by Pam Uphoff
"The pregnancies were enabled by a multi-spell potion variously called the Wine of the Gods, Havwee Temple Water, or Joy Juice. Among the things it does is pick the most magical chromosomes available for the fetus. As I said, some of you who live here in Paris have had detailed genetic exams already. The results are interesting. One boy here, for instance, has inherited both X and Y from Wolfson—which means he has no One gene at all. Three other boys had 'irregularities' noted on their birth scans; they may also have Wolfson's X."
Oh . . .
"Several children whose mothers did not have a single complete set, got doubled chromosomes from Wolfson, so the children have complete double sets. Not perfect, mind you, because three of the genes of the prophets, located on three different inserts, are not found on Comet Fall. The Joy Juice did not seem to take that into account when choosing chromosomes. However, the majority of you boys have the Oner X and a completely ordinary Y. Most of the girls, the usual two Oner X-chromosomes. Apparently Wolfson, or someone in his espionage group, was able to manipulate his genes."
"Now, when I said that the potion chooses the most magical gene combinations possible, it doesn't limit itself to a single ova-and-sperm combination. It can actually swap in a chromosome from a different sperm to replace a less powerful chromosome from either ova or the main sperm. But since your mothers are all strong Withiones or Neartuones, there hasn't been much of that with you. But if you prefer to think that you have some of your father's genes, well, some of you do."
She smiled a bit ruefully. "Now the part that . . . isn't exactly secret, but no one really pushes telling people about it. The Prophets, and the Comet Fall Old Gods, also had unusual alleles of the ordinary genes, outside the insertions. Literally thousands of them. These genes were diluted in the genes of the multitude, starting with a fifty percent reduction in the Prophets' children and then less in grandchildren and great grandchildren . . . except for inbreeding. The Prophets were long lived, and married each other's daughters and granddaughters. Those children were the Warriors of the One, and the first Princesses. Incredibly strong magicians, who conquered the world. And then married into the Multitude. When the One organized into the clans and sought to concentrate the magic genes again, they only concentrated the insertions, not those other genes." She shifted a bit. "The One now averages five to ten percent of those genes. That may be why many of the abilities of the Warriors of the One aren't with us any longer. Xen Wolfson's father is one of their Old Gods. His mother has several others in her recent blood line. Wolfson has more of those genes than we've seen since the Warriors of the One. Which may be the reason why he is so incredibly strong, magically. All of you probably have large counts of those genes."
She gestured toward the back of the room. "The more detailed genetic analyses will show us exactly what genes you do and don't have. We'll be discussing them with you, starting tomorrow. And we'll run exercises, to try and determine what talents the various combinations confer. Tonight, please just get to know each other. And drop by the medic station to give us a DNA sample. Why don't the boys, starting with A, go now, and everyone else hit the buffet. We'll call in other groups, or you can just wander by on your own if you see that there's no line."
"I'll be circulating if you have any questions." She waved a casual dismissal.
Arno looked at the medic's station.
Do I want to know?
Stupid.
I already do. I have never felt the One. Always felt apart.
Ryol plowed through the crowd. "Well, aren't you going to go? Isn't this exciting!" She bounced on her toes and scanned the room. With only twenty-seven kids, it looked pretty empty. She dropped her voice. "Which boys do you think aren't even Oners?" She sounded deliciously horrified.
Arno stiffened his shoulders and raised his nose. Not that he'd ever managed to carry off an attitude. He opened his mouth to say it . . .
"Hey, it's my two favorite brats." Cheerful, breezy and familiar tones.
"Aunt Rael! " Ryol squeaked and threw herself on the speaker for a hug.
Saved! Arno got swept into a hug as well. And got the usual big zing of a close relative not touched for some time.
"So, you guys are getting some special training, eh?"
"Or studied like bugs under a lens." Arno couldn't help but relax. His aunt was a hair above average in height, a bit on the skinny side, but with muscles. Short red hair gelled up into spikes. And a happy twinkle in her eyes. And a reputation that took second place to none. She was the Rael Withione. And wearing her uniform. She must have come straight from work.
"Ha! They must not have said it yet. They hope you lot can make magic gates and teleport. Of course, they haven't the faintest idea how to even start training you. I may have to make the ultimate sacrifice and go bat my eyelashes at Xen and ask him to work with you guys." She grinned.
Every kid within hearing shut up suddenly. Lots of wide-eyed gawps.
Ryol gawped. "Magic gates! Like Endi made? Makes? I mean, Xen. I mean . . . Captain Wolfson? Is that really his rank? Why?"
Rael snickered. "That's his rank in the Army of the West. Disco doesn't bother much with rank. He says 'Master of the Multiverse' and only about half the people listening laugh at him. They kept switching Directors, until everyone realized that Xen and Q just want someone to do the paperwork and argue with diplomats while they have fun exploring new worlds and beating up armies. Neither one of them takes orders worth beans, but wave a challenge in their faces and you can't stop them."
"Whoa! Do you see him often?" Ryol's eye widened.
"Oh, maybe once or twice a year. I'm mostly busy with other stuff."
Arno eyed her. "Does the External Directorate pull you in when they want Captain Wolfson distracted?"
Her toothy grin widened. "Why, Arno, how could you think such a thing?"
"That's what everyone says."
"What do you mean, everyone? You live halfway around the world from anyone involved with any of that stuff."
Ryol rolled her eyes. "We chat on the grid all the time. And everyone knows we're your family so we hear all the gossip about you. And half of it involves him."
"Oh, One! There goes my reputation." All bubbly and silly—fifteen years ago, she'd thrown herself between the President and an assassin and nearly died. She still worked for the Presidential Directorate, and Arno'd seen a vid where she’d jumped out of an aircar in mid-air, and glided down to kill dozens of those Helaos cannibals that had attacked the One World.
Of course, what she was really famous for was the rumored romance with Endi . . . Xen Wolfson. A real romance, not the seduction-as-a-Game-Play.
They laughed at her, and steered her over to get drinks—all non-alcoholic but she didn't seem to mind. And munchies.
Wait! Is the sun down? It’s Ramadan. Are we supposed to . . . I mean there are Priests all over the place . . . But Aunt Rael isn’t worried, so I won’t.
Various of the Priests wandered by to meet or greet Rael. About half of them seemed to already know her. Arno drifted apart to the boys he'd met, who were suitably impressed.
Arno finally sidled up to the medic's station for a cheek scraping, and a quick scan. Why were they so interested in his neck? Ryol followed.
"You two look pretty unenthusiastic. Why don't you walk me out to my car?" Rael led them out a side door. "Actually, you look a bit overwhelmed."
Arno sighed. "Mother never told us. I mean, we knew Dad was our stepfather, no zing, you know?" He eyed her . . . should he ask?
"Ask what?" Rael grinned. "Your thoughts are starting to get really loud. I'll have to come by and give you some shielding lessons. So, ask. Get it out of your system."
Arno swallowed. "I do realize that it's variable, and weakens with regular repeats and all that . . . but I've always gotten a bigger zing from you than from Mother. Are you our biomom?"
Ryol stopped dead.
Rael froze. "No . . . That's the sort of thing one notices . . . except . . . I wa
s in a coma for two months . . . " She gulped. "I always did wonder how Raod met Endi. I . . . " She fumbled out a pocket comp and tapped at it. "All right. This is easy to check, no need to flounder around about it. I never really looked at my medical records. Squeamish, you know?" Her eyes moved as she read.
"I'm sorry," Arno whispered. "I didn't mean to . . . to."
She reached out and squeezed his shoulder. Froze. "D and C. Two embryos removed for transplant. One month after I was shot. Son of a . . . " She blinked. Tears? Aunt Rael?
Ryol elbowed Arno out of the way. "Mother should have told us. She ought to have . . ." She waved her hands distractedly.
Rael switched to comm mode and tapped in a familiar code. She angled the screen slightly away from them.
The screen lit, their mother's face . . . "Rael? It's one in the morning!" Her voice rose in sudden alarm. "What happened? What's wrong?"
"Raod, what did you or didn't you tell these children? And what didn't you tell me?"
"Oh . . ." Mother looked away. "I knew you'd find out . . . eventually . . . Rael . . . I wanted a baby so bad . . . five husbands, and nothing! And everyone was whispering that I must be barren . . . and I wanted a baby so bad . . . The doctors said a pregnancy would compromise your recovery, maybe tip it from a small chance you'd survive to no chance at all. We knew what had to be done. Mom was crying and Dad was all stoic . . . and then I had this brilliant idea. I could have your baby! And then you recovered. And Mom said you'd want the babies . . . I could feel them kick, feel their thoughts starting to stir, my sleeping babies . . . I made her and Dad promise to not tell. I told Ox. He didn't like it, but even he agreed once we thought about what that man might do."
Rael heaved a deep sigh. "And you were a wonderful mother. Are. Much better than I would have been. But you ought to have said something. I mean, I grew up knowing Kael was my biomom and thank the One she didn't have charge of me . . . well. Well. Go back to sleep. I'll talk to the kids."
She clicked off.
They stared at each other.
Rael reached out and pulled them into a hug. "You guys are still the best niece and nephew in the Multiverse . . . I should have known . . . should have looked at my medical records . . .”
Ryol reached out tentatively. “We love you. We always have.”
Arno blinked back tears. “Yeah.” I wondered . . . I didn’t know it would hurt to be right.
Aunt . . . his biomom . . . nodded. There were tears running down her cheeks. “I love you two. Now. Get back to your friends, and I'll see you tomorrow."
She released them. Turned and walked away.
"Is she crying?" Ryol whispered. "I can't believe you said that!"
"Me neither. I just . . . every time I felt that big zing, I wondered. It never occurred to me that she wouldn't know."
"It doesn't matter." Ryol gulped. "A Presidential guard hasn't got time to fool with raising kids."
"Doesn't mean she didn't want kids, though."
Chapter Four
Rael and Xen
Xen felt the emotional storm cloud and headed for the door of his office. Someone under very great stress . . . Rael met him at the door. Pale, but red spots on her cheek bones. Tight mouth, red rimmed eyes just starting to spill tears . . .
"The President?" Oh, crap oh crap oh . . . "Paer?"
She shook her head, grabbed a double handful of his jacket, white knuckled, control slipping. "This is personal." She was a bit hoarse.
He reached for the feel of his home, and pulled her with him. Reached physically to close the bubble across the door, quick flicks of spells to close the windows. "Right. We're private. What happened?" He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close.
"Why didn't anyone tell me I was pregnant?"
He tightened his grip. He could feel her hands flex.
"When I got shot. I was in a coma for almost two months. A pregnancy would have narrowed my already slim chance of survival. My sister had already been through five husbands without getting pregnant. So instead of an abortion, they did an embryo transplant. They never told me! One damn it, they should have told me." She rocked him, shaking her fists without releasing her grip on his jacket. "I thought they were my niece and nephew. 'Nice kids, but thank the One they aren't mine!' That's what I always told myself. 'I don't want kids' I told myself. Lied to myself. Damn. Damn. Damn. It wouldn't have been so bad if their eyes hadn't looked so much like yours." She leaned her forehead on his chest and took deep breaths, reaching for control. "I was so pissed my sister had your kids while I couldn't."
He relaxed his grip, ran his right hand into her hair and massaged her scalp. "I didn't think . . . I gave you some of that wine, but with a serious injury, the ribozymes it produces are usually aimed at emergency repairs and healing. I didn't think about it later, either."
She sniffed. Accepted a hanky to blow her nose. He couldn’t help but smile. Very un-princess-like.
"And I can't believe I came to you to vent on."
"Tsk. I have a very good shoulder for crying upon. Actually I have two." He framed her face with gentle hands. "Better?"
She took a deep breath. Exhaled. Nodded.
Get her talking. "So . . . redheads?"
"Ryol is. Arno's . . . well, a younger version of you. Hell, they're getting all your kids together for special training, and the whole roomful of them! Twenty-seven of them, for the One's sake. Little Endis running everywhere. It's a bit overwhelming.
"Arno, the little stinker, he's a bit undersized, a bit clumsy, and scary smart but so quiet a lot of people don't see it. Ryol's brilliant, and everyone notices. I love them both, but I've always tried to be a good aunt, not, not wish I had kids, too . . ."
Her mouth turned down unhappily. He pulled her into another hug. "You can't go back in time. You just have to . . . go forward from here. How well do you know them?"
"I only see them a couple of times a year. We always have fun, they seem to like to see me . . ." Her lower lip quivered a bit.
"Then you have a good place to go on from." He looked down at her, fondness, admiration . . . realization that she was one of Urfa's top Intel Agents . . . "I do hope you stopped to tell Urfa where you were going? Spymasters just hate their agents suddenly running . . . oof!" Not that she hit him very hard.
"You horrible man. Yes, he said I ought to ask you if you had any security reasons to not help with a bit of training. I think he hopes the kids can make gates and teleport and so forth."
"Umm. Haven't thought about that. I genetically engineered myself so that any kids would be Oners . . . after the first couple. And then you, umm, invaded my room just as I was changing everything back and getting ready to bail out."
"First couple, eh?"
"Spur of the moment impulse. Impulses. Look, even in retrospect I can't believe this social sorting through competitive fertility. So I was thinking about causing domestic disturbances through flirting. Not actually having children. Then I woke up to the true weirdness that is the High Oner Game, and used it. I mean, discredit General Akja? Irresistible. And then I thought to change a few genes."
Rael sniffed. "You want weird? Look in the mirror. Comet Fall is run by the powerless. People with power let themselves be tools, when they ought to rule."
He flashed a grin. "I'd have thought your Intel was better than that. In fact you’ve met them. Do you really think they’re powerless? I'll have to get Staven or some other male line heir to the throne to send your geneticists a sample. They've got a version of the mage gene that is powered by crowd reactions, and generates charisma.
“The Cove Islands are ruled by the Sea King. A nasty assassination a few decades ago knocked them briefly off the throne, but the eight-year-old who's the new king, under a regent, is a grandson of the last true Sea King, a mage with an affinity for the sea. I'd say that was half the polities, but Auralia has split, combined, resplit . . . I'd have to check to find out how many polities it is, at the moment. And then there's Scoone." He
thought about that for a long moment, then shook his head. "They had wizard tyrants so bad that eight centuries after throwing them out, they still burn suspected wizards at the stake."
"One! Weirder than I'd realized."
He couldn't help but grin. "Can you stay for a bit? I'll introduce you to some of my other kids, and a couple of adults who are half Oner—courtesy of Action Teams and lost Princesses."
"Rior and several of her entourage went missing in some odd kerfluffle."
"Yeah. Hoon was one of them. She set up shop in Karista and kept handwritten notes on paper before she contacted, or was contacted by, a Oner exploration team. She had two kids. Ruff's twenty-two and Mars is eighteen. And a witch seduced an Info Team member—fellow by the name of Ajha—Vulpinite is forty-three and has a twenty-five year old daughter."
"Vulpinite!"
"It's a rock. They went through the alphabet, rocks and minerals, that time. I've got aunts named Obsidian and Topaz, a great-aunt named Wollastinite. I'm Xenotime, officially. That's some rare mineral. Yttrium phosphate."
"Right. I've met some redheads that make me think you’ve got a naming scheme worse than ours. Thank you. I think."
He snickered. "Raven and Yellow, right? Anyhow. I'll introduce you to a couple of my kids, if they're around at the moment." He thought back over what she'd said. "Oh, and teleporting is a very advanced skill, but not one that requires the dimensional ability. Don't know if we've got something else that facilitates it, or if it’s just another skill Oners haven’t needed, and so didn’t invent.”