by P. S. Power
Then, maybe that was the point? He'd be willing to try again, if it came to it?
She dropped into a very deep state and felt Smythe's field, getting the idea. He was wearing a disguise amulet, to hold his appearance, which had shifted to a much younger one when his right hand was re-grown. He was there for the same reason the rest of them were then, to look into the new potential home?
Tiera smiled, since her new phrase was 'be nice to the immortals'.
"Alphonse, you and Karina have the duty of watching the others and making sure all goes well. Maris, Sheri has to go and help with the kids, which means doing that too. The rest of us should get a guide, if possible and then help people put their meals together. William... May I call you that?" It was polite to ask and the man bowed to her very properly.
"I'd be honored."
"Great! Call me Tiera, since we're going to know each other for a long time. Would you be willing to come along with us? Unless you have other plans?" What that even could be she didn't know. He wasn't tired and wasn't a clone of anyone else, his brain still seeming like him at least. Not that she'd spent months studying him or anything.
"That would be very good. My duty here is, in the main, to see to the High Servants." He looked around too, and then at the others. "I know that the Prince and Princess are going to be my friends for a long time, and have been briefed on the Ancient Maris, but Ducharina Bonner is a new acquaintance?"
She scanned the space with her mind and found no one watching or listening. It wasn't impossible, but it seemed safe enough. If anyplace ever was.
"Sheri's one of us too. I'll list the others for you." That came quickly, though Alphonse waved at her as she got to the end.
"You forgot Collette Coltress. We can't have that."
Tiera had. Gerent hadn't said she was in this mess with them directly, but he wouldn't would he? It was enough of a hint that she should have gotten it.
"Thanks. And Collette. Given that this is Tim, we have to assume a few more that we don't know about at least. Teral's family, Count Thomson. Who knows who else?"
Other than Timon. That was probably the work he had to do as well. Making even more immortals. Well, it was something, though she personally would have waited for things to blow over a bit. Won the war and then invested people with this gift, if it was one.
She didn't have any great need to discuss anything with anyone, and Smythe, dressed like the rest of them, made a point of meeting Maris and Sheri, but that was it. They moved out and found a likely looking crewman, who was wearing orange on his sleeve, but only one stripe, and was very short. After a bit she bowed to him, which, being the way things were done, got everyone else to do it too.
"Jones!" She didn't move on the man, since she'd be terrifying to him now. She was too big for him to feel comfortable around, and so were the rest of them. Even Maris was probably a bit awe inspiring. "I know you probably won't remember me, since I was shorter back then, but we subdued the Cordes mentality in the body of Julie White on the Ranford together? Tiera Baker." She turned to the others halfway to explain. "Crewman Jones back then. He was the one that was going to turn the ship off if Cordes started to win. Then he went with us to the Antarctic and helped subdue Cordes Blue, breaking the whole plot wide open. It's probably why he has the orange stripe now. For heroism." She meant it but the middling dark small man blushed a bit.
After a few seconds he spoke, sounding normal enough.
"All I did was run away."
Tiera puffed her cheeks up with air and crossed her eyes. "All you did? First, it was what you were ordered to do, and you escaped to tell our friends. For several seconds there, nearly half a minute, the entire fate of the world rested on your shoulders alone. I know that you're invited to my next birthday party at least. Say, just to prevent this from becoming a thing where we trade old war stories, we were looking for someone to give us a tour? Do you know how to set that up? I wanted to look at how the heat reclamation is set up, personally. We should look into waste management too. Not that I want to, but I have something that might help with it."
The tiny man, who was cute after a fashion, nodded and stuck something from his pocket against his throat.
"This is Jones. I have six dignitaries looking for a tour, gold section, seven. Who's on that duty?"
There was a wait, but a female voice came back, about ten seconds later.
"Wistra here. I can do it. I'm about to go off shift anyway. Call it ten minutes? I'm in Blue, nine."
"Very good, thank you." Then he put the device back in his uniform pocket. "Dead on handy those speaking units. Strictly speaking we're only supposed to use them on duty, but this is important enough, I think. So... Tiera," He looked at her like she was going to hit him, but she nodded. It was her name after all. "Why do you want waste heat?"
She explained that quickly enough, though he was impressed that she'd made them herself. Not that he didn't think she couldn't, he'd just never met anyone that was a wizard before.
"I'm not a wizard." That was silly, she was... her. She could do a little, but she wasn't like Tor, or even Timon. She was a fighter really. A sword swinging ape that was best on the front lines of the local war.
Karina snorted from behind her, and patted her on the shoulder.
"Aren't you? I'm pretty sure that by anyone's definition your whole family is a nest of wizards. Tiny Taman is a Wizard. If the others aren't, it's probably because they just haven't bothered yet."
Her brother the Prince was no help, even if they were supposed to be friends. He looked down at her and gave a lazy and almost bored look. It was fake, and probably courtly.
"The Lairdgren Group was going on about you earlier, wondering if they were good enough for you to bother joining them. That says something there, doesn't it? I can't do more than make copies with a template. I only tried that because Tor kept pestering me to. Talking about all the gold I could save..."
He looked over her shoulder, to see a young looking girl coming toward them. Jones was in his mid-twenties, but Wistra was about fourteen or so. When she saw who was there she bowed, on a ship or not.
"I'm... here to give a tour?"
That was enough for Jones to cover where they could go, which was anyplace not near an airlock or the bridge. What Tiera really wanted was to start with the heat banking system and work back to the food units. When that got explained, the woman looked troubled for a while then moved to do just that. It involved a lot of walking, but people needed exercise, so that was all to the good. They ended up all going, since the ship was large enough that doing anything else was foolish at the moment. Karina and Alphonse simply weren't going to find anyone, as spread out as they were.
The whole thing was fascinating, and she was able to find out how gravity was made, which was actually very interesting and subtle. Light was a field, so once you got that it was easy to make, really. Lightning was the same, she'd been told, though nothing she made had anything to do with that. Gravity was different, but simple enough once she got the idea. It was literally just information that told you to go in a certain direction. Like a flight field. Even better, it could be limited in space, so that what she did on the first floor of a building wouldn't have to effect the second, if she didn't want to.
She'd been a little worried that she might make the moon lopsided that way and make the orbit funny. Over time at least, if enough amulets were in use. It would be a pretty easy build really. She was still going to grow it using her new technique. Two or three hours a day was way easier to do than one hour a day for a month.
She tapped the large block in front of her, which was a red color, but not hot at all. Inside it was filled with heat... It danced and shifted, but if someone were to simply tell it to stop, or for that matter to start, in a virtual particle field like this... Then they wouldn't need to worry about it at all, would they?
That made her feel bad for a minute, because Tor had missed that. So had Count Lairdgren. That probably meant she rea
lly was a wizard, didn't it? At least if it worked. She could test that though, with only a few hours of work. She decided to wait though and follow the lines back to the food unit, and, naturally, everything else on the ship. It was a big problem, but one that could be dealt with pretty easily.
The dining room was actually decently nice. It wasn't royal palace fancy, but it had clean tables, lots of wooden looking chairs and cloths on the top surfaces, like a nice restaurant. People were eating, but they were all crewmen and women. About half were female now, she saw. That was good, but it only happened because Austra had been devastated and people were willing to leave their homes in order to survive.
Wistra guided them all to the food unit and patted the top of it, fondly.
"This is my new best friend. You can select menu items or make your own food. It's clean and good, but we use dirt and rock to make it. I know that sounds like it would taste nasty, but it doesn't! Here..." She started to turn toward the thing, the pearl body of it shining a little in the bright room light. Then she made a rather nice looking pie. Lemon custard with heavy beaten cream on top. The presentation wasn't perfect, but it was good enough. Any wife in her kitchen would have been right to feel happy with it.
"Taste it! It's good."
It was sort of cute, the way she was pushing pie at them literally, so she took a fork from a wicker basket of them and dug in. It was a little too sweet for her taste, but not bad really. The pie crust was too dense and not half as delicate as she could have made it. Alphonse tried it too, taking several bites.
"Very nice!" He said it like he was complimenting her cooking skills. Which, after a fashion he was.
Tiera beamed anyway. Everyone wanted to know they did good work and she was picky about pie, meaning the girl was probably good at making it. She'd be willing to finish it after all.
"Yes. We brought several tons of rocks and sand with us for it, so that we could pull our own weight. That plus..." She didn't want to bring up the topic, but Wistra snickered a bit and leaned in.
"You mean, what happens to the waste? We use another one of these and turn it into sand, then use that for the mass."
Tiera stuck out her tongue.
"No, you don't. This one won't make sand. I... actually have that device though. With me. It can make a lot more than that too. We should get that out later, and show it off. In a few days though. That... Well it makes sense, especially if it's already the rumor. Good to know I'm not the only one to think of that. I feel better."
The tiny girl looked at her, as if she might just be being made fun of. Tiera let her think that though, for a bit. It didn't matter and she'd learn better.
After that, plan or not, she went to her room, grabbed a piece of Focus Stone tile from her things and closed her eyes for a while. It was late when she opened them again, but the stone glowed a cheery red color on one half. The other was blue.
The idea was pretty simple, when you activated either side, the coating of virtual particles would either move very fast, or slow down to near stopping. Only on the top, and it wasn't a huge thing, but she set it on the deck before trying it, using a bit of intent on first the hot side, then the cold. It was so obvious that it worked that she didn't really need to do more. She did anyway, taking it with her to the dining room.
There she dropped it into a Guide glass filled with water from the machine and mentally reached in and triggered it to cold. The whole thing froze in place instantly. Alphonse and Karina were there and noticed it, so they came over to look.
The Prince used a huge hand to point at it. "Neat. I'm not certain why we need rapid freezing, but it's certainly cold. I can feel it from here. It's like it's reaching out for us."
She thought about that.
"More like it's drinking the real heat in the room and from us. A slight redesign of the heat banks here and all of it can be gotten rid of this way. Not that this is how I'd do it. This is just to see what would happen. It can get hot too." With a though she turned the other side on, which did nothing, for about ten seconds, then the whole thing exploded all over them. It was loud and made her jump a bit. Then the room started to heat up, fast. It caused all their shields to kick on.
"Oops. Sorry." They weren't wet, thanks to the shields being so good and the fact that the main body of the frozen water had flown into the ceiling with great speed, then crashed into a lot of tiny bits that had fallen all around them.
She focused for a moment and turned the thing off.
Then acting as if it were all totally normal, she looked around and shrugged.
"So, dinner?"
No one laughed at her though. One of the crewmen got a broom to start sweeping the mess up, but that was her job, having made it, so she grabbed the thing with a tense grin and got to work. It didn't take that long, since the floor was smooth and free of nooks or crannies for things to catch in. The man even had a small pan for picking up the bits of ice. The glass was fine, since it was made of shield material, like almost everything around them, but she set it with the others that were dirty, on a tray over to the side. The bits of ice and water went into the hopper at the back of the food unit, which got the man that had provided the cleaning gear to frown.
"Can we do that? I thought the machine only used rock." The black haired man didn't seem upset, just a bit like he didn't want to harm the device too much and get in trouble. That, or run out of food.
She handed the broom back, extending it straight up and down, with one hand, so it wouldn't look to threatening.
"Oh, sure. It will take almost anything. Water, old food scraps from things people didn't eat, all that. Technically it could work off of air, but that isn't very efficient." It would take hours to get a single sandwich after all.
The man took the broom and then the dustpan and walked away. He was in his twenties, and Austran, but only had a blue stripe on his cuff. That was middling low in position, she thought. He came back however and kept chatting with them.
"Well, I'm supposed to have this watch, helping any of you guests that need it to get something to eat. Any requests?"
Alphonse had one, which got the man to look at him like he was being difficult on purpose. It was a bit funny, since the man also seemed fairly relaxed about serving the Noram Prince. That likely meant he didn't get that part. Still, a giant, which was impressive compared to his own six feet, Tiera thought. The man crossed his arms and made a face.
"Cream chicken with rosemary potato mash and a white wine? How about a redi-burger and fries? I can actually do that one."
Tiera cleared the man out of the way a bit aggressively, taking him gently by the shoulder, and pulling him to the side, then got a fine looking Guide plate from the stack and set the meal up.
The technician looked at it, sitting there on the dish, and shook his head.
"I can't do that one, sorry." It was cute, and Karina chuckled then moved in for her own plate, doing the work herself.
She came out with a wonderful looking display that seemed to be fish with a light lemon sauce from the scent of it. It was at least as pretty as what Tiera had gotten Alphonse, so she smirked a little, as if it was the same as cooking or something.
Tiera shrugged and held her plate out to the man.
"That redi-burger? Is that an Austran thing? The food there is horrible, but it's always good to try new things." She wasn't wrong. The anemic looking thing was on a bun, after a fashion, but it seem wilted and like it wanted to die. The meat inside, if it was that at all, was actually a brownish gray color. The fries looked slightly cold and wrinkled too.
There was a lot of red sauce on the plate though, which was there to cover the rest of the food, she didn't doubt.
Set up for the meal they moved to the closest table and started eating. Her meal wasn't good, but it was edible, after a fashion. The meat tasted like nuts, a bit. If she imagined that really hard. The potatoes were there too, and so bland that only the vast amount of salt on the outside saved them. She didn't complai
n. It wasn't the only poor meal she was ever going to eat after all.
Tiera watched the crew come in for their meals. Their technician, who hadn't given a name, didn't help anyone not in brown at all, and most of those did the work themselves anyway. On average people didn't get great food. It looked sloppy and a bit haphazard. When Maris came in, along with Sheri, about twenty minutes later, she waved them over.
"Maris! Sheri!" A heavy handed and probably mean idea occurred to her, but the food wasn't great so far, so why not? The worst they could be told was no. "After you eat, would you help..." She had to pause and look at the man, who winked at her, as if they were friends already. She could have felt put out, but he had made her supper, so she decided to let that go.
"Tech Second, Weaver."
"Right, help Weaver here set up meals for everyone? That way you can practice for your new restaurant." Or, Maris could, but both girls nodded as if it were simply a thing.
The Tech Second looked ready to revolt at having his job stolen, until he saw the creations that were on the lady's plates. Then, still seeming a bit put out, he stepped back and looked away. Tiera wasn't certain, but she thought he might have been mumbling about Redi-burgers.
They all sat for a while and watched things change subtly, over the next few hours. There wasn't a lot to do, so Tiera finally got up and requested cleaning supplies. People still spilled things and left crumbs after all, so the tables had to be kept clean. They could be traded out, but that just meant dumping stuff on the floor, and while that could be changed too, turning the whole ship off seemed like a poor plan.
So it was, that after a few hours the Captain came in himself, to find Tiera and Karina going from table to table, cleaning, and the all black woman and her sandy haired companion manning the food unit and Alphonse sweeping the floor, from one side to the other. Tech Second Weaver had gone off shift and was replaced with a commoner woman from Noram that was about his age, but so meek and quiet that they hadn't even gotten her name, unless that was actually "eep, sir."