[This is a chapter from my latest novel, a sequel to The Fall of Doc Future and Skybreaker’s Call. The start is here, and links to my other work here. It can be read on its own, but contains spoilers for those two books. I try to post new chapters about every two weeks, and the next one is planned for around July 25th.]

Previous: Chapter 24

The last tired, frightened Merionian family group entered the large steel shelter, and the two overworked attendants, fur slick from the drizzle, sealed the main hatch. The habitat module was ugly, assembled in a hurry from prefabricated components, but it was solid and airtight, with enough life support to sustain everyone inside.

Blue Sentinel waited for the ready signal, then focused his mind and sent forth his will. A blue glow stretched out from where he hovered to the module and enveloped it, and it began to lift into the air, slowly at first.

And gently.

Merionians were at home underground, but the surface made a lot of them nervous–with added reason these days–and just the idea of flying was enough to send many into whisker-quivering terror. But they endured what they must. So as Blue Sentinel pulled the module with him, up through the clouds into the darkening sky, he did his best to give them a smooth ride.

Out in space, he headed for the transfer zone, where an interplanetary tug would shepherd this module and others on the days-long journey out to the portal area, where the giant interstellar transports made their endless jumps back and forth, taking the Merionian refugees to what had been their first interstellar colony, and would be their new homeworld.

All three billion of them.

The Merionians had long known that the increasing variability of their star would eventually render their planet uninhabitable, and had planned accordingly. But even when the stellar flare storms started arriving years ahead of projections, threatening their evacuation schedule, they had never wavered from their goal: Everyone gets out.

How could he hear their call and not help them, for the years it would take? Intelligent life was rare, each civilization a precious jewel, a candle against the darkness. Earth had other protectors, other preservers, and the Merionians did not. Even so, he would not have been enough, alone.

Habitat delivered, he flew back toward the star. A tiny bright spot detached from the disk and gradually grew closer. He moved to meet it.

Sola was in glorious form, full of energy from her trip inside the star. Her corona blazed around her like giant wings. He smiled and sent forth a beam of blue energy, and she responded with a tendril of plasma. Blue and gold mingled, a caress shared by lovers who could never physically touch.

“How did it go?” he sent.

“Well. I untangled more of the mess under the northern group of starspots, and sent a few more flares off in directions that won’t hurt anything.”

Sola spent her days encouraging the star to leave an oasis of calm around the Merionian’s planet, letting the evacuation proceed without the constant threat of lethal radiation blasts. Together with Blue Sentinel’s help, it made the difference.

“Good,” he said. “If–”

“What is that?” She was off, darting towards something as he felt a sudden shift in the shape of local space.

“Wait!” he sent, but she was already far ahead. He moved to follow, but the disturbance disappeared again as suddenly as it had appeared, before either of them could get close.

He slowed again he approached the spot where the three… somethings had appeared. Sola was turning slowly in place, tasting the faint field residues with light tendrils of plasma.

“Anything?” he asked.

“Space itself must be very different where they came from. They chose to carry bubbles of it with them. But I don’t know why they would come, then leave so quickly. They disappeared before the light from my approach could have reached them.”

Blue Sentinel considered. “A probe would be alone. Explorers or invaders would have stayed longer. I think they were hunting for something, and it wasn’t here.”

“A fair guess. I wonder what they will do when they find what they are looking for?”

He thought of the alienness, the wrongness that had rippled outward from their point of appearance.

“Nothing good,” he said.

*****

Donner admired the scenery as he rode his motorcycle up the last, muddy part of the trail. The areas of burned tree trunks were a little depressing, but he found the fresh spring growth around them encouraging. Which probably meant he was an optimist.

Stella was already waiting at the campsite, which was literally a bunch of rocks the right size for convenient seating that someone had dragged into a circle. Convenient, but they’d be cold, today. She had spread a tarp on the ground nearby instead, and sat next to a pack that presumably contained a ridiculously expensive bottle.

She wore jeans, hiking boots, and a hooded windbreaker against the chill breeze. Donner found her appearance disconcertingly ordinary–his mind kept trying to remember her as eight feet tall, radiating menace. She tilted her head as he approached.

“Hello.”

“Hey.”

He sat down across from her, and she opened the pack and pulled out what was, to all appearances, a twenty thousand dollar bottle of Scotch whiskey.

“You know, you didn’t really have to…” He trailed off as she pulled out two glasses and another, identical bottle.

“Two bottles? Why?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Well, I thought you might want some, too.”

“Ah. Like that, huh?”

“I’m afraid so.” Stella looked away for a moment. "How would you like to handle this? I’ve never been very good at softening blows.“

Donner waved a hand. "I know it ain’t gonna be good. Just… get the worst out of the way first, okay? Then we can talk about details.”

“As you wish. I killed your father, as you’ve probably already guessed.” She took a deep breath. "I also killed your half-sister, and two half-brothers. They were all predators; you appear to be the white sheep of the family. If you have any living half-siblings, they’ve hidden well and never done anything that might have attracted my attention. I did find evidence for two that were already dead.“

"Umph.” Donner had thought he’d been ready, but it still felt like he’d been punched in the gut. News of siblings was a shock, though he’d long wondered. He wished it was as much of a shock to learn they were dead.

After a while he realized he was staring at the ground, and looked up. Stella held out a glass, and he took it and drank.

“Did you… I mean, were you able to tell if… Hell.” Donner met her eyes. She looked back at him calmly.

“Okay,” he said. "I don’t even know where to start. So tell me about them, how you found them, and… all the rest. I know it’s gonna be mostly your story, not theirs. That’s fine. You were there, and it’s what I’ve got.“

"All right.” Stella took a drink from her own glass. "I was already contemplating a return to hunting when I was seventeen…“

She started out dispassionately, but her voice soon grew animated again. Which was good; Donner didn’t want ‘clinical’. She spoke of hunting, and horror, and monsters, one of whom was her, and others who were his relatives, as the wind whistled through the tall grass and the trees.

*****

Antarctica was a good place to sulk.

DASI had suggested to Flicker that 'cooling down’ or 'emotionally stabilizing’ might be a better way to describe what she was doing, but sulk was a perfectly good word. She wasn’t talking to anyone because she was angry and frustrated, and she was in Antarctica because it was stark and pretty without being distracting, and it came with about as good a passive 'Do not disturb’ sign as you could ask for.

So Flicker sulked, and thought.

She was upset because Donner hadn’t been upset. Because he hadn’t felt the same outrage as her at a privacy block keeping him from learning something about his own family from the Database. Unless he did something he clearly hadn’t wanted to do. If he’d just objected, she could have required a clarification from DASI about the purpose of the block. So Flicker had pushed–and he hadn’t done what she’d expected.

He’d reacted like she was reminding him to do something important, and given in.

And now he was off somewhere with Stella. Talking about the non-human side of his family, but there had to be more. And they were inside a protective bubble of surveillance overseen by DASI–with a hole in the center. Flicker couldn’t go look without DASI knowing–and making it obvious Flicker was violating a very basic, reasonable expectation of privacy.

And she didn’t trust Stella. Not anymore. Not after what she’d done with Journeyman.

Which wasn’t fair. Stella was her friend. Flicker had saved her life. And… continued to blithely ignore her warnings, gentle reminders, and occasional dry sarcasm whenever Flicker felt she had a good reason. Even after she learned just how smart Stella was, how ruthless, and how expert at mind control and psychological manipulation.

Maybe not the safest person in the world to take for granted?

A 'whap on the nose’, Doc had called it. What would he call whatever she was doing with Donner?

There was a disturbance in the whirling snow in front of her. Flicker sped up–then slowed back down as she recognized the signs of Journeyman’s impending arrival. He appeared, then staggered slightly as the wind hit him.

"Hey, Flicker,” he said, raising his voice to be heard. "Can–“ Another gust hit, and he flinched. ”Damn that’s cold. Talk somewhere warmer?“

"My place?”

“Yah,” he said, and disappeared.

Across the ice sheet, up the Atlantic, and soon she was in the entryway of her workshop with Journeyman, who sneezed from the sudden temperature changes.

“DASI didn’t send me any alerts,” she said. "What’s up? Weren’t you on patrol?“

"Was.” He sniffed and wiped his nose. "Chooser found me. Golden Valkyrie wants to talk to both of us, together, at her hall in Kyrjaheim. Soon.“

"How soon?” Flicker really didn’t want to talk to her mother right now. She was sure to ask about the flying lesson, and Flicker didn’t want to discuss it while she was still stressed.

“Five minutes okay, an hour not okay. The Chooser was upset at something and not bothering to hide it. And now you know as much as I do.”

*****

“Blood magic isn’t particularly powerful, or easy to use,” said Stella. "But it gives a strong, visceral jolt when it first starts to work. So it isn’t too hard to discover by accident. And part-humans vary a lot, but quite a few have an affinity for it.“

"I knew that part,” said Donner. "It’s why I’m never bothered when people accuse me of being squeamish.“

"At least not about blood,” said Stella. "Unfortunately, if someone doesn’t know what they are, and they get their ideas about magic from popular culture, it’s easy for them to jump to wrong conclusions.“

"So that’s why my half-brother thought he was a vampire,” said Donner.

“Most likely, yes. It wasn’t necessarily an irrational belief–just wrong and harmful. He killed at least eleven people before I caught up with him.”

“Oof. Did you know then that he was related to me?”

Stella shook her head. "No. I had the crude genetic test, so I could tell they were all related to each other, but I didn’t connect them to you until I back-traced Gumshoe.“

"Damn. I didn’t think–”

Stella waved her hand. "Oh, he was careful. But so was I. Also very thorough, because I was worried that Gumshoe might be after me. But you only hired him to find your father, not to determine who killed him.“

"Yeah, after Gumshoe told me he was dead, there didn’t seem to be much point.”

“A more pragmatic decision than many people would make,” said Stella. She stretched, then laced her hands over her knee again.

“I had to learn to be pragmatic pretty young,” said Donner.

A wry smile. "So did I.“

Donner took a drink from his glass, then leaned back against the rock he was using as a back-rest. He contemplated the gray clouds passing overhead. They weren’t dropping any rain, but they looked like they wanted to. "I guess I had a luckier childhood than I realized. Despite everything.”

“Did you have any positive early male role models?” asked Stella. "I often wondered about that.“

"Kind of. I had a friend named Emre for a couple of years. His dad was a biochemist from Turkey. Most of the other parents in the neighborhood acted like I was radioactive, but Emre’s didn’t mind me. He was cool–loved bugs, wanted to be an entomologist when he grew up.

"I hung out at his house as much as I could, because it was way less of a pain than mine. His folks would joke with each other, and laugh. I figured that was how parents were supposed to work, and I’d just gotten stuck with bad ones. But they moved away when I was nine.”

“A good example,” said Stella. "It probably also helped you avoid internalizing the message from your parents that you were evil.“

"Yeah,” said Donner. He glanced at the two bottles, one still full, the other half-empty. Either Stella had overestimated how much alcohol would be useful, or things still had a ways worse to get.

Stella was studying him. He met her eyes. "So. I appreciate you taking the time to tell me all this in person. I can see why you didn’t want a lot of it in the Database. But could we maybe get to the real reason we’re here?’

Stella raised an eyebrow. "And what do you suppose that might be?“

"I’m sure DASI noticed I did a good job of calming people with the Concert in the Dark–I think you were dead at the time.”

“Hardly–I had just taken over the surviving Xelian fleet, and was doing about ten thousand things at once, with DASI’s help.” She smiled. "I was listening, trust me.“

"Yeah, sorry. I meant your human body was. I figured you wanted to talk to me about the concert, privately. I could be wrong.”

“Yes, I do. And I’m sure Ernie is unhappy with the privacy restrictions that have prevented him from getting a good read on the total audience from DASI.” She started rummaging in the pack, and pulled out a handcomp. "But I’d like to ask you a question first. How many people do you think heard the last song of the Concert in the Dark?“

Donner frowned. "Well, DASI pulled a neat trick, using it as the audio background for her text news update, but power and cell service were both still spotty. And Ernie’s best estimate is 20 or 30 million, but he says it’s really just a guess for everywhere outside the US and Western Europe. I felt one hell of feedback kick on the last song, even over the local crowd, and DASI’s sneaky, so I’m gonna say 50 mil.”

Stella gave him a little smile and glanced down at the handcomp. "DASI estimates that 372 million human beings heard you sing 'Tubthumping’ live.“

"Holy. Shit.” Donner’s mind raced. "DASI must have… How many of them understood English?“

"About half. And I finally have something I’ve wanted for more than fifteen years–a really big controlled sample for measuring the effects of your music. The problem has always been that most people who listen to your songs are Donner fans–and they aren’t even close to representative.”

“Damn, and I thought she was just… Okay. How much trouble am I in? No, scratch that, how do I get out of it?”

“Relax, you aren’t in any more trouble than you were going to be in anyway. And aren’t you even slightly interested in helping me save the world?”



Next: Chapter 26

