Reaper's Crossroad

by Timothy Ellis

"What am I supposed to do with a seer?"

  "Form a group of them?" said Thorn, deadpan.

  I sighed. Should have seen that one coming.

  "Fine. One last thing. Did you have a station in space? Before you were attacked?"

  "No. We don’t get many traders, but they all land outside of one of the cities."

  "Do you want one?"

  "Not really."

  "We'll need you to build a specific type of building to act like the stations do, so people and cargo can travel to and from you on the network."

  I paused, thinking.

  "Jane?"

  "Yes?" she said over room coms.

  "We need a building which a mage can construct easily, which acts the same as the stations do, linking them into the station network. Probably need at least one on each planet. Link to the nearest station, or if there isn’t a station, link to the nearest hub. If the smaller rifts end up having a distance maximum, we'll need to put in booster stations, so maybe prepare specs for one of those as well."

  "In progress. I assume you want a prototype for Kelewan as soon as possible?"

  "Yes."

  "Confirmed."

  I knew Kelewan was still linked by a ship rift, and his nib's personal rift had been piggy backed on to it, via a ship.

  "Better get Syrinx to try. If she can't do a cargo sized rift on her own, we need to rethink stations. But if she can do them, stations become an optional extra."

  "Confirmed."

  I looked at Parsengnon again.

  "And this is why you don’t alienate any one group of mages."

  "Why?"

  "Because the only person other than Thorn and I who can do these rifts is a woman with white skin. And she taught both of us how to do it."

  "Ah."

  He didn’t get as far as chuckle, but his smile did get a little bigger.

  "Now we're done."

  He nodded at both of us, and left.

  "Thorn, we need to…" He'd already vanished. "Talk."

  Eight

  When I was back in my personal office in my accommodation tower, Jane walked in.

  "Jon?"

  "Jane?"

  "The vote on our new government will be held soon."

  "Do they…"

  "Yes."

  I sighed.

  "Did you ever read the Midkemia series of novels?"

  "Yes. Relevance?"

  She sat opposite me.

  "Do you remember the one where the ex-duke becomes a nobody in a harsh land?"

  I was probably the only one who could detect the pause. In all likelihood, she was re-reading the entire series before answering.

  "Yes. Again, relevance?"

  "He'd been born into ruling, prepared to rule all his life, and turned out to be very bad at it. Admittedly the story throws him a curve ball he didn’t see until afterwards, but overall, he was a bad ruler. And not because he wanted power above all else."

  "So?"

  "In his first few weeks living with peasant farmers, he finally notices how it is they lived. And he wonders how close to this his own farmers lived. Because he didn’t know."

  "And?"

  "He had no idea of the value of anything. People put food and drink before him, but he had no idea where it came from, or how much he personally had paid for it. Or even if he had paid for it himself. He signed the dukedom level notes for payment prepared for him, but had no real idea what he was signing."

  "Still waiting."

  "He was brought up to rule, and still had no idea what or who he was ruling, or how they lived."

  Jane face palmed.

  "I wasn’t even brought up to rule. Come to think of it, my upbringing only prepared me for what I am now."

  "You were a good duke, and you brought yourself up to be one."

  "The computer games you mean?"

  "A lot of those were about managing empires."

  "Maybe so, but there was one important thing those games had missing."

  "What?"

  "Ordinary people."

  She looked at me silently for a full minute.

  "You think you were a bad duke because you had no idea how the ordinary people on your stations lived?"

  "I know I was a bad duke. Hunter's Run worked because I wrote a tax haven constitution, and it was overseen by a benign AI."

  "Gee, thanks."

  "It worked because we only had space stations, and I was a glorified landlord with good administrators working for me. People like David Tollin. And no-one could challenge me because I had the most bad-arse fleet around at the time. Being a duke is about being of service to those who put their trust in you. It's not about power and greed, but responsibility to others. A king even more so."

  This time it was me looking her in the eyes.

  "You'd make a much better queen than I would a king, because you know exactly how everyone lives. And you're actually interested in how people live."

  "Are you saying you're not?"

  "Pretty much. I wasn’t particularly social as a kid. I built computers and played games, and spent the minimum possible time doing lessons with other kids. I didn't get out much, lived mostly on a single ship, and had no interest in anything other than computers and games. Then some pirate almost kills me on my first day out in the galaxy. Ever since, I've spent most of my time trying to stay alive, trying to keep other people alive, rescuing people about to not be alive, and pretending to be an admiral. Where in that is anything which made me a good duke?"

  "You are a good admiral."

  "I'm starting to speculate on the merest possibility of considering beginning to believe that."

  She laughed. She knew the reference of course.

  "Not even close to being a quote, but I'll pay it. Jen takes your orders, and she was the top admiral for decades. What does that tell you?"

  "She knew her experience was out of date."

  "Yes, but she also could tell a good leader from a bad one."

  "Being a good leader doesn’t make me king material."

  "How will you know unless you try?"

  I sighed.

  "That's not how this should work."

  "How should it work?"

  "You're asking me about politics?"

  "Here and now, yes."

  "Anyone who wants to be king, should under no circumstances be allowed to."

  "But you don’t want to be king."

  "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink."

  "You're a horse now?"

  She was laughing.

  "An old warhorse, yes. It's time I was put out to pasture."

  Okay, so I wasn’t old, but I damned well felt like it. Two years of fighting, ending in two months of an unwinnable war and a hundred billion casualties, and I challenge anyone to not feel old before their time.

  "If that was so, I suspect none of us would exist now."

  "True, and that's the only thing really keeping me going at the moment. If Kali really thinks I'm the only one who can keep all these people safe, who am I to dispute it? That and Thorn and his damned seer he claims saw what would happen if I stopped."

  "Traditionally, a leader like a king or president has also been the head of the military. Sometimes they've also been generals."

  "Or corporals."

  "Touché."

  "But how many generals or corporals have actually made good civilian leaders?"

  She opened her mouth, and then closed it again.

  "Very few?" I suggested.

  "Some of them were very successful."

  "Until they decided to go to war, and then lost. Or those who fought a war, and then found they were not what peace time needed after one."

  "There is that."

  "And those who didn’t, are just names in long lists of leader's names down history, who kids forget after the test they needed to recite them for."

  "What's your point?"

  "How am I supposed to be a good king, doing what is right for the
people, when most of the time I'm going to be out there somewhere, fighting yet another battle to save someone else?"

  "Oh."

  "And we don’t know how long this is going to go on for. For all we know, we're going to be fighting this war for the rest of our lives. Or even yours, long after I'm gone."

  "I would hope not."

  "I would too. But even if pacifying this end of space only takes a couple of years, no leader is still sane after all that killing. You want me to be a king when all I'm used to is being a killer?"

  "You're not a killer Jon."

  "No? How many Darkness did I kill over those couple of months? They were coming at us millions at a time. So billions? How many people died because of my decisions as we withdrew up the spine? How many thousands have I killed in each battle so far here? How many deaths are still to come?"

  I was suddenly aware of my voice rising in tone and volume. I sighed and made an effort to get a grip before I lost it.

  "I don’t know Jon. Should I consult a seer, now we have some available?"

  In spite of myself, I chuckled.

  "No thank you. But I repeat. You really want a king with as much blood as I have on my hands, and potentially will have by the time all this ends? Do you really want someone who is so detached from the reality of the average person trying to make a go of it on a new planet?"

  She was silent again for a full minute.

  "I'll tell them."

  Nine

  There was enough of a lull to go to the beach.

  The committees still called out for me to attend, and ships were streaming in to all three jump points out of Crossroad, and so I did what the twins would do. Went to the beach.

  Thorn had left a standing invitation to visit his island whenever we wanted to, and without one of my own to use anymore, it wasn’t hard to take him up on it. I'd risen from my desk, and looked up.

  "Beach," I said.

  "Confirmed," said Jane, and I went to find Angel.

  She was sleeping on one of her cat trees, and I tickled her until she woke up.

  "Meow?"

  "Beach."

  She jumped right up, and stepped across onto my shoulders. A few claws into my suit kept her there. I was going to walk out with her lying behind my neck, but Jeeves met me in the doorway with a small sled and a cat cage. I thought about it for a moment, and reluctantly put her into the cat cage. She wasn’t happy, but it was safer. We took the nearest travel car to the rift to Terminus.

  The station was beginning to look like a station now. Between each set of rifts, shops and businesses were filling in the gaps, and well into the interior now. There was a general flow of people in all possible directions. The sounds you hear in every shopping precinct everywhere were not yet fully established here, but it wouldn’t be long.

  I walked us around to Thorn's Hub rift, and stepped through. This station was almost as far along, but I saw immediately Thorn had organized things so the businesses immediately around each rift were specifically about where they led to. A quick look later, and it was apparent a lot of what was on Terminus was also here, but the mix was very different, so the look and feel of the two were also very different.

  I kept walking until I was back to the outside ring where the rifts were, and stopped so suddenly, the sled banged me behind the knees, and nearly knocked me over. Jeeves was apologetic, but it hadn't been his fault. Besides, I wasn’t listening.

  The man was dressed in shorts down to his knees, a white singlet top, and flip-flops on his feet.

  He was carrying a surfboard.

  The woman was wearing a bikini top, a grass skirt, and a ring of flowers as a necklace. She also had flip-flops on her feet.

  Both were wearing antique sunglasses, and had a towel thrown over one shoulder.

  I watched them go past. George I could understand, because he used to use the suit for all sorts of mad outfits. But the woman with him was Miriam, and all I could do was stand there and chuckle. And I wasn’t the only one stopping to watch them go past.

  When I was capable of movement again, I turned and followed them, in time to see them approach Thorn's planet's rifts, where I saw there were two sets now. A woman saw them coming, grinned in genuine amusement, and waved them through the outward rift not being used by the rest. She saw me coming, and waved.

  "Welcome Admiral," she said. "Left set of rifts go to the capital city below. Right set go to Thorn's beach. And yes, I'm his AI here, making sure people don’t take the wrong one."

  She bent down, held her hand out to Angel, and let it be sniffed. Angel looked at me in confusion.

  "Jane clone."

  She considered me for a moment, and then extended her head enough to allow it to be tickled by one finger through the gap.

  "Aren't you adorable!"

  "Please don’t tell her that, she'll be insufferable for a while."

  The AI laughed.

  "I'll remember that one. You're the last to arrive I'm expecting Admiral. I took the liberty of setting up some status screens down there, for whoever is there at any time. If you need something else, just ask."

  "I'm sure we'll be fine. Thank you."

  "You enjoy yourselves now!"

  I nodded to her, and stepped through onto the beach. I was surprised to see I'd actually stepped out of a tree.

  "What took you so long?" yelled Amanda.

  "What took me so long?" I yelled back. "How did all of you get here before me?"

  Nobody bothered answering, and as far as I could see, the entire team was in the water, as well as a few of the captains. But I couldn’t spot the twins. There was movement in the water.

  I stopped.

  And just gawked.

  The twins seemed to be propelled out of the water as if fired from canon, but it quickly become obvious they were on other shoulders. That wasn’t the thing I was gawking at.

  Amanda was on the shoulders of a tiger, and Aleesha was on the shoulder of a roo. The two pairs mock fought each other for a few moments, and then fell backwards back into the sea.

  "You can close your mouth now," said Aline, who I hadn't seen come up next to me. "You too Angel."

  Angel and I looked at each other, and it was Angel who shook her head as if not believing what we'd just seen.

  "Meow."

  "Out?"

  She nodded. Jeeves opened her door, and she jumped down onto the sand. She spotted something down the beach, and shot off towards it. Aline looked me up and down.

  "Are we a little overdressed?"

  Ten

  Jane warned us when the first Ralnor ships jumped in to Crossroad.

  We'd finished a very nice outdoor dinner, and I'd been thinking about an early night. I knew Aline was thinking about a really late night, but in spite of a good time at the beach, and eating fresh food with great company, my mood hadn't broken.

  Angel had done her begging puss act to get cat sized morsels from just about everyone, and it had been quite funny. But not funny enough.

  Jane had turned up later in the afternoon, and with some fast suit improv, had turned into a shark, biting the end of George's surfboard, and propelling him along on it quite fast. When he'd finally fallen off, the two of them had done a shark attacking boarder routine which had everyone in stitches, except me. They saw comedy, I saw the real thing happening. And I didn’t need reminding of tragedy. Or even want people turning it into farce just for a laugh.

  When she came out of the water as herself again, Jane had given me a funny look, perhaps wondering why I was the only one not still laughing.

  Now I was sitting facing the monitors, watching Crossroad.

  The Ralnor weren’t coming for us this time. They'd headed fleets towards the Keerah and Trixone jump points. But this time, both had started jumping in fleets of their own. Now we had twenty fleets from three powers, all powering towards each other.

  "Why are they doing that?" asked Alison.

  "Who?" asked Hobbes.

  "Y
our people and the plants."

  He shrugged. Eyes turned to Roo. He shrugged as well.

  All eyes turned to me.

  I resisted the urge to shrug.

  "Two reasons I can think of. Intelligence suggesting a change in tactics by the Ralnor is the most likely. The one thing we haven't had to worry about is civilian traffic going in and out of our space, since there is none, but they do have to contend with it. And like Arthur and his people who get around a lot, there would be a lot of intelligence agencies pretending to be traders and working hard for whoever their paymasters are. Someone probably picked up the Ralnor were about to do something new, and sold it to the Keerah and Trixone."

  "What are they trying to do?" asked BA.

  "Well they haven’t been able to get through our door and come back to say they did so, so the next best thing is deny the opposition the ability to go through either. Put a fleet in blockade position of each jump point in Crossroad, and you own the system."

  "Why do that?" asked Alana.

  "Because I think they've worked out something about us which isn’t true, but which changes their thinking."

  "What?" asked Amanda.

  "That’s my other reason. We've been appearing in places where we cannot possibly have been able to get to. And none of the three have any idea how, since those who might have seen us arrive somewhere all died before a message could be sent. Those who had time, saw us jump in places where we shouldn’t have been."

  I waited.

  "So they think we have jump points which lead into their territory they don’t know about?"

  Annabelle looked like she was only guessing, but I nodded.

  "That’s the one. We don’t, but it’s the only logical conclusion when you don’t believe in magic. Now if intelligence assets found out this thinking and their response from the Ralnor, and passed it to the other two, the first thing they have to prevent is the Ralnor gaining control of their own jump point into Crossroad. If they lose that, they lose access to our jump point, and thus everything behind it, including at least one jump point into each enemy's territory."

  I waved at the screens.

  "And so we get this."

  This, was fleets all heading towards each other, firing missiles as fast as they could launch them. They were still several hours apart, and already some ships in each fleet were damaged, but no-one was easing up.