by J. S. Morin
Esper bit her lower lip. How to answer this one? Summing up Mort could require the commission of a second tome dedicated to his biography. A full accounting was an endeavor beyond Esper’s knowledge. “Well, he’s a grumpy, slovenly, sharp-tongued old coot. But he mostly uses that to deflect people from getting to know him well. Underneath it all, he’s a real gentleman and a traditionalist wizard.” And occasionally, underneath all that, he has a temper fit to boil volcanoes. But Esper decided to quit her description while Mort was ahead.
“How long have you known him?”
“About a year.” This was true in the literal, linear-temporal sense. But since she wasn’t going to explain Mortania in any satisfactory manner over coffee, she didn’t even try to explain having known Mort for longer than her body had been alive. “I really hadn’t been expecting you, of all people, to be the one to come on behalf of the Convocation.”
“I’m not here on their behalf. I’m here on my own initiative. The council doesn’t care if my father ever returns to Earth. I wanted to know if this is something worth putting my reputation on the line over.”
Esper reached down and drew forth the Tome of Bleeding Thoughts from her knapsack. “Well, here it is. I hope that once you verify its contents, you can put in a good word for Mort.” She handed it across the table.
Cedric jerked back in his chair rather than accept the book. “Put that thing away,” he snapped, glancing around the coffee shop. Esper complied just in time before the waiter came back with her coffee and a tiny silver pitcher of milk. Once the waiter was out of earshot, Cedric continued. “Last thing we need is anyone seeing that book. I didn’t come here to take it back to the council for you.”
Esper lifted the coffee to her lips, pausing before taking a sip. “Then why did you?” She drank, unable to resist the aroma as she waited for Cedric’s response.
“To find out what sort of man my father has become. I can’t believe that the horror stories I’ve heard are all true. My mother doesn’t believe them at all, but I can’t risk a promising career on her word alone. I’d like to meet him.”
Mid-swallow, Esper choked on her coffee. Cedric apologized and fretted over her health as she coughed and gasped until finally regaining her composure. “I had really just hoped to give you the book without letting Mort know we’d met.”
Cedric furrowed his brow and looked at the knapsack. “Where exactly did you find this copy? Did you steal it from my father?”
The very notion. “Of course not. I just… saw a copy of it lying around. Mort doesn’t even know about it—I think.”
Dabbing at the corners of his mouth with a napkin, Cedric nodded. She got the impression that this wasn’t as much in acceptance of her lie as it was storing it in evidence for later use. “Very well. Once you’ve finished your coffee, you’ll take me to see what twenty-one years has done to Mordecai The Brown.”
# # #
Mort stared across the kitchen table into the eyes of a robot. It looked so false, so fake, like a caricature drawing come alive. The windows to the soul were shuttered, fogged over, and glowing with a dull, inhuman light. The rest of the accoutrements of roboticism he could almost forgive. Mort wasn’t particularly biased against some poor fellow getting his arm blown off in a war and letting science make him a replacement. Not Mort’s cup of tea, but in a galaxy of science, he could see how a man could choose a robot arm over none at all. Carried to its logical conclusion, what if a man had his whole body taken from him, and this was his only alternative short of death?
“You’re staring again,” Archimedes noted dryly. The voice, garbled through science’s harsh filtration, was what gave Mort an inkling of the man inside. No machine could convey such nuanced annoyance.
Mort leaned back in his chair. “I’d offer you a cup of coffee, or a beer, but I’m really at a loss of what to do with you. If I had a spare body lying around, I’d be willing to take a crack at transferring you into it. Not a high-percentage shot, mind you, but I’d give it the old college try.”
“I’d expect no less from an Oxford man.”
Mort smirked. “Well, it’s nice to see that a Harvardite can admit when—”
“Half-cocked attempts beyond the bounds of your understanding are practically the motto: ignorantia illuminatio mea. I’ll take my chances as is. I was 106 years old with bad kidneys. I’m on sabbatical from aches, pains, incontinence, and nausea.”
The crew was watching a holovid drama of the weepy and soulful variety, thanks to Amy and Yomin ganging up on Carl before Roddy or Jaxon could intervene and tie the vote. Mort had been too preoccupied to care at the time, but the sweeping orchestral waves of phony emotion were like a mosquito buzzing by his ear.
“No worries, Archie,” Carl called out from the couch. He had his arm around Amy, who had the middle seat. “We won’t let Mort try anything experimental on you.”
“I should think not. We have a common enemy. I’m more use against this foe in my present state than I would be in a new human body. And frankly, I want a new body as much as I’d like to return to that walking crypt they pulled my brain from. No, offer me my own body from when I was two-and-twenty and I’ll have a listen. Until then, you can sod off with that mind-swapping nonsense.” He leaned over the table and spoke behind a gloved hand to Mort. “Figured an English boy like you would appreciate that one.”
“I’m not English, you prat! I’m from Boston Prime. I lived closer to your damn office than you did, I’d reckon.”
The door from the cargo bay opened, then closed immediately. In the interim, a quick-footed laaku mechanic had scurried through. “Esper’s back!”
Amy grinned. “How’s she look? Good date? Or is she—?”
“She brought the guy back with her!”
The holo-vid winked out. The couch erupted in a flurry of activity. “Get Archie out of sight,” Carl ordered.
“I’ll take him to my quarters,” Yomin volunteered.
Amy rushed for the door. “What was she thinking? What was Juggler thinking? He must have known she was coming.” She hit the comm panel button for the cockpit. “A little heads-up might have been nice.”
“What? She said it was all clear,” Juggler replied. Mort would have said he sounded afraid of Amy, but that was none of his business.
“I’ll have a word with her about this,” Mort promised as Yomin led Archimedes away by his robotic arm.
Amy was watching through the window in the cargo bay door. “Hurry up! They’re coming!”
This was the point where Mort needed to compose himself and look imposing. Sure, Esper might have dragged some hopeful chap back to the Mobius with every intention of showing him a good time. But there were times to exert a certain gravity over the ship of the non-literal sort. The sort of gravity that said “This is my ship, young fellow, and nothing goes on here without my say-so.”
The door opened, and Esper peeked through, surveying the room as if she could possibly have expected it to be empty when she came back from a date at 8:47 p.m. She stepped through with blushing cheeks and cleared her throat. “Everyone, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
The man who stepped through was a figment of Mort’s imagination. He was the man Lord Mordecai of Mortania saw in the mirror each morning. Younger. Taller. All his hair still black as raven feathers. Someone had set him loose not only from Lord Mordecai’s mirror but also from his imagination. But there were details that were off. This apparition wore Convocation casual garb, which Mort didn’t even own, let alone conjure up in his head. He also lacked a translator earring, which Mort never went anywhere without. But most telling of all: he had his mother’s eyes.
“Cedric…” He wanted to set loose a ravenous pack of questions to tear his son into answers he’d longed for these past decades as his family grew up and old without him. Instead, the wolves of his curiosity chased their tails and barked at squirrels. Mort’s mouth hung open.
“Nice to see you recognize me, father,” Ced
ric replied. There was iron in his voice. The boy had a presence about him, too. Mort hadn’t felt that sort of bubble of self-determination around a wizard since he’d left Earth.
Carl edged around the periphery of the common room until he could whisper directly into Mort’s ear. “Mort… what’s your son doing on my ship? I don’t have insurance on this thing…”
“What are you doing here, boy? I thought you had a career, a future. How’d you end up on Mirny? Seems a bit far gone for terramancy.”
“You can thank your apprentice for this reunion.”
Esper stepped in front of him. “Everyone, I’d like to introduce you to Cedric The Brown, Order of Gaia, Junior Assistant Atmospheric Terramancer with Magna Terra. He’s also Mort’s son.”
Roddy looked from one to the other and back again. “I don’t see the resemblance.”
Carl strode over and stuck out a hand. “Carl Ramsey. Been friends with your dad since—”
Cedric looked down at the hand. “Since he abandoned his family.” He took Carl’s hand and shook it. “I suppose you were a boy at the time. I can’t place the blame on you.”
“That would be my dad, Chuck. He’s the one who evac’ed Mort off Earth before the inquisition could catch up with him. By the way, if you’re here to drag Mort back to the Convocation, kudos. They’ve picked one of maybe three wizards in the galaxy Mort wouldn’t kill no matter what.”
“Oh, really?” Cedric asked. “You mean if I ordered you to accompany me back to Earth, you’d come?”
Mort harrumphed. “Not bloody likely. But I wouldn’t harm a hair on your head in the process. C’mere, boy. It’s been forever.” It wasn’t the reunion he’d expected, but it was the one he had. He approached with arms wide, but something in Cedric’s bearing set his teeth on edge. The eyes were cold, guarded. If Archimedes’s eyes had been clouded by the mists of technology, Cedric’s were guarded by dragons. Slowly, Mort let his arms sag to his sides.
Esper interposed herself before things became unbearably awkward. “Maybe I can show you around a bit.”
“Very well. I wouldn’t mind seeing how my father’s been living, so far from home.”
The door to the cargo bay closed behind them, and Mort breathed a sigh of relief. “Sometimes a surprise is best spoilt for the sake of a weak heart. Bloody me, is that girl trying to kill me?”
Roddy just shook his head. “Twenty years out of what? Twenty-four? And the kid is just as morose and taciturn as you are. What is wrong with your gene pool?”
# # #
They convened an emergency meeting in Carl’s quarters.
The door slammed shut. It was just Roddy, Mort, and Amy inside with him, with Juggler keeping lookout in the common room. The room was cozy for two, but five seemed liable to overload the air recirculators.
“What’s the deal?” Roddy asked. “Why’s it such a big deal that Mort Jr. is poking around? I mean aside from the fact we got two Morts on board now. Not like Esper’s gonna show him anything scandalous. I mean, she didn’t take him into her quarters or anything.”
“Snap that yap shut, chimp,” Mort snapped. “We’ve got four wizards on board, which is probably a record for a ship this size. One might be trapped in a tin can, but that man in the iron mask routine isn’t liable to win him any favors with my son. I’m a rebel and a renegade. I can afford the luxury of living by my own set of rules. What’s the Convocation going to do to me? I mean, they’ve sent more men after me than the Roman senate sent to kill Caesar. But Cedric could lose his job or worse if anyone found out he let a walking, talking, thinking robot walk away free.”
Amy put a hand on Mort’s shoulder. “Mort. Is there any way you can get rid of your son? I… I dunno, maybe some electrified topic that’ll get him to blow up and storm off.”
“You mean aside from abandoning him and his sister when I left Earth to avoid dark sorcery charges?”
“Yeah. Maybe something more recent. A raw sore to spit lemon juice into.”
Carl opened his mouth, but no words came out. Outside Amy’s field of vision, he held up his hands in surrender.
“It’s been twenty blasted years since I’ve seen him!”
“This might be rough. Maybe Carl can say something insensitive. I mean, he ought to be able to work his charm in reverse, right?”
Roddy lounged against the window looking out on their cramped starport berth, mere centimeters from a rusty steel wall. “Hey, Daddy Brown. How’s about you take Junior out on the town? Plenty of nightlife left to burn. Play catch up. Talk about old times. Then, quietly part ways with the kid before he gets hint numero uno about what we actually do around here.”
“My boy’s no idiot. I’m sure he knows we’re criminals.”
“Yeah, well, knowing is different from seeing. Let him use that wizardly imagination, but don’t let him sniff anything real going down here. We’ve got poached biological samples, counterfeit terras, and a counterfeit wizard on board right now, not to mention a list of illegal firepower that Morty Boy probably can’t read. But better safe than incarcerated.”
“Or incinerated,” Amy added.
“Ceddie is a terramancer—Order of Gaia. They don’t teach incineration. And I ought to know, I was a member of the Order of Prometheus, and it was a point of pride being the ones who did.”
Carl snapped the fingers of both hands for attention. “Focus, people. Let’s get Mort The Younger off our boat. He can have a wonderful evening catching up with Mort The Cantankerous. Then we can part ways and get back on the wormhole course to screwing Harmony Bay.”
Roddy gave Mort a conspiratorial elbow in the ribs. “Whaddaya say, Mort? Willing to take your kid out to dinner so the rest of us can plot a scam?”
Pieces were falling into place. There was a conspiracy at work, and Mort was somehow at the center of it. That Esper was the ringleader was beyond the sniff of a doubt’s shadow. But was Roddy involved? Carl? Amy seemed genuinely clueless, but Carl could have coached that; he was sure of it. Then again, if the conspiracy was a slice of forgiveness from a boy he couldn’t be there to help raise, Mort could probably forgive them. “Fine. I’ll do it.”
# # #
Esper had never given a tour of the Mobius before. Considering their current state of mild law-abiding, the cargo hold was mostly empty. There was no ancient automobile, no stolen racing ship, no escape pod filled with evil scientists. It was just odds and ends, spare parts, and equipment that there wasn’t room for in personal quarters.
Cedric made a show of politeness, following in her wake with a stiff gait and his hands stuffed into his sleeves. But she was buying time for the others to sort themselves out in the common room, and they both seemed aware of the fact.
“What’s this?” Cedric asked, nodding toward a free-standing pillar with several protruding rods.
“That’s mine. It’s a training dummy. I don’t have anyone to practice with, so I had a mechanic friend rig it up. Traditional ones are made of wood.”
Scowling at the dummy, Cedric examined it from all angles, circling round the far side before fixing Esper with a shrug. “I don’t see how this is of any use. It’s not magical, and it doesn’t look technical.”
The long version would have involved an explanation of Wing Chun Kung Fu and the historical evolution of solitary training. Instead, Esper settled for a demonstration. “It’s for martial arts exercises. Watch.” Though she wasn’t dressed for it, Esper launched into a basic routine, bobbling in and around the arms of the dummy and striking at the body and limbs. With the chaos of the day and the tension of the Brown family reunion looming over her, the simple forms calmed her. Her movements sped, gradually at first, but reaching a pace where only reflex and muscle memory kept her from slipping and hurting herself.
Without warning, her movements slowed—not to purely mundane levels, but to the point where she felt as if her fists were fighting a tide. She glanced back to find Cedric smirking at her. “I see. You practice internal magic. My fat
her taught you this?”
Esper stood tall and smoothed her dress. “Well, not exactly. He explained the principles, but he can’t actually do this stuff. Says he has too clear a picture of himself to make any changes.”
“Not surprising,” Cedric remarked absently. He slapped a palm against the dummy’s body in imitation of one of Esper’s strikes. It was halfhearted, as if he wanted to see if the same magic would overtake him and speed his hands. “I’m the same way. ‘A wizard should be in control of his own body. No other force in the universe ought be allowed to influence him.’ I assume my father taught you Blackstone’s tenets.”
“He’s mentioned them in passing, but my education has been a little non-standard.”
Cedric nodded without looking her way. Something was bothering him. “Would you mind showing me your gravity stone? I can feel it over there. Call it professional curiosity, but you’ve got such Earthy gravity on this ship, it’s hard not to take notice.”
Esper led the way toward the engine room, and Cedric followed. “You can thank your father for that.”
Cedric stopped short. “Wait. Mordecai The Brown, rising star of the Order of Prometheus and attack dog of the council, enchants gravity stones? Since when does my father know the first thing about gravity?”
Esper shrugged and opened the engine room door. “I suppose since he had to.”
The engine room looked the same as when Roddy had first taken Esper on as an assistant, back in the days when she had no proper place on the Mobius. Maybe it was a little cleaner, and maybe it had a few new parts, but rationally Esper knew it to be the same room. But now the bits and pieces gave an overall sense of disorder. The Mobius flew and provided power for things like the food processor and holo-projector; it kept them separate from the vacuum of space. But how it did any of that was a mystery, and like anything her life depended on, she felt uneasy being reminded how tenuous its function truly was. Fortunately, the gravity stone was in a side room along with the star-drive, and she didn’t have to linger.