The Galactic Mage Page 4

  When they were done with lunch, they both had work to do before the landing party was ready to lift off, but they promised to have dinner together later on that night.She didn’t want to be alone her first evening back aboard the ship.

  Roberto went to finish prepping the landing craft for takeoff, and Orli went to the small tent she’d been using to store plant and soil samples. Half-heartedly, she began to pack up her equipment, stuffing it into shipping crates with far less care than she normally would. It was depressing work, but mindless, and after a time her thoughts wandered to the mystery of the Andalian circumstance.

  It was very hard to believe after all. The whole disappearance thing. The examination teams truly hadn’t found a clue. It was frightening really. Of all the scientists that had come down here to have a look around, teams from over twenty crews, she was nearly the only one with anything to bring back aboard ship. And none of her samples had anything to do with the vanished populace. All she had were plants and dirt. The forensics teams had found nothing. The architects and engineers found nothing. The metallurgists found nothing. It was the same for everyone. Not a thing. Not one molecule of anything anywhere to suggest that there had ever been human beings living on Andalia at all. Not one single thing.

  And it was this total lack of evidence that had started people talking amongst the fleet, talking about a trap, an alien trick meant to bring them here like this. Much chatter was being bandied about the fleet regarding suspicions of varying kinds. Some were beginning to suspect that there had never been any Andalians at all. For many, given the planet’s absence of humanity, the perfect likeness to the people of Earth began to seem clear proof of the existence of some elaborate trap instead, as if their own images had been conscripted as part of some galactic ruse. How unlikely had it seemed when the Andalians were first discovered? Just their existence was statistically farfetched. How absurd was it that they could be so like humans in almost every way?

  The answer was: very absurd. And now, with no evidence of such a populace on Andalia, the suspicion that there existed some form of trickery had begun to take root throughout the fleet. Five short days after landing, the entire focus of a decade’s journey had begun to fall apart. Such was the anxiety amongst the crews and, frankly, the anxiety of an officer corps that found itself with no direction anymore, that the admiral had called for a council of the fleet. The ships’ captains and all the administrative brass were to assemble in person aboard the admiral’s ship: the fleet’s mission had to be redefined.

  Contemplating all of it, frustrated by it all, and not wanting to go back to the ship anyway, Orli stuffed the last of her equipment into a large plastic crate and clamped it shut. She turned and plopped down on its lid, putting her face into her hands. She did not move until they came and nearly dragged her to the small spacecraft that would carry her away.

  Once on board the Aspect, she morosely went about cleaning up and stowing the equipment she’d taken down to Andalia. When she finally had everything back in its proper place, it was time for dinner and her agreed-upon meeting with Roberto in the ship’s mess hall two decks up.

  As she moved through the chow line, all she could hear were people talking about the “Hostile trick.” She was trying to focus on how much she hated being back onboard, but by the time she’d gone all the way through the line, the endless chatter on the topic got her worrying about it too—not so much about the “trick” itself, but about what the fleet would do. When she found Roberto, she sat down next to him and asked what he thought about it.

  “So you think it was really just a great big lie?” she asked, nibbling at a carrot she’d probably grown herself. “You think we got set up?”

  “By who, the Hostiles?” He loaded his mouth with semi-synthetic potatoes and spoke around the food. “Nah, I don’t think so. I mean, why would they? They haven’t attacked Earth yet as far as we know. And if the point was to lure us out here, well, it’s thirty years to pay off if you track it from first contact to now. Seems like an awful lot of time to set up an ambush to waylay—what—a thousand people? I mean, what’s the point?”

  “I don’t know, maybe they needed some slaves or something. Or maybe our genetic material.”

  “Hmm,” he said, his eyes lighting up. “You mean like breeding stock?” He contemplated that for a moment, his enthusiasm for the idea growing with such speed that he interrupted her reply. “Oh my God. That’s it! That’s the answer. Breeding stock is exactly what this is all about. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner.”

  Orli looked at him dubiously. “What?” She almost hated to ask.

  “Seriously. They did all of this for me.”

  “Who did? The Hostiles?”

  “Yeah. The Hostiles are actually hot space chicks. They needed some of my sweet Latin love, baby! This whole thing was just a plot to get me here. I should have seen it sooner. It’s so obvious. Of course they would wait for that. Totally worth a thirty-year scheme in my opinion.”

  “It would be.” She laughed. “God! You’re such a pig. And you do realize they would have started their plan to get you like, what, six years before you were born, right?”

  “Maybe they can see into the future.”

  She feigned total exasperation. “You’re like a child. Can’t you stay focused for two seconds?”

  “No. But you love me anyway.” He gave her his most charming look before shoveling in another bite.

  She tilted her head and let out a slightly disgusted sound. “Yes. I do,” she admitted, causing him to grin triumphantly before she added, “But you might want to wipe the gravy off your face before the alien women arrive.”

  His smile turned meek for a moment as he grabbed a napkin and dabbed his chin, but the lasciviousness came quickly back. “Hey, what about the men?” he asked. “This could work out for you too. They could have alien guys, you know, like drones or something. Rough, manly types, with grizzled beards and dimpled chins, all pecks and abs and stuff.”

  “Wouldn’t that sort of negate their need to bring you out here? I mean, why would they want to downgrade?”

  “Ouch,” he said. “That was wrong.”

  “Just pointing out the flaw in your reasoning.”

  “Don’t mess with a good story, damn it. Try to play along.”

  “Fine,” she said, eyes twinkling. “As long as these drones are romantic and intelligent… I’m in!” She laughed.

  “Leave it to you to screw up a perfectly good fantasy with crap like that,” he said. But he was laughing as he spoke. “You and your damned old fashioned ideas.”

  She beamed proudly back at him. “Yep.”

  “Well, either way,” he said, “here’s to breeding stock.” He held up his cup in a toast to rampant intergalactic sex.

  She giggled. “To breeding stock.” She clinked her cup against his and they shared a few moments playing off the depravity. But after a while, the conversation inevitably drifted back to the matters at hand. “So, seriously,” she said, finishing off her standard issue chocolate chip cookie, “what do you think is going to happen next? Think we’ll head home since there aren’t any Hostiles for us to fight? Because if we don’t go home…,” she hesitated, hating to even say the words. “I overheard people actually suggesting we go out to find them, that it’s our duty to the Earth to search them out. That could take—that could take the rest of our lives. I don’t want to stay on this ship forever. I can’t. Can you?”

  “Hell no,” he said, leaning over to a neighboring diner and asking if he was going to eat his cookie too. Apparently he was, so Roberto returned his full attention to Orli. “I don’t even want to be on this damn thing as long as I have been. Man, if I’d had any idea what my mom was signing us up for, I’d have kicked her ass.”

  “You were fourteen. How could you know?”

  “Yeah, well, I’m twenty-four now, ain’t I?” He made no attempt to disguise the bitterness that came suddenly to his voice.

  Orli rema
ined silent. Roberto’s mother had died two years ago of a brain tumor; he couldn’t even be mad at her anymore, though at times he still was. Orli was his family now.

  “Well,” Roberto went on after taking a moment to let his emotions subside, “I hope the captain doesn’t talk them into going out to find the Hostiles, even though I know he’s going try. He’s been itching for a fight since the day we left—Hell, probably since the day he was born. I bet he’d stay out here forever if he thought it guaranteed he gets his war. I almost feel sorry for him, poor bastard. If the council votes to go home, he might not get his wish.”

  “Well, there’s no mystery in how he’s going to vote.”

  “Nope. None.”

  They sat in silence for a while, suddenly melancholy, but apparently the young woman sitting next to Orli, Ensign Paulson, wasn’t getting to her cookie fast enough, so Roberto reached over and offered to help her out. She frowned and raised an eyebrow at him, pulling her chin back against her throat as she moved her hand protectively over her dessert. “I don’t think so,” she said. She turned to Orli and gave her a look that seemed to say, “How can you eat with this guy?”

  Orli shrugged and smiled back. “It’s part of his charm. He grows on you after a while.”

  “So do hemorrhoids.”

  Both women laughed, and, after a moment, Roberto did too.

  The announcement came over the ship’s intercom a few minutes later: “All docking personnel, return to your stations. Last resource teams are inbound. Drive teams and engineering, report to stations, ignition at oh-four hundred.”

  “Damn,” said Orli. “There goes any chance of one last trip planet side. God. I almost wish I’d never gone down there. Now I have to think about it for another ten years. I’m not sure I can take it.”

  “It’s only seven if we go straight back,” said Roberto. “The detour cost us three years, remember?”

  She groaned. “Seven or ten, what’s the difference? I’ll be an old hag by the time we get home. Twenty-nine or thirty-one. Who gives a shit? I hate this ship.” She got up and stormed out of the mess hall, leaving her tray behind.

  Roberto watched her go and sadly shook his head. He understood her pain; he knew it well, hated to see her miserable. And despite all his best efforts too. He sighed and stacked her tray onto his.

  “You better hope we ain’t headed out to find them,” said the woman whose cookie he’d tried to commandeer. “She ‘s going to be even more pissed off if that’s the case. She needs to get on her old man to make sure that doesn’t happen. That’s what she needs to do.”

  He nodded as he got up. “It’ll take more than her old man to stop it, though. Colonel Pewter is only one council vote. The rest, well, fear, bravado and ten years of boredom can make for some crazy shit when you mix it all together. And Asad ain’t the only buckaroo in the fleet.”

  “Oh, you aren’t lying about that,” she agreed. “Not at all.”

  Chapter 4

  Altin awoke the next morning much as he had the one before, aching and in pain. He knew blindly teleporting his seeing stones at the moon was extremely inefficient, and he began to fear that even with his vast power it was not going to be enough. To make any more progress he’d have to enlist a whole horde of magicians. He’d need fifteen or twenty more teleporters, at least two or three seers and a conduit. What was worse, he’d need teleporters that were N-class or higher, which meant it wasn’t going to happen. The only teleporter he knew above an N was Jacob the Stick, a two hundred-year-old mage credited with the establishment of the Transportation Guild Service and who would be the first to tell Altin that his quest was pointless. But Altin didn’t need the TGS’s founder to tell him what he already knew. At best he could scrounge up a couple of G’s and an H or two, maybe get lucky and find an L, but if Altin’s progress was any gauge, and it was, he being a Z and all, that combination still couldn’t get it done. They might help him double his distance, even triple it, but he’d been doubling and tripling distances himself over the last two years and that hadn’t gotten him noticeably closer either. No, he needed something else. But what?

  He groaned and gripped his head between his hands. He could feel his pulse throbbing at his temples and a wave of nausea washed over him as he sat upright in his bed. Dealing with the massive distance to Luria was really beginning to take its toll, and he still didn’t know how far away it was. All he knew was that the effort of trying made his head feel as if it would burst every morning now. He felt as if he’d stayed up all night drinking heavily from kegs of ale and rum, draining them entirely by himself.

  Thinking of ale and rum made him think of old Nipper, which in turn made him think of breakfast, as Nipper would certainly be in the kitchen right about now. Maybe that would help. The keep’s weathered steward would have something for his head, and Kettle, the castle’s matronly cook, would have something for his stomach as well. Inspired, he climbed out of bed and went to clean himself up a bit before heading downstairs.

  The flagstones were cold on his bare feet, chilling his soft skin as he made his way across his room intent on the basin of water sitting on an ancient dresser near the wall. A gothic window near the dresser let in the bright sunlight of a clear spring morning, and the scent of pine came from the forest on the chill breath of a westerly breeze. Altin dabbed a towel into the clean water in the basin, changed sometime early this morning by silent servants who trod on mouse-like feet and who had been changing water and bringing bread every morning since he’d come here eleven years ago. Reflexively he looked to the shabby plank table at the room’s center and sure enough there was his loaf, as it always was, as it likely always would be. He still wasn’t quite sure which servant brought it every day. There was probably more than one, but he figured most likely it was Kettle, or maybe that little squeaker, Pernie, though he doubted the six-year-old could contain her hyper nature long enough to be stealthy for such a task. Whoever it was, it was a convenient fact, and allowed him the freedom to go days without having to leave his rooms.

  He lifted up his robe and sponged out the more generally offensive areas beneath and was about to head down the spiral stairs for a real breakfast when he heard the low rumble of a dragon’s call. Since there was only one dragon that ever came anywhere near Calico Castle, he went to the window to send a telepathic “good morning” to his friend.

  Taot soared over the treetops to the west and glided low towards the tower. He spotted Altin’s little man-head sticking out of the window and flew towards it eagerly, swooping up at the last minute and breathing a cloud of sulfuric fumes through the window by way of a draconic joke. Altin coughed, stumbling back into the room gagging and waving his hands in front of his face as his eyes watered and he choked on the noxious gas. The dragon sent a telepathic version of reptilian laughter, followed by a stone-shaking roar of merriment. Apparently Taot was in a playful mood. Unfortunately, dragon humor did not come without considerable consequence.

  Altin staggered back to the window and thrust his head out into the cool morning air again, gasping for breath. Fortunately, the breeze brought some relief, and soon he was recovered enough to watch the mighty creature soar across the plains in pursuit of a herd of elk now sprinting for their lives. Altin watched as the dragon rose high above the ground then swooped low and gracefully plucked a fat buck from the rest of the herd as easily as Altin might pluck an apple from a barrel he walked by. Taot landed in the grass and immediately set to devouring the still thrashing beast, tearing strands of dripping red from it ravenously until it moved no more. Altin grimaced and turned away.

  Taot’s grisly feast wasn’t quite how Altin would have chosen to be reminded that he too was in need of food, but he was reminded just the same. Having already forgiven the dragon’s sulfuric sense of humor, he sent Taot a message of warmth and affection and then headed downstairs ready for a breakfast of his own.

  As always, the morning kitchen bustled with activity. Nipper was preparing a huge boar for t
onight’s dinner while Pernie watched the carnage with awe and reverence. Occasionally she emitted an “eww” or “yuck” as the old man worked and yet still found herself compelled to reach for the knife and ask if she could have a turn. She’d clearly forgotten the broom she was supposed to be using, and it now hung limply in her hands, dipping dangerously close to the fire. Altin decided to keep an eye on that, having had enough of fires for a while. But at least she hadn’t noticed him.

  Stout Kettle, culinary queen, mistress of the kitchens and temperamental master of both frying pan and rolling pin, was busy rolling out the dough for yet another loaf of her wondrous bread—six-time winner of first prize at the county fair and more than partly responsible for the extra layer of belly flesh that had begun to form around Altin’s otherwise slender frame. He walked into the kitchen and she immediately came to him and pinched his cheek hard enough to redden it for several minutes to come. “Mornin’, sweetie,” she said. “There’s a good boy. Can’t be out castin’ yer spells all night without havin’ a good meal fer it after, can ya? Sit ya down and I’ll fetch ya some vittles fit fer a king.”

  Altin groaned and rubbed his face. This was why he avoided the kitchen most of the time. However, she wasn’t exaggerating as to the quality of the meal, and a few moments later found a heaping tray of fried pheasant’s eggs, ham and homemade goat’s cheese sitting before him, along with the warm, homey smell of a loaf of Kettle’s bread not two minutes out of the oven, just waiting on some butter and a knife.

  “Ya look like a pig’s arse what sat in a sty,” commented Nipper from across the kitchen as Altin dug into his meal. Apparently he’d given in to Pernie’s unyielding persistence and stood rubbing his tired old back as the little girl stabbed gleefully, an act both ghastly and unappetizing, into the body of the boar with Nipper’s knife.