"One, you're not stealing me," Kira said. "No one is. I am choosing to do this. Two, my parents have shown me that being decent means doing the right thing. Even if it hurts. They'll understand. I'm…I'm sure of that. Three, we're wasting time."
She grabbed her pack and began loading it. Not too much. They'd have to travel light. A spare shirt and jeans, spare socks, underwear, first aid pack, water bottle, the box of spare ammunition…
Kira noticed Jason's eyes widening as he watched her strap on her shoulder holster. "Do you really think we'll need that?" he asked. "It won't do any good against the personal defense screens anyone from the ship would have."
Kira shook her head at him, fighting down qualms at the idea of having to shoot at other people instead of targets. "Your mother isn't why we might need this. The downside of having me along is that some of my mother's enemies might recognize me, and if they do, they'll come after me."
"You mean…real gun fights and stuff?"
"Not if I can help it. The pistol is if I fail to avoid situations where I need it."
"Oh. Um…I'm going to need clothes they can't track."
"Yeah," Kira said, looking Jason over and for the first time noticing that both his belt buckle and chest insignia were missing. At least he'd had the sense to leave those behind. "You'd need something that looked like you belonged here, anyway. There aren't any clothes here that would fit you, though. Oh, wait." She dug in her closet, surfacing with an old Mage robe. "Father let me have this." Kira spun around, facing away from him. "Get all your clothes off and get those robes on! Hurry!"
It seemed to take a ridiculously long time before Jason spoke again. "How does it look?"
She turned to see, nodding. "Yes. Once we get among people, keep the hood up and your face hidden inside it. We'll have to find you common clothes because Mages attract too much attention sometimes and some of the symbols on those robes identify them as my father's. Any other Mages will be certain to notice that. But this will do to get us started."
Kira scooped all of her Tiae Crown coins into her wallet, wishing that she had more. Her knife, a sailor's knife like her mother's, went into the sheath at her belt. Her good outdoor coat. Not fancy, but tough and warm. She spotted an old neck chain in her drawer, made of woven steel by a new workshop wanting to impress Kira's mother. "Can you put that drive thing on a necklace?"
"It's got a loop, yeah."
Kira passed him the necklace so he could thread the drive onto it, screw the clasp closed tight, then pull it over his head.
What else? "I need to tell my parents what's going on. They need to know. I'll leave a note."
"How?" Jason asked. "I thought you guys didn't have that stuff."
"What stuff?" She sat down at her desk, grabbing a pen, ink, and a sheet of paper. Jason gaped at her as she dipped the pen in the ink and rapidly wrote out a description of what he had told her and her own plans to help hide him. I know you will understand why I had to do this, Kira wrote at the end. It's my job. I love you both.
She centered the note on her desk, noticing that Jason was still watching her in amazement. "What is it?"
"You wrote a note on paper," Jason said, as if he had just witnessed something hard to comprehend. "For real."
"Seriously? That impresses you?" Kira paused to think, her eyes on the map of Dematr above her desk. "Your mother knows you've been here, so this will probably be the first place she comes looking for you. The farther away we can get before anyone knows you're gone, the better."
Jason pointed out through the window. "I've got the flier, and it will be at least another hour before the ship realizes it's gone. We can use it to go someplace not too far off, and then I can send it back to the ship with orders to wipe its route memory just before it gets there."
"We need to go north," Kira said, tapping the map, remembering her own trips and the stories her parents and their friends had told. "And we need to stay around lots of people so we can hide in crowds, at least at first. Your flier can take us over the security patrols around this house without raising an alarm right away. There's a town that's grown up where the road from Pacta Servanda meets the Royal Road, and a train station there for the new rail line heading into the Bakre Confederation. We'll take your flier to the outskirts of that town, get you some common clothes, get rid of the Mage robes, and head for Debran and then Julesport. From Julesport we can take a ship across the Sea of Bakre."
Kira paused, looking at the map. Many of her mother's enemies who had stayed in the west had gone to ground, blending in with everyone else. They could be anywhere, or so she had been warned more times than she could count. But there were two places that Kira knew she had to avoid.
"We need to stay away from the Empire, and this city called Ringhmon, but there are places in the northern parts of the Western Alliance and the areas north of Ihris where we ought to be able to hide, and if I need to contact Mother and Father I have relatives near Ihris who can get word to them. What do you think?"
Jason shook his head. "Why are you asking me? I've never done anything like this."
She frowned at him, trying not to sound angry. "I'm asking you because we're partners in this, and because you know everything about the Urth ship and what it can do."
"Yeah, but…" Jason shrugged, his expression shifting too rapidly for Kira to follow. "I don't know."
"Yes, you do! Stars above, Jason, you've got a good mind! Why are you afraid to use it?"
He stared at the floor, unhappy. "Maybe because all my life I've been told my mind is below average. Nobody listens to me."
"I'm listening!" Kira insisted. "I need your help on this!"
Jason looked at her, baffled. "Um…okay. Uh…they only have a few drones they can send out to look for me, and you're right about being in crowds being better for hiding my biometrics. Yeah, they'll send the drones out around the ship first, then out here. They can manufacture more drones with the printers on the ship, but that'll take time. And they can't make enough to cover everywhere. If you think up north there is best, we should do that."
"Good. Let's get going," Kira said, standing again and putting on her pack. She did her best to sound confident, trying to reassure Jason and deny the worries tightening her guts when she thought of everything that might go wrong.
But millions of lives. Maybe billions. She couldn't let that happen. Her mother had put herself between the Great Guilds and the world, her father had literally almost given his life to save her mother, and she would either do this or go down fighting.
Speaking of which… "Jason, just so we're clear, we may be partners for getting this done, but we are not partners in any other way. If you ever touch me without permission I will beat you bloody."
Jason shrugged. "Sure. I'm used to that from girls. Most of them are a little more diplomatic when they threaten me with bodily harm, but I understand."
She couldn't help smiling. "Then we shouldn't have any problems." Her smile faded as Jason stepped out the window, where Kira now saw the Urth flier waiting, its big egg-shaped outer surface somehow changed to a dark shade that blended with the night.
A small platform extended out from the opening in the flier, giving Jason something to step onto before he entered the device. Inside, Kira could see a few seats and odd objects fastened to the floor and the walls.
Kira took a deep breath, thought again about whether this was the right thing to do, then with her heart pounding with anxiety followed Jason into the dark.
Chapter 4
"Alain!"
The morning had begun with no sign of immediate trouble, but the urgency in Mari's voice brought him to Kira's room as quickly as he could move.
The first thing he noticed was that Kira was not there. Mari was sitting at Kira's desk, holding a sheet of paper, her expression both resigned to fate and worried. "Now we know why that vision showed Kira being involved in the danger from Urth."
Alain took the letter and read rapidly. "The vision showed our f
uture daughter standing with us against some danger from Urth. But Kira is facing part of this threat on her own."
"As you have often told me, foresight isn't exactly precise." Mari looked out the window as if it offered a view of their daughter somewhere in the distance. "There's no doubt this involves some serious danger. She says they were going to use that flier thing to get past the security patrols around this house and put some distance behind them, but Kira didn't say which way they were going."
"She believes that you and I must not be directly involved as targets for the ship from Urth."
"And she's right about that. This is the first place that Talese Groveen will come looking, and we couldn't have protected Jason and that device. Legally, we wouldn't have a leg to stand on trying to keep the device from her."
"Millions of lives?" Alain asked, looking back at the letter. "Billions? What do those numbers mean?" His training as a Mage had denied the meaning of such things as Mari's "math" and Alain still had trouble grasping it.
"Can you visualize a hundred people?" Mari asked. "That's about the size of a company of foot soldiers."
"Yes," Alain said.
"Can you see ten groups of a hundred? That would be a thousand. Now imagine that group of a thousand people, repeated a thousand times. That's a million. Imagine a million repeated a thousand times, and that's a billion."
He could not grasp such numbers, but he knew they were huge. "So many lives depend on this?"
"Kira would have been able to tell if Jason was lying about that, right?"
"Yes. She tells us that she saw truth in his words."
Mari stood up, looking around the room, distressed. "It seems like only yesterday that little Kira was toddling around. I hope we've prepared her for this. We did our best to give her the skills to handle any situation, but should we have told her earlier about the foresight?"
"If we had told Kira, she would have spent every day focused on that danger to come. It would have warped her life," Alain said. "But does she understand the danger? There are many who would like to harm her or capture her to use against you."
"Only if they know she's out there," Mari said. "We have to keep it quiet. And keep attention focused on us."
"Kira resembles you," Alain cautioned. "Many pictures of you have been made since the war."
"Fortunately, most of those pictures aren't very good," Mari said. "And they all have the Mage Mark showing in my hair," she added, touching the white streak over one temple. "Kira doesn't have that."
He could tell that Mari was trying to build up her confidence, but still felt he had to say one thing more. "She does have the boy from Urth with her."
Mari sighed heavily, rubbing her hand over her face. "Yeah. Jason. Not the most impressive boy we've ever seen. But he has to have something in him, Alain. He took the risk of warning us, and now he's risked himself by trying to hide that information."
"He takes risks," Alain said. "He knows nothing of our world."
She eyed him, then surprised him with a smile. "And he's a boy. That's what you're really worried about, isn't it?"
Alain shook his head, feeling misjudged. "I am concerned about how he may act."
"With our daughter." Mari stood up and embraced Alain, who was still feeling defensive. "The fate of two worlds hangs in the balance, and you're worried about our daughter being out there with a boy her age. Alain, talk to Bev. Kira knows how to handle herself. If Jason tries anything, Kira will tie him into a knot and kick him so high he'll hit the moon."
"I thought you would be more worried," Alain said.
"I am." She looked at him and he could see it in her eyes. "But not about Jason, because I trust my daughter. I'm terrified of what else might happen. Which means that you and I are going to do our best to help Kira in any way we can. If that turns out to mean trying to find her and help her directly, we'll do that. But for now let's try to keep the attention of the people from Urth and those from our own world focused on us, here."
She stepped back and looked toward Pacta Servanda. "Those things called drones that Jason told Kira about. Those must be what have been seen the last couple of days flying around Pacta. Alli saw one and said it looked like it was moving in some sort of search pattern. I wish I knew what they're looking for. We've never been able to answer some of the puzzles about that town."
"I wish that I had seen the device the Urth boy carried," Alain said.
"Jason said it couldn't be destroyed. Kira would have known if he was lying about that."
"He also told Kira that Mage skills might be able to get through the defenses used by the people of Urth," Alain said. "Is that also true of the thing that Jason stole?"
"Or would even trying to find out set off some alarm on the thing?" Mari asked in return. "Could we afford to risk that, knowing that if we failed, the Urth people would be able to regain it?"
"I do not know. As you say, Kira did what we would have done. Even waking us to explain might have cost too much time when they had to get as far from here as they could before the Urth ship realized what Jason had taken." Alain gazed around the room, at the many objects that his daughter had left here, remembering her so much smaller and younger, feeling another pang of fear for the girl who like all children had grown up seemingly overnight.
And as he looked around, an image appeared before him. He stared at it, trying to fix every detail in his memory before it quickly faded.
"What was it?" Mari asked. "I know that look. Your foresight showed you something."
"I saw Kira, running along the flank of a mountain, her Mechanic weapon in her hand," Alain said, still looking at the spot where the vision had briefly appeared. "Someone was with her. A young man. Jason, I think. I cannot be sure."
"She was being chased?" Mari stared at him. "There aren't any mountains nearby. Could you tell which range she was at?"
"No. It was not the rough areas in the inland of Altis," Alain said. "But the mountains could have been anywhere else except for those around Ringhmon."
"Kira isn't crazy enough to go anywhere near Ringhmon! How long do we have, Alain? Can you guess from the vision?"
"It did not feel far into the future," Alain said. "Months, I think. Not years. Kira had not aged that I could tell. It is odd…"
"What's odd?" Mari demanded.
"The boy with her…at first I thought he did not feel like the boy Jason, but then I think he did have the feel of that boy. If it was Jason, there was something different about him."
Mari nodded. "If he's with Kira, he'll either change for the better, or she'll kill him."
"You are joking," Alain said, not sure if that was so. "What will we tell the people from Urth when they come seeking Jason?"
Mari did not answer, turning her head to look out the window again. "Speak of the Dark One. Here they are. No time to come up with a cover story. We'll use our usual plan while we're talking to them."
"The plan where we make it up as we go along? It has served us well for twenty years." Alain nodded toward the outside. "The people from Urth do not fear us. They will try to overawe us."
"I've seen that, too," Mari said. "I've had experts try to overawe me, without much success on their part. As for fear, if anything happens to Kira because of them, they may find out just how much they should fear us." She picked up the note from Kira, folded it carefully, and placed it in an inside pocket of her jacket.
Preparing himself to cast spells if needed, Alain followed Mari outside to where the egg-shaped transport waited.
It had come to rest on the lawn before the house, the morning sun striking an iridescent sheen on its silvery surface just like that of the big ship from Urth. There was a smug sense of arrogance to the way it sat before the house, implicitly proclaiming the right to go anywhere it pleased.
Alain wondered if a Mage spell would affect that smooth material as it would anything else. He thought the people from Urth were very confident in their sense of superiority and their devices, but he
had dealt with that before. The Mechanics on Dematr had been the same way. If necessary, these people from Urth would be surprised by Mage abilities just as those Mechanics had been.
Mari paused on the porch, waiting for a reaction, then walked toward the egg. As they approached, the egg opened one side to reveal a furious Talese Groveen. "Where is my son?" she demanded.
Mari gave the Urth woman a puzzled frown. "Why are you asking us?"
"My child attempted to wipe the transport's memory, but enough tracking data was recovered to show he came here."
"Of course he came here," Mari said. "The night before last. You knew of that."
"He was here last night as well!"
Mari shook her head. "He's not here."
"Have you checked your daughter's bed?" Talese Groveen snapped.
Mari's brow lowered in warning. "I don't care for your tone or your accusations. You are a guest on our world, so we have been willing to excuse your behavior, but I will not tolerate insults aimed at my family."
"Your world?" Groveen laughed scornfully. "You think because these barbarians worship you that you can ignore the laws of civilized societies. There is theft involved here and kidnapping and—"
"Theft?" Alain asked, using his blandest voice that didn't go all the way to emotionless Mage tones. "What was stolen?"
Talese Groveen hesitated. "Private property."
"Did you know that Mages can tell when someone speaks falsehoods to them?"
Talese Groveen glared at him. "I'm sure such assertions are not admissible in any court of law. My son has been kidnapped. A valuable item has been stolen. We expect full cooperation in recovering both my son and the item."
"We'll notify Queen Sien," Mari said.
"He came here! I demand that you immediately produce my son and the item stolen from our ship."
"As I already told you," Mari said, her voice growing colder, "he is not here. We don't know where he is. Nor do we have any item stolen from your ship."
"Where is your daughter?" Talese Groveen demanded, her eyes narrowing.
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