by Audrey Faye
I grinned. “Working in the field alone.”
She grinned back and nodded appreciatively.
That one was going places. I looked around, grateful that the waving hands were diminishing, and nodded at a slender arm in the back corner. A girl with bright orange hair slid to her feet with the kind of grace that could only belong to a Dancer. “Do you think they’ll find another Traveler soon?”
I sure as hell hoped not. Talent was rough on all of us, but Singers and Dancers and Growers generally lived to tell their tales and scare small children in the pod nurseries. Shamans had it harder because they played with the most woo energies—the ones that came with very few rules and pissy manners. But the Travelers were gifted with all our Talents and the ability to move through space and time. They were rare, extremely coveted, and had really short life expectancies.
KarmaCorp hunted for Travelers in every corner of the galaxy, and in my lifetime, there had been three. I looked at the girl who had asked the question and sent me woolgathering. “No idea.”
I saw a few eyes in the class sidle toward a student in the back. She was elegant ice, sitting chill and still with a snooty look on her face.
We didn’t need an introduction. Tatiana Mayes, only progeny of Yesenia Mayes and headed straight for the Fixer elite ever since she’d been old enough to get her thumb into her mouth. If she was a Traveler, it hadn’t manifested yet—but the possibility had already earned her a world of privilege, hatred, and overprotected hovering.
This was the first time we’d actually come face-to-face. I looked at her square on, curious to see what she was made of.
Two golden eyes met mine, gaze even and registering slightly bored.
I let the tiniest smile show, impressed, despite my best intentions. Yesenia’s cub had some backbone.
Slowly, she raised her right hand.
I was pretty sure there wasn’t anything about Fixing, KarmaCorp, or the Federated Commonwealth of Planets that she didn’t already know. Yesenia would have sent her spawn out into the world impeccably prepared.
Tatiana was still waiting, the bored ice queen with her hand up. And more eyes in the room were turning to watch. I raised an eyebrow slightly and engaged the battle, because whatever else this was, it was a challenge. “You have a question, Trainee Mayes?”
She acknowledged my first thrust with the barest flicker of a smile.
She wasn’t surprised that I knew who she was, but she was impressed that I’d laid it out there—or at least that’s what I took from the small flicker. I waited for her question.
Her eyes slid left for a brief moment, over to the non-assuming girl in blue who had asked the smartest question of the day so far—and got a quick, reassuring glance in return.
Ah, so that was the lay of the land. The cub had a friend. I found myself glad of it. Fixers without friends didn’t last long, even if they’d been born into KarmaCorp’s bosom.
Tatiana breathed in like one of the dolphins on Xanatos, slow and liquid and taking all the time in the world, as if oxygen was a small, permitted luxury instead of the stuff of life. “What is it like working for my mother?”
Youch. There was no way to answer that and come out without scratches.
I watched as the quiet girl in blue grinned, acknowledging the play.
I didn’t mind a few scratches—and I liked Tatiana more than I’d expected to. I waited a moment and then gave her the respect of an honest answer. “I imagine it’s easier than being her daughter.”
The ice queen melted for just a moment, and I saw a kid with golden eyes who knew she lived in a golden cage—and planned to get out one day.
My heart answered in an instant. I hoped she made it.
Which is the kind of thing you absolutely don’t want to think as a loyal employee of KarmaCorp, or as someone who’s ever caught a glimpse of Yesenia Mayes in a temper. A woman who could shred fifteen grown men over delays in interplanetary shipping schedules wasn’t anyone to mess with, ever. I broke eye contact with Tatiana, cursing whatever momentary impulse had made me stupid.
And saw Yesenia, standing just inside the far left door. She saw me looking, bowed her head slightly, and slid out as silently as she had come in.
I shivered. The woman never missed anything.
Tatiana was back in her snooty, bored pose, the one I suspected she wore like a comfortable second skin—but I wasn’t convinced that she missed much either.
And I was a tired Fixer about to head off-planet again who didn’t need any more crap to land. I scanned my audience one more time, using that command presence I didn’t generally have to suggest that question period was done. “Anyone else?”
A hand shot up on the far right, and a girl with bright red hair bounced up after it.
She looked enough like my friend Iggy that I capitulated. “Yes?”
She flashed the smile of a breezy sprite who never sat still for long. “Can you show us how a Singer works? Please?”
It was the “please” that did me in. And the crystal-clear memory that I’d been the kid asking that exact same question once.
I hadn’t known how to sit still for long back then either.
Something quick, and then I’d get the hell out. I looked around the lecture pod again, seeking an appropriately innocuous experiment. By third year, these girls would be old hands at controlling their Talents. They’d be learning the subtler and more important powers of observation.
The red-headed sprite’s hand flew up again. “What are you doing?”
I wasn’t used to working out loud, but that was the whole point of being here. “I’m assessing crowd factors. Singers don’t just have voices—we have eyes, too, and smart Fixers don’t use their Talent until they have to.” Less paperwork that way.
The girl studied her classmates with sharp interest. “What do you see when you look at us?”
More than I’d ever let her know, but I could run through the basics. “You’re far less restless than the last trainee class I visited.”
She wrinkled her nose. “They were probably just tadpoles.”
Apparently, the youngest trainee cohort was never going to escape that nickname. “Perhaps. Youth is one reason for people to squirm, but there are others. They might lack discipline, or they might not feel a part of the group, or they might not like what they’re hearing from whoever is speaking. Those are all useful things for a Fixer to know.”
There were a couple in the class who were getting restless right now. I glanced at the teacher, knowing I’d have been one of them. Her eyes were quietly traveling her students, collecting data, just like I’d been doing. Good—she wasn’t one of the ones marking time until retirement, then.
Probably not a surprise with Yesenia’s daughter in the room.
Which was a good reminder to tread very carefully with my little demonstration. I let my eyes flow over the trainees one more time, noting the seating pattern. The girls had organized themselves in small clumps, but I didn’t know if that was teacher or trainee choice.
Mapping the basic social dynamics seemed like an innocuous enough experiment. I sought out a couple of the brighter pairs of eyes. “I see that you’ve seated yourselves into some interesting groupings.” I held up a palm to forestall anyone answering the question I hadn’t actually asked. “That’s something you’ll see in many social settings, and it can give you important clues to work with.”
A girl in the back with temp face tats much like Tee’s spoke up for the first time. “So it can tell you who’s important in the group, stuff like that?”
I raised an eyebrow. If I read her right, she was trying to dig me into a hole—or at the very least, daring me to call Yesenia’s progeny important. “It can. But you sit on your own, for example, and that’s something that’s hard for just my eyes to interpret. Maybe the group excludes you, or maybe you control the underground lines of power in the group and you don’t want me to know.”
I could see the surprised flickers
of respect hit her eyes. “Or maybe I’m just a loner.”
I grinned, liking her attitude. “Or maybe that.”
A girl at the front turned around, voice flat. “Or maybe you just got here late, like usual.”
That hadn’t changed since my trainee days either. I resisted the urge to punch the by-the-rules bully in the nose—it was ten years too late to be pulling dumb stunts like that. I could, however, possibly make the same point with a little more finesse. Talents never lied, especially if you knew what to ask them.
I walked out from behind the lectern, taking a few deep, cleansing breaths as I did so. “What I’m going to do now is a simple harmonics exercise. I’ll find a core resonant note for each of you in the room, and then play them against each other until I find the notes that blend best together.”
A few heads were nodding—those would be the Singer trainees. They’d have learned the basics of base-note mapping already. “Then I’ll look at what the Song tells me, and how that compares to what my eyes have already noticed.”
Confusion replaced head nods. Finally, a hesitant hand went up over to the left. “But I thought Talents were never wrong.”
I’d believed that once. “They aren’t wrong, but sometimes their information can be incomplete or hard to understand.” And since I was no philosopher, that was as much as I was going to say on the subject. “Watch. If it’s still confusing when I’m done, ask your question again.”
The owner of the hesitant hand nodded and settled back down.
I started with a simple staircase of thirds, purposefully skipping all the pretty scales and soundings trainees were taught to open with. There was never time for that junk in the field.
I hadn’t made it half a phrase before eager harmonics started joining mine. The Singer trainees, answering the question my Song asked of them. I was glad to see they weren’t all sitting together. Their base notes made up a clean chord with no signs of animosity, which was good. Singers rarely ended up in open conflict with each other, but when they did, it was hell for anyone in earshot.
I also noted that none of them much liked bully girl in the front row.
Four students mapped, thirteen to go. I started randomly singing base notes that occurred with the most frequency in big populations. The girl from the front row popped on the second one. It figured—half the bureaucrats in the galaxy resonated with that note. Two others in the class registered for that one as well, and three more came up as tight harmonics.
Bully girl had a following.
Seven left. These were thirteen-year-olds, so I shifted to a minor key, looking for the kids who were playing in the lands of drama and angst. Four more fit there, and two of the Singer trainees echoed my shift, making it clear they hung out there sometimes too. I sang back a soothing message of acceptance. In another five years, most of them would have moved back out of the minor keys, but thirteen was an age to explore your shadows.
One of them sent back a quick subsonic trill of gratitude. I raised an eyebrow at their teacher in the back, surprised. That was advanced for this group. She nodded subtly. Exceptional Talent already noted.
Three left. These would be the tricky ones, and the most fun.
I shifted to chromatics, looking for the offbeat personalities, and smiled as the girl with the face tats pinged right away. Interesting, though—her base note fit in well with the Singers. We tend to attract rebels who know how to behave themselves when it matters. Or ones who would learn that one day, anyhow. I didn’t expect any thirteen-year-old kid to have their shit together.
The next chromatic to hit shocked my Song to its core. Tatiana Mayes, child queen, resonated on a note I hadn’t seen in years—and her base note was a trio. Two of the notes were faint yet, but they were there. Warrior, artist, and rebel, all in a tightly wrapped package of ice.
My eyes darted to the door, but Yesenia hadn’t magically materialized again.
She must know. There was no way she couldn’t.
Cool golden eyes intercepted mine on the return journey. The cub, pissed that I’d wandered off to check in with mommy.
I wasn’t nearly dumb enough to engage that fight. I stepped back behind the lectern and cut off my Song. Time to throw the trainees a couple of interesting bones and get the heck out of town. There was far too much strangeness on the prowl this circuit home, and a smart cog knew when to duck and run.
The student with face tats had her hand up like a shot. “So now that you know all about us, what would you do? If we were like your assignment or something, and you had to get us all to cooperate?”
I’d punch bully girl in the nose, but since someone in charge hadn’t done that already, I had to assume she was filling a purpose. I smiled at the class in general and hummed three quick notes.
The trainee in the back with the trills and the extra dose of Talent laughed. Everyone else stared at her or me, mystified.
Then tats girl put a hand on her belly as stomachs all over the room growled. “The heck? You made us all hungry?”
I grinned. And made my final point. “I stopped a ship’s mutiny that way once.” I waited for that to land. Anything can be a tool if you aim it well enough.
I left to scattered applause, whispers, and a couple of Singer trainees trying to replicate my three notes. They were missing, but not by much.
I grinned on my way out the door. Most of them would forget me in an hour, but a few were thinking. And one or two might remember something I said when they faced down an angry revolt or a power-hungry politico someday.
My version of small ripples. A gift to a pond I deeply believed in.
Not bad for an afternoon’s work.
5
It was totally strange having a sendoff while still travel lagged from my previous assignment. I eyed the contents of the lime-green beaker in my hand—it probably wasn’t going to help with the travel lag any.
Sendoffs were ritual, however, and one the four of us took very seriously. You never knew when a Fixer might not return.
I looked around at the bodies draped over gel pillows on our tiny living-space floor and grinned. If I was going to die, these were definitely the people I’d want to see last. The four of us had been tight since the first week we’d arrived. The first year of trainee school had been hell, and I’d survived purely and solely because of the lunatics who had chosen to befriend the feisty, angry, blonde-haired demon child who’d been plucked out of a mining colony and everything she’d ever known and hated every molecule of the idea that she was now KarmaCorp flotsam.
I scowled and took a sip of my brew—whatever was in it was already making me maudlin. Being KarmaCorp flotsam had turned out to be a pretty decent gig.
Imogene, far better known as Iggy, poked one of her toes into my thigh. “You don’t get to start brooding already, girl.”
I moved my thigh out of her reach—Dancer toes are crazy strong. “I’m not brooding. Half my brain’s still stuck on the tin can that brought me back here.”
“Fast turnaround, huh?” Iggy reached for a Renulian grape, her contribution to the night’s food. “That’s what you get for being the best Singer in the quadrant.”
I amused myself by watching the artwork on her face wiggle as she talked. She and Tee had been decorating each other again. “Right. That’s why they’re sending me to make sure a couple of healthy adults get all kissyface with each other.” That was treading a fine line on the Ears Only deal, but they’d keep it quiet.
Tee’s eyes danced. “They should have sent Iggy—she’s got the kissyface thing totally down.”
Clearly life hadn’t stopped while I’d been gone on my last gig. “Romeo finally got his act together, did he?”
“Nope.” Raven, our foursome’s resident Shaman, grinned as she reached for the bowl of grapes. “A new guy swooped in and stole all the action.”
“He did not.” Iggy waggled a suggestive eyebrow. “I did the swooping, thank you very much.”
I debated between gra
pes and chocolate-dipped chilies. “Man, I missed all the good stuff.” I eyed the other two of our crew. “You guys checked him out, right?”
“Did.” Raven took one of the chocolate chilies. “He’s solid.” She grinned at her roommate. “And full of sexy energy.”
Iggy just rolled her eyes. “Like you needed to read the airwaves to figure that out.”
Shamans read all kinds of shit none of the rest of us understand—but if Raven thought this guy was good people, that was about as close to a guarantee as you could get.
Tee grinned and poured more stuff into my beaker. “I just want to know if he has a brother or two.”
I shook my head. “Just how many bed buddies do you need at one time?” Growers were known for their sexual appetites, but my roommate had become something of a Fixer legend in that regard. I took another sip of my drink, damn glad her hormones weren’t contagious. Bed buddies were something I did sparingly and with as few complications as humanly possible.
My roommate fluttered her eyelashes and grinned, entirely unfazed by my teasing. She’d grown up with the comfort of knowing exactly who she was, and the razzing of a lowly mining brat wasn’t going to change that any. I had reason to know—I’d tried pretty hard to shake her, once upon a time.
Raven picked up a bright pink beaker and toasted my direction. “So, what’s your assignment location like?”
She’d phrased that carefully enough that I could answer however I liked. Shamans got Ears Only files a lot more often than the rest of us. “It’s a colony planet. Info’s pretty sparse.”
“Hmm. Past the edges of the civilized world, huh?” She raised an eyebrow. “Want me to look?”
Shamans had ways of accessing intel that the GooglePlex had never heard of. “Nah, but thanks.” It would have cost her to read the airwaves that far away, and I didn’t think I needed it this time.
Raven shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Tee watched me carefully over the top of a multi-colored beaker that was making swirls as she jiggled it. “It’s not like you to head into an assignment blind.”