Eric Flint's Blog, page 222

Through Fire – Snippet 05

Through Fire – Snippet 05

Perhaps it was to combat this that his best friend, and the other Mule left behind, Bartolomeu Dias, had conceived the scheme of trying to create female and male clones of themselves. Perhaps the scheme had been darker and designed to give the long-lived but not immortal Mules a chance at living forever.

Just before Jarl’s death, they’d created me and what I must for lack of a better word call my brother, Kit. All that I could forgive. I wasn’t sure I could forgive that they’d called me Zenobia, which means spirit of Zeus. Nor that I’d been given to a human couple to raise, a couple who’d always seemed bewildered by me. Bartolomeu Dias, even aged, might have made a better foster parent.

None of this, though, explained why Simon would have told this man that I was made from Jarl’s genes, assembled in a lab by a complex process that defeated the ability to recombine Mule DNA and make female Mules.

If few people on Earth would be able to believe I was a darkship thief, anyone who did believe I was Jarl’s clone was likely to try to kill me.

“He … Why?”

“He trusted me. Trusts me. With what he is, too, with being descended… no, created from the Mules who were left behind. He told me that the same Mule has been succeeding himself as the ruler of Liberte for centuries, having his brain transplanted to that of his putative son, so he could inherit from himself.”

“Why did he tell you? When?”

“Oh, years ago, when he hired me as head of his security,” Alexis said. “There were reasons. In the way I became his head of security, I mean. I can’t explain now. We need to get as far away from the palace as we can.”

My tongue felt like cork in my mouth. I realized I had been gasping through an open mouth, and closed it with a snap, and swallowed. “You don’t care?”

“I wouldn’t have believed him — about you — if I didn’t know that the Mules left behind had managed to create a female. I saw no reason they wouldn’t have created one on the darkship world, where I understand they’re more advanced.”

“I mean, you don’t care that the Mules survived the Turmoils and eventually became the Good Men.”

“What is there to care about?” he asked. “It happened.”

“But … aren’t you afraid of Mules?” I’d read the history books on earth. Though I suspected the Good Men, who were after all the same people, were just as ruthless as the Mules had been, the history books made the Mules much worse. “Don’t you want to stop them?”

I swear his lips trembled upward. “Aren’t we?” he said. “Didn’t the Patrician declare the glorious revolution?” He seemed to suddenly remember how the glorious revolution had evolved. He shrugged. “I mean you no harm, at least. On the contrary. The Patrician said to get you to a safe place, and I intend to, even though it’s going to be harder than I’d imagined.”

“I don’t need to be gotten to a safe place,” I said. “If you know what I am, you know I’m as strong as the Patrician, and as capable of defending myself.”

He rolled his eyes. “And as full of yourself. Don’t either of you see virtue in planning? Are you in the habit of throwing yourself into danger with no thought?”

I’d come to Earth with very little thought, except to escape bad memories and certain social obligations. I didn’t think I was full of myself. I certainly wasn’t like Simon. On the other hand, I’d been telling Alexis that I could fight a mob single handed. Which seemed foolhardy if not stupid. So I shut up and let him lead — stumbling and skulking through the palace grounds. At an outer building, almost at the edge of the grounds, he made me wait, and came back moments later wearing coveralls of the sort that manual laborers wore, and carrying what looked like a green sheet, which he folded around me as a cloak, that covered me from head to the hem of my dress.

After that, he led me out of the grounds to what looked like a ramshackle stairway which led us into a labyrinth of derelict alleys and thus, eventually, to a cheap rented room, in a not so good section of Liberte, the area that was the domain of servants and less reputable avocations. We had chosen the cheapest of automated motels and paid for it with an anonymous credgem.

In the dingy rented room, Alexis ditched the coveralls to appear again in the splendor of white satin and gold braid. It went badly with his appearance. He was a middle-aged man, at least ten years older than my twenty-five, with short dark hair and a square face that only a mother could love, and which, indefinably, put one in mind of a bulldog. Seeing me look, he gave me a feral grin and said, “Alexis Brisbois, at your service, Madame Zenobia Sienna.”

I didn’t know what to answer, so I didn’t. I dropped the sheet. He locked the door, then stood by it, with a burner in his hand, and his ear set against the dimatough panel.

“Just making sure no one followed us,” he said. Though he’d ensured that the camera over the door was broken — not unusual in this type of lodgings, of course — he didn’t trust that someone might not be looking for us or might not have caught a glimpse of us by other means.

While he went over the room, looking for hidden cameras and disabling a couple of gadgets that might or might not have visual-pickup capacity, I stood in front of the mirror that took up an entire wall — and I tried not to think exactly what it was meant to reflect, fully turned towards the bed as it was. But even thinking about that was better than thinking that I was in an enclosed space with no help anywhere near.

I must go out. I didn’t want to hide in this ratty room forever, with or without Brisbois, and I thought his idea of getting me out of the seacity was cowardly as well as futile.

Fortunately, he had no authority over me. No one did. First I had to get out of this room. Unfortunately, it seemed whatever was happening out there was definitely a revolt against the ruling classes. That meant that being known as the Patrician’s special friend told against me. I had to figure out how to make myself less remarkable-looking, less memorable, if I was going to move unremarked through Liberte seacity.

In my mind, I had only the vaguest idea of what I could do once I got out of here. Rescue Simon, of course, both because I owed him for his hospitality and to pay him back for trying to protect me, as though I were helpless without him. Pay him back in more than one sense.

I hated to admit that Alexis Brisbois had a point, though. When going against one enemy, force and intelligence sufficed. When going against a multitude, one must manage anonymity and surprise. And anonymity was going to be a problem.

It’s not that I think I’m beautiful, or that I know I am. I do, both. And it’s not personal opinion. Like everything else about me, it’s a certainty — what I was designed to be. No choice or opinion involved.

The men who created me had thought themselves if not gods, something very close. And though I’d been created to be the female version of one of them — built in a lab, protein by protein, gene by gene — they’d made me both beautiful and memorable. I looked as close as anyone living could look to the central figure of Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. My eyes were a little less innocent, I suppose, and I kept my hair long enough to hit the middle of my back, not falling in a red-blond mass almost to my knees, as the hair of the painted Venus did. But I did look like her. I knew.

 

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 20

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 20

Slap! “Bastard!”

“What’s the matter, Michael?” Phillip asked as he approached.

Michael held up his hand so Phillip could see the splat of blood on it. “An insect bit me.”

Slap! Slap! Michael looked at the new splats of dead insects on his hands with grim satisfaction before turning his attention back to Phillip. His eyes widened and he pointed an accusing finger at Phillip. “Why aren’t they biting you?” he demanded.

Phillip looked down at his hands. They were clear of insects and insect bites. As an experiment he moved his right hand towards the cloud of insects flying around the hand Michael was pointing at him. Rather than land on his hand they avoided it.

Michael had been watching with interest. “They must scent the flower essence on your hands from when you made the wreaths.”

“Let’s try something,” Phillip said. He reached up and snapped a flower head from the wreath of flowers around Michael’s head and grabbed Michael’s left hand.

“The right hand, please, Phillip,” Michael said as he pulled his left hand free and proffered his right hand to him.”

Phillip held Michael’s right hand and firmly rubbed the flower head over the back of it. The results were astonishing. Almost immediately the insects abandoned that hand in favor of the other.

Michael grabbed the flower head from Phillip and rubbed it over the back of his left hand. Then he rubbed it around his neck.

Phillip felt something on his neck and slapped it. He didn’t bother confirming that it was a biting insect. Instead he retreated from the edge of the marsh to the relative safety of the track around the lake so he could rub a daisy on his exposed flesh. When he was finished he stared at the remains of the flower head in his hand. There had to be an easier way, and he made a note in his notebook to ask the next local they came across.

Later that day

Gasparo, Francis, Leon, and Michael were sitting at a table. Michael was carefully drawing a flower from a sample he had beside him while the others were relaxing over a mug of ale. The flower wreaths Phillip had made for them had wilted and now sat in the middle of the table. Off at another table they could see Phillip pounding away with a pestle and mortar.

Gasparo turned to Michael. “Do you know what Signor Gribbleflotz is doing?”

Michael glanced at Phillip. “It looks like he’s grinding something.”

Gasparo grimaced at Michael. “I can see that he is using a pestle and mortar. I was wondering if you knew what he was preparing.”

Michael studied Phillip for a while before answering. “We had a few words with some of the locals. Apparently they sometimes use a lotion of water and powdered flower heads to ward off insects. I assume Signor Gribbleflotz purchased some dried flower heads and is now grinding it to make an insect repellent.”

Francis ran a hand lightly over the bite marks on the back of his neck as he stared at Michael. “Do you think it’ll work?”

Michael nodded. “Signor Gribbleflotz and I discovered in the marsh today that if you rubbed the flowers into your skin the insects would avoid that area, so I see no reason why splashing a solution containing traces of the flower over your skin shouldn’t work at least as well.”

“That’s good to hear,” Leon said. “I don’t suppose you have anything with which to treat insect bites?” he asked.

“There’s a broad-leafed plant that can be rubbed over the bites,” Michael said. “I can look for some tomorrow.”

“That’s going to make for an uncomfortable night,” Gasparo muttered. “Hang on. Here comes Signor Gribbleflotz. Maybe he has something to hand.”

The group watched Philip approach. He had a small pot of something that he placed on the table in front of them.

“What’s that?” Gasparo asked.

Phillip looked fondly at the pot. “It’s a paste made from the leaves of Plantago major. You should find it soothes the insect bites.”

“That’s the broad-leafed plant I was thinking of,” Michael said. He looked up at Phillip. “Did you learn about it from Professor Alpini?”

Phillip nodded. “He mentioned it in his medical botany lectures, but I first met it when I was helping my stepfather. He was an apothecary.”

Francis gestured towards Michael. “Dr. Weitnauer here thought that you were grinding up flower-heads to make an insect repellent.”

Gasparo turned to Phillip. He gestured towards the pot. “That’s right. Does that mean you haven’t made any insect repellent?”

“Don’t worry. I’ve bought some powdered flower-head. All I have to do is mix it with water. Now, who would like me to smear some of my soothing paste over their insect bites?”

****

The next few days progressed without any drama. Michael continued to bring the expedition to a halt whenever he found an interesting plant. Gasparo, Francis, and Leon continued to look after the animals and provide security. Meanwhile Phillip continued to help Michael and collect his own plant samples.

They were camped in the open tonight. The sun was still up, but it was late and all of them were tired. They gathered around the campfire close to Phillip as he pulled a book out of his pack and carefully opened it and started to read aloud. The book was an Italian edition of Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, and Phillip had been reading a few pages to the group every evening. Tonight he was reading chapter twenty-three, Of What Befell Don Quixote in the Sierra Morena,

“You’d like the shirts,” Michael said as Phillip read the description of what was in the valise Don Quixote and Sancho Panza found.

Phillip pointedly examined the sad state of his current shirt. “Four shirts of fine Holland wouldn’t go amiss,” he confirmed.

“And neither would the gold,” Leon said.

Phillip grinned. “Gold never goes amiss. Now, can I continue?” All heads nodded and Phillip continued.

“. . . and he said what will be told farther on.” Phillip carefully marked the page with a ribbon and closed the book.”

“You can’t stop there,” Leon protested.

“It’s the end of the chapter,” Phillip said.

“But it doesn’t feel complete,” Leon protested.

Phillip just grinned. “I’ll read the next chapter tomorrow.”

“There’s still plenty of light,” Leon said hopefully.

“No,” Phillip said shaking his head.

On that note Phillip wrapped the book in an oilskin cover before putting it back into his pack. Then he laid out his blankets and made himself comfortable. He glanced around the campsite one last time before laying down his head. Leon was standing guard while everyone else went to bed.

****

The next night they exchanged the discomforts of the great outdoors for the more common discomforts of a small inn.

Phillip deposited the inn supplied blankets in a corner and sprinkled powdered Tanacetum cinerariifolium over them. He was liberally sprinkling the powder over the canvas covered straw pallets that were their beds for the night when Francis entered the room with one of the packs.

Francis stopped when he saw what Phillip was doing. “I thought you had herbs to keep down the bed bugs?”

Phillip stopped in mid sprinkle and turned to Francis. “The powdered flower is much more powerful than anything I’ve used before.”

“Is it safe?” Francis asked as he dropped the pack he was carrying against the wall.

Phillip looked at the powder in his hand before smiling at Francis. “I wouldn’t recommend eating it by the handful, but Dapple didn’t have any trouble eating the flowers.”

“But he’s a donkey, and donkeys don’t care what they eat.”

Phillip wiped his hands clean of the dust on his tights and shook his head. “Goats will eat anything because they think everything should be food. Horses and ponies will eat almost anything they find in the hope that it is food, but a donkey will only eat what it is sure is food.” He grinned. “If Dapple thinks it is safe to eat the flowers, then it should be safe to sleep in the powdered remains of the flowers.”

Francis looked a bit dubious at Phillip’s explanation. “Should be?” he asked.

“We all applied a lotion of the same powder mixed with water this morning, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel any the worse for the experience.”

 

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 29

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 29

The anteroom was tight for three people. Daniel wondered what would have happened if he had brought a staff of ten.

Walters pressed a button in the wall. A green light winked above the inner door, which he then pushed open. “Your Excellency, the visitors are here. They’re both male.”

There hadn’t been a lock. The light was simply to indicate that the person within was free.

Christopher Robin had risen from his wooden desk. He faced Daniel and Hogg with a noble expression. The large office beyond was empty of furniture except for three chairs and the smaller desk set near the door to which Walters went.

Robin was large without being really fat. He would have been an imposing man even without the white leather uniform glittering with medals and braid. Adele’s briefing mentioned that Robin was the Marshal Commanding All Military Forces of the Tarbell Stars. Apparently it was in that guise he had decided to meet the Cinnabar advisors rather than as the civilian Minister of War.

In official Tarbell records Robin was a former Admiral of the Kostroman Navy. Kostroman naval ranks didn’t rise to admiral, and the captains had to be members of the ruling families; Robin’s father had been a dockyard welder and his mother a schoolteacher.

Robin had been in the Kostroman navy, as a quartermaster. He had left his position and Kostroma ahead of an investigation. That said, Tarbell’s Ministry of War was well organized and well run — uniquely among the government bureaus.

“Seat yourselves, please,” Robin said, gesturing to the chairs facing the front of the desk. Daniel walked around to take one.

“I’ll stand,” said Hogg. He leaned against the door they had entered by.

Robin laughed and sat down on his own chair though that left Hogg glowering at his back. He said, “Captain Leary, I’ve heard a great deal about you and Lady Mundy.”

“Friends of the Tarbell Stars thought the Princess Cecile could be useful to your government in fighting the Upholders,” Daniel said. He ignored the reference to Adele.

“Indeed, indeed,” Robin said. He took off his saucer hat — leather as well, it appeared — and set it on the desk. “The Upholders have three modern destroyers, one of which has a crew of Fleet veterans. Not so very impressive, you might say, but we have only three destroyers which are really serviceable, plus the destroyer which recently came to us when Nabis decided to join the Tarbell Stars.”

That hadn’t been in the briefing materials, Daniel thought. Aloud he said, “When did Nabis join? I’d understood they were taking a strongly independent line?”

“The former ruler, Peter Langland, certainly was independent,” Robin said with a chuckle. “He asked for help from us and from Karst to resist pressure from the Upholders. Karst sent a regiment — which promptly assassinated Langland and started looting the capital. The locals rose up and slaughtered about half of them. The provisional Nabis government was happy to join Tarbell when our troops arrived.”

That was too recent to have been in the briefing materials. No doubt Adele would be getting an update from her sources right now.

“Anyway,” Robin said, “I’d like you and your officers to transfer to the Nabis destroyer, the Katchaturian, and whip her into shape. I’ll provide Tarbell officers for your corvette. I think that’s the most efficient way to use the available resources.”

A number of ways to respond riffled through Daniel’s mind like the pages of a flipbook. “I don’t think we’ll do that,” he said mildly. “I think we’ll be able to work out something satisfactory when I’ve got a little more information, though.”

Daniel coughed into his fist, enough of a pause to allow Robin to absorb the idea but not to respond, then said, “You mentioned the Upholder destroyers but you didn’t say that the rebels are also believed to be negotiating for a heavy cruiser. Can your own cruiser be readied in time to meet it?”

Both of Adele’s sources were certain that General Krychek was arranging the transfer of an Alliance cruiser to the Upholders. On paper the rebels were buying a hulk for scrap value. The reality was that the paperwork had been switched with that of a sister ship which was old but fully functional.

Robin certainly knew that. Either he was testing how much Daniel knew, or he was simply trying to hide the real situation from his new advisor.

“The Maria Theresa can’t be returned to use,” Robin said without hesitating. “What I can do is configure a pair of modern transports as missile ships. The Upholders can’t fight a battle of maneuver. If we can overwhelm the cruiser they may be getting, then any surviving ships will lose heart and flee. The war’s over then.”

That’s a good plan, Daniel thought. His opinion of the Minister was going up.

“We’re getting the missiles from Cinnabar stocks,” Robin went on. “I suspect you may know more about that than I do.”

You’re wrong, Daniel thought.

“Anyway, they’re Alliance missiles captured in the recent war and being shipped to us as scrap. I’ve just been informed that they’ve arrived on Danziger, which is the usual transfer point for the cluster.”

“My crew and I can help in refitting the transports as warships,” Daniel said.

Robin grimaced and spread his hands in a dismissive gesture. “We have dockyards here,” he said. “Perhaps when it comes to fitting the fire control a specialist might be helpful. The Katchaturian is too important a ship for me to just hope that Langland did a good job of maintaining it and training its crew!”

Daniel pursed his lips. Robin was being forceful, but he didn’t repeat his initial error of trying to give orders to someone who wasn’t under his command.

“I think we can find a useful compromise,” Daniel said. “Give me command of the Katchaturian. I’ll treat her and the Sissie as a small squadron and work them up together. That is, if I have a free hand with the Katchaturian’s crew?”

Robin snorted. “You have it,” he said. “Hang a few of them if you think that’ll wake the others up. The officers are Nabis gentry, so that might be a good idea. The crew is whoever signed on, of course. Some Nabis, most not.”

“All right,” said Daniel, rising. “You’ll arrange that I have any authorizations I need?”

“Walters, see that Major Berners gives Leary whatever he wants,” Robin said. “And guides him around personally.”

“Yes, your Excellency!” Walters said. “I’ll take him straight to Berners.”

“Say, Leary?” Robin said. “I know the destroyer’s under strength. How would you like to take over the Nabis ground troops too? I shifted the Nabis Capital Regiment to Peltry and put a Tarbell regiment on Nabis, just for safety. The Nabis troops really are from Nabis, you see — Langland was trying to make the planet great, the way it was before the Hiatus.”

“Yes,” Daniel said. There were many questions, many ways that could go wrong. His assumption was to assume he could deal with whatever luck or the gods threw him. There were always too many potential side-effects to prepare for all of them.

“Then I think we’re done here, Leary,” Robin said. “Walters, take him to Berners.”

They left by the front door of the office. Daniel wondered how he was going to get back to the Princess Cecile, but he would deal with that when the time came.

 

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 05

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 05

Chapter 2

The five Lleix strode back through the ship’s corridors to their common room, aureoles quivering. It was so strange, Lim of Terralore thought, to sit in the presence of human and Jao, to see two species who processed information in such different ways still able to find common purpose.

“So we will go on to the next star system,” the young Lleix said.

Brakan and Matto of the ancient and highly respected elian, the Starsifters, forged ahead and did not look back. The two, both much taller, who had quite properly been accepted by the Starsifters during their Festivals of Choosing, did not approve of “dochaya trash,” such as Lim and Pyr, believing themselves on an equal footing with real elian members.

No matter what Tully and the other humans had tried to teach them about rights and justice, traditional Lleix continued to find comfort in sensho, in doing things as they always had been done. They believed one either found an elian at the proper moment in his or her life or was quite correctly turned away and worked forever as a lowly unassigned. You did not make up a name for a new elian and then prance about with new purpose in the face of your betters, expecting their respect.

Oddly, despite belonging to the equally-august Ekhatlore elian, Ramt did not join them. She lagged behind, not quite walking alongside Lim and Pyr but remaining close enough to avoid being openly rude the way the two Starsifters were being.

Pyr looked at Lim as they passed a knot of humans working on a conduit. “Each time we ‘jump,’ as they call it,” he said, “I fear they will be there on the other end, waiting for us, the great devils who eat the universe.”

Brakan and Matto increased their pace as though even hearing the two Terralore speak was polluting their ears, then entered the Starsifters’ quarters. The door slid shut as the three remaining Lleix passed.

“We may encounter them again,” Lim said, “but this is a mighty ship; the great Lexington itself, which took our people to safety. Lexington defeated all the Ekhat who came to kill us that day. And now it is joined by two other ships just as powerful. Four Lexingtons all told, if we count the Krant kochan’s Pool Buntyam.”

They reached the quarters of Ekhatlore. Nodding at them politely, Ramt passed within. Lim and Pyr continued on a short distance until they reached their own quarters.

“Our benefactors fear the Ekhat,” Pyr said, turning into Terralore’s quarters. “At least as much as ever the Lleix did.”

“Because they are wise,” Lim said. “Only the very foolish or ignorant would not fear them.”

Director Kralik had requested strong representation from both the Starsifters and the Ekhatlore elians for the expedition, as they had records of the Lleix travels throughout the galaxy and their own form of framepoint travel.

She had asked members of Terralore to accompany the expedition as well. The official explanation was to function as translators, should another living civilization be found. Lleix were naturally gifted linguists compared to their new-found allies. Apparently, in humans and Jao, the portion of the brain which allowed babies and children to easily acquire language switched off at some point in their early development. That same facility in the Lleix brain, however, remained active all their lives.

Lim and Pyr were quite sure that explanation was a polite fiction. The Starsifters and Ekhatlore Lleix could have served as translators just as well. They thought the real reason they’d been asked was that the humans deliberately tried to bolster the status of the newly formed elian created by the dochaya.

Unfortunately, polite fiction or not, translation was their only official function on this voyage–and there was no translation to be done when all that was found were the long-dead ashes of those for whom they’d be translating.

“So far, we are useless here,” Lim said, “unless another inhabited world is found.”

“I learn more about humans and Jao every day from the records,” Pyr said, “which will enrich Terralore when we return.” He settled onto a bench and turned to a viewing station hooked into the ship’s information database. He keyed it on and the screen lit up with a brilliantly colored picture of the Colorado mountains. “Both have a most astonishingly violent history, and it seems that humans perpetually fought among themselves whenever the least disagreement occurred, never letting their eldests sort matters out.”

Lim was so astonished, she had to support herself against the wall. “They fight each other?” On Valeron, children who showed early and constant aggression had been quickly ejected from the Children’s Court and barred from taking part in the Festival of Choosing, doomed forever to labor as common workers in the dochaya.

This wasn’t because violence and combat were in and of themselves in some manner unacceptable for the Lleix. They had armed spaceships, after all, and had fought the Ekhat and their Jao slaves as bravely as they could for much of their history. But the actual combat was supposed to be performed only by members of the Weaponsmakers elian, and had been limited to desperate defensive measures.

Violence and fighting among the ranks of the other elians was simply not acceptable among the chosen. It was not sensho, acceptable behavior. Or at least, it was never recorded in the records they still had of their racial history.

“They did,” Pyr said. “I do not think they do now, at least not very much, though it is apparently one of the reasons why the Jao were able to conquer them.”

Lim tried to imagine Caitlin or Tully striking one another and failed. “They are an–an energetic species,” she said, “for ones so short.” She used the word not to indicate not only a deficiency of height, but in the Lleix manner referring to a lack of experience and wisdom, as well.

She had grown a bit herself since leaving Valeron and gaining access to better nutrition. No matter how long she lived, though, she would never be a tallest. Early malnutrition had stunted her growth, but her skin had brightened into a passable silver and her aureole thickened. She appeared somewhat more respectable now, so that she did not automatically shame her elian.

“I was disappointed we did not find them here,” she said. “The Boh. They have not been anywhere we have visited so far.”

Pyr looked up from the viewer where he was examining the ship’s records. “These people most likely had other gods,” he said. “Not the Boh. There was no reason you should expect to find them here.”

“Their gods are dead,” she said, “because all who knew their name are gone.”

Pyr’s aureole sagged. “But the Boh yet live,” he said, “because the Lleix do not forget.”

“Their memory is safe on Terra,” she said, “for now.”

Pyr did not answer this time, seeming absorbed in something he had called up to his screen. She settled then at her own data station, missing her elian. So much of her short life had been spent in misery in the dochaya, going out each day as she sought work at the fabled elian in the city, hoping for a chance to work as a servant and, in that capacity, spend time in one of the great houses where her betters ran the city.

She remembered seeing the elongated Boh-faces carved into the fronts of many of the elian-houses, reminders of what they had lost. They had been so beautiful and so sad, forever left behind when the Lleix had fled the Ekhat and gone into hiding. They had tugged at her every time she saw them. What would it be like to actually experience the presence of the Boh?

Humans had “churches” and “temples,” actual land and buildings where they experienced their gods. Lim had investigated those whenever she got the chance, but felt no sense that the Boh were there either. They were gone, with all their wonder and wisdom, and Lim found herself aching for them. The universe was so large and the Lleix had left the Boh behind such a long time ago. How would they ever find them again?

 

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 37

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 37

And I felt what remained of his control spell give way. I could move again.

My first impulse was to punch him in the face, or kick him in the groin. But I knew better than to give him any opportunity to grab hold of me. The man took the phrase “death grip” to a whole other level.

But that didn’t mean I couldn’t incapacitate him. Three elements: my foot, the fine red dirt covering the desert floor, his eyes. My casting was as immediate as thought. A spray of dust kicked up from the ground in front of him, coating his shirt and jacket, dirtying his face.

He let out a strangled cry, his hands covering his eyes a second too late. Emboldened, I stepped toward and threw one punch. I didn’t dare hit him anywhere near his hands, and I certainly didn’t want to bloody him. So I hit him in the throat. Hard.

He went down in a heap. For good measure, I kicked him in the side, then danced away so that he couldn’t grab my leg. I’m not sure I needed to. For the moment, he didn’t seem to be a threat to anyone.

A spell surged past me and the helicopter pilot fell back, rolled a few feet down the hillside and slammed into a large rock at the base of a saguaro cactus.

I glanced back at Gracie.

“I think he was going for a knife.”

“Thanks,” I said. I retrieved the rifle from where the dead security man lay and aimed it at James, the other security guy. “Take him and go,” I said, pointing at Fitzwater. “You might want to avoid letting him touch you. And put down your weapon. You won’t be taking that with you.”

“What did he do to Mike?” he asked, placing his pistol on the ground.

“Ask him.”

“I’m asking you.”

I hesitated before deciding that telling the guy might pay dividends in the future. “You ever cast with blood?”

His cheeks reddened, but he held my gaze. “Yeah, some.”

“Well that’s what he did, but he doesn’t need to cut someone open to do it. He used magic to suck most of the blood out of your friend.”

“With his hand?”

“That’s right. For a spell that was supposed to control all four of us. Back away from the pistol.” He glanced at the rifle I still had aimed at his heart, and took several steps back. I grabbed the weapon off the ground and gestured for Gracie and the kids to come back down the hillside.

“We’re getting in our truck now,” I said. “And we’re leaving. You can try to stop us, but I think you know we’re both more powerful than you are. Together we could rip your head off.”

He swallowed, nodded.

I took Zach’s hand again, and the four of us hurried down to my dad’s truck, giving the pilot a wide berth, though it seemed Gracie’s spell had knocked him out cold.

I slowed as we neared the truck, my eyes on the chopper.

“What’s the matter?” Gracie asked, voice still tight.

“I’d like to disable that chopper, but I’m not sure how to do it.”

“Maybe this’ll work.”

Magic sang in the air around us and one of the rotors twisted downward with a groan of metal and then a splintering of composite. When she was done, the blade had a ninety degree bend in it.

I wasn’t sure how she had cast the spell, or where she’d gotten the power to do such a thing, but those questions could wait. “Yeah,” I said. “That should do it.”

She nodded, but I saw sweat on her brow and upper lip where there had been none a moment before. She started toward the truck again, her first step a little unsteady.

“You all right?”

“Fine. Where are we going?” she helped Emmy and Zach pile into the pickup.

“The road’s one way,” I said, tossing the weapons I’d taken into the truck, in the space behind the seat. “So we’ll complete the loop, pack up our sites, and get the hell out of here.”

I started the truck, threw it into gear, and peeled away with a splatter of dirt and gravel.

“You know, I was doing fine here until you showed up,” Gracie said, glaring at me from the far side of the cab. “Where the hell did you go yesterday? For all I know, they followed you back here.”

“Yeah, for all you know, which isn’t a whole hell of a lot. It’s just as possible that they would have found you regardless. And if I hadn’t been here, they’d have taken you, or killed you.”

“Whatever. Why don’t you drop of us back at our site and go back to Phoenix? We don’t need your help. We don’t want your help. I can keep my kids safe without you.”

I swallowed the first response that came to mind. Kids this young shouldn’t be exposed to that kind of language.

I eyed the rearview and side mirrors, checking the sky for any sign of a second copter. I didn’t hear rotors, at least not yet. But by now I was sure one of our pursuers had radioed for help. I should have done something to the instrumentation. I had no reason to care about James, the other security guy, but I found myself hoping that Fitzwater didn’t use the opportunity to drain him, too.

I chanced a look at Emmy and Zach. “Kids, how are you doing?”

Emmy shrugged and said nothing.

“I’m hungry,” Zach said, the sullen tone a match for his expression. If it wasn’t for the zebra in his arms, he probably would have melted down already.

“Yeah, so am I.”

Gracie fished around in the backpack she’d tucked behind the seat back at the campground, and pulled out a handful of granola bars and a water bottle.

She handed a bar to each kid, and, after a moment’s pause, held one out for me. I eyed it, eyed her, then took it.

“Thanks.”

I’d never liked the sweet bars, but at that moment I would have been happy with Twinkies. The water made its way down to me and I took a few sips.

“You sure they can’t fly that thing with only four blades?” Gracie asked.

“Pretty sure.”

I saw some of the tension drain from her neck and shoulders.

“But they’ll be calling for reinforcements. I don’t imagine that Fitzwater gives up that easily.”

She looked up at the sky. “No, he doesn’t.”

“This is the first place they’ll look.”

She twisted around and I could tell she was about to lay into me again.

“I’m sorry,” I said before she could open her mouth. “You didn’t need me telling you that.”

The anger drained from her eyes, and her entire body appeared to sag. I had a feeling that rage had been the only thing keeping her going.

“I don’t know where else to hide,” she said, her voice flat.

“Maybe it’s time to hit a city. L.A. might work, or Vegas.”

She shook her head. “Cities make me nuts. And with the phasing coming, I’d rather not be in a hotel or on a friend’s couch.”

I understood that.

I stared out at the road, wondering if she was right, and I really had led Fitzwater and his pals to them. “I didn’t think I was followed,” I said, my voice low. “I’ve taken a lot of precautions the last few days. This isn’t even my car.”

“You stole it?” Emmy asked, turning wide eyes on me.

Gracie let out a snort of laughter.

“No, I borrowed it.”

Emmy’s smirk conveyed such skepticism that I had to laugh, too.

“Seriously, it’s my dad’s.”

“Oh,” she said, sounding disappointed. “I thought stealing cars was a weremyste thing.”

I glanced at Gracie, who shook her head.

“Long story.” Her smile faded. “I shouldn’t have said that before, about you leading them to us. I don’t know that, and the truth is you’re probably right. They would have found us anyway. They’re going to find us no matter where we go.”

“Not necessarily. If you can keep moving –”

The laugh that escaped her was devoid of all humor. “Right. That’s some way to grow up. Endlessly on the run.”

“Not endlessly. Just until we figure out a way to beat them.”

She opened her mouth to say more. Both kids were watching her, though, and upon seeing this she clamped her mouth shut again. But I knew exactly what she was going to say. They can’t be beaten.

“Actually, they can be,” I said, responding to the unspoken words. “I’ve done it before.”

“Yeah? When was that?”

“You ever heard of the Blind Angel Killer?”

 

Through Fire – Snippet 04

Through Fire – Snippet 04

To Walk the Night

“That’s– ” I took a deep breath. I’d seen images like that from the Turmoils, three hundred years ago. But it was three hundred years ago. Surely it couldn’t happen now. We were more civilized, even on Earth, weren’t we? “Why would anyone do that?”

“Intimidation,” Alexis said. He looked at me, as though trying to figure out just what I’d be prepared to accept. “They’re hoping by being as barbaric as possible, they can get us to surrender before we think of fighting back.” He opened his side of the flyer and said, “Come, they might trace this. We must continue on foot, and fast.”

I got out and found him there, waiting, reaching for my hand. “I know the way,” he said. “At least the way to get away from this.”

I stopped. My hands grabbed at the stuff of my dress. “But we must fight back. They can’t be allowed–”

“We will,” he said. “Or at least I will as soon as I know what’s happening. You, on the other hand, aren’t part of this and I promised the Good Man to keep you safe.”

“It’s nonsense,” I said. “I’m stronger than you. I’m faster. I’m probably faster and stronger than Simon.” I saw his face cloud but couldn’t quite read the expression. “I’m supposed to protect others.” The last came out as a wail and even I couldn’t have known what I meant by it, except that since I remembered my foster parents had told me I should use my extraordinary strength and agility to protect others, rather than hurt them. They’d never told me what to do, I realized, when doing one required the other. They’d left me to navigate those waters on my own.

He frowned at me. Then unceremoniously grabbed my forearm, pulled me along. “You’re not stronger than all the people at once. You’re not stronger than a mob.”

He picked an odd path through the extensive gardens of the palace. I could feel roots and rocks under my feet. The ballroom slippers so perfect for dancing were not at all helpful in broken terrain. But I could hear sounds of people. Not peaceful sounds: Shouting and screaming and occasional snatches of running and barbaric song; most definitely not peaceful sounds. If what my enhanced hearing could pick up was right, then the avenues of the garden, those paths that would be easier to walk, were full of the same people who had invaded the ballroom.

Alexis was doing a good job of keeping us away from them, given that he didn’t have my abilities. He stirred us down slippery lawns and amid tree groves. Necessary if we didn’t want to fight, since he was wearing the white, gold-braid bedecked uniform of Simon’s personal guard, and I was not only wearing a conspicuous ball gown, but my holo-image had been all over local casts, as the Patrician’s special guest.

“You don’t understand,” I said. “I can fight. We don’t have to run away. I’m not … a normal human.”

There was a sound suspiciously like a chuckle, as he took a sharp turn at a cypress grove. It was hard to be sure of the song, as there was a whistling wind blowing from the sea and it carried with it the faint echo of revolutionary lyrics. His next words were clear, though. “I know,” he said.

The words took my own breath away for a moment. The implications of them made me a little dizzy. “You know?” I asked, my voice sounding like I felt.

He looked back and he was not smiling, which was good and might have saved his life. “The Good Man told me,” he said. “Come on. If you’re going to start screaming at me, I’d like to get further away from the palace first.”

“I don’t want to scream,” I said, which was true. What I wanted was to understand.

My origins weren’t so much a secret as they’d be unbelievable to ninety percent of the people on Earth old enough to understand them.

My ancestors, or at least the ancestors of the people who’d founded Eden, the tiny and secretive colony of my birth, had left Earth three hundred years ago.

They’d been bio-improved people created to serve the creatures who called themselves the bio-lords, but whom Earth history called Mules. The name came from their being all male and infertile with human females, thus designed so they couldn’t form a race that would supersede natural humanity.

They’d been created not as rulers but as servants: efficient, all-capable servants who would help rulers administer the massive bureaucracies of the twenty-first century.

They’d taken over. For over a hundred years, they’d ruled as lords of all. And, raised as slaves, insufficiently attached to the human race, their rule had been ruthless and implacable. When the revolt came, which they’d seen coming, about half of them had gathered all they could of their bio-improved servants and taken them away from the Earth, away from the massacres of the bio-improved by the normal, and to space in a ship called the Je Reviens.

No one, not even in Eden, knew what had happened between the Mules and their servants abroad the Je Reviens. All we knew was that after less than a year of travel, it had been decided that the less-bio-improved people, the servants of the bio-lords, those who were still capable of reproducing with normal humanity and who were still more human than not, should be left in a hallowed out asteroid, to found their own colony.

The separation had been achieved with such haste that the colony had not been provided with its own means to collect energy. Instead, it had to send envoys to Earth orbit to collect pods from the powertrees, the biological solar collectors seeded by the Mules in the days of their rule.

Those secretive collections were made in darkships. Dark, so as not to be noticeable against the massive, black trunks of the powertrees. The ships were also, even in comparison to transport flyers on Earth and on Eden, nearly blind and certainly stupid. Instead of improving them and risking their falling in enemy hands with all their information, Eden bio-improved their pilots and navigators, for agility and vision, and sense of direction and memory. I’d been the navigator and mechanic of such a ship for six years, half of a team with my late husband.

If we were disabled or captured, pilot and navigator were to commit suicide rather than let Earth know for sure we existed or where Eden was. I shied away from that thought and thought instead that the system had worked, that this was why darkship thieves were as much of a myth on Earth as elves or mermaids.

“You know I’m a darkship thief?” I asked.

He actually stopped. He’d been walking ahead, regardless of my attempts to talk. “I know you’re like the Patrician,” he said. One of the Mules. I know you’re as close as possible to a female clone of Jarl Ingemar.”

And then I almost screamed. Jarl Ingemar was arguably the best of the Mules. Or possibly the worst, depending on whom you asked. His rule certainly had been more intrusive than others. You see, he was well intentioned and brilliant. The powertrees, a lot of the bio-improvements to other humans, more innovations than could be listed were counted to his credit.

If you could imagine Leonardo da Vinci created and raised in a wholly artificial environment and encouraged to think it was his lot to improve not just humanity’s living conditions but humanity itself, you’d be pretty close to Jarl Ingemar.

He’d been the mind behind the conception and creation of the Je Reviens. He’d also been one of the two Mules who’d chosen to stay behind with the almost normal servants of the Mules, to assist in the founding of Eden. And who, little by little, had encouraged people to forget he still lived, as he walled himself up in a fortress of solitude and isolation.

 

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 19

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 19

“We did have one, until he broke a leg falling down the stairs in a brothel,” Leon said. “And be fair, Gasparo, Gribbleflotz seems competent enough. After all, he did get Francis through that bout of fever when we first landed at Vodice.”

“He was just lucky,” Gasparo said. “I mean, he didn’t even bleed Francis. What kind of physician doesn’t bleed a man when he’s feverish?”

“As the interested party here,” Francis Scocco said. “Might I suggest that Signor Gribbleflotz is the kind of physician who has his patient’s best interests at heart?”

“But everyone knows you have to bleed a man when he has a fever, how else can balance the humors?” Gasparo said.

Leon looked at Gasparo over his mug. “You seem to know a lot about blood-letting.”

“I have a booklet that tells all about how to do it,” Gasparo admitted. He turned to Francis. “You were lucky to recover from your fever, and it was no thanks to Gribbleflotz and his silly infusion of herbs.”

“Willow bark tea, actually,” Francis said. He grinned at the looks of disbelief on his companions’ faces and shrugged. “I asked him what he had given me.”

“My grandmother used to give us willow bark tea when we were ill when I was young,” Leon said.

“There you are then,” Gasparo said, a smile of victory on his face. “What kind of physician prescribes remedies your grandmother would give you?” He turned back to watch Phillip again. “Do any of you have any idea what he’s doing?”

“No,” Francis said. “Why don’t you walk over and ask him?”

“Not likely,” Gasparo said.

****

Phillip tried on one of the wreaths he’d made from some of the flowers he’d picked. It took a little adjustment before it felt comfortable. Then he threaded his arm through the rest of the wreaths he’d made and walked across to the other members of the expedition. He dropped a wreath on the table in front of each of the teamsters.

Gasparo looked up at him. “What is it?’

“It’s a wreath of insect repelling flowers. The locals use them and I thought we could copy them and wear these to keep the flies from bothering us.

“Not likely,” Gasparo said as he tossed his wreath back towards Phillip. Leon and Francis followed suit.

Phillip hid a smile as picked up the unwanted wreaths. He didn’t think the time making the wreaths had been wasted because, if what he’d heard about the area they were exploring today was correct, they would soon be begging him for a wreath. With that to look forward to he walked over to the team’s botanist. “Hi, Michael, would you like a wreath of Tanacetum cinerariifolium?”

“I’d like that very much, thank you,” the team botanist said. He accepted the wreath from Phillip and put it on. “How do I look?” he asked.

Phillip reached over and twitched it around a little. “Probably at least as silly as I do,” he said.

Michael jerked his head towards the others. “I see none of the others wanted to wear one of your wreaths.”

“They’ll change their minds soon enough.”

“They’re teamsters, Phillip. You don’t really expect them to change their minds do you?”

“I do,” Phillip said. “In my experience, teamsters aren’t totally stupid, and according to the locals I talked to, the marsh area you want to explore has some nasty insects.” A small grin emerged on Phillip’s face.

Michael shook his head ruefully. “You’re all heart, Phillip.”

“I made wreaths for them. All they have to do is come and ask me for them. I won’t even say a word.”

“Yeah, right,” Michael snorted. “As if you’d ever be able to do that.” He gestured to the bunch of wreaths Phillip still had on his arm. “You appear to have gone a bit overboard making the wreaths . . .”

Phillip shook his head. “No. I’m such a nice guy that I made one each for the animals as well. There’s no reason they should have to put up with the flies if they don’t have to.”

A few hours later

Francis waved a hand at the flies buzzing around his head. They were persistent and annoying. Some of them also bit. He looked at the team of pack animals they were leading. Their tails were twitching regularly to stop the insects settling on their bodies, but they weren’t shaking their heads around anywhere near as much as they usually did. Maybe, he thought, the flowers set around their ears were actually keeping away the flies. He stared at them enviously for a few seconds before making a decision. He hurried to catch up with Leon, who was leading the team.

“Those flower wreaths Signor Gribbleflotz made seem to keep the flies from bothering the ponies,” he said.

“Yes,” Leon agreed.

“I was thinking . . .”

“That you might ask Signor Gribbleflotz if the offer of the flower wreaths still stands?”

“Yes,” Francis said.

“Get one for me while you’re at it,” Leon said. Francis responded with a savage glare, but Leon gestured to the string of pack ponies he was leading. “I can’t leave the ponies.”

Francis released a sigh as he conceded defeat. It looked like he would have to approach Signor Gribbleflotz to ask for a couple of wreaths. He trudged after Phillip and his donkey. Although why he’d insisted on having a donkey to carry his gear Francis couldn’t understand. Ponies were much easier to manage. A minute of two later he came up beside Phillip. “Signor Gribbleflotz, I was just wondering if the offer of the daisy wreaths still stands.”

Phillip responded by pulling three wreaths out of a sack on his donkey’s back and handing them to him. He didn’t say a word, but he did have an amused smile on his face. Francis thanked him and hurried back to Leon.

“Here you are,” he said as he handed a wreath to him.

Leon took the wreath and pulled it on immediately. “What did he say?” he asked as he adjusted the wreath.

“Nothing,” Francis said. “He just gave me three wreaths.”

“One for you, one for me, and one for Gasparo?

“It looks that way. You wouldn’t want to take it to him, would you?”

Leon reached out and gently slapped the withers of the nearest pony. “Sorry, but I can’t leave the ponies.”

“That excuse is getting a bit old,” Francis muttered, much to Leon’s amusement. He glared at Leon’s smiling face and stomped off after Gasparo.

“Here, you’ll probably want this,” he said when he caught up with him.

Gasparo looked from Francis to the wreath of flowers in his hand. “Where did you get them?”

“I asked Signor Gribbleflotz for them.”

Gasparo looked from the wreath in his hands to the one around Francis’ head. “Do they work?”

Francis nodded. Since he’d put on his wreath he hadn’t been bothered by flies trying to land near on his face. “It seems to.”

Gasparo plopped on his wreath. “Where do you suppose Signor Gribbleflotz learned the trick?”

“Didn’t he say they locals used the flowers to keep away insects?”

“Yes,” Gasparo agreed, “but have you seen any of the locals wearing bunches of flowers on their heads?”

Francis thought about it. “No.”

“So how did Signor Gribbleflotz know that wearing the flowers would work?”

Francis shrugged. “You could ask him,” he suggested.

Gasparo shook his head. “I’d look like a fool,” he protested.

****

Phillip hid a smile. A quirk of the terrain meant that he’d overheard Francis and Gasparo talking. The answer to Gasparo’s question was that he’d learned about the flower wreaths from some of the locals. The reason Gasparo and Francis hadn’t seen any of them wearing similar flower wreaths was because they hadn’t seen any of the locals working in areas where flies and other insects were that big a problem. Things were different for the expedition. They were looking for botanical specimens, and that meant they were entering areas the locals would normally avoid at this time of year, such as the marsh Michael was currently exploring, which seemed to be a breeding ground for all sorts of flying insects.

He looked around to see where Michael was. As usual the botanist had his head buried in amongst the grasses. He walked over to see if he could help.

 

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 04

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 04

Caitlin looked to Dannet. “How long until we can jump?”

“We will jump when we are ready, Director Kralik,” Dannet said with a sly crackle of green in her eyes. One of her ears flicked with repressed-amusement.

A smile quirked at Caitlin’s lips. Dannet was referring to the infamous Jao time sense. Jao always knew how long something would take or when it would happen. They had no need to chop time into tiny pieces and then obsessively count them as they maintained humans did. Strangely, after years of association with Jao, sometimes she thought she could feel it too.

“But in human values,” the fleet commander continued, “probably not long.”

“Good. Until then,” Caitlin said and stood, signifying that the meeting was adjourned. “Batten down the hatches. We’re heading on.”

“I do not know those words, Madam Director,” Dannet said, rising to her lean muscled height and gazing down at Caitlin. “What are `hatches,’ and how, as well as why, are we to `batten’ them?”

“It’s a nautical Terran term,” Caitlin said. “It means secure everything and ready the ship for action.”

“Then I see no reason why you did not simply say so,” Dannet said with an impatient wrinkle of her muzzle. The four Lleix stumbled back to make room as the big Jao strode out of the conference room, her body stiff with simple irritation.

The door slid open, then closed. “You shouldn’t tease her,” Tully said, gazing after Dannet, though his green eyes twinkled. “I don’t care what color harness she wears now, that one is always going to be pure Narvo at heart. She might snap one day and tear off your head.”

“I know,” Caitlin said. “But it’s just so tempting.”

Wrot took a posture of unabashed amusement-at-the-expense-of-others. “Well,” he said, with an undecipherable twitch of his whiskers, “there is that.”

****

Caitlin Kralik stopped at the door to her suite.

“Caewithe, you and Tamt take off and get some rest. I’ll be in my room the rest of the evening. These guys,” she nodded at the two Terra taif jinau who stood beside the door, “will take care of me tonight.”

“No midnight expeditions without us,” Caewithe said.

“You’ll be the first I call if something comes up,” Caitlin said, holding up a hand as if swearing an oath.

Caewithe made a brushing motion with her hand. “All right, hit the sack, then. See you mañana.”

Caitlin gave a tired wave and ducked through her door. Caewithe gave the two bodyguards, one human and one Jao, the eye.

“We’ve got it, captain,” the human said with a grin. The Jao just wrinkled his nose in the barest sketch of assent.

“Call me if she leaves,” she ordered.

“Yes, sir.”

Caewithe and Tamt headed down the hall side by side. Sailors and soldiers of both races ducked around them. As chief bodyguards to Caitlin, even though their ranks were nominal, their status among the Jao was high. Caitlin was a member of the service of Aille krinnu ava Terra, governor of Terra and first kochan-father of Terra taif, so her personal status was about as high as it got among the Jao; plus she had oudh over the fleet’s mission, which meant that she was essentially in command over them all. All that status reflected on her bodyguards. As a person in service, Caitlin could not take people in service to herself, but her bodyguards came closest to that status in the eyes of the Jao, and the humans of the mission didn’t think much less of her than the Jao did.

The two bodyguards drew near to a mess room, and Caewithe looked up at Tamt. “You up for some tea?”

The Jao grunted. “Swim first. My skin is so dry that it’s about to powder.”

“Right. Later, then.”

Tamt said nothing, just continued down the hall headed for the nearest pool.

Caewithe ducked into the mess room and walked over to a beverage dispenser, where she punched the buttons for Tea, Earl Grey, Hot, Decaf. She did want to sleep tonight, after all. Collecting her cup, she parked at a table and pulled out her com pad to check the next day’s schedule.

She had finished that review and was about to open a report sent to her by one of her sergeants when someone else came in the mess. She looked up to see Lieutenant Fflewdwr Vaughan coming in the room, reading his com pad as he walked. He made his way over to a beverage dispenser and seemingly punched buttons by feel, never looking up. Caewithe decided he had really good peripheral vision as he collected his cup without a fumble and brought it to his lips.

Caewithe hadn’t had a lot of contact with the lieutenant, yet, but what little she had seen had impressed her. He was smart, sharp, quick on the uptake; and it didn’t hurt any that he was easy on the eyes. Ever since her relationship with Gabe Tully had cooled to the point where they admitted it wasn’t going to work between them, she’d kind of had an eye out for a possible companion. Vaughan had recently been added to the short–too short–list. So her ears perked up, figuratively speaking.

One sip, and Vaughan frowned. “We can fly between the bloody stars,” he pronounced, “but we can’t program a machine to make a cup of bloody tea.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Caewithe said. “I think it’s pretty good.”

Vaughan looked up in surprise.

“Oh, Captain Miller, I didn’t see you.”

“I didn’t think you had,” she replied, “the way your eyes were glued to your pad.”

“Sorry.” Vaughan took another sip of the tea, and grimaced.

“Is it really that bad?” Caewithe laughed.

“I’ve drunk worse,” Vaughan said, “but not willingly. You, however, being an American, have undoubtedly been abusing your taste buds with generic coffee ever since you were big enough to reach your mother’s cup.”

“Guilty as charged, Lieutenant. Have a seat.” She waved at a chair at her table, and Vaughan folded his tall frame onto it. “Can I ask you a couple of questions?”

“Ask away.” Vaughan took another swig of tea, this time repressing his grimace of distaste.

“How do you pronounce your first name? My best guess is Flewdwer but I doubt that’s right.”

He smiled. “Not bad, actually, for someone who’s not Welsh. But you can save yourself a lot of grief since I generally go by ‘Flue’. What’s your second question?

“Just what do you do for Fleet Commander Dannet?”

Vaughan snorted, then said, “Whatever I can. In a human navy, she’d be a commodore at least, or more likely an admiral, and I’d be a flag lieutenant. But Dannet’s Jao, and they don’t have that concept.”

Caewithe thought for a moment. “But actually, wouldn’t a flag lieutenant be kind of like being in service, like Caitlin Kralik is to Aille?”

“We had hoped that she would see it that way,” Vaughan replied. “But Dannet’s not high enough up in the taif ranks to be allowed to take people into service, so I don’t think I fit into that slot in her mind. And she’s still struggling with what to do with a staff-member who doesn’t automatically feel what it is he’s supposed to be doing. Almost as much as I am, that is,” he ended in a disgruntled tone.

“We?”

Vaughan looked discomfited. “Well, Lieutenant General Kralik and Wrot. They asked me to volunteer along with some others when Dannet asked for a staff. She chose me, and we talked again.”

“And?”

“And?” Vaughan repeated.

“And if Wrot’s involved, something sneaky is probably going on. Give.”

Vaughan laid his cup and com pad down, placed his hands on the table, and leaned forward. When he spoke, his voice was low.

“I really am on her staff, and I really am trying to learn to be a flag lieutenant to a Jao. But I’m also her tactical shadow.” Caewithe gave him a skeptical look, and he nodded vigorously. “‘Strue.”

“So what’s a tactical shadow?”

“I’m supposed to record everything she says and does during combat situations, audio and visual, with time ticks and running commentary and every impression I can give. At some point we,” gesturing to the two of them, “are going to want to see humans in the command seat of a Lexington class ship, right?”

Caewithe nodded.

“Well, then, Dannet’s about the best we can learn from. She was Narvo, after all.”

Of all the Jao kochans, Narvo was the most combat oriented, particularly in space-borne conflict. Only the Bond of Ebezon compared favorably to them, and the Bond drew the best from all the kochans.

Dannet had joined Terra taif willingly, but no one forgot where she came from. No one.

“That explains why her,” Caewithe said, “but why shadow?”

“She’s Jao,” Vaughan said. “How good are any of them discussing anything that has to do with their ‘flow’ sense?”

“Point.”

At that moment, Vaughan’s pad beeped. “Crap! I’m supposed to be on the command deck in three minutes! Bye!” He slurped his tea and was gone.

An intense young man, Caewithe decided. But she liked intense.

 

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 28

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 28

The pirates had been cruising at low thrust, just enough to maintain a semblance of gravity. There was no reply by radio, but two and then the third vessel came up to what was probably full power. As Adele watched, one vessel entered the Matrix. The other pirates followed a moment later.

“I don’t blame the locals for not chasing them off,” Daniel said, back on the two-way link. “But they ought to be able to smash the water buffalo. Still, it’s not our business.”

Adele was sure that Daniel did blame the Peltry forces. She understood that it was considered polite to be charitable to incompetents, but she had never been able to fathom why.

“Princess Cecile, this is Newtown Control,” the radio voice said unexpectedly. “Is Captain Leary aboard, over?”

Without hesitation, Vesey sent an alert to Adele’s console, passing the call to her. Adele, feeling her voice harden further with each word, said, “Ground, this is Princess Cecile. Captain Leary is aboard. What is your reason for asking, over?”

“Princess Cecile,” said Newtown Control, “the Tarbell Stars have directed that Captain Leary and his staff report as soon as they arrive to Christopher Robin, the Minister of War. The Ministry will send an aircar to pick them up, over.”

“Message received,” Adele said without discussing the matter with Daniel. “Princess Cecile out.”

Instead of turning her head toward Daniel, Adele expanded his face on her display. Over the two-way link she said, “Well, it gives you plenty of time to change.”

Daniel stretched at his console. “It would,” he said, “but I think I’ll wear these utilities, like the civilian captain I am. I’ll wear a saucer hat, though.”

He frowned slightly and added, “You know, I think it might be just as well if you weren’t with me. Though if you want to come, of course…?”

“I can check with the local representative of our principal during the time,” Adele said calmly. She knew that Daniel liked to keep a distance from her intelligence activities, but there was more going on here. “Is there any particular reason that you’d like me to be absent?”

Daniel laughed; the question seemed to have restored his normal good humor. “Not really,” he said. “Well, the same reason you didn’t give a real answer to the demand. We knew we’ll be working with the Minister of War, but…”

He frowned again and said, “There are a lot of people who can give me orders. They all wear RCN uniforms. More to the point, none of them are jumped-up quartermasters like Christopher Robin, sitting behind desks in the back of beyond.”

Adele smiled. Lady Mundy understood Captain Leary’s reaction very clearly. Another person would have laughed out loud.

Newtown on Peltry

“Captain Leary?” said the man waiting on the pier in a white uniform without rank insignia. “I’m Captain Walters. I’m to escort you and your staff to the Minister of War.”

Daniel eyed the aircar behind Walters. It would seat twelve in the benches running along the sides of the passenger compartment; there was a cab in front for the driver.

“Is that Army?” Hogg said, frowning. “It sure looks like it.”

“It doesn’t have armor,” Daniel said. “Police, maybe. A paddy wagon, I shouldn’t wonder.”

Walters was young and had a fluffy blond beard which contrasted with the flush of his skin. “His Excellency wasn’t sure how many personnel you would be bringing. I thought it best to borrow a vehicle from the Quick Response Force of the National Police. It is not a prison van.”

“I’ve ridden paddy wagons before,” Daniel said mildly. “We can leave whenever you’re ready, Master Walters.”

Walters looked past Hogg and Daniel and frowned. “I’m to bring your staff with you, Captain Leary,” he said.

“That’s me,” said Hogg, sauntering past Walters toward the aircar. The female driver watched him silently. She had shut down her fans.

“I distinctly remember His Excellency telling me there would be a woman!” Walters said.

“Then he’s going to be disappointed,” Daniel said, walking around the aide’s other side. He had told Hogg about the summons from Minister Robin, but he probably wouldn’t have needed to. Hogg automatically got a chip on his shoulder when he had to deal with what he considered uppity foreigners — who were basically anybody who wasn’t a Cinnabar citizen.

“Say, but if you find one,” Hogg said, “see if she’s got a friend. I don’t know anybody yet on this pisspot world.”

“Drive to the Ministry!” Walters called to the driver as he got in behind them. He banged the door shut. The back had a cage of heavy wire. It could be covered with a tarpaulin, but at present the mesh was open to the sky.

The driver balanced her six motors and lifted. The two beneath the stern squealed loudly at idle. Probably why she’d shut down while she waited, Daniel thought, but the sound muted once the oil was at full pressure.

“I was expecting to call on the President as soon as I’d changed,” Daniel said truthfully to Walters. He raised his voice only slightly.

Walters had seated himself on the back end of Daniel’s bench. He slid closer so that he didn’t have to lower his dignity by shouting and said, “You’re welcome to see President Menandros, but if you want to discuss the war you’ll be very disappointed. If you’re a wine connoisseur, the President is your man.”

Daniel nodded with a smile. For the first time the aide sounded like a real human being instead of the puffed-up retainer of a puffed-up bureaucrat. He said, “Then perhaps I’ll get on better with Master Robin than I feared I would from his summons.”

Walters flushed again. “He is the Minister of War of the Tarbell Stars, Captain Leary,” he said.

“Right,” said Hogg. “And me and the young master is Cinnabar citizens. So now we’ve decided who’s the class act on, what’s the name of it again? Peltry.”

The driver flew them around a large courtyard building, three stories tall like the square structures to either side of it. The front entranceway was covered by a cornice supported on full-height pillars, but the back was an alley not much wider than the aircar. The driver settled to the alley pavement skillfully, keeping a degree of forward motion to steady the vehicle despite the currents eddying between the buildings. She shut off the motors.

“His Excellency thought it would be better for you to arrive without fanfare,” Walters said. “There are spies in Newtown, you see.”

Yes, Daniel thought. We’re working for some of them.

Storn’s officers weren’t the only spies on Peltry, of course. But it was equally obvious that entering by the back door wasn’t going to keep Daniel’s presence a secret from the Upholders and their 5th Bureau backers.

I wonder if Robin is hoping to hide us from his President?

The aircar had landed just ahead of an unobtrusive door in the back wall of the War Ministry. Walters removed an electronic key from his breast pocket and inserted it in the lock. The heavy door opened outward; it wouldn’t have cleared the side of the car if they’d been directly in front of it.

Walters gestured Daniel and Hogg into a dim-lit anteroom. “There’s no guard,” the aide said, “because there’s only this one key. His Excellency keeps it himself. Being entrusted with it was a great honor for me.”

Hogg sniffed, but Daniel was glad that he didn’t say what he was obviously thinking: if you think an electronic lock will keep out anyone but the key-holder, you haven’t met Adele. Which was true, of course.

 

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 36

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 36

By this time, Michael, the security man, had joined the older gentleman and was watching him like a dutiful puppy, awaiting his instructions.

“I can’t hold him off if he uses blood.”

Gracie said this in a low voice and I knew she was speaking to me, but I wasn’t sure what to say in response.

More to the point, at that moment Namid’s voice reverberated in my head. Blood magic is dark magic.

Maybe. But hadn’t he also told me that a blood spell could be forgiven if it was cast in desperation? Well, I was desperate to save the lives of these children and their mother. Could there be any better justification for casting such a spell?

Fitzwater smiled at the security man. “Forgive me,” he said.

Michael frowned, canting his head to the side. I think he meant to ask why the older weremancer had apologized. He never got the chance.

As soon as Fitzwater laid a hand on Michael’s shoulder, the security man’s eyes rolled back in his head, his knees buckled, and the rifle dropped from his hands. Still, somehow, despite the fact that Michael was six inches taller than Fitzwater and had to have fifty pounds on him, the older man held him upright with that one hand.

The other he stretched out toward us, his wrist cocked at a shallow angle so that I could see his palm.

Not good. Not good at all.

I did the only thing I could think of. Power might have been all around us, but blood was right there beneath my skin. I raked the underside of my left arm with the fingernails of my right hand, opening up three ragged gashes. Blood welled in them, and as the first tendrils of Fitzwater’s power caressed my skin, I cast.

I clung to that image — tendrils — and imagined my own spell as a thin steel wall slicing down through those leading threads of his magic and blocking the rest.

Fitzwater staggered at the touch of my conjuring, his eyes closing for a second. As the bulk of his assault slammed into my warding, I reeled back and almost fell. I sensed the wall I’d summoned bowing under the force of his casting, and I feared it wouldn’t hold. He had drawn more blood, and he was better at this than I was. I squeezed more blood from the wounds on my arm and cast the spell again. I’m sure the second crafting saved us. That and a spell Gracie cast to bolster my warding.

After perhaps forty-five seconds, Fitzwater opened his eyes once more, the look in them murderous. How could I have ever thought him charming?

He released his hold on the security man, allowing him to crumple to the ground, limp as a broken marionette. I noticed a small red stain on Michael’s shirt where Fitzwater’s hand had been.

“Holy shit, Mike!” the other security man said, running up the hillside to his friend. “What the hell happened to him?” He dropped to his knees beside Michael and felt for a pulse. “Jesus! He’s dead.” He glared up at Fitzwater. “What the hell was that? What did you do to him?”

“You should not have interfered, Mister Fearsson,” Fitzwater said, ignoring the man beside him.

“What are you going to do?” I pointed at Mike’s friend. “Kill him, too? Use his blood like you used Mike’s?”

The second security man backed away from him, scrabbling on all fours, like a bug.

“If you must know, I was planning to kill you.”

I had an idea of what was coming and I cast, hoping that my warding would be enough against Fitzwater, thinking that at least this once he wouldn’t have access to blood.

I should have known better.

A small rock flew from in front of him and hit the security man square in the forehead. Sandy Koufax couldn’t have aimed it better. Blood gushed from the wound it opened, only to vanish just as quickly.

Twice in the past year, I had been controlled by dark sorcerers, and that was two times too many. Etienne de Cahors had used such magic on me several times, and very nearly made me kill myself with my own firearm. Patty Hesslan, another of Saorla’s minions, tried to compel me to summon Namid so that she could kill us both. I hated these spells, and since the summer had been learning magic that would allow me to combat them.

But I was still a long way from perfecting those castings.

Fitzwater’s spell crushed my warding as if it were no more than tin foil and fell upon my mind with the weight of a boulder.

“Come here,” he said, the words reverberating in my mind.

I started toward him, unable to resist.

“Make him stop,” Gracie said from behind me, “or I swear to God, I’ll kill him before he gets to you.”

I didn’t have to see her to know that she had the Ruger aimed at me, which was good because I couldn’t have turned even if I wanted to. Fitzwater’s control on me was complete. I tried to cast a warding around my mind, as Namid had taught me, but my spells were no match for those of this silver-haired nightmare.

“And why should I care if you do?” he asked.

“Because then I’ll have access to his blood, too.”

I had covered about half the distance between us when Fitzwater held up a hand, stopping me. I stood utterly still, unable to do more, feeling weak and pissed at myself for still not knowing how to defeat these damn spells.

“What do you propose, Gracie? Are you prepared to surrender yourself to me? Are you willing to tell me where it is? You know that we don’t want to hurt you, or your children. We want you to join us, and we want what is rightfully ours. Come back with us, and all is forgiven. I’ll even let your friend here live.”

“You don’t want to hurt us. You want to enslave us.”

“What an ugly thing to say.”

“Get out of here,” Gracie said. “And don’t come near us again.”

Fitzwater shook his head. He was staring past me at Gracie, his eyes narrowed, and now he smiled again, though his charm had long since vanished. “I don’t think you’re going to shoot him at all. Even if you were capable of such a thing, he’s probably warded, as you were earlier when James fired that dart at you.”

He beckoned me forward with a waggle of his fingers. Helpless to do anything else, I started toward him again. I expected a bullet in the back of the skull at any moment, but maybe Fitzwater knew Gracie better than I did. She didn’t fire.

Silver-hair ordered me to stop once I was beside him, but he didn’t go for my blood right away. Apparently he thought I was more important to Gracie than she was letting on.

“Last chance, Gracie. Come with me quietly, by your own volition, or allow Mister Fearsson to die, and come with me anyway. It’s your choice, but my patience wears thin.”

I couldn’t move — not my hands or my legs. I couldn’t use my Glock to blow the bastard’s head off. I couldn’t even speak, and I’m not sure I would have known what to say if I could. But I could move my eyes — that had always been the case with these spells. For some reason I could direct them where I needed to.

And right now that meant looking down at the gouges I’d made in the skin of my forearm. They were bloody again. There wasn’t much, but the scratches had darkened as blood seeped into the rough channels. And I didn’t need a lot.

Namid was going to be really ticked at me.

Seven elements this time. Fitzwater, me, his control spell, my mind, a shield around it, Gracie and her kids, who needed me to break free, and the blood on my arm. I knew that a blood spell could defeat a control spell; I’d done this once before, although not against a weremancer as accomplished and powerful as Fitzwater.

As soon as I released the magic building inside me, he whipped his gaze around.

“What are you doing?”

He reached for me, and I jerked away from him. I didn’t have full control of my body, not yet. But I had won enough freedom for myself to stagger away, putting a bit of distance between us.

His hand brushed the front of my shirt, but nothing more. He didn’t touch me, which, I was sure, saved my life.

“No!” He growled the word, his face contorting.