[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, but I’m currently also rewriting Fall, so there will sometimes be short stories and vignettes if I don’t have a new chapter ready. The next chapter is planned for the week of April 25th.]

Previous: Chapter 37

Journeyman was sitting up in bed in the med center recovery room, reading on his handcomp. He was wearing a thin white shirt and a brown leather flat cap with two discolored spots near the brim, and appeared worn but otherwise healthy. He looked up and smiled as Flicker slowed down.

“Hey,” he said. “Can you–”

“Mike, I’m so sorry,” she said. "I couldn’t–“

He held up his hand and Flicker stopped. "Help me with something?”

“Um. What do you need me to do?”

“Give me your hand.”

She silently extended her left hand. Journeyman took it in both of his and bowed his head.

“Flicker. Partner.”

“Yes?” Her breath caught.

“Could you not beat yourself up over what happened any more than you already have? We went in with our eyes open. We got hurt, but we’re alive. So no guilt. Okay?”

“But it was my fault! I pushed too hard, and–”

“No.” He looked back up and met her eyes. "I think you pushed just hard enough. Will you listen while I explain? Please?“

"Okay,” she said, and he released her hand. He hadn’t cast a spell–at least not a magic one. But it still worked.

She took a deep breath, then pulled one of the chairs closer to the bed and sat down.

“DASI explained the ‘Surprise! Your hand is now an H-bomb!’ problem,” said Journeyman. "I’m sure Doc and Ashil will pick the physics apart and put it back together again a dozen ways while we recover. But I don’t think the details matter for why it happened.“

"Of course they do. If the muons hadn’t–”

Journeyman was shaking his head. “You’re thinking like a physicist. Which is fine, it’s great. You have to do that to live. But can I tell you what this looks like to a magician?”

“All right.”

“You were pushing to help us with probability manipulation. Blind, because you’re not a Seer like Golden Valkyrie. I didn’t agree to that lightly. It was frigging dangerous. But not any more dangerous than what we were trying anyway. I could feel it, and you did it the right way. And nobody else was doing anything direct–Golden Valkyrie is gone, Doc was just watching, and Lif told me she didn’t See any trace of anyone else interfering. So it was just us.”

Flicker frowned. "Doc thinks it worked. But he’s not sure.“

"I am pretty sure, now that I’ve had a little time to think. What happened was very unlikely. You were pushing hard, and everything went fine until you stuck your hand through. Then, bam! We made it back, but just barely, and both of us are going to be out for a while. Now, when you use magic, and something weird and unlikely happens, that’s a warning to figure out why before you try anything else.”

Journeyman coughed and cleared his throat before continuing. "So. What were you pushing for?“

"Progress without dying.”

“Yeah. And we didn’t die, even though we came close. But there were plenty of easier ways for us to not die–I could have come up short trying to find the right kind of subspace, or setting up the portal. Or we could have gotten nothing at all back, or radiation but not your fingernail on your first try. Instead we got a delayed explosion. What does that suggest to you?”

“That the probability manipulation worked, but we were doing something wrong.” Flicker thought for a moment, then got a sinking feeling in her stomach. "Oh. Oh no. Did I almost blow us up because I was too determined? Because I wasn’t going to stop unless something bad happened?“

"I think progress and not dying were almost diametrically opposed. And we did make progress, but we don’t have the whole picture yet. Neither one of us is going to be trying again for bit, which might mean we need to wait for the others to catch up, but we definitely need to sort out what we’re doing wrong. And I already have a pretty good guess.”

Journeyman looked down at his hands. "We learned that I can create a portal to somewhere with drastically different physics, and I have a lot of control over what kind. It’s risky as hell, but not really all that hard. It’s scarily easy, with your help. So I don’t think that’s what we’re doing wrong. But going through the portal can be lethal, even to you.“

"It wouldn’t have killed me, it was you that–”

Journeyman shook his head. "This time might not have killed you. But would you have wanted to stop if I hadn’t gotten hurt, too?“

"I… don’t know.”

“Yeah. I think what happened means that portals to weird physics are important–but not because you can go through them. We need to use them in some other way.”

“Like what?’

"I don’t know. Ask Doc and Ashil. But it sure seems to me that the magic is jumping up and down and yelling, warning us that you need to stay on our side of the portal.”

Flicker bit back her immediate reply, and sped up to consider her visceral negative reaction. Why did she dislike the idea so much?

Because it reminded her of Doc when she was younger, shutting down possibilities he thought were too dangerous.

But that wasn’t fair to Journeyman. He wasn’t telling her to stop or give up. There was no question that they needed to slow down and analyze. He was just giving his best guess as to why. And if she was emotionally off balance because he’d short-circuited the guilt and apology speech she’d agonized over, that was more reason for calm consideration, not less.

She slowed down and took another deep breath. "Reasonable,“ she said.

Journeyman was watching her carefully, and seemed relieved by her reply. "Okay,” he said. "I jumped in and interrupted you, which I know you hate. But I wanted to be sure you weren’t blaming yourself for something I think you did right. And we aren’t in a rush. I’m not eager to be porting off anywhere that isn’t a medical facility just yet. So we can talk about whatever you want.“ He smiled. "I’m sure you have a list.”

“Yeah.” She looked down. "First thing. There’s still something wrong with my hand–my power wasn’t fully connected to it when I woke up. I only got a couple hours of sleep, but both DASI and Doc think the Skystone is blocking something essential. We won’t know until I spend a night with the Skystone off. But I didn’t want to take it off until I was with you, because it’s our connection–and if there’s any change when I take it off and have you refasten it, I want to find out while we are together.“

"All right.”

“Also, it blocks Yiskah’s telepathy, which is a pain, because–well, for a bunch of reasons. She has some ideas on how to get around that, but I have to take the Skystone off so she can set them up, then put it back on to test. Are you okay with that?”

“As long as it doesn’t require me to do anything more strenuous than fastening a necklace and talking, I’m fine with it.”

“Great. DASI? Tell Yiskah we’re ready.”

“Acknowledged,” said DASI. "She is standing by.“

After some experimentation, Flicker established that there was no detectable change in her connection to Journeyman from removing the Skystone and putting it back on again. She also now had a place in her mind where Yiskah could send and receive if Flicker concentrated, and a signal memory–the sound of a cat scratching at a door–that Yiskah could activate even when Flicker was wearing the Skystone. It required more effort by both of them, but it worked.

She opened her eyes and put the Skystone in her secure carrying pouch for safety, then took another deep breath. One of the subtle things that made the Skystone dangerous for her was the way it made breathing optional. She no longer had a strong physiological signal to start breathing again when she slowed down, unless she wanted to talk–which was psychologically dangerous. The rhythms of the body helped drive the rhythms of the mind, and Flicker really didn’t need to become even more disconnected.

"You back?” asked Journeyman.

“Yeah,” she said. "Green.“

"Great. Any difference in the hand?”

“Itches a little–non-physically. Which is a good sign, but we’ll see what happens after I sleep. And Yiskah strongly suggested I focus on unwinding, so I can sleep when the time comes. I’ve been bad about that lately.”

“Heh. Was that on your list?”

“Sort of,” said Flicker. "There’s a lot of stuff I want to talk to you about that isn’t urgent, but–“

"But getting it off your chest would help.” Journeyman smiled. "Go ahead. I’m not running away.“

"Um. Okay.” She swallowed. "I met Sylvi. She was in the Tree. Yiskah detected her while we were talking and got mad at her for eavesdropping, so she came out. They settled things–I’m not sure how, it wasn’t aloud and I was fuzzy–and we talked for a little while.“ Flicker described the incident, watching to see how he would react.

"That was… gentler than than Sylvi I knew,” said Journeyman. "But it’s been years, and you couldn’t ask for a better place for a dryad to heal than the Tree.“

"You don’t sound very surprised.”

“I am surprised it was Greta who helped. And that she planted the Tree. I’ll have to think about what that means. But I’ve had a strong suspicion Sylvi was in the Nine Worlds since I worked with Lif to trace the mesh you untangled with your dance. That’s one of the reasons I told you about her. I wasn’t going to dig because it wasn’t my business–even if it might become yours. Did she give you permission to tell me about her?”

“She said I wouldn’t be able not to. Which was kind of…”

“True?”

“I’m not going to keep that kind of secret from my partner!”

“I know.” Journeyman smiled lopsidedly. "But it’s not just because I’m your partner. You hate lying and you’re bad at social evasion. So people who know you have to be careful what they bring up–because another thing you hate is only knowing part of a story. And they might not know the full story, or it might not be theirs to share.“

"Knowing only part of a story can be dangerous,” said Flicker.

“Yes, and revealing truthful but incomplete information was one of the Trickster’s favorite weapons. That’s why the Choosers and einherjar say they 'won’t do the Trickster’s work’ when they don’t want to talk about something. Because they don’t want to lie, either.”

Flicker looked down, suddenly depressed. "So everyone is keeping things from me. DASI is even holding back some of the summaries from my long night of computation, because she and Three are still working out whether the mental state required for me to understand them is harmful.“

"The biogestalt thing?”

“Yeah. Which I could ignore if I could just do something useful. But they don’t want me to try anything based on Grs'thnk biogestalt theory yet, we can’t do any portal experimental work, I’m at a dead end on the black hole stuff without DASI’s help, I’ve hit my limit on understanding Ashil’s portal physics theory without slowing down her and Doc, Stella doesn’t want me to go on patrol, Osk wants me to concentrate on healing, and Yiskah says it would be a bad idea to decide anything about the Nine Worlds right now. And even I can see I should stay away from what Jumping Spider is doing and Earth politics. And everyone wants me to get more sleep. While whatever is coming gets closer. And now I’m complaining to the person I nearly killed yesterday. Because you didn’t react the way I wanted. Gah!”

“Flicker…”

“Maybe I should ask Learning to distract me again. Did I tell you about his latest wild theory? He thinks that what Golden Valkyrie calls my 'shell’, the higher dimensional structure that supports my powers, isn’t actually part of my body at all. That it’s more like a wearable starship for a single pilot, my high speed mind lives in its biogestalt support, and my reflexes are what’s left of a mostly-wiped support AI. And the name Skybreaker makes me twitchy because it wasn’t the name of the pilot–it was the name of the ship.”

“Whoa,” said Journeyman. "That’s actually plausible. I don’t think it quite fits with what Golden Valkyrie said about your shell, but… wait, it could, if the AI was in charge when she killed it. Or if she didn’t understand that the AI had a separate identity. Calling you Skybreaker would be one hell of a way to screw up name-targeted magic, regardless.“

"Yeah,” said Flicker. "And it’s not inconsistent with what happened when Donner’s song of unbinding let 'Skybreaker’ loose. He took out all kinds of restrictions, including some that kept my reflexes from trying an emergency reboot. She could have been the result of a partial AI attempting a reconstruction in a completely hosed context, trying to reconcile what was in my brain with its own fragments. There’s stuff I had to lock down without really understanding after I came back, just so it was safe for me to sleep.“

Flicker waved a hand. "This is like a lot of the things Learning sends me: It’s a cool, thought provoking theory–and difficult or impossible to test.”

Journeyman got a faraway look. "Not necessarily… If you really want to find out if it’s true.“

"Of course I do! But how? My original shell memories are either cryptic scraps or long gone.”

“If the previous pilot had a distinct identity and name, psychometry on you might be able to find it.”

“Are you any good at psychometry?”

“I’m not, but Lif is a master at it. She just uses different language when she talks about it. It’s part of what she calls thread following.”

“Oh. Is she still awake?”

“I’m not sure. She went to get something to eat a while ago.”

“DASI? Is Lif awake and available? Don’t interrupt her if she isn’t.”

“Lif has showered and eaten. She is currently discussing duty schedules with Gunnar,” said DASI.

A few minutes later, Lif stood in front of Flicker, looking down at her solemnly.

“I have a Seer’s duty to ask,” said Lif. "Is this a thing you would truly know? What is Seen cannot be Unseen, and what is said cannot be unsaid.“

"Yes,” said Flicker. "If there was someone else who lived inside the part of me called Skybreaker before I did, I want to know her name. And… anything else that comes up when you find it.“

"Very well.”

Lif placed her hands on Flicker’s shoulders and closed her eyes. They stood unmoving for what soon became an uncomfortably long time. Flicker hadn’t realized how creepy it would be to feel like a old house being examined for clues about a previous occupant.

After about five minutes, Lif removed her hands, took a step back and opened her eyes. She didn’t say anything immediately, but Flicker controlled her impatience.

“What I have Seen,” said Lif finally, “is not a story to bring ease or comfort.” She glanced at Journeyman, then back to Flicker.

“I still want to know.”

She nodded. “The names I Saw were not things of sounds or letters or runes. I can only tell you how we might say them if they were. The one of your shell, whose swiftness and strength are now yours, was Himinbrjota, or Skybreaker.”

Lif looked down. She seemed to be struggling to find the right words. "The one who dwelt within was once part of something greater. I did not See if it yet endures–the thread stretched too far back into strangeness for me to follow. Her name was Explorer. Finding the new and pushing beyond all limits was her life and passion. It killed her. Our realms were deadly to her kind. First she went mad, then she died.“

"You mean my mother killed her,” said Flicker.

“No. Before your shell even approached this world, she had become a draugr, a revenant. A raging remnant of a ghost, still driving a grieving tomb ship with her last command. Jarna ended Himinbrjota’s misery. Explorer was already dead.”

Next: Chapter 39

