by Power, P. S.
"Tim? Tim? Are you still there? Did we lose the line?"
"Here. Sorry, I've been working for a very long time now. I'm not really me. I guess I should get with everyone else too. Judy will get with you later, when the ship makes the pickup?" He didn't know that would be needed, but there was a sigh from the device.
"Thank you. Judy who?"
That got him to smile. Brown had to have met the girl, at least a few times, but he couldn't recall that happening himself, so just went with it.
"Captain Kerry, of the Space Fleet. She's Alice Orange's right hand person." At least that had been the case the last he'd heard about it all.
Denno spoke a bit more hurriedly.
"Very good. Thank her for me? We should all get together soon, if possible. I know that your issues haven't gone away. Perhaps a meeting there? Or are you ready to begin the new lunar project? I'd love to get a toehold there, if we can."
"Right. Later."
Timon just ended the conversation, not having enough information for the time being, and Judy actually rolled her eyes and hit him on the arm, if gently enough that it didn't make his shield trigger. If he even had one on, which he didn't think was the case. He checked with a thought, and felt the field right there around his neck, however.
Meaning that the girls from the kitchen hadn't been pilfering his things at least. That was nice to know. Maybe they actually liked him?
The next bit of business went to a source that no one else would have really thought of, his mother. Or in this case his brother Terry, who was the one that answered the family's device.
"Terry Baker, Baker residence in Two Bends, how may I be of aid to you today, sir or ma'am?" It was so polite and well spoken, without even a hint of the backwoods accent that Tim nearly didn't recognize the boy at all. He was still nine, but seemed to be settling in to his new place in the world well enough. He sounded almost like a royal.
"Hey Terry. This is Tim. Your brother, in case some other Tim calls all the time. I have news. Can you write a message out for me?"
There was a moment of hesitation, and then, without saying anything else the soft and still childish voice came back, sounding far too old for his younger sibling.
"Ready to write. Go ahead."
Far too old, by leagues beyond imagining.
Chapter seven
"Let me read this back to you." The boy sounded very official, and a bit stern, now that Timon was paying more attention to him. Like a military man, rather than a kid. "Official, from Countier First Timon Baker, aboard the Space Vessel Ranford. The Sunset-fire has been neutralized. Ships will be over populated areas releasing a compound meant to control that in the future." The words where half Terry's but that was all right. They sounded better than the half mumbled things he'd come up with. "Is it too much to tell people that it has been neutralized already? Since we haven't done it yet?"
Probably, Tim knew that but didn't bother talking, just thinking about it for a while. Finally he looked at the far bulkhead and spoke in a low tone.
"Use your best discretion. How are things there, in Two Bends?" It was probably what he should have said first, but the boy didn't complain about a lack of familial bonding. Since they weren't fighting, it probably meant something else was going on.
"People are scared Tim. Even here, in the middle of nowhere. A month ago no one on Noram knew what a nuclear device was at all. When they set them off under the water along the West coastline it created vast flooding and death. We had to tell people that it was like the weapons that Tor made, only different. I still don't understand what it really is. My tutor John had to get special permission from Denno Brown just to tell us the basics of the idea. People are ready to fight, even here, but no one knows what to do. If I weren't going to spread this message around, the delivery people here would be drilling with weapons in case we have to fight. Pa is teaching us. Did you know that he could fight at all? Everyone else was really surprised."
Timon did, of course. Assassins would have to know things like that. He didn't mention it, just going on as if the question hadn't been a real one.
"I see, I think. I need to get with the King and Lyn Red... Or, can you get in touch with Lyn? She knows you, right? Just pass that message to her? Then we need to send someone to Black. I don't think he has a communications device yet. You can get one for him... Except that he can't use magic. It's part of the religion there. Work out a way to pass messages with him."
"On it."
The line broke long before Judy nudged him again, and then, a little more gently, put an arm around him.
"Terry, he's a solid kid, but only a boy, are you sure that he can handle all that?"
For a long time he just stood there, looking at the device in front of him. Then he hit the sigil for Prince Alphonse. It was out of habit, since the King didn't have one of the new style communications devices. Probably so that people wouldn't be able to get in touch with him directly.
"Good day." The Prince sounded tired too, and didn't give his name. He normally had in the past, so this was something new.
"Hello, Prince Alphonse. Tim Baker here. I need to talk to your father? I can fill you in too, but going over it all twice sounds like work."
"You sound like crap too. I think I can do that. This isn't about you having trouble with Trice is it? I don't think that Father is going to let you out of your marriage. Worse, she seems reasonably happy with it so far. I know, who would have figured her for one to settle down, but here you have it." It was clear that the giant redhead was walking while he spoke, using mindless chatter to distract from the otherwise grim mood everyone was in.
It didn't take long either, which meant that the Prince had actually been in the room with the other man, or close enough to that it didn't make a big difference.
"Countier Timon Baker on for you, Father. For all of us, I think. Is that right Tim?"
"Yeah." He didn't sound half formal enough, but everyone could know what was up. He explained it all quickly, and listlessly. After he was done going through how it would happen, the King cleared his throat.
"And you've assigned your brother Terry to travel to Tellerand as our Ambassador? He's a bit young for the post."
That got Timon to shake his head, which meant that Judy pushed his arm again, since that wasn't going to work.
"No, sorry, I wasn't clear. Terry is just setting up a message system, since we can't use the communications devices. He's a decent pilot, has his own craft and all that. We should send someone as a guard, I guess." He hadn't thought about it at all.
Rather than yell at him for doing something like that, without permission, the King sighed.
"Exactly my thought. Alphonse, get with Smythe and put together a team. Then get with Countier Baker, Terrance. This is a good idea, but we can't afford to risk our children yet. Not if we can help it." There was a clatter in the other room, but the King kept speaking his voice sounding very deep, indeed.
"Now, Timon, would it be possible for you to manufacture shields for us? We have an influx of volunteers, but not even a tiny fraction of what we need that way. Something that can block... Radiation, was it? It's been a problem in certain regions."
Timon thought for a bit and nodded, then spoke without another prodding from the tall girl next to him.
"Yeah. I have to sleep first. See to things here. I'm not sure I can build again soon. That can be made though. We need something that will clean air too, so that we have contained breathing. It can be the same thing. Better ability to move things with shielded fingers..." He fell asleep then, still talking. It was only a combination of Judy holding him up and the falling sensation that allowed him not to lose the thread of the conversation.
"Of course. I hate to ask at all. If that could be done, as quickly as is safely possible? Then anything else you can manage. More of your Fast Craft? Explosive weapons along the lines of the smaller ones that Tor constructed?"
"Yeah. No problem. I'll... Yeah." Then he just
walked away, knowing that if he didn't go soon, he was going to have to sleep on the floor on the bridge, which would have to be a tripping hazard.
Judy actually yelped behind him, but made excuses for him, rather than making him come back. It sounded that way at least.
It took as much will as he'd ever used before, as well as a wall and finally some help from a man that was passing by who he didn't know, to get himself in bed. There was no window in the room, so when the lights went out, it was completely black. It felt nice, for about ten seconds, and then he was out so totally he wasn't sure he'd ever wake again.
He did though and immediately had to drink more water and use the restroom, then went back to bed. How long this went on he didn't know, but when Timon finally came out his stomach was on fire from hunger, and he felt like someone had done something horrible in his mouth as a prank while he slept. It was so bad that the very first thing he did was brush his teeth, even as hungry as he was.
It was, it turned out, a mistake, since it had eaten up valuable time he might have had to find precious food. It wasn't exactly that anyone was trying to starve him, he realized, as much as that the situation on the ground was so much worse than he'd heard that King Richard had sent up millions of amulet sized disks and square plates for fields to be put on. Because that made sense.
Who did he think he was, Tor?
The very fact that he'd tried to get Timon to do it and not his brother meant a lot too. Tor was working as a baker, but had that handled it seemed with a full time and several part time people to do his work there for him. That either meant that King Richard had Tor working on something else, or the man knew.
That would be bad. The King actually could block being read for a while, if he knew to do it around someone, and did it commonly enough that it might pass as normal, but if he told anyone else at all then the secret would be out before they could realize that they shouldn't think about Cordes being the villain.
Worse, it was sort of obvious too. There was no way in heck that Richard would send all this work to him, rather than someone else. Not unless Tor and the Lairdgren group had both been taken off the table somehow. Compromised. If so, no one had mentioned it to him at all yet. They hadn't even hinted about knowing something, or let it slip, like people almost always did.
In the moment though it meant that the second he stuck his head out of the door to his cabin, nearly twenty ship's crew descended on him and started packing amulets into his room. Big boxes of them, on floating pallets. Those felt like Sam Builders work.
Nice and solid.
All Timon could wonder was how he wasn't dead yet. Remy Seventeen almost had to be aboard already. That thought got him to read each of the people that walked in, taking all of his space away, one at a time. They didn't seem strange or different at all. A few were a bit put out by the extra work, and didn't know why it might be important, and a couple were simply bored, but no one seemed involved in direct intrigue, or wanted him dead.
Sighing he held his stomach like a begging street urchin, and looked around.
"I don't suppose one of these crates has lunch in it? I haven't eaten in days." He thought that was the case at any rate. No one called him a liar, but they kept working, and didn't say much at all to him. Luckily Judy had been called it seemed and she came with a plate of food. It was bread and fruit, with a honey butter spread, but it looked wonderful, at the moment. She motioned to the bed and handed it to him. There was no place else left to sit.
"The King wanted me to request shields first. The new ones you were mumbling on about if possible. Then new craft and weapons. As many as you can do. Orange wants you to help backup the colony crew, since we can't work on the surface yet and I'm supposed to remind you that you're behind schedule on that. I do think she was joking, but it was hard to tell. She's been on edge. We all have." She picked up a bite of sliced fruit and tucked it in his mouth. It was a lot more intimate than they'd ever really been, but he chewed, getting the idea.
He had to eat and didn't have time for a nice and elaborate meal. Or, it seemed, cutlery.
As soon as his mouth was empty he reached for the bread and started to put a lot of the spread on it, since he needed the calories, he figured. Everything but the food on the plate was hollow to his mind. It wasn't real at all, like the walls and floor. It was all magic. He used the blunt glass looking paddle anyway, and removed the butter and honey from the crystal dish. It smelled good at least.
"You know, I would have thought that going all the way off of a planet would have made it harder for people to make up work for me, not easier."
"I know. I think that things are getting pretty bad. Everyone wants us to go home, to help guard the kingdom. Austra has actually requested our aid already. Tellerand... They've been really hurt bad by all this. Plagues there. They can't work the healing devices on their own hardly. Not most of them. That there Black Ancient, he had to claim that anyone that could turn one of them on was a saint and required to do it. Most that can had been in hiding before that, because it's clear magic in the making, and they hate that there. A group of priests tried to set on your little brother and his guards. Terry kicked their butts for them. By himself. Didn't even use a weapon, just walked out with his shield on and took down twenty armed men. Not fighters, but still, they got the idea. When the people from Noram come, you should be polite."
Timon didn't ask if the kid was all right. Terry was strange, in his own quiet fashion. He was more polite than most of the rest of them, and smart, but also a lot tougher, really. Inside, where it counted. A little thing like an attack would just make him a bit sour, not even angry with the people that had done it. If he wasn't back to normal by the next day, then Tim didn't really know him at all.
As soon as the food was done, he was left to his own devices again, and started to plan out how to borrow ideas from seven different, and very incompatible things, in order to make a brand new kind of shield. He had too many projects not to link it all together after all.
It took him another month to get it finished and when he finally came up for air, his body sort of gave out. The first two weeks had just been on the original design, but then he had to make all those copies. Millions of them. It was easier than billions at least, even if it did take a lot longer for him to get his room back.
That was his fault though, since he didn't have any way to move left on him. That meant he had to crawl, since he sure as heck wasn't walking anywhere. It was kind sickening, how out of shape he'd gotten, until he remembered to use a healing amulet. It didn't fix him instantly, but it helped enough that he could stand on his own and shuffle along. He held the thing for a while, nearly an hour, then got water and finally more food.
That was, he thought, down to his genetic pattern. He healed toward strength, to a good degree, even if he wasn't getting any exercise. Most people didn't without exercise. It was a slow thing though, and had to have an upper limit, or he'd be vastly muscled and powerful already, instead of just kind of strong and fast. It meant he was ready to actually get back to work by the time he was finished. Though exercise was still going to have to become part of his daily activity, or at least heavy healing was.
Probably that second one, since there was a lot left to do.
Timon took one of the new shields and put it on, sliding it onto the chain that had his other shield on it. This one was on a rounded focus stone piece that was a milky brown color, and kind of ugly, even with the nice red glow of the sigil. All of them had that. The testing was going to be interesting, but having at least half a brain left, he decided to go fairly slow with that. If he'd messed up it would be too easy to die, wouldn't it?
First he just made a very small room for himself by touching the wall and concentrating. It was tiny, and almost touched him on all sides, so that there was no room for air, just the shield. If it worked right, then his breath would stay around him, even in space, and would be cleaned and made fresh and breathable constantly. It was a lot more com
plex than it sounded, because it didn't just make the air better, but could make new air, if it was needed. That had to come from somewhere, of course, so the material used for it would be his body. If he did it right, then some dead skin cells would be gone at the end of the test. If he got it wrong, he'd probably be pulled apart and die as soon as the field kicked on.
"Here we go then. Once more, into the great beyond!" It sounded like something from a tale, so he smiled, and then made the wall in front of him vanish, leaving only hard vacuum and emptiness in front of him.
Exhaling he wondered if it would be his last breath. It wasn't though and in fact, after a few minutes of doing that he realized that he was fine. You couldn't see anything, but he was staying perfectly warm, which could have been a problem in the shadow of the ship like he was, and could breathe easily.
Timon just stood there until he was too bored to be bothered with it anymore, meaning just over an hour. There was a lot to test, so he made the wall come back with a hard thought and went to find Monroe. That was hard to do, not that he wasn't in his lab, but because that space had changed positions. By about half the ships length. It took a while to find him. Timon finally broke down and just sensed the man, and walked toward him, having to turn around in half a dozen blind dead-ends in order to do it.
"Timon! I haven't seen you in a while, is everything all right?" The all black man was in the same white coat as before, but had on light blue trousers underneath, and soft looking shoes. Without waiting for an answer he gestured at the lab bench, which had a lot of strange things on it. "Radiation experiments. The new medicine is working very well, and those healing devices your people have? But I was asked to find some way of blocking it that could be used by common people."
Nodding Timon held out his hand.