by P. S. Power
“I’m counting on that! See you soon, Dareg. I really did miss you.”
It was probably strange, but now that she was there, he realized that he’d missed her too.
Things ached a bit, inside of his heart, leaving her there, instead of keeping her with him. Then, Dareg knew that he loved her, more than a little bit. Possibly more than he ever had anyone else in the world. Ever. That she wasn’t strictly a person wasn’t that big of an issue for him either. She was real, had thoughts and feelings, and if her body was a bit funny, being a blue box, well, that was just part of what made her interesting. Not that having a body wasn’t useful at times.
It would be weird eating food that came out of a human seeming body though.
From there he went to the port at the Capital and got in touch with Karina, as he walked toward Sam Builder’s palace. The cute red headed woman answered fairly quickly, her face lighting up when she worked out who it was.
“Hey! I was just going to head off to Mars and see if you wanted to get together. Call it three hours? I have a meeting with Dad and Counselor Smythe first.” She went a little wide eyed after saying all of that, which probably had to do with the fact that it was, for a world leader, a bit pushy. It could be taken as an order, and he might just have different plans in mind, like a date, or locking himself in a dark room with a food unit and stuffing himself until he couldn’t move. Which, at the moment, sounded grand.
He could do both however, if he hurried. If not, he at least needed a snack first.
“That sounds fun. We can eat at my place? The food unit I have is a bit better than the ones that Tiera makes. Don’t tell her that though, since I mainly ripped off her unit and just tweaked it a bit, which is all kinds of cheating.” It was how he’d done his ships as well, though those were Timon vessels.
Meaning that his Uncle had ripped them off from Tiera and made changes, first.
Karina seemed pleased by the plans going so easily, and winked at him.
“See you then! I need to run. I wasn’t kidding about that meeting being first. The others are sitting here, watching me… It’s creepy, but what can we do?”
She was joking, since it was her father and a longtime friend, but he nodded, and let his voice sound somber.
“Understood. Well, return their solid glares and stay strong. See you soon.”
“Soon! Bye.”
The communication ended just as he got to the door of Sam’s Palace, and used the knocker, to try and summon someone to allow him entry. His floating case was mainly empty, but he had a few things to pass off to the man, and some introductions to make, as well as finding out the secret rules of things that builders were never supposed to do.
An attractive machine came to the door, and smiled when she saw him. Her hair was long, and in a single braid down her back. She wore magical clothing, but the style was simplistic and humble. Tan and off white, in the form of a dress. Brown shoes as well. There was even an apron, which made her seem like a maid or perhaps a kitchen lady.
Which she was, if the one in charge of the whole house. That was a good job, Dareg thought. The place was a palace, and just getting to spend her days there was probably a treat. Not that it was her real job. No, she was a spy. Possibly an ambassador. It was the strangest way of doing it he’d ever heard of, but he’d helped her get into place, and had, he recalled now, actually been the one to hire her in the first place. Hopefully she was doing good work. Otherwise he’d stuck the Ancient of an entire land with a poor house lady. That might create hard feelings later, if it were the case.
“Hello! I came to see Sam?”
She nodded a few times, and didn’t seem upset by that at all, reaching out to pat him on the arm.
“And he isn’t here. He had to go see his friend on Harmony. Guide Eastgreen? Though I think he’s planning to attend the party around Jupiter. I know that I am.” She gave him a sly look, as if she might not be invited for some reason. Given that she was actually an ambassador of sorts, it seemed out of place.
“Yes. Use the transport system for that. Have you been? You can go and visit some places in your fleet each day if you want. Where, I don’t know, but then, I wouldn’t. Erath picked the places for it, not me.” The truth was that he’d seen the names that had appeared, but none of it made a lot of sense to him, as to destinations of note.
It was all, world six, sub nine and things like that. Lyone was from there though, and unlike most people, she nodded.
“I don’t go every day. We haven’t been able to determine who, or how many, people can come and go however. What’s allowed?”
It was a great idea, but he had no clue what anyone else would want or not want that way. Instead of making something up, he shrugged.
“You know, we can ask what people want to do on the trip? Everyone should be there. It’s a party, but collecting up that kind of data sounds like it might be acceptable small talk at times? We’re going to be gone for days, and talking about the weather will only work for so long.”
She winked at him, and touched his arm again, holding his arm a little.
“Do you need something to eat? I can’t help but notice that you’re speaking several times faster than most people do. If you’re consuming calories at that rate, you must be constantly starving. You’re taller as well, which will add to the load that way. Come in? I can get you something. Anything you want really. Your food machines are incredible here.”
She pulled him in, regardless of what he wanted, and used his arm to guide him inside. That probably meant her people were pushy, which they could be a bit, or that she actually wanted him to be there with her for a while, for some reason.
Scanning her he didn’t find a single implant. No, he found about fifty of the things. None of them were like the ones the Adversaries had used yet, thankfully, but it was going to be harder now, if he had to account for alien technology too.
When he settled in, the machine lady moved off without waiting, and came back with a very large bowl of beef stew, which was very thick. There was a loaf of bread with it as well, and some butter, that seemed like the good whipped kind that he’d almost never had before. Instead of leaving, the woman sat with him, which for a servant wasn’t a thing that happened, he was willing to bet. Not at the nice, and very large table he was at. Then she leaned in, not letting him even have a few bites first.
“So… I hear that you made some people? Is that true? Artificial Intelligence?”
Sighing he stood, leaving the delicious smelling food, and stood to get into his case and got out one of each of the girls. Then passed the tiles over, so that he could eat while the woman entertained herself. Which she did in a very noisy fashion.
The first thing she did was gasp, which had to be fake, and then she clapped as both of the new women looked at her.
“Hello! I’m Lyone.”
Eva bowed to her, dressed in green this time. So was Samantha, and they matched, in what seemed to be fine leather that looked soft, and thin.
“The woman from the machine people that works with Ancient Builder?” Looking around, she nodded and glanced at her sister. “Are we at his home? It’s very nice.”
Dareg had filled his mouth with stew, so couldn’t talk, but nodded, which got everyone to wait before speaking, as if he had something to add to the conversation.
“Right. He’s not here right now, but Lyone wanted to meet you both. I think there might be testing involved? You know, so you can prove that you’re real people? It shouldn’t be that hard for you, since you are.” The woman hadn’t said all of that but it was so clear to Dareg that it nearly had to be what she wanted.
Luckily Samantha seemed happy enough for that to be done.
“Sounds good. What do we need to do? I could try juggling? I’m not very good at it yet, but I saw a display last night at the King’s palace. I’ve been practicing since.”
What came next was funny, since she smiled at each of them, and called out, fairly loudly.
>
“Brice? Could you come here? I want you to meet some people.”
Her eyes glinted a bit, looking exactly the same as anyone else Dareg had ever met. That was the real problem with her. She, and all her people, as far as he knew so far, looked like human beings. If any of them were different in shape, no one had bothered to mention it to him.
Brice, who looked young, and like he might be a commoner from Noram, simply wasn’t one. When he came into the room, dressed in a white, loose seeming shirt, and brown trousers. His face was pleasantly tan, or perhaps a bit darker than that, and his hair was brown.
When he saw who was there, all of his attention went to the girls. It was interesting to see that happen, because it seemed to indicate that the machine fellow was interested in ladies.
He bowed to them, since they were all standing.
“Hello.” He didn’t say anything else, waiting for someone to tell him who the women were. Dareg nearly introduced them, but Lyone shushed him, smiling.
“Perhaps they could do that themselves?”
It went back and forth for a while, and then, of all things, they started chatting like they were old friends. Mainly about what was going on in the expansion to Mars. The news that Hess was the new leader there got the machine man to sit down, seeming almost like he was going to collapse. Happily, but it seemed to have real impact.
“That’s… Incredible. No one thought that you, the people of this system, would even be able to speak to the Ysidril. To make one of them important, this quickly… It’s very open. More than we projected as being possible.”
Eva smiled at him, and waved toward Dareg, to blame him for the whole mess.
“Dare nominated him for the position. My guess is that it’s nepotism, but he does seem like a good being. So far we don’t really have a population there to speak of, so there’s a bit of time for him to get up to speed on it all. I hear that the Ysidril don’t really have leaders like that? It could make it difficult for him to learn how to do it.” She glanced away, then looked over at Brice, as if flirting with him.
Samantha chimed in, her face reminding Dareg of Sam Builder a bit more than normal, being they were in his house at the moment. On the good side the man did make an attractive girl, so it wasn’t a bad thing that way. No one else mentioned it at any rate.
“I… You know, I think he’ll be fine? We can all help him set things up, and if the plan is for a mixed population, Ysidril, Forten, Mech and people from here, then we need to start out with someone that won’t try to force us all into the mold they think should be happening. I don’t know if it will work very well, but if we don’t try, we won’t ever learn.”
The conversation went on for a very long time, and it wasn’t until Brice asked the girls if they wanted something to eat, or drink, that he caught on at all.
Lyone didn’t make him actually guess at it all however.
“Eva and Samantha are a new kind of person. Energy based, and built with magic. Intelligent though. I was using you for the Turing test. I think they passed?”
The machine being nodded, and blinked a few times.
“Since I still kind of don’t believe they aren’t human, even having been told, then… Yes. I have to say that they really did. Amazing.”
Then Lyone turned Eva off and back on, to prove her point.
That move started a different, but equally animated conversation.
One about how many more of the new people they were going to be making.
Chapter eleven
It had taken nearly two full days for everyone to get onto the ship they were using to go to Jupiter. That was, in the end, his own fault. Instead of giving a specific time, Dare had hand waved the idea, and a lot of the people didn’t want to get there just to sit and wait for him to get things going. Which meant that only half of them did that, while the others got there much later.
The event itself was both incredible, being a grand gala affair in many ways, with actual balls, more than one, and meetings of some of the most powerful individuals in the known universe. Kings and Presidents. Premiers and newly minted High Leaders. Even better than that, they were constantly on camera the entire time, which introduced the concept of aliens and people from old Earth returning very nicely. At least to Austra and Harmony. The space stations and Martian Circle as well, as well as Mars First City proper, though the five to ten people that had moved in there now probably weren’t as far out of the know as some of the others, given what they saw every day.
For his part Dare stayed at the helm the whole time, except for half an hour per day, when he went to get a shower, and a few restroom breaks. Plus his daily training, naturally. It wasn’t much fun, but they did collect a lot of data on the giant planet, and some of its moons. Interestingly they also found a group of Ring Makers there. They were similar to the ones around Saturn, except that they tended to be smaller and were a deep purple color, instead of shining black. They moved around more as well, eating things as they moved toward the gas planet. The ring looked a lot smaller, but the scientists from Austra claimed it was as impressive as the one around Saturn, it was just that the scale of the thing looked different, because Jupiter was so vast.
There was also a giant spot on the thing, which was a single storm that almost never ended. That caught a lot of attention, or so he heard.
Grainger, the man in charge of the science crews, and the only Austran other than Jan that Dareg was allowing on the bridge for the trip, wanted to stay and examine the whole thing longer, but spoke in a defeated tone as he’d done it. Probably because on the last trip Dare had ended the whole thing very abruptly, and it was slated to last about the same amount of time. The difference now was that they had more ships, the transport network, and Samantha and Eva.
It meant that Dareg was able to set things up so that there was a ship around not just the world they were at, but all of them, so that they could be studied more closely. It made a bit of a stir, apparently, but that wasn’t his problem, thankfully. He got them the craft, and pilots, as well as the basic working material and the way to go directly from Earth to the ships. Anywhere in the transport system. That meant interesting things, since both he and Doctor Grainger thought that anyone should be allowed to investigate the solar system, if they wanted to come. Not all at once, but several Ysidril, Mech, and Forten crews wanted to make a tour of things. So did a small group from Afrak, since there was life in space, even though they could only observe so far. To the people there that was fascinating. All life was, for them.
The biggest thing of interest to him was that a decently large group from Tellerand had found out about the whole thing, and wanted to go as well. Not, strictly speaking, just to convert the new people, though Terry Baker, their Ancient, assured him that they’d do that too, if they could. For some reason he seemed shocked when Dareg allowed them to come along as well. They had a pod at their main port after all, and it was clearly the will of the All High that they be allowed to do such things. If not, then he would have probably made sure that Dareg didn’t put one there.
After all, if anyone from there had walked up to him and demanded he remove the thing, he would have. It wouldn’t even take a direct visit from the All High him, or her, self. Just anyone telling him that they didn’t want his dark and evil magic would have been enough.
In the end, Dareg was back home, on Mars, a full week after he was supposed to be, which meant he was in for it that morning, when he went to Printer, for his daily beating.
So it was a bit strange when he stepped through, after having gone running through the main portion of First City. Fast and hard, which had left him covered in sweat. It turned out that wasn’t going to matter much, since he was pelted by heavy, rather cool, rain the moment he got into place. If he’d gone in dry, he would have been soaked after about twenty seconds anyway. His face dripped, and he was there alone, he realized.
Nearly.
Across the way from the red box a single figure was working
away at a sodden pell, slapping it with a metal club, using a decent speed and power. Baron Havar. The man was dressed in plain brown cloth that day, not the more official fighting leathers, which probably had to do with the fact that wet leather was a pain in the behind to work in. Especially when wet.
Starting right in on lifting stones, Dareg managed to work through his morning efforts by the time that the larger man was finished. It was just a difference in raw speed and the perception of what they were doing, really. As he racked the practice weapon, the wind pounded the world with a line of rain. They were standing in a shallow puddle, rivulets of water running out of the all stone fighting area.
“Dareg. I didn’t think anyone else was going to come out today. Not even Petra Ward makes her students practice in a storm. Besides, it’s an off day.”
That got him to shrug a bit, and smile at the very hard looking man. He seemed a bit like a wet rat at the moment, his brown clothing sticking to him. They both had short hair however, so that part wasn’t too bad. His was finally growing back, and was nearly getting to the point where he needed to get a haircut, if he wanted to keep a good fighters look going.
“Funny, but I doubt that anyone attacking me will really let me off just because it’s a bit damp out.”
That got a smile, and a gentle laugh.
“See, that’s what I tried to tell everyone. So, we can work with clubs?”
Dare nodded.
“Full force. I’ll try to keep to one twelfth speed. No promises though. That can get boring.”
The other man gave him a curious look and then nodded.
“That has to be hard. How are you holding up?” It was clear that he meant Dare’s mind, not his body.
That part was fine.
“It’s… Really hard. More so than I would have figured, to be honest. I feel like I’m alone all the time, which… I mean, I was alone for years, so I can handle it, but… It’s starting to get to me anyway.” He got ready to try and explain it all, but Havar just went to the weapons rack and got them some three-foot-long wooden clubs.
