Safely You Deliver

by Graydon Saunders

  “Weakly time-like,” Crane says, possibly amused. I can’t tell.

  “The imaginary component of the history past a certain depth was entirely a cohesive malice,” Ed says. “Probably not sophont, but capable of intent.” Some of the regular topology darkens into greater emphasis.

  Mass cohesive malice is just the sort of thing no one is supposed to be able to deal with. There was a lot, about a hundred thousand years ago, an exceptionally bad global war. Most, maybe all, human ancestry is pulled from some other chain of probability, it might have been a complete extinction.

  Little lights flicker on in the regular topology notation, Crane’s equivalent of marking pages with fingers. There’s a decided pause, and then Blossom adds a few lights, one of which blinks pale green. Crane nods slowly, transferring a copy of the whole thing, annotations and all, into a fixed form.

  “Like distributing it over the surface of an expanding sphere,” Ed says. “Only time-like, so the pseudo-now was permeable past a certain size.”

  “Chance of return?” Blossom asks this like it’s a real worry, and it shouldn’t be, the imaginary component of the terrain history can’t get through on its own any more than we can perceive anything about it without first rendering the accumulated probability pliable.

  “Zero.” Ed’s back into the implacable voice.

  “Which takes ten thousand years?” Crane’s got individual lights shining brighter, three two one.

  “Experiential,” Ed says. “Perceptual was constrained to external, less than a tenth of a second, we had both ends of the process and closed-looped it, it took something like fifty thousand years to happen completely but the malice was aware of almost no time and the apparent time externally was short.” There’s a line of emphatic darkness through the Halt notation, not the regular topology.

  As the timelike-sphere on the outside, once the malice had stretched enough to get around all of the expanding sphere to become thin enough for the timelike intent to pass through it, it wasn’t like that when it was spilling into our material reality, the timelike sphere came in, and got stronger and stronger the smaller it got. All looped off into something that didn’t happen after the tiny, tiny swirl of almost-time let go from the history and probability of, well, reality. Here.

  “We chastise the capable for substituting Power for cleverness,” Crane says. “This would appear to be a cleverness applicable only to extensive application of the Power.”

  Blossom says “Constant?” and Ed wobbles a hand back and forth.

  “Constant’s geometry. Dove’s application.”

  Ed’s malice-wrangling, but Ed will never admit to contributing anything to the consonance’s workings.

  Kynefrid and Angren have packed instrument cases with them, less nervous expressions, and four sheets of paper for Crane.

  “Stable as anything new-altered could possibly be,” Kynefrid says. “Didn’t feel it was appropriate to check the imaginary component.”

  Crane laughs when Blossom says “Thank you” in a tone dry as salt pan.

  Kynefrid gets coffee, Angren gets a litre of wine, and Blossom gets done writing a report. It gets rolled into an official tube, sealed, Blossom uses pure nickel instead of wax, which after dozens of times I still think is disconcerting to watch, and handed to Ed.

  “Edgar,” Blossom says, “Saving my colleague’s pardon, you’ve got this for the foreseeable. Try not to scare anyone out of nine years’ growth. If anything happens where you think you need to wake me up, call Halt.”

  Ed’s face quirks in a mirror of one of Blossom’s almost-smiles. “Expected time unconscious?”

  “Day six, call Halt.”

  Ed nods. Blossom collapses out of Blossom’s human shape, and there’s something that looks mostly like an illusory shelter over Grue, probably exactly like if you’re not especially perceptive.

  “Can you get shelter over Dove and Chloris?” Ed asks me, it’s really definitely asks. “I’m running on entelechy.”

  Which will make a shelter, at the cost of Blossom’s injunction about not scaring people.

  I’m entirely not sure, and Pelōŕios snorts, definitely not a whistle, and there’s a head toss and a whole lot of whistles and horn glitter. Dove and Chloris are lying under what I suppose is technically a bower. Not familiar plants, but obviously rain-proof.

  Ed grins, and says thank you to Pelōŕios along with a small bow, salutes me and Crane in turn with the message tube, and walks off to make sure Blossom’s report goes out on the next boat.

  I should start a fauna survey. Be useful to know at least what’s nearby before weedy things start blowing in.

  Crane looks at me. “Your most basic obligation being?”

  “Not dying,” Kynefrid and Angren say in chorus.

  Going to have to start thinking about what I’m really doing.

  Chapter 19

  Dove

  Dear Mama,

  I don’t begrudge Zora a unicorn. Can’t, hardly, Ed’s more monster than flocks of unicorns. It’s still trouble, no matter how well conducted the unicorn is willing to be. People don’t forget the slow gape or the mad eyes very well.

  Not any madder than your usual unicorn, everyone says who’d know. Not mad enough, well, Mulch sat us down and explained about this kind of unicorns with vehemence and gesticulations. Strict hierarchy, separate sex-based hierarchies, periods of apparent stability punctuated by brutality. Different slant, but agrees with Zora’s reading. Which, well, I’m not going to set out to alter all the unicorns. But this fellow’s young, barely managed to run away rather than succumb to being brutalized, and in the Peace, I’d expect it’s Independent or nothing.

  The local male hierarchy, to a unicorn, runs Wake, Edgar, Mulch, and Mulch is a visitor and Ed, well, flocks. Wake, looking at Wake, not anything Wake did, makes the poor thing shake. So there’s no hope of moving up, especially since we don’t think like that. The problem, the thing Mulch worries about most, Mulch who is sort of haunting Zora’s garden, originally out of power-exhaustion, a worrier at the best of times, is the mismatch, Zora’s deferred to, obviously, about anything to do with the garden or alive, generally. So Zora has standing, and any time a higher-status male is interested, out the unicorn goes, and starves.

  A unicorn historically traumatized, frequently terrified, insecure, Zora can be taken away at any moment if your mind’s stuck in a unicorn flock, instead of paying attention to who argued against strong doleful precedent to make the social try, who argued against Halt, that’s not at all Zora’s custom. I’m hoping any inescapably necessary abrupt demise won’t be one of us, some distant battalion, but it’ll be just hideous for Zora.

  Grue did a heroic best at getting Zora to think about that. Zora did think about that, carefully, most of a day, and came back with reasoned risk-reward and mostly what our teachers tell us about avoiding constraints of fear. (Attempts to comprehend the female hierarchy, other than Halt at the top, gives the hoof-lad fits.)

  It’s mostly, I think, Zora wanting someone to take care of, and none of us really qualifying.

  Which, Peace and Plenty, is not an indication the link doesn’t work anymore. It’s an indication Zora’s, I had to think about this, it’s a making decisions thing. Zora wants research, and consultation, and multiple approaches to the calculations, and then for the decision to stay decided forever.

  The hoof-lad might well work like that, the rest of us don’t, it’s not a strain, it’s just distance. Well, and no one to get all twined up with, they’ve been a good unicorn for Zora so far but not so far as that.

  You’re not, absolutely not, to take the remark about decisions to include there being anything wrong between me and Ed, or me and Chloris, or Chloris and Constant, or any combination of the four together. That’s working, oh, Mama, there are days it ought to scare me. This must sound like all the things we tell rash youth not to do, it’ll break their hearts, it sounds like that to me. It might be, it might be the thing the rash youth
want, and can’t have, because the world won’t do what they say. It’s not fair, it bothers Chloris sometimes, because the world, our local parts of it, does just what we say.

  It works so well. It might be cheating, it’s still settled, and yes, Ed’s still in my head, and vice-versa, and if that’s a house, Chloris still has to knock, but the door opens of itself, if that’s not dragging metaphor too far.

  Someone did express surprise at Chloris that Ed was adequate, what with being foreign and short, and yes, I did bother to notice who, and Chloris went all perfect-with-death and solemnly agreed that Ed was adequate. Then smirked, still all inhumanly beautiful, and whoever-it-was looked at me and Halt says I looked amused.

  Hasn’t been any more of that.

  It’s not, either, that I’ve found more time to write, or Halt’s compelled me to improve my handwriting, it’s that I don’t have to pick up a pen. We’ve been trying and trying to learn the teacher-trick of making the illusion stick to the page, and I’ve finally managed, so now I’m just thinking at sheets of paper while I’m watching the spinny little spells slow down enough to do the next thing to them. No worrying about getting ink into things, and I’m told the paper’s changed, the writing’s good for centuries. So more letters.

  More visits, well, you’d get me, and Ed, and Chloris, and spectral Constant, and at least one teacher, not permitted to wander around on our own, and the general sparseness of teacher spare time means you’d get Zora and the hoof-lad, too, plus possibly Halt. Or Wake; Blossom’s not really even one chance in three. Not something to surprise you, or the gean, with. Not something to not give everyone a tactful chance to say no about, either. Without pointing out our host-gean’s fine with us, they got the whole incremental process, on top of the political conviction the Creek sorcerous tradition should get recreated, and soon.

  It would work better, really it would, if you came here. The Round House is worth seeing, you can bring Hawthorn, Hawthorn’s kids, we have space, we can have any furniture you like, Eirene would have to hide somewhere to hop up and down with glee for us to have family guests, you know that. Give us a date and we’ll be sure not to have experiments running, and we’ll take you through the Tall Woods, too, the kids would like that. And even Chloris will agree it’s enough reason to open those thank-you peach preserves.

  Love,

  Dove

  P. S. Yes, Mama, I have noticed just how political my life has become.

  Can’t say as I like it, but can’t help it; I’d be political just by existing. That strong a talent. Enchanter is more politics, militant enchanter more than that, Ed and being together headed at as strong as Blossom, and likewise the unprecedented Constant, much more politics, and then there’s the whole working link, nobody who isn’t Halt’s entirely comfortable with that.

  I’m not completely sure about Halt.

  (Of course we’re not, not completely. During is wonderful, afterwards people say things like “creature of legend,” and we can’t say they’re wrong.)

  Chapter 20

  Chloris

  Hello Aunt,

  I’d really rather not talk about Mother. I don’t think there’s anything left for me to say.

  Yes, I am changing. Changing is a part of learning, you told me that when I was six.

  Yes, I am talking about other sorcerers as though they were family. Functionally, family is just what we are. I don’t have a choice about being a sorcerer, you’ll remember the lemon preserves, and how little hearing lemon juice boiled with sugar scream was anything I wanted. I do still want to live. I do still have a choice about how I live.

  Of course they can lie. The old ones can tell you the complete truth, Wake’s description of the difficulty of moving a mountain was exactly this our first day as students, and you’ll believe the wrong thing as they intended you to do. It’s not evidence of malice, the ability is evidence of being a thousand years old, with all that practice. The old ones are complicated; everything they do is, necessarily, political, it’s like holding a Commonweal office, they’ve lived all those years, of course they’re strange. They still act as though they like us, as though they experience some need for society.

  Even if that is, somehow, a lie, or incomplete, I don’t see how I can possibly benefit from not treating it as real.

  Of course being called a necromancer bothered me, very much. I had visions of things rising from crypts. Only, well, it’s not the name, it’s the thing, something else you told me when I was small, and the thing is much of why we’re the best weeding team anywhere. That’s not all we are, but it’s nothing to disdain, either. And, yes, people will be frightened, but I can’t do anything useful about that. I certainly can’t sensibly start doubting myself; the whole point of the course of study is to trust ourselves to turn into something good and useful.

  I think that’s true, we’ve got a lot done, we ought to get a lot more done. Some of it has saved lives. If I’m becoming somewhat troubling, it comes of the strength to do that work.

  I know you worry, I think I know why, but I’m not lonely. I’m still me, I haven’t lost myself, I’ve gained. If the Shape of Peace accepts us, I’ll have gained time, along with the certainty of being sufficient.

  Sufficient not just to the work.

  That’s more than enough.

  Still your niece,

  Chloris

  Chapter 21

  Zora

  Hello! Greetings!

  I can’t just leave! We’re not allowed to wander around on our own, which is probably good, really, it doesn’t take much absent-minded to make a mess. I also have a garden and an intermittent teacher I don’t want to walk away from, most of the teachers are useless for gardens, Mulch knows everything about gardens.

  So, yes, I’d love to visit, but if I do, I really really must ask, teachers might not have time, then you get me, and them, and teachers, and it might be the strange teachers because they’re all strange. I’ve had time to get used to them, it might not go over splendid well with everybody when we show up.

  Pelōŕios is getting less skittish, it’s a bit slow, but between not growing up with the Peace and my fellow students that’s only fair. Lots to be skittish about. And NO, you do not have to worry. I’m not militant, you’re right, unicorns are basically inherently militant, too militant, mostly, can’t argue that, it’s how they were made. What they’re not is inherently stupid, you don’t see unicorns wandering into townships and stealing the light-bindings or a fuser-focus to gnaw on. They know that’s not safe, even if they’d be fine the first five times.

  You met my fellow students, that was their very best polite company faces, it really was. What they’re like when they’re worried about my physical safety isn’t that. I’m mostly impressed Pelōŕios hasn’t run away. They’re not being mean, they all actually like Pelōŕios, it’s just, I know this isn’t fair, but you don’t have any active talent and you’re going to have to trust me about it, anybody with active senses for the Power doesn’t think Death and Constant Strange Mayhem is a joke. I only get to think it’s a joke because I’ve never had to scream for help. Pelōŕios really doesn’t think it’s a joke, and then there’s Wake and Halt. And how long it took to find out I needed to get Grue to produce a convincing explanation that Romp and Stomp are made, not something that happened to bad unicorns. (Romp and Stomp think Pelōŕios is wonderful, and want to play chase games. I’m good enough at unicorn-me to join in, and we haven’t frightened anyone because we’re really careful about where.)

  So, sure, I want to visit, but you’d get the whole school. Whereas we’ve got an embarrassment of space, we could put you in the pond-pavilion and you’d have it all to yourselves, it’s nice, we were mostly trying to figure out how, but the pavilion sleeps twenty no problem. That’s still giving you the whole school to deal with but it’s not the whole school all over your gean.

  Give it a thought?

   — Zora

  P.S. Bring the kid!

  C
hapter 22

  Zora

  Trying to talk to Pelōŕios about food is difficult.

  Material food, the reason for a garden, Pelōŕios might be coming to comprehend. Mulch, older than the Commonweal by a multiplier with at least two digits and a reasonable speaker of Unicorn Four, even if it seems to be Unicorn Four from some centuries ago, is easier for Pelōŕios to understand.

  Not for me.

  “But the seeming of desire” Mulch says to Pelōŕios. “To possess desire, a thing needs must possess itself in understanding.”

  Which is true: the tomato plants don’t desire anything; the tomato plants have chemically-mediated decentralized responses to their environment, and if a unicorn thinks they smell invigoratingly of bitter death, that thought’s all in the unicorn.

  Being away for eleven days in the lower Third Valley was no help to the garden, none at all. Then I got half a day before we were three days weeding, with a boat crew that wasn’t the usual boat crew and will get to tell the usual boat crew about the unicorn sitting primly on the centreline of the boat and asking bemused questions about the whole process.

  The garden’s not as bad as it could easily have been, lots of rain around Westcreek Town but not, quite, too much. Good drainage, only three actual weeds blown in on the wind. Two more in the Big Pond, to the efficacious irritation of the swans. There are lots of weeds you mustn’t burn but not so many able to recover from being liquefied by slicing. A couple dubious seeds that didn’t sprout; it might be too wet for them, some kind of weed blown in out of the east.

  Inerting weed-remnants doesn’t even feel odd anymore. It’s a lot like putting on mental protective gloves, because the mechanism isn’t one I want to have direct contact with in the Power.