by Sky Corbelli
Chapter 31
Chalkboards
“Gaav,” Ezra whispered, “Gaav, you awake?” The giant didn't stir. Well, Ezra thought, it's not like I was very loud. I wouldn't be surprised if he just didn't hear me.
“Hey... hey Gaav, are you awake? I need to ask you something.”
One of the earth-crowned's eyes slowly opened to glare at Ezra. “Ezra,” he rumbled menacingly, “is the sun up?”
Ezra looked out the window, then realized that it was facing west. He checked the display on his wormhole device. Two in the morning. “Well, somewhere it must just be...” He trailed off as Gaav literally growled at him. “No, no the sun is not up.”
“Then why are you?” Gaav rolled over so his back was to Ezra.
“Wait, I need to ask you something! When we first ran into you, you had raised a wall of rock in front of us. Well, maybe it wasn't all rock, I mean you could have supplemented the internal composition with some sort of substrate mixture to make it more flexible, since you didn't know how heavy the skiff was or what kind of momentum it was carrying. Or we could have been weaponized! There might have been some kind of force field running to keep things like giant walls of rock from stopping it, but many little impacts from gravel or sand could have overwhelmed the inertial compensators and then–”
“Babble in the morning,” Gaav groaned, “just go somewhere else now.”
“But in the morning there will be lots of people who want to talk to you, and this is really important, so I just thought that I should–”
“Other things are important too. Like sleep.”
“And I know that what everyone else has to say is important too, but I really think you're all missing the big picture here. We have a chance to really help these people by doing something that they couldn't do for themselves–”
“Ezra!” the earth-crowned snapped, sitting up abruptly and turning toward him. Ezra shut up. “I will answer your question or listen to... whatever that was in the morning. Good night.” Gaav laid back down and deliberately closed his eyes.
Several moments passed in silence. “You're not going to leave, are you?” the earth-crowned asked in a defeated tone, eyes still closed.
“Oh,” Ezra got up from the floor, dusting off his pants, “Sorry, I can wait in the hall.”
Gaav sighed. “I don't think I could get a decent sleep now anyways.” He rubbed his eyes and yawned. The bed protested loudly as he sat up, swinging his legs over the side and resting his feet on the floor. “Yes, I raised a wall to stop you. I don't know about the other things, it was just a wall from whatever rocks and clay were in the area.”
“Clay! I should have thought of that, but that makes sense... so, in total, you must have moved, what...” he pulled up his holographic display and started adjusting variables, “Six, six and a quarter cubic tons?”
“Holy Mother of the Elements!” Gaav swore, leaping back and knocking the bed against the far wall.
“Yes, yes, I know.” Ezra made some consolatory motions with his hands. “The cubic ton is an antiquated measurement, but it seemed like a good way to look at it, especially considering I'm estimating here to begin with. I mean, it was dark and raining, plus we were running for our lives. But using something with some real meaning would have been lending a feel of accuracy to my calculations which are, at best, educated guesswork. And my father always told me, if you're going to estimate, use made-up units so that everyone knows you're only estimating.” He shrugged. “But I can see how that would upset you. I don't even want to think about what Sarah would do if she heard I was throwing around a term like 'cubic tons'. I've heard the stories about the Hughes Legacy and solid measurements.”
“No... what?” Gaav pointed at the hologram floating above Ezra's generator. “That, what is... why is it glowing like that? Is this some sort of...” He looked around the room warily, then fixed Ezra with a piercing stare. “Are you tampering with the laws of nature?”
“Tamper...” Ezra glanced down at the display in front of him. “Oh, this? It's not like... well, no, I guess you wouldn't have... look, it's just like a, um...chalkboard! You know what a chalkboard is, right?”
Gaav nodded his head carefully, eyes darting to the wormhole device in Ezra's hand.
“Yes, you see this is just like a chalkboard, where I can put down ideas and keep track of things. Just a tool. A really good tool. I mean, it'd have to be, what with finding quantum pathways to tunnel through the fabric of reality at the drop of a...” Ezra watched as Gaav began to tense up. “Chalkboard! Just a fancy chalkboard, that's all! Look!” He waved his hand back and forth through the display. “Just a little light, nothing to be afraid of, completely harmless.” He gave Gaav a winning smile, holding the controller casually.
Gaav took a deep breath and blew it out. Pulling the bed over with one hand, he took a seat, eyes still fixed on the display. He gave a weak laugh. “You know, I honestly thought you were just out of your mind with the whole Forbidden City story until right now.”
“Heh, yeah...wait, you did?” Ezra gave Gaav a confused look. “Then why did you...?”
Gaav returned Ezra's look, then spoke slowly, as if to a child, “It was the right thing to do.”
“Oh,” Ezra looked taken aback, “well, good. I mean, thank you.” A smile bloomed on his face. “Speaking of the right thing to do, how much earth can you move?”
==
Mat and Sarah found Ezra just north of town, engaged in a furtive discussion with Gaav.
“I'm not doubting that you can move that much safely, but how are you going to account for the shift of the underlying layer...”
Gaav cut him off with a wave of his hand, smiling cryptically. “Have faith.”
“Faith,” Ezra snorted, “is a placeholder for understanding. Now, there are things that I don't understand that I'm willing to take on faith. Super solids. How my brain physically works. Where dust bunnies come from. But people apparently do this all the time. You do it all the time! No-one is hiding that knowledge! You have to understand that when you're displacing that much mass the energy has to come from somewhere. You can't just expect things to work like they've been working, you have to learn, discover, examine. Think like a scientist!”
“You really hate not understanding things, don't you?” Gaav chuckled as he glanced over at Mat and Sarah. “Is he always like this?”
Mat chuckled. “Sometimes he's unconscious. I hear a firm smack to the head does the trick.” Sarah demonstrated the smacking technique.
“Ow,” Ezra rubbed his head, then his eyes lit up. “Oh, good, you're both here. Listen, we should get everyone outside the town.” Gaav made a disgusted sound. “Just to be on the safe side.” Ezra said, a little more loudly than was necessary.
“Fine, you have ten minutes; I'm not missing breakfast for this.” Gaav grumbled as he sat down. The earth rose to meet him halfway, creating a simple chair.
“Ten minutes... get everyone out...” Mat gave Ezra a concerned look. “I don't like how this sounds. Sarah, do you like how this sounds? This doesn't sound good to me.”
“Hawkins, you still have a fever. What are you doing out here?” Sarah lifted her foot and regarded it with disgust. “Why are you standing around in the mud? Did you even sleep?” She shook her head tiredly. “No, wait... don't answer. I'm afraid of what you might say.”
“Come on,” Ezra started pushing his friends back toward the waking town. “I'll explain on the way.”
