Guardsman

by Pam Uphoff

  Izzo walked over and hopped off the platform. “Qamar? Are you all right?”

  Qamar nodded and blushed. “Yes, sir . . . Sir? I’m so sorry I hit you, when . . .”

  Izzo laughed. “I’m not. That was quite a power punch, from a skinny little twelve year old girl! It definitely solidified my deductions about all of you.”

  Qamar looked down and shuffled her feet. “Well, I’m really glad there wasn’t a train. Because then you wouldn’t have been able to rescue Ra’d.” Then she turned fiery red. “I mean . . .”

  “That Ra’d’s very important to you? I’m glad about the lack of a train as well, but if you hadn’t knocked me off the platform, I’d have stayed and argued, maybe taken the same train you all took. And I would have been tragically late getting to Makkah.”

  “Oh . . .”

  Izzo looked from her to Dave and back. “In fact, that was rather a case of just happening to do the right thing at the right time, wasn’t it? Probably just the way things played out. There are days when I wish I was studying magic . . . but today . . . nope. I think I’ll go collapse somewhere.”

  Dave nodded. What a truly excellent idea.

  President Orde looked around. “Let me show you the best place for that. We’ve got about two hours until the party revs up again.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Hand Off

  26 Shawaal

  A private combined parlor and dining room, comfortable chairs, and food and drink showing up.

  Urfa popped in, Ox in tow. “No one else was involved. The One Firsters are mostly aghast at the whole thing. Especially when they heard that the hostage was the daughter of a prophet. So we’ll wrap this up quickly . . .” He eyed Rael, and then Izzo and Ox. “Unless you want us to dig more deeply into that sniper two weeks ago.”

  Ox eyed him, raised an eyebrow at Izzo. “I wouldn’t mind a few details, especially if they included something about that bomb factory.”

  Izzo grimaced. Then leaned forward to eye Rael. “How about a highly hypothetical version of what might have happened? From the start, say, how, hypothetically someone might have found out about the possibility of either . . . incident.”

  “Oh, it could be that a young person home from the Directorate School for a quick visit after midterms, overheard some people say something about not having to worry about Izzo for much longer. And that young person might have sought out a fellow student with connections to an agent. Who might have gotten that rather nebulous warning, and stepped out to speak sensibly to the person who had uttered that comment.”

  Dave watched peoples’ expressions while Rael hypotheticaled her way through the whole tale, including some hypothetical tooth pulling and minor surgery. Amused. Trusting. Even Izzo’s gone from warily curious to respectful. Ox . . . is harder to read.

  Rael ended with “And this purely hypothetical agent might actually have managed to lose all twelve of those hypothetically nasty sorts on an Evac World and somehow the gate might have closed just afterwards. So that, hypothetically, they can be tracked down and arrested later. If they haven’t all killed each other.”

  Dave gawped a bit. Swallowed. “And hypothetically, the poor schmuck trailing her might have not gotten around to doing something with a captured sniper rifle loaded with shield piercing rounds. Until he suddenly needed it.”

  Izzo nodded. “I really, hypothetically, hope that things like that don’t happen very often.”

  “In reality? Not hardly ever. Honest.” Rael shrugged. “Some things are better done clandestinely, when they intersect with politics. If this hypothetical stuff had not involved a presidential election, it would have been handled openly and legally.”

  Urfa grinned and looked over at Ox. Who sighed. “Rael, hypothetically, this arranger fellow . . . sounds like everything I always wondered about you.”

  “I know. But some fellows . . . have no conscience whatsoever. Killing someone is just another job. I will never be like that. So . . . decide if you want them back, and I’ll go fetch them.”

  Izzo hissed a bit. “Damn. Not even sworn in, and I need to decide on expediency or legality.”

  Nicholas nodded. “If you’ll listen to some advice . . . these are dangerous people who will kill people, if they get back into circulation. And what will your court system make of the evidence, and how Rael acquired it?”

  “They’ll walk.” Ox shook his head. “Urfa? What would you do?”

  “Wish guiltily that Rael had killed them and never mentioned it to me?” He shrugged. “Probably leave them where they are for six months, until everything is humming along smoothly, then bring them out and try the courts.”

  Ox and Izzo looked at each other and they both nodded.

  Then Izzo grinned suddenly and looked at Dave. “So you remembered to keep the gun, just like Lady Jeep said.”

  “Oh . . .”

  “And the worst thing about precogs is that they have a nasty habit of applying to more than one incident.”

  Lucky Dave eyed him. “It is a beautiful gun. Maybe I’d better try to keep it.”

  ***

  They took a stroll around Government House.

  Izzo looked around the ornate official Office of the President and shuddered. “I think I’ll take a note of your example and have a working office.”

  Orde snickered. “It worked for me.” He sighed. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had a really nice long vacation, without regular interruptions? Actually . . . I’m not sure when I last managed two weeks off, even with interruptions.”

  Izzo grinned. “Well, when you finally get bored and ready to do something . . . I’ve always thought that the fictional ‘Concord of Worlds’ that the Department of Interdimensional Security and Cooperation pretended to be a part of, really needs to be built.”

  President Orde’s eyes narrowed.

  Izzo nodded. “It would take a man well known for his honesty, honor, and desire for peace to pull it off. Like you. So go play with your grandkids, and think about it.”

  Izzo turned to Urfa . . . “And then there’s the Directorate School. It desperately needs new leadership. I’ve had a chat with Chancellor Yhge, and he didn’t hardly grit his teeth when I suggested he retire.”

  “You want me to play lion tamer to a herd of Team Trainees?”

  “You have the sort of reputation that can keep them in line—and make them start choosing sensible people as trainees.” Izzo grinned. “Take a vacation. Go think about it. Ten years there, ten years in an elected position . . . and then you’re the next Modernist presidential candidate.”

  “One! Do I look insane?”

  “No, you look like an enigmatic schemer. Don’t know how you pull that off.” Izzo grinned. “So why don’t we go back down and celebrate.”

  Tenuously connected scene . . .

  “Milo . . . go away and chase after some woman who will not alienate your dad, sabotage your political career, horrify your friends, and disgust you when all my deep dark secrets come out.”

  “No.” The infuriating creature kicked back in the chair next to hers, completely at ease.

  :: Arno? I’m going to have to exercise the nuclear option on Milo. ::

  :: Ooo! Can I come watch the expression on his face? ::

  :: No! I’m just warning you. ::

  :: No problem. Enjoy kicking the poor sad creature. ::

  :: Shut up. ::

  “Milo. My biomother is Rael Withione Montevideo. The Rael. My father is . . .”

  “Xen Wolfson. Did you really think no one’s noticed? Well, not the Team Trainees, they’re not terribly bright.” He grinned. “It’s the hair. If you’d dyed it, or shaved it off, maybe you could have gotten through your first semester without being recognized.”

  “Oh, good grief. I always figured I could ditch you with that, if I got desperate.”

  “Desperate? Nope, you don’t look desperate. You look like a young woman who thought no one would love her if they found out your
. . .” His voice dropped two octaves. “Deep. Dark. Secret.”

  “Arg!”

  He grinned. “Now you’re going to have to come to terms with the knowledge that the people worth hanging around with don’t care. Or worse, think it’s interesting.”

  Excerpt from an upcoming release

  Chapter One

  Late Fall 1413 px

  4 Ramadan 1415 yp

  The twist of a powered gate scrapped over his nerves. A boot to his ribs and he rolled . . . fell and hit immediately.

  Long grass, lumpy ground. Hard and dusty. He rolled flat on his back and tried to look all around. Nothing but grass. Unmown, a foot high with seed heads reaching up higher. So all he really knew was that there was nothing within a foot or so of him.

  Xen’s arms twitched, then rose jerkily to his chest. Pain, deep. Healing spell . . . no power behind it. Wine . . . He couldn't see his usual bubble . . . on his orange clad arm . . . “Dammit. What the hell just happened? I can sort of remember . . . parts of it. Maybe tomorrow my head’ll stop hurting . . . And my chest . . . And if that rustling is something trying to sneak up on me . . .”

  He rolled on to his stomach, shoved to his knees and lurched stiffly to his feet. Twenty feet away a furry head and yellow eyes lifted brief above the tall meadow grasses. The wolf charged, leapt . . .

  The simple push spell . . . didn’t.

  Xen barely got his hands up in time to grab the wolf’s throat and hold his teeth inches away while the wolf brought up his hind legs and raked down Xen’s thigh as he twisted to get his more critical parts out of danger.

  Xen got a good one handed grip and got the other hand around to grab the wolf by the scruff of his neck and turn him even further. Then he could be safely strangled.

  As the wolf sagged, Xen tossed him to the side.

  And sagged back to his knees. Hands to his chest, not quite daring to touch, sharp surface pain. Much more worrisome, interior pain, his heart beat thumping irregularly in his ears.

  He forced himself to take sort-of-fast, sort-of-shallow breaths while he tried to assess the danger.

  Meadow. The tallest grass was winter-killed-brown. About right for a northern hemisphere early freeze. So I wasn't unconscious for long. Days at the worst, not weeks or months.

  A warm dry breeze wafted past, redolent of . . . dust.

  Unless the grass is summer-dried-brown. In which case I've lost six months of time.

  There were trees a few hundred feet away, to the right. Dropping down to what might be a stream. There were hills visible in the distance beyond. All around, lows hills, grasslands with scattered trees, mountains or clouds very far . . . that way.

  Xen glanced at the sun, nearly over head.

  “Give it a couple of hours, then I’ll know which way is which . . . “

  He caught the faint hoarse gasps, from his left. The wolf.

  “Don’t make me regret not finishing you off, Buster.” Xen looked around.

  Okay, no immediate danger, so I’d better assess the damage.

  He trailed off as he looked down at himself. Bright orange overalls. Long plain sleeves, a bit short, showing his wrists, tight in the crotch, legs a bit short. Barefoot.

  He held out a hand . . . nothing. Swiped a hand down his neck, no Chain spell. “So, that’s the good news. But . . . is this a methalformaline effect that will wear off in a few hours? Genetic engineering to remove power genes? Or . . . something else?”

  He glanced at the sun again, scanned . . . a pale halfmoon barely above the horizon . . . “So waxing or waning? It was waxing . . . I think. Q would be ashamed of me not knowing that. Either one or three weeks until my genetic repair spell kicks in at the full moon. Or not, of course, if whoever . . .“ He staggered back to his feet, hissing a bit as a sharp stab of pain lanced from his chest down his right leg. “Knew about it and removed that as well.”

  A thrashing in the grass. The wolf stood swaying, a big lanky animal, a bit thin, with hair matted with blood here and there.

  “Oh, so I’m not the only . . . animal beating up on you, eh? Got in trouble with your pack did you?”

  The wolf staggered, turned and ran.

  “Good plan.”

  And with no threat, pain washed back in.

  A thumping bad headache, plus more. A lot more. Xen pulled open his overalls with a ripping sound. “I hate Velcro.” He squirmed out of the undersized garment and examined his flank and thigh. Plenty of raised, red welts. A few spots of blood, but the tough fabric had kept the wolf’s claws from penetrating. The welts crossed an odd . . . burn? Wiggly lines of blistered red fuzzing out in fractal branches. "Like that guy that got struck by lightning . . ." He tucked his chin to track it to his chest. Lots of blistering, some charred spots of third degree burns.

  There was a small blackened circle just over his heart. Surrounded by spidery red. He poked it carefully . . . “Blistering? Charring? Did a fireball get through my shields?”

  Did they say something about my heart?

  A flash of memory. A shiny coppery floor, a throne, a short fat man in a fur-trimmed, velvet robe. “You destroyed a world.” The thump of his staff on the floor, angled toward him . . .

  “Copper floor? I think I got zapped with electricity.” He looked down at his chest. “I suspect I’m lucky to be alive. But I was probably wearing leather boots . . .” he pulled the pants lower and followed the line of the burn down to just about where the top of his boot would be. “So it just arced to the copper floor.” He contemplated the burn on his chest uneasily.

  Remembered voices.

  “. . . heart beat is highly irregular. If you want any information out of him, you’d better hurry.” A man’s voice. “He’s not going to last long.”

  “Not really, he was just a weapon to remove from their hands. Is there anyone else to Transport?” A woman's voice, very close, a hand running down his arm.

  “No. I’ll have the techs fire up the rings and he can die out of sight and away from the scrutiny of those tiresome . . .”

  Xen tried for context, but that memory was gone. He looked down at the line of char. “It’s not . . . too wide . . . but, how cooked am I, inside?”

  And how infected is it going to get with no healing magic?

  He looked around. “And then I wound up here. Somehow. And they had better not have hurt my little sister. Or my kids, my friends, innocent bystanders. Because while at the moment I am so screwed, that is subject to change.”

  He rubbed his temples. “I don’t actually remember destroying a world—Eldon gets credit for Helios—I haven’t forgotten years-worth of anything, have I?””

  He pulled the overalls up, but tied the arms around his waist rather than squeeze his shoulders back into them.

  “Well. Let’s see about water. And if there are wolves, this must be a world with a fairly modern ecology. I’ll make sure I’m not going to die first, then I’ll think about what happened.

  “So . . . I tentatively designate that as south to the stream, and southwest to the mountains, that sort of look like they’re running northwest to southeast . . . ish . . . most of them below the horizon, unless those are just clouds, then never mind. Time to find water. Then I’ll worry about the rest.”

  Like . . . Who sent me out here?

  “And what the hell did I do?”

  Chapter Two

  One Meeting

  4 Ramadan 1415 yp

  "No Rael, not you."

  Rael giggled at all the glares being aimed at her brother-in-law-the-cop, who was suddenly her brother-in-law-the-presidential-director.

  “Don’t blame Ox! An agent like me ought give an honest cop the willies, but Ox will use the tools he needs in his new job. The problem is what happens if he orders me to do something—and winds up having to go home and tell his wife he got her sister killed . . . and then tell the stepkids that he’s raised since they were five that he got their biomom killed . . . and then tell three parent-in-laws . . .”
r />   The glares were abating into something like reluctant understanding.

  Rael shrugged. “So he can’t just . . .”

  Ox shot her an exasperated glower. "Not to mention my two youngest kids who adore their aunt and your rabid Fan Club in Montevideo. So no, you are not, personally, going to check out these reports of Cyborgs."

  "Drat. Field work is . . . " Rael stopped as both Izzo and Ox grabbed their comms.

  Uh oh. A crisis that warrants breaking into the first in-group meeting?

  Izzo and Ox looked up from what was apparently a text. Both their eyes going to her.

  The President spoke first. “Rael? Some sort of emergency on Embassy. Go now, report back.”

  “Yes, sir.” She jumped up and hustled out. Xen, what trouble are you in now?

  Unlike Xen, she couldn't teleport halfway around the world.

  But she didn't actually have to . . . She closed her eyes and felt the world around her, knew it, held it in her mind along with that other location that she was pretty sure Xen didn't know she knew . . . then pull power and send it into the teleportation spell.

  She stepped out into an ordinary, bland apartment living room in the western suburbs of Paris. She turned and jogged into the bedroom, felt along the wall and fell into a gate. And out into Xen's house.

  Out the front door and followed the crowd noises.

  Half the population of Embassy was in the Plaza, with newsies perched on every available high point to get camera shots of—Rael elbowed through the crowd—an empty circle.

  A bunch of people were hovering over three figures sitting on the ground.

  Rael swallowed as she realized the large man wasn't Xen. It was his father. And that was his mother and Q. She eased a hole in her shields . . . a dark maelstrom of energy pulling, reaching out . . . searching.