by P. S. Power
“I didn’t even know that I had a father, but, you know, it was Tor? When that was found I suddenly had all these people claiming me, but I kept expecting them to just… I don’t know. Leave? Send me away? I mean, who am I, right? Some orphan that showed up one day, begging a job as a dirt boy at the main space port in Noram? They all, everyone, kept telling me that they meant it, but then… A bit ago, a few weeks, I messed up and killed an innocent man.” He looked away, a tinge of darkness hitting him. It wasn’t a great thing, being a murderer. “I thought then, you know, that they’d throw me away.”
The woman moved with him, walking slowly. He was able to focus enough that it didn’t feel wrong to him, or look that way. Her brown eyes locked with his, as she smiled.
“My mother… She sold me to men for sex. She did drugs. An addict. When I was little? I eventually killed her. My father… He’s the chief of police in the city I lived in. There’s no way he didn’t know about it all happening. I keep pretending that he just managed to ignore me enough that it was all right, and that it doesn’t mean he just didn’t care. He was a drunk back then, so I use that to help me not kill him. We don’t get to pick our families however. Yours sounds better than mine was. Sure, a bit of faking her own death, or not being there, but was Tor ignoring you, and letting you live in squalor, or did he just not know?” She was actually asking, which was interesting. The tale was a new one to her.
“Oh, no. He never knew. My mother didn’t tell him about it. She never really told anyone, other than me. I didn’t believe it. I mean, the richest man in the world is my father? That sounds…”
The girl, and she wasn’t old looking, no more than twenty or so, laughed.
“No doubt. I didn’t know he was that rich. Zack is. Both of them. Not the richest person though. I do all right, and you own Mars, so that has to help.”
Shaking his head Dareg winked at her.
“All of this… And none of it actually belongs to me in the slightest. I made this city for Karina… I’m, we’re going to be married in a few months. Still, that counts too, or will soon. I have a mother again. A father, which I didn’t have for most of my life. He’s actually a good person. I… I’m not certain about my mother, but so far I don’t think I need to kill her. I was planning to at first, but she was trapped, her family held hostage. They told you about that?”
“Oh, yeah. That sounds hard core. Going to a different reality and just taking the people that were being kept against their will? If word of that gets out, you might find a few more people coming to you for help. I would, if that were my choice.”
They walked for a bit, and the woman suddenly stopped, and pointed at one of the empty shop spaces, about half a mile away from the Inn.
“How about this place? We can send people through to work it, or train ones from here? Kind of like an embassy, between our worlds. Only with frozen treats to eat. There’s enough room for seating, and while I don’t know how to get the product in each day without doing it myself, I bet we can work something out. You don’t have cows here do you? For milk?”
“Nooo. This is Mars. We have some lichen, growing on the surface. What we do have are food devices. Here, I can…” There wasn’t one there, but he’d built in a small place, with a bench, not too far away.
Dare got it to make first milk, then cream, sugar, and various flavorings for her. When she touched the control sigil however, she made something very different, which was an odd paper cup that had wax on it, with frozen cream inside. Only it wasn’t exactly. The taste was a bit different, and there was a lot of very sweet sauce on it. Chocolate, he thought.
“This is good! You can make these? From scratch? That will go over well. I bet you could set this up in Harmony as well. The Moon? That’s the main city there. I doubt you can sell them, but if you don’t mind working for free, or in exchange for magic, then I bet it will work.” He got ready for her to tell him that it wouldn’t be worth it to her, unless she made gold from it, but the woman shrugged.
“It isn’t about that. It’s about integrating enough that we can come and go without seeming out of place. Food services, trade goods, other services… I mean, that’s what you have all those good looking girls around for here, right? Other services?”
He understood her and shook his head, trying not to scowl.
“They’re my daughters. Eva and Samantha. I know that she looks like you, Eva? But my guess is that your counterpart here is actually Tiera. She’s the Queen of the Moon. Not as short as you are, and a bit darker, but she’s the one that I used for the model for my daughter. I didn’t feel like I had a family, so I made my own. Now I’m… A bit rich that way?”
The words probably didn’t make sense, but the woman was bright and nodded at him anyway. Then she spoke, showing more insight than he would have figured anyone could have into his being.
“That’s the point of your story, right? Your life so far? Finding your family, and learning what that means? For me, it means being safe, personally. That’s why… I keep asking myself which is the right thing to do. Do I help save all the lives, or end them before they even start, to save pain?” She looked at him, and then away, faking a sigh. “My pain. Not that I don’t care about the rest of you, but we have to keep the important things up front. I don’t want to be alone forever.”
Blinking, he nodded.
“It wasn’t that bad. I sat in the void for a very long time, to see what it was like. For me it was peaceful, and not lonely or anything. Besides, we can travel between realities ourselves. I think that there will always be some kind of a world out there. Not that I can prove it. Then, if we can do this now, then… Well, if one of us wants to end things, then we should be able too, right? At the end I mean? That we’re still here means that it hasn’t happened. Which means that the others are behind it. The people that can’t just rest and happily focus forever like that. They must be so terrified. I… I don’t know. I don’t want my family to die, or to have never been. You’re safe though. That pretty much has to be so. Unless what I was told was wrong, which I bet is at least partially the case.”
She grinned then, and put an arm around his shoulder. It was cold, but she didn’t do anything inappropriate, so he simply let her do it and stood there, looking at the food unit in the wall.
“If that’s the case, which I hadn’t figured out yet, then either the end isn’t coming the way we think it is, or it won’t be for me, and either way, I’m safe already. That’s better. Not that I can’t suffer, if I’m not careful, but that was always the case. Thanks. So, I don’t have to figure out how to destroy us all?”
“Nope. If you ever want to, or if I do, then all we have to do is wait until the end, become the totality of a universe, and then go back in time to when we were born. I think that would end it all. Things that large can’t be expected to play by normal rules, I bet. So… I guess that answers my part in things as well, doesn’t it?”
He hadn’t really been talking about his own feelings, just how pleased he was, having a family for real, but it really was the answer he’d been looking for a while.
Dareg Canton could, or would eventually, be able to end everything, at least in part of the reality scheme. Eve could do the same, and so could Zack, or any version of any of them that could already move between worlds. Including, he had to think, the enemy.
They were still there however.
Meaning that none of them with the power to do that had, or would. Not that knowing that would stop the war that was coming. In the end they might not die, but he could still lose all of his people. A thing that he had now, and had felt the lack of before. When Karen had died, and Kolb, or even Erid, the High Servant, who had been a good man, even if he hadn’t known him well. That had hurt.
That was the cost of doing anything however, or, naturally, of doing nothing. Everyone around him would die. Even if they went on someplace else.
There would be pain, but there could also be people that he held close. Love, an
d joy. Glancing to the strange being next to him, who had admitted that her main focus was on keeping herself safe, Dareg managed to smile. That wasn’t the worst thing that could exist after all. There were far worse things than that she could be worried about.
“So, we’re safe, after a fashion. That doesn’t really fix things though, does it? If we can, we need to work out how to protect the others. The ones that don’t have our kind of mindset? Not that I have a clue how to do that. I think…” Really, the truth was that he didn’t know.
“Yeah?” Eve looked at him, her face a bit blank then.
“I think I should go and spend some time with my family. It really is what’s important to me, and there are more of them now. Maybe not all of them blood relations, but the family we pick counts too, right?”
She nodded, and took a very deep breath.
“I will, then, get out of your hair? We can do this here, right? Start the shop?”
“Sure. Just come and do it. Make sure you learn how to gather working material from the service, and get a shield before you leave.” Then he smiled and looked at her again. She really was basically Tiera, if from a different place. That had to count as family too.
“For now, why not come and meet the others? The ones that you haven’t yet? Then I can grab up Karina and Uni, and take them around to meet the rest of you? You’ll like Uni, I think. She’s made of magic, but isn’t my daughter. You know, I bet you could talk her into working at your shop, if you present it right? Everyone needs to do something.”
As for him, after he visited with all his new people, he… Kind of needed to start making some more cities. Things weren’t done, and never would be, most likely, but that was all right.
Dareg didn’t need to know what the end would bring for certain. Just a chance to make it as brilliant for his friends and family as possible.
That was all.
It surprised him, but his new friend, from a different world, came with him to meet the others.
That was a very promising start.
Very promising, indeed.
