Theirs Not to Reason Why 4: Hardship

by Jean Johnson

  She tried not to let her impatience get the best of her. Until she could figure out what to do about the Feyori—until she could find and thus deal with them—she was stuck in an uncomfortable sort of limbo. She didn’t like this inactivity. She did not like the mess back at Army HQ, either. Unable to change things, Ia settled onto the ground, frustration escaping her in a heavy sigh.

  “You sound like I feel, sir,” Mara observed quietly. She pulled loose the end of her braid, unbinding it and finger-combing it out. Even with a partial shield on the bike, the wind stirred by their flight had rumpled her neat hairdo. She didn’t use stiletto pins like Commander Helstead did, but she did have to remove several ordinary bobby pins as she worked.

  Ia looked at her. “You’re frustrated as hell, too?”

  “Every time I think I’m closing in on a possible Feyori location, the energy imbalances drop back to normal, and I’m left without a location for you,” Sunrise confessed. She patted down her pockets and finally pulled out a small travel comb. “If Helstead were here, and if she knew the locations in question, she might be able to teleport you there in time to catch them, but . . . Well, at this rate, I’d be more useful back in the field, running scouting forays for Commander Harper. Maybe not as a mousey, ordinary clerk, but as a scout, yes.”

  “I’d be a lot more useful in the field, too, but not while I’m blocked by all the damn Meddling they’re still free to do.” Bracing her elbows on her knees, Ia dragged her fingers through her hair. She no longer needed a regen pack on her left eye socket but had been given a patch to cover the tender pink skin, shielding it from accidental bumps and scrapes. At some point, she would need to schedule an appointment with a biotank company to grow a new eye, but right now, getting Mattox and his meioas to stop being idiots was her top priority . . . yet she couldn’t even manage that much. “I block them from interfering on the timeplains, and they interfere with the minds of those around me. I move to block them from the minds around me, and they go back to Meddling with the timeplains. I’m a Dutch boy with a mere mortal arm span not even two meters long and a pair of dike leaks at least fifty meters apart. I can only plug the one leak for short periods of time before I have to run off to the other side of the levee.”

  “Well, I’d think the Prophet of a Thousand Years could at least lock them out of Time itself,” Mara pointed out, pausing briefly between strokes to gesture at Ia with her comb. “Can’t you layer an illusion over the fourth dimension? Or shield it somehow? You’ve all but said you’re a far stronger precognitive than any Feyori out there.”

  “It’s not something I’m practiced at. I’d be spending all my time watching and shielding the timestreams so they couldn’t notice my next few steps,” Ia pointed out. “But that means I wouldn’t be able to deal with them. I’d need a steady source of energy to feed me, too, and that means staying put somewhere.”

  “What about the other psis?” Sunrise offered, setting her comb aside in favor of replaiting her hair. “What if they banded together? There are plenty of stories of psis kicking Feyori off-world, out there.”

  “Even if the others could access the timestreams, that’s only a temporary solution,” Ia dismissed. “They’d just come back and do it all over again the moment the psis relaxed. It’d work the other way around a lot better since I know I can take on a Feyori, but I can’t teach the rest of the psis how to shelter the timestreams, so they don’t know what’s coming to hit them. Even the best precog in the League cannot access Time the way that I do.”

  “Hm. A pity you can’t duplicate yourself. If there were two of you, one could shield the timestreams while the other hunted,” the ex-sergeant muttered.

  A pity . . . if there were two of you . . . Ia slapped her forehead on the undamaged side. Mara gave her an odd look, but Ia didn’t explain. She just twisted and flipped her mind into the timestreams, diving in deep. Grabbing the local tapestry, she gave it a hard snap—and felt at least one Feyori dislodge. As soon as it was clear, she let her mind and body race over the threads, plucking at various possibilities. When when when when when . . . aha! October 21st, 2498 Terran Standard, sic transit to the Dlmvla homeworld . . . yes, and there I am. I can do this.

  Rising out of her own future life-stream, clad in a simple gray T-shirt, and exercise pants, the older Ia smiled wryly at her younger self. A glimpse at the waters showed the older, future version of herself lying on a bed in their next ship’s infirmary, being monitored physically while she guarded everything mentally. (Got it in one go, and an excellent moment in time for it. You figured out which one to confront yet?)

  (Miklinn,) the younger Ia confirmed. She hadn’t given it any thought until that moment, but could already see the effects such a choice would have on the webwork of lives and actions around her. (These two are lackeys. Loyal, but stupid. I need to catch and control the fanged head of this serpent, not waste my time wrestling with its coils. And it’ll be either a case of conversion to my cause, or . . . yeah.)

  (Yeah,) older Ia agreed. (Either path will end up with you here, being me. But be careful all the same. Remember, to see the true path ahead of you, you’ll have to come to this point in time, and work your way back upstream. Not just for this case, but for all other instances, too.)

  (Understood. Ready?) she asked her older self.

  (I am.) The October Ia lifted her hands, shifting the shape of the Plains into a copy of Trondhin Lake. From there, Time expanded outward, forward and back, up and down, left and right. Her elder self settled on the grass in a position not too dissimilar from the younger one’s stance in the real world, and began to meditate. A last whisper of thought reached her. (Go get ’em, meioa-e . . .)

  The visualization of the lake faded, reducing itself down to a small eddy in her future self’s life-waters. Marking it in her mind, Ia shifted the stream into a thread, grasped it, and peered up the weave, looking for her quarry. Two Feyori on Dabin, one watching over the Salik, one the colonists, and neither giving a damn for the fact that their pawns were people, not cheap, replaceable game pieces.

  When she had all the information she needed, Ia swung herself back up into her body. At her side, Mara Sunrise was still slotting a couple pins into place, securing the coil of her braid to the back of her head. Male or female, any Human could grow long hair in the Space Force once they were out of Basic Training. They just had to keep it up off the collar to ensure it would stay out of the way of a pressure-suit’s O-ring.

  “Done thinking about cheese and crackers, sir?” Mara asked.

  “Not only done, but ready to eat it, too. I figured out a way to cover up everything we do in the timestreams over the next few hours. I had to borrow a couple days to do it,” she added, not bothering to explain, “but that’s alright. Do you know how to get to the Petran Company Alloy Manufactory Center?”

  The ex-sergeant blinked. “That’s one of the companies on my target list . . . so yeah, I have the address in my arm unit.”

  Pushing to her feet, Ia offered her hand. “Then let’s go.”

  Mara accepted it. “I’m glad you had us adapt over the last few years to the local gravity. Just standing up would’ve been a chore, otherwise.” She grinned and slapped her abdomen through her camouflage shirt. “Not to mention I wouldn’t have these fantastic abs.”

  Shaking her head in amusement, Ia started up the hill, Mara at her side. Halfway up the landscaped slope, Ia slowed. The hairs on the back of her neck were rising. She looked to either side, but the flower-strewn bushes were growing too thickly together to see anything concrete. It didn’t help that the worst of the danger sense came from her left, her blinded side.

  Instinct flexed her gifts through the crystalline bands beneath her clothes—and a heavy weight slammed into her side and back, claws grooving and teeth denting the half-pliable biomineral even as it formed a collar to protect her shoulders and neck. If she hadn’t been so strong, the blow woul
d have knocked her to the ground and possibly broken a few bones from the weight of the beast and the local gravity. As it was, she staggered, grunting under the impact.

  “Shakk!” Whipping around, Sunrise pulled out her gun, only to hesitate, since Ia’s head was in the way.

  Ia didn’t have time to reply; pain scored her chest as the not-cat got enough of its claws dug under the shifting plates to spin her around. That finished her half-thwarted fall. Thumping into the ground in a controlled slump, she managed to solidify the plates enough to protect herself while the alien beast shredded her shirt.

  Three loud bangs slammed into the predator. The first thumped into its hip, making it flinch and roar at Sunrise. The second ripped off its stinger-loaded tail half a meter from striking the other woman in vengeance. The third caught it in the left eye-stalk socket, and the size of the exit wound spraying across the lawn proved the ex-sergeant had swapped the contents of her cartridge clip from standards back to splatters.

  Shoving hard, Ia pushed the slumping beast aside before it could finish collapsing on top of her. Mara was strong for her modest frame, but she would’ve needed help to get the not-cat off her commanding officer if it pinned Ia in place as a literal dead weight. Lying there, panting for breath, Ia rested. After a few moments, Mara finally shifted from pointing her gun at the not-cat to pointing it at the ground off to the side, away from anything other than Terran-transplanted grass.

  “Well.” Mara sighed. “Now we know why people weren’t using this park. How badly are you injured, sir?”

  Ia managed a wry smile. “I think I’m going to have to decree that the mousey clerk be put away. I much prefer your normal self even if we’ll have to keep calling you Mara for discretion’s sake.”

  “I’d appreciate that, sir. That, and I like my new name . . . but you haven’t answered my question,” Mara repeated doggedly, staring down at her supine CO. “How badly are you injured, sir?”

  Grunting, she managed to heave herself into a sitting position and winced as the move stung the scrapes on her chest. Given the wounds she had received in the past and the fact she no longer had to hide her biokinetic powers, she gauged the severity of her wounds as modest at best. They would just hurt for the next hour while the scratches healed. Not like a laser to the shoulder, or the loss of an eye, thank God.

  “The beast got to me in a few small spots, but I’ll heal up within the hour,” she promised her crewwoman. She looked over at the not-cat, studying this one in the light of day, as she had not been able to view the first one on that rainy night. The hide was a ruddy shade of mottled brick and dull gunmetal, well suited to blending into the shadows of Dabin’s reddish version of greenery, and heavily scaled, the muscles underneath still evident despite the limpness of death.

  Mara frowned at her, then knelt and brushed at the shredded bits of Ia’s camouflage shirt, baring bits of translucent golden peach. “You know, I’ve been meaning to ask, what are you wearing underneath your clothing, sir?”

  “None of your business and well beyond your pay grade, Private.” Gathering her strength, she pushed to her feet. The shirt would need to be replaced, but it still covered enough for modesty’s sake once she was upright. “Not-cats are usually solitary hunters once scattered into the wild, so all we have to do is report this one to the Peacekeepers. They can come do a tracking sweep to be doubly sure and dispose of the body while they’re here. Good shot, by the way.”

  Sunrise grimaced, holstering her weapon. “Not really; the first shot was meant for the abdomen. I think the equivalent of a pelvis stopped the bullet before it could finish expanding.”

  “I won’t tell Helstead your first shot was off if you won’t tell her it got the drop on me anyway,” Ia promised. “You might want to do some quick-draw shooting drills on the targeting range next time you get the chance.”

  “That’s already on my To Do list, Captain, don’t worry,” Mara said. After a few paces, a thought made her frown. “Question, sir—that is, getting back to the original topic—but, wouldn’t my coming along with you tip off our arrival to the Feyori? I can think about cheese and crackers and fruit all day long, but won’t they notice me thinking it as soon as I come into range? Your cloaking trick is only good on the timeplains, right?”

  “I’m going up against them as a fellow Feyori,” Ia told her. “Which means we’ll have to stop somewhere with enough of a power supply that I can get ready to manifest on cue. All you have to do is think of me as a Feyori, coming to challenge them face-to . . . erm, bubble-to-bubble, so to speak . . . and they’ll have to leave you alone. Meddling with someone else’s pawns during a direct challenge is a serious faux pas. It would mean they’re too weak to face me, and no Feyori would admit to that when facing a half-breed. Of course, if they do try, I should be strong enough to free you.”

  “I’ll try to keep in mind the whole direct-challenge thing, sir, so we don’t have to risk that option. Can we pick up lunch along the way?” she asked, unfazed by the gore they were leaving on the grassy slope behind them.

  “Sure. I could use a little something to help these cuts and bruises heal. Sandwiches okay?” Ia asked.

  That earned her a rolling of Mara’s eyes. She continued trudging up the slope toward the parking area. “Sandwiches? Ugh. According to your bridge crew, that’s all you ever fix!”

  “Hey, they’re lucky I can fix sandwiches,” Ia argued back, following her. “And sandwiches are portable, which is why I suggested them. Besides, not everyone is born with cordon bleu cheese running through their veins.”

  “Ugh,” Mara scoffed. “That’s not even a decent pun.”

  “I’m just trying to drive you crackers,” Ia quipped. That earned her another snort of disgust and a half-stifled chuckle. She couldn’t help her quirky moment of good humor, spurred to the surface by the jolt of adrenaline from the not-cat’s attack. She was alive, and she had a plan to put an end to her current biggest problem.

  With her future self’s help, Ia finally had a way to deal with her Meddler-based problems, without their realizing it in advance. For that matter, the weeks she had spent as a teenager, combing through alternate realities, poring over past activities, and puzzling through the more obscure of Feyori customs would finally come in handy. Her Right of Simmerings was about to come to a full-on boil.

  PETRAN COMPANY CAMPUS

  “Gotta love M-class colonyworlds,” Sunrise murmured, letting the hoverbike drift to a stop a hundred meters from the force-field fence separating the Petran Company from the rest of the planet. “Fresh air to breathe, livable gravity, and all the space you could want for sprawling out. One hundred square kilometers of homesteading territory picked from land and sea for each registered firstworlder, to be divided and inherited tax-free . . . or not divided, in the case of this company, as owned by the Petran family.”

  “Yes, and all you have to do to get it is put up with the native wildlife, survive untested pathogens, endure a dearth of modern amenities for the first couple of decades, and on heavyworlds, tread carefully around the fact that tripping and falling can literally break bones and crack open skulls,” Ia agreed. “The Quentin side of the family initially snagged a big patch of coastline, before they discovered just how dangerous sea-based life is on Sanctuary. They successfully refiled their claims for the eastern side of the mountains, as did everyone else who thought to claim a chunk of the seaboard. The Jones side grabbed a solid chunk of the midplains south of the capital. But that’s on Sanctuary, this is Dabin, and we’re nowhere near any large bodies of water.”

  “So how do we get in, Captain?” Mara asked, lifting her chin at the fence. “If we try to fly over that, those stunner towers will smack us silly. Or rather, they’ll smack me silly since I’m the one flying this thing and you’re the one with the antistunner whatsit ability.”

  “And how do you know about that?” Ia asked, amused.

  “
Captain Helstead showed me your full personnel file. At least, the amount she has clearance for . . . which does beg the question of who has the other Ultra Class A clearance,” the ex-Knifeman mused out loud. “Or the Class Cs, for that matter.”

  “The Class C clearances are for our trio of shiptechs who worked on the original Harasser-Class project,” Ia explained. “Their clearance is limited to ship functions only; the rest is the same as most of the crew. The two Class Bs are Harper and Helstead, and the other Class A is Lieutenant Rico.”

  “Why Rico? I’d understand if it was Helstead, given what she used to do in the Corpse. Even I as a former Staff Sergeant had a higher clearance than anyone else in the Company, back when I was still a Knifeman,” Mara said, confusion lacing her tone. She even craned her neck, frowning back at Ia. “But Lieutenant First Class Oslo Rico? Why is his clearance higher than your first officer’s?”

  “Rico’s the chief spy for the Admiral-General in the Company,” Ia reminded her.

  “Oh, right,” Mara murmured. “I’d forgotten that. Sorry, sir, it won’t happen again.”

  “Don’t worry about it. He has that clearance simply because if you’re going to spy on a woman with Ultra Class A clearance, you need someone who also has that level of trust, in case he overhears anything that would otherwise be above his pay grade. This way, he can investigate anything I get into and gauge whether or not it’s a threat to the security of the Space Force.”

  “So I guess he’s sort of an honorary Troubleshooter in that sense—the man’s way too nice to be a Knifeman. Okay, so how do we get in there?” Mara repeated, returning her attention to the fence. They hadn’t followed a road, though there was one off to the right that led up to the gatehouse. “If they’re smart little soap bubbles, the Feyori will be keeping a mental finger on the thoughts of the security teams. We try the front door, and they’ll probably know we’re here within moments. Presuming they don’t already.”