by P. S. Power
He had a communications device however, so called up Taman. It was dark, but it was also late fall, which meant that he hadn’t even missed the dinner meal yet. She was still awake and chipper seeming.
“You lived! That’s better than I expected. You even have the case with you, so you haven’t decided to run away forever yet? That’s a good sign, I have to think. That exercise had to… Be less than fun. I’m…” There was no apology in her words, perhaps, but the tone conveyed a lot that way.
Instead of commenting on it, he shrugged. It had been pretty horrible at the time. Which was the point. It was meant to drive him to do things that no one would choose to, on their own.
“We have a ship in? Large and orange. It landed in the orange section? I don’t know what that means. It hadn’t been mentioned to me before, if it’s planned.” That could mean anything, including that it was part of his current training exercise. If so, then his Aunt was really pulling out the stops. Then, it was clear that she wasn’t treating him as a simple burden. That she might have enlisted a whole ship to push him was very possible, now that it had come up.
In the first week he’d worked with her, only four days in, she’d had him assassinate a man. Just so he could do it later, in case it came up. It had set the bar fairly high, as to what she might require of him. For instance, he was certain that, had he failed her last bit of training, he might well have died. That was how seriously she was taking everything.
Rather than tell him about that being next, his tiny Aunt, who was too attractive for her own good, nodded a few times.
“That’s a space craft vessel. They’re all in orange anyway and tend to stay larger than most would bother with. They tend to have crews of several hundred people. It landed in orange, which probably means that the commander of the fleet, Admiral Orange, is coming for a visit. Unannounced. Orange is her favorite color. It’s built into her pattern, so that isn’t a small thing for her. Her being here could mean anything, of course. We don’t get a lot of tourism, since we haven’t handled all of the background radiation yet. Most of it though, so it really could be that. You should go and meet them? Um… Noram style clothing. Alice isn’t a stickler for that, but we need to look official and Soam style things just don’t do that. Also…” There was a hard look then, and a head shake. “Do you have a disguise amulet with you?”
He did, of course. After all, he was supposed to be training to be a spy of sorts. In order to do that, he had to be able to blend in. Anywhere. Including other realities. He wasn’t really good enough to do that yet, and probably never would be, but the amulets would give him a slight chance of pulling that kind of thing off, occasionally.
“I do. What’s needed?” There wouldn’t have been a mention of anything if it wasn’t important. Unless it was part of his training, which would still count that way. When death was a possible result of failure, you paid attention. All the time.
“Alice has a condition which causes her to totally distrust and disregard attractive men. If this is her, you need to look homely enough not to set that off. Can you do that?”
He had a disguise amulet, which would allow him to look like almost anything he wanted. At least if they were nearly human in appearance. Thinking for a few seconds he nodded. Then he pulled the right amulet, carefully so he wouldn’t bounce the device in his hand around too much, and started making changes. First he did the nose, making it lumpy in the middle, and longer. A small red blemish was put in on the left, which wasn’t really overdone. Then he made his right cheekbone just a tiny bit more prominent than the left. It wasn’t enough that most would have noticed it. His mouth was messed with a bit as well. He was working without a mirror, so had to go carefully. The goal was to be homely, not make himself into a caricature of a human being. At the same time, he redressed himself in black velvet. His clothing amulet was around his neck, making that easy enough for him to do.
Then, as he finished his face, he recolored his eyes to a burnt orange color. It was really a slightly off brown in color. His hair was in a different shade, but much lighter. Still, if Alice Orange liked that color, it might help her enjoy him, even if he wasn’t great looking presently.
For some reason, instead of laughing at his fairly funny joke with the color, his Aunt just smiled.
“That’s not bad. Just on the down side of normal, which should be enough for her, really. I didn't know if your vanity would allow you to do that kind of thing or not. You normally look…” She didn't go on, but he did know.
Timon had made him incredibly good looking. It had actually helped him several times already. People loved attractive individuals after all. Except, it seemed, Alice Orange.
“Yeah. I know. I’m not really that vain though. That one… Well.” Complaining about having been made too good looking by his Uncle wasn’t going to play, really. Especially since he might need the man to make similar changes to him in the future.
“Right. This might not be Alice. Either way, I’m shocked that I didn’t get a call. I mean, we have so few people landing here that it would make sense to do that, I’d think. Then… I don’t know. Hence sending you in first. Have they landed yet?”
They really hadn’t. They were coming down, but doing it very slowly. Which was, honestly, very kind of whoever was in control of the craft. The people of Soam might not be used to seeing large craft coming to their port, but it had happened before, a few times. Even at night. If any of them had been standing in the orange section however, even if they didn’t know what to do, they would have run away. At least once the giant mountain of a craft started to settle on them.
Given the speed that the ship was moving at, they’d be able to make it out of the way in time and everything. Even little kids would have managed it. Not that the whole section wasn’t empty. During the day people cut across the port, at times, but they didn't linger on the focus stone landing pad, even though it was huge. They lived around the edge of the place, near the tree line.
“They aren’t down yet. I’ll head over now. Should I check with Alice Orange?” They had the devices for that. If the Ancient had one at all.
“Good plan. I’ll get off the line and wait here. Let me know the plan?”
“Right. Talk to you in a bit.”
It didn’t take him long to scroll through the names to find the woman. Unlike a lot of people who had complicated titles that changed what you had to look for, this particular woman just had her name. It was right there near the beginning as well, since it was under her first name. Tapping the sigil, he waited, figuring that the woman might not answer at all. Then if she did, the lady might just be clueless about what was going on. After all, all space fleet ships were in the same color. His Aunt had hinted at that anyway. That didn’t mean no one else could use that color, either.
As for where they’d landed, they could just have assumed that the matching color made sense. Earmarked for them in particular or perhaps they just liked the idea of matching that way. If he’d come in a blue ship, Willum probably would have picked the blue section because of that, himself.
Without even having to wait five seconds, the device in his left hand jumped into life, showing a woman who had blue eyes, light tan skin and short blonde hair.
“This is Orange. Go.” The words were a bit brisk, but she had a smile on her face as she looked at him. Also something hard in her eyes. He couldn’t tell much from the world around her but it really did have the feel of her being on a ship. Where that was, Willum didn't know.
“Willum Baker, in Soam. We have a large craft landing at the port here. It’s in orange and landing in the orange zone. Do you know anything about that?” He made certain that his mellow voice was both pleasant and no more than curious about things. It was possible that she wouldn’t have a clue, after all. Making it into an accusation wouldn’t be a good idea.
“Yes. That’s my flag ship, The Ranford. I’m on board. We’re putting in for some R and R. Is that allowed at this time? We took a vote
as to where to put in, and Soam won. We should be here for four days.” The woman didn't seem to think it would be a problem, which of course, it really wouldn’t.
“Wonderful! I know that everyone will be really excited to meet you all. I’ll meet you, when you land? I’m already headed that way.”
“That sounds good. We should be down inside of ten minutes. Meet on the port side, near the front.” The device went black then, even though the woman had seemed pleasant enough.
Also odd and like she was trying to convey something subtly.
Walking while he changed what he was doing, Will got back with his Aunt.
Then he started speaking instantly.
“The Ranford is coming in for R and R. I don’t have a clue what that means. They should be in for four days. Alice Orange is on board.” That seemed to be the salient information, but he added the rest, in case it meant anything. “They took a vote, and picked here for that? I’m going to meet them right now.”
“Okay… That’s different then. How did Alice seem as she spoke to you?”
“Nice? She was smiling at any rate. Also… Um… I can’t really describe it… A bit off. Tense, under the politeness?”
There was a look away, then a slow nod.
“We… There’s a chance that the ship has been taken. Probably with hostages being involved. Otherwise Alice would have simply killed the attackers all herself already. Space fleet doesn’t vote on anything. I could be wrong… But this doesn’t truly sound right to me. Can you… I don’t know what to do. We can’t just send in an army. We don’t have one here, for one thing. We need you to go in and see what’s going on.”
That got him to blink, then sigh.
“Sure. Um… just to clarify, is this part of my training by any chance? It’s fine if it is, but I need to know first. I mean, if I go in and end up killing fifty people to free the others and find out that the attackers were just there as a game…”
Taman glared, if only for a few seconds.
“I can get that, actually. No. This is totally unknown to me. Be careful anyway. There are others who could have done this for that reason. I get your thoughts there. It isn’t on the schedule though. So, go in, get the data and get out? If you can’t… Well, then do what you have to in order to protect the people there. Hopefully the end point is just showing people where the bathing ponds are and giving them free fruit.”
“We can but dream… I’ll see what I can do, toward that end. If you don’t hear from me in an hour, assume that they either have the best dancing girls or that I was taken.”
Anyone able to do that would probably be too strong for Taman to take out on her own, of course. She had resources that could be called in, if that was the case. Her family, which included Queen Tiera, of Harmony. She had a fleet of armed jump ships after all.
It was tempting to get in touch with her personally, but he had his part in things already mapped out. Taman would figure out what to do, on her own. She was brilliant, after all. Even if he’d missed that before, the freaking pain stones had shown him that, not half an hour before. It was a complicated design of fourteen different magics, interlocked in a way that had tens of thousands of possible permutations.
Including blowing up, if he needed that function. A space ship made of shield material would probably be just as lethal that way as a solid stone temple.
That idea made him smile as he looked over at the floating box that was following him. The amulet for that was still in his left hand, the string it was on wrapped around his fingers.
Feeling a little less than perfectly armed, since he didn't normally carry weapons around with him, Will moved toward the craft, then stood back, waiting for it to come down. It didn’t speed up or anything. He didn't know if he had the right portion of things. There was a window above them. A clear shield, really. He could feel the magic of the whole thing, so knew the difference.
If it was the port side, well, that he didn't know. He’d picked being on the right, since when they’d spoken the space fleet lady had looked in that direction when speaking about things.
As soon as the thing landed, lagging only by about ten seconds, a door appeared in that rough location. Instead of being met there by the woman in charge, there were six men. They all wore fleet uniforms, and had a few stripes on their sleeves. They were mainly in blues and greens. What that meant, he didn't really know. Except that he could hazard a guess or two. If Alice Orange was so enamored of that particular color that all her ships were made to look that way, then odds were being of high rank would be marked that way as well.
Plus, at least two of the men meeting him were fine enough looking fellows. Not to the level that he normally was, but they could have gone into a tavern and gotten a woman to leave with them without that much work. The other four varied a bit. They were all men though. That could mean anything at the moment. From luck of the draw to the idea that most people in fleet were men.
He’d never heard that one however. If anything, others had spoken about the people in fleet. Not the men or women of it. They weren’t called crewmen, just crew.
Smiling, Will waved a bit.
“Welcome to Soam! Sorry about the small welcoming committee, but it’s a bit late. Normally we’d have more people out for this kind of thing. You know, singing and dancing, that kind of thing?” He moved forward, since about half of the men seemed really uneasy. They were the homelier ones, being of good commoner stock from Noram, at a guess. The three in the back were larger. One was a city-tall man, who was about his own size. The other two towered over the others, being a foot and a half taller at least. One of them was pushing eight feet tall. He was dark tan and attractive enough for people to notice, day to day.
He was also the one who spoke. Even though there were three who were in the front. The ones in the back had shields on and activated as well. Willum could feel them, easily. The smaller men, the ones in the front, didn’t have anything like that happening at all. Which was very, very wrong.
If you worked in space, you had a shield on, all the time. Heck, Willum had several of the things, just in case he ended up heading that way. One of those was around his neck at the moment, even. Right next to his clothing amulet. Which the men there might just miss, since his outfit had been made to look very real.
It was just how he did things, paying attention to detail that way. As long as they didn't know anything about Soam, they might miss that he had anything magical on him at all, other than the floating case behind him. The bag on his hip was made of magic, and had started life as a thing that could easily be gotten on Harmony. He’d changed it however, so that it seemed to be made of finely woven grass at the moment.
The man on the far left side had his right hand hidden, but angled in a way that made it seem like there was a weapon in it. Holding it not to protect them from Will, or the natives there if they were hostile, but the three in front of them.
The man on the other side spoke for them all.
“Well met. I’m Section Chief Royce. Admiral Orange asked for us to show you to the bridge, if that fits your plans? I think she has a meal planned? A bit of a bribe, since she mentioned that we were kind of showing up unannounced. I hope that won’t be a problem?”
Playing into the words, Willum smiled up at the man. Everyone there was darker skinned than he was. One of the small men even had very brown skin and short hair, showing that he was likely from Afrak. Not that he wouldn’t have fit in a backwater village as well. He was the smallest one there at the moment, and his nose was a bit differently shaped than what would be expected in that part of the world.
Then, everyone knew that you could join space fleet, regardless of where you were from. It was in their recruiting advertisements.
“Oh, I’m sure it won’t be a problem at all! We have some wonderful temples and natural features to look at, if people want to visit? We can load people out on vibrational platforms. That’s very different, using a special kind of magic that no on
e else has, really.” It actually was different. They basically used sound produced by horns to lift large stone blocks into the air, then rode the waves they made through the air. Changing the song played to control the direction traveled.
Will had done it a few times himself, since it was different enough that Taman had figured he should experience it, in case it came up in a different reality.
“We also have some nice food here. You use food units, on the ships I mean, don’t you?” Everything in space did, but the largest man nodded, getting the basic idea.
“That’s right. Still, it’s always good to have things made by hand. I’d kill for some fresh fruit. The magics never get them exactly right, for some reason.”
Shaking his head a bit, Willum moved to go with the men. After all, it would be what he’d do if nothing was going on. There seemed to be a real issue, but his goal wasn’t just to find out that it was happening, but to work out what it really was. There was, he understood, a very real chance that this whole thing was just another exercise for him.
In which case he should avoid simply killing people. Taman had made that very clear for him.
The men moved back, to let him in, then the one with the rather obvious weapon in his hand touched the wall, closing his eyes to concentrate enough to seal the thing.
Jumping slightly, Will laughed. Just a little.
“Ah, sorry, that startled me. I’m not used to these strange magics. Well, not other than the transport boxes. That’s how I got here, after all. I work for the Ancient of this place. The Wizard Taman?” The name was actually well known in some circles, but he didn't really want to bring up the fact that they both had the same last name.
So naturally the tall man did it for him.
“Taman Baker. You gave your name as Willum Baker?”
Looking down, humbly, he nodded, then spoke to the floor.