by Jean Johnson
“The thing about front doors, Private, is that the polite thing to do is to find and ring the doorbell. Which I will do telepathically, not physically.”
Sitting back from the other woman, Ia centered her mind. It had taken them barely an hour to get here, even with a quick stop for lunch. With the boost in energy from her meal, she had enough strength to divide her mind.
One part dipped into the timestreams and split in half. One of those halves looked at the current overlay, while the other darted ahead to a specific, park-like moment a handful of months ahead, before burrowing back upstream. That gave her a view of both the real universe in all its four-dimensional glory, and the false one overlaid by her future self. The other part reached outward, seeking the minds of the two Feyori a kilometer or so away.
It wasn’t easy, even with her temporal sense guiding her. In fact, it wasn’t possible. There were too many minds, and a kilometer was over her limit for telepathy. If she could use the timeplains, she could do it easily, but she couldn’t. Shaking her head, Ia pulled back into herself. “We need a power line. I can’t reach that far on my own.”
“Why power lines?” Mara asked, consulting her arm unit briefly before moving the hoverbike off to the left. Ia drew in a breath to answer, and the private shook her head. “I’m not talking about your needing to siphon energy; that part I get, sir. I meant, why do they have overhead lines at all? Most worlds I know of have their power lines buried for safety reasons.”
“Dabin’s still a bit young in some ways, or rather, cash-poor, to be able to afford such luxuries. The local ground is too wet three seasons of the year to bury the cables in reasonably cheap pipelines, and it’s easier for large holdings like this company to sell excess energy to the nearest neighborhoods than it is for each and every family to have its own hydrogenerator,” Ia explained. Her half brother Thorne knew more about things like this, but she knew enough to answer the other woman’s question. “In cities, it’s cheaper for the government to supply the power through a public utility that they can afford to bury in properly sealed and maintained pipelines. Most colonists go that route unless it’s a business or building that depends heavily on a steady supply of energy, such as a hospital.
“But when you get farther out, it’s cheaper to run lines. Plus, the local businesses can take the place of a public utility, if they have the funds for a large hydrogenerator plant, or the right sort of terrain for an old-fashioned wind farm or hydroelectric dam,” she added. “The Petran family runs power out to its neighbors for a reasonable fee . . . and there they are, the lines I need. Get close to the struts, will you?”
“The lines on those struts are forty meters off the ground, sir,” Mara pointed out, though she did maneuver the bike as requested. “If you fall, I’m not catching you—and need I remind you that you only have one good eye at the moment, sir?”
“I still have two, if you count my inner eye,” Ia quipped. As they came into range, the humming from the lines could be heard. They could also be felt, at least by Ia. Easing off the bike and onto the tower scaffolding, she balanced herself carefully and contemplated the wires. “Actually . . . I think there’s enough power in two of these, and they’re just enough within reach, I can fully manifest. You’d better back off and get grounded, just to be safe—and don’t try this at home, soldier. You are not a high-ranked electrokinetic.”
“I don’t want to be,” Mara snorted, before dipping the bike toward the ground off to the side.
Ia smiled, not at all surprised the other woman didn’t want to be a psi. Mara Sunrise was more the type to want to rely on her own skills rather than “cheating” through Meddler-bred advantages. Balancing carefully, mindful of the modest breeze, Ia reached up, first with her left hand, grabbing the high-tension cable bending its way around the insulated tower anchors. The shock of energy was indeed high, crackling over her skin with a stinging heat not unlike miniaturized versions of the pain from her most recent lasering.
She was a much better electrokinetic than she was a pyrokinetic, however. Forcing herself to breathe steadily despite the power crackling through the line, stinging her nerves, she stretched herself out, then hopped a little, snagging the other line. Energy snapped through her as she bridged the two lines with a bright, writhing flash. Fingers clenched tight, feet dangling, she let the power turn everything a glowing shade—and snapped into Meddler-form.
The first coherent thought to cross her altered state of mind was that the dual electrical current tasted vaguely like a piping-hot cheese pizza, the kind Philadelphia had sometimes baked for the crew for Wake parties. The second was that the drain on the power loop was about to be noticed by the two Feyori in the distance. Her third thought was a pulsed one, pure Feyori and very much the equivalent of a doorbell being rung . . . or rather, more like the hand of a government official knocking sternly on a private home.
(What? Who’s there?)
(Who—? Oh, it’s you.)
The two voices weren’t overly gender-oriented, but the latter one had a flavor of disgust and irritation that said it had to belong to the ex-stubbie, Ginger.
(Yes, it’s me,) Ia stated crisply, now that she had both of their attention. She tensed herself, prepared to lunge. (Pass the word along to your little master. I call the Right of Leadership Challenge on Miklinn, faction head to faction head . . . and be grateful I choose to bypass the two of you.)
(I don’t have to—)
The Feyori broke off with a yelp as Ia dove her mind across the distance between them, striking just hard and fast enough to grab and pluck on Ginger’s faction-tethers. A twist plucked at the other Feyori’s strings, and a third, longer one pulled on her own as she retreated the bulk of her thoughts back into her body.
(I don’t give a plasma fart what you think,) Ia retorted. (I call the Right of Leadership Challenge on Miklinn. He has two local days to respond. You, being in faction to him, will cease all movements against me and those in faction to me, until this Challenge is settled.)
(You don’t have the rank to pull a Leadership Challenge, half-breed,) the other Feyori stated.
He hadn’t given her his name—and a Feyori often used several over its life span, rarely just one—but Ia could sense it. Teshwun was what he called himself among the Salik. She could also sense something of the timeplains about him. He was a strong precognitive for the Feyori . . . but a lousy postcognitive, she realized. Not everyone who could read the future could read the past, and vice versa. There were plenty who could, but not this one. He was ignorant of what had happened just a short time ago.
(Actually, Teshwun, I have over twelve hundred Feyori sworn in faction to me,) she stated matter-of-factly. (To me, not to any cosponsor or any other Meddler. It is Miklinn who is too lowly ranked to directly challenge me. But since he insists upon disrupting my Right of Simmerings, I have the right to confront him directly. Now, if the two of you are not so important in his factioning that you cannot contact him directly, I’ll just keep pulling strings, and strings-of-strings, until I find someone with enough rank who can.)
Withdrawing abruptly, she returned her mental presence to the scaffolding. Down on the ground—off to the left of her sense of self, though she could see all around her, as well as up and down—Mara had lowered the bike to its parking struts and had pulled out a small datapad. Sharpening her attention, Ia probed the small, electrical glow, curious as to its contents.
It tasted like braised salmon in some sort of tangy sauce, electrically. Materially, it was something entirely different.
. . . A romance novel? It reminded Ia of a time several years ago when she had discovered that her first official partner in the military had to smear goop on her face to cut down on breakouts of acne. Not something she’d expected to learn. Huh. I never really thought of Sunrise as being that type. Her teammate, Floathawg, yes; that man has a romantic streak a full klick wide . . .
A dark gray bubble popped into existence at her side. It—he—dipped down between all five lines, soaking up energy until his surface brightened to a silvery mirror shine. (Your timing is inconvenient for Belini right this minute,) Kierfando stated. (But she’ll be along eventually. You’re lucky that I’m free . . . and does this stuff taste like cheese to you? I swear, this power current tastes like cheese.)
(Cheese pizza, to me,) Ia agreed, looking up at the power lines. (I think it’s some subresonance in the amplitude.)
(In concept, the very idea of cheese is revolting, the curdled, moldering lactations of bovines and other mammalian ungulates. In practice, it is disturbingly tasty to a Human-shaped palate,) Kier muttered, before getting to the point. (So what, exactly, caused you to pluck our cosmic strings, little one?)
(Right of Leadership Challenge. I’m tired of Miklinn getting in everyone’s way—tired, and angry,) she explained. She swirled her surface, the equivalent of lifting a chin at the buildings in the distance. (I figure where “Ginger” and Teshwun are currently camped would be a good spot for the confrontation. There’s plenty of electrical, thermal, and kinetic energy for everyone to draw upon before, during, and after.)
(That’s a dangerous battleground. You’re only a half-breed,) the Feyori reminded Ia. (He has far more practice at drawing on energy sources than you do.)
(He’s becoming far too dangerous to every faction, Kierfando,) Ia stated quietly. (He has only two choices at this point. I don’t like limiting his choices to just those two, but he’s driving everything to the precipice, and that was his choice. All the energy on Dabin won’t be enough to help him if he refuses to give up this counterproductive grudge.)
Kierfando swirled, a surface-style chuckle. (You do have sparks as big as a star system, half child. Have you ever been wrong?)
(Multiple times. But not in this.) Pulling out of the wires, she drifted down to Sunrise. Her previous telepathic sendings had been focused specifically for Feyori minds. She now gentled her “volume” so that it wouldn’t hurt the other woman’s head. (Sunrise, I’m about to go inside. I might be there for half an hour, or I might be there for up to two days.)
She sighed, touched the screen to mark her spot, and looked up at the silvery sphere of Ia’s altered body. “You need me for backup?”
Thinking about it, Ia dipped into the timestreams. There wasn’t much the woman could do physically to a Feyori, but perhaps she could interrupt the power sources . . .
On the false timeplain, she saw a confrontation that split into a trio of possibilities; one path had Ia as the winner, the other had Miklinn winning—a possibility she could not and would not allow, ever—and the third had Miklinn releasing his grudge. That was the smallest of the three streams. On the true timeplains, however . . . there was a very odd streak. A static image of herself, and . . .
Fascinating. I hadn’t realized I could do that now . . . but it does make sense. It’s also far easier and faster than what I had planned, with far less risk to me . . . and all because he insisted I manifest. How ironically apropos. Pulling back to herself, Ia found Mara squinting up at her with a distinctly dubious, uncertain look. ( . . . What? What’s wrong?)
“You just went all . . . all golden, sir. Instead of silver, like you are now,” Sunrise pointed out, still eyeing her sphere warily. The sonic energies of her voice tasted like a savory puff pastry with some sort of mushroom filling. “I’ve never once heard of a Feyori turning gold. Begging pardon, Captain, but you are actually starting to unnerve me a little.”
(You know I wouldn’t harm you unless you did something that would harm the future. And yes, I already know you’re not that suicidal, so that won’t be a problem,) she added at Mara’s derisive snort.
(They’re arriving,) Kierfando warned her, still floating up at the top of the nearby tower. (And she’s right, that was a little unnerving to watch.)
(I’m going inside now,) Ia told Sunrise, sending a pulse of acknowledgment to Kierfando.
Mara frowned a moment, then asked, “Sir . . . does your arm unit continue to record while you’re shaped like that? Because you were missing a good six hours on the old one, and it just occurred to me that the Admiral-General might want to examine anything you do when your unit’s not recording.”
(Ah, slag . . . no, it doesn’t, and even if it did, it’d run the risk of me misremembering events electrokinetically. I could bring you along, but you’d still miss out on most of the conversations, since the things don’t pick up telepathic conversations . . . I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,) she thought, sighing. (Get yourself comfortable somewhere, Sunrise, and keep your comm ready. I’ll call you when I’m through.)
“Aye, aye, Captain.” She tucked away the datapad, then reached for the hoverbike controls. “I am in the military, so I do know the drill. ‘Hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait’ . . .”
(As Roghetti’s Roughriders like to say, “Infantry gets out of the way when the Artillery comes out to play.”) She added a mental image of an old-fashioned, sailing-ship-style cannon clad in Dress Grays and a white wig, and heard Sunrise’s laugh. Humor was the best way either of them had to keep their morale up in the midst of this Meddler-based mess.
The thruster field from the hoverbike as the private revved its generator tasted like herb-baked peas. Hungry, Ia made a mental note to sup on some thermal energy during the coming wait.
• • •
It took seven hours, fifteen additional Feyori bubbles string-tugged into range, and a good twoscore dazed Petran Company technicians before Miklinn deigned to show up. The Humans and Solaricans manning the power plant and the smelting factory placed next to it watched the silvery soap bubbles swirling around their equipment with gaping confusion. One or two could successfully hide themselves—and the pair had—by nudging all those minds into “not looking” their way, but more than two dozen Feyori was a little too much to ignore.
Kierfando, acting as Ia’s highest-ranked supporter of the ones to show up, manifested as his graying-haired, dark-skinned version of a Human. He patiently explained to the two plant supervisors, security personnel, and even the planetary Peacekeepers who showed up that this was, “. . . Just us Meddlers having a little party. We deeply appreciate your tasty thermoelectrical snacks here, but there’s nothing to worry about, folks. We’ll be gone soon enough, don’t you worry.”
Undoubtedly, he used a bit of telepathic Meddling to get them to calm down since after an hour of nervous surveillance, the Peacekeepers finally left. He couldn’t keep the technicians from gawking at the mirror-bubbles floating overhead, though. Nor from flinching whenever a soap bubble swooped through the generators, dimming the lights a little, or through the melting vats, cooling the molten alloys a tiny bit. But when Miklinn did finally arrive, the swirling and swooping stopped.
Ia wondered if the sudden stillness of the Feyori as they spread themselves out and hovered in two broken, concentric arcs unnerved the technicians all over again. She couldn’t, daren’t take her eyes . . . well, her attention . . . off the newcomer, though she did peek out of the sides of her more or less 360-degree, highly alien view. Several tails among the Solarican employees twitched, and a few sets of ears pulled down and back. More than one Human brow was furrowed in worry, though they all kept monitoring their stations between furtive looks.
It was an impressive sight, too; more than three Meddlers in any one spot was a very rare sight, on the few occasions they allowed themselves to be seen. As it was, twenty Meddlers showed up. Ia wound up placed at the center-point of one arc, the smaller one, with Kierfando and the belatedly arrived Belini anchoring either end.
Miklinn took his place at the center point of the other, with Ginger and Teshwun forming the endpoints as the two local hosts. Both sides waited for the confrontation, hovering in pewter gray bubbles a meter or so off the plexcrete floor. Miklinn surveyed Ia, swirled his soap-bubble surface i
n contempt, and did not speak. Since he would not, it was up to her, the one who had called the Leadership Challenge, to speak.
(Miklinn, you and I are in deep counterfaction to each other. This counterfaction has grown strong enough that our contentions threaten the very nature of the entire Game,) she stated in preamble, carefully pitching her telepathic sending to each Feyori in the room, though the bulk of her attention remained on her enemy. (There is a point at the start of the Right of Leadership Challenge where one of us may offer apologies and attempt amends.)
He pulsed a thought at her, a mental scoff of derision that denied the thought that he could possibly owe her an apology.
(No, Miklinn. I owe you that apology.) This wasn’t the larger of the two main probabilities ahead of her, but in order to stick to her principles, Ia had to try. (I wronged you when I exposed you. It was selfish of me to use you as a distraction to protect my own faction-standing among my pawns, and it was wrong. I ask you to end our counterfaction by allowing me to help strengthen your standing above what you lost, and above what you now hold, in exchange for you leaving my own efforts alone, without further interference from yourself or your cofactions.
(Will you forgive my mistakes, Miklinn, put an end to this contention between us, and permit me to help you?) she asked formally.
Another contemptuous swirl.
(Will you forgive my mistakes, Miklinn, and join me in a factioning that will restore any lost ground and even add to your plays in the Game?) she repeated.
Contempt; his surface focus was no longer fixed upon her. Silence stretched between them. She did not dare make her request a third time since her faction numbers were too great to stoop to such weak pleading. Twice was enough, so Ia waited in silence, trying not to let her own contempt, her rising anger, get the better of her.