Eight
“I owe you an apology.”
David Tollin had turned up with some of the group who’d been there when I’d met the fungus. Most of those who’d fought during the afternoon were now in the main food court of the station, and the locals had gone all out to host a celebration. It was too good an opportunity for the Imperium to miss sending some diplomats and Trixone experts to get a better understanding of our enemy.
Tollin himself had taken me aside when I finished eating what I’d been assured was not dinosaur steak. They couldn’t do fries worth a damn, but the locals did have some interesting vegetable combinations to go with really good steak. I hadn't been game to ask what the steak was from.
Most of the food on display was fit for us to eat, but there were some exceptions, and medical monitors went primary and issued a warning every time I looked at one of them. Presumably our PCs were using the suit sensors to test everything as we got near it. I had no doubt if we tried to eat any of the bad stuff, our suits would have prevented it, which wasn’t something we really wanted to demonstrate to the locals.
Finding a spot to talk hadn’t been easy, so we’d walked back to the nearest assault frigate, and used the conference room behind the bridge.
“Not really,” I told him.
“Yes really. I was totally wrong, you were completely right, and the consequences of me getting my way are terrifying.”
He was talking about telepathic fungus taking over the Imperium to rule the galaxy.
“I learnt some good lessons as well. And we all went there to make an ally. It’s no-one’s fault the way it all happened.”
“I should have known better.”
“Why?”
He looked at me with surprise on his face. Then he sighed.
“My position dictates I should be more open about possibilities.”
“What exactly is your position?”
More surprise. I guess he hadn’t come across someone like me in a long time, who had very little real political understanding of what the Imperium was. I mean, group of societies come together for mutual protection, was about as far as I knew.
“I’ve two positions. Head of the Haven council, which admittedly is for such a small nation, it’s actually smaller than yours. And head of the Imperium council, which takes up most of my time.”
He sighed again.
“I lost sight of reality the other day, and took it out on you. So I’m sorry.”
“No-one saw it coming. And at least you never issued orders which made things worse.”
“True. But I could have listened when you were trying to stop us making a huge mistake.”
“Why didn’t you? No, don’t answer that. Not my business. Politics is not my thing, and I probably wouldn’t understand it anyway.”
“It wasn’t politics. Truth to tell, I’m just horribly tired. The Imperium has been growing rapidly, but with mainly new societies without any serious ability to help expand our military in the short term. We’re getting plenty of recruits, but we need ship building facilities much more, and no-one but the Keerah and Ralnor can build anything bigger than a battleship. I was hoping the fungus was finally a society which could supply us with new dreadnaughts.”
“Not a bad aim. But why are you so tired? The Imperium isn’t that old. Or were you already that way before the Imperium formed?”
“You mean a career politician?” I nodded. “No. Two years ago I was just an administrator, working for the Hunter family. Then Jon had me running administration for his duchy when it formed, and then I was elected to the Haven council after he refused to be our king. When the Imperium formed, because Jon refused to be an emperor, I found myself head of that as well. If someone had told me three years ago I’d be running a political entity made up of alien societies with billions of member beings, I’d have laughed my arse off at them, and then made them an appointment with a shrink.” He paused. “Maybe it’s me who needs one.”
I laughed.
“We probably all will, if this war goes on long enough.”
“Well, anyway, I think I reached the level of my own incompetence the other day when I told you off. Jon won’t let me stand down though, pointing out I really just need a holiday. He’s probably right. I’m going to start tomorrow, with a visit to the planet Arthur was protecting. You and your team are welcome to join me, and before you ask, I got approval for you. Nine sharp on your ship, and we’ll dock with the station now in orbit. There’s a rift we want you to do, and then after, we get all morning to enjoy the planet. They tell me it’s a natural wilderness. I’m thinking of just finding some grass where I won’t get sunburn, and just lie there for a few hours.”
The thought did seem to be cheering him up.
“Maybe not,” he went on. “Once we get the rift done, and have it okayed by the locals, my wife and kids will follow us, and no doubt keep me upright. I gather it’s going to be a family day for some of us.”
“We’ll try to keep our distance then.”
“Why? You don’t consider your team ‘kid friendly’?”
“Actually, I’ve no idea if they are or not.” I paused this time. “Actually, maybe they are. Metunga took a young girl for a run around my island not long ago. He’s probably the most frightening of us, but Jill keeps calling him a pussycat, so we should be fine.”
“Tell me something. Your people don’t appear to have a representative on the council at the moment. Is there any reason for that?”
I shook my head, sadly.
“I’m out of touch. Last I heard the mayor of our main city was going to head up a new government of sorts, but he wasn’t enthusiastic about it. Truth to tell, we’ve never needed or wanted the sort of government the rest of the Imperium members have. Thorn provided us with everything we needed, and most of that is still being provided. So we never needed politicians, and probably no-one wants to be one.”
“Do you have any decent administrators?”
“I wouldn’t know that either. I was focused on getting off planet, not serving at home. My dad might know, as he does that sort of thing, but if you want to find out, you best go through the mayor’s office.”
“What about mages? Any of them worth elevating to the council?”
“I doubt it. Beware of mages who want to serve at that level. Actually, I’m one of those who think if someone wants to serve at that level, you shouldn’t let them. Mages or anyone. Better to find people capable of doing a good job who don’t have their ego invested in it.”
“Mages are ego driven?”
“Isn’t almost everyone?”
“Touché.”
He was grinning now. And a lot more relaxed.
“You don’t want a seat on the council by any chance?” he went on.
“Nope. And if anyone suggests it, I know this nice penal planet I can send them to.”
“Ouch! Remind me never to piss you off.”
People seemed to keep saying that to me these days. A lot.
Nine
Tollin went home to bed, and I went back to the party on the station.
I needed an arrow to find Serena, who was with Metunga and his AI, and Tamsin. The two big cats were being very protective about the two girls. I’d been wondering about that. Metunga had been very expressive when Serena had been affected badly by the fungus. But I didn’t yet know if his protectiveness was just for her, or if it was for the whole team, but she was the most vulnerable at the moment.
As soon as I walked up to her, the cats melted away, almost as if they’d been doing guard duty while I wasn’t there, but now didn’t need to.
One thing I’d noticed was we were not attracting any specific attention, given as we were literally the new species on the block. Even the cats and Lufaflufs were not getting any real glances out of the ordinary, and certainly no alarm at how big cats were on their hind feet. Neither did they attract attention while eating, with claws and teeth on display. Mind you, they were not the largest c
reature around, and nor were the Lufaflufs or wyvern the smallest. What it did suggest was that even though we were so far from home, we were not unknown here.
It was a strange sort of party, but also very familiar. Each species had its own sort of music, and this included, much to my surprise, the plants. And yes, the plants did dance. In fact, almost all the species living on the station had their own variation of dancing, and they also had their own versions of getting drunk as well.
Drunk dancing plants. The galaxy was indeed a strange and wonderful place.
We returned to the gig we’d taken over to the station, and Leanne took us back to Judge. Once back on board, she took it back to the station to wait for some of the pilots still over there. Only the three assault frigates had actually docked, and the rest of us had used our gigs. Surprisingly, not all the pilots had wanted to go, but then again, not all of them were capable of going, having not only had too much to drink, but having chosen not to have medical monitors sober them up.
I wasn’t going to be surprised if Eagle Wing had some requests to transfer to the Claymore Task Force, where they were not in the habit of assaulting stations in combat suits, at least as far as I’d heard. Actually, I was interested to see what Eagle’s reaction to it was going to be. He’d envisioned pilots needing to be marines before anyone else, but now he’d experienced it, the possibility existed it had changed his mind. However, I’d not seen him at all during the evening.
Serena followed me into my suite, and after a short period of bed sport, and a longer joint shower, we both slept soundly through the remainder of the night. I didn’t ask if she’d decided to move in with me now, figuring her actions in the days ahead would tell me. Cowards way of finding out I guess, but if she hadn’t actually decided anything yet, I didn’t want to trigger it in case it had the opposite effect. We’d need to talk sometime though.
She kept up with me on the running track the next morning for the first five laps, and then fell behind as I stepped up my own pace. Only about a dozen of the pilots ran, which I can’t say I was surprised about, and Eagle wasn’t one of them. After I lapped Serena the first time, she stopped running at the end of that lap, as she wasn’t there next time I went past where I expected her to be. I didn’t see her again until breakfast.
We both went straight to the bridge after eating, where Leanne confirmed everyone was back on board, and Tamsin confirmed this was true for all the ships. With one exception. Eagle wasn’t here at all, and it turned out he’d gone back to Haven at the same time those of us who’d gone to the station had left for it. He was apparently still there.
After a short conversation with the red flowered Trixone on the station, which included comments about how great the party had been, and that we’d be back at the same time our diplomatic ship arrived, we jumped for the planet Arthur and Rogue had been protecting.
In orbit, we found one of the small four dock stations the Imperium used as first contact stations just to provide basic rift access for diplomats and troops. They were easy enough to move these days, as they had their own jump drive and station AI. What I didn’t understand was why the rifts down to the planet hadn't been done yet.
“You’re to go down alone,” said Serena suddenly, grinning.
“How do you…” I started, and then stopped as her grin widened.
Obviously she’d had a seeing just as we arrived.
“We should dock first,” she added. “The others can access the station through us.”
“So we’ll need a rift from the living room to our airlock then?”
“Please.”
“Fine. Leanne, dock us, if you please.” I tuned back to Serena. “Where am I supposed to go on the planet?”
“I know that,” said Tamsin, popping up a screen which had an image of water a short walk away. “That’s where the Imperator visited. The locals there will tell you where to put the rifts.” I gave her an enquiring look. “Jane sent it to me.”
Which explained that. If the Imperator had been there, so had Jane. The image was all I needed. I nodded to the three of them, rose, and walked back to the living room, where I put in another rift door, and labeled it as the main airlock.
With the sound of locking clamps engaging in the distance, I connected to the local sun, and simply moved myself to that spot where the image had been taken.
Ten
“Welcome,” said a voice.
I turned to find a horse standing close by. While we had no horses back home, our space neighbors did have them, and all kids on my homeworld knew about them and hoped to ride one someday. This usually lasted until they either went off-world and did ride one, or they grew up. I can’t say I’d ever felt the urge to ride one myself. But I’d seen them in vids often enough.
This one was rather odd, in having a long horn with a sharp looking point on the end, right in the middle of its forehead.
“Thank you,” I responded, already turning towards a flapping noise.
My mouth fell open for a moment. There was another horse coming towards us, and this one had wings instead of a horn. It landed a short way away, and walked calmly over to us, folding its wings in the exact same way birds did.
“Greetings,” it said.
“Greetings to you as well.”
“We’ve been waiting for you,” said horn.
“Me specifically? Or someone in general?”
“You,” said wings. “Bud, nephew of Thorn.”
“Thorn came here?”
“He did. A long time ago now, and before both of our times. But the meeting was remembered, and prepared for.”
“I had no idea he’d been this far away from home.”
“Few did. He came several times, and brought an oracle here once as well. Talking of which, why haven’t you brought your mate with you?”
Mate? Oh, Serena. How did they know?
“She told me to come down alone.”
“Was she grinning when she said it?” asked horn.
“Yes.”
Both of them laughed.
“Then you better bring her down here before she feels let down, or thinks her vision was wrong.”
I concentrated for a moment, and Serena appeared next to me. She was still grinning.
“Is Serena with you?” asked Leanne, through my PC.
“Yes,” I sub-vocalized back.
“Just checking.”
The two horses had repeated their greetings while I was interacting with Leanne.
“Will you please come with us?” asked wings.
“The aquatics are ready for you,” added horn.
A short walk took us to water, where a solid jetty had been constructed. Two fish like beings were waiting there, one on each side of the jetty. While home was a small continent surrounded by water on a largely inhospitable planet, and my island was just that, a small island, I’d never paid much attention to what was in the sea. My eyes were always on space.
Popups told me the one on the left was a dolphin, and on the right was a whale. The whale was substantially larger than the dolphin, and they looked nothing alike, except being sea creatures.
“One falls, another rises,” said the whale.
I had no idea what it meant, until I saw all five of them were looking at me. Serena was beaming.
“You mean Thorn is gone, and I’m here instead?” I asked.
“Not exactly,” said the dolphin. “You both carry the same burden. A carrier is gone, another rises to continue.”
Great. They loved riddles. Or being vague. Or annoying. I wasn’t sure which.
“And?” I prompted.
“We make you the same offer as we did Thorn and his mate,” said horn.
“Which was?”
I had no idea where this was going.
“When they ask too much of you, you may come here.”
Wings sounded serious, but with a horse face, how could you be sure?
“Who asks too much what?”
The four of
them laughed. The two horses sounded pretty much the same, although tonally different. The dolphin’s laugh was high and somehow infectious, while the whale’s was low and booming. Serena had her hand over her mouth. I shot her an annoyed look, which she ignored.
“They will ask much of you,” said the whale, when it stopped laughing.
“They will not stop asking you,” said the dolphin.
“As they did not stop asking Thorn,” said wings.
Now I was beginning to get a handle on the situation. They seemed to know enough about Thorn’s life to think mine was going to go the same way.
“Thorn was a judge. I’m Imperium military. No-one is going to be asking me anything.”
They all laughed again. The horses looked like they were going to fall over. The whale almost flopped out onto the jetty. The dolphin went under.
“Dream on, dearest,” said Serena.
I waited until the four locals were again in control of themselves.
“I’m not accepting that for a moment, but I will accept your offer. What do you mean by come here?”
“We have accepted your Imperium as our protectors,” said the dolphin, “and we will allow some limited visiting of our planet. But not allow anyone to settle here who was not born here.”
“But you are the sole exception,” said the whale.
“You and your mate,” added horn.
“We understand you like islands,” said wings.
“We will give you one,” said the dolphin, “when you are ready to hide from those who won’t let you.”
I chose the easy path, and bowed my head in acceptance, after which the whale and dolphin departed. The two horses showed us back to where we’d arrived, and pointed out where to put the station rifts on this end.
We discussed the need for two of them, one coming down, and the other going up. They were to be wide enough for a grav sled to come through, but nothing larger, and to not allow any weapons or any implement which could cut or dig, or anything with wheels or which might mark the landscape in any way. They didn’t care how I prevented them, as long as they couldn’t get here. It wouldn’t stop anything coming down from orbit in a more conventional way, of course.
Lieutenant Commander Spacemage (Imperium Spacemage Book 4) Page 4