Eric Flint's Blog, page 286

Into The Maelstrom – Snippet 12

Into The Maelstrom – Snippet 12

Chapter 4 – Pounce Predators

Allenson sat in his office and pondered. So now he had an aide. Well what could he do? Linsye had ambushed him well and truly and the lad was family. Allenson, as paterfamilias of the Allenson gens such as it was, was expected indeed obliged to further the career of his relatives but he had not intended to appoint an aide let alone one from Brasilia.

He had severe doubts about Todd’s suitability. The lad seemed bright enough, well-educated and with the necessary coating of sophistication. Blue Horizon University had seen to that. He was physically fit, but did he have the right attitude? Todd looked so much like Royman. Superficially at least, he behaved just like him at that age – like a young Brasilian gentleman. Royman was a decent chap but his temperament hardly made him aide material. Ah well, time would tell, it usually did.

Thoughts of Todd made him try out the slide reader and the slide Todd recommended. He juggled the interface between the decoder and his desk a little until they had contact. He couldn’t locate an index so he picked a still at random and projected it up as a sold hologram.

The result was a mess. He wondered whether the slide was too badly degraded to read. These objects normally had a near infinite life span. Resistant to chemical weathering, even cracking didn’t necessarily destroy their records beyond retrieval.

Inspiration dawned. He was looking at a two dimensional image in three dimensions. He flattened the hologram and Weimar’s picture snapped into focus.

It showed a night scene or at least a twilight scene. The sky was still pale blue. A faint orange glow backlit towers clustered together in a concrete coppice. Rows of lighted dots of windows gave the huge and brutalistic towers scale. In contrast, artificial light bathed the tops in gold and amber as if rejecting the darkening sky. In its way the artwork was a metaphor for the doomed civilization.

Weimar’s picture summed up the power, the confidence and the sheer naked aggression of the Third Civilization at its height. Here we stand and here we stay the towers proclaimed, nothing can touch us. It didn’t last of course. Entropy always has the last word.

The Third Civilization followed the First – The Monument Builders, and the Second – The Priest Kings of the Bronze Palaces, down into oblivion. At each stage human society climbed higher, becoming more complex, with greater technology and an exponentially larger population. Each time the resulting crash plunged deeper, the death toll worse, the destruction more complete and the recovery slower.

“Look on my works ye mighty and despair,” Allenson said softly.

The biowars marked the last spasm of the Third Civilization like the final ejaculation of a dying man. That particular folly nearly erased humanity. The human genome still carried the scars. That was something Allenson didn’t want to think about. It was too close to home.  His brother, Todd, wasted away from a genetic problem beyond the ability of Brasilia’s best genosurgeons to cure.

The high technology of the Homeworlds of the Fourth Civilization did not trump that of the Third in every regard. The modern age ruthlessly suppressed research into bioweapons for good reason.

The logistics of Continuum travel made it impossible for one Homeworld to conquer another. An invasion fleet arriving unpredictably as a dribble of frames could never hope to defeat a Homeworld’s defenses. Interior lines made it so easy to concentrate overwhelming defensive force at any point on the planet.

Invasion was out but destroying a Homeworld’s population was easy. Just one invader with a bioweapon in a flask could decimate a continent. A lone saboteur riding a single-man frame onto a world or hitching a lift in a ship was unstoppable.

Mass destruction is a useless strategic weapon, of course. Retaliation is so easy that everyone loses. A technological civilization with competing powers in possession of such weapons has but two options. The first is for everybody to be similarly armed and rely on MAD, mutually assured destruction. The logic is that no one starts a war they can’t win.

The problem is that MAD is a well named strategy. All it takes is for one madman on a mission to get control of a weapon just once. That or normal human incompetence. No weapon once developed had ever remained unused in the history of mankind.

So the ruling families of the Homeworlds showed a rare and touching human universal brotherhood. They banned not only bioweapons but also any genetic research that might lead to a sniff of a bioweapon.  When a colony of Terra forgot the lesson it was Terran forces that liquidated its population as a reminder that the Homeworlds really, really meant what they said.

Unfortunately that research embargo also meant that people were still suffering incurable effects from the bioweapon legacy but that was considered to be a price worth paying.

Allenson’s train of thought reminded him of his last conversation with Todd. His brother had scared him to the core by showing that that their Fourth Civilization was just as vulnerable as all the others. They thought they could beat the odds and reject the night but then, so had their predecessors.

The Fourth wasn’t stuck on a single world like the Third. However, the Homeworlds occupied such a tiny region of realspace when judged by astronomical distances. Just one supernova in the wrong place or some other hitherto unknown disaster and it would be back to banging the rocks together. Assuming there was anyone left to care.

Civilization must expand or die and the only realistic road for the Fourth Civilization was across the worldless Bight and into the Hinterlands. The Hinterland colonies had to grow and become self-sufficient for mankind’s sake in case something happened to their parent worlds. That was why he had to go to Paxton and listen to boring speeches from self-important people even though the thought made him want to throw up.

Allenson looked at the hologram again. The artist had made the picture from the vantage of a bridge over a wide waterway. Figures rendered indistinct by the gloom walked away from the artist towards the distant lights of the city. They strode purposefully along a laser-straight stabilized road surface. Why were they all walking in the same direction?

These shadow-people had been real flesh and blood. They lived and dreamed, bred children, buried loved ones, wept and laughed. They hoped and planned but all that they built was dust.

He clenched his fist. It was not going to happen to his world or to his people. He wouldn’t let it.

#

Allenson knelt at the base of one of the large fleshy-lobed yellow-ochre plants that served Pentire demesne in lieu of a compound fence. He got as close as he could without risk of contact. He could just see fine hairs sticking out of the brown nodules spotted across the plant. The hairs caused stings as painful as they were bloody dangerous. They injected a complex toxic biochemical mix containing lysosomic enzymes. These rapidly broke down the polymeric macromolecules that made up animal tissue.

Gunja plants were native to Rafe, one of the recent Hinterland colonies. Allenson had initially imported them with some success until an outbreak of spotfly caterpillars devastated the crop. A specimen crawled up the stem of the plant as he watched. It humped its purple and orange striped body as it climbed.

Spotflys were herbivores native to Manzanita. They laid their eggs in the mouths of carnivorous plants where they were protected against predators. Gunja plant venom and the hydrolases in Manzanita carnivorous plants were apparently close enough in chemical composition to confer immunity on the caterpillars. To spotflies, a Gunja plant fence was a well-stocked larder.

 

Polychrome – Chapter 24

Polychrome – Chapter 24

Chapter 24.

“He is clever! And lucky! Oh, Father, this might work, it might really work after all!” Polychrome was dancing around the viewing pool, the perfectly circular bowl of mist and rainbow through which Iris and those in the throne room could, when he willed it, see that which passed in the area of the Jewel of the Bridge.

Iris watched her closely, a faint smile on his lips but a chill in his heart. He glanced over at Nimbus, whose gaze met his grimly. It has begun.

There were so many things his instincts told him to do, to try and avert that which seemed more and more inevitable. But none of them did he dare. Any attempt to interfere could – almost certainly would – recoil upon him and his entire realm.

And instead I must take the hardest path of all. “It may indeed, daughter. A long road ahead of him, but thus far he has taken steps straight and true.”

She nodded, watching as Erik Medon left the Throneroom of Gilgad, then turned back to him as he continued to speak. “But there are more pressing matters today, Polychrome Glory.”

That gained her undivided attention. “Yes, Father?”

Carefully. Carefully. “Did you mean what you told me – and him – some time ago? That it was your will that you be present, even at the final battle?”

The delicate face hardened, the chin came up in the stubborn way he knew all too well. “You are not about to argue me out of it, Father!”

He raised his hand. “Speak not to me in such a tone, Polychrome. Yet know that I have no intention of arguing with you; long since have I given up any hope of persuading you to do anything save that which is already in your mind.”

A brief flash of a smile like the sun itself, and she bowed. “My apologies, my Royal Father.”

“Accepted as always, errant yet beloved.” He sighed. “Polychrome, if the field of war you would take, then prepared you must be, as prepared as any of my warriors – as prepared, indeed, as the finest of them, for you shall lead them.”

So shocked was she that the ever-dancing feet halted in mid-step and she stumbled. “What?” She glanced in confusion at Nimbus, then back to him. “Lead them?”

“Not in the details of war and strategy, My Lady.” Nimbus said. “What Lord Iris Mirabilis means is that you shall be the High Commander and his representative, though I shall of course continue to direct military matters.”

Polychrome looked suddenly uncertain. “Father?”

The lordly smile he wore was one of the hardest expressions he had ever had to maintain, against the twin fears he had. “Polychrome, I must remain here. Well you know the power of our enemies, and I will – as the Prophecy requires – be in essence emptying all of the Rainbow Land of its warriors. In case Ugu and Amanita attempt, in that time, a strike to the rear, an assault on my kingdom, then only one force remains to me that might defend this castle, this city, this land and all my people: myself. I must remain here, vigilant, ready for any and all threats and assaults that may come while my General and his armies are assaulting the Gray Castle and its legions.

“But still someone of the blood must be present, my hand be shown as clearly as though I myself were there upon the field of battle. Daughters only have I ever had, and of all of them, one, and one alone, has the courage, the will, the strength, and the heart to be my right hand and my sword.” He reached down, and took his daughter’s hand. “You, Polychrome.”

Her eyes were wide, and her grip spasmed tight on his hand as she came to understand. “I…”

“Lady Polychrome,” Nimbus said quietly, “this is simple truth as well as grim and necessary policy. If the assault upon Oz fails, Faerie cannot afford to lose Iris Mirabilis; he remains the sole and only hope the lands have now. Yet if the Rainbow Land falls, we cannot afford to lose hope, and the armies I command must return to take it; but retaking the Rainbow Castle will be of no use if there be none to take the Rainbow Throne. And only one other lives who could rally our people, one other that the other children of Iris Mirabilis will follow, one other whose face is known and loved throughout Faerie, even more so than our King himself.”

It seemed to sink in, finally, and as the lovely face became just a tiny bit older, the shoulders sag beneath an intangible burden and then straighten as though bearing up that weight, Iris Mirabilis thought his heart would simultaneously break for the loss of one more drop of her innocence, and burst with the swell of pride as she accepted the royal burdens. “I… I understand, Father, Nimbus.”

He embraced her then, allowing him a few moments to clear the unshed tears from his eyes. “It is well, daughter. Very well.” He rose and returned to the throne. “So you must train now, and train well, and train hard. As hard, perhaps, as the mortal Erik Medon did, and in some ways harder; for though he is surprisingly kind of heart, and unwilling to do injury, still he has the savagery of his ancestors locked within, and none of a Faerie’s inborn hesitance in warfare, that normally only those of dark and twisted nature may overcome.” He signaled to Nimbus, who bowed and hurried away.

Polychrome grew thoughtful. “I think I see. You can carry the battle to the enemy yourself, Father, and if I am to represent you or…” she hesitated, then forced out the words, “…or succeed you, then I must be fully as formidable as you.”

“As much as may be possible… and much is possible, my daughter.” The tall figure of Nimbus re-entered, carrying the polished silver box, four feet long and two square, that carried the seal of rainbow, spear, and hammer. Iris took the beautiful yet simple case from his General and laid it before Polychrome. “This was a gift to your mother from… your great-aunt, I suppose would be the best term. She never had need of it, for which I was always grateful; but now it has passed to you, her first child, and the time has come.”

Polychrome slowly reached out and touched the box; the seal reacted instantly to her touch, unlocking, the top springing open with a martial chime like a trumpeting bell. From inside, his daughter drew out armor, plate with mail permitting ease of movement, carven with ornate grace to be both elegant protection and shining symbol. “This… was mother’s?”

“In name, yes, although as I said, never did she wear it. I am unsure if she ever opened it, in fact.” He touched the mail, which rippled like water in sunlight. “Forged in the fires of the Above and passed to us. But armor is of little use to one who has not learned to make use of it.”

“Oh, Father… I will. I will learn, Father! I promise!”

Seeing her shining face, imagining herself taking the battlefield in the Armor of the Gods, Iris felt his heart sink once more. Yes, you will. Oh, Father and Mother help me, you will learn.

 

Spell Blind – Snippet 12

Spell Blind – Snippet 12

Chapter 10

The idea came to me in the middle of the night. One moment I was sleeping, deep and dreamless. The next I was awake, my mind racing.

A few months before, when I was working on a corporate espionage case and trying to learn what a suspect employee had been up to the day he disappeared from his office, I tried some new magic that Namid had taught me. I went to the employee’s office, and, using my scrying stone and holding something that belonged to the guy, I was able to see in the agate an image of him stealing the files and then concealing what he had done by altering the user logs on his computer.

So why couldn’t I do the same thing with Claudia Deegan? Why couldn’t I go back to South Mountain Park and scry what she had seen in the last moments of her life?

All I needed was some way to link her to my scrying.

I managed to get back to sleep for a few hours, but was wide awake by six. I went for a run to clear my head, and after a shower, a bite to eat, and two cups of Sumatran, I checked the time again. Eight-fifteen. That would have to be late enough. I called Howard Wriker’s cell. He answered on the third ring.

“Wriker.”

“Mister Wriker, this is Jay Fearsson.”

It took him a minute. “Mister Fearsson! The PI, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You have some information for me?”

“Nothing yet, I’m afraid.” I still wasn’t ready to share with him what little I knew. I didn’t want the Deegans to crush Robby Sommer and leave me without any way of tying the other Blind Angel victims to a potential drug source. Better to lie to the man, at least for now. “I’m still looking into it and I need a little help from you.”

“From me?”

“It’s nothing difficult and nothing that will link the Senator to the investigation. I simply need Claudia’s address. I’d like to . . . to search her place for anything that might help me.”

“Yes, all right.” He sounded uncertain, and I wondered if he regretted asking me to learn the truth about Claudia’s drug use. “Ah, here it is,” he said after several moments. “She lived with a girl named Maddie Skiles.” He gave me the address and phone number, both of which I wrote down in my note pad, along with Maddie’s name.

“Thank you, Mister Wriker.”

“You heard that the police made an arrest?”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

“It’s a great relief for all of us. For all of Phoenix, really. At least the madman who did this is off the streets.”

I should have agreed and hung up, but I couldn’t help thinking about what Kona had told me the night before. Someone close to the Deegans needed to hear that the pressure they were putting on the PPD wasn’t helping matters. “We can hope, sir,” I said.

“You don’t think they have the right man?” He sounded defensive. I wondered how much of that pressure had come from Wriker himself.

“No, sir, I don’t. I know that he threatened Claudia, and that he hated the Deegan family. But for three years the Blind Angel murders had nothing to do with the Deegans. To assume that this man is responsible for all those killings, just because he had it in for Claudia doesn’t make much sense to me.”

“Well, Mister Fearsson, it would seem that the Phoenix Police Department disagrees with you.”

“Yes, sir. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

He didn’t seem to know how to respond to that. “Yes . . . well . . . good day, Mister Fearsson.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Not the most comfortable phone conversation I’d ever had, but I’d gotten the information I needed. I gathered a few items in a backpack — two water bottles, my knife, my scrying stone, and a couple of granola bars. Then I left the house and drove back to Tempe.

Claudia had lived east of the campus, near Hudson Park, in a neighborhood that most college students couldn’t afford. The small yard needed some work — the flower gardens were overgrown with weeds and the grass was wispy and baked brown — but it was a nice house.

There were a few press people camped out front, but most of them ignored me, even after I parked in front of the house.

“Who are you?” one woman called to me.

I ignored her and strode up the walk to the front door. I got out my wallet and rang the bell. After waiting a bit, I rang it twice more and was ready to give up when at last the door opened a crack.

“Yeah?” said a young woman. Her hair was a mess, her face pale and puffy, like she’d just woken up, or maybe like she’d been crying. She wore a pink t-shirt and drawstring pajama pants.

“Miss Skiles?”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Jay Fearsson.” I showed her my PI license. “I’m a private investigator. I’ve been asked by the Deegan family to investigate the circumstances surrounding to Claudia’s death.”

She frowned. “Claudia’s parents hired a private eye? I don’t believe it.” I had a feeling she was about to close the door on me. I’m sure she’d had to put up with a lot of crap the past few days.

“Howard Wriker did,” I said the words tumbling out of me. “I talked to Randy and Tilo yesterday.”

She chewed her lip for a minute, and opened the door a hair more. “You did?”

“Yes. They even invited me to see them play Thursday at Robo’s. They want to know where Claudia got her drugs,” I said, my voice as gentle as I could make it. It was like trying to get a skittish dog to eat from my hand. “Do you have any idea?”

She eyed me for a minute, then nodded, her gaze flicking toward the cluster of reporters. “Yeah, I know,” she said. She wiped a tear off her cheek. “I don’t want to get in any trouble, you know?”

I nodded. “I understand. I’m sure this has been a rough time for you. I’m sorry for your loss.” I waited a moment, and then asked, “When did you see her last?”

“That morning. She left here saying she was going to the library. But I’m not sure she went there.” The door was opened halfway now and she was leaning against the edge, relaxing a little. “She wasn’t the studious type, you know. She didn’t have to be. She was really smart.” She bit her lip again. “Most of the time.”

“Sometimes smart people do stupid things.”

“Yeah,” she said. “That was Claud.”

I nodded. “Listen, I’m sure the police have searched this place top to bottom–”

“They have. It’s been, like, such a pain in the ass.”

“I don’t doubt it. But could I take a quick look around? I won’t take long, and it could be a big help.”

She tipped her head to the side and twisted her mouth. But she’d stopped crying, and I could tell that I’d won her trust, at least for the moment. “Yeah, I guess,” she said. She opened the door the rest of the way and stepped back to let me in.

It was a typical college student’s house, although a bit nicer than most. The furniture was all good quality, but nothing matched. The kitchen, which was off the living room, was filthy. The dish drain was full, as was the sink, and the entire house smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and rotten vegetables.

 

Spell Blind – Snippet 11

Spell Blind – Snippet 11

But when I pulled the door open, I found myself face to face with Billie Castle. Looking past her, I saw that the street and sidewalk were wet. It had rained while I was working with Namid. Seems my dad was right about that wind after all. The sky had cleared and the gibbous moon shone through the Acacia tree growing in my front yard. Even from the doorway, I could feel the moon’s pull, more insistent than last night, hinting at the power to come. Friday night. That’s when the phasing would begin.

Billie opened her mouth to say something, but then stopped herself, seeming to take in my appearance. Only now did I realize that I had sweated through my shirt and that my face was damp. Working spells for hours on end was hard work.

“Good God, Fearsson, what have you been doing?”

“Um . . . Working out.”

“Are you going to invite me in?”

“Sure.” I opened the screen door and she stepped past me into the house. I glanced at the moon one last time, then closed the door. Billie turned a full circle, surveying the living room, and stared right through Namid, who couldn’t be seen by those not descended from the Runeclave.

“Nice place.”

“Thank you. You want anything? Water? Coffee? Beer? Wine?”

“No, thanks.” She faced me. “You certainly took off in a hurry this afternoon.”

I shrugged, scrutinizing my coffee table as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. “I didn’t want to get in the way.”

“Boy, I expected you to be tougher than that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well,” she said, and now it was her turn to avoid my gaze. “I had the feeling that maybe you were, I don’t know, interested in me. You certainly were flirting and, well, you started to ask me out to dinner, and . . .” She shrugged, her eyes meeting mine again. “And then Joel shows up, and you run away like a frightened little boy.”

“Joel?”

She began to walk a slow circle around the room. “Joel Benfield. He’s one of my contributing writers. He teaches history at the University and writes about environmental issues and Western politics.”

“I’m sure he’s very nice. And I wasn’t frightened, I was just–”

“You assumed that he and I were already involved.”

“Well, aren’t you?”

She stopped right in front of me. I hadn’t noticed before that she smelled faintly of lavender, or that her eyes were actually two shades of green — forest green nearer the center, brightening to emerald around the edges.

“Boy, Fearsson,” she said. “I sure hope you’re better at detective work than you are at figuring me out.”

I grinned. “Fearsson. Is that what you’ve decided to call me?”

“I’m thinking about it. You mind?”

“No,” I said with a small shake of my head. “I like it.”

“So are you going to take me out to dinner tomorrow night?”

I laughed. “I don’t know. Are we still off the record?”

“Until we say otherwise.”

“Then I guess I am.”

“Good. Come by my house at six.”

“Where’s your house?”

“In Tempe,” she said. “Near Cyprus Park.” She crossed to my telephone table, found a pad and pen, and wrote down her address. “Here,” she said handing me the paper. “Do I need to pin this to your shirt?”

“No, I think I’ll manage to hold onto to it for twenty-four hours.”

“Good.” She crossed to the door and pulled it open.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes. “I found your house, for God’s sake. Do I have to figure out everything?”

“Fine. Six o’clock.”

“Don’t be late,” she said, stepping outside.

“I wouldn’t dare.”

I watched her walk back to her car, waved once as she started up and pulled away from the curb, and closed the door. Turning, I saw that Namid was watching me.

“What?” I said.

“You should be concentrating. You might well be in danger. The woman is a distraction.”

“Distractions can be a good thing now and then.”

The runemyste frowned.

Before he could say anything more, the phone rang. I recognized the number on the caller ID. Kona, at Six-Twenty.

I switched on the phone. “You’re working late,” I said, not bothering with a hello.

“Don’t give me any crap, Justis. I’m not in the mood.”

“Sorry. What’s up?”

“Mike Gann has formally been charged with Claudia Deegan’s murder.”

“Damnit, Kona! He didn’t do it! There’s no way he’s the Blind Angel killer!”

“I believe you,” she said, lowering her voice. “But it’s not like I can tell Hibbard that my friend the weremyste, the person he hates more than anyone else in the world, told me Gann’s not our guy, so we should let him go.”

I exhaled. “I know that.”

“What did you find out from Orestes?”

I winced, feeling guilty for the time I’d spent with Billie. “I haven’t seen him yet. I went to Robo’s and talked with a guy who’d worked with Gann. This guy knew that Gann was a weremyste, but what he told me confirmed what I saw in the interview room today: Gann’s not powerful or skilled enough to be a threat to anyone. I can’t talk to the manager until Thursday, but I’m not convinced that anything he’ll tell me will change my mind.”

“So you talked to one guy at Robo’s?” Kona said. “What have you been doing with yourself all afternoon?”

I felt my cheeks burning and was glad she wasn’t here to see me.

“Justis?”

“I had a . . . well, sort of a . . . a date.”

“No shit?”

I grinned. “No, shit.”

“Well, give me some details. You know Margarite’s going to ask me, and I have to have something to tell her.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Let’s start with her name.”

“Her name’s Billie. Billie Castle.”

“Huh. You mean like that blogger-lady?”

“Just like her.”

“Are you dating a celebrity?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess I am.”

“What’s she like?”

“She’s . . . I don’t know. She’s pretty, she’s smart, she’s pushy and opinionated and stubborn. You’d like her.”

“Well, damn. Ain’t that something? You had a date.”

“It’s not that big a deal.”

“No? When was your last date?”

“All right. Point taken.”

We both laughed and then fell silent.

“Randolph Deegan has got some serious pull, Justis,” she said. “I’ll do what I can to slow things down, try to keep Hibbard from executing the dude himself. But you need to give me something to go on. Anything.”

“I’ll find out what I can, partner. I’ll see Q tomorrow. Promise. And maybe I’ll go out to South Mountain, and see if I can find anything there. Is there still tape up where Claudia was found?”

“Yeah. It was that same ravine where we found the Santana kid. Slightly north.”

“Okay, thanks. I’ll be in touch.”

We hung up and I turned to Namid. “The police think the guy they have in custody is the one who killed all those kids with magic.”

He didn’t respond.

“They’re wrong, aren’t they?”

“Do you think they are?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“Then why do you ask me?”

I laughed. “I don’t know. I’m pretty wiped. And I’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.”

“Until next time, then. Watch yourself, Ohanko,” he said, as he began to fade. “You trained well tonight, but the danger remains.”

I nodded, watching him vanish. That much I’d figured out for myself.

 

Into The Maelstrom – Snippet 11

Into The Maelstrom – Snippet 11

“The Carinas served Pinot Chaasuar last time I dined at their demesne. It may have been a Pinot but it had never been closer to the Chaasuar than the nearest chemical laboratory.”

Todd winced.

“Did you feel the need to point that out to them?”

“Well, obviously,” Linsye replied, clearly wondering why he asked such a stupid question. “They needed to know that they had been cheated.”

Todd looked sorrowfully at Allenson.

“Generally, I only escort mother somewhere twice – the second time to apologize.”

Even Linsye laughed.

The dinner progressed with the usual small talk. When Allenson was young he considered such conversation to be a waste of time. Experience and Trina taught him how useful gossip could be. People revealed details in dinner conversations. Details that when put together provided invaluable information about the shifting political and commercial alliances within the ‘Stream – insofar as the two could be separated.

Bentley presented the platter of the main dish to Trina for her approval which was duly given. Allenson forced down the urge to scream. Wine to him, meat to Trina, what an utter waste of time? His life used to be so much simpler when he was young.

“Wildfowel in jaffa sauce,” Linsye exclaimed in delight. “One of my favorite dishes.”

Trina smiled: the choice of menu was always tailored to the tastes of the honored guest. One had to be careful praising a dish too highly in company or you could find yourself served it at every dinner party for the next year or so.

“The jaffa fruit is from your own demesne,” Trina said. “Your estate manager flew a crate over last harvest.”

Jaffa was a ‘Streamer crop in demand in Brasilia where it fetched ridiculous prices. Homeworld farms grew the crop but wealthy aficionados declared the taste inferior to imports from the Cutter Stream.

“I hope the wine is real?” Allenson asked. “It cost me enough.”

Trina frowned at him. Bentley’s expression went professionally blank. It was not done to discuss the cost of such things over dinner.

Linsye rolled it around her glass and inhaled the bouquet before tasting.

“Quite genuine,” she pronounced. “Perhaps a little past its best but we can forgive that as the bottle has travelled far to grace our table.”

“Oh good,” Allenson said. “I won’t have to shoot my supplier.”

Todd looked at his uncle quizzically as if trying to work out whether he was joking or not.

“Ignore him, nephew,” said Trina, shooting Allenson an exasperated look. “My husband has a peculiar sense of humor. He wouldn’t really shoot his wine merchant.”

Linsye said, “Quite right, sister in law.”

She tapped her finger on the table for emphasis.

“Shooting is too good for a wine fraudster.”

She definitely wasn’t joking.

They applied themselves to the meal.

“Tell me, Linsye?” asked Allenson in between courses. “Were you not tempted to join your brother and go back to Brasilia?”

Linsye cocked her head to look at him.

“I thought we covered this a long time ago on Paragon. In my opinion there is no future for my children and grandchildren back in Brasilia. That is why I chose a marriage alliance with a promising local family even if they were social inferiors.”

Todd coughed into his hand at this point. Linsye ignored him.

“My children do not carry the Destry name. Even if they did, there is nothing more pathetic than impoverished relatives living off the charity of other members of a Great House. Their gens association would be a curse not a benefit.”

Trina asked, “You think Royman has made the wrong decision?”

Linsye hesitated.

“My brother must do what he feels is best for his situation,” she replied, delicately.

“You refer to Sarai?” Trina asked, pushing the conversation to the edge of what was acceptable.

Linsye half nodded before cancelling the gesture.

“Not entirely, Royman does not I think possess the appropriate skills and interests for life across the Bight but as this is a private family gathering then yes, I refer to his marriage.”

Of course, there were servants present as well. Linsye like most Manzanitans of “the better sort” tended to regard them as part of the house fittings, forgetting that they were furniture with tongues.

Allenson tried to remember where he had heard that expression. It may have come from the slave economies of Old Earth. The destroyed bureaucratic Third Civilization had left such copious records in so many different formats that vast amounts of data about their doomed world was extant. Much of it had never been properly collated and put into context even to this day. However, enough was known to outline their history and culture. Such a bold and self-confident society – and so blind.

His train of thought drew an uneasy comparison between the indentured servants of Brasilia and the slave economies. The comparison, he assured himself, was not apt. Indentured servants were not slaves. They were people with legal rights albeit restricted ones. Their contracts could be bought and sold but the people were not property. They could hope to buy out or work off their debt. An irritatingly rebellious component of his mind reminded him that even the old slave economies had the concept of Freedmen.

There was no doubt though that the indentured servant system used by Brasilia to dump its unwanted population on the colonies displayed all the wastefulness and inefficiency of a slave society. Not that Brasilia’s colonial problems were unique. The harsh realities of Terran society ensured an excess of convict labor making their colonies just as shambolic.

Trina deftly changed the subject. She engaged Linsye on the subject of a play she had seen in Manzanita City by a promising new avant-garde playwright.

Linsye asked, “How did you find the work, Allen?”

Trina had insisted on her husband escorting her to the theatre.

“Most, ah, stimulating,” Allenson replied.

Trina cut in. “Really, I thought you dozed off.”

“Just resting my eyes to concentrate on the dialogue,” Allenson replied.

“I see,” Trina raised an eyebrow. “Are you aware that you have developed the habit of snoring when resting your eyes to concentrate?”

“I sympathize, my dear,” Linsye said. “His brother was just the same. Todd declared that the word culture always made him want to reach for a laserrifle.”

Wasn’t that another quote from some ancient philosopher, Allenson wondered? No, it couldn’t have been. Their strange superstitions about the physical nature of the universe precluded them developing the technology for laserrifles.

Allenson turned to Todd to include him in the conversation. “How did you find school and college on Brasilia?”

“Oh it had its ups and downs but I fitted in tolerably well,” Todd replied.

“You weren’t bullied at all because of your colonial background?”

“There’s always a degree of good natured banter, uncle,” Todd said without further elaboration.

Allenson struggled on.

“How did your studies go? Let me see, you read…”

Allenson’s memory balked at divulging the necessary information.

“Politics, history and anthropology.”

Todd deftly lifted Allenson out of the hole he’d dug for himself.

“I took a degree but barely scraped a third. I regret that I’m not academic material unlike Uncle Royman.”

“Much good it did him,” Linsye remarked somewhat sourly.

“It did all of us a great deal of good against Terra,” Allenson said, perhaps rather more tartly than he had intended but Royman had stood his ground with his comrades. “Indeed, Royman’s contribution as intelligence officer made him possibly the one indispensable man in our army.”

Todd said, “Praise indeed especially coming from you uncle. Most people have suggested to me that you were the indispensable man.”

“Most people are ignorant,” Allenson replied, without heat.

Todd raised his glass.

“Well then let’s drink to Uncle Royman’s new life in Brasilia.”

So they did which neatly changed the mood at the table. Trina conferred a smile of approval on her nephew’s tact.

Allenson put down his glass and examined him.

“You look rather well on university life.”

And he did. Todd was not particularly tall but wiry without a gram of excess fat on his body.

“I won a racing dark blue,” Todd said.

Blue Horizon athletic teams wore dark blue uniforms.

Allenson was impressed.

“Indeed?”

Todd added diffidently, “I rowed power wheel on the University Eight against the light blues.”

Blue Horizon’s main rival, Oak Hill University, were the light blues.  These, the two oldest and most prestigious universities on Brasilia held an annual frame race. As most of the ruling families were educated at one or other of these institutions the race received media attention more suited to a major sports event. The whole world watched. A great deal of money and prestige depended on the result. Competition for a seat on one of the two frames was accordingly intense. You either had to be well connected or very, very athletic – preferably both.

Allenson asked, “How did your team do?”

“Not too badly, uncle,” Todd replied.

Linsye said with a mother’s pride, “They beat the light blues by five lengths.”

“I see, congratulations,” Allenson said, raising his glass once more but in Todd’s direction. “What do you intend to do now?”

Todd opened his mouth but Linsye cut into the conversation before he could speak.

“I thought he could be your aide.”

 

Castaway Planet – Chapter 14

Castaway Planet – Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Whips wallowed his body back and forth, feeling the coral-based sand squish reassuringly under him. “Hm. That will be good.”

It had been quite a while since he built a land-nest — years ago, when he and his father had gone on a camping trip with the Kimeis, and that was long enough that he’d had to think about just how you did this right. His first attempt, about three meters away, hadn’t quite worked and ended as a loose sort of sand crater. It was supposed to be soft in the middle but still packed at the edges in certain ways.

This one felt right. He thought he would be able to crawl out of it and get back in without it collapsing, which was the way a land-nest was supposed to work.

Night had fallen on Lincoln — well, their part of Lincoln, anyway — while he’d been busy digging. Built-in solid-state lights illuminated the area near the shelter, and Laura was bent over her medikit while Akira cooked on the portable stove that had come with the shelter. Carefully, Whips pulled himself forward and up, and slid from the nest, keeping his anchors carefully pulled in. He glanced back once he was far enough away. It was still intact!

Feeling better at that minor triumph, he began moving towards the stove to see what Akira was cooking; as he slid along, though, he noticed Caroline almost directly in his way, apparently staring upward. “What are you looking at?”

“The answer to one mystery, I think,” Caroline answered absently.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I think I understand why this system could be here, halfway to Tantalus, without it being anywhere in the databases. Because any G-type star would definitely be in the databases.”

“Okay, well, don’t keep me waiting. Why?”

“Look up, about there.”

Used to following human pointing fingers, Whips reared up and gazed in the indicated direction. There were stars of all colors and sizes scattered across the night. “Where, exactly? I see a lot of night sky.”

“Your omni active? Okay, here.”

A set of dim crosshairs materialized in his field of view, and he turned his attention there. “Just night sky and stars there. Well, there isn’t a star exactly there, but –”

“That’s the key. See, exactly there is where the Sun should be. At about magnitude 5.8, but with my omni’s enhancement and your naturally sensitive eyes, that should be easy to see.”

“Oh, my,” came Laura’s voice. The tall woman joined them, looking up. “So something is between Lincoln’s sun and ours.”

“And has been for probably a few centuries, at least, so it wasn’t ever mapped out. Lincoln’s star would be pretty dim from Earth-magnitude six, I think, what with being a little dimmer than the sun overall — so naked-eye astronomers might not have caught it regularly. And if our relative motion to Earth’s solar system isn’t big, a pretty small nebula could cover it up for quite a while — a Bok globule, maybe.”

“But wouldn’t the other colonies have noticed it?” Whips asked. “I mean, they’re going to be looking from another direction, so the same cloud of stuff isn’t going to be in their way.”

“Maybe. But like I said, it’s going to be pretty dim from any reasonable distance, and most colonies aren’t going to be looking for new, close-to-home stars that we missed.” Caroline continued staring up. “Maybe, if Outward Initiative didn’t get totally destroyed, they’ll check images of that region of space and figure it out, though.”

She glanced down suddenly. “Do you… what do you think the chances are that Outward Initiative … well, didn’t get totally wrecked?”

Whips bunched inward slightly, tense. He knew why they’d ask him. He was as close as they had to an engineer or physicist, he knew more than anyone here about how the ships worked. But…

He thought about it seriously. He’d studied those brief, terrifying sequences of images, the fading of most of Outward Initiative with only a few ghostly pieces of the hab ring remaining before the disaster, and in the weeks it had taken to get here to Lincoln he had, in fact spent a lot of time mulling over what had happened, what could have happened.

“I can’t give you a… well, a good probability estimate,” he said finally. “But I think there’s a chance it survived. The hab ring’s built with a lot of redundancy in the structure, and the ship itself has a lot of safety cutoffs that should cause it to reduce rotation or otherwise adjust if it suddenly lost chunks of the hab ring. If the Trapdoor field wasn’t just oscillating out of control, then it was some kind of glitch that probably only lasted a few seconds on the outer perimeter of the field. There’s some minor instability in the field all the time, it’s just that the wavering of the field is usually kept many meters away from any actual components of the ship. If you got a really huge peak in that instability… I think they’d damp it down in ten seconds or so, and after that they’d be okay.”

“Will they come and rescue us?” Akira asked from the stove.

Whips waved his arms in a shrug. “If they survived? They’d have to somehow guess that someone could have survived falling off the interface; I never heard of anything like that, and I think I would have in my studies. Maybe their records will have ghost images of that happening, like we have ghost images of part of the hab ring, but without that… maybe.”

“No point in worrying about it,” Akira said firmly. “Our job is to survive, to build this into our home, and if rescue comes, wonderful. If not, we leave for the people who will, eventually come after us a record showing that we didn’t despair, but we did everything we could to survive and prosper.”

He rapped on the table set a ways from the entrance. “Now come on over and let’s find out if the native food’s going to be a trial or a treat.”

“Oh, wow! That’s what you were doing, Dr. … I mean, Akira?”

“Since you’d brought enough to cook up, yes. It’s not much, and we’ll certainly all have to have some rations, but it seems to me that we might as well have a taste right away.”

“Not leaving me out of this!” came a sleepy voice from the tent doorway. Despite her heavy-lidded eyes, Sakura was moving a little better than she had when she went into the shelter; Whips felt relieved.

“Me! I want to try some!” Hitomi said excitedly. Melody emerged from the tent as well, but hung back. “I want to see what happens with the rest of you first.”

“Suit yourself, Melody. Though either way we’ll have to eat it sooner or later; our rations won’t last forever, and in fact I’m going to require we stop eating them as soon as we find enough sources of food that we have an assured supply,” Laura said. “I want as many rations left as possible for emergencies, travel supplies, and so on. They’ll last more than ten years, so having them as a backup will be something very comforting.”

Whips looked at the dark fried pieces of meat on his plate, reached out and gingerly picked one up between two fingers. “Warm. All right, here we go!”

The texture was reassuringly meaty — tougher than many vent-dwellers, softer than some patrolling creatures like orekath. Overall it was something like miremaw or, for Earth creatures, beef. The taste was… Good, actually, now that he tried another bite. Really good! It wasn’t exactly like anything else, but… “I’d forgotten what fresh meat tasted like after being in Outward Initiative so long!” he said finally.

“It’s like … alligator, I think,” Akira said slowly, a relieved smile spreading across his face.

The others’ faces wore the same expression, as they realized that not only was there something to eat, but it would be something worth eating. “A stronger taste than that… but you’re right, Dad,” Caroline said after a moment. “It’s got that cross between land and sea taste going.”

Hitomi had already cleared her plate and was looking hungrily at the chunks on Melody’s plate. Whips couldn’t help but laugh when Hitomi’s face utterly plummeted as Melody snatched it up and stuffed one of the pieces into her mouth. As Sakura and Caroline echoed the laugh, Hitomi looked at first betrayed… and then suddenly started laughing joyously herself.

Then he noticed Laura. “Laura? Are you crying? What’s wrong?”

Everyone else immediately stopped, staring, worried. “Laura, honey, what is it?” Akira asked softly, going to his wife and putting his hand on her shoulder.

The tall human woman blinked fiercely, but the tracks of shining tears were obvious, and her voice was a little thick when she answered. “I’m sorry. Oh, god, I feel so silly. It’s…” She shook her head, wiped her eyes, and smiled brilliantly. “I was just so worried about everything. About Sakura, about having to live on our own, about how many things might be out there waiting to cause another disaster for us, and … well, just suddenly seeing everyone sitting here, eating food we found on our own planet, eating good food we found here, seeing us all smiling, laughing…” She shrugged helplessly and laughed, still with tears in her voice. “I just felt everything let go in me, and I was so relieved, so happy that we did survive, that we’re all here and alive and living…”

Whips felt the strange tight tingle of the same painful, joyous whirl of emotions, knew his skin was shimmering in a clash of colors, and then saw that all around the table, the other Kimeis were also crying in exactly the same way, even little Hitomi.

Akira hugged Laura tight, and suddenly, without any word or gesture, the others all gathered around and hugged, as they had after they knew they had survived and found a destination. Whips enfolded his whole adopted family and squeezed tightly, as he would have twined arms with his mother. Now we know we can survive, that this world is a place worth surviving on. And so now, we will survive, no matter what Lincoln has to throw at us.

Our family will survive.

 

Spell Blind – Snippet 10

Spell Blind – Snippet 10

Not to make excuses, but it’s hard to focus when you’re being stung by dozens of invisible, magic hornets.

I tried to cast the deflection spell again, though I knew it wasn’t the right defense against this attack. It was the warding I knew best, the one I turned to when I didn’t know what else to do, and at that moment, I couldn’t even get it to work. I should have tried a simpler conjuring. There are lots of warding spells. One of them sheathed the body in a sort of magical cocoon; another, which I’d yet to learn, allowed a weremyste to transport himself somewhere else. Ideally I would have liked to try a reflection spell and sick the vicious stinging bastards on Namid. Somehow, though, I knew it wouldn’t work. The problem was, I couldn’t come up with anything that would.

After a few minutes, the stinging stopped and Namid just sat there with his eyes fixed on mine.

“You are not even trying.”

“Yes, I am,” I said, sounding like a bratty little kid. “I’m out of my depth here, Namid. The magic we’ve done before and what you’re asking me to do now. . .” I shook my head. “They’re totally different.”

“They are not different at all. You need to clear and focus. Otherwise you cannot defend yourself and you will be killed. It is that simple.”

A book flew off one of my shelves and sailed right at my head. I ducked. The book hit the opposite wall and fell to the floor.

“Damn! You’re crazy! You know that?”

“You warded yourself.”

“No, I didn’t. I just ducked.”

“Did the book strike you?”

“No.”

“Then you warded yourself. You did so without craft, but it was a warding nevertheless.”

“What’s your point, ghost?”

His expression didn’t change at all. I needed to find a new way to get him riled.

“That you ducked without a thought. You simply acted. That is how magic should be. You think too much, Ohanko. And at other times you do not think at all. You are a most difficult man.”

I had to grin. “Yeah, well, you’re the one who always shows up uninvited.”

“Clear yourself.”

I did. And this time when the attack came, I resisted the urge to speak the deflection spell. Instead I envisioned his attack bouncing off of me, two dozen watery hornets clattering against the walls. My body, the hornets, the walls. Three elements. I didn’t bother repeating them three times. I inhaled, feeling the magic build within me, and released it.

I wasn’t stung once.

“Better,” he said. “You knew how I would assail, and when. But still, that was better.” He paused. Then, “Defend yourself.”

Fire this time. Aqua green flames licking at my hands and arms. I almost panicked. But instead I managed to turn that fear into craft. Deflection wouldn’t work, so I went with the cocoon. Shielding, it was called. Once more, three elements: my body again, the fire, the cocoon. It worked.

“Good,” the runemyste said, sounding surprised. “Defend yourself.”

A second later, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned just enough to see, then froze. Not two feet from where I sat, a snake lay in a tight coil, its head reared back to strike. I didn’t have time to mark what kind it was, or whether it was venomous. This was Namid I was dealing with. I assumed the worst.

This time at least, I had a pain-free second in which to think. Camouflage spell, but with a twist. Snakes hunted by smell, using their tongues to taste the air, and they waited for motion before striking. So I had to make myself invisible and scentless. Pit vipers could also sense temperature, but I didn’t know how to lower my body temperature to match the air in the house.

Camouflage wardings were the most complicated spells I knew, almost as difficult as some of the simpler transformation spells. I visualized myself blending with my surroundings, so that to the snake I would appear in every way to be nothing more or less than empty space. I slowed my breathing, and recited the spell to myself.

The snake. My body. My scent. The air around me. The wall behind me. The picture hanging on that wall. Back to the snake again. After a few moments, the snake’s posture changed. Its tongue flicked out three times, as if it were trying to find me again. I eased my Glock free.

Before I could shoot it, the snake vanished.

“Good, Ohanko. Very good.”

I closed my eyes.

“Clear yourself.”

“Let me rest a minute.”

I thought he would argue, but he nodded and sat there.

“Are there other warding spells you can teach me?” I asked.

“You must master the ones you know.”

“I understand that. I’m asking if there are more.”

“Of course. There are always more.”

I laughed. “Always? You never run out?”

“Never,” he said, without a trace of humor. “If you cannot remember one, you must create one yourself.”

“Wait. You mean I can make up my own spells?”

“You are a runecrafter. How do you think the spells you know came into being?”

I shrugged. “I guess I thought that you made them up, or brought them from the Runeclave, or something like that.”

“Magic is a craft, and though it might not seem so, it is a living craft.” Something resembling a grin crept over the spirit’s face. “Your father created a spell.”

“My father?”

He nodded.

“Teach it to me.”

“I do not know that you are ready for it.”

That stung. “He was that much better than me?”

“He was older when he created this spell. And at that time, yes, he was a far more accomplished crafter than you are now.”

“Teach it to me anyway.”

It was a complicated spell. Impressive, but complicated. My father had found a way to combine two different kinds of transporting spells, one which allowed him to move himself a short distance, and another which in effect transported an object — in this case his weapon — to his hand. The trick, of course, was to carry off the two spells simultaneously, so that he could go from being unarmed and vulnerable to being armed and protected in the blink of an eye.

Try as I might, I couldn’t do it. It was good practice. After several tries, I’d nearly mastered a basic transporting spell. But my pistol always wound up lying on the floor in the spot where I’d been.

I gave up on that one for the time being, vowing to practice it on my own later. Namid had other spells to teach me, and for once I was eager to learn. Maybe it was the stark memory of feeling so vulnerable on the street earlier in the day. Maybe it was hearing that my father had been better at this than I was. Whatever the reason, on this night I worked my craft as I never had before.

I was in the middle of trying a new assailing spell when I heard a knock at the door. Namid’s glowing gaze locked on mine.

“Are you expecting someone?” the runemyste asked.

“No.” I glanced at my watch. Almost nine-thirty. We’d been working for close to three hours. Whoever it was knocked again. I stood and started toward the door.

“Careful, Ohanko.”

I glanced at him and nodded. Then I crossed to the door, unlocked it, and prepared to pull it open, all the while reciting a shielding spell in my head.

 

Castaway Planet – Chapter 13

Castaway Planet – Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Laura restrained the urge to leap forward. Panic would not help her.

Even as she scanned the data from Sakura’s internal medical nanos, she categorized the symptoms of the shaky girl. Skin reddening… pupils dilating… heart rate increasing. Sakura was also looking dizzy, disoriented.

The data from the nanos confirmed her guess. “It’s a hyoscyamine derivative, something like atropine. And a few other chemicals, too.” Thankfully, she knew how to counteract that kind of thing. It was in the basic medikit data.

She first directed the medical nanos to counteract some of the symptoms — bring the heart rate under control. “It’s okay, honey, I can handle this. Are you with me?”

“Funny… hard to think. Hurts.” Sakura was clearly working hard to focus on her mentally as well as visually.

Heavy dose. But the nanos can slow the reaction, and the kit’s able to do a physostigmine variant. Timed and controlled release to the proper sites, then the nanos can finish adapting to the toxin and start cleaning it out.

Laura made the injection, feeling her own heart starting to slow down finally as she took action. The bright red color faded and slowly, slowly Sakura’s pupils began to contract. “Feeling better?”

“Yes, mom,” Sakura answered, and shakily sat up, then leaned back into Whips’ supporting arms. “It still hurts bad, though.”

The stung area was a twining pattern of reddened welts with dark and light banding. “Looks very much like a jellyfish sting.” Laura looked up. “A land anemone-like thing, then.” She studied the details from the internal nanos in that area. “Yes, there’s cnidoblasts or something like it. Mostly inactive now. The pain’s mostly from an associated toxin, probably meant as a warning to accompany the main poison. Even if the sting doesn’t kill you, you’ll remember it. I’ve got the nanos doing some anesthetic damping. Better?”

“Lots.” She watched her little girl — not so little any more, but she’ll always be little to me anyway — close her eyes and relax.

“That scared the light right out of me,” Whips said quietly. Laura could see that even now Whips’ colors were subdued.

“An important lesson for us, though. We had started to relax after getting through all that underbrush without trouble. Now we know that even things that look like red flowers could be dangerous.”

Sakura smiled weakly. “Don’t think I want to be a demonstration again.”

Laura reached out and hugged Sakura tightly, letting the tears flow finally. “Neither do I. Thank God you’re all right.”

After a few moments she let go and wiped her eyes. “How do you feel? Can you stand up?”

Sakura was a little wobbly, but in a few more minutes she seemed steadier on her feet. “I’m getting better.”

“End of an expedition?” Whips asked.

“Yes. We don’t want to push things any farther, and I want Sakura back to camp and lying down until tomorrow. We don’t know for sure if there are any other effects of those toxins, and without a full medical system I can’t simulate it well enough. I’m also not getting any contact with the base camp, so we need to get closer before we can even update them.”

Laura took the lead, with Sakura in the middle being partly supported and watched over by Whips. It took longer to get out of the forest, but by the time they reached the open area in front of the forest Sakura was moving almost as well as she normally did, though she was still holding her arm well away from anything that could touch it.

Suddenly her omni pinged. “Laura? Are you there?”

“We’re on our way back, sweetheart. Something stung Sakura –”

“Stung her? Is she all right? I’m coming –”

“Akira, don’t panic,” she said in her most confident tones. “She’s walking fine right now. It was dangerous for a few minutes, and we’ve learned a lot, but I think everything’s okay. You stay right where you are. We came out of the woods a little farther west than we went in, but it shouldn’t take more than, oh, forty minutes to get back to you.”

“All right. Sorry,” he answered, his voice a tiny bit sheepish.

“It’s all right, I’d react the same way.”

“So,” he said in a more normal voice, as they continued moving back toward the camp, “you said stung. How?”

She described the events, from the time they’d left the fallen column to the time Sakura had recovered from her sting. “So I think we’re looking at something like a land-dwelling anemone.”

“Or hydroid, which is probably also what those plant-like things that Whips noticed are like. Yes. Very interesting. I’ll have to get some samples of all these things later. I’m also very interested in your samples of potential food — and that ground — dwelling attacker. Did you keep its head?”

“No, honey, sorry. I didn’t want to burden us and thought we’d go farther and get more samples.”

“Don’t worry about it. Unless it was one of a kind, which I very highly doubt, I’m sure we’ll run into more. Hopefully without being bitten.”

“That does worry me, though,” Caroline put in. “We don’t have multiple outfits, and none of us have good hiking boots.”

“We’ll have to start thinking about how to address that,” agreed Laura. “but for now let’s take one problem at a time.” They came to the edge of the crash scar, and Sakura gave a delighted laugh. Laura smiled as well. “It seems that you’ve helped solve one of the problems, anyway.”

Tucked slightly under an overhang from the crash, the inflatable temporary shelter looked large and solid, a rounded almost igloo-like shape with a tall entrance hall and two rounded lobes extending out to each side. Transparent windows were visible, allowing natural light in when desired, and the faint, dark sheen on the outer side of the shelter showed that it was coated with active high-efficiency rugged photovoltaics.

She could see Melody, sitting on a flat-topped stone a short distance from the shelter, and her husband was visible now, just coming around the other side, but… “Where are Caroline and Hitomi?”

“We’re on our way back. We went up the scar some distance and we’ve been picking up metal and composite junk that might be usable.”

“I found bowls!” Hitomi announced proudly.

“Bowls?” echoed Whips. “What do you mean?”

“She found empty shells or carapaces that are close enough in size that we can actually carry them pretty easily, and look like they could work as bowls or small pots,” Caroline answered. “They’re quite tough, too, so I think we can use them freely, if there isn’t something poisonous in the material.”

“Can we determine that?” Akira asked cautiously.

“Definitely,” Laura said, picking her way down the slope. “My medkit will certainly be able to do that much. Melody, why are you sitting down reading when everyone else is working?”

Melody flushed slightly. “I helped put up the shelter.”

“I know, honey, but you can’t just stop because you finish one task. Why don’t you go inside and see if you can figure out the best setup for our living and sleeping space? You like solving space puzzles.”

Somewhat to her credit, Melody managed to restrain a roll of her eyes, and stood up. “Yes, mom.”

Laura shook her head as Melody disappeared inside the shelter. “Where does she get that from? Neither of us were like that.”

Akira laughed and came over to hug Sakura. “My love, you didn’t know me when I was young. Melody reminds me rather forcefully of me, which is why I try not to encourage her.” He looked down at Sakura. “Now you go lie down and rest.”

“But I’m –”

“Don’t argue with your father. Or your doctor, who happens to be your mother,” Laura said with a smile. “I wouldn’t have had you walk at all if we’d had any choice on the matter. After what you’ve gone through, you should get a lot of rest. Melody,” she said to her omni, and saw the twelve-year-old acknowledge the signal, “pull out Sakura’s bed now.”

“You okay, Saki?” Melody’s laziness was no longer evident when asking about her sister.

“I think so, but mom and dad don’t want to take chances.”

Laura noted that Sakura’s gait wasn’t nearly as bouncy as its usual habitual rhythm as she went inside. Whips obviously saw it too. “She’s more tired than she lets on,” the big Bemmie said.

“I’d be astounded if she wasn’t.” She pulled out the sample bags. “Let’s check out what we found.”

“While you do that, I’ll go make myself a land-nest,” Whips said. Before she could say anything, Whips continued, “Doctor… Laura, I’m a lot bigger than the rest of you and I’m also a lot tougher. I don’t mind being outside; if it rains, that’s just fine with me. If you don’t have to squeeze me into the shelter, you’ll be a lot more comfortable. If I bury myself in dirt and sand, it’ll be hard for anything to just come bother me, anyway.”

“He’s right,” Akira said. “It makes sense. Plus if he has to go to the sea for any reason, it will be much easier from here in the open than trying to go out through the entranceway. He’s also got better senses than ours in some areas, so he might help protect us that way. I’ve set up Caroline’s omni as a security monitor, but it can’t hurt to have someone outside who can be a second line of defense.”

She couldn’t argue the logic, even though a part of her still felt that it was like marginalizing the young Bemmie to a less-desirable neighborhood. Quashing that irrational feeling, she nodded. “All right, go ahead.”

The two adults bent over their analysis devices and studied readouts. After fifteen minutes, Akira shook his head. “Those are indeed berries, but they’ve got alkaloids or some close analogues which are quite toxic in them. On the other hand, their very existence gives me hope that we will find other fruits which are, in fact, edible.”

Analysis of the meat went somewhat faster, partly because they were both getting used to this much more primitive setup, and Laura found herself grinning foolishly at Akira as they finished. “Completely edible… and nutritious,” he said, and the two of them hugged. “Food, honey. There is food we can eat here!”

“That’s worth celebrating,” agreed Caroline’s voice behind them. The oldest and youngest of her children came around the side of the shelter in the now-setting sunlight. Caroline had a large bundle of assorted junk on her back, strapped together with what appeared to be salvaged cable. Hitomi was doggedly half-carrying, half-dragging a string of moderate-sized objects. “Of course, let’s hope it doesn’t taste terrible.”

“Look, Mommy — bowls!” Hitomi held the string of objects up.

The shells were of a peculiar shape — effectively flat-bottomed, with perhaps a tiny curve, generally cylindrical, and the top flared out in small ripples around the edge. Something about the shape and green color tugged at her memory; then she realized the truth and laughed again.

“What is it, Mom?”

“I think what Hitomi’s picked up are a bunch of shells of the same kind of creature that stung Sakura,” she said.

Akira glanced at them and then looked over the footage that Laura had brought back. “I do believe you’re right.”

“I’m going to go show her!” Hitomi said, but Laura caught at her sleeve.

“Wait a while, honey,” Laura said. In her monitor, she saw Sakura, and her vital signs. A faint snore came from the girl.

“Wait a while,” she repeated and smiled over at Akira. “She’s sleeping like a rock.”

 

Into The Maelstrom – Snippet 10

Into The Maelstrom – Snippet 10

Bentley bowed deeply as he held the door for her, far deeper than he would for Allenson who only paid his wages. The major domo raised snobbery to a fine art and Linsye was a full Destry-by-blood. Allenson and Trina represented mere colonial gentry only related by marriage to true Brasilian nobility. Hence Bentley’s determination that Allenson should be at his best. It came to something, Allenson reflected, when your clothes were chosen to please a servant’s sense of propriety.

Linsye kissed Allenson lightly on the mouth, the appropriate greeting for an in-law of the opposite sex.

“How are you Allen? My you look dashing tonight.”

Allenson replied appropriately

Linsye continued. “May I introduce my son, Todd? He arrived home in the same ship that Royman and Sarai left on.”

Todd stood to one side, arm outstretched. Allenson hadn’t seen his nephew since he had been sent away to be educated in Brasilia at his Uncle Royman’s old prep school and college. He would have been what, twelve?

Allenson looked at Todd in shock. The boy was named after his father, Allenson’s older brother. Subconsciously Allenson expected a younger version of Todd senior or at least an Allenson. But Todd junior was a Destry. No more than that, he was the spitting image of the young Royman Destry when Allenson first met him on his arrival at Port Clearwater. History seemed to be repeating itself.

Todd bowed deeply and looked at Allenson, waiting for his host to say something. Allenson gaped like a rube at the country fair.

He pulled himself together. “Welcome indeed, nephew. You are quite the young man now.”

Todd replied with a smile. “Age tends to do that to one, Uncle Allen.”

“Ah, yes, I suppose it does,” Allenson said. “Shall we go in?”

The dinner ritual normally demanded fifteen minutes of drinks and small talk in the atrium. However, Allenson needed a moment to order his thoughts and the walk into the dining room would allow that. He indicated to Bentley that they would go straight in. Protocol demanded he escort Linsye while Todd offered his arm to Trina

Left to Bentley the four would dine on a full table so far apart that they would have to converse by datapad. Allenson laid it clearly on the line how far he was prepared to go even when dining with his aristocratic in-laws.  He demanded that most of the grand dining room be shut off by a folding wooden screen. The demesne carpenter had crafted it from highly polished alternating strips of amber and vermilion-colored wood logged from a forest on a Hinterland world that had not yet been named.

The material imparted warmth, reinforcing the mellow atmosphere that Allenson preferred. Many his guests commented favorably on the effect. Allenson considered experimenting with a crop of the trees on the estate.

He sat Linsye on his right in the lady of honor’s place. Todd looked after Trina. Bentley positioned himself behind Todd’s chair where Allenson could catch his eye. The man was in his element. He devoted his life to perfecting a series of complicated rituals that Allenson thought as tedious as they were pointless

To be fair, Bentley was invaluable when Allenson hosted political dinners. The skills of a major-domo went unnoticed by the more sophisticated guests from the Manzanita Upper House. They would nonetheless have noticed their absence fast enough. Bentley’s talents usefully impressed members of the Lower House. In Allenson’s experience, the more a politician claimed to be a “man of the people” the less they wanted to be treated as one. One of life’s depressing little truisms.

Allenson nodded and Bentley touched his thumb and forefinger together triggering a communication switch concealed in his white gloves. A new maid with an apprehensive expression entered via the kitchen door with a tray of aperitifs.  She glanced in Bentley’s direction before presenting the tray to Linsye, who selected a couple of items without looking at her.

Social convention insisted that Trina and Todd were served next with Allenson last. Trina murmured a polite thank you and Todd gave the maid a wink that elicited a pretty blush. He had Royman’s easy manner so different from the Allenson dourness.

When the maid left Bentley went round the table with a bottle of a light blue alcoholic liquid. He started with Allenson who duly tasted it although he never quite knew what he was supposed to be checking for. Allenson nodded approval and Bentley proceeded anticlockwise.

Linsye held her glass up to the central light over the table, swirling it to examine the contents before carefully inhaling the vapor.

“I suppose this is one of your experiments,” she finally said.

Allenson smiled. “In a way, we grow the juniper fruit here on the estate and I have an industrial chemist in Port Clearwater interested in the fermentation process.”

“I see,” Linsye said.

Allenson had a policy of serving Streamer produce at his dinners, preferably from his own estate. His neighbors considered this one of his more harmless eccentricities. Brasilian grape strains could not be successfully cultivated on any of the Stream worlds. At least not well enough to produce anything drinkable.

Allenson prompted Linsye.

“Why don’t you try it and give me your opinion.”

His sister in law displayed the expression of a woman going to the stake. Nevertheless, she tasted the contents as was proper for a guest enjoying hospitality. She rolled it around her mouth and then drank deeply.

Allenson awaited her verdict. His sister in law was familiar with the very best vintages from the Homeworlds.  She often expressed herself robustly on the subject.

Linsye gave her judgment.

“At least it’s not a concoction of fruit juice, alcohol and sugar. I taste a light crisp flavor reminiscent of an acceptable white table wine, albeit a young vintage. It’s not going to win any awards, of course, but it is palatable. I believe I will have another glass.”

Praise indeed. Allenson started to signal Bentley but the major-domo was already off the starting blocks, bottle at the ready.

Todd downed his glass in three draughts.

“Mother’s a little harsh. This’s actually very refreshing.”

Bentley shot around the table to refill his glass as well.

“I’m glad you like it.” Allenson said. “I will have a case loaded on your carriage when you depart.”

“Thank you, uncle.” Todd inclined his head politely. “I’ve brought a small gift for you back from Brasilia. This seems an appropriate moment to present it.”

He handed Allenson a small wooden box that lay lightly on the hand. Inside were three slides, carefully stowed in slits in the velvet lined interior, and a modern black plastic cube. Allenson gently pulled out one. It was archaic, mineral stained by its time underground, and chipped on one corner.

“Are these originals?” Allenson asked in wonder.

“Absolutely,” Todd replied. “They turn up every so often. A friend of mine was looking through an unsorted collection for his thesis and found these. I knew of your interest in the Third Civilization and thought you would like them.”

Allenson held the slide up to the light.

“Very much, I like them very much indeed. Thank you, nephew, can they be read?”

Todd pointed to the black cube.

“I included a decoder in the box as I wasn’t sure you would have the right tool to hand.”

Allenson replaced the slide and examined the black cube.

“Thank you, third Civilization records are stored in such a strange way. All dots and dashes don’t you know.”

“Indeed,” Todd said. “The slide you looked at is particularly interesting, a collection of fine resolution video stills of ordinary Third Civilization life by some ancient called Paul Weimer. Some of are only document records.”

“A delightful gift,” Allenson said, wondering what he had done to earn it.

Todd waved a hand languidly, brushing aside the praise as if it were cobwebs.

“I would have thought that someone would have produced suitable vine strains to grow wine grapes in the ‘Stream by now,” Todd said, changing the subject

“It wouldn’t be impossible,” Linsye agreed, “but the genosurgery is apparently tricky. We don’t have sufficient technical infrastructure to spare so the work would have to be done in Brasilia.”

Allenson grimaced. “Where’s the incentive? Why should a Brasilian wine merchant set up competition? Much more profitable to flog us the finished product at a hefty mark up.”

The aperitif plate vanished under Allenson’s left arm to be replaced by a dish containing soup. Left to his own devices Bentley would have paraded around the table with a bowl ladling out soup to each guest individually. Allenson killed that notion. He wasn’t all that bothered what was in his soup but he did like it hot and the host got served last.

Linsye dipped her spoon, holding it just clear of the plate to cool.

“I could tolerate the mark up if one was sure of getting what was on the label.”

Trina stirred her soup.

“Surely wine labelling is tightly controlled?”

Linsye sighed.

“In theory but half the time the vintage is substituted for something cheaper.”

She waved her spoon for emphasis.

 

Spell Blind – Snippet 09

Spell Blind – Snippet 09

Chapter 9

Walking from the coffee house back to the Z-ster, I remembered in a rush the weremyste who had been testing my magical defenses as I left Robo’s. I tried to sense him, to open myself to his magic, but I felt nothing. As far as I could tell, I was the only weremyste in the area who wasn’t using blockers. I suppose a sorcerer as powerful as this guy could have hidden himself, but he hadn’t been shy before about letting me know he was nearby. I couldn’t see why he’d start now. Reaching the car, I climbed in, drove one more circle around Robo’s, and headed for home.

My house in Chandler is in a nice family neighborhood near Arrowhead Meadows. It’s not a big place, but it’s more than I need. Two bedrooms, a decent sized kitchen, living room, dining room, two bathrooms. I got a good deal on it and had intended to turn one of the bedrooms into a home office. Then the other office fell into my lap, and I never got around to it.

It was built about twenty years ago, but the previous owners remodeled the place — redid the kitchen and bathrooms, tore out the old carpet and put in oak. Then they got divorced and rather than one of them staying, they sold it and split the money. It’s a good place. Well lit and open. Usually I like it a lot. But this evening, for some reason, it felt big and empty.

Until Namid materialized in the kitchen.

I had just gotten a beer from the refrigerator, though I hadn’t opened it yet.

He took form right in front of me, his waters rough and wind blown.

“I expected you long ago,” he said.

“You my mother now?” I asked with a small laugh.

I started to open the beer, but he shook his head. “Do not drink that now. If you need to drink, have water.”

“Good God, you are my mother.”

“We need to work, and you must be completely clear.”

Strange that my mind should need to be clear and free of alcohol in order to practice magic that was driving me nuts. But he was right. I returned the beer to the refrigerator, poured myself a glass of water, and followed Namid into the living room.

“I felt it again this afternoon. The sense that I was being watched.”

The runemyste turned. “I have no doubt that you were.”

My eyes widened. “Have you learned something about the weremyste who’s following me?”

“No. But it does not surprise me that he tracks you.”

“He? Do you at least know that it’s a man?”

Namid shook his head. “I know nothing, Ohanko. I have told you this already.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Two times now,” he said. “You understand why he does this?”

I nodded. It hadn’t occurred to me until then, but as soon as he asked the question, I knew. “Yes. I warded myself with a deflection spell, in case whoever it is tried to attack me. But nothing happened.”

He said nothing.

“A deflection spell wouldn’t have helped, would it?”

“A deflection spell is easily defeated,” the runemyste said, seeming to choose his words with some care. “A skilled runecrafter would have little trouble overwhelming such a warding.”

“So what should I have done?”

He stepped to the middle of my living room floor and sat, eyeing me like an expectant cat, his head canted to the side. More training.

For once I didn’t argue.

“Do I need my scrying stone?”

“No.” He indicated the floor with an open hand that glowed like starlit waters. “Sit.”

I lowered myself to the floor in front of him.

“Clear yourself,” the runemyste said, once I was settled.

I closed my eyes and summoned the vision of that eagle in the Superstition Wilderness. As I did, everything else melted away. The Blind Angel killer, Claudia Deegan, Cole Hibbard, Billie Castle, my dad. All of it seemed to dissipate, like a vaporous breath on a cold day. In moments, I was clear, centered.

“Now,” the runemyste said, “defend yourself.”

It was like meeting up with your best friend and having him haul off and punch you right in the mouth, for no reason at all.

One minute I was sitting there, and the next, it felt as though I’d been stung on the legs and arms by twenty hornets.

“Son of a bitch! What was that for?”

“Defend yourself,” he repeated, as calm as you please.

The stinging started again, on my neck and chest this time.

I jumped up, swatting at bugs I couldn’t see. The pain stopped.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked, my voice rising.

“I am teaching you to ward yourself.”

“You could at least give me some warning!”

“Will the crafter who tracks you be so courteous?”

That brought me up short. “Of course not,” I said.

“Then why should I?”

There wasn’t a person alive who could make me feel foolish and young the way Namid could. I guess that came with hanging out with a being who was centuries old. “I thought we were going to be training, that’s all. You caught me off guard.”

“You cannot be off guard,” he said. “Ever. Not anymore.”

“You’re scared, aren’t you?”

“I fear nothing for myself. But I would rather you did not die. I have spent too many days teaching you. It would be a waste.”

“Thanks, Namid. I’m touched.”

“Sit down, Ohanko. Clear yourself, then ward.”

I sat once more, took a moment to clear myself, and then started to recite the deflection spell from earlier in the day, just to see what it could do.

I hadn’t gotten two words out before the stinging began again. Chest, back, legs. God, it hurt!

“Damn!” I said. “You’re not giving me a chance!” I raised a hand before the runemyste could answer. “I know. Neither will the other sorcerer.”

Namid nodded once. “Defend yourself.”

I knew that I should have been able to do what the runemyste was asking of me, that my inability to ward myself was a symptom of my greatest weakness as a weremyste. I still thought of spells as being the same as incantations, as something spoken. The fact is, they don’t have to be. Namid, who was driving me crazy with these damned hornets, had not moved or made a single sound. But this did nothing to weaken his magic.

On the other hand, my need to speak spells was weakening me, leaving me vulnerable to his assault. Of course spells involved words. But spells for an accomplished weremyste could be as immediate and powerful as pure thought. The words of a spell had no inherent power beyond what they meant to the weremyste using them. One sorcerer might use a rhyming scheme, while another might just use three words. I usually used a simple list of the elements of the spell, repeated as often as necessary. I also tried to limit my spells to three elements or, if that was impossible, seven. There was power in certain numbers: three, seven, eleven, and some larger primes.

Mostly though, I tried to fix my mind on the magic I was attempting. Casting, like the simple act of clearing, required focus and concentration. The rest was a matter of style.

My goal in casting spells — Namid’s goal for me — was to get to the point where I could conjure without words, without fear or doubt, without hesitation.

And I wasn’t there yet. Not even close.