by Pam Uphoff
Evil snickered. "I think we were the youngest people in the whole city, let alone the party. The Guv was grumpy, because after all, we're not going to be trading with anyone." His grin widened. "And we managed to not say anything about 'How about Flu's World? Don't we get to trade?' But I think a couple of the people know about it."
Ogg swallowed. "Yeah. The President knows. 'Good idea you kids have. You must think of a good name for the new world.' I managed to not faint."
They looked up as Juit Clostuone ushered her two kids out of the inner office. Scowling.
"Whoa, must be bad news!" Evil at least had sense enough to keep his voice quiet.
"I already did the cheek scrape thing. They said it'd be a half hour till they could give me the results and do the paperwork . . . " Flu trailed off as the secretary poked her head out and pointed at her. She walked in, dry mouthed. It doesn't matter. Doctor Quicksilver says I can have a world. So it doesn't matter.
The Registrar looked up from the screen as Flu sat down. "Well. I can't believe your father didn't register you early on. It's not like a politician to be shy about bastards. Not that the Governor has any others, that I know of. I mean, he doesn't have the reputation . . . "
"Umm, you can tell, just by looking . . . ? Wait. You mean Mother seduced Governor Arry? Ogg's my brother?"
He snorted. "The programming automatically searches for family relationships. Well, your dominant letters are A. H. R. Y. So officially you can be Hayr, Hyar, Ryah or Rayh. Unless you want to advertise your singles and shorts." He turned the screen around so she could see them.
I won't be a disease any more. Forget the H ones. Ryah or Rayh would both be fine. Excellent. Rya or Ray? Too masculine. "Ryah. I will be Ryah." I have a beautiful name.
The man fed her education chips, vaccination records, and birth certificate into his machine. Handed her a single ID card. "There you go. Ryah Withione Cough Granite Peak."
"Withione?" Her voice squeaked.
She managed to stand and walk out.
Evil jumped up and grabbed her as she walked out. "Sit down, you look like you're going to faint. None of that stupid stuff matters, you know?"
"I'm Ryah Withione. He said I was a Withione!" she heard her voice getting high as the world tunneled down and disappeared.
***
“I am now Ryah Withione Cough Granite Peak.” Ryah had to raise her voice to override the usual insults flying between her mother and her grandmother.
Who kept up their nasty competition.
“SHUT UP!” Grandfather bellowed. His wife and daughter looked at him, shocked.
“Really, Father, that’s uncalled . . .” Her mother trailed off.
“Shut. Up. Now.” Grandfather looked back at her. “Could you repeat that, Ryah? I don’t think the others caught all of that.”
“I got myself tested and registered today. I am now officially Ryah Withione Cough Granite Peak.” She looked over at her female relatives. “Mother, you should get tested and registered. Perhaps even Grandmother.”
They both started talking at once.
Grandfather raised his voice again. “Congratulations, Ryah. That’s a beautiful name. I should have spoken to the town council about you not being allowed in their magic training. You’re going to need it now, even if you are a late bloomer.”
He looked back at the other women. “Monia, get tested tomorrow. Kelanna, I think perhaps you should as well. Some of the miners do have some power, your father may well have been one of them.”
Grandmother glowered. “I’ll never be anything but a Native to Oners.”
“And the love of my life.” He reached to take her hand, and frowned at his daughter. “Monia, I have been too lenient with you. There will be no more bickering at the table, and now that Ryah is grown, it is time for you to move out and make your own way in the world.”
“What! You’re throwing me out, because my daughter is suddenly good enough for you? Don’t you have that backwards?” Her mother flicked her a glance. “Are you throwing Flu out as well?”
“I am working on getting my own home.”
Drowned out by three other voices.
The bickering is not going to change this time, either. But I’m going to be gone.
At least breakfast was quiet.
“Mom sleeping in?” Flu glanced between her grandparents.
Grandmother shrugged. “She went stomping off, mad, late last night. I have no idea where she slept. Or with whom.”
Fortunately, with no one to argue with, it ended there.
Flu’s stomach was in a knot anyway. Today. We’re meeting with Q today!
***
The grassy hillside sloped down to scattered groves of trees along a small river. Flu lifted her vision. They were high up. With much higher mountains behind the foothills they stood on. There were lower hills across the river. Between hills she could see a larger river winding out across plains and into the distance.
"It's very, umm, very." Empty. Silent. Terrifying. Huge. Some primal energy bubbled up from her center, filled her, and erupted in a whoop. "It’s gorgeous! We can keep it? It's all ours?" Flu cast a glance at the nodding Q, then turned and ran down the hill, laughing.
The rest of the kids streamed by and Q shook her head, laughing herself. She pulled rocks up from the bedrock ten feet down and formed the arch for the Gate, so everyone could find it again. The flimsy temporary metal arch had rusted and fallen.
How long has it been since I started setting up these world in such haste? When we thought we might have to evacuate seven billion people as the Helios miniverse came crashing toward the One World? Four Years? I just opened the gates to forty nice Empty Worlds, and left everything else to them.
On this particular world, the Oners had graded and gravelled roads for a hundred kilometers each direction. Jumped to another region and repeated, fifty times according to the records.
One of the private companies must have placed the corridors.
And then three years ago, when the Helios problem . . . disintegrated . . . everything had been abandoned.
The road was overgrown, and the ten kilometers around it that would have been the town center was indistinguishable from untouched prairie. Apart from the apparently indestructible and amazingly ugly squishies—field extendable modules—that had been installed before the need to evacuate billions of people had vanished.
They’d have been living in tents and trailers, packed like sardines into the squishies. I don’t even want to think about how many would have starved.
But for the Granite Peak colonists? It’s perfect.
Q started walking down the road, brushing the growth aside, compacting and consolidating the gravel into a smooth hard surface. The kids could use the squishies for starter buildings . . .
The kids had been talking up a new world with their contemporaries in all the towns. Spreading up and down the ages. This first group was fifty strong, with a fair number of them armed, and a few of them well enough trained magically to raise shields and slice. They shouldn't have too many problems with predators, and the native fauna here would be easy to hunt for a while, as they spread out.
The 2k by 2k farms are already surveyed and staked, with four basic homes on each joint corner. These farm kids and hunters won’t have many problems, other than there being almost a half million of them, if everyone possible moves.
I’ll check the corridors that run out to the other farm clusters so that the new settlers can both spread out and keep in touch.
And I’ll keep an eye on them.
Chapter Twenty-two
8 July 3523 ce
Serene, Granite Peak
"Oh for . . ." Jack flicked the light on as he reached for the comm. "Higgins, it's two in the morning!"
"I know. We, uh, we, uh . . . have a problem."
"Where?" Crap! Did one of those stupid farmers shoot one of the raiding "Nomads?" "Is anyone dead?"
"No, no one is . . . seriously injured.
Umm, we're ten kilometers west of Carson Family Farm Company . . . S15, W23."
"Right. Twenty minutes if I take the aircar." Jack paused. There was no request for an ambulance . . . "Out."
"Bloody Hell!" He grabbed clothes and stared dressing on his way to the lav. Weapon up . . . take a stun gun. Just in case the problem involves real Nomads. And that's the best case. Worse? They got seen and recognized by the farmers they were raiding,
***
The two women were bound and gagged. Lots of bruises coming up, clothes torn, grubby.
And two of the five men dressed up like one of the western Nomad tribes had some scratches and Kirk had a beaut of a shiner.
Higgins sent them a glare. "It seems that Mike and Kirk had tried to charm the ladies and been turned down. They . . . decided to try a different approach tonight. Make them really appreciate the guards they'd sneered at. Except the women fought . . . and recognized them."
Jack eyed the men . . . the women . . . They look pissed, maybe it didn't go so far as actual rape. His stomach twisted.
I should arrest Kirk and Mike both and haul them back to town.
Where everyone will wonder just why my people were raiding farms.
And I can admit to . . . treason. Colluding with Oners.
Arrow will get sent back to prison, stripped of her magic.
And I'll go to jail, the company will go belly up . . .
Or . . .
I hide this for just a few more weeks.
Jack closed his eyes and swallowed. Damn me for ever listening to them! Damn my stupid . . . dreams and boredom. "Hoist the Jolly Roger!" Yeah, how's that exciting risk working out for you now?
Damn, damn, damn.
"Right. Strap the ladies in the back seat."
"You two, hand over your weapons. All of them."
They shifted. Kirk sneered, "What do you think you are going to do? We go to jail, you go to jail."
Good thing I came prepared. Jack drew the stunner and dropped them both. Thought about it and stunned the two women as well.
"Higgins? Get all four of them into the aircar. I'll drop the idiots out about a month's hike from Serene, and put the Ladies where they'll be safe, but not able to communicate for the next few weeks." Jack eyed the remaining trio. "No more raids. Just do your usual jobs and look blank when anyone asks about Mike and Kirk. You were on night patrol. They went south, you went north, and got back before them. You will be shocked and worried when you hear about the kidnappings. And turn their horses loose."
Kidnapping. I could get the death penalty. A tiny bit of bleak humor leaked through. Maybe they'll let it run concurrently with the death penalty for treason.
***
He left his groggy employees near a small stream, with a rifle and pistol apiece and twenty rounds for each weapon. Canteens and backpacks with damn little in them. A couple of knives.
And a note. You are 750 miles west of Serene. Have a nice hike.
He zipped a bit further west and landed to taxi the air car through the corridor.
I don't believe I'm doing this.
The Oners met him, guns in hand and fast deploying what was probably an anti-aircraft weapon.
They relaxed abruptly as they recognized him. Amac slung his rifle and strolled up. "Hey Jack, not your usual wheels. Problem?"
"My troops . . . got careless." Jack twitched at a snort from the back seat. Oops! The stun has worn off. "And these young ladies need to stay where they won't be talking to anyone for a few weeks."
"Weeks! You're dead meat, Hemmingway!"
Grins from the Oners. Jack ignored the women and eyed the Oners.
Amac nodded. "We've got some women and children here, we'll just add them in."
A few chuckles and elbow nudges from the ranks.
Shit. "Look. We're trying to give people their independence. To free them from the Disco imposed diplomacy that will strip ownership of their farms from them. Turn them into penniless refugees. If we're . . . rapists and kidnappers . . . We won't be the Good Guys, will we? It's . . . teetering already. Don't. Make. It. Worse."
That got guilty shifts of feet, reluctant nods.
"Right." Amac nodded. "Boys, show the ladies to their new homes. Jack . . . I think we need one more of your usual loads, then we're ready to roll."
"Right." Jack considered his schedules . . . Get everything done before I start burning the bridges. "I'll bring a load in eight days, then I'll stay on world and on call."
He watched the still wobbly sisters being escorted across to the building with bars on the windows.
It's only for three weeks.
He nodded to Amac, and climbed back into the aircar.
Guess I'd better update my exit plans. This is probably going to be the end of the company . . . the end of all my businesses . . . at the very least.
I'm beginning to think I'll be lucky to get out of this mess alive.
Chapter Twenty-three
11 Nicholas 1408 yp
Gate City, One World
"So. The One now has the Wine of the Gods, the Comet Fall Longevity Potion, their puberty delay spell, and the Homestead hormone suppressant."
Izzo cocked his head. "And the other matter?"
Fean, more frequently referred to as the Fiend, chuckled. "I went and poked around a bit at the school." She shrugged. "I don't, umm, have many contacts there, having left early after offending nearly everyone. But they were curious enough about the Joy Juice that I got some of the staff talking. I suggested that the two Princesses who'd come in the week before with a grievance were probably both pregnant. Some people who were listening in looked shocked, and slid out. They came back and said the Administration hadn't been aware of that possibility and would look into it. With that as an opening, the story came out. It seemed that the two of them had a sexual rivalry over the assigned official of one of them. The Administration has recommended to the One that both women be replaced, as emotionally unsuitable. They haven't been apprised of any decision. The Princesses are both in solitary meditation."
"Ouch! Sounds like the School is not happy with them."
"Oh yeah. Of course, they aren't locked up or anything. It's just that they go off by themselves to meditate for most of the day, and are left mostly alone during meals."
Ajha grinned suddenly. "In Makkah, I asked the One why you'd only finally gotten a Princess, and she so completely incompetent."
Izzo looked over at him. "How many of your bosses have threatened to kill you?"
Fean snickered.
Ajha looked innocent. "Every single one. I’m not sure but that Uncle Ajki didn’t try once. He, they, whatever, said she was least likely to disrupt the experiment."
"Figures. Good grief."
"Of course I asked, 'What experiment?' And they said the one where young priest candidates had their puberty delayed chemically or magically and only joined the priesthood when they wanted to, after education and possibly even extensive outside experience. You being the early example."
Xiat frowned at Izzo. "Don't tell me, let me guess. Your father did something, and that's what you were talking about, the hormone suppressors?"
Izzo nodded. "You have noticed he's not quite . . . balanced on this issue. On Homestead there are these blood flies, they lay eggs in cuts and such, very nasty results. Castrating livestock is a losing proposition, but they've got this nasty mess of herbs that just sort of stops puberty dead, wears off in a year or two. Fine for most critters—they get eaten long before it's a problem. Horses, if they prove exceptional, are used for breeding afterwards, so Dad figured it was worth the risk, when I started showing signs of awakening and we were in a Native town where no one could protect themselves from my mistakes or temper tantrums. Where someone might bring me to the attention of the Registrar. Worked."
He shrugged, watched her carefully. He had enough mixed feeling about his childhood himself to worry about Xiat's reaction. "He kept renewing it until, well, until I ran away from home and
registered myself."
Ajha chuckled. "Your father explained it all to them. He and the One found each other mutually disturbing." He saw their surprised looks. "When I asked him, he took me to Homestead to collect the stuff, and then he decided to go tell the One just what he thought about their policies. Fortunately I didn't need to listen in. I have a hideous feeling he may have threatened the One if they touched his grandson."
Xiat ground her teeth. "Maybe the One won't return him."
Izzo suppressed a smile. "I talked to him yesterday; he was in Paris. Most likely the One was afraid Mom would come get him. So, I'm an experiment, and the One only finally assigned me a Princess when it became obvious that Xiat wasn't my check, and people might start saying things."
Ajha shrugged. "If she's that bad, you could probably manage to lose her somewhere. A tour of exploration prospects, or some such. Shall I make up a list of failed prospects for you?"
Izzo hesitated, but shook his head. "They'd only send another, and I'd have to start from scratch. She's actually starting to show signs of competence.
"Now, for the next problem I have . . . " He drummed his fingers on the table. "Ebko is . . . not being open about the Action and Exploration Team activities. Ajki pooled them all, trying to dilute the worst of the Action Teamers, but all it did was add another ten teams to the total Ebko could use. I need to check on where the Action Teams are going, and what they are doing when they get there."
Ajha cocked his head. “They’re mostly living in the old warehouses. Should be easy enough to swipe some pollen samples off their floors and furniture. That’ll tell us if they’re all going to the same worlds, and which ones. Why will no doubt become more clear, then.”
Izzo raised his eyebrows.
“Pollen’s a dead giveaway. A genetic analysis of the slight differences between what seemed to be identical species will give a probability of which world it was from. Analyze the pollen of a hundred species, and the totality is a unique identifier for every world.” Ajha grinned over his shoulder. “I’m sure Fean can tell when a warehouse is empty and get samples.”
