by Pam Uphoff
“But things like that are supposed to hurt.” Rael’s voice was wobbly. She sank down and sat on the stairs, halfway down.
Crying.
“I hate my sister.”
“No you don’t.” Xen slipped up and sat at her feet. “I know you’re angry, and feel betrayed. But all of you still love each other, which is why it’s so painful.”
“She stole my children.”
“She saved their lives. That, first and foremost, you need to remember. Please Rael, let go of the hurt. Stay angry if you want to. But go hug your sister and thank her for saving the kids.”
“I don’t want to.”
“I know. But do it anyway.”
She reached out a foot a gave him a halfhearted kick. Swiped tears off her cheeks and stood up, walked down the stairs and across to where her sister stood.
Xen held up a finger, and the kids paused.
Rael paused. “ . . . I love you, Sis. Even when I want to strangle you . . . Thank you for saving their lives.” Her voice went high, and she took the last step and reached out.
Raod stepped into the hug and hugged her back. “I’m sorry. I was so stupid, and so afraid, and . . . I didn’t know it would hurt you so badly.”
Xen looked at the kids and jerked his head. “Now go make it a group hug.”
They flew down the stairs and threw themselves on the two women.
Xen got up and stepped back down the stairs. “All things considered, screaming and throwing plates would have been faster and less painful.”
Urfa nodded.
Ox sighed, and eyed Xen. “You’re out in the cold.”
Xen shook his head. “Low priority, at the moment. Not a problem.” He looked around as Ardo and Kyol joined them.
“I apologize for . . .”
Xen was shaking his head. “Bad timing. She was too fraught about the kids. If you’d tried that three months ago she’d have laughed so hard at the very idea of her giving up being a Presidential agent . . . Now that would have been worth seeing . . . Maybe.”
“But you aren’t worried about your security rating?”
“I doubt I’ll ever be the King’s Agent again. And Disco? A marriage wouldn’t bring any more accusations of favoritism than the already known infatuation does. And politically, on Comet Fall, it might actually be seen as a political marriage that might cool down the hot spots in our relationship with the Empire. Until they figured out that ‘Princess’ doesn’t mean the same thing as it does on Comet Fall.”
Ardo frowned and crossed his arms.
Xen nodded. “The real reason I won’t marry Rael is a bit difficult to explain. You, here, have your collective subconscious tangled up with that hive mind. Ours doesn’t depend on a single focus like that, but has created multiple archetypes.”
“We have archetypes.”
“Yes, but ours are the foci of the collective subconscious. Created by it and controlled by it. So tell me, Ardo. What are the archetypical characteristics of the Super Spy?”
Ardo shrugged. “Judging by the movies? He’s a womanizing, hard fighting, deadly idiot. Horrible driver, wrecking cars right and left?”
Xen nodded. “Always gets the girl, never finds true love—unless, of course, she gets murdered so the Super Spy will go on a personal vendetta.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. As long as Rael’s my femme fatale, and tries to worm secrets out of me and—hopefully unsuccessfully—tries to kill me occasionally, the collective won’t try to kill her.”
“That’s . . .” Ardo boggled.
“Yeah. Utterly ridiculous. And there’s only one way to test it, and I just can’t. Won’t.”
Urfa sighed. “That’s . . . Right. So I can’t possibly approve of this emotional entanglement. I’ll have to find something nefarious for her to do to you regularly.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
Ardo looked disturbed.
Xen shrugged. “That’s life with the most magical on Comet Fall. We can’t fight the collective. We can only try to understand it, and weave and dodge. And keep it entertained.”
Urfa looked over at the little knot of sisters and kids. “Well, I think I’ll leave Rael here tonight, and however long it will be helpful.”
Ox nodded. “Thank you. The family’s very much in need of this. Xen . . .”
“You’ve got my number. I’ll stay close for a few hours, in case of backsliding, but that,” he nodded at the sisters and kids, “is what she needs right now. What they all need.”
Urfa nodded, and headed for his car. Ox started chivvying his family toward theirs, and when he looked around, there was no sign of Xen.
***
Xen stretched out on the warm sands above the high tide line, across the road from the kids’ home.
Raod and Ox were bright points, pretty much as bright as Oners could be, and the younger kids were clearly on their way up.
Ryol, Arno, and Rael outshone them. Ryol and Arno with that tint that dimensional abilities added to glow. Rael . . . the hurt was fading, and a few little bright sparks popped out now and then. He heaved a sigh of relief, tossed a spell of unnoticeable over himself and settled down for a nap.
Three in the morning, by the stars, when he woke, feeling her searching mentally for him.
:: So I did hear you telling Ox you’d stick around. Where are you? ::
:: On the beach. Nice warm sand, this time of year. ::
:: Tsk! They really try to discourage people from sleeping on the beach. ::
:: I’m such a scofflaw. :: Xen stretched and relaxed. Even at a distance he could detect a happy glow. A much lowered level of hurt beneath it.
It’ll take more than one hug to heal this, but it’s heading the right way. I doubt she’ll ever wholeheartedly trust her parents or sister again.
:: Love you, Spikey. ::
:: I love you, Master of the Multiverse. :: A mental impression of a yawn. :: I’m going back to sleep. ::
He sent her a mental hug and settled back to sleep more, himself.
***
And was invited to breakfast.
Which involved—for his part—a quick shower in his dimensional stable/apartment—and another change into clean clothes, casual, this time.
Rael met him at the door for a long hard hug. “Thank you.”
Xen closed his eyes and bathed in all the happy sparks she was throwing out. “Oh bah, couldn’t have you and Raod plotting to kill each other.”
She snickered. “We agreed to share and play nicely. I get the kids for a big chunk of the summer, and will visit much more frequently.”
“Excellent.” Xen relaxed his grip. A little. “And I suspect Urfa will send you along if the One wants another session. I need to work more with the One Power kids, too.”
A snicker from Rael. “Your other nineteen kids. I’ll call Ytry and see what’s happening with them.”
“I’d appreciate that. I . . . know I ought not play favorites, but all but one have parents and they don’t need me. And then there’s your pair. Our pair. Oh, Rael. They’re incredible. And any . . . possessiveness I show will make a difficult situation worse.”
“Yeah.” Arno’s voice.
Oops!
Xen opened his eyes and studied the two kids sitting on the stairs, watching them. “That’ll teach me to show kids how to shield.”
“It’s not that we don’t like you, Master Xen . . .” Ryol, bless her, was trying to not hurt his feelings.
“I know. I’m aspiring to become a respected and liked teacher. I haven’t earned anything more. Yet.”
The sound of galloping feet and the other two kids skidded around the corner and down two stairs to sit with their siblings. The girl was about nine and frowned at him. “Who are you?”
“I’m Rael’s boyfriend. Xen Wolfson.”
The boy, seven or eight years old, eyed him. “Are you going to be our Uncle Xen? Gramma said something about that.”
Razz giggled. “It wasn�
�t very polite.”
Rael buried her face in her hands, laughing.
Xen grinned. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, right now. They might say those not-polite things to my face.”
“You’d better believe it!” Ardo’s voice from upstairs.
Xen paused . . . “Excellent! No enthusiastic endorsements. I may have made some progress.”
Rael snorted and pulled him toward the stairs. “Let’s go eat.”
A nice buffet spread. The brief Christian style prayer beforehand surprised him a bit. Rael rolled her eyes, so it probably wasn’t something the family did very often.
Ardo, of course, eyed him suspiciously. “I didn’t think Christianity—or any of the old religions survived on Comet Fall.”
“They didn’t. On Arrival, on the other hand, one of the Protestant religions has a strong presence. That’s Exile Four. Since we discovered it, we’ve had regular trade and contact. My mother formed some solid friendships there, and we visited regularly when I was a kid. So I was a regular church goer for quite a while.”
“I thought they were a recent discovery?”
“Thirteen seventy-five. Seventy-seven for you. I was six years old. It was where one of the experimental gates opened, as my mother worked to perfect the techniques.”
“Perfected . . . so she was an early gate maker?”
“Actually she invented them. The first gates were placed so people could evacuate before the comet hit. Not that most people did. We had the biggest cities shielded, and if we hadn’t diverted the comet, we most likely would have had to evacuate the cities, after.”
Ox thought that over. “So when you advised us about evacuating if Helios was going to hit us, it was from experience?”
“Yes. And hopefully your government would have been more successful at moving people. On Comet Fall, three small communities moved altogether. On one of them, everyone returned. One of them closed off the gate and told us to stay away, and the last one just treated their new world like an extension of the town. They still do.”
Ardo snorted. “Rather like the cross-dimensional suburbs we’re getting. You’re doing interesting things to our world.”
“And our own. Good things, by and large. Just as contact with the Empire and the Earth has boosted our tech.”
Arno was sitting next to him, and piped up. “I spotted a lot of photovoltaic panels on roofs in Karista.”
His mother twitched.
Xen nodded. “We took the kids on a quick tour. We don’t have the infrastructure—generators, power lines, transformers and so forth—so solar power is cost effective. They’ve about finished a hydroelectric project up in the hills south of the city that will let the factories switch from steam to electric motors.”
Ox eyed him. “Does using our tech make you feel inferior?”
Xen shrugged. “Not really. Sort of like corridors just irritate you because you can’t make them. Or gates, because we can do them better than you can.” He nodded at the kids. “The trick now is going to be getting people to see these kids as ‘Oners can make them too’ rather than it still being Comet Fall, at one remove.”
Ox sat back and pondered that. “Which lowers our dependence on you for dimensional work, makes you seem more like us, and less threatening.”
“Yep. Mind you, it is a risk. The next President could really make me regret training the kids’ dimensional talents. And if not the One, then some other polity.”
Ryol giggled. “They sure were recruiting! Although the British Empire didn’t want us, they wanted a teacher for the ten year old children of some Comet Fall people named, umm . . .”
“Fidel Iron and Ajay of Gendo?” Xen shrugged. “They got the usual warnings. Live honestly, and no one will come for you. Although Iron did get an additional ‘and don’t even think about coming back to Comet Fall, ever’ on top of the usual.”
Arno frowned. “I don’t get that. Why not arrest them?”
“The dimensional criminals have proven extremely difficult to keep imprisoned. But several have settled down to make an honest living, so we encourage that.” He caught the boy’s eye then glanced at Ryol. “If I find those two you discovered in the Maze, I’ll give them the same pep talk.”
“Wow.” Arno looked thoughtful. “I guess I can see that. Just having them settle down and run a trading post does beat chasing them all over the multiverse, possibly committing more crimes as they go.” He didn’t say a thing about his very interesting experience of being a goat.
Ox hid his face in his hand. Raod frowned. “And just where did you meet whom?”
“The Maze. It’s a bunch of worlds all linked together with gates. Really fun to explore. We were making a map. We met a lot of people in there—the reporters that cover Embassy Stuff? They camp in whatever world has the nicest weather that day, and spend a lot of time fishing.”
Xen subdued his amusement. “When we discovered how to make gates . . . it was years before we figured out how to take them down. So when we located the One World, we didn’t build a gate straight to it. We built a maze of gates and corridors—corridors can be taken down quickly—to lose any pursuit in, if our infiltration was discovered.
“Now, it’s been discovered and used by several groups, some criminals. The people the kids tripped over were Arrow, one of the older teens with the Black Island Gang, who was released on parole, her criminal career having been brief and non-violent. She was in the Maze to hide from her mother—an excellent idea—who will be released much too soon for my comfort. And an Earther associated with the mess on Granite Peak who may or may not have been mentally influenced by the Oner traitors, and may or may not have embezzled his company’s retirement funds.”
Xen shrugged. “Everyone decided they were much better off left alone to run their trading post.”
“Hmm.” Ox scratched his chin. “Someday, someone is going to do something bad enough to warrant arrest and extradition.”
“We pretty much saw that with the, umm, Black Island Gang. We sent the kids to relatives, the adult offenders to Earth Bogota Nuke. The ones we caught. Now, I wish we’d raised the age limit and sent Arrow to Ash as well. The rest of them are reaching the end of their sentences, and I’m not looking forward to their being on the loose again.”
Ryol squirmed. “What about all those weird animals?”
“They were from Granite Peak. The people Q hit with a morph spell in the fight, who escaped. We found them and they’re now back to human. Most of the Oners accepted exile to Agony—I can’t believe they named it that. Just a few are trying out the court system. The Earthers went home. I have no idea what is happening to them.”
Rael was glowering at him. :: No mention of the kids’ being transformed into goats? ::
:: Nope. The kids thought it was a lark . . . but since there were no injuries or other unpleasantness, and it’s not something the group as a whole wanted to explain, I’m not mentioning it. ::
Her eyes narrowed. :: And if I hadn’t been there, would you have told me? ::
:: I’m not sure. I respect the kids’ decision. ::
:: They are only fourteen. ::
:: Three-fourths of the way to adulthood. Old enough to be accorded the respect any sapient being ought to receive. ::
:: My mind agrees with you. My heart is horrified! ::
:: It’s tough being a parent. And uncomfortable at times. I could trust you not to leak it any further. And not work to make them feel traumatized. I don’t know your sister well enough to trust her to not emote all over. :: Xen stabbed sausage and looked across at Rael’s sister.
“So, you’re a freelance software engineer?”
She blinked. “That’s . . . a little too grand a term . . .”
“Really? I think your auto redirect is a huge step forward for civilization. I can always tell how pissed at me Rael is by how horrible a music station her phone switches me to when I call.”
Ardo actually smiled at that. “Keeps you jumping, do
es she?”
“I have a nasty suspicion it’s right there on her job description.” Xen grinned at Rael’s giggle.
***
After breakfast the kids were packed off to school, and Xen walked on the beach with Rael.
“You have to understand, I was in a coma. Mother and Father had unlimited power of attorney. They had every legal right, especially in view of the doctors’ recommendations, to end my pregnancy. And every legal right to give the embryos to my sister.”
Xen eyed her cautiously. Her glow was quiet, hurt underneath but not as sharp as the day before. “So . . . it’s in not telling you that they erred?”
“Oh, they probably thought I’d be happier not knowing.” She kicked a pebble, then bent to pick it up and pitch it into the ocean. “It’s funny . . . I understand Raod. When I was in the hospital, they visited all the time. Raod was so happy, so glowing. One! The baby clothes she bought and brought to show me! And ‘Look one of them is kicking’ and I’d tease her about sibling rivalry starting already. She . . . she bonded to the twins before they were born . . . they were hers and she’d use everything, anything, every dirty trick . . . or silence . . . to keep her children. I understand that.”
“My parents . . . Arno and Ryol are their grandchildren no matter who raised them, no matter where they were raised.” She huffed out a breath. “I was in the hospital for more than a year, in a coma or paralyzed for half of it. More than half. Even after they released me, and I came home . . . I had to stop and rest halfway up a flight of stairs. I didn’t dare hold one of the babies unless I was sitting down.”
They walked on in silence for a dozen steps.
“I couldn’t have raised them, myself. I would have had to live with my parents, and even with a nanny, they probably would have had to help me. A lot. I’m pretty sure I would have left them with Raod.” There were tears on her face. “But I would have visited more often. Loved them a little more. Differently.”