms for this job.”

“I don’t have three arms,” I said.

“No,” he said, and frowned a little. “But I think you are enhanced beyond… normal human, aren’t you?”

I shrugged, and he seemed about to say something, or ask something. His eyes examined me intently, as if I were some sort of puzzle. But all he said was, “I put Tieri in a bubble bath with toys, and then put her in bed. She was almost asleep. She–” He sighed. “She cried for hours in the safe room. Her father got her in the safe room and got it locked, but I think, though that’s not what she told me, that he had some idea of protecting the house. I don’t know what happened, exactly. But she heard screams. She was very scared.”

“What have you told her about her parents?” I asked.

“That they had to go away a little while,” he said. “And asked me to look after her. That is not unusual enough to make her suspicious. I used to look after her all the time when her parents went to shows or had to go out.”

“Who were they?”

“Family friends.”

“Obviously. Besides that.”

“Francois was the Good Man’s junior trainee accountant,” he said, as though reluctantly.

I frowned. I was still sure this was a targeted attack. It bore all the hallmarks of that, just like the attack on the Duforts had. But why? The doctor of the Good Man might potentially be worth it, but not the junior accountant, surely?

I thought back to the argument between Mailys and Corin, the references to enhanced people and, just now, Corin saying I was surely enhanced. Mailys had intimated he opposed enhanced people. I frowned intently as I fixed the door. We repaired it enough to lock it, and then, after trading a look which meant neither of us was absolutely sure this would be enough, we pushed a tall, heavy display case in front of it, completely blocking the entrance. Even if they — whoever they were — broke through the door, they’d have to break through the display case as well to get to us. Which was good, because I felt like death warmed over after the disasters of the day, and I suspected Mailys and Corin would need to sleep, as well.

When we got done, Mailys was waiting at the inner door to the hall. “I’ve made food,” she said, and added, “Well, not made. Warmed, but… I thought–”

I nodded. Corin said, “I’ll check on Tieri.”

He came back moments later. “She’s asleep with the kitten. I found the kitten’s litter box and moved it to her room. Francois?” he said. “Adelie?”

Mailys made a face and it took me a moment to realize she looked like she was going to cry. “We buried them. In the yard.” She bit her lips. “The — Oh, damn.”

Corin looked like he was waging a mighty internal battle, but all that came out was, “I liked them.”

At that an unholy light danced in Mailys’s eyes, and she said, “I’m glad to know you can make exceptions, Monsieur Dufort.”

“You don’t know anything about me, or what I feel and think,” he said. “How can you think–”

“Shh,” I said, gesturing with my hand towards the upper floor where the child slept. “We are going to need to discuss plans and to weigh things openly, and we can’t do that if she’s awake.”

They both nodded.

“First, we need to know what is happening,” I said. “Out there.”

Mailys found a comlink receiver. It was in a sort of living room, with broad, comfortable seats. We carried our bowls of soup and sat down to watch.

When Corin tuned it to the official newscast, we realized it was much worse than we thought.

 

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 33

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 33

“I’d like her in ship officer country if you can manage it, but close to me and to the jinau quarters.” He started to thumb off the call, but stopped to say, “Think of her as a new lieutenant, Top–lots of book knowledge but short on experience.”

“Joy.” The first sergeant’s tone was so dry it could have withered a field.

Tully laughed. “She’s pretty sharp, Top. I doubt she’ll make many of the mistakes a fresh shave-tail would make.”

“No, she’ll make new and unusual ones.” Luff’s tone shifted to one of resignation.

“See to it, Top.”

“Yes, sir.”

****

Aille krinnu ava Terra was preceded into the Earth headquarters of the Bond of Ebezon by Yaut krinnu ava Terra and Nath krinnu ava Terra. They had been requested to attend upon Preceptor Ronz not long after a courier ship had arrived from Ares Base.

The preceptor greeted them as they entered the building. As with most Jao structures, the concept of straight hallways with doors opening off of it never seemed to have occurred to the designers. Ronz watched as they shifted almost unconsciously to a more released carriage of their bodies. He had noted before that Jao who spent a lot of time with humans would often minimalize their body postures. It was curious to him that even these three, members of the top five figures in Terra taif, appeared to be doing it.

He beckoned without words, and they followed around a curving wall into a dimly lit space with cushions and other Jao arrangements scattered around. At a gesture from him, they all settled onto soft dehabia blankets, all the while eyeing him closely, blatant-curiosity written into the lines and angles of their bodies.

“It is possible,” Ronz began as his Pleniary-superior Tura entered the room quietly and settle to a blanket of her own to one side, “that the human propensity for ollnat may have passed into excess.”

Aille’s angles flowed into focused-attention. “In what way?” he asked.

“Caitlin Kralik has reported on the progress of the survey expedition,” the preceptor replied.

Ronz said nothing further, looking over the three leading members of the Terra’s new taif. They were smart and fit, their nap lustrous with frequent swims. Aille had the advantage of being rather open-minded for a Jao, able to adapt quickly, a long-time characteristic bred for by Pluthrak, his birth-kochan. Ronz watched angles flow across and through Aille’s body so swiftly that even he had trouble following the changes. He appreciated that Aille made no effort to mask or neutralize those movements. It indicated a trust that not many would have been willing to offer, not even to one who stood in the place of a parent kochan.

Aille’s body settled into perceived-boldness. “She has abandoned the search?”

“Yes and no,” Ronz said with a fillip of admiration-of-perception in his own angles. “Caitlin has concluded that the Ekhat are so prevalent in this galactic arm, and the possibilities of finding surviving sufficiently civilized races to ally with us are so low, that another approach must be developed.”

“And did she propose such an approach?” Nath asked, her angles reading foretold-certainty.

“No.” Ronz stood and crossed to look out the elliptical window, staring into the moonlight. “She has wielded her oudh and decided. Caitlin will lead her fleet across the void to the Sagittarius Arm, and establish her search there.”

“Ah,” was Aille’s only response. He went neutral for a moment, then flowed into wry-amusement. “Ollnat with a vengeance, as Wrot might say.”

“Indeed.” Ronz turned his back on the window to face them, moonlight pouring around him and turning him into a shadowy figure. “Where a Jao with her charge would systematically examine every possible system, gleaning in a well-harvested field, Caitlin has decided to move to a different field altogether. And can we say that she is wrong?”

Silence.

After a moment, Ronz sighed, and returned to his former position. “Even if I wanted to stop her, by now they are either about to leave Ares Base, or they have already begun the voyage.”

Yaut broke his silence. “And what does Wrot have to say about this? He will have reported as well, I’m sure.”

“Wrot,” Ronz began, his angles pure neutral, “is deeply concerned. He does not question Caitlin’s oudh as such, where another might, but he questions whether the risk that she is undertaking lies within that oudh.”

“He would not say that much without making a recommendation,” Yaut growled out, leaving unsaid the so tell us already to let his angles of impatience speak instead.

“Wrot made no recommendations, but he did suggest that the Bond get directly involved in the expedition.”

“Would that be wise?” Aille said, his golden-brown body abandoning curiosity for concern. “The Bond does not take sides in kochan affairs.”

“No, it would not. There are reasons I would rather not go into at this point,” Ronz said, “but the Bond has been by no means unanimous in its support of the policy I have followed here on Terra. If I officially involve the Bond in this matter, I will possibly raise up conflict within the Bond which would be much better avoided, not to mention stirring the currents of politics among and between the kochans.”

The room was silent again as the others contemplated what had been said.

****

“What ship?”

The voice was almost atonal, the pitch and placement was so sloppy. Third-Mordent was instantly infuriated even before the hologram field flickered and filled with the face of a lesser Ekhat.

“Put me through to a harmony master,” she fluted in response in descending quarter-tones, her anger adding an edge to the notes.

“What ship?”

Third-Mordent’s fury flashed, and she spun to put her face close to the hologram pickup. “You disgrace to the Harmony! You dare to intrude! I bring word for the harmony masters, and only them! Once they find that you have delayed me, you spawn of a servient and a defective male, they will give you to me.”

She could feel her vision narrowing in the predator’s stare; feel her fore-shoulders pulling into attack position. Her right forehand blade rose into the field of the hologram pickup.

“I will eat your progeny! I will geld your mate! I will rend you like a servient! I will kill your progenitors, and theirs! I will purify your line from the Harmony, you stain on the fabric of the Melody!”

The hologram field blanked as she swung her forehand blade at it. Third-Mordent sat back on her haunches, panting. In a moment, the field swirled before presenting a different visage to her.

Third-Mordent’s rage evaporated instantly. She recognized this Ekhat. The tegument faded to the shade of old ivory; the age grooves around the mandibles; the scar that creased the tegument around the left eye; all established that this was the oldest living harmony master in this quadrant, Ninth-Minor-Sustained.

“You bring dissonance to this system,” the harmony master sang in cold bell tones, ringing in full step ascending. “Justify yourself or be purified.”

“Harmony has been broken,” Third-Mordent keened, her dirge echoed by the Ekhat behind her.

Ninth-Minor-Sustained stiffened. “Explain!” Her voice glissandoed down into almost a subsonic tone. It throbbed even through the communication link into the hologram projector.

“Descant-at-the-Fourth will add no more notes to the Melody,” Third-Mordent sang again in descending whole tones, each sharp-edged, each precise. “Her system is filled with dissonance. All voices are dead. Her harvester and its dancing daughter-ships are broken, stumbling in aimless orbits.”

The harmony master’s eyes widened and her head moved forward just slightly. She became essence of predator, and despite herself, Third-Mordent shrank back.

“Come to me here!” Ninth-Minor-Sustained intoned. A light flared on a panel in Third-Mordent’s ship, a tone pinged.

The hologram emptied.

 

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 48

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 48

Tasha Kubiak blushed. “I lent him some of Amy’s old school science projects. He seemed fascinated by my cigarette lighter and wanted to make some of those funny electric crystals. I threw in a couple of simple electricity experiments, as well. You know. The lemon battery, and bubbling off hydrogen and oxygen. I was wondering if we could get one of those machines that generate electricity. You know what I mean, the ones where someone stands on a wooden stool and puts a hand on the top shiny dome while someone turns a handle, and their hair goes all funny.”

Tracy Kubiak shook her head. “You mean a Van de Graaff generator. I don’t like our chances. It’s not the sort of thing anybody around here would buy. The schools are probably the only places with them, and I doubt they’re going to sell them for any price.”

“Maybe some of the guys can make one. Tracy, you’ve still got a lot of your up-time stock haven’t you?” asked Mary Rose Onofrio.

Tracy sneaked a quick look around. “Well, yes, but don’t talk too loud. I don’t want the wrong people suspecting what I might have stashed away for a rainy day.”

Erin looked around the table. “Speaking of things stashed away . . . how is everybody for aspirin? I was chatting with Mrs. Abruzzo after mass. Did you know aspirin is going for twenty dollars a tablet?” Erin targeted her question at Belle’s sister-in-law, Katie Jackson, a pharmacy clerk at Nobili’s Pharmacy.

“I had heard that there was a black market in aspirin. The boss has been saying he should look into making his own pills. But, he just hasn’t found the time,” Katie replied.

There was a communal “Oh” and “arhhh” as an idea simultaneously dawned around the room. The Kubiak Country Ladies looked at each other, then turned to stare at Tasha Kubiak.

“No. Absolutely no. No way. I am not going back and begging the geek to make aspirin. It’s somebody else’s turn. Tracy. He doesn’t scare you. Why don’t you go and ask him?”

Tracy gave a little shiver. “I had Ted riding shotgun last time.”

“Well, there you go. Take Ted with you again. Believe me, you’re going to need all the support you can get. I bet he’s elbows deep in that electricity stuff. He really hates spending time away from his precious experiments.”

Tracy looked at her family. She wasn’t actually related by blood to any of the ladies, but they were more family than anybody but her brother, Terry, had ever been. “Okay, if it’s what everyone wants?” Everyone nodded. “Then Katie, could you ask your boss about a cheat sheet for aspirin? We’ll have to arrange some kind of deal so he gets a royalty payment. Probably something similar to what we have with Christie Penzey for the baking soda and baking powder. Meanwhile, I’d like everyone else to hunt around at home to see what they have on experiments in electricity. Any old children’s science books or home laboratory sets. I’d like to go visit Dr. Phil with something to trade.”

Jena, Dr. Gribbleflotz’s Study

“Now, when I pump away at the foot pedal, the two discs spin. When they spin they collect a static charge. Those bottles, the Leyden Jars, store the charge, and eventually, we have . . .” Crack. A spark leapt across the two terminals set above the Wimshurst generator.

Phillip’s eyes lit up when he saw the spark. His new Lightning Crystals, even the biggest he had been able to grow, had only cast a spark barely a finger’s breadth. This new machine the American was demonstrating had sent a spark more than a foot through the air.

Ted Kubiak carefully discharged the Wimshurst generator and the Leyden Jars before removing the jars. “And, if we could have a willing volunteer to stand on this stool, and touch this wand to the globe. Tracy, would you care to volunteer?”

“Ted, aren’t you forgetting something?” Tracy asked.

“But this is important, dear.” Ted tried to placate his wife. “I’m sure Dr. Gribbleflotz will be really impressed by the hair-raising experiment.”

With a sigh sufficiently loud so that her husband could be in no doubt she was less than impressed, Tracy removed her coat and jewelry, took the wand in her right hand, and stepped onto the stool before shaking out her shoulder-length hair. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s get this show on the road.”

With Tracy in place, Ted started his foot pumping at the modified spinning wheel assembly that provided rotational force to the Wimshurst generator. After a few moments, Tracy’s hair started to stand out. After a couple of minutes all of her hair was standing on end.

Fascinated, Phillip reached out towards her hair. “No!” Tracy screamed. But too late. Phillip leapt backward shaking his hand. Quickly, Ted discharged the generator and his wife before going to check on Dr. Gribbleflotz.

“Are you all right, Doctor? I should have warned you. That was a big charge you took there. You should never try to touch the generator or anybody being charged by it.”

Phillip looked from his stinging hand to the American and his woman. The spark that had flown as he reached to touch the woman’s hair had bitten him, but there appeared to be no real injury. Waving off the American’s attentions, he approached the “Wimshurst generator.”

“This is for me?” he asked. “Why?” Phillip was getting used to the way these Americans operated. They wouldn’t have come bearing gifts unless they wanted something.

“We would like you to make some of these.” Tracy passed over a sheet of paper and a small glass bottle.

Sparing a glance from his new lightning generator, Phillip spent a moment reading the paper. Even at a quick glance he realized he had already made this . . . he did a quick re-reading of the title of the sheet . . . ASPIRIN. Except he’d called his willow bark extract pills Sal Vin Betula, and they’d been a proper cooling blue, not white like the pills in the bottle. He knew how much effort went into making Sal Vin Betula. He would have to spend time away from his latest line of research. And a very promising line of research it was. Electricity was simply fascinating. That Lightning Generator. In his mind’s eye, he could already see people coming to his private salon to see it demonstrated. And there were the other electricity experiments. People in Jena had heard about the Americans’ electricity. His salon would be the first place those people would be able to see it. Phillip looked back to his still stinging hand. And feel it. Better to discourage these Americans before they got too enthusiastic. “The price will be ten dollars per dose.”

The American woman smiled. Smiled. She should have been outraged. Ten of those American dollars for a pill that cost less than a few Pfennigs to make, and she was smiling.

“When can you start making them, Dr. Gribbleflotz? I don’t think we should try for more than five thousand a week, to start with. At least until we can properly judge the demand.”

Phillip was horrified. Thousands a week. The time away from his precious experiments. He would need to buy more cauldrons, more alembics, more retorts, and he would have to find and train more peasant children to do the work. And he would have to shop for the materials. Phillip sank into his chair and watched the American man and woman leave his study. Idly, he reattached the Leyden Jars to his new Lightning Generator and started pumping the foot pedal. He sat in contemplation, absently watching the sparks of lightning leap through the air between the terminals.

Phillip didn’t hear the knock on his study door, or the sound of it opening. It was the stifled cry of amazement from Frau Mittelhausen that brought him out of his thoughts. Looking up he saw the look of wonder on his housekeeper’s face. “Frau Mittelhausen? Frau Mittelhausen? Is there a problem?”

“What? No. No problem, Herr Doctor Gribbleflotz. The Americans said that you would require me to make some purchases.” Frau Mittelhausen looked back at the still sparking Lightning Generator. “What is this wondrous machine? How does it produce lightning from thin air?”

“A better question might have been ‘what do the Americans expect in exchange for this wondrous Lightning generator?'” Phillip picked up the small glass bottle. Inside it were a few white tablets. Up-time aspirin, the woman had said. Phillip shook his head and moved to his desk to start doing some calculations. It took only moments to write a list of what he would need. He handed it to her. “Frau Mittelhausen, I need you to go out and purchase these items. Also, I will need more workers. Can you handle more apprentices?”

She glanced at the list and nodded. “I will need to employ an assistant. Do you wish for me to find the additional workers? I’m sure your current group of laborants have family and friends who would be interested in employment in your new manufactory.”

“Frau Mittelhausen, I am not a manufacturer. I am an alchemist. Just because I train street refuse to make the products the Americans want does not make me a manufacturer. Do you understand me, Frau Mittelhausen?”

“Yes, Herr Doctor.” Frau Mittelhausen gazed longingly at the lightning generator. Gently, she reached out a hand towards it.

“No! Do not touch it.”

Frau Mittelhausen leapt backward, her hands wrapping themselves around her body, the sheet of requirements crushed in her hand. She looked at Dr. Gribbleflotz, shock showing on her face. Dr. Gribbleflotz had never used that tone before.

“The machine bites if you are not careful, Frau Mittelhausen.” He waved his hand so she could see the red mark on his fingers. “I have already been bitten. Nobody is to touch the lightning generator. Please ensure that the rest of the staff know. Meanwhile . . .” He ran a hand over the books the Americans had delivered with the Lightning Generator. “I need to do a little reading to understand what is happening.”

“I will get onto the purchases and recruitment of new workers immediately Herr Doctor.” Her eyes alternating between Doctor Gribbleflotz and the wondrous lightning machine, Frau Mittelhausen backed out of the study. She closed the door after one last look at the wondrous Lightning Generator.

 

Castaway Odyssey – Chapter 18

Castaway Odyssey – Chapter 18

Chapter 18.

It wasn’t a conscious decision, but a reflexive action, almost as instinctive as the not-quite-dead-enough creature’s strike. Campbell had seen Tavana move forward, his leg lift, and he knew exactly what Tavana was going to do – and having seen this scenario on half a dozen worlds, knew how it might go wrong.

But that was the conscious thought, and it lagged far behind the reaction, which was to shout a warning and lunge, as fast as he could, to shove Tavana out of harm’s way.

For an instant – just an instant – he thought he could relax, because he saw Tavana falling far to the side, clear, definitely clear of the thing’s striking range.

And then a red-hot nail drove deep into his upper calf.

Campbell heard himself use language he’d promised he wouldn’t around the kids. Damnation! Saved him, got bit myself. Great, Campbell, just great.

A quick glance – and the increasing pressure with the pain – showed him the reflexive bite also included a clamping reflex. On the positive side, that gave him a chance to reach down and grab the thing just behind the head. Glove will probably keep any spines or such from penetrating… but maybe not. What the hell are its teeth made of? There’s carbonan weave in these pants!

“Oh my God. Sergeant!”

“Calm down, Tav. Panic won’t do us any good.” He gripped the creature’s head tightly, started levering against the one fang that had penetrated. “Gotta get this thing out. Call Xander, let him know what’s happening.”

An alert went red in his retinal’s field of vision – reality overlay from his omni and medical nanos. Oh, sweet mother of… poisoned. Damn thing was venomous. He gritted his teeth. This ain’t gonna be no picnic, but I don’t have much of a choice. He pulled hard.

The pain was shocking, even for him; as the fang tore free and he hurled the body away, he could see tatters of his own flesh caught in serrated barbs. Extended out when it hit? Damn. That’s gonna be a bad one.

He’d managed to keep from screaming, but there’d been a definite pained grunt, and Tavana was staring at the blood now flowing freely from the wound, looking noticeably paler – which was pretty bad when one considered his Polynesian deep-brown complexion. “Tavana! Stick with me, son! Don’t lose it now.”

“Merde, Sergeant… it’s my fault, I was –”

“Stop with the blame, talk about that later. Right now I need you to focus. That thing’s bite was venomous.” His head was starting to feel like it was floating, and at the same time he noted an ominous tightening of his chest. Damn medical nanos, what the hell are they doing? Get on the job!

Tavana shook himself, still looking sick. “What… what can I do?”

“Call Xander, like I said. But while you do that, run, don’t walk, to the lander and get me one of those medical nano injectors, fast.”

“Fast.” He blinked, then seemed to finally snap back to the present. “Right! Fast!” Tavana sprinted towards LS-88, shouting “Xander! Xander! The Sergeant’s hurt!”

That’ll get their attention, all right. His mouth felt dry. That could be his imagination, but the data his military nanos were conveying was not comforting. Neurotoxin. Powerful one, too, mixed with a necrotic. Fantastic. The nanos were, of course, trying to counter it, but countering an unknown venom without medical backup wasn’t easy even for those top-of-the-line micromachines. He could hear his breathing becoming labored.

Pounding footsteps approached, and Tavana was there, looking oddly distant even when he knelt beside Campbell. “I have the injector, Sergeant. Do I use it?”

The words were hard to assemble into meaning. Campbell had heard the words, but he had to focus hard to force them into a coherent thought. Not good. Not good at all. Must be able… able to leak across the blood-brain barrier. “Yes,” he said, slowly, hearing his voice tense and awkward. “Inject… above wound site.”

The pinprick and warm tingling told him the injector was working. Instantly telltales on his retinals showed the medical nanos communicating with his resident nanorepair systems. Better… get working fast. “Xander?” he managed to say.

“Here!” Xander’s face swam into view, blurred and indistinct.

Here? Didn’t … notice him arrive. Can’t focus eyes. Not good. “Another… injector. Need…” What the hell was the word? Stuff you breathe… hard to breathe. Hard to concentrate. “… need oxygen.”

“I have it right here,” Tavana said.

A distant part of him realized that meant that even half-panicked, Tavana had thought ahead and brought just the right equipment. Good kid.

He could barely feel it as Tavana clumsily put the mask on and started the oxygen concentrator running. Descendant of old OBOGS units, his brain said, completely out of the blue. It was true – the same concept of a selective sorbent that trapped the inert nitrogen of the air and let oxygen through was at the heart of the device – but that little tidbit wasn’t very useful or even relevant right now. Dammit, brain! Think… useful things!

The fog lifted a tiny bit as the concentrator hit its stride. Major trouble breathing. Muscles close to paralyzed. Nanos overriding where they can, forcing action. Trying to clean out the poison.

What are the kids going to do if I die?

The gray fog was still there, and he could barely make out the others at all. “X… Xander,” he managed.

“Yes, Sergeant?” The older boy’s voice sounded as though it came from half a mile away, and was shaking.

Concentrate. Got… to… finish. “Open… omni interface…”

A moment later he heard a distant ping and could make out, with great effort, the fact that Xander Bird’s omni was open.

Now… just one more… job…

The fog and detachment were deepening. But Chief Master Sergeant Samuel Morgan Campbell had never left anything undone, and he wasn’t going to let that happen now. With a supreme effort, he managed to gather his scattered thoughts, activate the right protocols to dump the data that had to be sent.

The fog darkened, and Campbell slid down into blackness.

 

Through Fire – Snippet 32

Through Fire – Snippet 32

I was in a sort of atrium, and walked from it and around the bottom floor. I found Francois and the source of a great deal of the blood smell in the kitchen. At least I presumed it was Francois. Someone had decapitated him and the head was missing. There was the stump of bloody neck, but no head anywhere in sight.

I started to turn away when I heard gagging from the left, from an area that I presumed had been a breakfast room.

The burner was in my hand and I put it back in my pocket. The person gagging was Corin. I looked over the counter at where he was. Adelie, too, was missing her head, and a coating of black blood spread over the floor.

Mailys came in, walking cautiously.

“I asked you to wait outside,” I said.

“There didn’t seem to be any danger,” Mailys said.

Corin didn’t say anything. He’d taken off running, and presently I heard him retching. I didn’t hear anything else, except that distant sound. A sound too faint and distant, I was sure, for any normal person to hear.

“There’s someone in the wall,” Mailys said. “That way.”

“In the wall?” It was what I’d heard also, but I didn’t know how Mailys knew it.

“I can’t find Tieri,” Corin’s thickened voice sounded from the entrance to the kitchen. “I mean,” he said and hiccupped. “I can’t find her body.”

I remembered instructions that Simon had given me, once when we were visiting someone on Liberte Seacity, and he must have been somewhat worried about the situation. It must have been at the back of his mind. He’d told me all upper class houses in the seacity had a safe room, disguised as a plain wall, so that occupants could be kept from riot or robbery.

I thought the Duforts’ secret… laboratory? It had been rather a grand form of that, but– “Where is their safe room?” I asked Corin.

He had come close and now looked utterly astonished. “Their what?”

“Their safe room,” I said. “There’s someone crying behind a wall.” I walked down a hallway and patted the wall at the end. “This wall.”

“How do you know there’s someone behind the wall?” Corin said.

“Don’t be more of a fool than you can help,” Mailys snapped.

“Oh,” he said, as though this explained everything. “I don’t know where their safe room is. Yes, they probably have one. But if they had time to put Tieri in it, why not themselves?”

“Perhaps they were defending?” Mailys said.

Corin looked doubtful. He shook his head. “They never told me where it was,” he said. “Or how to open it. Or even that they had a safe room.”

Mailys made a sound of impatience as she felt along the wall. She pulled down a tapestry that hung artistically on it and threw it carelessly behind her. Then she ran her fingers down the wall, slowly.

The crying coming from behind it had that sound of despair that comes when a child has been crying for a long time and has despaired of rescue.

I looked at what Mailys was doing. She cast me a glance over her shoulder. “I can’t feel the joining,” she said. “But I can feel a difference of temperature here,” she ran her hand along a line.

She seemed to be looking to me for confirmation, and I went over and felt the difference of temperature too, in a thin crack, something that even the best, tightest joining of a secret door couldn’t prevent. It felt warmer, which made sense. I hoped they had ventilation in the secret room, or the person inside would be running out of air soon. Meanwhile I made a note that Mailys could hear very faint sounds from within a wall, sounds that normal humans — or at least Corin — couldn’t, and that she could feel the subtle differences of temperature at a secret door joining. The indications were that Mailys might be faster, smarter, stronger.

I tabled it for discussion later, and said, “Corin! How old is Tieri? Can she help us get her out?”

“She’s five years old,” he said. “And I don’t know. She… I babysat for them.”

I nodded. I’d felt the joining all around. The entire end of the hallway was a door, the seam around the edge where wall met wall. Mailys was frantically feeling along the length of the wall for a hint of a genlock; an opening, a bump, anything that could activate the door.

I thought that she had that part covered, and also that if I were putting an opening mechanism for a secret door somewhere, I wouldn’t put it on the door itself. So I started looking around, at the walls at right angles to it. Nothing caught my carefully scanning eyes. I turned to the ceiling, which was covered in an elaborate decorative pattern of small plaster roses. I scanned more carefully along the two feet or so of the ceiling. One of the roses seemed somewhat lopsided. I reached up to it and felt it. Yes. There was some sort of mechanism there. Again, the temperature was different from those of the plaster roses about it. And the difference, visually as well as temperature, was probably something that no normal human being could sense. I felt carefully along the leaf that was slightly fatter than the others and tried for the give to see if it moved at all. It did, wiggling in my hand. I felt one way up and then down the other, looking for a way to slide it.

I met with more resistance as I pushed it left than right, so I let it slide right.

There was a sound like two slabs of dimatough rubbing on each other, and suddenly we were looking into a small, spare room. In the middle of it stood a little blond girl, clutching a kitten and crying.

She shrieked when the door slid up, then said, “Corin!” and ran to him. He took her and the kitten struggling in her grasp in his arms, and stood up.

And I remembered the decapitated bodies in the kitchen, and said “Corin, take Tieri upstairs. Make sure she’s all right.” I met his eyes and tried to convey the idea that under no circumstances should the child be allowed in the kitchen. Mercifully, he seemed to get it. He said, “Yes, Tieri. Let’s go up to your room and get you more practical clothes. We might have to run. And who is this kitten? Have I met him?”

As their voices went away, I turned to Mailys, “Can you help? Is there some way we can dispose of the bodies and make this house secure?”

She looked at me for a long moment, her eyes wide and doubtful, and I thought she was going to tell me I’d lost my mind, but then she shrugged, and started towards the back. “There is usually a small backyard, perhaps large enough for a grave, if we can find something to dig with.”

There was a small backyard, peaceful in the moonlight. It was as though the intruders had come in through the front door and perpetrated their outrages in the house, without ever coming back here.

A neat little lawn filled most of the back, surrounded by roses, which bloomed with a heady fragrance in the warm air, and there was a pond gurgling in a corner of the garden. And there was a shed, in which we found various implements which left me staring at them in bewilderment.

Look, I understand shovels and picks. We had them in Eden too. But the various mechanical devices left me staring. It is obvious that on Eden and on Earth even mechanics have taken completely different routes to accomplish the same purpose.

I think it is because on Earth they had room for bigger machinery. For instance, I’d not seen a big excavator until I’d come to Earth. On Eden, the task of digging, even such a huge hole as needed for a housing compound for a large family was achieved by having many tiny robots dig in coordination, according to pre-programmed parameters.

On Earth they had backhoes and excavators. And in the shed at the back of the townhouse’s garden, we found versions of those backhoes and excavators, automated and controlled by remote. Though all the landscape looked mature to me, clearly someone had done some serious planting and Earth moving around here.

Mailys looked at the machinery with pursed lips, and tried out the remotes, then turned to me, “If you help me bring the bodies out, I’ll take care of disposal while you clean the floor and secure the front door.”

“Do you think we’ll be safe here even if I secure the front door?” I asked. There was something to her pinched expression I couldn’t quite read.

She nodded.

“But if people are going around looting–”

She shook her head. “It wasn’t like that. There is a list…” she pursed her lips.

I felt like the hair was trying to stand up at the back of my neck. There was a something she wasn’t saying.