Goddess of the Moon (Young Ancients: Tiera) (34 page)

"Group
one guide, come in and get your charges!" That lead to names being called
out, but hers wasn't one of them.

It
took a bit, so Douglas, looking like her old, very normal da again, thankfully,
walked over, smiled a bit.

"Hello,
Alan." He stood directly in front of the man, looking happy, so was caught
totally unaware when a fist caught him right below the right eye. Only the one
though, and the fist stopped in the air, since her father had a shield on.

That
didn't save him from a dressing down though.

"You
lousy piece of...
Doug
, where the fucking hell have you been?"

Tiera
looked at him, and then the kids.

"Hey,
language."

The
man glared, but then looked at the children too. "Sorry. Anyway, what the
heck Doug? One day you were on your route, then the next you were missing, and
not only weren't we to search, no one was allowed to speak of it! We all knew
what that meant, but it's been twenty years. More than that! Couldn't you have
sent a note?" The anger in the man's eyes faded, but not totally.

Douglas
just stood there. For a long time he didn't speak at all. "Duty, Alan. I
can't say more. This is my family. Lauralie, my wife." He gestured at her
and she walked up, looking all of nineteen still. She did that, after all. It
was her normal pattern.

Then
he gestured to the others, starting with Taman and working up. Using their
titles.

"Terry
here is Countier First Baker, of course. This one here, looming over us, is
Tiera. She's the one that took Morris, and gave the legacy to her brothers and
sisters. Count Morris caused the death of a friend of hers." He stopped
there, as if it were meaningful. It didn't say enough at all, but for some
reason the Captain hugged her.

Hard.

"I
understand. Well, I'm glad to meet you all. Doug, we need to talk, in private.
Right now however, family reunion or not, I need to get back to work. Besides,
the second group is about to be called."

Her
family was in that group, but she wasn't being in the last one. There were
twenty six others in it, but that wasn't a problem. They were given four rooms,
which as promised had sleeping alcoves, which were low ceilings and close
walled things to trap their body heat. All in white at least, rather than
orange. The beds were slim, and meant for one person at a time, but just as
soft and pliable as a person could want, being made of magic anyway. Why
wouldn't they be?

It
had been a little bit rude of her, but earlier she'd neglected to chat with
Smythe of Westend, the Military Counselor. He was pretty old, but still looked
like he got enough exercise really. His hair was thinning on top and he was
shorter than she was, but otherwise healthy.

He
also had the alcove right next to her own, which got her to blink. Across the
way, the Prince was setting his space up too. Maris was on the other side of
him, and Sheri one over from that. Looking down the way, Tiera saw that Karina
was their sixth. It was kind of an interesting arrangement. They had more
people than most of the rooms, for instance. They
could
have had all
girls in the one space, or all Ancients...

That
got her to check, and she nearly passed out. It was that last one then. Even
Smythe was immortal. That was a shock. Timon had done it, clearly, but why? By
her count it was still about good as to his promise of no more than twenty, but
it seemed strange. William Smythe had tried to kill Tor once, by his own
admission.

Then,
maybe that was the point? He'd be willing to try again, if it came to it?

She
dropped into a very deep state and felt Smythe's field, getting the idea. He
was wearing a disguise amulet, to hold his appearance, which had shifted to a
much younger one when his right hand was re-grown. He was there for the same
reason the rest of them were then, to look into the new potential home?

Tiera
smiled, since her new phrase was 'be nice to the immortals'.

"Alphonse,
you and Karina have the duty of watching the others and making sure all goes
well. Maris, Sheri has to go and help with the kids, which means doing that
too. The rest of us should get a guide, if possible and then help people put
their meals together. William... May I call you that?" It was polite to
ask and the man bowed to her very properly.

"I'd
be honored."

"Great!
Call me Tiera, since we're going to know each other for a long time. Would you
be willing to come along with us? Unless you have other plans?" What that
even could be she didn't know. He wasn't tired and wasn't a clone of anyone
else, his brain still seeming like him at least. Not that she'd spent months
studying him or anything.

"That
would be very good. My duty here is, in the main, to see to the High
Servants." He looked around too, and then at the others. "I know that
the Prince and Princess are going to be my friends for a long time, and have
been briefed on the Ancient Maris, but Ducharina Bonner is a new acquaintance?"

She
scanned the space with her mind and found no one watching or listening. It
wasn't impossible, but it seemed safe enough. If anyplace ever was.

"Sheri's
one of us too. I'll list the others for you." That came quickly, though
Alphonse waved at her as she got to the end.

"You
forgot Collette Coltress. We can't have that."

Tiera
had. Gerent hadn't said she was in this mess with them directly, but he
wouldn't would he? It was enough of a hint that she should have gotten it.

"Thanks.
And Collette. Given that this is Tim, we have to assume a few more that we
don't know about at least. Teral's family, Count Thomson. Who knows who
else?"

Other
than Timon. That was probably the work he had to do as well. Making even more
immortals. Well, it was something, though she personally would have waited for
things to blow over a bit. Won the war and then invested people with this gift,
if it was one.

She
didn't have any great need to discuss anything with anyone, and Smythe, dressed
like the rest of them, made a point of meeting Maris and Sheri, but that was
it. They moved out and found a likely looking crewman, who was wearing orange
on his sleeve, but only one stripe, and was very short. After a bit she bowed
to him, which, being the way things were done, got everyone else to do it too.

"Jones!"
She didn't move on the man, since she'd be terrifying to him now. She was too
big for him to feel comfortable around, and so were the rest of them. Even
Maris was probably a bit awe inspiring. "I know you probably won't remember
me, since I was shorter back then, but we subdued the Cordes mentality in the
body of Julie White on the Ranford together? Tiera Baker." She turned to
the others halfway to explain. "Crewman Jones back then. He was the one
that was going to turn the ship off if Cordes started to win. Then he went with
us to the Antarctic and helped subdue Cordes Blue, breaking the whole plot wide
open. It's probably why he has the orange stripe now. For heroism." She
meant it but the middling dark small man blushed a bit.

After
a few seconds he spoke, sounding normal enough.

"All
I did was run away."

Tiera
puffed her cheeks up with air and crossed her eyes. "
All
you did? First,
it was what you were ordered to do, and you escaped to tell our friends. For
several seconds there, nearly half a minute, the entire fate of the world
rested on your shoulders alone. I know that you're invited to
my
next
birthday party at least. Say, just to prevent this from becoming a thing where
we trade old war stories, we were looking for someone to give us a tour? Do you
know how to set that up? I wanted to look at how the heat reclamation is set
up, personally. We should look into waste management too. Not that I want to,
but I have something that might help with it."

The
tiny man, who was cute after a fashion, nodded and stuck something from his
pocket against his throat.

"This
is Jones. I have six dignitaries looking for a tour, gold section, seven. Who's
on that duty?"

There
was a wait, but a female voice came back, about ten seconds later.

"Wistra
here. I can do it. I'm about to go off shift anyway. Call it ten minutes? I'm
in Blue, nine."

"Very
good, thank you." Then he put the device back in his uniform pocket.
"Dead on handy those speaking units. Strictly speaking we're only supposed
to use them on duty, but this is important enough, I think. So... Tiera,"
He looked at her like she was going to hit him, but she nodded. It was her name
after all. "Why do you want waste heat?"

She
explained that quickly enough, though he was impressed that she'd made them
herself. Not that he didn't think she couldn't, he'd just never met anyone that
was a wizard before.

"I'm
not a wizard." That was silly, she was...
her
. She could do a
little, but she wasn't like Tor, or even Timon. She was a fighter really. A
sword swinging ape that was best on the front lines of the local war.

Karina
snorted from behind her, and patted her on the shoulder.

"Aren't
you? I'm pretty sure that by anyone's definition your whole family is a
nest
of wizards. Tiny Taman is a Wizard. If the others aren't, it's probably
because they just haven't bothered yet."

Her
brother the Prince was no help, even if they were supposed to be friends. He
looked down at her and gave a lazy and almost bored look. It was fake, and
probably courtly.

"The
Lairdgren Group was going on about you earlier, wondering if
they
were
good enough for you to bother joining them.
That
says something there,
doesn't it? I can't do more than make copies with a template. I only tried that
because Tor kept pestering me to. Talking about all the gold I could
save..."

He
looked over her shoulder, to see a young looking girl coming toward them. Jones
was in his mid-twenties, but Wistra was about fourteen or so. When she saw who
was there she bowed, on a ship or not.

"I'm...
here to give a tour?"

That
was enough for Jones to cover where they could go, which was anyplace not near
an airlock or the bridge. What Tiera really wanted was to start with the heat
banking system and work back to the food units. When that got explained, the
woman looked troubled for a while then moved to do just that. It involved a lot
of walking, but people needed exercise, so that was all to the good. They ended
up all going, since the ship was large enough that doing anything else was
foolish at the moment. Karina and Alphonse simply weren't going to find anyone,
as spread out as they were.

The
whole thing was fascinating, and she was able to find out how gravity was made,
which was actually very interesting and subtle. Light was a field, so once you
got that it was easy to make, really. Lightning was the same, she'd been told,
though nothing she made had anything to do with that. Gravity was different,
but simple enough once she got the idea. It was literally just information that
told you to go in a certain direction. Like a flight field. Even better, it
could be limited in space, so that what she did on the first floor of a
building wouldn't have to effect the second, if she didn't want to.

She'd
been a little worried that she might make the moon lopsided that way and make
the orbit funny. Over time at least, if enough amulets were in use. It would be
a pretty easy build really. She was still going to grow it using her new
technique. Two or three hours a day was way easier to do than one hour a day
for a month.

She
tapped the large block in front of her, which was a red color, but not hot at
all. Inside it was filled with heat... It danced and shifted, but if someone were
to simply tell it to stop, or for that matter to start, in a virtual particle
field like this... Then they wouldn't need to worry about it at all, would
they?

That
made her feel bad for a minute, because Tor had missed that. So had Count
Lairdgren. That probably meant she really was a wizard, didn't it? At least if
it worked. She could test that though, with only a few hours of work. She
decided to wait though and follow the lines back to the food unit, and,
naturally, everything else on the ship. It was a big problem, but one that
could be dealt with pretty easily.

The
dining room was actually decently nice. It wasn't royal palace fancy, but it
had clean tables, lots of wooden looking chairs and cloths on the top surfaces,
like a nice restaurant. People were eating, but they were all crewmen and
women. About half were female now, she saw. That was good, but it only happened
because Austra had been devastated and people were willing to leave their homes
in order to survive.

Wistra
guided them all to the food unit and patted the top of it, fondly.

"This
is my new best friend. You can select menu items or make your own food. It's
clean and good, but we use dirt and rock to make it. I know that sounds like it
would taste nasty, but it doesn't! Here..." She started to turn toward the
thing, the pearl body of it shining a little in the bright room light. Then she
made a rather nice looking pie. Lemon custard with heavy beaten cream on top.
The presentation wasn't perfect, but it was good enough. Any wife in her
kitchen would have been right to feel happy with it.