by Pam Uphoff
Jiol nodded. "The history of the world, involves a twentieth century nuclear war. At any rate, the survivors were mostly Middle Eastern, African, South American, and Asians. The Islamic groups pulled together the fastest and took over the World. With the help of the Prophets of the One True God."
Lon smiled. "The prevailing theory on Earth is that the One World Arabs were still at such a low tech level that they didn't hardly have any adjustment to make, after the disaster, while the other, more civilized people starved."
Q shook her head. "Nasty. But there's such a distinct break between The One World and the Main Branch that I think there ought to be a meteor in there somewhere."
"You and your meteors. I think mankind can create just as much disruption." Inso told her. "Probably when the Prophets of the One Power were marooned there."
"Huh. You only say that because you can't see the Multiverse."
Lon grinned. "It's so nice to see someone who can outdo a Oner in magic. You have no idea the satisfaction level we feel."
Inso glared. "And you have no idea the frustration level when I realize I sound just like an Earther in full denial mode."
"Relax, children." Xen grinned. "All right, Geezers. Q is head of research because she's flat out is the best. She teases like this at home, too. Anyway this meeting has gone to pot, like most of them do. We need Garit back, he's wasted as a Cavalry General. Much better at cracking the whip than I'll ever be. He should be back in a month. Okay. You four go home, or at least as far as the construction sites. Ask if they need any more bulk rock brought in. I'll go find more help."
"Check with Nil for some hunters and guards. The astronomers are going to want to visit at least two Dinosaur Worlds. They'll need guards, and I'd just as soon not invite Arbolians to go trooping about armed to the teeth. Certainly not their Gods." Q looked over at the others. "And now it's too late for either of your polities to play the heavy and do something about those sickos. Talk about wasted opportunities to accidentally do the right thing."
"I hate it when she lumps us." Lon looked over at Jiol. "Which of us ought to be the most insulted?"
"Us. We're bad. Earth is evil incarnate. After all look at their first colony Worlds, fourteen centuries later. One World, Arbolians, and the brutal Fallen."
"Aww, have we got a bad reputation?" Xen tried to look hurt.
"Yep. S'what happens when you pick on people bigger than you are and make it look easy."
***
"So, we've opened forty-eight gates to here, closed eighteen when the people on the other side demanded we do so, opened another twenty directly between Worlds that requested such. What's that leave us with?" Garit looked askance at the list.
Q moaned. "Two hundred and something more that Earth wants tomorrow. Why don't they use their own gate?"
"Because we work cheap?" Xen shrugged.
"Periwinkle, Falco, Rustle and Wolf are going to come help, but we still can't open them any faster than we can talk to people and find out who wants what and where. Ras and Orion want to observe as well, and I'd like to bring in Wavelength and Dagger, even though they are way too young."
Lon cleared his throat. "Not to bring up a sore point, but opening gates directly between Earth and Empty Worlds that just have miners there would almost halve your work, from now on."
Garit nodded. "A lot of those miners have just wanted to go home, and since we've got gates to most of the Labor Worlds now that might actually be workable."
Inso grinned. "Until the Earth gets impatient and shoots someone."
"Optimist!"
"At least the Arbolians are not being too obvious, with their wretched God. Who looks to be only marginally intelligent, or awake, for that matter."
"The overall 'surface of the Sun look' is cool." Xen said. "But from my mother's encounter with one of their gods, he's bound to be quite dangerous, and probably insane. I suggest that we let the matter of probable enslavement coast for now."
Q nodded. "Their astronomy team is excellent. And well behaved, and I've overheard enough comments to lead me to believe they don't approve of the Priests' treatment of the Gods either. I suspect the usual—that the common folk are decent and just the leaders corrupt."
"And not a damn thing we can do about it." Julianne shrugged. "I think their culture is something they'll have to change themselves."
Chapter Twenty-six
04 January, 2234
Earth Bogota Nuke
"One, this stuff is heavy. Why don't they make smaller bars?" Rior bit his lip and stopped complaining. It was his grand plan, and they'd only had to seduce a single auditor for information, and to drop off the remotely operated corridor frame.
Which hadn't kept the whole organization from partying while they found someone who actually entered the gold vaults regularly. Several someones, actually, and found the best one for a concentrated effort. The man had proven to be extremely honest, and getting him to take a folded bit of metal down to a vault and leave it there 'this side up' had proven to be difficult.
It had taken the trained wiles of one of the courtesans, working with Jade for the magic, to gain the targeted man's co-operation. And Prince Mirk's insistence on a daily newspaper to read at breakfast to spot this opportunity. So he shouldn't complain about the Normals.
But moving the gold bricks was tough, especially since they were being replaced by gold plated copies, which, of course, had to be buried under two layers of the real thing. But Mirk and Fidel were right to insist on the details. The longer the theft remained undiscovered, the more often they could return for more.
He heaved the last brick back into place and nodded in satisfaction.
Smokey grinned. "I've reattached the corridor frame, it's on the inside and invisible, with these springs to close it. No one will ever see it, and we can open it as we cross, even though it does feel like you're drowning when you're stuck for a second in there."
Rior took a last look around and nodded his satisfaction. "Looks good. Mag, Thomu, let's go. Smokey, shall I go last, and trigger the door?"
He held the spring loaded frame carefully and jumped through.
Jade was ready and waiting with champagne. "To the first heist of the Black Island Gang."
***
By the time they melted down the gold and sold it, and split the proceeds, the gold theft had been rather minor. But it had paid the bills. So to speak. Charles Duchane, the gentleman who owned this mansion on this World, where they'd sold the reformed gold bars, was totally enthralled by the witches. They were using him for a play toy, and would probably use him up pretty quickly. Until then, the poor Native would keep paying the bills.
But this was a nice World, a very affluent and moderately high tech World, an Earth with a fifteen century time slip. It had been an interesting look at how their record keeping and government bureaucracy worked to get the necessary identification papers, to open bank accounts and buy and sell stock. They were all now legally indistinguishable from people who'd either died recently without leaving any awkward surviving relatives, or died as infants a decade and a half ago.
We could make plenty of money legally, so to speak, with a bit of applied magic, here and there.
Rior shook his head. Too tame. None of us will ever be satisfied with safe, ordinary, ways to make money. Me least of all.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Early Winter 1399
Embassy
"Nappy Zam Brainless is looking for you."
"Shut up, Xen." Q saved her report and started shutting down her computer.
"He just wants an in." Garit looked stubborn.
Q lowered her eyebrows at him. "He's good looking and a good dancer. Might even be better than you . . . if I had the faintest idea whether you could dance at all."
"Err . . . didn't I ever . . . "
"If you did, it clearly didn't stand out in either of our minds." She stood up and walked out the door.
Garit looked at Xen. "Didn't I ever get roped
in for one of those mercy dances with your little sister?"
"No . . . I think you were always pretty booked up." Xen stared at the office door.
"Can't you turn him into a purple bunny rabbit? Or was that one of Uncle Rufi's exaggerations?"
"No."
"No what?"
"I can't turn him into a purple bunny . . . without getting into a ton of trouble. However, Q is perfectly capable of doing it herself."
"Assuming she wants to."
***
"So, Doctor Quicksilver. Can you tell us what is going on here?"
"We're constructing a hospital dedicated to the Comet Fall style of magical healing."
"And you actually think people will come here from Earth, to be treated?" Napoleon made that a bit confrontational. Two birds with one stone. No one will think I'm getting . . . trying to get . . . cozy with her, and a skeptical interviewer makes for a better story.
"From what I've heard, Earth medicine is very advanced, so I doubt we'll have many patients from Earth. Or the One World," she put in hastily.
"So this is a charity hospital for Natives?"
She raised an eyebrow, and Napoleon hoped her total lack of sex appeal wouldn't be obvious in the 'cast.
"The Earth and the Empire both have such a poor reputation for fair treatment of the people of any world but your own, that we may be their only source of high quality medical care. And I suspect that we'll be cheaper than either world as well."
"We have free health care. For everyone."
"Free, in your case, means paid for through taxes, and there are . . . are they called co-pay or is that the One World? And ceilings, and annual limits, I believe? It all sounds very complex and unnecessary. I take it, though that it is also 'freely' available to Natives of worlds you are in contact with?"
She left him with his mouth hanging open, unsure how to answer. 'Of course not' might be honest, but hardly something he was going to admit on air to a foreigner, who was, after all, both a Native and a genetically engineered monster.
"In the case of the hospital here, Disco has donated the land, Ambassador Never and Duke Dydit are building the main structure. Well, they'll be starting in a few minutes. As far as I can tell, for the sheer fun of it. And then I'll be showing some other witches how to run wiring and hook up the solar panels. A useful teaching opportunity, for which I shall charge the hospital the cost of the solar equipment I will be purchasing on Earth."
"That doesn't sound very magical."
She grinned. "No, it doesn't sound very magical. But watch this."
Three people approaching the roped off site . . .
"Who is that old woman?"
"Dr. Gisele Heath. She was created as a genetic engineering experiment at Bryn Mawr University on Earth over fourteen centuries ago. She is the oldest of the living Telies."
Napoleon blinked. "One of the actual abominations is still alive? They didn't reproduce, did they? I mean, they were all sterile, weren't they?"
"Stop gibbering. And name calling. Most of ours are still alive. I believe all of the thirty-five who were marooned on the One World are dead, and there is only a single survivor on Arrival." Quicksilver turned back to the construction. "We've brought both marble and granite to the site."
"Where?"
"In a transdimensional phenomena that we call bubbles. But first, the site preparation. They will remove the topsoil overburden, and then compact the sediments beneath and completely recrystallize geometrically spaced vertical cylinders of quartz and felsite to form pillars that will stabilize the foundations . . . "
Napoleon's eyes glazed over and he shut out her increasingly unintelligible babble. Kept his small vidcam focused on the construction site.
And hoped he didn't jiggle it too badly as the trio started pulling slabs of rock out of thin air.
***
Under Lady Gisele's stern gaze, Never and Dydit produced an elegant and entirely functional modern hospital. With only a few embellishments.
Q and her students covered the roof with photovoltaic cells, and ran wiring throughout the building. With many squawks, directions and comments from a weedy specimen of Earther called Deejay and a grumpy old Earther called Heugel, who both claimed experience in solar power systems.
"Don't glare, Xen. I paid with honest money, this time."
"I was glaring at the Earthers. They're . . ."
"Lecturing your little sister? I'm finding them useful, and the children need the exposure to Earther attitudes. And blanks."
"Blanks? You mean, people who are hard to read. Much like Damien Malder."
Xen focused on the old one who was glowering down at the younger witches . . . normal the young one who was trying to look like he wasn't watching them . . . "Hmm, yes the young one is . . . blank."
Q drained her glass. "Breaks over. Back to work."
Xen watched her head back inside the hospital shell, the rest of her trainees and the Earthers following.
For the next three days, Q ignored the various delegations carping about the slowdown in the production of new gates.
Xen just shook his head as he was bombarded with demands. "We don't have enough staff to keep up this pace. And since the point of this World is to allow peaceful diplomacy, we'll let the production rate fall rather than cut corners and fail to check that both sides really do want a connection."
That got angry sputters, and denials.
And men turning on Q as she walked in.
"People, please! This is the first time in any our experiences that we've had so many permanent gates from a single world to so many others. I think a slowdown, and regular inspection of the situation is in order. The Earth has over a hundred gates already. Prioritize, and I'll get to the rest as we have time while checking the stability of the whole network."
That got the Oners concerned.
"How dangerous is it?" Agni loomed at her.
Q didn't notice. "You have less than half of the number the Earth is carrying without a noticeable problem, but yes, I will be cycling through the worlds, checking all of them for problems."
A faint babble of protest from listeners from a mix of other worlders.
She sighed. "However, we're nearly done with the hospital. I'll get some more gates opened before we start the library."
More outrage.
Xen squirmed. Dammit, we need more people who can make gates to the right places . . . and we should never have let everyone know that Q is not just the best, she's very nearly the only useful gate maker.
Chapter Twenty-eight
12 April, 2234
Earth Bogota Nuke
The party was a real yawn. Rior kept his low humor to himself, and kept collecting jewelry from the men and women sleeping in heaps all over the extravagant ballroom. The witches were doing a good job of keeping others out and the sleepers sleeping undisturbed. The security cameras all hung, broken, from their mounts.
"Zap, this would go a lot faster if you'd restrain yourself." Rior commented.
The wizard kept right on humping the pretty young debutant. "But not nearly as much fun."
Heso laughed, and dragged a man over to the woman Thomu was just getting off of. "Let's give them a real shock when they wake up, eh?" He stripped the man's pants down to his knees and put him face down in the woman's cleavage. Not to be outdone, the others started dragging bodies around and arranging some really embarrassing tableaus. At least they were collecting the ice while they were at it. Ronnie and Zap seemed to be in competition to see which one could deflower the most virgins, and slinging that damned wine around as well. Men! Even though Rior was, technically, a man now, he failed to see the attraction of leaving a trail of babies behind him.
Ronnie was laughing. "Man is this guy going to be in trouble." 'This guy' was the mayor of the city. The woman was the hostess, the Senator's wife.
Finished inside, Rior stepped out to the terrace. A spectacularly beautiful girl, in the first flush of womanhood—One! All this
and clichés as well. And she was just lying there. And like it or not, the guy's activity had him hot. He grit his teeth, stripped off her modest pearl necklace, the two rings, the bracelet and the tiny watch. There were other people out here too. A pair of matrons just dripping with gems. Mag came out and started helping.
And chuckling he carted two very young men over and posed them with the matrons, one doggy style. He dragged a middle-aged fat guy to the girl and arranged him with his pants down, and the girl, skirt rucked up, in an interesting position.
Rior shook his head. "That's enough. Let's get out of here."
Mag gave the fat man a dribble of wine. "To make sure he takes advantage of what's right there." He dribbled wine in the girl's mouth, then followed Rior back into the ballroom, and they all headed for the corridor. The witches were backing away from their cordon of sleepiness and followed them out. Screams and yells rose behind them. Mag looked out a window to the rear of the mansion and sniggered before retreating into the corridor. Rior released the spring loaded frame and leaped in as it snapped shut. They were a suffocating nuisance to open from the other side, but however unlikely, if they wanted to go back, it was possible.
"Oh. Man. I can't wait to read the papers tomorrow!" Heso was grinning and they were all laughing. Thomu had snagged a couple of bottles of champagne on the way out, and they opened them and celebrated.
Rior didn't indulge, and noticed Mirk made a single glass last for the brief hour before they wound down and sought their beds.
Mirk caught his eye. "Using the women for the perimeter, and leaving the rough stuff for the men worked well. I thought it would be better the other way around, but women might have too many scruples, feel sorry for the women about to lose everything."
