by Jean Johnson
“Do you hear me, Recruit? You will tow this bus all the way back to those barracks, or I will personally march you straight through a tribunal, plant my boot on your asteroid, and kick you out of the Space Force!”
No . . . No . . . Oh, God—no!
Horror gave her the strength her body lacked. Lurching to her feet, Ia grabbed the cable and spun, jerking as hard on it as she could. Again, her feet skidded out from under her, slamming her belly-first on the road. Gritting her teeth against the pain, Ia shoved back up and hauled again, and again. And again, and again, the bus did not move.
“Enough! That’s enough Sergeant. Stop it!”
“Get back on the bus, Recruit Arstoll—get back on the bus, all of you!”
“No, Sergeant!” The voice belonged to Forenze. “You don’t treat a recruit this way. You do not treat her this way!”
“You want to be court-martialed for disobeying a direct order, too? There will not be a mutiny in this recruitment class!”
Ia slipped and fell, again unable to budge the ground vehicle. Dazed, she rolled onto her hip and stared blankly at the parked vehicle, listening with less than half an ear to her fellow recruits arguing with their chief Drill Instructor next to the parked bus.
Parked . . . bus . . .
Parked . . .
Grunting in self-disgust, she shoved herself upright and staggered toward the front of the bus. Half careening off the corner, she hooked her hand enough to redirect herself into the steps, literally and figuratively. Ignoring the whack of the tiles on her web-work leggings as they hit the steps, the new bruises they gave to the older ones already mottling her shins, Ia crawled up to the driver’s seat.
Parked . . .
The vehicle was powered by a modern hydrogenerator, using cheap, clean water for its fuel. But it was also a ground-based vehicle, if designed for off-road travel. A hover bus might have flown from landing pad to landing pad a lot easier, but that much thruster tech was expensive, and hovering took a lot more energy than rolling along the ground. The terrain was also a problem; in this part of the continent, there wasn’t always an easy path down through the jungle canopy, even to an established clearing. Better for troop transports to be capable of following the same ground-pounding path the recruits used, which meant using a cheap, ground-supported form of transportation.
However, the rolling part didn’t work properly if the bus was firmly parked. Which this one was. Finding the gearshift, Ia shoved it into the Neutral setting, then pulled on the release lever for the parking brake. Crawling backwards down the steps, she hauled her trembling body upright via the doorframe and edged behind Sergeant Tae, who was overseeing the recruits as they counted off their demerits.
I am not going to let you destroy my career . . . she thought fiercely inside her head. Tired as she was, she knew far, far better than to project that thought. I am not going to let septillions be slaughtered because I failed! I will not fail!
She tripped over the cable. Barely managing to twist in time so that she took the worst of the bruising in a slumping roll, Ia fought against the urge to cry. Mind and body were almost disconnected, she was that close to the last of her strength. She hurt, inside and out. For a long, pain-filled moment, there just wasn’t enough left of anything within her, beyond that urge to cry.
“As for you, Recruit Ia—”
. . . No. Breath huffing through her clenched teeth, she sought for the energy she needed. Her body was used up; her muscles did not want to respond. The only thing she had left was her mind, and her mind was filling up with the horrors of whole worlds being torn apart by uncaring, rapacious hordes.
“—if this is the so-called best you can do—”
No. Rolling over, she grabbed the looped cable and levered herself up, hauling on the cable and jerking against the unmoving weight of the ground bus. No! I will not let them die . . . I will not fail . . . I will not!
“—then I guess I’m just going to have to—”
“—NO!!”
Screaming her denial, she threw her body, voice, and mind against the dead weight of her task . . . and lurched the bus forward. The cable fought painfully against the grip of her gloved hands, but the bus moved. Muscles straining, joints protesting, Ia hauled on the cable with sheer willpower, her weight-wrapped body leaning at an extreme angle as she fought the inertia of the vehicle. Even as a heavyworlder, even if she had been in perfect shape, free of exhaustion, it would have been difficult for her to move a ground bus loaded with recruits and instructors.
She moved it.
That was all that mattered.
Step by step, she hauled on the cable, keeping it moving, overcoming friction and inertia with burning determination, and every bit of her telekinesis she had to spare. At this point, hiding her abilities from detection was the lesser threat to the future. Being pressured to join the Special Forces Psi Division, she could work around. Being thrown out of the Corps, she could not.
The bus picked up speed from a bare crawl to a gentle roll. She forced her leaden feet to move faster, to keep her from tripping and letting the bus drift to a stop, or worse, roll over her. Not that she couldn’t lie flat and clear the undercarriage, but if it stopped, she’d have to get it started all over again, and there were almost four kilometers between this spot and the barracks.
“Recruit! Recruit Ia! Dammit—somebody get behind that wheel!” she heard Sgt. Tae demand. “Chong, I’m putting an end to this—”
NO! She hauled harder on the cable, moving the bus a little faster. Faster. I will tow it back! I will not fail!
“Shakk—get on the bus! Everyone on the bus!”
His orders turned into meaningless noises. Only four words mattered to her now. I will not fail!
With that single thought burning through her blood, giving her the energy her mortal flesh lacked, Ia spun and hauled on the bus with the cable slung over her shoulder, putting her legs and her back fully into each angled step.
There was nothing left but the driving need to haul the weight of the future itself out of the grey, choiceless mist clouding her path.
I.
Will.
Not.
Fail.
The counter-tug on the cable, caused by the ground bus braking behind her, almost yanked Ia off her feet. Dumbly, she twisted to see why it had stopped. The oblongs of white off to either side took several seconds to register as buildings. By that point, however, she had a short, brown-clad, furious man yelling at her.
“What in the goddamned name of the Motherworld did you think you were doing?”
Ia blinked at him.
“Just what did you think you were doing, Recruit Ia?” he repeated fiercely.
“Hauling . . . the bus . . . back to the barracks,” she managed, struggling through the exhaustion fogging her thoughts. “As ordered, Sergeant . . .”
Whirling, he smacked the front of the bus with his baton, then spun back to her with a growl. “Why?”
“You . . . You said . . . I’d get thrown out. If I didn’t follow orders,” Ia reminded him. “So I just . . . just followed your orders. Sergeant.”
“I was trying to rescind those orders!” Sergeant Tae shouted, swaying so close, the brim of his hat brushed against her nose.
Ia blinked. “. . . Oh.”
“What the shakking hell kind of Drill Instructor do you take me for? I expected you to try, yes, but I also expect you to know when to quit, dammit! I should court-martial you for being so stars-be-damned stupid as to almost kill yourself . . .”
His tirade floated around her like aural ribbons in an unseen wind. They flicked at her senses, but never really landed, never actually impacted. Ia just stared at him, blinked a few times, and waggled her head in vague, wearied semi-responses to whatever it was he was ranting about. Something about quitting, of course, but that didn’t really make sense. She couldn’t quit.
Whatever doubts about her own ability to carry through with what she had to do had burned away so
mewhere during those four or so kilometers of hauling the bus back to the barracks. Barracks which now had a bunch of men and women lining up in front of, most of them with the same mix of concern, awe, and uneasiness in their eyes as she saw in Tae’s. If without the ranting.
“Well?” he finally demanded.
She stared, unable to remember what he had asked. There was no past for her to peer into, and no future left to guide her. Not even a grey mist. Just the here and now. Licking her dry lips, Ia ventured the one coherent concern left on her mind. “Sergeant . . . Permission to fall down, Sergeant?”
The expletive that left his lips wasn’t exactly a “yes,” but it wasn’t a flat-out “no,” either. He didn’t actually say “no.” Taking that for what little it was worth, Ia closed her eyes and let the ground leap up to catch her.
CHAPTER 8
Some people . . . alright, a lot of people . . . have accused me over the years of meddling in matters where I shouldn’t. To all of them, I’d just like to take a moment to say: “So, what, if you catch on fire, I shouldn’t inform you of it? I shouldn’t advise you to stop, drop, and roll? I shouldn’t grab for a bucket of water and douse the flames crisping their way up your legs and your back?” Somehow, I don’t think ignoring someone if they’re on fire is the right thing to do.
Parents meddle with their children’s growth and development every single day. Governments meddle in the lives of their citizens every single day. Peacekeepers meddle in the crimes committed by wrongdoers every single day. Even restaurant servers meddle in your choice of meals, by making suggestions about the daily special every single day.
Don’t tell me not to meddle, as if I’m some sort of godcomplexed monster. I am not the worst being in this whole galaxy when it comes to that.
~Ia
MAY 18, 2490 T.S.
Liquid silver surrounded her. Drowned her. Ia twitched, trying to shove it away.
(Shhh . . . shhh, little one. We’re being watched, so kindly do not wake up fully, just yet.)
Huh . . . wha . . . Sharpening her thoughts, Ia struggled to open her eyes—and felt them being kept shut from inside her own head. She shoved mentally at the other presence, but she was too weak, too sapped in strength to budge the other presence.
(Trust me, child, you don’t want to officially wake up just yet. Not until you and I have had our own little talk, first. Afterward, we’ll know how to deal with the Marines waiting to speak with you . . . particularly since I’m “legally obligated” to inform them of what I’ve seen inside your little white head.)
(Shakk!) Fear spiked through her. She clamped down on her thoughts, on her gifts, and winced at the spike of pain that stabbed through her head with the attempt. A deep breath to stifle the pain filled her lungs with the medicated, antiseptic scents found only in a hospital.
(Easy . . . as much as I could expose you, there’s always the counterfaction threat of you deciding to expose me . . . ah, I see you’re grasping what I am now, yes?)
(Feyori.) That explained the swirling silver blinding her inner sight. With that clarity, the Feyori gave her a mental-window view into the Infirmary room where she lay, supposedly still unconscious from severe exhaustion.
A brown-haired, grey-eyed man wearing one of those ubiquitous, plain-cut exam jackets in a tastefully bland shade of grey perched on the edge of her bed. One set of his fingertips touched her brow, the other set encircled her wrist. On his shoulder was a flash patch with the Radiant Eye, marking him as a member of the Special Forces, Psi Division. No doubt he had been brought in to make sure she didn’t suffer from the backlash of KI depletion, which could cause mental and emotional damage to her psyche as much as her advanced exhaustion could cause physical damage to her body.
His presence as a Psi Division soldier was highly ironic, however, because it was the fault of the Feyori that there were any psychics to begin with. Their great Game was impossibly convoluted and gave Ia a brain-twisting migraine whenever she tried to understand it. They used other races as counters and markers, they altered bloodlines and introduced abilities that should not naturally exist, and they rose or fell in their convoluted ranks based on the effects that they caused in the lives of the often unwitting, matter-based beings they chose to manipulate.
Like draconic players in the most complex poker game ever invented, they did not care if their actions would be considered right or wrong by the standards of their card-pawns. All that mattered was that they tried their best to behave like miniature gods, unknowable, inscrutable, and annoying as hell—particularly when their usually subtle effects exploded into blatant manipulations.
( . . . Yes, you are a clever half-child, aren’t you? And a powerful one. Your progenitor must be very pleased with your creation. Or perhaps worried. You are powerful, disturbingly so . . . and blatantly determined to do your own Meddling. If I were from a counterfaction . . . you’d be dead.)
(Don’t threaten me, Feyori,) Ia growled back mentally. (I know how to kill your kind.)
She could sense he didn’t fully believe her, but he did humor her. (And your discretion thus far is appreciated, I’m sure. But your presence, with your power and your own agenda and your determination to carry it through, threatens the Game. Thus I must decide for the benefit of all what must be done with you. But . . . I am not unreasoning; there may be an advantage for my faction in the Game, if I spare you.)
She didn’t have much energy. Of her own. Hooking her will She didn’t have much energy. Of her own. Hooking her will into those fingers at forehead and wrist, Ia replied, (My presence is the only thing which will save your precious Game.)
Pulling, Ia dragged both of them onto the timeplains. In the real world, she was still being touched by a brown-haired man; the only visible change, had anyone been able to see that side of him, was the way his eyes had changed from grey to amber. In the golden-sepia hued realm of Time . . . he was no longer Human. With her hand submerged to the wrist in the giant, swirling silver bubble he had become, Ia dragged the Meddler over the streams to the point where everything ended. Her dreams for her own preferred future, and his dreams of continuing the Game beyond three hundred more years.
Pointing at the invaders, Ia spoke. Her words echoed across the timeplains, despite the way the wind whipped at her hair and ruffled his metallic surface. “This is what we face. The Grey Ones called them the Soor, and they are too powerful even for you to manipulate—the Grey Ones fled from the Soor, abandoning their home galaxy in favor of fleeing to this one. You cannot stop them from stripping our galaxy, and if they strip the galaxy, you’ll have no energy to eat, never mind any sentient species left with which to play your Game. In all the years I have studied this problem, I have foreseen one chance at stopping them, and only the one chance.
“Unless, of course,” she added, turning with calculated idleness to face the Feyori tethered on her wrist, “you would prefer to pack up all of your people to flee to another galaxy . . . as the Grey Ones have already done?”
The Feyori’s surface swirled, then stopped. ( . . . The Grey Ones are a dying race. This is not their home galaxy, and these are not their home energies. They have prolonged their own lives, but they cannot prolong their species forever.)
“And if you are forced to leave your own galaxy, you may not be able to properly digest the food of the next one, either,” Ia agreed dryly. “Tens of thousands of years of playing the Game, disrupted and uprooted. The pain-in-the-asteroid of having to restart the Game with whole new species, whole new parameters . . . whole new factions and counterfactions, with no guarantee of anyone’s ascendancy. Or . . .”
(Your sub-thoughts disturb me. We are the Meddlers. We play the Game. You are a pawn, little half-child. You are a Game piece we have set in motion.)
“True, but you cannot read the future as clearly as I can. You also know what I’m showing you is true. You want your Game to continue. All Feyori, faction, neutral, and counterfaction, want your Game to continue. I want this galaxy to co
ntinue. Our wants are parallel, our goals complementary. I am faction to all of you, not neutral, and not counterfaction. Sometimes the players direct where the pieces are to be played, this is true. But sometimes the pieces direct where the players must play.
“Spread the word among your fellow Meddlers, and do as I ask, when I ask it of you . . . and you will still have a Game to play four hundred years from now,” Ia told him. “You have my Prophetic Stamp on that.”
(You think you’re her? The Prophet the Immortal One told us about? The one who supposedly will predict and guide the future for a full thousand years?)
Ia smirked. “Who do you think will have told you about her? Where to find her, and how to deal with her?”
(Self-fulfilling Prophecies—) the Feyori snorted.
“You would have figured it out on your own,” Ia dismissed, cutting him off. “I’m just going to speed up the process so she doesn’t do any accidental damage to the timelines two hundred years from now. Which she would have done.”
(If you know of her location in place and time, of how the Abomination gets conceived, you will tell us!) the Feyori argued.
“So you can prevent her conception? Sorry. That would destroy all hope you have of preventing this.” She lifted her chin at the barren, lifeless ruin awaiting them in the future. “If you try . . . well, as my people say, ‘Vladistad. Salut.’ I will not only intervene so that things happen as they should and did anyway, I will also intervene so that she does take an interest in Feyori politics. Which is what you will have been trying to prevent when you get around to tossing her back fifteen thousand years . . . isn’t it?”
That startled him, though it was more of a feeling pulsing against the skin of her hand than any actual reaction she could see, beyond the soap-bubble swirling of his silvery surface.
“Oh, yes, I can see just as far into the past as I can into the future. I know what your people did, and how, and why.”
