by P. S. Power
Nodding he got the idea, he thought.
“You’re Lyone’s mother?”
She grinned at him, and nodded.
“Exactly. Impressive that you made that connection. I’m L-N-Seventeen. Call me Lynet? I was chosen to represent us for this trip? We are ready to travel now, if that’s allowed, after the unfortunate attack here?”
Leslie looked pissed, but also had a small pack with her, meaning that she at least had been planning to go along as well.
He nodded, since they had the room on Mars to keep them all.
“That works. I… Some of the things in the boxes are for… Well, for the people here?” That meant that someone would have to stay behind to deliver things, and that the person doing that would have to be a pilot, if he were going to be attacked if he tried to land. He didn’t want to lose his new captives after all. Not if he could make it seem like Lynd was in the same fix that they were, and being kept against his will.
Her will, actually, having been turned into a woman in order to hide from her own people. Linda, now. The trick would be getting Timon to change these two as well, so that that part made sense. Like it was what he did to all his captives. No doubt everyone would think it was for nefarious reasons, but that was fine, as long as no one lied about it.
Neesa moved forward, her face closed, and body bobbing a little bit.
“I’d hate to miss such an event, but Hess must go. I will take the goods?”
Dareg smiled at her, and nodded.
“You won’t have to miss anything. Like I said, I have presents for you all.”
The first case was the easiest to explain, since it just had standard shields and new devices that were only for the Ysidril. Erath got one of each, which fit on twine around ye’s neck rather easily.
“Tap that one on? The blue sigil?” Nothing seemed to happen when the upper arm on the right tapped the thing, but after a moment the little, rather cute, purple and green being hopped, rising a full foot up into the air.
“The world is right! The weight? I don’t feel as heavy.”
Hess went next, walking instead of jumping around, but smiling and bobbing happily after that.
“Ah! For work on planets? So that the stresses won’t be as great on us? That is a kindness, friend Dareg. It works here as well, which will allow more of my kind to wish to work in space, in the new jump craft.”
Which got him to go to the second box, which was a bit more boring, of course. He waved at it, making the move small, since it wasn’t as impressive as the other things. Just copies of others work.
“Two hundred jump ships. For each group? Six hundred in all. That of course means that you can’t use them to bring war or harassment against me though. If you wish to attack, it needs to be done without using things that I give you. Is that fair, Leslie?” Not that he was blaming her, since she seemed a bit upset about the events of the day so far. It clearly wasn’t her plan.
“I can spread the word on that? It might not stop some of the others from trying. We… Were given orders not to do this. I don’t know what you were both thinking.”
There was a moan from the little clear fronted cell, which could be heard through the small vents on the top of the thing. One of the men rallied enough to stand, and held his head, but glared at Dareg.
“He escaped from us once. We failed. Again now. We thought that he might not do as well without The Traitor with him. As it turns out, we were wrong.”
That was true, but Dareg faked a snort and crossed his arms. Then he pretended not to understand their meaning.
“Traitor? Who do you mean? Yarl? I assure you, the man acted only in the best interests of your people. I tricked him into aiding me, using my command abilities… Which you don’t know about. I… Here.” It took digging at his front, but after he found the right amulet, and turned it off, the mood in the room changed. It wasn’t instant, or everyone, but after about two minutes, Leslie turned to look at him, as if he were fascinating suddenly. The look on her face was telling, to the others. She probably didn’t get it, herself.
After a few minutes more, with the Ysidril seeming interested in what was going on and the mechanical people starting to nod a bit, the men in the cage turned to him as well.
“Now… I think you all believe me? That I ordered President Yarl and that man, Lynd, to do my bidding?”
Leslie went wide eyed, and nodded, her face enraptured. Really, the effect was a lot bigger than he would have expected from anyone else. Back home people tended to like him a bit too much and trust him easily, but this was far closer to some kind of slavery, if he was reading her field correctly.
“I… Yes. We should record this. No one suspected that Yarl was responsible for anything, but that poor man, Lynd… What do you want us to do? If we killed ourselves, under your command, that would be a sign that he was innocent and merely under your control? We could do that on your devices, since all three fleets have those now.”
Neesa had her communications device out already and was taking down the scene, moving to capture the men in the cage as they agreed to the idea. One of them even started to slam his head into the shield wall, trying to break his neck.
“Stop!” Dareg yelled the word, which was obeyed instantly, which was a good thing. “Hopefully you doing that will be enough? I don’t want anyone to be harmed. Which is why I have this amulet I wear all the time. You all admit that it was the evil Dareg Canton that killed Healer Tag? That’s a start. I suppose I could go and take over some ruling body or another? I’d rather not. I… Don’t really like doing this. In fact…” He tapped the amulet back on, which didn’t end the chemicals being in the air instantly, but a few minutes later, Leslie blinked at him.
“Ah… I think that will be enough to clear the other warrior. Would it be allowed for these two to leave from here? That was… Rather shaking.”
There was a grunt from the cell, but no whining about anyone having a sore head, even if it was clear that both men would. Neesa did something, tapping her handheld.
“The three fleets have that, we wait now?”
Dareg shook his head, not really caring that much. It would probably take months to get a real response and that might well not help Lynd in the slightest. So rather than do that, he went to the chest that had the transport pods in it. Tapping one into play, making a box pop into existence, if silently, he started to wave toward Neesa, but then tilted his head, thinking. Pulling out his handheld, he located Lyone, who was listed by that one name, and had her face shining up from his palm no more than two minutes later.
“Dare? Is everything all right?”
“Yes. I just set up a transport node here, at your fleet? I was wondering if you’d like to come visit? The one at the port will show the location. This one is called Temporary, right now.” The other side of the communications device was moving, as Lyone ran. It was still going to take a few minutes, unless someone had moved the pod. She was starting at Sam Builder’s palace, so it was about a half mile away from her, if she ran across the port in a straight line. It was longer otherwise, which was the safe way. Still, the woman didn’t stop and ran fast, not really seeming to need to breathe. She was a machine after all, so that made sense.
When she got into the box, she talked as she worked, the others interested enough in the idea.
“Here we go, close the door, look at the list on the back wall… Tap Temporary… And then open the door?”
Dare nodded, which meant the red box opened, allowing the machine woman to walk out. She was dressed in magical clothing, but looked like a high end house woman, since that was her job on Earth. Spying on Sam Builder. That, or trying to interest him in marriage. Sara Debri had mentioned that to her once, and it wasn’t a horrible idea.
Not that he knew if the new people had marriage like that.
“L-Y-One?” It was Lynet that called out, and moved to the other woman, who looked very similar, now that they were side by side. Enough so that he checked them
to make certain there were no strange time effects going on with them.
There wasn’t, but he checked the rest of the people there, including Samantha and Eva. Everyone was fine however. Even the mean, attacking, silver haired warriors were just people. Forten, clearly, but not particularly evil or bad. They just felt that Dareg had abused them. Not by stealing their minds, but by escaping from them the first time. It was why the same men had come after him, even though Leslie had been truthful and they had orders not to even try, since the fact was, clearly, that Dareg Canton was more useful to them running free and taking out the enemy than he was on a prison work gang.
He read that from all of them. Oddly enough, going against orders like that was going to probably have the two men in the cage arrested, if they got out of things with their lives. It was hard to understand and seemed too fussy to him, if he were going to be honest. Every time people did their jobs, it seemed like they were punished for it by the Forten.
It wasn’t really his business, but everyone kind of started to pick up on what had just happened, and how Lyone had just been on Earth, years of travel away, and walked out of the box across the room, on a moving space ship. Hess and Neesa both opened their mouths, and Erath moved forward, nodding. Then spoke as if ye’s plan made any sense at all.
“I’ll need a ship, so I can go to each of the main vessels and set up this network? I should just take one of the ones from the box here?” There was no move in that direction, and the piping voice wasn’t acting sly, in particular, but it was kind of clear that no one in the room was going to fall for it.
Except Dareg, who was fine with that, really.
“Right. Hess will assign where the pods need to go, and you have to keep up with your studies. Also, if you get a break, you’re expected to go and learn to be a real pilot, with space fleet. Select a Forten and Machine contact to work with you on this. Also, we should start putting all the names in with several location markers, if we’re going to have a lot of them. Would… Samantha, will you work with Erath on that?” He glanced at the girl, who nodded and raised her hand, showing the copper and gold disk on her cheek.
“That’s me. We can do that now?”
It was funny, but the tiny Ysidril just waved to one of the silver clad mechanical people, and then went very still, and turned to look at the less injured man in the clear fronted and blue sided cage.
“May I work with this being? I’m certain that there will be no more harmful touching?” It was all a question, and Dareg didn’t love the idea of letting his new prisoner go yet, but he nodded, and then made up a lie.
“That should work. These two were clearly effected by the chemicals that I gave off before, which caused them to go against their most recent orders. That should be done now, right gentlemen? I’ll let things go, this time, now that things are understood a bit better.”
Without waiting for them to agree, or realize what he was getting at, the cage was dropped. He didn’t even look over at the men, just feeling what they were planning with their minds. One of them, the one chosen to work on things by Erath, was about to become violent, but then stopped, realizing what had just been said. That Dareg was taking responsibility for their actions, after having proved that he could have actually been in charge for that kind of thing.
Plus, in two engagements, the boy had won both times. It wasn’t likely that things had changed much in the last twenty minutes or so. The thoughts got the man to relax. Not feeling happy about it all, but willing to let things go, to escape a prison work gang. It might not work, but if the alien man was willing to pretend it wasn’t a large deal, then it could be that no one would make that huge of an issue over the whole thing.
“Where do we start?”
It wasn’t up to him, though the others set up a small ship, big enough for the three people going, and Samantha, being clever, worked out how to set up the new names for places, in a way that would make sense to multiple peoples. Not everyone, but anyone speaking standard, Forten or Ysidril would be fine. That meant that the remaining box, filled with lights for the dead mech ship, was passed to Neesa, who left with the other things, meaning that Dar could take the rest back to Mars. Lyone followed along, even though she could have left from the ship, if she wanted. It was interesting, but she seemed to actually have been enjoying the visit with her mother.
It reminded him of his own. Out there, someplace. Hiding from him.
At Mars, Hess seemed rather pleased to see the facilities and made a combination of bobbing and open mouth that meant he was teasing, Dareg.
“Ah. This will do nicely. You mentioned building cities for us to live in? How many of these can you manage in the next few months?”
The others were looking at the place as if they’d expected something rather different. It was rather grand, compared to what he’d seen of their world ships so far. It needed plants, and maybe some animals, but other than that, it really wasn’t too bad. The whole place looked like it had been carved out of stone by artists, thanks to the amulet that Alyssa had let him use for it.
“Not a lot. The magic that built this belongs to Ali Baker. I… She used to be my step-mother. I had to let that go, however. So I can’t ask her for its use again. She seems kind, so I bet that she might allow you to use it? I might be able to make a copy for you… Actually, I know I can. That would take a bit though. It would be faster to get with Alyssa on that. Regardless, I think we can come up with one fully self-supporting city like this every three weeks or so? That would mean doing nothing else for me however.”
For some reason the people from the incoming fleets all turned to look at him, with Hess bobbing a little bit, and Leslie Camp tilting her head, like she was about to rush him. Not for a friendly hug either.
It was his Ysidril friend that spoke however, his words calm enough.
“Ah, that would be good. You mentioned something once about a few of my people, and the others, being allowed to come here? Was that real or… I don’t wish to press you.” He turned away, but Lyone didn’t, walking over and snapping her fingers.
“Ah! I think they mean it? It isn’t only for us, but anyone who is kind and willing to work is to be allowed a chance here? I heard that from Dareg and the Ancient of this world, so that holds weight, correct?” She was asking him, as if Dareg would know the answer to that one off the top of his head any better than they did.
“Ask Karina? I know that it’s my plan, but she might have something different in mind. If so… Then we’ll find something else for you. Space stations might work. Not as well though. I… Let me see?” His handheld let him know that it was only an hour behind them in Noram, but didn’t have what the time was on the Martian Circle at all. Or on Mars, since no one had ever set a clock for the world. The days were a little longer, he thought, being twenty-seven hours and a bit, instead of twenty-four. That needed to be accounted for really.
So he tried for his Princess, hoping that she wasn’t going to be waking up grumpy if he was interrupting her sleep. Which, naturally, he really was. Her face was half red, with a pillow line creased into it, and her eyes were nearly closed, pained by even the dim light of her room. Sitting in the bed with her was Sara, who was awake, and naked except for a sheet pulled up to her throat.
Karina was the one that spoke, sounding like a little kid that was woken up for morning chores. At least it was how Dareg had always sounded to himself as a child.
“What? Do you know what time it is?”
“Nope. Sorry. We haven’t set a clock for here yet. I was just talking to some of our visitors, Ambassador Hess, Leslie Camp of the Forten, and Lyone, who came to visit her mother and a few of their friends. They seem to think a few of their people might like to consider living here, but don’t want to upset you by just moving in and starting to work. I, of course, told them that was silly, and that they needed to come and hold an election before we realized what hit us, but they’re being polite and all that. What do you think? We could try to set up anoth
er few cities? After the Jupiter trip, I mean.”
Instead of screaming at him for being a pest, though he clearly was, the Ancient rallied, and gave him a sleepy, but regal, look.
“That sounds nice. They have to follow the rules, which will be written out. Simple enough, but we don’t want people dying because they don’t understand what the laws are.” There was a gasp then, which came from Karina, and a chuckle from Sara.
The blonde woman who was a nice golden color, smiled and leaned in, flashing her breasts on purpose. Trying to distract him, as if that was going to work for long. He recovered before she managed to pull the shining silver colored sheet back up.
“We need to hash out those in person, but like you said, after the trip. Now, we have our first real visitors? How fun!”
He nodded, but was honest about it all.
“Constance and Rich came in earlier, so this is the second set. That was just a day trip. So things are really starting to pick up.” If it kept up he was going to have to leave. Otherwise it would get way to noisy. Not that he was in danger of that soon. Even with all the extra bodies around suddenly, things seemed almost the same. Like they lived in a dead city. What they needed was music.
That was a thing that he could do. There was a music system already set up. All he had to do was build units that would let songs come out of the walls in different places.
Making his leave, after saying goodbye, he went to his place and got to work, asking Samantha to put the devices up as soon as he was finished. Then he started on a new city amulet. It was just a copy, but took most of two and a half days of work to get done. That was hard, since it felt like months to him, but the things felt solid when they were finished.
It was strange, but when he stood up, almost within a minute, a powerful pounding came on his front door. It didn’t sound that loud, but the thing was nearly two inches of heavy stone, so for the sound to carry, whoever was on the other side had to have been working pretty hard on their efforts. That probably meant they were angry. With him, no doubt.