He waited for more questions. Eventually Sirina helped him out. “How does this teleport work?”
Nigel answered, naturally assuming the question was for him. “You simply step onto the pad, in groups of no more than twenty individuals, and state your destination. I will send you there. Once you have arrived, please vacate the pad immediately, as others may wish to make use of it.”
“How do we know where to go?” someone from the crowd shouted.
Allistor hadn’t thought of that. “I’ll tell you what. My people will spread out around the pad to answer questions and make recommendations. Take some time to talk to them. Tell them what you’re interested in, and they’ll recommend a place to start. I’ll give you until noon tomorrow to explore. You can visit as many of our locations as you wish in that time. Wherever you go, feel free to ask the people there whatever questions you like. They can show you around, demonstrate spells, crafting, healing, whatever. And you’ll have access to food and drink at your leisure. Just ask whomever you’re with, and they’ll get you to a cafeteria.”
Helen nudged him in the ribs, and whispered “Beastkin.”
“Oh, shit! Thanks.” He chuckled. “Uhmm… as you move around, you’ll notice several non-human beings living and working among us. Don’t be frightened, they’re citizens, and quite friendly. There are elves, dwarves, gnomes, minotaur, orcanin – those look like storybook orcs, big green muscley guys, but please don’t call them orcs, it’s an insult to them. They are called orcanin. There are beastkin of various forms – they look part human, part animal. All of them have taken the oath and are fellow citizens. They will not harm you unless you attack them. Even then, they’ll probably just restrain you and return you to me. All of them are much more powerful than any of you.”
There were expressions of shock and concern. Several people backed away from the pad as if it might bite them.
“Any other questions?” Allistor asked. “If not, I’d like to take care of something. Please, bring our two most senior friends forward. Fayed, Sirina, would you help me?”
The droids brought forth the two frail locals, and Allistor briefly explained what he had in mind to Fayed and Sirina in a whisper. They in turn moved to speak with the seniors, Sirina helping the grandmother, Fayed the old man. It took a few minutes, especially for the old man who was barely lucid. But eventually they achieved the result Allistor hoped for.
Both elders rapidly looked much healthier and stronger. The old man even squirmed to be set down and stood on his own, albeit with one hand on the droid to steady himself. Fayed had coached him into applying attribute points to Strength and Constitution, as well as a few points into Intelligence to help with focus, and Stamina. There was no cure for age, but being able to use attribute points to boost yourself beyond human norms was a good substitute.
Having the oldsters suddenly looking much more spry and active went a long way toward reassuring the others. They looked more relaxed and less afraid.
“Now then, I promised to escort miss Sirina here, who you can thank for the brand new high rises, by the way, to meet some friends of mine. We’ll be making a quick stop at my capital city on the way. Any of you who wish to visit may join us, or follow.”
He moved to the center of the pad and motioned for her to join him. To her credit, she did so with confidence and no hesitation. Agni, Fayed, and several of those who’d already sworn the oath chose to join him, then half a dozen or so from the crowd. Including the grandmother and her family.
With a smile and a wave, Allistor and the others disappeared.
Chapter 20
Master Cogwalker sat behind the desk in his office on the space station. His chair was swiveled so that his back was to the desk and he faced a wide window in the outer wall of the room. Below him was the azure wonder of the planet Allistor and the humans called Earth. Puffy white clouds drifted lazily across vast oceans and land masses alike. To the south a spiral storm system spun westward from one continent toward another. It was beautiful.
Cogwalker had only spent a short time on the planet, but he found he quite liked the environment. It had a much lower gravity than his own homeworld, making him feel like he could leap over buildings without much effort. They had set the gravity here in the station to match the planet’s, but everything here was tight spaces and long corridors, no wide open spaces for leaping, except maybe the upper habitat.
Still, he had no time for such boyish foolishness. His clan’s honor, his own personal honor, had been badly damaged by the attacks here on the station. He needed to get to the bottom of several questions, and do it soon.
His dwarves had captured and detained all the remaining griblins within minutes of the explosions. Their gear had been searched, and two more explosives found. Each griblin had been questioned extensively, and each had cooperated fully. They too seemed to want to find out what happened. The two who had been carrying unexploded bombs had no idea how or when the explosives had been implanted in their gear. The clan leadership had sent in a full investigative team, including several interrogators, explosive experts, and a mentalist. The mentalist, better than any lie detector, could read the thoughts of its targets, even force them to reveal memories. If the target resisted, the process could become quite painful.
None of the griblins had resisted. They had cooperated fully and without hesitation.
There had been a very limited number of clan members on the station in the days prior to Emperor Allistor’s visit. An additional one hundred or so had been aboard during the station’s transport to the planet. They had all departed with the tug ships a week earlier. Cogwalker himself had reviewed the crew arrival and departure logs, as well as security feeds, confirming the departure of all clan and crew.
Except one.
A single dwarf, a clansman and fellow engineer, had accompanied the station on its trip to Earth, but had not departed with the rest of the delivery crew as scheduled. Nor had he been detected anywhere in the station in all the days since. He hadn’t accessed any doors, trams, or elevators, or appeared in any surveillance feeds. He had not used his ration card to obtain any meals, or sent or received any communications off-station. None of the other clansmen, including the griblins whose gear had been tampered with, remember seeing the dwarf anywhere on the station at any time.
On a hunch, and because he was frankly out of leads and ideas, Cogwalker had requested the clan send a team of snorgs and their handlers. A snorg was a six-legged creature that vaguely resembled a canid in body structure. Its body was short and stocky, heavily muscled like the dwarves that raised them on their home planet. Where it differed most from canids was its head. The creatures had three eyes that could see in several light spectrums and detect heat signatures. In addition, their snouts were three times as long and wide as a standard canid. Giving them olfactory sensing abilities beyond the capabilities of any tech Cogwalker had ever seen.
His engineers had used what tech they had access to. Sensors that could vacuum up discarded skin cells and other biomatter and analyze them at a molecular level. But the station was large, and the process slow. Especially since they had no idea where to search, other than the locations of the explosions. The nature of which tended to destroy biological trace evidence.
A team of six snorgs, on the other hand, could cover the entire station in a day or two. And more importantly, they were the one creature in the Collective that would not be fooled by the beings that Cogwalker now suspected of the sabotage.
Snorgs were trained to track changelings.
It was the only explanation that made any sense to Cogwalker. His theory was that the creature had replaced the missing dwarf sometime during the station’s transit to earth. Taking the dwarf engineer’s form, it would have had free access to every part of the station in the two solar days between the delivery and the tug ships’ departures. Plenty of time to plant the explosives they found, and possibly many more that they hadn’t.
When a changeling adopted a for
m, in this case a dwarf, its DNA when scanned would read as dwarf DNA. The creature in effect became a dwarf in appearance as well as chemical composition. It would be impossible for standard medical and security scanners to detect a difference. Which was why the creatures were so effective as smugglers, spies, and assassins.
But snorgs, with their incredible sense of smell and larger than normal canid brains, were able to detect the scent of a certain waste product produced by the changelings when they morphed. The Stardrifter clan had discovered this when a captured changeling had killed its guards and assumed one of their forms to escape, only to be foiled by a pack of snorgs kept in the prison compound grounds. That changeling, which had only been previously charged with smuggling, was quickly convicted of murder. Never ones to waste valuable resources, it was sentenced to a lifetime of assisting its captors in training more snorgs to detect and track its kind. The clan earned a great deal of wealth by selling the services of those snorgs as security or investigative teams across the Collective. Faction heads and Emperors wanting to prevent changeling assassins from accessing their homes paid well for snorg patrols and guards at access points.
The teams had arrived the day before, and Cogwalker had just received confirmation. Three of the six teams had detected signs of a changeling on board. They were now tracking its scent through the station, accompanied by well-armed guards, both dwarven and griblin. The griblins had begged to be included, wanting revenge for the deaths of their brethren, and a chance to restore their reputations within the clan.
Already they found that the changeling had visited several key locations within vital engineering and life support sections, and three bombs had been located and disarmed. From what the handlers could tell, the changeling was no longer on the station. The scents had all been old, based on the level of interest expressed by the snorgs. They got much more excited over fresh scents.
This was the dilemma that Cogwalker now faced. The ships that arrived with the investigative teams had been sealed the moment the teams departed onto the station. Snorgs were stationed at each ship’s access to prevent the changeling from sneaking aboard the ships. All of the station’s escape pods and service pods – little one-man utility vessels used for external repairs in the vacuum of space – were still docked in their stations. No other ships had docked with the station… except Allistor’s.
He found himself hoping that one of the griblins that had exploded was the changeling in disguise. But that hope was faint, and not at all likely. Which meant, if the snorgs did not locate the changeling in the next several hours as they finished their sweeps of the station, it must have boarded Allistor’s ship.
And Cogwalker would have to be the one to tell Allistor that a changeling assassin who had targeted him, killed his intended bride, and might still be planning to kill him, had probably hitched a ride down to the planet on the Phoenix.
*****
Allistor escorted Sirina, Agni, and Fayed on a brief tour of the Invictus Tower before taking them through the teleport again to Ramon’s Citadel. They were instantly greeted by Max, who seemed to take a special liking to Agni. The elder gentleman obviously returned the affection, actually taking some time to roll around in the grass and wrestle with the dog. He smiled sheepishly and shrugged when he got to his feet.
“I had a dog much like Max as a boy. He brings back fond memories.”
Chloe joined them soon after, bowing and politely greeting the newcomers before leading them to Ramon and Nancy. Allistor made quick introductions before nudging Sirina forward slightly.
“Sirina here has been working as a harvester. Helping to strip newly felled lumber of branches so that the wood could be processed for use in their toilet paper plant.” He winked at Ramon as he emphasized the words. “Also, don’t call her a lumberjack. It’s a silly word.” Both Ramon and Nancy laughed.
“Oh, you have to let me go back there with you and take Meg. I want to see her face.” Nancy chuckled.
Ramon saw the confused expressions on their visitors’ faces. “Meg is one of our original family and our head chef. She was with us from day one, and was constantly reminding us to scavenge toilet paper wherever we went. When we were running low, if you came back without a roll or two, she might refuse to feed you. It became sort of a thing.”
“Ah, I see.” Agni smiled, getting the joke. “Yes, we had similar issues before we got the factory up and running.”
Sirina added, “We never consider the little luxuries in life until they are taken from us.”
Allistor nodded, a long list of pre-apocalypse items running through his head that he’d love to have back. Top among them being chocolate, hot pockets, the internet, and a wireless network.
“Anyway…” he smiled at Sirina. “She has expressed an interest in gardening, and I thought maybe you could coach her on related classes, crafting, et cetera.” He motioned toward Nancy and added, “Nancy is a druid class. She’s our very best healer, as well as the one who organizes all of our crops. Both food crops and herbs for seasoning and potion ingredients. Nancy and George, who we just recently lost, are the ones who fed all our people through the winter. Plus, she can teach you a spell that I think you’ll find very useful, regardless of whether you go back to being a lumber- ehh, a harvester, or not.”
Nancy rolled her eyes at him, gently shouldering him aside as she gathered up Sirina and led her out the door. “Let me show you my greenhouse…” Her voice faded as the two women, plus Chloe, rounded a corner.
Ramon took up the mantle of host. “I don’t suppose either of you have an interest in inscription or related work?” He motioned for them to follow him into the library. Both men’s eyes widened at the sight of the bustling facility. The walls were lined with books, with scrolls stuffed in between them here and there. Tables were covered in paper, inkwells, and other implements as dozens of people worked at inscribing magic spells onto special paper.
As they gawked, Ramon produced several scrolls from his ring. “I’m guessing Allistor hasn’t given you any of these, yet. All of our people receive several basic spells at a minimum. Stuff to help keep you alive. Here are scrolls for Restore, a healing spell. Light, which creates a small light globe that hovers near you, and Flame Shot, which should be self-explanatory. Go ahead and use them now. Then we can discuss your stats and what class build you’re leaning toward, and maybe get you a few additional scrolls.” He looked at Allistor, who nodded in confirmation. He also took a third set to give to Sirina when he saw her again.
“These are basic scrolls, which can be made by pretty much any low level Inscriptionist class.” He spoke while the two men tentatively opened a scroll each and learned the spells. When they’d burned through all three, he smiled and reached into his ring, producing two scrolls and another item, tossing them onto a table. “Please, take a seat.” He motioned for them to sit, then sat across from them. With a motion of his hand, the third item he’d dropped on the table came to life. It hopped up and stood upright on two legs, looking much like a foot-tall gingerbread man. “I’ve raised my Inscriptionist class level high enough that I was able to specialize as a Paper Sorcerer. Which allows me to do things like this.” He stared at the little paper man, who stepped forward and bent down, grabbing a scroll in each hand. It then walked across the table and presented Agni and Fayed with a scroll each.
“This one is called Mind Spike. Again, pretty self-explanatory. It causes a great deal of brain pain, and makes a good spell interrupter. Pretty much anyone with an Intelligence stat above ten can use it.” Ramon explained as his little paper golem returned across the table. When he reached Ramon, the little guy did a dance, twirling on one foot, waving its arms, and finishing with a hip thrust that made the paper crinkle.
“Ha!” Fayed was enchanted by the little dude. “That’s quite interesting. May I?” He held out a hand, and Ramon obliged by sending the golem running back across the table. Allistor watched, expecting it to jump into Fayed’s open hand, but instead it ra
n around to the side and hugged his thumb with both arms. To his credit, the surprised man didn’t yank his hand back.
“I think he likes you.” Ramon chuckled. A moment later the golem hopped onto the open palm and struck a hero pose as Fayed raised his hand closer to his face to get a better look.
“Wonderful! It actually seems to be alive.”
“It’s not, at least, not yet.” Ramon shook his head. The little golem took a seat and leaned back, lounging in Fayed’s palm. “I’m not high enough level yet to give the golems any true sentience. Right now they obey my commands in real time, or they can follow a set of clear and simple instructions. Like ‘go pick that up and drop it in the trash can’ or ‘go find Nancy and bring her back’. That last one did not go well, by the way.” He looked at Allistor. “These things already creep her out, and the one I sent with those instructions tried to physically drag her back here.”
“Hahaha!” Allistor thumped the table. “Did she say bad words?”
Ramon hung his head in mock sorrow. “So many bad words. Chloe learned a few new ones, even.” He winked at Fayed. “I had Max taste all my food for a week, in case it was poisoned.”
The conversation turned to classes and spells. Agni had chosen an Administrator class, and as Allistor had suspected, focused most of his attribute points on Intelligence and Will Power. They gave him several more scrolls, including Mend, Vortex and Restraint. Fayed on the other hand had a very balanced build, with a slight emphasis on Strength and Constitution, but nearly equal points in Stamina, Agility, and Intelligence. He was given Erupt and Restraint, not having quite enough points in Intelligence to learn Vortex. He hadn’t chosen a class, which surprised Allistor until he remembered something he’d heard.
Shadow Sun Unification: Shadow Sun Book Five Page 34
