Guardsman

by Pam Uphoff

  Izzo looked at the unopened envelopes. “Right. And now, having satisfied yourselves as to these predictions, you are going to return them, still unopened, to whichever poor fools are assigned to assist you. With,” He pulled a chip out of the minicomp on the table beside him, “this recording, and do a proper, official, backcheck.”

  The ladies tried hard to look crestfallen. “Yes, Izzo.” Lady Heum glanced at her watch. “Dear me. It’s three in the morning, back home. We should go.”

  They walked them out to the driveway, where an apprehensive El Zee held the door for them.

  Jeep paused, wavering a bit, put her hand on Dave’s arm to steady herself. “Dave. Just . . . remember to keep the gun.”

  “What?”

  She shook her head and climbed into the car.

  Dave straightened and watched them drive away. “That was certainly interesting.”

  “Indeed. And like as not, they’re in a hurry to get back in time to sneak those envelopes back into poor Yghy’s safe. In a couple of days they’ll ask for an official check of old predictions, and be all delighted at their own brilliance.”

  Dave snickered, and accepted the offer of bed and breakfast.

  “Poor El Zee does need to get some sleep.”

  At breakfast he entertained the kids, El Zee, Izzo’s Princess, Gee Wiz, but not the starched and disapproving nanny with stories about how kids got into trouble while Makkah was under construction, and their Dads were most often off fighting.

  Then El Zee drove him back to Paris, where he found Nicholas packing up to move.

  The Prophet grinned wryly. “You need to go find Umaya. I told her to buy whatever house she wished, and hire and assume command of however large of a staff she wanted . . . so she did.”

  “Dare I ask how she financed it?”

  Nicholas snickered. “She called Emre and informed him of how much he owed the commander of the Army, his bodyguard and his Warriors for eleven hundred years of sick pay. Or retirement. She said he growled a bit about only experiencing six weeks. And stuck his heels in about the end of the Islamic Union Army, a century after the fall of Fort Rangpur. She had to point out that the Army was renamed, when they added in the rest of the world, not disbanded. Emre talked her down a good way, and refused to pay interest.”

  “Well, we were pretty poorly paid—and often not paid at all—but over a thousand years . . .”

  “Go check your bank account. You’ll like it. And go see what Umaya’s doing and organize the guards she’s hiring.”

  Chapter Twelve

  A Nice Little House in Paris

  10 Emre 1414

  “So Ox, are you surviving the move to a small house?” Izzo grinned at his friend and former subordinate.

  “So far. It’s not as bad a squeeze as I feared, with the four kids. I hadn’t realized the basement was finished. Arno pounced on a bedroom down there, and Oxy decided to join him. It’s now Boy Territory. They’ve declared the bathroom off limits to girls, but allowed as how they could come down for laundry or to use the big screen.” Ahxe Withione Timber Black Point shook his hand, then Xiat’s. “But even though that gave us an extra bedroom, Niin has opted to rent an apartment. Something about sharing a bathroom with two girls . . .”

  Izzo grinned. “At least you lucked out with a good secretary for an assigned princess.”

  “I know. I hate to say it, but I think Rael may have gone to the Princess School and strongly suggested they not send an immature sexpot.” Ox shrugged. “I’m not going to ask.”

  “Safer that way.” Izzo turned his head at a giggle. “Hi, Rael. Giving up your magic house?”

  The woman he considered one of the most dangerous people he’d ever met, grinned.

  “I figured they needed a few months at a minimum to check out Paris before they decided exactly where to live.” Rael shrugged. “Probably years. Although since this isn’t in an enclave it will cease to work rather quickly as Razz is . . . ten? So even though Arno and Ryol both passed their control tests and can live here, it won’t be long before the smaller brats blossom and need to be in one of the enclaves.”

  Izzo blinked. Nodded. “I shouldn’t be surprised. I saw how well controlled their magic was, building sandcastles on the beach.”

  Ox nodded. “Living in the Montevideo Enclave simplified everything when Ryol felt the touch of the One. Arno, of course, did it so quietly even he didn’t notice.”

  Xiat nodded. “Fortunately that gothic horror of a Director’s Residence is inside the Gate City enclave, so when it happens to our twins, we won’t have to move. If we’re still there.” She stepped into the kitchen. “Hey Raod, good to see you again. All moved in?”

  Izzo waved to Madam Raod as he followed Ox into the living room. She and Xiat had buddied up while Ox was working in Gate City. The sister of a friend, the example and advice of the casually expert mother of four had been just what Xiat needed.

  “I’ve never seen this house furnished. I watched a bit of the renovation—not good for the ego. Xen just sat down on the floor and things happened.”

  “Ooo! I wish I could have seen it.” Ryol called from the stairs as she trotted down them. The sixteen-year-old was a spectacular redhead, and knew it. “Did he really use firewood for the floor?”

  “Yep. He’d just take a chunk and pull it out to about the right thickness and smear it out across the floor. Smooth and level.”

  Ox shook his head. “Well, the results are spectacular. Although I’m not sure about the dark blue bathroom.”

  A laugh from Xiat as she called from the kitchen, “It started out pink. Rael was horrified.”

  “You’d better believe it!” Rael walked out carrying a tray of veggies and dip and placed it on the dining room table. “And I know perfectly well he did it on purpose just to make me yell at him.”

  Ryol rolled her eyes. “Grown-ups are stupid. Pink would be nice upstairs. It’s a really boring bathroom.”

  Xiat strolled out to join them. “How’s the new school?”

  “Not bad, now that we’re not boarding. We can get away from the insults. I’m glad we didn’t start the year before. I mean, maybe it would have been better if we were just two more new freshmen, but well, in Montevideo when everyone found out we were Xen Wolfson’s kids, everyone already knew us. Here we’re strangers and his kids. There’s been . . . talk.” She shrugged. “I just ignored it, and got on with the classes.”

  “And you left your friends behind.” Xiat considered all her buddies in high school, and winced.

  “I knew two other students, already, so it’ll all come together. I don’t have trouble making friends.” She looked behind them, and Izzo glanced back.

  Her twin brother was coming up from the basement. Arno, quiet and smart. A gangly teen-age version of Xen Wolfson. “Sorry I’m late. The school believes homework is good for the soul.”

  Ryol sniffed. “We were talking about making friends after moving. You probably still haven’t even talked to anyone. Just buried yourself in books.”

  “At least the history book is up-to-date. The classes are all right, but they pile on the homework. And yeah, I’ve noticed everyone avoiding you.” The boy circled around them to snag a carrot stick.

  “That’s just Voyr and Gior not wanting to be targeted by the bigots. I will make friends. There’s lots of kids who do talk to me, unlike you who doesn’t even notice he’s being shunned.”

  Arno rolled his eyes, jerked his thumb at his sister and made quacking motions with his other hand.

  “I am not talking too much!”

  “Yes you are. Here you are with an excellent opportunity to pick up information for that current events report we have to turn in next week—personal communication with the External Relations Director—so maybe we should let the adults talk and listen in.”

  Ryol glared at him, then turned a smile on Izzo. “Speaking of moving, last I heard, the Whirlpool One and Helios have both finished their embassies on Embassy, and were
moving in. Are they adjusting well?”

  Izzo sighed. “Well, they’re adjusting. The Whirlpool Earth’s main building is almost done as well. So we’re getting . . . a bit of friction from them as well.”

  Ox shook his head. “It’s enough to make me glad I’m switching to Internal.”

  Izzo grinned. “But Ox! Wouldn’t you love an opportunity to build a police and courts system from scratch? One knows Embassy needs them.”

  “No. Merging two justice systems—three times—was bad enough. How many Worlds are there on Embassy, now? Hundreds?”

  Izzo snickered. “Wise man. But if it doesn’t work out here, just give me a call.”

  Then the younger kids galloped in, ten-year-old Raaz, and eight-year-old Oxy, AKA Oxre.

  Also nice kids, asking about Xiaz and Izto, his five-year-old twins.

  They all crunched nice healthy vegetables while the three women chatted as they finished up dinner prep. Kept the conversation light all through natural roast beef, mashed potatoes, asparagus, and peach cobbler.

  Then a tour of the house, with Oxy showing off his basement bedroom with the door to the back garden, courtesy of a dimensional corridor.

  Arno shrugged at his. “It’s nice to be able to step out into the garden, but all I see is fog.”

  Which started a discussion of how dimensional phenomena could change architecture once the price came down.

  “Once I get better at it.” Ryol bounced and giggled, in a manner terrifyingly like her biomother. She scowled at her brother. “Arno’s way advanced. But I’ll catch up.”

  Izzo looked at the boy. “Think you’ll be able to make gates?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s putting them where I want them that’s the problem. The lessons with Disco have been interesting. I think I can find home reliably, so I could go through a powered gate, and make a permanent gate back. I think. And . . . maybe I could even get it into the SGA. Maybe.”

  “Oh . . . already. I hope you’re planning on the Directorate School. Not that we won’t hire you, if you go freelance.”

  Ryol grinned. “Directorate School is on the top of the list for both of us, right now. And we’ve got enough extra high school credits that we can probably graduate in two more years, and start college in the fall of 1415.”

  “The University of the Empire in New York has an excellent sciences department.” Arno’s voice squeaked a bit, and he sighed resignedly. Cleared his throat. “So I can take extra science, beyond what the Directorate School offers.”

  Izzo eyed the boy. “Don’t answer, if it’s too personal, but you’re not doing the hormone suppressants?”

  “I talked to Xen about it. He said it’s a lot less . . . socially weird if I wait until my voice settles, and then suppress it until I’m twenty-two or so.”

  Ox sighed. “The world has gotten very strange.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lists

  1 Jumada 1414yp

  “Damn bloody stupid lists, I forgot Bainbridge Labs.”

  Lucky Dave stuck his head in the office. Nicholas was tapping away at his comp. “Who were they?”

  “A small genetic engineering lab in Washington State. That Transworlds bought out. They had about ten Telies, put them on the Purple team. Which was a sort of hodgepodge of all the small companies’ Telies.” Nicholas went back to typing, and Dave stepped back out, for a stroll around . . . the compound.

  It had been an interesting three months.

  Umaya had bought an old chateau with enough farmland around it to ensure privacy. Two hundred kilometers from Paris.

  “And I hired a Comet Fall company to come and modernize it.”

  Dave had found her watching Rael’s class of former priests. Purposefully.

  “Captain Dave, if I understand the situation, these young men were apprenticed to learn various tasks to keep their bodies busy, while that hive mind used their magic. I’m going to ask if they want to work part time for me . . . for Nicholas, while they attend school. I need a cook, some groundskeepers and gardeners, and you need to recruit more guards.”

  She’d been right, too. The young men—anywhere from sixteen to twenty three, some of the youngest priests—had found their families unwelcoming, and were delighted to have a home and a job.

  And with Umaya as a combined employer and foster parent, they were all attending school whether they wanted to or not. “They’ll all go to college eventually. Or trade school to learn magifacturing, very highly paid jobs, those are. The guards are all older. I suspect they’ll stay.”

  The guards were delighted with their modern headquarters. Matching the style of the chateau on the outside, and very modern on the inside. Electronic surveillance, offices, private quarters, a common room with screens and games and a good kitchen . . .

  She’d even had uniforms made for them. Black with green trim.

  The younger cohort lived in the chateau and got mothered in Umaya’s rather overwhelming style.

  Dave sighed. She’d done a damned good job, in choosing the house, the youngsters, and the former ecclesiastical guards. The guards were smiling, joking, individuals, now. The younger men had recovered faster, their subjection to the One Mind more recent, their horror and rejection and selves not so lost under the group memories. Of course, their nightmares were worse.

  Umaya and Nicholas are both doing a good job of being parental substitutes. Rocks the kids can cling to.

  Hell, the guards had needed their solid support at first, too.

  But three months along, they’re all doing fine. They don’t need props.

  They don’t need me.

  He circled back to the house, the landscaping that had run wild over the years had been trimmed back, the lawn mown, even if still a bit rough and weedy this early in the spring. By mid-summer the kids will have it looking like a city lawn. He walked back inside, smelling something cooking in the kitchen, the laughter of the two cooks.

  He stalled out in the office door.

  Nicholas sat back and grinned at him. “I told you. The world has changed, and you need to allow yourself to grow. I needed you—a stubborn son of a bitch who’d never, ever give up, no matter how dire, how hopeless. And in the world you grew up in, other options weren’t available. But now they are. All that yearning to do more, to dig deeper than just keeping me alive? Now you can. So . . . go be one of Urfa’s agents. Or whatever else you want to try. See the world. The multiverse. I’ll be fine, here, for now. Later? I’ll see you out there, somewhere. Now get.”

  Lucky Dave snorted. “Right. See you out there.” And if perhaps we met when I was young enough to see you as a father figure . . . I think I just got kicked out of the nest.

  Hope I can fly!

  Chapter Fourteen

  Presidential Agent

  3 Jumada 1414

  “Welcome to the Presidential Directorate, Captain.”

  “Thank you, Director.” Lucky Dave swallowed. Now I’m committed.

  “Right. First order, call me Urfa. Second order, go find Major Eppa. Third order, which Eppa is already aware of, work closely with Rael.” Urfa grinned. “Yeah. I know. She regularly terrifies all of us. Figure out how she does it, although I’d advise against you imitating her style.”

  Dave shook his head. “Right. Somehow me bouncing and giggling would have an entirely different impact . . . although, now that I think about it, it might be pretty terrifying.”

  Urfa burst out laughing. “Oh . . . Don’t, please. Oh One. Well, you’re mostly going to spend your time just being a guard. That way you’ll meet everyone, learn the buildings, what’s normal and what’s not. But I want you to work with Rael. She’s a very good analyst, and flat out the best person to just turn loose and point at a problem.

  “Learn all you can.” Urfa grinned. “Don’t strangle her.”

  “I suspect I couldn’t.” Dave winced a bit at the memory of several bouts in the dojo.

  “Yes, there’s that too. Good luck.” And with that he was off to
take care of who knew what business.

  And Dave set off to figure out his new career.

  ***

  Major Eppa grinned, glanced at his watch, and made a note. “The guards have a nasty tendency to bet on everything. When you’d show up, a bright and shiny new Directorate guard, has been an active game for months.”

  “Game?” Dave eyed the man dubiously.

  “We repurposed an old electronic game to handle the bets. Hoping to minimize private bets with the attendant acrimony and grudges. However, first stop will be to get you an implanted ID.”

  Which involved the Doc coming to Eppa’s office, both of them doing retina scans to open a concealed safe. And removing a tiny thing the Doc shot into his shoulder.

  “Now go see the quartermaster about a couple of uniforms, then you have a date with the rifle range.” Eppa grinned. “And, yes, everyone’s betting on where you’ll rank.”

  Dave snorted. “Who’s at the top? Isakson or Ra’d? Or is this just guards?”

  “We’re inclusive.” Eppa grinned. “Ra’d, Isakson, me. Then there’s all the new warriors who sort of reshuffle every time they requalify. The on-going joke is that there’s the top ten and the bottom fifty percent. Because there’s a big gap in the scores, once you get out to the 400 meter range with the big guns. And the longer the range, the bigger the gap.”

  And you’re not a Warrior, but only Ra’d and Isakson can beat you? Yeah, I know that song and dance.

  “Well, we’ll find out how out of practice I am, with everything but the pistol and carbine I’ve been toting around.”

  A chuckle from Doc. “And don’t think we haven’t noticed that you’re expert with both. This should be fun.”

  It was fun. Marvelous selection of firearms these guards had. And the long range shots, settling down and putting the bullets where they needed to go. Pretty much. Which, at four hundred meters wasn’t much.