Tinker t-1

by Wen Spencer

  Tinker glanced to the sweet-tempered sefada who seemed no older than Lain. "Nine thousand?"

  "By the very nature of humans and elves, the gate will close while you're alive," Windwolf said. "Currently you have the queen's protection. No one can call insult on you, or challenge you to a duel. But that protection will not last forever. What is forgiven in a child will not be forgiven in an adult. You must know how to live with us—your people."

  She became aware that everyone in the kitchen was trying hard to pretend that they weren't listening to the conversation. What language had they been arguing in this time? She winced as she realized that it had flowed almost seamlessly between English and Elvish, sometimes changing halfway through the sentence. Growling, she undid the mega apron protecting her dress, shoved it into the hamper for dirty linens, and stomped out of the kitchen.

  Windwolf came after her, and a few steps behind him, were Pony and Stormsong. She headed to their living quarters as one of the few places they could talk without the bodyguards overhearing.

  "What are the provisions?" she asked once the door shut between them and the sekasha.

  "I must establish a residence at Pittsburgh and move my household there."

  "Move? For how long?"

  He clicked his tongue in a shrug. "A couple of decades, maybe a century."

  She winced, thinking of the close-knit community she'd found at the palace. "How many of the clanspeople here at the palace are part of your household?"

  Windwolf looked slightly confused. "All of them."

  "All!" Hope turned to ash; there was no way the entire palace staff would be shifted just because she was homesick. "There's like sixty people here!"

  "Seventy-four, not counting Pony."

  "Why not count Pony?" Tinker cried. Of all the sekasha, Pony was her favorite.

  "Pony is yours, not mine."

  "Mine?"

  Windwolf paused, apparently considering his English. "Yours," he repeated, this time in Elvish. "Not mine."

  Oh, shit, now what had she done? "How did Pony get to be mine?"

  "Pony's parents are beholden to my father and I watched him grow up, which makes me protective of him. As he neared his majority, he wanted a chance to make a real decision about whom he looked to, and not just take his parents' path. I gave him refuge in my house, although he hadn't yet come of age. I expected him to offer to me, for we are fond of one another, but he was free to offer to you."

  She dropped onto the bench before her bed, remembering then the conversation just before they left Pittsburgh, under watch of the queen's Wyverns. Once again, someone offered, and she accepted without realizing what strings were attached. "Oh, no."

  Something on her face made Windwolf kneel down in front of her and take her hands. "I am pleased. I thought you two would suit well, that's why I left him with you. He brings you honor, since not everyone can hold a sekasha."

  "I didn't realize what he was saying."

  Windwolf looked dismayed and then sighed. "It is done now. Once accepted, even by mistake, the contract can not be unmade. It means you find the person unacceptable. No matter what you said, everyone would believe the worst of Pony, that he had acted in some way inappropriately."

  She pressed the heels of her hands tight against her eyes. "Oh, gods, what a mess."

  "I don't understand why you're so upset. You obviously love Pony well, and we're returning to Pittsburgh."

  She peeked at him through her fingers. "We are?"

  "I told the queen that the provisions were acceptable."

  The hands came off her face completely. "You did!"

  "It is only for a short time."

  Of course.

  Yet, she felt guilty that so many people were having their life turned upside down because she didn't want to change. Windwolf, though, had volunteered knowing full well who would be affected and how. She hadn't known. She hadn't known when she saved him from the saurus and he marked her to be part of his household. She hadn't known when he offered his betrothal gift. Or when he asked if she wanted to be immortal. Or when Pony offered himself. Again and again, she was lost in ignorance, while others acted with full knowledge. Why should she feel guilty?

  Because they thought she'd understood. Because she didn't admit to her ignorance. It was bad enough when it was just her suffering the consequences, but others were now being dragged in.

  * * *

  Tinker leaned against the glass, eager for her first sight of Pittsburgh. For hours they had sailed over the unending green of elfin forest, gently rocked as the gossamer swam against the headwind. The crew had said that it would take six hours, and now at noon, the time of arrival was nearing.

  Beside her the navigator had been peering intently through a spyglass, picking out familiar landmarks. "We're here."

  She scanned the horizon, finding the glitter of a river, guessed it to be the Monongahela and watched it unravel westward through the forest. There was a clearing in the forest with a cluster of enclaves and a wide field thick with colorful tents, and then more forest, and another river. "What's that?"

  "Oakland," the navigator said. "Bring her to a slow speed!"

  Oakland? Tinker frowned, studying the onrushing buildings. Faintly she could see the Rim, its barren strip of no-mans-land, arcing through the forest. Yes, it was the elfin Oakland, but Pittsburgh wasn't there. No human streets, half-empty buildings, skyscrapers, or bridges. Just unending forest. "Oh no, it's Shutdown!"

  "Of course it is," Sparrow said. "We've always thought it as an odd and awkward way of doing a Pathway, but that's humans for you."

  Windwolf shot Sparrow a hard look, which gained a contrite half-bow and his assistant fleeing. "I am sorry. I had forgotten to check."

  "It will be back tomorrow." Tinker shoved away her disappointment. They were all but home now. "The enclaves will be full tonight."

  "Room will be found." Windwolf hugged her.

  His presence distracted her from Pittsburgh's absence, to a realization of the date. "We met last Shutdown. Just twenty-eight days ago." Oh gods, the last three weeks had been the longest in her life. Immortality at this speed was going to drive her nuts.

  "Time expands and contracts." Windwolf kissed her hair. "Sometimes a day can seem like a second, and sometimes it lasts forever. Certainly the hours that I lay helpless on Earth were the longest I've ever lived."

  "Then we're even."

  * * *

  Prior to Shutdown, all the elves living in Pittsburgh shifted temporarily to either the enclaves or camps at the Faire Grounds, thus the collection of bright-colored tents crowding the meadow. Since the Faire Grounds doubled as the airfield for the massive airship, it took shouted negotiations, followed by careful maneuvering to accomplish a tethering.

  While this was being accomplished, Tinker studied the flip side of Pittsburgh, the great circle of forest sent to Earth with Startup. Here on Elfhome there was nothing at the Rim but barren land. Back on Earth was a chain-link fence surrounding the forest—a great wall of China done in steel—to keep in dangerous elfin wildlife, and more importantly, keep out unwanted human immigrants. On Earth and in Pittsburgh, EIA patrolled the Rim. From the Observation lounge (having been politely scooted out for the already complicated tethering) Tinker could see elfin rangers moving through the trees, keeping close to the Rim but scouting for trespassers. The sole building within the forest was the legendary EIA lockup, an ugly squat cinderblock building whose only function was to hold prisoners until Startup returned them to Earth. At one time, Tinker lived in fear of it and its polar opposite, the glass castle of EIA headquarters in Pittsburgh.

  Also from her high vantage point, Tinker could see that someone had managed to do some illegal logging of the virgin forest. The south shore of the Ohio, approximately where the West End Bridge crossed in Pittsburgh, had been stripped bare, although she couldn't imagine how anyone could cut down the trees and get them into the river without heavy equipment. Apparently the EIA's watch on Earth
wasn't as legendary as she'd always heard.

  Movement directly below caught her eye and she looked downward. Someone was waving at the gossamer, a short and plain figure among the tall, elegantly dressed elves.

  "Oilcan!" she cried. "Oh gods, what is he doing here?"

  After waving at her cousin to let him know she saw him, she went to beat on anyone who could get her down to the ground. Minutes later the elevator dropped her down, the door opened and he was there, waiting, and she pounced on him.

  "What are you doing here?" She hugged him tightly.

  "Waiting for you," he said. "Gods, look at you. You look wonderful."

  "I still feel a little dorky in these clothes." She plucked at her skirt. "I had to be 'acceptable' at Aum Renau in case I ran into the queen in some dark hallway." She realized that she was rambling and hugged him again. "What are you doing here?"

  He grinned. "I just had this feeling that you'd be coming back during Shutdown, and I'd been kicking myself for not going with you, so I asked Maynard to get me permission to ride out Shutdown on Elfhome." He glanced back at the wall of trees beyond the Rim. "It was weird watching Pittsburgh vanish, though. I've had this creepy feeling all morning, like it wasn't coming back and I'd be stuck here. I was starting to think I'd made a big mistake."

  "By the very nature of humans and elves, the gate will close while you're alive."

  She glanced around at the single cluster of enclaves and the handful of tents—no electricity, no computers, and no phones. Oh gods protect her, she'd go mad.

  13: Crow Black Shroud

  "Tinker! Tinker!"

  Tinker had learned to ignore her own name, since anyone not calling her "domi" only wanted to interrupt her with stupid questions. She wasn't listening: 546879 divided by 3 equaled 182293.

  "Alexander Graham Bell!"

  Tooloo was right; anyone knowing your real name gained power over you. Tinker flipped up her welding visor and looked down through the tower's trusses to the ground far below. Lain glared back up at her. A quick check showed Lain's hoverbike parked alongside Tinker's and Pony's, which explained how the xenobiologist got to the remote building site, but not why.

  "What?" Tinker shouted down.

  "Come down here." Lain tapped the ground with her right crutch.

  "Why?"

  "Young lady, get your butt down here now! I am not going to scream at you like a howler monkey."

  Sighing, Tinker turned off the welder. "Pony, will you kill the generator?"

  He paused, sword half-drawn. "Kill what?"

  "Hit the big red switch." She pointed at the purring generator.

  "Ah." He slid his sword back into its sheath. "Yes, domi."

  She stripped off her welding visor, and pulled off the heavy gloves.

  The carpenters' foreman realized that she was leaving, and hesitantly asked, "Domi, what should we do next?"

  Good thing she'd planned for this. She searched her blue jean pockets until she found her printouts for the current phase of work. "Please, do as much as you can of this and then take a break. Thank you."

  She climbed down the tower calling out instructions to work crews as she spotted problems.

  The cutting crew waited for her at the foot of the ladder. "We cut to the survey marks, domi."

  "Good, good, thank you." She scanned the ten acres of cleared hilltop. "The stumps in the area of the foundation need to be removed. I'm not sure how that's done. I suppose we could blast them out."

  "No, no, no." Strangely, they seemed anxious for her not to use explosives. Too bad—it would have been fun. "There is magic to excise roots. We'll see it done."

  "Thank you, thank you."

  Lain stood beside the board tacked heavy with technical drawings, floor plans, and concept pictures. "What do you think you're doing?"

  Was that a trick question? "I'm creating infrastructure." Tinker drew Lain's attention to the board. "Phase One was to choose an appropriate building site. Phase Two was to commandeer a work crew. Phase Three is to clear the building site." She waved a hand at the denuded ridgeline. The topology maps were correct—this was one of the highest hills in the area. "Phase Four is to secure the building site." She paused to check off item one of the Phase Three schedule posted on the board. "Phase Five is to create an energy source. Based on an article I read once, I've designed a wind turbine using rear brake drums from Ford F250 trucks. See." She found the concept drawing. "This is really beauty in simplicity. I can adapt old electric motors into these 'inside out' alternators common on small wind turbines—which eliminates the need to build a complicated hub that attaches the blades to a small-diameter shaft. See, this simple plywood sandwich holds the blades tightly in the rotor and the entire assembly is mounted directly to the generator housing: the brake drum. It should churn out three hundred to five hundred watts per turbine."

  "Per turbine?"

  "Roughly." Tinker realized watt output wasn't Lain's question. "Oh, I'm hoping for at least five to start with along this ridge. I originally thought I could install them near the Faire Ground and then realized since it doubled as the airfield that wouldn't work."

  "Tinker…"

  Tinker held up her hand, as she hadn't really come to the heart of the plan. "Phase Six will be to create telecommunication abilities not relying on Pittsburgh resources. Phase Seven will be to develop the Tinker Computing Center. Scratch that. Tinker domi Computing and Research Center."

  Tinker paused to note the name change and Lain snatched the pen from her hand. She eyed Lain, tapping her pen-less fingers. "What are you doing here?"

  "It is the sad truth that anyone that knows you well also knows that I have some influence with you. I have had Oilcan, Nathan, Riki, Director Maynard, four human agencies, and five elfin household heads call me in the last hour. I even had my first ever telephone conversation with Tooloo, not something I ever want to repeat again. Honestly Tinker, what in the world do you think you're doing?"

  Tinker glanced at the plan-covered board and back to Lain. Strange. She thought Lain was fairly intelligent. "I told you. Creating infrastructure."

  "You've commandeered workers from all the enclaves, and I'm sure you're working them without pay. The EIA director is in a froth about missing evidence, the department of transportation supervisor complained that you've hijacked one of their dump trucks, and the police say you've taken a Peterbilt truck from the impound."

  "I needed a lot of stuff."

  "Why are you doing this?"

  Tinker jabbed a finger at her plans. "I'm creating infrastructure!"

  Lain caught her hands, held them tight. "Why?"

  "Because it's not there. Twenty years of Pittsburgh being on Elfhome, and everything is still in Pittsburgh. Elfhome has the train and some boats, and that's it."

  "That is not why. Why are you doing it, in this manner?"

  "Because obviously no one else is going to do it, or it would already be done."

  "Have you considered that the reason why might be because the elves don't want it on Elfhome?"

  "I don't care what they want. I want it. I'm not going to spend another day without a computer, let alone three weeks, or a century, or millennia. Maybe this is why I'm the damn pivot. I say 'enough already, get with the program' and when the oni comes, my Elfhome Internet saves the day."

  "Tinker, you just can't do this."

  "Actually, yes I can. See, I've learned something in the last three weeks. When the queen says 'you're dropping everything and flying to Aum Renau, you go. And when the queen says 'you're staying at Aum Renau, you stay. And when the head of household says 'we're all moving to Pittsburgh, you move. And when the clan head says 'I need all the rooms in this enclave, please find other lodgings, you do. Well, I'm Tinker domi! I can make a computing and research center."

  "Where is your husband?"

  "Oh gods, don't say that." Tinker fled her, ducking into the commandeered tent of Wind Clan blue.

  Lain followed close behind, despite th
e deep ruts churned up by the heavy equipment. "Don't say what?"

  "Husband." Tinker peeked into the wicker lunch boxes sent from the enclaves until she found some mauzouan. "You want something to eat?"

  "No, thank you."

  Tinker scowled at Pony until he got himself some food. "A male gives you a bowl and suddenly you're married? Please. Okay, the sex is fantastic, but is that any basis for a relationship?"

  "Of course not." Lain sat down in one of the folding chairs purloined out of the gossamer. "But I can't imagine Windwolf committing himself to marriage solely for sex."

  "He says he loves me." Tinker settled herself at the teak table, also from the airship. "I don't know why."

  "Tinker!"

  "I mean… he didn't know me. I still barely know him. We spent the twenty-four hours of Shutdown together. I saw him once the next morning—oh, wait, make that twice—and then he proposed to me. Elves don't fall in love that fast—do they?"

  "I suppose it could be a case of transference."

  "Mmm?" She mumbled around a hot mauzouan.

  "It's not uncommon for patients to fall in love with their doctor."

  "You stitched him up."

  "Yes, but you moved houses and fought monsters to keep him alive."

  "Is this supposed to make me feel better?"

  "Tinker, we can't know other people's hearts. Humans fall in love at first sight, and only time tells if that love is true. There is no reason that elves can't do the same. Certainly while Shutdown was only twenty-four hours, they were quite intense ones."

  "Yeah, I suppose," Tinker murmured, remembering what Windwolf had said to her. "Certainly the hours that I lay helpless on Earth were the longest I've ever lived."

  "If nothing else," Lain continued, "you showed the depth of your intelligence and grit."

  "Grit?" She popped another mauzouan into her mouth. "What does sand have to do with it?"

  "It's a way of saying your strength of character; your courage under fire."

  Tinker snorted at that. "Lain, how do you know when you're in love? How do you recognize it?"