Last Merge

by Pam Uphoff

  "Right. Top of the hill good, Q?" He took the sandwich Rael was holding out. Damn, and food too?

  "Yes, wherever you can find a flat enough spot." Q grinned and grabbed a sandwich from the box Icks was toting. "You lot are going to be handy, aren't you?"

  ***

  Rael gave Xen a ride to the top of the hill. Giving him an occasional quick glance. Three hours of intense mental work that had us all backing away and holding shields as hard as we could . . . You guys all need keepers.

  "So, just any old flat spot?"

  "It'll be easier if it's not solid rock . . ." He leaned out the window and stared at the ground. "I'm not dead sure this isn't more the heap of some huge fallen buildings than a natural hill. At any rate, a heap of very coarse, unsorted sediment, and streaks of rust and even some surviving iron alloys."

  "Sounds like building debris."

  He straightened and pointed. "Park there. I'll do the ground prep . . . "

  Still a bit out of it, but he's on his feet . . . Mostly.

  She watched in fascination as dirt and rocks—squarish things that certainly might have been bricks a long time ago—poured out of four rapidly deepening holes, filled in a few dips in the ground and a large flat square area flattened itself even more.

  Xen pulled absolutely nothing off his shoulder held it out and poked it. The ground quivered as a building dropped into place, inches from his toes.

  "There we go. The Great Stone Inn."

  Rael swallowed. "Well, and here I was thinking we ought to bring along some tents. Where did you get this?"

  "Made it." Xen walked through the glass doors, and she followed him into a open two story . . . common room?

  Four doors on each side, staircases up both sides to eight more doors off a U-shaped balcony . . .

  Xen flopped in a big armchair. More chairs, couches, vid screen. Tables and chairs beyond them and a kitchen.

  Rael prowled. The side doors all led to ordinary hotel type setups . . . The vertical stacks of the bathrooms . . . "Those holes you made are for some sort of waste disposal, aren't they?"

  "Yep. That’s why I didn't want to put it on solid rock. Needs the porosity. For a couple of weeks that'll be more than enough. There's a condensation unit and a water tank on the roof, and if that doesn't keep us in water, I'll make it rain. Solar panels up there too, so there's electricity."

  The other utes drove up and everyone trooped in, even the dogs. People carted luggage, poked in all the rooms. The Fallen witches all claimed rooms on the ground floor, even Q, a bit to Rael's surprise.

  Q shrugged. "Straight witches like to stay in touch with the Earth. Silly, really, in a solid stone building. And we've all got the wizard gene, so it hardly matters . . . but for this mission I'll try to conform to witch customs."

  Stay in contact with the Earth? Why?

  Xen waved upward. "I'll take the front corner and you guys can fight over the rest. There are two extra rooms, so Ohhe? If you decide you need more men, or Q, if you want to bring in a couple more witches for your own Triad . . ." He paused and frowned at Rael and Bunny.

  Q turned her head and eyed them as well. "Now that's an interesting thought. I've never heard of Oners doing anything like triads."

  Scar opened his mouth, shut it at her dismissive wave.

  "Men and their Compasses, yes, but what about women? We should try it tomorrow."

  Ux snorted. "Two princesses and a witch. Now that'll be fun to watch." He walked over to the shelves below the screen and pulled out a vid. "Attack of the Super Soldiers?"

  "It's from Earth, made about a year before the Exile. I thought you might like seeing the sort of things that led to the Exile. Fiction, but it's based on an actual occurrence. My dad says it's as close as one could expect from someplace called Hollywood where they made movies. There's a couple of those, some modern vids and documentaries from Earth Prime, some of the other slow earths, some stuff from the British Empire, and Purple." Xen flashed a grin. "You can call it sociological research."

  Rael snickered. "It'll be just like Wednesday night at the Black Horse Barracks." And a triad? Some sort of link with Dr. Quail Quicksilver, the lady who can see the multiverse? Holy One, this could be interesting.

  Or scary.

  Only one way to find out.

  ***

  Barracuda laid her chin on Xen's knee and gave him the big-eyes treatment.

  He groaned. Which bubble has the dog things . . . "Right. Here we go. Two frisbees. Remember, the faster you chew them up, the longer before you get any new ones!" He pried himself out of the chair and headed back outside.

  The Oners looked curious and followed.

  A hard fast throw for 'Cuda, and a curve for Pig . . . three tosses later, the Oners took over, trying to beat Barracuda's speed and Pig's predictions of the disk's performance.

  He sat down, leaning on the building and Rael settled down beside him. "So how come I've never met your dogs before?"

  "Umm, Hell Hounds are hard to explain to people who've never seen them in action . . . and quite independent. But they're still dogs. They chase things, bark. Bite if they need to. Get into garbage, steal food, try to get to every bitch on the planet . . . it's better to keep them bubbled and let them out only when I need them, or no one else is around."

  "Huh. Next time you're in Paris, I'll have to introduce you to the canine division. I have a suspicion it might be pretty funny."

  "Someday I'll get a temporary import permit for Pyrite. Then I can really make the Black Horse guards sit up and take notice."

  Rael giggled. "Especially the telepathy. The dogs aren't telepathic?"

  "Nope. Probably a good thing. Because they'd be begging for food all day!"

  ***

  Rael checked out the kitchen. Less than commercial size, bigger than family . . . no fab. Eek! but the big bins held shelves of prepared meals, steaming hot. Rael closed the door and glanced at the nearest witch. "Ibis . . . bubbles, right?"

  The witch grinned. "Yep. Separate ones for four dinners, but also a big freezer and dry goods, fresh vegetables and fresh fruit in other cupboards. We helped Q stock up, last week."

  They both looked over at a blast of sound . . .

  "Oh One. We're going to get a movie whether we like it or not."

  Ibis swiped her long hair over her shoulder. "I like. The old guys have an incredible stock of these things, that they're shifting to your format. I haven't seen this one before . . . "

  Rael located cold drinks . . . "Beer? When we're on duty?"

  "Nope. Right now we're off duty. There's wine too—not that wine, relax—although if we could get some into Xen . . . umm, umm, that glow. You lucky dog."

  Rael paused, then decided that from the witch's tone of voice she had not just been insulted. She hoped.

  Ibis nattered on. "You ought to have his baby and advance."

  "With my job? I haven't got the time."

  "It's worth it, to advance. And Xen could get you a no time bubble, so you could bring the baby out when it was convenient. I mean, Demi, Egret, and I all have two-year-olds stashed until we get back, and Goldie's got a one-year-old and," she looked over her shoulder and shrugged. "Jacana and Lapwing decided to advance and accosted a guy with glow . . . and got a whole lot more than they expected and not in a nice way. They had a set of twins each, and bubbled them almost immediately. They'll have to deal with them eventually, but you wouldn't have their . . . issues."

  "Uh . . . no." Rael's eyes crossed at the thought of what everyone would think about a baby that grew and matured so slowly . . . Or at all . . . Because I really don't have the time . . . Really.

  Ibis shook her head, nabbed two beers and settled down beside Icks, who shot a guilty look Ohhe's direction and set the beer where the Sergeant couldn't see it.

  Rael grabbed two cans of non-alcoholic "cokes" and settled down beside Xen to watch an appalling and hopefully not at all accurate fourteen centuries old movie.

  "Dad says the R
ussian super soldiers were raised in cages, treated like animals, and no wonder they ran amok when they escaped control." Xen stood up and headed for the kitchen. "Your Prophets and Those Left Behind—they all collectively called themselves Tellies—were born and raised in the North American Union, and treated like children. Some were fostered out, some raised in group homes, but they were loved, cared for, educated. Then as the test kids reached their majorities their parent companies were bought up and the kids consolidated. It all went downhill from there. But they had a good start."

  The witches sent them off and started pulling out the hot dinners. Xen led Rael to one of the four tables, and waved Ohhe in to join them.

  "Was that common knowledge?" Ohhe settled in a chair on Xen's other side. "We were all shamelessly eavesdropping."

  "Dad's one of the original Tellies. He knew your Prophets when they were teenagers. And when things got nasty at NewGene, a bunch of them escaped. Dad wound up in the Army, and said he witnessed a lot of that. We're trying to get him to write up all the gory details. Umm, no. I gathered that the details of the Russian's upbringing wasn't known, which just added to the anti-genetic engineering prejudice, and the Exile."

  Rael took a bite of . . . something wonderful. History, alien magical techniques, Xen, and good food. This is going to be a damned fine assignment!

  Especially if I can get Xen alone and off duty. Damn this "professional" nonsense that Paer thought was so howlingly funny.

  :: You're not even going to kiss me goodnight, are you? ::

  :: Nope. :: He glanced her way and his dimples showed. :: Might just happen to stop by for a hug, though. ::

  Chapter Six

  Rael and the Witches

  X World 13563

  22 Yusef 1404

  :: Oh, nice training. ::

  Rael gulped a bit at the strong mental contact. Q's mental feel was deep like Xen's, but totally lacking the sexual component. Brilliant and controlled.

  :: We're trained, but not for . . . deep communion, merging like a men's compass. ::

  Bunny was there too, feeling excited and scared, no verbalizations at all.

  :: Take this bit of power from me, pass it to Bunny. Bunny back to me. Don't worry about being serious, make it a game. Pass the ball around then start smearing it around into a spinning hoop. ::

  :: Spinning hoop, right . . . :: and it did smooth out, a huge amount of power, but since she was only handling a tiny bit at any given time . . .

  :: This is amazing! :: Bunny's fear faded into awe.

  A bit of amusement leaked in from Q. :: now while that's spinning along we'll take a look around. This is what I see when I deliberately look at the multiverse. ::

  The world blued gradually, ziggy little bubbles . . .

  A mental giggle from Bunny. :: Like looking into a blue soda. ::

  :: Well shaken. :: Q agreed. :: Now see these folded crumpled almost transparent sheets? These are the membranes, entire universes. ::

  They moved closer to one, bright specks turning into galaxies, thousands . . . billions, but that one right there . . . they fell closer, into it . . . a curve, a globe. Down to skim across a world. A coastline, a city . . . Paris, there's Government House . . .

  :: Yes That's the One World. Now to pull back . . . ::

  They whipped back into the sparkling blue, away from the pull of that one membrane.

  :: That's because it's your home. We can almost always recognize and find our home. As apparently you can. But right now, let's look at where we are.

  :: We're actually looking through a couple of membranes, and I'm going to pull back so we can see them. ::

  Crumples and bubbles shrank away, a ragged edge towering over them moved back, more curves and bends in front of them.

  ::That's this universe. That edge out there, the bend, see how small it is, compared to the others? That's the Helios Miniverse. Relax now . . . and see the real world. ::

  The blue faded away . . . And Rael was standing on a sandy rock holding up a thin weak ring of energy . . . that faded, disappeared, and the mental contact with Q and Bunny disappeared as well. Rael staggered back blinking. Backed into a nice warm man holding a bottle of boost.

  Bunny sagged down to sit on the ground, Scar hustling up with a drink.

  Ohhe walked up and handed another bottle to Q. "And I thought Rael was insane to order so much."

  "How long did that take?" Rael looked up to check that she was leaning on the right guy.

  "Fifteen minutes, start to finish." Xen squeezed her shoulder and released her. "Usually Q'd break all that into at least three sessions. But you two have much more mental control and discipline than her usual students."

  Rael cocked her head and thought that over. "But these witches are stronger, and I can feel how . . . subtle and detailed their power usage is. And yours."

  "We're Halfmoons—women who have given birth—so we've crossed a major threshold in complexity. It's different from discipline and control, which they are continually working on." A snicker from Q. "When they aren't goofing off. But I'll work with you both a couple more times, then perhaps mix things up with the other witches."

  A sniff from Jacana. "Exceeding your authority. Massively."

  "So, let's see if we can do twenty gates this morning." Q glanced at her brother. "Why don't you catch cones, and I'll spot today."

  A glare from Lapwing. "We don't need a spotter. We can see where the gates need to go, now."

  "Good. Then we'll both feed you cones." Q sat down cross-legged right there.

  Xen walked a hundred feet away and sat.

  Rael strolled over, loosening her shields. Caught an edge of mental communications between the siblings.

  :: Please don't kill her when you finally smack her down. ::

  Mental laughter from Q. :: Be glad I didn't show up with Swish, Ultra and Xanthic. ::

  :: Ha, watching you try to tactfully order around a triad of . . . what are they now? Waning Halfs? ::

  :: Yes. I acted a little dubious and asked if Xanthic had been able to do any dimensional work with two non-dimensional witches. Steam did not come out of Answer's ears, but I think it was a close thing. I was tempted to just ask Mom, Verse and Whoop to come. ::

  :: Sadist. ::

  Then their mental touches started getting blue, and Rael pulled away. Guard duty.

  It was interesting, watching Xen's dogs. They killed three snakes and stood and stared at a couple dozen very large cows with impressive horns. The cows stared back, shifted uneasily and decided to move away.

  "Nice." Ohhe gave the dogs a pat apiece. "Not that a pit roast wouldn't have been fun, but I didn't want to shoot and interrupt the séance going on down there."

  Both dogs grinned and glanced toward the witches.

  Surely séance is not in their vocabulary . . .

  Rael bit her lip. "Perhaps, once the witches take a break, you dogs could hunt up something for dinner."

  Wags and grins.

  Then they trotted off again to circle the séance . . . killed another snake . . .

  She cleared her throat. "I suspect we should not use the word séance when any of the witches are paying attention."

  The guys swapped grins around.

  Icks looked innocent. "Unless they need to be insulted."

  Bunny snickered. "Nor should we quote Shakespeare. 'Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble.' Except we'd have to make that Triad and trouble . . . "

  Scar grinned. "Shall I fetch you a fillet of a fenny snake? We've got a nice fresh killed snake."

  Ux jumped in. "Must be some eye of newt, and toe of . . . "

  "Stop!" Ohhe glared around. "Not going to happen. Split up and pretend to be guarding very, very, hard."

  They split up, and if there was a bit of snuffling and coughing . . . Rael sighed and walked away as well. Stared over the rolling hills. I wonder where in Spain we are? What city ruins we're camped on? Not that it should bother me, our Paris has made a
park out of the ruins of Old Paris.

  Movement far out . . . she magnified her vision . . . something hopping like a kangaroo, but . . . the tail was long and the ears rounded . . . Did Europe have a native mouse that hopped? The descendants of zoo escapees? Whatever they were, they weren't getting any closer.

  Barracuda paused beside her to stared out at the hopping whatevers.

  "I don't think I want to eat anything I can't recognize. I was thinking deer, or, hmm, pheasants, maybe, for dinner?"

  "Woof!"

  "And I haven't the faintest idea whether Xen was kidding about your brains or not."

  Which got her a doggy grin and wagged tail before Barracuda trotted off.

  Another survey . . . ten more circles of "not here" standing around. Not too different, just . . . the stones over there are melty looking instead of old and weathered.

  Rael stepped up beside Q as the witch stood up and grabbed her elbow as she staggered. Steered her around brush and past the witches and her brother and another hundred meters. "All right sit here and we'll start shifting everyone else."

  Ux and Icks were all too happy to gently nudge their favorites.

  A loud electrical snap and Ux stumbled back and sat down, shaking his hand.

  Jacana snorted. "All three of us felt that pinch. You're lucky you're alive."

  Ohhe glared. "Ux, get up on the hill and don't come back until I order you down." He switched his glare to Icks.

  Who waved both hands. "No pinching. I'll just gently tap Demi's shoulder . . . " as he did so. And soft voiced, "Time to shift over a bit. You gals have ten gates done already."

  That group dropped hands and sort of sleep walked past Xen before forming up again.

  The other triad sent resentful glances all around, and Jacana looked like she was seriously thinking about kicking Xen as she walked past.

  A gate sprang up, way down hill, and then another. Goldfinch hustled her triad and got them back together.

  Jacana growled something about stupid men, her glare drifting from Xen to Ux and back.