Kingdom of Stars (The Young Ancients: Timon Book Three) (17 page)

"Then Tor would have been better, wouldn't he? He's the
master of this stuff. I mainly just use his work with minor variations."

That got another long and drawn out silence, if not as
intense this time.

"No... Torrance Purple
is
Green. That's a
handicap in a lot of ways.
You
don't have Rhetistics at all. Those two
sets placed in Purple, they had to have harmed his mind. You're a wild card, at
least to Remy. Powerful, potentially strong and deadly already." Then
there was a big grin and a shrug. "I could be wrong however. Twenty-three
percent of the time on this."

There was that at least and Timon smiled back, deciding not
to bother the man any more on the topic for a while, but he kept going anyway.

"So, it has to come for you. Especially since the last
two times it failed. That will press it into action. It would be best, if the
goal is its own destruction, to wait for you to age, but it probably can't let
itself do that, not knowing what you may end up being. My best guess at this
time is that it will work its way into the space program and try to confront
you here. If it hasn't already. That or it will try to lure you to the surface
somehow. It would be easier than building a ship for it and attacking. Any
contact with the ground will give it a chance to connect with you."

After a moment of silence Timon nodded.

"It could also take hostages, to try and force my hand.
Make me come to it?"

"No. Not likely at all. If the reason I have worked out
is correct, then it has to already have worked out that you wouldn't allow
anything like that to be a factor. No, it will come for you, or use a subtle
trick to cause you to move. How soon is the only question. This current trouble
isn't politically important to it, as far as I know, so it has all the time in
the world. You'll live for several hundred years at least, possibly far longer.
It has time, but again, might not be
allowed
to let that happen. They're
close to being unstoppable killers, once a target is selected. Luckily they
don't often do that at all."

Well, that was good to know. At least it was probably just
going to be between him and Remy. Now all he had to do was figure out how to
not die.

"All right. Thanks for the help. If you come up with
anything else, let me know? If nothing else we might as well give Remy what it
wants." He smiled at Monroe, who was nodding while looking at a readout
across the small space.

"That's very kind of you. I'll gladly help with the
idea. It might..." There was a shrug again. Just like the one that Tor
always used. "It could be months, or even years before it really tries for
you. Or minutes. That part is too hard to factor. We should finish the quelling
device for the micro-plasma soon. Your death is to be avoided, but letting the
world die, burning from the inside out, is too."

"Got it, don't be a lazy little cry-baby, and make sure
my work gets done. I'll run up a test field now. It might take a few days. A
week even. If so, make sure I get food and water every six hours or so? Walked
to the restroom too. Otherwise I could die."

"Making magic is that dangerous?"

"At times. The longer you go, the more likely it is
that you'll never come back. That isn't such a big risk for most people, but
Tor has pushed himself to very near death, and if I'm going to match him, I
have to be ready to do the same. It's going to suck."

"Ah. I'll see to those things then. Good you told
me."

Timon walked out without saying anything else, trying to
seem focused and stoic, rather than a bit scared. Not about Remy, who he was
almost sure would kill him, eventually. Oh, it might go the other way around,
and he could win. If the Ancient thing had chosen wisely enough. Not that it
wasn't scary to think about
that
.

The idea that his best chance to win was that his enemy had
chosen him for that reason well enough... Not nearly as comforting as it could
have been.

It was something, though.

If he could make the device to stop the micro-plasma, and
did it well enough, the first time, adding in the bits that he hadn't spoken
about to Monroe, then he had to make billions of them. He couldn't see a way of
doing that without dying. Not really. It would take months of constant work for
him to manage it. Maybe years. He couldn't
do
that. No one could.

Oh, he got that there was a trick to it, but just because
Tor knew it, that didn't help him and even if it did, even if he could get his
brother to explain it all to him, that didn't mean he was going to be up to the
task, did it?

There it was though. Hanging over him anyway. Worse, he had
a literal deadline, needing to get to it before the killing machine could find
him.

Timon walked back to his quarters and got his communications
device out. It had been days since he talked to Trice and like it or not, she
was his wife. In a way he'd been avoiding her, since she loved Tor, and he
might well have to kill him. Not in anger either, but with a cold dispatch that
would make it all a thousand times worse, in the end. Doing it because leaving
him alive would simply be too dangerous.

Really, he sort of wanted to hesitate, or pretend that doing
it in a few days would be good enough. He even tried to work out what time it
would be in the Capital, because calling too late, or early, would be rude.
There was no luck there, since it was just after two in the afternoon according
to his watch, after he did a little math, working back from Printer time, where
it was set.

Before he could lose his nerve, he hit the sigil for her
name.

Less than half a minute later a woman's voice came, sounding
exactly the same as it had before.

"Patricia Baker here." It was a bit curt sounding,
considering most of the people that would be calling her were probably going to
be nobles. It paid to be polite with people you didn't know, after all.

Really, it just paid to be nice in general, even if you
didn't mean it.

"Hello Trice. It's Tim." He was about to go into
the whole story for her, but she actually made a happy sound then, distracting
him. It was just a chuckle, but a pleasant one.

"Oh, good! Holly called in tears the other day,
thinking that you'd hate her now, for kicking you out of her school. I didn't
let her off the hook, but... What else could she have done? Where are you,
anyway? No one will tell me much."

Timon could see that. It wasn't a great situation after all,
not for anyone. Still, he could almost bet the Remy knew where he was, so there
wouldn't be a lot of point of hiding it from Trice, would there?

"I'm in space. In orbit around the center of the
planet. There seems to be an Ancient Assassin after me. Pretty near
unstoppable. On the good side, Monroe, he's a cloned Ancient that came over to
our side, because someone asked him to, anyway, he thinks that Remy is looking
to die, which makes the whole thing sound a lot less dangerous than it really
is."

There was a single beat, about three seconds long, "you
can take him? In a fight I mean? This Remy?"

Timon could have lied, but didn't bother, forcing his voice
to sound chipper anyway.

"Not a chance in hell. Not yet at least. This could be
a long term thing. I... Really, it will probably kill me. It can change shape
to look like anyone, is pretty much indestructible, and I don't think it
can
just quit, or anything sensible like that."

"But... I just got married. It will make me look bad if
you die after a month. There has to be some way to handle this. Count Lairdgren
or Brown..."

Timon nodded, thinking to himself for a bit, then realizing
that he was supposed to actually speak out loud, like a
real
person.

"I'll be chatting with everyone I can about this, you
can bet. It's just another thing, and nothing for you to worry about. I mean,
from what I understand, this is a fight between us two and no matter what else
happens, it will stay that way. So you don't have to be concerned about
personal attack. Not from this thing."

"
Oh
?" The voice suddenly sounded a little
snappish again. Trice was good at things like that, going back and forth in her
mood suddenly. It was a skill she had. That or a mental illness. Possibly both.
"Do you really think that my first concern was for my safety? This isn't
fair. You never get anything good at all, do you? First there was all that
stuff with Countess Allan and the Larval, then Rodriguez, then business dropped
off due to the war and you get
attacked,
and kicked out of school for
it. It's like the universe has a grudge against us or something."

Trice had been part of her own troubles that were as bad, or
worse than Timon's, so he got the idea she was going for. He was also bright
enough to realize she was fishing for him to reassure her of her own place in
things.

"I got
you
though, didn't I? That goes a long
way toward fixing the rest. As for business, it's doing fine and picking up
again already, now that the plague is dying down. It was that, not the war,
that slowed things down. Well, you've been handling the books and scheduling,
so you tell me if it's still all that down."

Trice ignored the part about business altogether and focused
on herself. Like Timon had intended her to.

"
I
make up for a lot of it? You mean the girl
you got stuck with, to help me out of a bad marriage agreement? It's sweet of you
to say, but..."

Tim snorted. Then he chuckled a bit.

"Wait, that
is
sweet of me, isn't it? Why how
could I ever think that a pretty, intelligent and well connected woman is a
prize? I must be delirious." He made it sound happy and realized that it
was close enough to true even. Not the delirium part either. His wife was a
catch.

His catch too.

"Well, I'm the lucky one, you know. After all, I
have
seen the books and we are doing a lot better. I live in a palace as my first
house and you aren't exactly hard on the eyes. A bit short still." She
actually gasped after a few seconds, but then made a funny sound as she
reconsidered things. "You're growing though and will actually end up
taller than me, so I can live with that. We can call it an investment in the
future. If you don't die, I mean."

"There is that." Tim felt his smile fade, but
there didn't seem to be a lot he could do about it.

Trice had an idea. One that was stupid. Or, at least Timon
knew it was. She didn't know about the corrupt Cordes yet though. She couldn't.
There was too much chance she'd let it slip to Tor, and that might go very
badly for them all.

"Tor will help you. If he knows about this. You don't
even have to ask, I bet, so it won't hurt your pride, after the troubles
between you."

She was, of course, right. Tor would help him. They were
brothers, before and after everything else and where they came from that
actually meant something.

"Oh, don't imagine that I hadn't thought of that
already. The thing there is that Tor will be in danger if he helps me too much.
Remy Seventeen would have to take him out, since he's too dangerous. The only
way to keep him safe is to largely keep him out of it. I'll... Ask for some
advice though. I have another project that I need help with anyway. It might be
related." Now he was just being placating and trying to make her feel
better, but it wasn't a lie, he realized. It was just a plan that he hadn't
fully formed yet.

Getting help from the enemy like that, without letting them
know about it.

That was going to take skill.

Trice let out a gust of air, as if she'd been holding it in.
Probably because she thought that even bringing up Tor might start a fight. It
hadn't yet, but it
could
. After all, his wife loved his brother far more
than she did him. That wasn't exactly something that made him happy.

Almost as if reading his mind she whispered the words. They
came from the device so quietly that he doubted she meant for him to really
hear them. He did though.

"I love you. Come home safe."

"I love you too." He didn't promise anything.

There was no way he could. Not and make it believable.

The deep trance he forced himself into wasn't that hard to
maintain though he was aware that someone came in regularly and helped him eat,
drink and go to the restroom as he'd requested. It was a vague thing, that felt
so far away that Tim didn't bother feeling ashamed or embarrassed. Not even
when he understood finally that it was two of the commoner girls that were
doing it all, instead of one of the men or Monroe.

The focus was far too intense and deep for him to worry
about trivial things like modesty. The strangest part came when the two girls
gave him a shower. They didn't do anything untoward with him, otherwise, but
the in-depth washing and scrubbing wasn't exactly needed yet. He'd only been
under a few days. It wasn't until he surfaced, days later, that he understood
it all. The two little perverts had been ogling his body.

Then he let that go. If they'd been royal women he probably
would have been molested outright, or something. Or worse, royal men. He could
let it pass, he decided. They were both cute enough after all, and weren't
actually doing anything wrong.

Since it was what he had to work with, Timon had managed to
get an iron nail from a food packing crate, and put the test field on that. It
felt strong enough, and seemed like it would do what was needed. It didn't have
a glowing sigil on it, but the whole thing gave off a blue light, since he
didn't want to lose the thing or have someone confuse it with some other, more
normal, nail.

He was, he knew, still in a very deep trance as he rose. His
first job was to go to the restroom, after drinking as much water as he
comfortably could. Doing anything else would be asking for trouble, later.
Then, after he took care of those things, he walked to the lab wondering if
Monroe would have anything ready yet or not. The black man stood inside,
wearing his normal coat, and didn't seem to be doing anything else at all. He
just stood. Waiting.

Tim held out the nail.

"Hey." His voice cracked from disuse. That meant
he had to clear it several times in order to make himself sound normal.
"Try this. Just tap it to start the field."

The man went slowly, moving without asking however, and set
the nail across the room. Then he turned to Timon and waved him to the far
door.

"No need for us to die here, so stand back. I have a
containment field set up for testing. Will the magical device need to be in
with it?"

Timon shook his head.

"No, I don't think so. It should send the instructions
even if it's in a shielded area. If the field is near it, then it will shut it
down. Or at least prevent it from moving around." Hopefully.

The man smoothed his white lab coat, which he only wore
there, and then made it happen, the softly glowing pink material spreading out
into a box that seemed to be made all of glass. Then, without asking, Monroe
walked across the room and very carefully touched the long but squared nail. It
turned from blue to green, signaling the field was active.

At first, for about twenty seconds, it looked like nothing
had happened at all. Then, slowly, the pink turned orange and faded into
nothing.

Monroe smiled, which didn't mean that much, but he also
moved to clap Tim on the shoulder.

"Excellent. We need to run more tests, of course, I'll
set that up." Except, naturally, that he couldn't.

All the micro-plasma had shut down when the field was
activated, even the stuff held behind the special shielding that it was kept
in. Rather than seeming upset the man looked amazed, for a moment.

"Very, very good! What's the range on this field? About
twenty feet?"

Timon had to look around to understand that guess. It was
about how far the glow would carry. That had nothing to do with the actual
device though. That was just decoration. A bit of prettiness done because it
cost him no more than a little extra effort.

"No, it should cover a few miles. It's a strong field.
The information sort of goes where it's needed though, it doesn't blanket
everything. That would take too much power. Like the communications
devices?" It was what he'd based the idea on, at any rate. Ideally one
device could be made strong enough to cover the whole world, but that wasn't
happening. Not with him doing it.

"Oh? That's a very nice range then. Now we need to work
out how to make enough of them and spread them around. You seemed to have an
idea?"

"Yes. Not one I love, but it might work. I just have to
do it right."

If he could do it at all.

He'd need privacy for it, he thought, since there was no way
it would be an easy thing, which meant going back to his chambers, and then
checking the time. It was four in the morning, Capital time, and even earlier
in Lairdgren. That meant waiting at least. Also waiting on getting some food,
since the kitchen wasn't going to be open on the ship and helping yourself was
frowned on, he'd heard. That meant he had time for a nap.

People didn't really get how exhausting building could be.
It just seemed like a person closed their eyes and suddenly there was magic to
be had, but that wasn't it at all. It took tremendous focus, clarity of
thought, and holding an abstract idea at the front of your mind the whole time,
while linked to a physical object. That meant being awake for it all. It was
mind numbing at best, or would be, if a person didn't focus hard enough. It
burned energy though, the whole time and wasn't a replacement for sleep. So
functionally, the six days that he'd just taken to build that novel device had
been totally without rest for him. Even though he'd sat on his bed the entire
time.

Tim drank more water, and then rested, his eyes closing,
almost on their own. He planned to sleep for eight hours, or until someone woke
him, but it was the second thing that happened, with Denno Brown knocking at
his chamber door. Or more exactly, just walking in, looking fit, tidy, and
better looking that Timon ever would.

For his part, Timon opened his eyes and rolled to the left
before the man could kill him. Brown didn't move at least, except to hold his
hands up, to show they were empty.

"It's just me, Denno."

Timon was, not very artfully, crouched on the floor, trying
to turn his shield on while pulling a force lance. He stopped and read Denno
first, and found that it certainly seemed like
him
at least, which got
him to stand up, feeling a bit mentally fuzzy.

"Oh. Hello. I figured you might be Remy."

The man nodded, as if that just made sense.

"Orange came and got me, she wanted to do a supply run,
so we offloaded a lot of rations from Austra. We also changed most of the crew.
Captain Matheson decided that the best we could do was to make it all happen in
one trip and take off from unexpected locations. We used the main space port in
Vagus for it. We have the new ports being watched. I have to head back in an
hour, but haven't been in space personally for, oh, the better part of six
hundred years? I miss it." Then, as if invited, he sat carefully on the
edge of the bed. It was a tangled mess, because of the sprawling and tumbling
out that Tim had done, which made the space seem untidy.

"Ah."

He was still waking up, but the older man, who only looked
to be in his mid-twenties at the moment, did the speaking for him.

It was the kind of thing he excelled at.

"Monroe mentioned that you, for the first time in
history, have managed a way to artificially control micro-plasma? Nasty stuff.
Outlawed by the treaty, but that won't stop the others, I don't think. Not now.
That's an impressive feat. I don't suppose you have a way to stop nuclear
devices yet?"

Timon shook his head. He hadn't even been thinking about
that. Why, he didn't know. Not really. It was as if they had to be left on the
table.

"Not really. Hopefully that won't seem a good option to
anyone. Plagues, micro-plasma, nano swarms, those can take out people and leave
the planet fine. The large bombs... not so much."

Brown nodded pensively, his fine features looking slightly
bland.

"I agree. The problem is that Cordes and Gray might do
anything, in their desperation. Well, I didn't come to bother you with these
things. Do you need anything? I can send it up on the next trip, possibly, or
better, send it to Orange and have her work out how to send it. We aren't
taking your safety for granted here. We know the score and won't make it too
easy for Remy to get to you." He smiled and then shook his head sadly.
"This isn't good, Tim. You need to move from here soon. Any ideas where to
go?"

Timon nearly told him that letting him know that was
foolish, but it probably didn't really matter, did it?

"Well, first the new lunar base, since we need to start
work on it. A full colony. Then I'll grab, or maybe build, a ship and head out
from there. See some of the other planets, if I can work that out? Remy can
follow me to the edge of the solar system if it wants." Not that Tim was
going to do that at all, and knew it. Well, the new settlement wasn't a bad
plan, but the rest wasn't on the table. Not with a war on.

Brown went misty eyed anyway.

"I'm very sorry to hear that, Tim. It isn't what I
would have picked for you. I actually hoped,
still
hope, that you'd consider
eventually taking over Austra from me. We need some fresh thinking there.
People like you already, too."

He snorted.

"Not a problem, get Taman to do it. If she will. She's
sweet, and smart. Too young yet, but if you didn't mean 'have you take over in
a few hundred years' then you're an idiot anyway. Provided I can't just change
things, I mean. With Remy."

"You can't negotiate. It doesn't want anything, except
for you dead. Unless Monroe is right, and then it wants you dead,
and
to
die itself. That won't help you a lot."

He knew that. It was hard not to, since everyone kept saying
it. Tim would have normally been a little insulted, if everyone had been
assuming that he was just going to die like that, but this once it seemed like
it was the sensible course of action.

To die.

Horribly, and
alone
, but in a way that could be
verified.

"Well, first we need a tracking system. One with
pictures, like what you use in Austra. I'm trying to work that out, using
magic."

Brown stiffened and rolled his eyes, but wisely kept his
mouth shut. He didn't believe in magic. Worse, even while riding through space
in a magic craft, wearing clothing made of the stuff, and talking about a new
way to stop micro-plasma that worked on the principles, the man
couldn't
believe it and never would.

It had been made a part of him, thousands of years before.
Why, no one had ever really explained to Tim. It wasn't a big deal, except that
the man had to try and rationalize it all to himself, which had to be getting
really hard to do, about then. He was literally surrounded by it at the moment,
after all.

It made sense suddenly, the offer to have Tim take over his
land. With Count Lairdgren it had been easier to see, but this was real too.
Green was tired and barely hanging on to his place in the world. His mind was
going and sooner or later, he'd vanish into insanity. Oh, it would take another
thousand years or so, but it was going to happen. He'd seen too much, and borne
the pain of suffering in ways that someone like Timon just couldn't even
imagine.

However it had worked out, reality had been kinder to Denno
Brown. Oh, he'd suffered loss and pain too, no doubt, but it hadn't been enough
to nearly break him. Maybe he was tougher than Green. Or perhaps it was just
that he'd gotten luckier.

Still, in that moment, thinking about magic, Timon
understood what the man had to have been thinking.

Sighing a bit, Timon spoke.

"You think that the future of Earth is going to be in
the new technology of Noram, don't you?"

Denno looked slightly shocked, but after a few moments let
his head fall, his face going along with it.

"I do. I really do, Timon. How can we not use it?
It's-" A medium dark brown hand gestured around them, as if indicating
everything, not just the ship. "It's the perfect solution. It hardly takes
resources at all from the planet and allows for things that we haven't had in
hundreds or even thousands of years. We can't afford to keep things as they
have been, with an option like this right there for the taking. It's time for
the old age to pass and the new one to begin." It sounded tired and a bit
sad, but the Ancient shrugged and stood up from the edge of the bed, so that he
could pace.

Timon watched him closely, but for once couldn't work out
what the man would say next.

"I can't survive in that world though. I can barely
say
the word, magic. I can't say it and mean it. I have to think of stage shows and
illusions even to mouth the word. I can see it all around me, feel it against
my skin, and I can't..." Grasping at the air in frustration, he held
nothing, which was the point. "Make sense of it. We have to use it, to
make it the new way of Earth, and perhaps even this part of the galaxy, and I
can't
be part of it. So someone is going to have to take over for me, so my people,
my children, won't be held back. There aren't that many options left now."

Timon thought about it for a while and then nodded.

"Well, I'll see to that then, if I'm alive to do it
when the time comes. I can't let my favorite uncle down, can I?" He meant it,
but Denno just looked sad.

"Children shouldn't have to worry about things like
this. Or killers coming for them."

"No one should, but it happens and we either deal with
it or lose everything. Take your pick, because I don't think there's a good
third option."