Chapter 4
Brista, 19 Shiaa, 4392, Orthodox calendar;
Saturday, 24 May 2007, Native regional reckoning
New Orleans, Gamia Province, American sector
It was like an entirely different world had been unveiled before him.
He walked in a kind of half-daze, virutally overwhelmed by the sheer amount of chatter that surrounded him. It gave him a headache and scattered his concentration, because what he was hearing were the unguarded thoughts of all the people around him.
It was like hearing their voices in his own mind, just as Jyslin had described it, like thinking thoughts that were not his own in different voices. Thoughts of school, of home, of the Faey, of stresses from the workload of school, to sex. He glanced at people as he seemed to figure out whose thoughts belonged to who, sort of getting a sense of direction out of it after about an hour of practice. Each person was like a beacon of broadcasted thought, as clear to him as if they were saying everything that he was hearing.
It was damned distracting, so much so that he didn't hear a single word Professor Ailan said during plasma class. He was too distracted by the cacophony of thoughts bombarding him from every side. It was like being in a room surrounded by screaming people.
At least nobody said much of anything to him when he got back to the dorm. People did notice that he was dragging his ass back in the morning after, but the fact that he walked back left enough opening for people not to be quite sure what happened. He didn't answer any questions, simply changed and got his pack ready for Saturday classes. It didn't really hit him until he got out among the other students, close to them, starting as a faint buzzing between his ears, then growing steadily more discernible and louder, until it was at its current level, which was giving him a headache.
It was both a wondrous and frightening experience, hearing other people think. It would have made him think he was going insane had Jyslin not warned him of the possibility, had told him what it would feel like. Luckily for him, she had prepared him for this, so he was able to approach it with some calm reserve, not let it show that something was bothering him.
He sat there as the sound of it all seemed to drone on, then blur together as if the competing voices were cancelling each other out. He had his eyes closed, rubbing his temples, when a sudden bang almost startled him out of his chair. Ailan was standing by his desk, a heavy plasma conduit sleeve resting on his desk from where the Faey had slammed it down. "I said class is over, Jason," he said with a smile. "What's wrong?"
"Headache," he answered, rubbing his temples, closing his eyes again. "I used to get them when my father was ill. Stress."
"So, last night was the big date," he said, leaning over the desk. "How did it go?"
"About what you'd expect," he answered. "Dinner, opera, then she took me home."
"Which home?" he prompted with a sly smile.
Jason gave him a flat look.
Ailan laughed. "It's all the buzz, because you didn't come back to your dorm last night. A few people were wondering if you killed her."
"She's quite alive," he said mildly, wincing as a particularly strong throb jagged through him. "Truth be told, she convinced me that she's not at all what I expected her to be. She hates the Imperium nearly as much as I do, so we have common ground."
"I'm not much of a fan of it either, Jason, but we all do what we have to do," he admitted openly. "I am Faey, and I believe in the Empress, but I think she should change the way that the bureaucracy does some things. They've become extremely corrupt, and their corruption is making the nobles corrupt, and when noble houses get corrupt, they start thinking of breaking away from the Imperium. If she doesn't do something soon, we might have another civil war. We don't need that right now, not with this war with the Skaa."
"You're complaining to the wrong man, Professor," Jason told him. "I'd be overjoyed if Earth broke away from the Imperium."
"Be careful what you wish for," Ailan said seriously. "You might find your yoke under a renegade noble ten times worse than subjugation under the Empress."
"True," he admitted.
"Well, see you during lab," he said. "Hope you feel better."
He didn't talk to anyone, mainly because he could hear every thought everyone around him had. He learned quite a few dirty little secrets during that time, things he would much rather have not known, and found out that being privy to the thoughts of others was not as interesting as some people might have thought. People would approach him and ask what happened last night, or try to chitchat, but their thoughts told a completely different tale. Some of them were jealous, some were angry, and few meant what they said when they talked to him. People who acted one way had thoughts which were quite different from what he knew of them. It was quite an eye-opening experience.
And not entirely a good one.
There was a great deal of trepidation involved in it. He avoided every Faey who crossed his path, moving quickly to get away from them, deathly afraid they'd somehow find out. But when he passed by two Army regulars patrolling the campus, he learned that Jyslin's other warning was also correct. He could hear Faey sending.
He's cute, he distinctly heard, much louder and clearer than the surface thoughts of the people around him.
That's the human the Marines had so much trouble with, the other answered. He's taken.
More the pity, the first said with regret as they wandered away.
That blew his mind anew. He heard them perfectly, and they didn't seem to notice, mainly because was careful not to let his shock register on his face. He could hear Faey sending!
He honestly had no idea what happened most of that day, only a blur of fear and amazement. He looked up after what seemed like a few minutes after plasma class and found himself standing in front of the dorm, and it was nearly four o'clock. He could not remember anything from the other classes. He honestly didn't know if he even showed up for them, and that scared him quite a bit.
He ambled up to his room and immediately checked his panel, to see if he'd thought to record the classes. He did. Well, that was a relief. He wouldn't show up on Monday and Tuesday with blank looks when they asked for his homework. He sat at the desk and put his head in his hands and tried to get a handle on his headache, tried to push out all the sounds of the thoughts from the students in the dorm, tried to center himself and ignore them, falling back on his mental exercises. After a few moments, the sounds of the voices retreated from him, leaving him feeling blissfully alone in his own head. It was quiet, serene, the headache eased, and he felt much better.
A knock on the door startled him half out of his wits. He reached over and opened it, and found Jyslin standing there, hand on the doorframe, waiting for him to open it. She wore the tank top and shorts she always wore when she visited before working out, but a blue tank top this time. She stepped in and closed the door behind her, then bent down and gave him a lingering kiss. "I see it's awake," she said immediately.
"I haven't been able to concentrate all day," he said wearily. "I can't even remember most of it."
"Your brain is having trouble processing all this new information," she told him. "I think the first thing you need to learn is how to tune it out. It shouldn't take you long to learn, it's pretty easy."
She sat down on the bed and uged him to roll his chair over to her. He did so, and she reached out and took his hands in her own, pulling them into her lap. "Now, let's begin," she said with a smile. "Tuning out. You should have no trouble with this, love, because all you do is learn how to ignore what you're hearing. It's a very simple skill that most children learn within a day."
"You're not wasting any time."
"Your life and your sanity depends on learning this as fast as you can," she said seriously.
He couldn't argue with that. He nodded and gave her his undivided attention.
He'd already touched on the idea of tuning out before she came in. The idea of it was to push the alien thoughts out away from himself, sort of lock the outside of his mind and not let anything in. Because he had such a disciplined mind, and he knew his mind very well, it didn't take him very long to wrap himself around the trick of it. It helped that Jyslin looked into his mind and instructed him, showed him what he was doing wrong, give him some helpful advice. It didn't require any kind of expression of power to do this, only a desire not to hear what was going on around him.
Within two hours, he had the trick of it down rather well. It was much like she said, simply a method of tuning out the outside noise, the interference, focusing himself only on what was within.
"Good," she declared with satisfaction. "That's all there is to it, love."
"It's easy."
"It's a good thing it is, or we'd all have gone insane long ago.'
"But Faey have closed minds."
"Adults do. Children don't. And children tend to learn together."
"Ah." Now he understood. Surrounded by the unguarded thoughts of the other children, they'd have gone mad long before reaching adulthood. "Now what?"
"Now nothing," she smiled. "You have tomorrow off. Let's go see a movie, or get a canoe and paddle around in Jean Laffite swamp or something."
"No," he said. "I have something I have to learn, and I don't have much time. Teach me something else."
"Let's not get fanatical," she said. "You need to rest, and this isn't something we can get sloppy with."
"I'm not tired, and we can do something tomorrow."
"I'm not sure," she hedged.
"I'll tell you what. Teach me something else, and we'll go out. An actual date, to make up for the theater."
She gave him a sly grin, then laughed. "Pulling out the heavy artillery, are we? Alright. I'll teach you how to send. There aren't any Faey around here, so it should be safe enough."
"I can learn this in one day?"
"The basics, yes," she nodded. "It takes a while to master, though. It takes practice."
"Anything worthwhile takes practice."
She smiled. "Alright, sending. Sending is rather simple to do, but it takes a while to get good at it. It's the third thing a child learns."
"What's the second?"
"Closing her mind, but you've already got that down."
"Oh."
"Now, I told you once that sending is thinking out loud, and that's all it is. You take your thought and push it out of your mind. If you put enough behind it, people sensitive to sending will hear it."
"That's it?"
"That's it. It's very easy, like I just told you. But it takes quite a while to learn how to limit your range, exclude people or places from hearing you, sending to only one person, and learning how to be understandable up close when you're trying to send for distance. It takes a lot of practice."
"Then the sooner I learn how to do it, the more I can practice."
"Workahalic," she said with a teasing smile, patting his knee. "Okay, give me a second to make sure there aren't any Faey around to hear you, then you can start practicing."
He felt her when she did that, sort of swept her mind out and searched for Faey, but he wasn't sure how she did it or how she knew what to look for. She nodded to him, and he began.
Again under he tutelege, for she had a light touch on his mind, observing what he was doing, she walked him through the idea of it. It was just as she said, sort of taking a thought and putting himself behind it, then pushing it out away from himself, sort of trying to think out loud. As she said, it was very easy to do, for he succeeded after about a half an hour of attempting, casting a thought of hello! Out away from him. But the way she winced when he finally succeeded to him that it was too strong, that he had shouted in some manner.
"Ouch," she grunted. "Well, I'm certain you did it, that's for sure," she chuckled.
"Sorry."
"It's alright, everyone does that when they first start. We get so caught up in doing it we do it with everything we've got." She laughed richly. "I'll bet they heard that down in the quarter," she said with a wink.
He paled.
"Don't worry, don't worry, they won't know who did it," she said quickly. "They'll only know that someone was shouting, and that it was a male. They won't know where it came from, or how far away you are. Now try again, and do it softly. Just enough to push it away from your mind, just a little bit. That should be more than enough."
He nodded, calming down a little from the scare she gave him, then he closed his eyes and tried again.
After another hour, when it was getting dark outside his small window, he'd more or less nailed down the rough basics. Jyslin told him with an approving nod that he could send gently rather well, his thought only extending a short distance, the kind of short-range communication that formed the base of some of the more advanced sending skills. "Enough, enough," she begged off, slapping him on the knee. "You promised me a date."
"So I did," he nodded. "You missed your workout."
"That's alright," she smiled. "I'd rather spend that time with you, even if were weren't doing anything but practicing. What do you want to do?"
"I think you have the agenda planned out."
She laughed. "Not really. Want to see a movie? We have a pretty well stocked Blockbuster just outside the front gate. We'll find a good one and put it up on the big TV. I'll have to dust off my DVD player, though."
"I think we can manage that," he said after a moment's consideration. Ending up in Jyslin's house might not be a good thing right now. He did like her, and he was very attracted to her, but he didn't want to get too involved with her personally. He did want to see her more, go on actual dates, but she was still a Faey, still aligned with the enemy, even if she didn't believe in the enemy's doctrine herself. That didn't exactly make her an enemy, but it also didn't make her someone he could entirely trust. He would like Jyslin, learn from her, go out with her, be her friend, maybe even sleep with her, but he wasn't about to get, intimate with her. Not yet, not until he felt he could trust her completely.
"What do you want to do tomorrow?"
"I have a big test on Monday, so I have to study," he warned.
"Bring your panel and your books, you can study at my house."
"You'll distract me."
"Not when it matters," she said seriously. "You should get used to spending time at my house anyway. I fully intend to get you to move in."
"No."
"Excuse me?"
"I said no," he answered levelly. "I like you, Jyslin, I'll admit that. But I'm not going to pretend to be your live-in boyfriend. I'll talk with you, I'll go out with you, I'll come over to your house to train or just to visit, and I might even sleep with you, but I'm not ready to take any new direction with our relationship. I have this to worry about now," he said, pointing at his head, "and there's still the fact that I can't justify just throwing in with you right now. You may not be the Imperium, but you are still Faey."
"I thought we moved past that."
"You thought we moved past it. I never did."
There was a knock at the door. "Jayce!" Tim boomed.
"Open!" he called, silently glad that Tim came when he did. He had probably just headed off a major argument, he could see it in Jyslin's stormy gray eyes.
Tim opened the door, wearing a rather nice pair of slacks and a black dress shirt. "I-oh, I didn't know you had company," he said.
"You're a bad liar," Jason told him.
He laughed. "Alright, you got me," he admitted. "But everyone's getting curious what's going on in here."
"I'm raping him," Jyslin said dryly, though her irritation with him was obvious in her body language.
He chuckled warily. "It was too quiet for that."
"You forgot about the gag."
Tim did laugh earnestly then.
"Where are you off to?"
"Symone's taking me to a symphony over at City Park, some kind of after-dark Beethoven concert," he answered. "She went to her barracks to change."
"Why didn't you go with her?" Jyslin asked.
"She told me to stay here," he shrugged. "So, is everything alright in here?" he asked with a smile at Jason.
"We've just been talking," he answered. "We're about to go out and see a movie."
"What are you going to see?"
"We don't know yet," Jyslin answered.
"Well, have fun," he said. "See you later."
"See you tomorrow."
"Gather up your stuff and let's go," she prompted shortly.
He nodded, getting up. He had tomorrow off, so he didn't mind going to Jyslin's to see a movie. He seriously doubted that he'd make it home before tomorrow, but that too didn't bother him in the slightest. After all, Jyslin was an extraordinarily beautiful woman, attractive, sultry, sexy, and seductive, and his attraction to her was sincere. He did like her, and he did want to sleep with her. But until he felt he could give her his absolute trust, he couldn't risk getting too close to her. Not now, not when he was in such a dangerous situation. After all, Jyslin could, at any time, simply turn him in in order to save her own hide. He knew that. Until he was absolutely positive that that was not going to happen, he had to treat his relationship with Jyslin like it was a venemous snake. Something that fascinated him, but something that could kill him if he got careless with it.
Jason woke up in Jyslin's bed very late for him, almost nine in the morning, and he climbed out of it silently cursing himself for his weak will. She had started hinting at wanting him the instant they got in the door, and she got more and more aggressive as the night went on. He tried to be polite, not to upset her, then just to drive home the meaning of the word no, but in the end she was just as successful at seducing him when he knew it was coming as she was when he hadn't expected it. It was just very, very hard to look at a woman as gorgeous as Jyslin, knowing beyond any doubt that she was very attracted to him, look at that gloriously built woman and tell her no when she had her shirt off and was pushing her breasts in his face. He didn't think any heterosexual man alive on Earth, be him human of Faey, could reject Jyslin when she was being that militantly aggressive. It was a statistical impossibility.
But he couldn't beat himself all morning, and he had other important things to do, so he put that bit of brooding aside and moved on to other matters that required his immediate attention. Jason left her to sleep as he first did some homework in the living room, then did some studying, then started hunting for an airskimmer.
He was still serious about that. If worse came to worst, he wanted a way to run like hell. It was only smart.
There weren't any for sale on Earth, so he got out onto GlobalNet, the Faey's interplanetary internet, and started looking. He had seventy-five thousand credits at his disposal, which was enough to get a used one, but not a new one. The cheapest new airskimmers ran a hundred thousand credits a piece. But there were places on GlobalNet to find used ones, dealers, private owners looking to sell, in the merchandise forums.
Jyslin came into the living room wearing nothing but a robe, which was belted so loosely about her waist that most of her breasts were falling out of it. "Hey, lover," she called. "Why didn't you come wake me up?"
"Why? I had things to do."
She leaned over his shoulder. "Airskimmers? What are you looking at those for?"
"I'm going to buy one," he answered mildly. "Your squad lieutenant took those sonic devices I planted on those last two Marines and sent it to the Ministry of Technology. They bought the patent for seventy-five thousand credits."
"You pretending pauper!" she laughed, wrapping her arms around his neck and bringing her head over his shoulder. "And here I thought you were broke."
"Until Friday, I was," he told her. "I still can't believe your squad officer did that."
"Lana tends to do things like that," she answered. "She takes all kinds of liberties with us." She kissed his ear. "You realize that you don't know how to fly it."
"I'll learn," he said calmly as he surveyed a picture of an old airskimmer that someone was selling for ten thousand credits, which was little more than a stripped fuselage. He'd already done his research earlier, so he knew what to look for in an airskimmer.
"Why are you looking at that junk?" she asked.
"It's what I can afford."
"Let's look at new ones."
"I can't afford a new one."
"If I pitch in, we can," she replied immediately.
"I can't let you do that," he protested.
"Yes you can," she smiled. "I don't mind."
"I do," he said adamantly. "No, Jyslin. I won't have you spending your money. If you get transferred or I leave, it's something I'd have to pay you back, and I may never have the money."
"I-"
"There won't be any discussion," he said bluntly. "I mean it."
"Alright," she sighed, patting him on the chest. "If you're serious about not letting me contribute, I'll drop it."
He took notes on the airskimmers he found, comparing engine power (all airskimmers had spatial engines, and could actually leave the atmosphere), capacities, additional features, and age, and narrowed his search down to three models. One was a six year old eight-seat airskimmer with navigation and computer autopilot. One was a nine year old six seat airskimmer with extra cargo space, a strong engine, navigation, and autopilot, and the third... well, the third had his attention. First, the seller was a Trillane, meaning it was a noble. It was an eight-seat model, only two years old, actually quite a good one. It was the ASV-430, one of the newer models, with a decent amount of cargo room, a newer computer, intuitive navigation, full autopilot, the newest engine, and what seemed most important of all...it was armed and armored. It was armed with two MPACs, was armored with Polymerized Titanium armor, and had a ten Megajoule shield for protection against non-Faey pirates. That wasn't all that impressive if it was being fired upon by MPACs, but against other technology, like ion cannons, phased tetryon cannons, graviton beams, and tachyon cannons, that was formidable protection. All airskimmers were capable of leaving an atmosphere, but since they lacked powerful engines, they wouldn't go very fast, but this model was more or less designed to be a pleasure craft that was launched from orbital platforms and landed on planets. And since there was always the risk of being attacked, it was armed and armored, its armor and shields geared towards pirates, not Faey. That was acceptable armament and respectable armor, since a noble never goes anywhere without being able to defend himself. The noble was selling it for half what it was worth, but it was still five thousand credits more than he had. But this was his best shot to get his hands on a weapon, to tear it down and see how it was put together. It actually wasn't illegal at all for anyone in the Imperium to own any weapon, but the cost of them kept them out of the hands of most commoners. The nobles kept their stranglehold on their society with their money and the illusion that the commoner might better himself, not with tyranny. Anyone could do anything they wanted... as long as they could pay for it. But even if it wasn't armed, if he could talk the owner out of taking the weapons off to reduce the price, it was still the best value.
This would require negotiation.
The contact number was another planet, and after a check, he saw that it was daytime there as well. He brought up the vidlink protocol on the panel and set it on the coffee table, then entered the number.
A male with dark red hair answered almost immediately, wearing an earpiece and a microphone. "Arcuri Manor," he said in a bored manner.
"Eleri Trillane, please," Jason replied.
"A human," he said with some interest. "This matter is concerning what?"
"The airskimmer up for sale."
"One moment."
His face disappeared, replaced with the dragon and sword crest of the Trillane noble house. He leaned back as Jyslin came back in wearing a pair of jeans and a tee shirt, carrying her shoes. He glanced at her, then the screen flickered back to a face. He looked at it and found himself staring into the face of a teenager, what couldn't be more than a sixteen year old Faey girl. She was impishly cute, with blond-white hair like Maya grown almost indulgently long, tied in a tail behind her head. She wore a glittering silver bikini top that he could see, a towel thrown over her shoulders. "Eleri," she announced. "Talk."
"You have an airskimmer for sale?" he asked.
"You move fast, I just listed it this morning," she chuckled. "Aren't you a human?"
He nodded.
"Why is a human looking to buy an airskimmer?"
"I'm going to eat it," he said blandly.
She gave him a look, then laughed. "I like you. So, you want to buy it?"
"I'm interested in it, yes," he said carefully. "But I'm five thousand credits short of your asking price."
"Oh, no," she said quickly. "I'm selling it to annoy my mother, but I'm not going to give it away. I'm selling it for half of what it's worth to aggravate mother, and I'm not going any lower than half. It's eighty thousand, and it stays there."
"Then you have a deal, my Lady," Jyslin said, coming over his shoulder and looking down at the screen. "I'll front the difference."
"Damn, I didn't think Faey would be marrying humans," she sounded. "Well, if you're married to one of us, I think I can see fit to sacrifice it at eighty thousand."
Jason absolutely glared at Jyslin, but she just winked at him and licked the tip of his nose.
"What's wrong?"
"He doesn't like me spending my money on him, my Lady," she answered calmly. "He's very independent."
Eleri laughed.
"You know, it would make your mother absolutely scream if you just gave it away," Jyslin said with a conspiratorial smile.
"I'm sure it would, but I need the money," she said sternly. "But, since your husband is cute, I'll cover the shipping. How's that?"
"I think we can live with that, my Lady," Jyslin agreed, giving Jason a glance, who was still glaring at her murderously.
"Coolies," she grinned. "Alright, here's my account number. Transfer away, and I'll have the airskimmer personally delivered to you in three hours."
"That soon?" Jyslin said in surprise, totally ignoring him.
"Trillane owns Terra, and it's our ships doing the cargo freighting," she reminded him. "There's a freighter going out from here every two hours to bring back food, and they usually have plenty of free space on them. If you don't dawdle, I can have the airskimmer on the next freighter."
"That's true," Jyslin agreed.
"I'd love to, but I can't," Jason said sternly. "I can't let Jyslin pay for any of it. I'm sorry, Eleri, but I can't go through with it. I'd love to buy that skimmer, but I can't let Jyslin do this. I just can't."
"Well, I like you, human, so I tell you what. I'll strip the weapons and the shield off the skimmer and sell it to you for seventy-five, and sell the rest of it separately. I can get five thousand for them easy. Is that a deal?"
"That's a deal, Eleri," he said gratefully, ignoring Jyslin, who was now the one glaring murderously.
Jason split the window and accessed his personal account, then gaped in shock when he saw the standing balance.
Two hundred thousand credits!
"What the bloody hell is this?" he demanded hotly, quickly bringing up an account activity history.
"What's the problem?" Eleri asked. "You have the money or not?"
"I have too much!" he said in surprise. "The bank screwed up somewhere. There's more than twice in my account than there should be!"
"Quick, send the money before they notice!" Eleri said with a wicked laugh.
He looked over the summary. There was the initial deposit, but then there was a second one for twenty-five thousand, also from the Ministry of Technology, then a third, for one hundred thousand credits, which was again from the Ministry of Technology.
"They're legitimate deposits," Jyslin told him. "Look. The Ministry of Technology did both of them. Maybe they bought more of your patents, and the message just hasn't reached you yet."
"You're an inventor?" Eleri asked, then she laughed. "You've only been with the Imperium two years, and you're already inventing things? Damn, you must be one smart human. Well, brainboy, thumb up your transfer and you got an airskimmer."
"Go ahead," Jyslin urged. "The Ministry's so big and bureaucratic, if it really was a mistake, it'll take ten years for them to find it."
"Well, since you can afford it, we'll go back to the original deal of eighty for the whole skimmer, and for an extra ten thousand credits, I'll throw in two airbikes and a habitat module. They came with the airskimmer, but I wasn't going to sell them with it."
"Deal," Jyslin said quickly, and Jason nodded in agreement.
"Alright, send me your money, and I'll send you a tracking code," she said, her hands blurring on the keyboard just under the angle of the image. "Fure! Call the garage and have them load up my airskimmer!" she shouted to her left. "The older one! And make sure the airbikes and the habitat module are loaded on it!"
"Where to, madam?"
"I'm shipping it to Terra," she called. "Give me a minute and I'll tell you where it's going."
"Going to take a trip, madam?"
"Something like that," she grinned to the person off camera. "Well?" she asked him, looking at her screen again.
"Hold on," he said. He authorized a transfer of ninety thousand credits, then input her account number. He touched the screen in a certain place, placing the flat of his thumb to it, and in a split second it had his thumbprint scanned. It approved his identity, then executed the transaction.
"Got it," she said with a grin. "Let me change the registration over to you."
"Why are you selling it so cheap?" he asked curiously.
"I ran up some debts I'd rather not let my mother know about," she admitted with a grin. "And she's been a boor lately. So, I can sell off my old skimmer for some quick cash and annoy my mother at the same time. It's not the first time I've sold off old birthday presents and shit like that for some quick money. And it pisses off my mom," she laughed. "She doesn't believe in throwing anything away. She wants a garage full of cars and bikes and skimmers to impress the visitors, even when we don't use most of it. She's such a pack rat. Hell, I need money, the skimmer's mine, and I don't use it anymore, so why not sell it?"
"Why not indeed, my Lady?" Jyslin said lightly.
"Can it with that Lady shit," she said rudely, but she was grinning. "Where is this going?"
"Belle Chase Marine Barracks, New Orleans, Gamia Province. Care of Jyslin Shaddale," Jyslin told her.
She was quiet a moment, typing on her keyboard. "Alright, here you go. It's logged as 375-293567. It's going out on the freighter Rubina in an hour. It should be there in two and a half."
"Now you have to get a class three license," Jyslin teased him, poking him in the shoulder.
"You're buying a skimmer and you can't fly it?" Eleri asked, then she laughed.
"I have a pilot's license, but not for an airskimmer," he answered honestly. "I'll figure it out."
"Just remember not to use it until you get your license," she warned. "You know, nobody's ever jumped on one of my little sales so fast before. You've either been looking real hard or got real lucky."
"A little of both," he admitted.
"I like you, and you're handsome. Do you share?" she asked, looking at Jyslin.
Jyslin laughed. "Sorry, I'm a possessive girl," she said, wrapping her hands around him.
"Are all humans as cute as you?" she asked boldly.
"No, but many are cuter," he said honestly.
"Damn. They just opened Terra to tourists, so maybe I'll come over for a visit someday soon." She chuckled wickedly. "I have to start conscription in a year, so I have to get as much fun in as I can right now."
"Which is why you're in debt," he reasoned.
"You're a smart one," she winked. "One wild party too many, and poor little Eleri is in the red. Alright, I'm sending you the airskimmer's command codes in a separate file," she announced. "They'll let you get into it and operate it. I've already put the registration in your name, so don't worry about that. There are manuals for the skimmer inside it, and the keystick will be in the dash box. You have a place to park it?"
"I have a place," Jyslin replied. "There's open civilian space on the tarmac. We can go down and get an assigned space."
"Good. Now, if you have any trouble with the ship, you know, the skimmer gets there all banged up and shit, or if there's something missing from the skimmer, call me. There's been a rash of merchant marines stealing stuff off of the freight lately. I'll send you a manifest that has everything that's supposed to be on and in that skimmer. If your list doesn't match mine, call me back."
"You're an honest one," he smiled.
"Hey, you make a deal, you honor it," she said seriously. "I got your number here-it's a floating panel. Weird."
"I'm in school."
"Oh, that explains it," she nodded.
"You're quick to pick that up."
"I don't spend all my time partying," she admitted with a smile. "Well, that's it. I have to get my laps in. Remember, if you have any trouble, call me."
"I will. Enjoy your swim."
She reached down and touched her vidlink, and her picture disappeared. "Well, that's quite an interesting young lady," Jyslin chuckled.
The promised file containing the airskimmer's command codes and manifest came in on his panel as a mail message, as well as the freight code number that identified the parcel. "Interesting, and a godsend," Jason said sincerely.
"Well, which would you rather do today?" she asked. "Practice or get your class three license?"
"How am I going to do that?"
"Well, you're already a pilot, and Zora's an accredited license instructor," she winked. "She worked as an instructor before her conscription. Her parents fly skimmers in a tour operation on Dona IV, the gaia planet. She grew up in a skimmer. She can fly one while sleeping."
"Gaia planet, eh? Sounds nice."
"It's the vacation getaway," she said bluntly. "But it's expensive."
"Naturally."
"So, want me to call Zora and arrange a training session?"
"Sure, if she doesn't mind."
"She'll get a chance to fly your skimmer. Trust me, she'll jump all over it."
They spent the time waiting praciting his sending, which seemed to fly by. They were both surprised when Jyslin got a call, and when she brought it up on her panel, it was the supply depot. "I have a big package here for a Jason Fox, care of you," the supply officer announced.
"We were expecting it," she answered. "An airskimmer?"
"A nice one," she said honestly. "Half my supply clerks are standing out on the tarmac, drooling at it."
"We'll be by to pick it up in about a half an hour," she said.
"Take your time," she said.
Jyslin disconnected her and called another number, and a rather petite, sharply cute Marine with hair the color of aqua-another odd color-appeared in the window. "Hey, sarge," the Faey answered.
"You still got your skimmer instructor license?"
"Sure, I keep it up to date."
"Good. I have a student for you." She pulled Jason up so she could see him.
"Oh, hey, you sneaky little bugger," she winked. "You want me to teach him to fly?"
"Class three," she said.
"The whole pot of bala, eh?" she chuckled.
"What's the differences?" he asked curiously.
"Class one is hovercars and hoverbikes with magnetic induction engines, those vehicles that have limited altitude," Zora told him. "Class two is air-only craft with spatial engines. Class three is spatial engines capable of space operation. The classes are applied retroactively as well. If you have a class three, you can run anything that's class one or two as well."
"How long will it take to get a license?" he asked.
"Depends. Jyslin told me you were a pilot, so I think you'll catch onto the flying quick. But there is a written test that comes with it, protocols, rules, that kind of thing, and I'm not going to cheat."
"I don't need you to cheat, Zora."
"Ok, the first thing we need to do is meet, and I'll take you down to the barracks control office," she said. "I have to get you a class B learning permit that tells the system you're starting your pilot's training."
"We have to go there anyway," Jyslin said. "Jason bought an airskimmer, and it just arrived. I need to get a space assignment on the tarmac."
"You did? How did you pay for it?"
"Lieutenant Lana sent the designs on those sound itchers he stuck on you to the Ministry of Technology," Jyslin winked. "They've paid him two hundred thousand credits for it."
"Wow!" Zora exclaimed. "Well, then you can afford to pay me," she winked. "I'll meet you over at the office in fifteen minutes, okay?"
"We'll be there."
She cut the connection, the looked at him with a smile. "Well, let's go get your toy."
It took only five minutes at the control office. As Jyslin claimed one of the assigned civilian parking spaces on the tarmac, Zora had him over at a different desk, where she used her instructor's control number to get Jason an apprentice pilot's permit, or a Class B, which would allow him to pilot any civilian flying vehicle so long as an instructor was in the vehicle with him. A Class A gave him the ability to fly if any Class three licensed pilot was in the vehicle with him, and the step after that was a full class three license. There was a small red card with his name and picture on it, but the real license was a file that existed in the air-traffic computer network, called AirNet. He didn't need the card to legally fly.
After that, it was a trip over to the supply depot, where all packages, be them military or civilian, came into the base. The supply clerk directed them out behind the building, which was on the old tarmac where several Faey fightercraft were parked, sleek craft with narrow wings and a sharp nose. But what got his attention was the ASV-430 sitting on the tarmac behind the building, in front of which was six supply clerks. It was long, with short, forward-swept wings which were attached to the top edge of the fuselage. The craft was sleekly tapered from stern to bow, designed with an engine that didn't require aerodynamics but a fuselage that minimized air resistance when flown in aerodynamic ways. It was about thirty feet long, nine feet wide, and when it was on its landing skids it was about twelve feet high. The airskimmer was painted blue with a white stripe along the midsection of the fuselage. The stairs were already deployed, but the hatch to get in was still closed.
"Wow!" Zora said in excitement. "An ASV-430! And it's a D-model! How did you afford this? It's worth two hundred thousand credits!"
"We found a young noble looking for some fast money," Jyslin said with a chuckle. "She sold it to us for a song."
"You are so lucky!" Zora said accusingly. "Well, did she send you the control codes?"
Jason nodded, pulling a piece of paper out of his pocket. "Right here."
"Well, let's get started!" Zora said with an eager grin.
The first code was punched into the keypad by the hatch to get it open. Jason and Zora sat in the front two chairs as Jyslin piled into the one behind his, and she explained how the codes worked inside. The second code opened a small compartment which held the airskimmer's keystick, which was required to start the airskimmer, like the key to a car. Zora showed him how to start the skimmer, putting the keystick in its slot, then showing him how to use the third code on the page, which was the second half of the lockout system. To start an airskimmer, one had to have both the physical key and the code. Jason looked over the controls and saw that they were very similar to what he was used to. Each pilot's seat had a stick, and there was a throttle on each side panel-to his right and to her left. At least it looked like a throttle, for he saw that there were two controls there, separate ones. There were also two sets of pedals on the floor.
"Alright, here's how it works," Zora announced. "The control stick handles the pitch and roll of the skimmer. Back brings up the nose-"
"Down for dive, left for left roll, right for right roll. Just like an airplane."
"Right. There are two slider controls over here. The one closest to you is always the altitude lever. Remember that. On your side, it's the left lever. On this side, it's the right lever. Always the one closest to you. Push it forward, you go down, pull it back, you go up, just like the control stick. The one on the outside is always the throttle. Push it forward to go faster, pull it back to slow down. Notice that the neutral position is two thirds of the way back, so that means that you can make her go backwards. There's a stop tab in the throttle that makes it stop when you hit neutral. You have to push the throttle handle down and pull it back to get into reverse."
"Okay, I got that," he said, studying the two sliding controls.
"On the floor are two sets of pedals. The inside set controls the yaw of the skimmer."
"The rudder."
"An archaic term, but yes," she nodded. "The outside pedals control the lateral movement of the skimmer. Hit the left pedal, the skimmer moves left, the right pedal to go right."
"So it's capable of moving in all three directions," he realized. "On all three axes."
"Just so," she nodded as she started the airskimmer's engine, which was a faint, high-pitched whine that settled into a hum. Jason saw her do it, which control she pressed on the console between them. "This starts the engine, this is for the radio. Traffic control is always channel nine," she told him, pressing the radio button. The display already said it was on channel nine, so she picked up a small mike and clicked it. "Tower."
"This is the tower," the reply came from a small speaker on the console. "Who's calling?"
"This is the airskimmer sitting behind the supply depot," Zora called. "Request permission to move it to, Jyslin, which is your space?" she asked.
"Two seven two."
"Space two seven two."
"Space two seven two, roger. Go ahead. There is no local traffic, but don't exceed twenty shakra."
"Understood."
"That craft is unregistered," another voice called. "Bring up the command computer so we can register it."
"Hold on." She lowered the mike and pressed a few buttons on the console. "We're linked."
"What's going on?" he asked.
"I brought up the airskimmer's telemetry," she answered. "The tower is accessing the computer to get its registration and log information. Here, look," she said, puching a few more buttons. A holographic monitor screen appeared above the console between them. "This is the registration. Here's your name, showing you're the owner."
"That's my ID number," he said in surprise. "How did she get it?"
"That came off the sale. Remember, you had to pay for it. When she changed registration, it pulled the ID info for the person who paid for it, and it picked that up from the bank."
"Oh."
"Damn, this is an armed skimmer," Zora said in surprise as she watched the telemetry go by, as the tower downloaded the airskimmer's data. "You got a major bargain here, Jason. Weapons, armor, shields, this was definitely a noble's airskimmer. They're all paranoid."
He watched in intense interest as Zora picked the airskimmer up off the ground with a light touch on the controls, then moved it to a parking spot in an empty area between two hangars. "Here we are. Alright, let's walk this through from the beginning."
He nodded, taking out a notebook from his backpack and a pencil. "Let's go."
Maista, 29 Shiaa, 4392, Orthodox Calendar
Saturday, 7 June 2007, Native regional reckoning
New Orleans, Gamia Province,American sector
It had to be the busiest week he had ever had in his life.
Never before had he had so many projects all going on at the same time, but at least now he had one of them off his desk. He had school, he had training with Jyslin, he had his martial arts classes, he had trying to balance having a social relationship with Jyslin against his need to keep himself a certain distance from her while at the same time she tried to close that distance, and he had also had skimmer lessons.
Those were his priority during the last week, for it was the one project which could be finished in a reasonable amount of time. Every day after school he would meet Zora at his skimmer, and they would go over what he had to know to get a class three license. There were a great many rules and regulations he had to know in order to fly safely, just as there were for an old pilot's license. But since he was also getting space qualification, he also had to learn all the protocols and procecures that other craft he might meet in space would use, from little ships Zora called "zip ships," two man shuttles that looked like giant medicine capsules, up to the massive cargo freighters and battleships. He had to learn the rules for them as well as rules for flying in the atmosphere, and it was a real strain with everything else he had going on. He got virtually no sleep for the entire week, for he had to study and practice sending on top of his flying lessons.
The flying part was nothing. It took him all of an hour to get used to the extra controls, and by the end of that hour he had gotten used to the handling characteristics of the skimmer. He'd lifted it off the tarmac a bit clumsily, but had set it down two hours later just as gently and safely as Zora would have. He had a habit of not using the extra controls, falling back on old habits, and that really annoyed Zora. But she couldn't deny the fact that he could fly the ship safely and well, and she had signed off on the practical part of his license requirements that very night. All that was left was taking the written tests.
That was what took so much preparation. He'd forced Zora to schedule him for the tests after school today, only days away, and she'd reluctantly agreed. They spent four hours each evening practicing flying, going over rules, and having her quiz him on procedures. They flew all around the planet as she took him to a certain area and let him fly to see if he knew what to do, but the truly amazing part of it for him was when she took him into space and had him do the same thing. Flying in space had honestly freaked him out at first, for they'd gone through weightlessness, and all air resistance was removed from the ship, which radically altered how it responded to the controls. The controls were unbelievably sensitive in space, where the lightest touch could send one careening miles off in a direction one did not really intend to go. She walked him through all his space procedures, from approach to communication to rights of way, and had even made him execute a landing in a Faey battleship's landing bay six different times. Three of those landings were practice, two were simulated emergencies and one was a real emergency, which only came about when Zora had told him she was going to the bathroom, then disabled the control circuits once she was out of his sight. But Jason had done everything he was supposed to do, by the book, and that had impressed Zora just as much as it had impressed the Faey traffic controller on the battleship where they had landed. She seemed certain that he would panic and crash the ship against the hull or something.
The tests were brutal. They weren't straightforward, they were scenarios where he had to make decisions based on the information provided to him, a practical exam using theory instead of actual hands-on work. But they were over now, all three of them, and he stood outside the air traffic control center on Belle Chasse Marine Barracks holding a little blue plastic card that had his name and identifcation number on it, a picture of him in the upper right hand corner, an embedded microchip in the lower right, and the numeral 3, in a nice large typeset and in shimmering gold that clashed with the blue of the card, right beside where it said Class:.
It was his class three license. Jason could now legally fly his skimmer anywhere he wanted to go.
It was such a heady feeling, and for the first time in years, he felt that same sense of freedom he had once had when he had had his father's plane. He could now pack up his skimmer and fly anywhere on Earth if he wanted to. He could spend tomorrow in the Alps, or on the deserted beach of a tiny island in the South Pacific, or among the penguins of Antarctica. Or he could go to all three in the span of a single day. By using an orbital vector, going out into space and orbiting until he re-entered the atmosphere, the same type of navigational vectors that ballistic missles used, he could get anywhere on Earth with his skimmer in five hours. If he was willing to go as fast as an ICBM, he could be there in an hour, but that was potentially lethal to the people in the skimmer, and it was very hard on the skimmer as well.
It was too late now to think about it, but it was just so nice to know he could do it. It was nearly ten o'clock, and he was bone-tired. He had a test in calculus Monday and a project due in lab on Tuesday, which he hadn't even started yet. The project was to build a device that used a fusion pack that was not a device already in use. In other words, they had to invent something. It didn't have to be fancy, and it could do something that an existing machine already did, but they had to design and build it themselves. Most people in the class would just build a machine that made a light turn on or something, he knew they would, and that would be more than acceptable. Professor Ailan had already told him that he didn't have to do this lab, for his subsonic inducers were an original creation, and thus fulfilled the course requirement. He already had an A for the lab, but he wanted to do it anyway, for two reasons. Firstly, he didn't want to give any students any reason to get mad at him, and he also didn't want to attract undue attention to himself right now. By not doing a project, the students would get ticked at him, and many of them were already a little upset with him because they all now knew that he was dating Jyslin. Some of them had seen his war with Jyslin and the Marines as an uplifting morale boost, and some of them had taken it personally that he had seemingly totally caved in. It would also focus attention on him because of that, and given that he was still learning how his telepathy worked, he wanted no undue attention, and he also wanted no external stress of any kind. Emotional outbursts could trigger an unintentional use of his power, and that might get him caught. So he wanted to take no chances that a pissed off student would take a swing at him or make him angry. The risk was just too great.
He just had to go somewhere tomorrow. It didn't matter where, he just had to, to celebrate getting his license. He'd bring his panel and his books and fill up the skimmer's cabin refrigerator and take a little trip. He'd study for his test and come up with his project somewhere else. He had no idea where, and he really didn't want to yet. He was pondering just throwing a dart at a map and going wherever the dart landed.
Getting a cab wasn't easy after curfew, but given that he had permission to be out after curfew, the one that did come after calling his third cab company arrived very quickly. There was virtually no traffic on the road, as it was after curfew, and the cabby had no delays reaching the base. Jyslin told him to call her after he was done and she'd take him home, but when he did he got no answer. She must have fallen asleep, and he wasn't going to keep calling her until she answered the phone. He could get home just as easily in a cab.
"Got yer permission card?" the cabby asked immediately after rolling down the car window. He was a rough looking black man with wide, pudgy features, one of his front teeth missing, a scar on his lip over the missing tooth, and a battered old Saints cap on his head. "You ain't touchin' my cab unless you got it."
"Right here," he said, handing it to the man.
He glanced at it, and his scowl lightened immediately. "Good 'nuff. Hop in," he invited as he unlocked the doors to his cab. Jason piled into the cab and buckled his seat belt as the man turned around on the old tarmac that was used as a parking lot. "Where to? And what you doing out here on the blueskin base?"
"Tulane, and I had to take a test," he answered. "School thing."
"Shit, they keepin' y'all out this late now? Least they coulda done was bussed y'all home 'er somethin'."
"Since when do they care how we get to and from class?" he asked.
The man laughed. "God's own truth that. You fuhst or last out?"
"Only one out," he answered. "I'm the only one who had to take the test."
"Da-yum," the man chuckled. "That musta been hella' nervewrackin'."
"You have no idea," Jason agreed with a relieved sigh.
The man laughed again. "Hey, least it's over."
"Amen."
The man laughed again as they turned out onto Belle Chasse Highway, and said nothing more.
At first he thought he was going to have a nice quiet evening, but things like that never seem to go anywhere. The first distraction came when he got home and found a message waiting on his panel. It was the Imperial Bank, and they were asking him if he wanted to take his account and put it into an interest-bearing plan. That made him curious, so he checked his account once again.
And found that it again had too much money in it. Now there was nearly two hundred thousand credits in the bank. He checked the account history and found that the Ministry of Technology had again deposited a hundred thousand credits into his account. He hadn't touched the money there outside of five hundred credits to pay Zora for her lessons, and now it had gone beyond curiosity. Now, he had to find out what the hell was going on. So, he used CivNet to track down a contact number for the Ministry of Technology on Draconis itself, and then he called them.
As he expected, he got a holographic image of a Faey that was going to route the call, just like an automated answering system. He tried to navigate through their rather confusing menu of choices, until he somehow got hold of a live person. "Accounting," the male Faey said in a boring voice, staring blankly at his monitor.
"Hello, I need to find out about some payments that the Ministry has made to me," he said.
"Are they late?"
"They're too many," he answered. "They keep depositing money in my account, and I want to know why."
The man chuckled. "Just don't say anything," he winked.
"No, I want to know what's going on," he said.
"Alright then. Name and I.D. number please."
Jason gave him the information, and he split the display so half was his face and the other half was written record. "Well, they're not a mistake," he said. "There was the initial patent purchase of twenty-five thousand, then an expansion payment of seventy-five. They pay that when they change your original design to create a new system that works differently than the original patent, but is based on your patent. Then there was a usage fee of one hundred thousand."
"What's that?"
"That means that they've built something to actually use your design in a practical manner," he replied. "Subsonic-hell, that's you?"
"What do you mean?"
The man laughed. "Friend, you're going to be a very wealthy man," he told him. "From the records here, they've split your initial concept and patent into two major subdivisions, and both are actively being used. The first design is currently being mass-produced. The water planet of Aigar VIII has ordered a few million of your subsonic communicators. Seems that the water carries the sound much better than any other kind of communication technique." He switched to another page of data. "There's also a second design they've built on your patent that they use as a subsonic extermination device to kill the larva of deadly insects on Threshkal II. That was the second usage fee that they deposited into your account. In a few cycles, you're going to start getting royalty deposits as soon as the manufacturer that's producing the communicators starts shipping them. You get one half of one percent of the sale price of each unit. That's the standard inventor's royalty."
Jason was a bit startled. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the screen. "So... the money's mine."
"All yours, and no, we didn't screw up," the man laughed. "Your subsonic device is the current rage with the boys over at R&D. They keep building replicas of the itcher and sticking them on the cars of the bureaucrats. It's gotten to where the paper-pushers don't want to park anywhere near the Ministry."
Jason laughed. "Well, I'm glad someone's having fun with it."
"They certainly are. Is there anything else I can help you with?"
"No, no, that's it," he answered. "Thank you for explaining that to me. I was going a little crazy."
He chuckled. "No problem. Have a good morning."
"Night here."
"Well, then have a good night," he said with a chuckle, then the call was terminated.
He was a little surprised. The money was legal, and there was going to be royalties. One half of one percent didn't sound like much until he realized that the man had said that there were going to be two million produced. As long as he didn't go crazy with the money, it would last him for a very long time.
After that, he sat a while and brooded over Jyslin. He knew he shouldn't be going out with her, socialize with her, but he just couldn't help it. He liked her, and just the invitation of sex was enough to send him running in her direction. He felt weak for that, weak that he was compromising his principles just to go out with Jyslin. He didn't see her as the Imperium, but he couldn't trust her entirely yet either. She'd shown she was worthy of some trust, but not the kind of trust that he would need to see in order to forego his philosophical stance and accept her as more than a passing friend. He was being weak, and he knew it. He was compromising his principles to satisfy his personal wishes and desires. He wanted to be Symone's friend, he wanted to go out with Jyslin. He wanted even more when it came to Jyslin, but he couldn't have it, and he was just fooling himself by doing what he was doing with her now. He was letting her seduce him into going against what he felt and believed, but it was so hard not to get involved with her. She was training him in how to control his power, and them being thrown together like that gave her all kinds of opportunity to both sway him by trying to change his concept of her, and also to just plain old tempt him into bed.
But he could only think about that for so long before it became a self-repeating loop of accusations and frustrations, so he laid back on the bed and thought about where he wanted to go tomorrow. That was a pleasant enough thought, and it was enough to lure him into sleep.
Heaven.
Heaven was sitting on a beach with the sun shining down on the sand, the waves crashing on the beach, a steady cooling breeze blowing in off the water, and him sitting under the wing of his airskimmer with a panel in his lap, a beer in a coozie on a blanket beside his chair, and him being a thousand miles away from all his troubles. The beach was about the only place that was hot that he was ever willing to go.
Of course, he couldn't enjoy that kind of heaven alone, so the very first thing he did when he woke up at five was go upstairs and knock on Tim's door. He was there, and he was alone for a change, opening the door with bleary eyes. "What?" he demanded sleepily.
"Get up and call Symone," he told him abruptly. "We're going to the beach."
"Man, Biloxi beach sucks, Jason," he complained.
"We're not going to Biloxi. We're going to Hawaii."
"What? How the-oh, you got your license?"
Jason nodded. "Pack. I want to get there to see the sun rise."
"Hell yes!" he said with sudden alertness. "Symone's gonna kill me for calling her this early."
"She'll get over it. Now hurry up."
"Yes, sir!" he barked with a grin, then rushed back into his tiny room to call his girlfriend.
Jason went back downstairs and packed up a small bag with what he wanted to take; swimsuit, towel, sunblock, sunglasses, bermuda shirt he saved just for excursions to the beach, and a straw hat. Then he packed his panel in with his lab notes so he could work on his project, and he was ready. He debated calling Jyslin and asking her along for several moments. On the one hand, calling her was doing nothing but yet again knuckling to his own desires over his perceived duty. On the other hand, he was taking very important lessons from her, and keeping in her good graces right now was a matter of some importance. If he didn't invite her along, she would likely be extremely pissed off, and that was something he couldn't really allow to have happen. Though he hated how he kept bowing his morals to pursue his relationship with her, at the same time he was more or less forced to maintain the relationship simply to protect himself. It was a delicate line on which he had a swordfish hooked, and he had to reel it in just right to avoid having the line snap.
He pulled his panel back out and placed the call, already kicking himself for doing it. But it was necessary. "You'd better have a damn good reason for calling me at five in the morning, Jason," she growled at him over the panel. The image of her showed that she'd been sleeping, for she wore an oversized shirt to bed that hung down to her knees. Her gray eyes were narrowed against the light of the lamp in front of her, shining into her face.
"Well, you finally woke up," he told her with an arch smile.
"I was awake last night. I got called in. Mobility exercise. I tried to call your panel, but you had it turned off."
"I took it with me, but they made me turn it off," he answered.
"That explains it. I just got back in a couple of hours ago. I'd just gone to sleep when you called me."
"Sorry, I didn't know. I was going to see if you wanted to go to the beach, but-"
"The beach? Hell yes!" she said brightly. "I take it from you asking me that you got your license last night. Congratulations, hon."
"Thanks. I thought you were sleepy."
"I can sleep on the flight over. Which beach?"
"Hawaii," he answered.
"I'll be over in twenty minutes. Oh, the skimmer seats eight, right?"
"Tim and Symone and nobody else," he said immediately.
"You're intent on that, I take it?"
"Completely."
She sighed. "Alright. I'll be over as soon as I find my bikini and pack a bag."
"Don't bother. I'll call you right before we leave, and you can meet us at the skimmer. Symone's coming over, and she can take us to the base."
"That works. See you in a bit." She gave him a wolfish smile. "I'm going to wear my dental floss."
"It's your sunburn," he shrugged before ending the call.
Symone was all for the idea of going to a beach, and she was over about ten minutes after Tim called her. She was carrying a woven straw bag with her swimsuit and some other things in it, though she had it covered at the top with a towel and he couldn't really see what she had. She was almost insufferably bouncy, and her banging around and loud shouting at Tim to get him moving woke up half the dorm. Jason called Jyslin just before they left and told her it'd be about a forty-five minutes before they got there, and they all piled into Symone's rather beaten-up Toyota. Symone wasn't all that good of a driver. "The barracks?" she asked as she buckled her seat belt.
"We have to hit the all-night Wal-Mart and the Winn-Dixie first," Jason told her. "We need food, and I'd like a cooler to put out on the beach. I don't want to have to run into the skimmer and hit the fridge every time I want something."
"Good plan. Have sunblock?" He nodded. "Okay. I want to get a scooby mask."
Jason laughed. "Scuba mask," he corrected.
"Whatever," she said with a wink as she pulled out of the dorm parking lot.
Their shopping was very quick, for Jason knew exactly what he wanted, and so did everyone else. He bought a cooler, a small grill they could stow in the cargo hold, grilling supplies, four beach chairs, two beach loungers, and a large beach blanket at Wal-Mart. Symone got her scuba mask, and Tim bought a beach ball and a portable volleyball net and ball. Then they ran to Winn-Dixie and picked up all the things they'd need to grill hamburgers and hot dogs, bought some munchies, junk food, a couple of cases of soda, ice, and two cases of beer, then, just before they left, Symone ran back and bought two more cases. "Taking beer home is just fine, but you should never run out," she winked at him. It got to be a tight squeeze in the car with all the junk they had in it now, but nobody complained as Symone raced to the Marine barracks, squealing the tires as she pulled up to the gate.
"Watch your speed!" the guard barked. "Passes, please."
Both Symone and Jason gave her their cards, and she gave Tim a long look. "Who's signing him in?" she asked.
"I am," Symone said.
"Business?"
"We're just parking the car and getting on a skimmer," she answered. "We're going to spend the day at the beach."
The guard sighed. "Got room for one more?" she asked forlornly.
Symone laughed. "Sorry hon, we're just the passengers," she replied, taking a panel from the woman and signing it with a stylus.
"Well, have a good one," she said, taking the panel back and stepping away from the car, then waving them through.
Jason had to direct Symone to the parking space of his skimmer, and Jyslin was there waiting for them, standing by her car. She had on a pair of loose white shorts and a very loose see-through shirt that wasn't meant to be buttoned up the front, and beneath it she wore a rather small white bikini top. She had a floppy hat on her head and was holding a cloth bag that looked to be a bit heavy. Jason directed her to the parking spot by Jyslin, for his skimmer parking spot had two spots for cars also assigned to it, and she jammed the brakes and skidded to halt. "Damn, girl, learn how to drive!" Jyslin barked at her. "Did you remember food?"
"Food and a grill," Jason told her as he opened the car door.
"Well, then we have too much food," she laughed. "I brought some crab legs and junk food."
"We have room for it," Jason assured her. "Let's get packed up and go."
They loaded up the skimmer, packing the food in the refrigerator at the back of the passenger cabin, on the left of the door to the lavatory on the back wall, stowing the stuff they wouldn't need in the cargo compartment, then stowing their bags in the cubby spaces in the cabin. "Alright, everyone strap in and we'll be on our way," he said as he jumped into the pilot's seat and inserted the keystick. He quickly and expertly started the engines and ran the preflight checks as the others got ready to go, and then he brought up the tower on the radio. "Tower," the female voice called over the speaker, as a sharp, fox-like face appeared on his console, a mature Faey woman with greenish hair tied back in a ponytail behind her. This was a civilian Faey, one of a very few that worked on the planet.
"Skimmer CS-18 requesting permission to take off," he called.
"Destination?"
"I don't have an exact destination yet, but we're going to Hawaii," he answered. "I want to find a secluded beach out there somewhere. Can I get clearance into Oahu and work it from there?"
"Hold a second, let me call it through," she said, and her face winked off the console.
"I thought you had to have a definite flight plan," Tim said.
"Not under the Faey system," he said. "I just need clearance into Oahu, the traffic control hub for the Hawaiian region. They can give me clearance from there, or make me land."
"Oh."
The face appeared in the console again. "You have clearance into Oahu, CS-18," she answered. "Flight lanes are open, control is dynamic. Avoid sector 14-43, and stay under 25,000 shakra through division 12."
"Division 12, roger," he answered, making a note on a small panel to the right of the console holding her image. "I don't think I'll be going through 14-43."
"What's your projected route?"
"I'm thinking sub-orbital arc along the southern trajectory," he answered her. "But I'll have to make it a double-dipper to pass through division 12."
"Affirmative on that," she agreed with a nod, looking to the side. "Weather looks calm along all southern windows."
"Alright then, local?"
"No unusual restrictions and no inbound or outbound traffic. You hit us during a lull."
"Lucky me," he answered.
"Alright then, you're cleared at your leisure. Have a good journey."
"I'm going to the beach. I know I will."
She chuckled. "Got room for one more?"
"Sorry, we don't have time to wait for you to get a suit," he told her with a chuckle.
"Hell, I'll go naked," she told him.
He laughed. "Maybe next time," he told her.
"Good journey," she said with a smile. "Next contact with hand-off. Tower out."
"What did all that mean?" Tim asked with a chuckle.
Jason lightly picked the skimmer up off the tarmac, and retracted the landing skids as he turned the nose upwards and southwest. "She cleared us to fly to Hawaii. Right now she's putting me on the board, and the global traffic system will keep track of my locator beacon. When I'm about to pass outside of the control area for this region, they'll radio me and let me know. That way, if I have to call traffic control, I know who to call."
"Oh, alright. "What is division 12?"
"It's an area of latitude," he answered as he kicked up the speed, and they all sunk into their seats a bit. "Division 12 is an area just off the west coast of America and out about 500 miles. I'll have to descend to under 25,000 shakra before we enter that area and fly under the ceiling until we pass through."
"Why?"
"I don't know, but they've called the control, and I have to obey the rules," he answered. "We're going to do a high arc out to California, descend and stay under the ceiling, then do another short hop out to Hawaii," he explained.
"Why arcs?"
"The higher we go, the faster we can fly," Jyslin answered for him, glancing back at Tim. "Skimmers are subject to air resistance, so by going into thinner air, we can travel faster."
"Actually, the skimmer can go that fast at any altitude, but it's hard on the fuselage," Jason corrected her. "And they don't like you to break the sound barrier under 20,000 shakra. It's an unwritten rule of courtesy."
"Sonic booms?" Tim asked, and Jason nodded. "I thought so."
The Faey traffic system was surprisingly loose. All he had to do was tell them where he wanted to go, and they more or less let him get there along any path he chose. He was passed to the Brownsville controller after passing out of the New Orleans control area, then he was passed off to a Mexican town called Zajuatineo, which was on the Pacific coast. He had to descend and get under the ceiling once he hit division 12, then he ascended again on the outside as he was passed to Easter Island control, doing a pilot's arc to Hawaii. They were moving west, through time zones that were earlier and earlier, and the sun actually set in the east behind them and sent them back into darkness as they moved towards Hawaii. They reached Hawaii control about 5 a.m. local time, and Jason slowed down, put it on autopilot, and accessed CivNet to peruse detailed atlas maps of Hawaii. He and Jyslin pored over them, then Tim and Symone joined in with panels that swung out over the seats from the fuselage sides, just under the windows, as they all looked for a good beach.
"Here, here, Molikakaiha," Symone called. "It's one of the tiny islands, it says it's uninhabited, and it's public land. The beach there is open."
Jyslin accessed the data for that island and nodded. "It says it's a wildlife refuge, but not closed," she affirmed. "It specifically says that the beaches are allowed to be used by boaters."
"That might not be isolated enough," Jason said, then he grunted when he saw that the island, little more than a fly speck, was at the extreme western side of the island chain. That island chain was nearly a thousand miles long, which put the island literally out by itself. The nearest inhabited island was nearly two hundred miles away. "I take it back. I'll call in and ask." He turned on the radio. "Oahu control, CS-18."
"Tower," came a male voice, and a young Faey man appeared on his console.
"I have a destination, and a question," he said. "Destination is Molikakaiha. CivNet says it's a wildlife sanctuary, but also says the beaches are public. Is it still public?"
"Hold on," he said, looking down and typing on his keyboard. "Yah, still public. You're cleared to destination Molikakaiha. There are no local restrictions and no traffic south of Oahu line. If you cross north of Oahu line, be aware of restricted air space around Oahu proper and Pearl Harbor and call in for further instructions."
"Understood. CS-18 out."
"Tower out."
"And that meant?" Tim asked.
"It meant that we can't fly north of the Oahu control station without calling for information about flight restrictions," Jason answered. "A line is a border that runs through the control station itself, and he defined which way it runs by telling me that north of it was restricted space."
"Oh. That makes sense."
"I'm so glad," Jason said dryly.
Molikakaiha was a ribbon of sand with some trees in the middle, and a very small, steep-sloped extinct volcano at its center. Jason circled the island twice until he found a good place to land, and gently touched down about a twenty yards from the waterline on a flat sand plateau whose edge gently angled down to the water, just to the edge of the treeline of palm, coconut, and banana trees. After he put the stairs down, they all filed out and set up their camp. Jason threw his large beach blanket over the sand under the wing, and Jyslin set up the grill as Symone and Tim set up the volleyball net. Then Jason filled up the cooler with ice, drinks, and some chilled snacks. The air was still a bit cool, and the breeze was strong, but he didn't care at all. After that, they put up the habitat module behind the skimmer, so they could have access to its bathroom and shower without having to go into the skimmer. The habitat module was nothing more than a glorified tent, but it did have a shower and a bathroom in it, so that made it very, very handy. After they got it all done, they sat down in the chairs and faced east, then watched the sun rise over the ocean.
That single thing made the entire trip worth it, for it was a truly beautiful sunrise, with the perfect colors filtering through the slightly hazy sky, giving color to the air itself. They watched until the sun became too bright to see, then they donned their sunglasses and got down to some serious relaxation. Jyslin revealed the rest of her bikini, and the term dental floss pretty accurately described the back of it. It was a thong bikini, little more than a G-string, in his opinion, which showed off her virtually every square inch of her very shapely backside. Symone's bikini wasn't much better, a black bikini with little fringe along the straps of the bottom, which was also a spaghetti-strap thong cord that disappeared into the cleft of her buttocks. Black fringe hung down partially over her bottom, presenting an illusion that something was being hidden when in actuality it showed off everything. Tim couldn't keep his eyes off her backside, and Symone enjoyed every second of his avid attention. Those two made Jason's bermuda shorts seem positively prudish, and Tim's higher-legged swim trunks conservative.
Jason was an avid swimmer, for swimming was a great way to beat the occasional heat in a Maine summer, but he wasn't used to swimming in the ocean. The water temperature of the ocean around Maine never got much over 60 degrees, which was a major difference from the warm water lapping at the beach here in Hawaii. The salt water was something new and a bit surprising. They all went for a swim, and Jyslin and Symone paid for their choice of swim suits very quickly. Thong bikinis made them look sexy, but all that motion made them bind and pinch in some extremely sensitive areas, and repetitive motion could cause that cord that ran down into the cleft to chafe the inside cleft of their buttocks. They raced up to the habitat module and took a shower immediately after they were done swimming, and looked much more comfortable when they came out.
But the trip wasn't only about having fun, so while Jyslin cooked some breakfast, and Tim and Symone played one on one volleyball, Jason pulled out his panel and books and started pondering his upcoming project. He wanted to design something interesting, but not something that would take forever to build. He pondered on it after Jyslin gave him some breakfast, as well as after Tim and Symone got tired of volleyball and laid out on towels in the sun while Jyslin sat beside him in his shady spot under the wing of his skimmer and read a book, almost until noon. What he eventually decided on was a magnetic flux propulsion gadget, that would pick up a piece of iron and carry it along a track, just like a monorail. The only difference here was that the one he was thinking of building would throw the metal across the room. It was a magnetic slingshot, something he remembered seeing in the Ministry of Technology databases when he was researching them for a project he'd done for Ailan at the start of the semester. The design was a thousand years old, obsolete by modern standards. He realized that he still had a copy of those specs in his panel's memory, and he brought it up again to look at it.
It was very small, built from outdated components, and according to the application parameters, it was designed to launch small, hand-sized probes from ships for extreme distance scanning. It could fire the probes at something like twenty thousand miles an hour, designed back when the Faey sensor systems were primitive compared to what they were now. It was an ancient, obsolete technology.
At least as a probe launcher.
Jason studied the design. All he'd need was a modest PPG, some flux cabling around a Tritanium core, a loader, and some kind of recoil absorber mechanism, and he'd have a perfect weapon.
He blinked. Why was he thinking about a weapon? It had never really crossed his mind before, but looking down at the specs, he could just see the potential here. It could be a weapon, and a damned good one.
Yes, it would work. When fired at twenty thousand miles an hour, a round fired from that gun would go through anything. It would even go through polymerized Neutronium, the current standard armor of front-line Faey war machines. A steel-jacketed lead round, a heavy metal of some kind coated with a magnetic metal, would serve as the ammunition.
There was a name for what he was considering, and it took him a few minutes to remember it.
A rail gun.
He could build it, and the materials would very easy to acquire. The magnetic catapult and a spatial compressor behind it to absorb the recoil without having the weapon rip off the shoulder of the person firing it, a case, a place for a weapons clip and the PPG so both could be easily exchanged. Yes, it would work. He started sketching out a design quickly. He could base it on an M-16 case, or maybe an HK227, or even the Faey's MPAR-9, their current plasma rifle design. Put the catapult module towards the back, just before the stock, and set the recoil absorber in the stock's front section. Put the catapult on a floating mount that caused the entire assembly to pull back after a shot, which would allow the next round to feed in from the bottom. Spiralling the flux cable around the core would produce rifling to spin the round to provide accuracy, and the weapon's barrel would serve to further improve aim-wait, he'd better install some flux cabling in there to keep the round from making contact with the barrel. A bare scrape might make the entire weapon disintegrate. Put in a crude microprocessor and some sensors to prevent the weapon from firing if it detected a jam or malfunction, add an ammo counter and maybe a rangefinder or some kind of night vision scope, and he'd have a functional weapon. All he had to do was make rounds, using some kind of heavy metal and coating it with steel, which was both durable and magnetic.
Wait... he'd be making his first rounds with a replicator. Iron was a replicatable element, was moderately heavy, and it was magnetic. Titanium was also a replicatable element, and though it wasn't magnetic, it was extremely strong, much stronger than steel. If he swapped it around, created an iron round coated with laminated titanium, he'd have a very strong round that wouldn't shatter from air resistance after going twenty feet. And the best part was both materials could be replicated, allowing him to crank out an unlimited number of them cheaply. He'd just need a replicator and a molecular sprayer to do it. Just replicate the iron round in the pre-determined shape, make the titanium, and then the spayer would coat the round in layers that would bond and form an armored shell much tougher than pure, unlaminated titanium.
He fleshed out his crude design a bit more, adding in a display on the back of the weapon, then a scope mount, then settling on a place for the weapon's processor. He mentally went over what it would cost to build it. He'd need about four yards of flux cabling, a class V PPG, a low-end processor like an MG-14, a very small display panel, and a replicator. The replicator could make the parts for about half of the weapon, such as the case and some of its mechanics. When it was all said and done, he thought, he'd end up with a weapon that only weighed about seven pounds, and if he made its outside case out of a composite carbon, a poly-plex compound, or laminated titanium, he could shave another half a pound off of it. He could buy the parts he'd need to build it for about two hundred credits or so. The most expensive part would be the Tritanium core, because it would have to be hollowed out, and that would run him about ninety credits.
But... the core could be replicated. Tritanium was merely an isotope of Titanium, and thus was within the ability of a replicator to produce. He'd need one of those special X-model replicators, the ones capable of high-end replication, but it was more than possible.
Without a replicator, it would cost him about five hundred credits, since he'd have to order them. But if he bought his own replicator, it would cost about two hundred. The replicator itself wouldn't be cheap. A decent one was about five thousand credits, and an X-model that could replicate exotic isotopes would run him nine thousand.
He considered the parts and labor required to build a prototype. He'd need a programmable processor board, something very, very small yet capable of at least twenty simultaneous functions. He'd have to write a program for loading, firing, error detection, calibration, diagnostics, display graphics, and sensor operation. He'd need access to a replicator to produce the case and mechanical parts, and that... well, that was it. He could build it by hand using the parts. The program would take him about a day to write, since it wouldn't be a complicated one.
He almost deleted the program and notes in a sudden fit of uncertainty. Why would he even want to build it? For the glory of the human race? He didn't need this thing. If he really wanted a weapon, he could simply buy a plasma rifle. He had the money. So there was no real need for this weapon, there was only the challenge of seeing if he could do it.
Then again, some part of the back of his mind realized that having the ability to build a weapon capable of penetrating Faey armor and do it vey cheaply and quickly might be something he'd want to know about.
He would build it. He just needed to design the parts and get access to a school replicator, which he could do tomorrow in Professor Ailan's lab. Ailan would let him use the replicator without any questions about what he was doing, even if it wasn't for his project.
It took him about five hours to finalize the design. It would be a fairly simplistic device, with very little in the way of moving parts or complicated machinery, relying on the magnetic thrust of the catapult. The only real mechanical part of it was the round loading, passing the round from the clip to the chamber. He decided on a round that looked just like a regular bullet, because of the characteristics of air when something travelled at the speed that this was going to travel. At supersonic speed, air became laminar, acting as if it was made of differing layers, and the round had to be able to move through that. A standard rifle round that would have been used in any gun would work just fine, as long as it had a long tapered body. The back was left flat to produce drag, which would limit the range of the round to about four miles, he deduced after doing a few calculations. The drag created by the sharp corner at the end would eventually destabilize the round in flight, causing it to tumble, and at that speed even a round encased in laminated titanium was going to shatter when it turned its wide edge into the wind. If the round didn't break up, it would conceivably travel for miles and miles, and he didn't want to run the risk of a round fired from New Orleans conceivably coming down and killing someone in California. It was either shape the round so it would effectively self-destruct or implant a charge in the round to destroy it after so many seconds.
It was about lunchtime, and Tim was studying for a test he had tomorrow as Jyslin and Symone laid out in the sun, taking advantage of the isolation to do so nude. They weren't afraid of sunburn because Jyslin had brought along a chemical compound with her in an aerosol that instantly healed sunburn when applied to the skin. Tim had already discovered that it also worked on humans, so he had stayed out until he was as red as a lobster, sprayed himself down, which converted his burned skin into a very dark tan, then he rushed back out into the sun once more.
"What have you been doing over here, Jayce?" Tim asked curiously. "You've been at it all day. Your project?"
"It started out like that, but now it's something of a personal challenge," he replied.
"What is it?" he asked. Jason offered to show him his panel, so Tim got up and went around his chair to look over his shoulder. "Holy shit, is that a gun?" he asked.
"Yes and no," he answered. "It's something I found in the Ministry of Technology archives. I'm just modifying the design a little. I want to see if I can make it work."
I hope you're lying, Jyslin sent to him, doing so in a tight manner that meant that only he would hear it. He didn't deign to reply, mainly because he hadn't quite worked out the trick of sending that tightly yet. If he answered her, Symone would hear it, and then he'd have way too much explaining to do.
"It's based on the idea of a magnetic catapult," Jason explained. "This array of flux cabling creates a magnetic pulse that picks up the projectile and launches it. The original design was meant to launch probes the size of an orange from starships. I'm adapting it to fire rounds about the size of a .30 caliber bullet.
"How far can it throw a bullet?"
"That depends on crosswinds, the strength of the round, and the angle," he replied. "If I had a strong enough round that could survive the trip, I could shoot one from here that would land in Nevada."
"Bullshit," Tim laughed, then he gave Jason a startled look when he saw Jason's sober expression. "You're serious!"
"Totally," he answered. "I already worked out the projectile velocity. Using ten gauge flux cabling triple-wrapped and spiralled around the core to produce rifling, and a class V PPG, it'll have an initial muzzle velocity of 27,495 miles per hour. The rounds I think I'll use will have a shape that will make them self-destruct after they go about four miles, but they'd go as long as the round could survive the air resistance if I used a different shape."
"Holy shit," Tim said, then he laughed. "What would you use it for?"
"Nothing," he shrugged. "I just want to see if I can build it, and if it'll actually work. The math says it will, but sometimes math and reality don't match up."
"Why build it if you never use it?" Symone called from her blanket. "Hell, sell it to the Ministry of Technology. They buy any weapon patents they find, even if they don't use them, and I doubt they'd use that. I mean really, what use is a gun that's not an energy weapon? It probably won't even go through titanium armor."
"Because I don't want to build something that the Imperium uses to kill people with," he answered flatly. If she only knew what it meant for a round to be fired with that kind of velocity.
Jyslin obviously did, for she sat up and looked back at him curiously. You're serious, she sent. That thing will work? Like really work?
He nodded to her.
Damn, Jason, I'd send that to the Ministry. They'd pay you a bloody fortune for the design if you can make it work. A weapon using a Class V PPG that can penetrate any armor we have, that would take at least a ten megajoule shield to stop? They'd make you a damn noble.
"I do need to work on my project," Jason said, giving Jyslin a stern look. "Maybe I'll do what everyone else is doing. A device that turns on a light."
Tim gave him a look, then laughed so hard that he almost fell over. "After making those inducers, you'd show up in class with a light? Ailan would skin you!" Tim wheezed. "He's expecting you to come in with something titanic, like a device that totally explains women or something!"
"Watch it, love," Symone said sharply, rolling on her side and looking back at them, her sunglasses pulled down her nose and staring over the rim at them.
"Now you're talking about an impossibility," Jason told him mildly. "There's no device that could ever explain women. It would work on logic, and no device that operates on logic could possibly understand creatures whose very natures are illogical."
"I think someone needs to be dunked in the ocean," Symone mentioned idly to Jyslin.
"It's starting to sound like it," she agreed conversationally.
"I'm so completely afraid of two naked women," Jason said with scathing disregard, saving his work and shifting to another schematic file. "This is what I'm turning in for the school project."
"What is it?"
"Something everyone in school would kill to own," he answered.
"What?"
"Well, it's one of my unused ideas for back when I was battling the Marines. It's a device that will cause any Faey that gets within a hundred feet of you to lose her hair."
"What?" Tim gasped, then he laughed riotously. "How in the hell did you figure that out?"
"Well, Faey have a diet that's not exactly like ours," he answered. "They eat things from other planets, and those foods have chemical compounds in them that stay in their bodies. There's a specific chemical compound called Selenium RiboDioxide that doesn't occur naturally in humans, because it's found in fish that are only found on Draconis, and like virtually every Faey eats them because they import it out to all Faey worlds. This compound gets used by the Faey's body, and it ends up in their hair. Just like humans have traces of gold and arsenic in their hair, Faey build up this compound in their hair when they eat that fish. So would humans if they ate that fish, for that matter. Well, this device emits a harmonic tetryon pulse that causes that particular compound to change into a kind of acid that only reacts to the organic material that makes up hair, but won't hurt living flesh. So, turn it on, and anyone who's eaten that fish even once during the last year will have his or her hair literally melt."
Tim gave him a startled look, then howled in laughter, falling onto the blanket and kicking his feet. "Jason, that's, that's, that's EVIL!" he shouted, then he totally lost it.
"You were going to use that on me?" Jyslin flared hotly, putting her hand on her auburn hair defensively, but Symone was too busy laughing to care.
"When you said you cheat, I decided to play dirty," he answered with a level stare. "You're just lucky Lana intervened, or I'd be calling you cue-ball right now. Then again, if I'd had the money to buy the components to build it, you wouldn't have a single hair anywhere on your body more than ten days old." He put his panel aside. "I think the threat of losing their hair would have kept all the Faey well away from me."
"That is evil!" Symone laughed, gasping for breath. "And damn clever!"
Jyslin made a face. "I think we got lucky Lana ended it when she did," she admitted. "Else he'd have found some way to turn us all into frogs or something."
"Just give me time," he said mildly, standing up. "I'll find a way. Now if you'll excuse me, there's nothing but beer left in the cooler. I need a soda."
"Just drink a beer," Jyslin told him.
"I'm flying us home. I can't drink," he told her calmly.
After lunch, Symone and Jyslin taught Jason and Tim how to ride the airbikes. Airbikes were just like motorcycles in shape and behavior, but instead of wheels they had pods that went where the wheels were on a motorcycle containing spatial engines that provided the lift and thrust. The controls weren't like a motorcycle, however, for the the throttle was a pedal at the right foot and the brake was a pedal on the left, where the gear lever would be. The main difference was that an airbike was capable of movement through three directions, so the handlebars were free-moving to allow for that. The operation of the bars were just like a control stick, and you could make the airbike move laterally from side to side with buttons on the inside edges of the handles. Moving vertically was accomplished with another set of buttons on the inside edge of the handles, just under the lateral movement buttons, both placed in a way that would allow a thumb to slide over and press them very easily. Jason got the hang of it very quickly, but Tim, who was a bit drunk, almost crashed his airbike three times before Symone finally realized that he wasn't in any condition to be operating a vehicle. Jason flew them around the island as he got accustomed to the wind in his face, looking down from an altitude of about a hundred feet. Airbikes had no crash equipment at all, only seat belts, so one took one's life into his own hands when he rode one.
Were you serious about building that gun? Jyslin sent to him. Go ahead and send, we're far enough away from Symone for you to send tight to me without her picking it up.
Yeah, I'm serious about it, he answered. I'll never do anything with it, but I'd like to build it, just to see if it works.
I still say you should send it in, she told him. If you did, they'd pull you out of school and put you straight into research. That's money, Jason, and prestige, and real power. The people in research write their own rulebook.
No, he sent back, his emotions creeping into his telepathic voice. I will not provide the Imperium with tools to fight wars or subjugate other races. Ever.
If you end up in research, you will, she warned.
I'll never end up in research, he answered.
The hell you say. You're more than smart enough, and you seem to have a knack for our technology that goes quite beyond simple understanding You're a natural..
I won't go to research, he told her. After next semester, I'm going to wash out.
Wash out? On purpose? she replied, shock creeping into her mental voice.
After next semester, I'll qualify for a systems technician job, and that's what I'll get. I was serious, Jyslin. I won't become an asset to the Imperium. I'll work for it because I have to, but I won't advance it if I can help it. I don't care how much money I'm passing up, or how much prestige. In my eyes, becoming a asset to the Imperium would be a betrayal of my beliefs and the memory of my father.
You're being stupid.
You've never believed in anything, have you? he asked her pointedly. Humans are strongly tied up in their beliefs, Jyslin. Humans will die for what they believe in, and do it willingly. The Faey have become too jaded over the years, so pragmatic that they've lost their ability to have faith in anything, to the point where you don't really believe in anything anymore. Like you, for example. You don't go to church, so you don't really believe in your Faey gods. You don't like the Imperium's treatment of you, so you don't really believe in your government. You don't like your job, so you don't believe in your present, and since you're so uncertain about getting into engineering, you don't believe in your future. You're not alone, either. Since many Faey seem to hate the way the Imperium works, they can't even believe in their own government. I haven't seen a single Faey chapel built on Earth yet, so your people obviously don't believe too much in your Faey gods. All the Faey I've seen just go through the motions in their jobs and try to forget about their lots in life after they get off work. I guess the only people who believe in something are the ones in power, but all they believe in is the power that they've managed to amass. And living for nothing but power is an empty life. So, I may be giving up money and power by not going into research, but at the end of the day I can look in the mirror and like what I see, because I'll have held to what I believe in. And that makes me richer than every noble in the Imperium.
She was quiet for a very long time, her hands almost rigid against his shoulders from her grip on him, then she finally sent. Put us down, she ordered. I need to go to the bathroom.
He swung them around and flew back to the skimmer, then set them down on the sand in front of it. Jyslin got off the bike and walked away without comment, and Jason worried for a moment that he had mortally offended her. Symone wandered over in his direction and joined him in watching Jyslin go up the stairs and into the skimmer, then she put her arm on his shoulder and leaned against him. "So, what was that about?" she asked.
"I'm not sure," he replied. "I think I offended her."
"She didn't club you in the back of the head while you were up there, so I think she wasn't all that offended," Symone winked.
"I guess not. Are you going to put your bikini back on any time soon?"
"I'm teasing Tim-Tim," she said with an evil grin. "My mission is to get him to bang me silly in the habitat module before we leave. He won't play for some reason," she said with a slight pout.
"He's in company," he answered. "He'll carry on with you alone, or even with me around because I'm his best friend, but not with Jyslin here."
"Ohhh," she said, nodding. "I get it."
"Where is he?"
"Taking a shit," she answered directly. "He didn't lock the door, and Jyslin went back that way. She might get lucky and get a peek of my Tim's big dick."
He ignored that. "You'd better get some of that spray. You're looking a bit purple," he told her, looking down at her breasts boldly.
"Yeah, I know," she said, cupping one of her breasts absently and poking the purpled slope of her breast with a finger, testing her skin. "I certainly don't want to forget before I get Tim in the module. Trust me, it hurts more than it feels good when a guy grabs hold of a sunburned tit. The only thing that hurts worse than a guy grabbing your sunburned tit is when he bites your sunburned nipple."
"I'll have to take your word for that," Jason told her with a light smile. He never felt awkward talking about sex with Symone, mainly because she was Symone. Despite the fact that she was a woman, he just saw her as one of the guys. One of the guys with a very foul mouth, but still one of the guys.
"Sunburn your nipple and let Jyslin bite it, and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about," she said with a wicked little chuckle.
"No thanks," he told her. "And I'd think that that wouldn't be the worst," he noted.
"Well, it was for me," she answered. "I wouldn't even dream of trying to fuck Tim with a sunburned pussy, so that wouldn't even be an issue. I've fucked a guy when my tits were sunburned, so I have some personal experience with that. I don't think I want to even try it with a sunburn on the major equipment. I'm not into pain. I'm no bondage babe."
Jason chuckled. "Personal experience, eh?" he asked.
"Yeah, before I started my conscription. I was at a beach, and convinced a guy to do me as a going-away present. I shoulda thought to bring some burn-heal though, or it might have been more fun."
"Don't tell Tim, he'll get jealous."
"He knows I'm no virgin, Jason," she laughed. "But maybe I should. It might get him horny, and I like it when he gets possessive over me. It makes me feel sooo wanted," she finished with a little trill of her voice that told him how much she liked it. "There is something rather serious that you should know, though," she told him with a slight, arch little smile.
"Serious? From Symone?" he said with mock surprise, and she punched him in the arm.
"Yeah, serious, you little prick," she shot back. "I can't tell Jyslin this, but I can tell you. She shouldn't send around me."
"Why?"
"I'm not very strong with talent, but I have a trick. I can hear it when other Faey are trying to send privately."
Jason whistled. "That's some trick," he complemented her.
"Thank you. I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone. If the Imperium found out that I can do that, they'd put me in the Secret Police, and I don't want to be a mindbender."
"Not a problem, Symone," he told her evenly. "Your secret's safe with me."
"Oh, and please stop trying to pretend," she told him with a knowing grin. "I know all about your talent, Jason. I heard you use it last week, when I bet Jyslin was teaching you how to control it. Nobody else may have recognized that sending, but I did. I know your voice. And earlier, Jyslin was sending to you like you could hear her, like normal sending. You can't do that with someone that doesn't have talent."
He gave her a startled, almost strangled look, but she just put her hand on his shoulder and leaned in, then kissed him on the cheek.
"I told you my secret," she said to him in a whisper. "Now we both have a secret to keep."
"How long have you known?" he asked in surprise.
"Since the day half of New Orleans heard you," she winked. "I knew what kind of trouble you'd get into if the Imperium knew, so I kept quiet. You can't tell Jyslin about me," she said again. "She might be keeping you quiet, but she's an Imperial Marine, and I can't entirely trust her. She won't turn you in because she wants a relationship with you, but I don't have that kind of ammunition to use against her here."
"I wondered why you weren't being as pally with her as you are with us."
"I'm still feeling her out," she answered. "I kinda like her, but I don't know enough to know if I can trust her with that kind of information yet." She grunted. "I need to get Tim going. My tits are burned and that's making them like hyper-sensitive, and anytime I start thinking of my tits, I want someone to play with them, and that just gets me thinking about sex. Care to bend me over a chair and relieve some of my tension if I can't get Tim in the mood?" she asked boldly.
"What? I thought you were in love with Tim."
"Oh, I am. I'm not asking you to make love, Jason. I'm just asking for you to get me off. It's no big deal."
He forgot that Faey had a radically different attitude towards sex, and also that they quite distinctly separated the concept of making love from the concept of physical gratification. It was common practice for good friends to engage in casual sex, for a Faey didn't attach such powerful emotional ties to sex in the physical sense. For a Faey, the emotional ties and intimacy came when they joined minds, and that caused a dramatic separation of the physical act from the emotional act, so much so that each one had a separate standing in their society. In her mind, she wasn't asking for anything emotionally intimate. To Symone, it would simply be sex, and that was in no way even close to making love.
And, in a way, he realized, she was offering to make their friendship closer. She had never offered sex before, at least not since those first days when he had her in the collar, when she found the idea of having sex with him to be an erotic fantasy. By offering sex now that they'd gotten to know each other, she was telling him I want to be a close friend. Faey wouldn't have sex with casual friends, but a close, personal friend was more than fair game when a Faey felt frisky. He understood that now, saw that first she shared a secret with him as an act of trust, admitted that she knew his secret to show that she was worthy of his trust in return, and then she offered to share sexual pleasure with him, telling him that she felt so comfortable with him that she was willing to perform a very intimate physical act with him, and that she liked him enough to find the idea of it pleasing. Symone wasn't offering sex-well, not just sex-she was offering to be his friend. And not just a casual friend like they were now, but a personal friend, an intimate friend. She wanted to be a best friend.
"I doubt it'll come to that," he said carefully. "Tim's too attracted to you to ever say no when you're serious. I'll take Jesmind somewhere and take her out of the equation, and that'll make Tim comfortable enough. But," he added, understanding that he needed some kind of positive response to her proposition in order to make her understand that he knew what she really was asking for, "if Tim won't play, I'd be happy to take care of it for you, hon. We can't have you running around in a state of frustration."
"I knew you'd understand," she said with a bright smile and a wink, then she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek once more. "I need to find that spray bottle. If you see Tim before I catch up with him, let me know."
"Sure," he said. He watched her saunter away, watching her bare bottom, which was just slightly tinted purple, and chuckled. "Get the back, too," he called.
"I can feel it," she replied as she went up into the skimmer.
Tim came out the back hatch of the skimmer as Jason went to go sit back down in his chair and wait for Jyslin to come out, and he came over and sat in the chair beside him. He noticed that Tim looked just a little bit out of sorts. "Man," Tim said hesitantly.
"What?"
"Er, well, I was in the skimmer's bathroom, and Jyslin came in," he told him. "I told her to get out, that I was using it, but she just said she wanted to use the sink. Well, she took off her bikini bottom in front of me."
"So? Jeeze, Tim, you know that Faey don't care about that kind of thing. Both of them were laying around naked for half the morning."
"Jason, she bent over. You know how cramped it is in there. I saw it all, and it was like right in my face! At first I thought she was coming onto me or something, but then I realized that she wasn't when she turned on the water and threw her bikini bottom in the sink."
He smiled knowingly. "It's not a big deal, Tim," Jason assured him, leaning back in his chair and waiting for Jyslin to come out. "Faey aren't modest."
"I asked her what the hell she was doing, and she said she had sand in her-er, her crotch," he said. To his amusement, Tim didn't want to use more base terms about Jyslin in front of him. "She said she had to wash the sand out, grabbed a washrag, and leaned on the lip of the sink facing me, you know, like ready to do that right in front of me. I bailed at that point. I'm just glad I wiped before she came in. I was like three seconds from getting off the john when she barged in."
Jason laughed. "I think she was trying to put you at ease, Tim," he explained. "She knows that Symone's getting a little anxious, and I think she's trying to show you that she's not all that worried about it if you and Symone go off and have some fun."
"Like that?" he asked in a strangled tone.
"Faey aren't humans, Tim. They tend to get their points across through example, not through words. More often than not, instead of saying something, they'll do something that tries to prove their point. By sticking her butt in your face and fully intending to do something like washing sand out of her crotch in front of you, she was telling you I'm familiar with you. She's saying 'hey, I'm willing to do just about anything around you because you're a friend and I'm comfortable with you, so don't feel that you can't do something you want to do in front of me or when I'm with you.' She's not telling you she wants to be in the room with you and Symone, but she is telling you that she knows that you and Symone want to go make love, and she's okay with that."
"I, okay," he said, then he was silent a moment. "You know, she coulda just said something."
"Tim," he said steadily. "They may be Faey, but they are women. Since when does a woman ever come out and say what she means?"
Tim glanced at him, and burst into laughter. "Point," he agreed. "At least it wasn't something for nothing, though."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I didn't exactly pull up my pants before I got off the commode, and she was staring right at me when I did. She got a good look at my johnson. She even looked down at it and everything without even being tactful about it."
"You expected her to be tactful after she did that?" Jason asked pointedly.
Tim burst into laughter again. "I guess that was a kinda stupid thought," he agreed.
Jason paused a moment. "Symone's looking for you," he said. "She's feeling very frisky. I suggest you take her into the habitat module for a while."
"I want to, but, you know, Jyslin was here," he affirmed.
"And now Jyslin just told you that you don't have to hold back just because she's here. In her own special little way," he added.
Tim laughed, then grinned at him. "I certainly got the message. Where is Symone?"
"In the skimmer. You came out the back just as she went in the front."
"So she's in there with Jyslin. Making comparisons, most likely."
"Maybe," Jason answered noncommitally. "This might be better coming from me, so I'll tell you now."
"What?"
"Symone propositioned me," he said mildly. "But-"
"No, that's alright, you don't have to explain that," Tim interrupted him. "Symone told me about that kind of thing, about how Faey friends-you know, have sex the same way they might meet at a coffee house and talk, and how it doesn't mean she wants to date you. She said she might ask you someday, when she felt that I was comfortable with it, because that's what friends do. That's when I understood it, you know, how she totally doesn't think it's wrong to be my girlfriend yet have sex with one of her friends. She kept thinking that you were too sexually frustrated or something," he chuckled. "You were sleeping alone, and she said a guy with a girlfriend shouldn't be doing that. She kept telling me that if you didn't get some from Jyslin soon, she was going to have to go down to your room and take care of it, in her words."
"I'm glad you understand what that means," Jason said with sincere relief. "I didn't want you taking it the wrong way."
"Hell, if she's going to sleep with another guy, I'd rather it be a friend," he shrugged. "That way I know what diseases I'm getting."
Jason looked at him, then burst into helpless laughter.
"Alright, time to go find Symone," he said.
"Make sure she used the burn-heal."
"What?"
"She'll understand."
"Oh, okay. See you soon."
Jason watched Tim rush into the skimmer, and not a moment later he and Symone rushed towards the back of the plane, where he'd set up the habitat module. The module looked just like a big circular tent, with a rubber-like door that had actual hinges. It was climate controlled, powered, had its own kitchen and bathroom, and also had a collapsible vidlink built into one of its walls. Using a habitat module was like having a portable house, but to the Faey, it was roughing it. Jyslin came out a moment later, still without her bikini bottom on; actually, she was carrying it. She sidled over to where he was sitting and flopped down in the chait Tim had just vacated. "I see it worked."
"What worked?" he asked.
"I was in the bathroom, sticking my pussy in his face to get him horny, so he and Symone would go bang each other in the habitat module and leave us free to talk," she told him bluntly. "He kept holding back while Symone was inviting him. I just wanted to push him over the edge."
Jason chuckled. "He told me about that. I told him that you did it to hint to him that you wouldn't mind if he and Symone went and had a little fun."
"Same result," she shrugged.
"What did you want to talk about?"
"I thought about what you said a little," she said seriously. "I was going to send in that gun's techs without you knowing, like Lana did with the itchers, but I'm not going to do that now."
"I appreciate that. And I appreciate you being honest with me," he told her gravely.
"I still think you should," she pressed. "Look at what the itcher got you, Jason. A skimmer. Sending in the techs on that gun would let you buy a hangar full of them."
"I admit, I love my skimmer, but at least they won't use the subsonics for killing people, or to oppress another world like they oppressed mine, Jyslin. And I didn't send it in. As far as I'm concerned, this is just a lucky windfall," he told her. "They told me that they're using the idea of it for communicating on an ocean planet, and they also adapted it to kill deadly bug larva on another planet. I guess the larva are sensitive to subsonic frequencies."
"I won't try to give you pep-talk propoganda bullshit, Jason," she said honestly. "You know how I feel about the Imperium. Hell, you know a hell of a lot more about it than I thought you did," she admitted. "But we're stuck with it. There's nothing either of us can do but try to make the best of it. You asked what I believed in, but I never answered you. I believe in me. I believe in trying to get as far in the system as I can go to make myself happy. Sometimes the system pisses me off, but what else can I do? I just have to keep fighting for what I want. Because if I don't, I'll have nothing but misery and regrets. Even if I fail, at least I can say I tried."
"I can't blame you for that, Jyslin," he told her, putting his hand over hers and patting it. "But we're not going to agree on this point. So let's just agree to disagree and leave it at that."
She nodded, then sighed and looked at him. "I want you to move in with me."
"No."
"But-"
"Don't start-"
"I'm not going to get combative," she cut him off in a level tone. "Just listen to me."
He was a bit surprised. "Alright," he agreed.
"Look me in the eye and tell me you're not attracted to me," she challenged.
"I am attracted to you," he admitted with a straight face.
"Alright then, you've stipulated that you think I'm a sexy beast," she said with a slight smile. "And we established last week that you don't see me as the Imperium anymore. So, why not? You're not moving in with the Imperium, Jason, you're moving in with me. Jyslin Shaddale, remember? If you can't trust me by now with this between us," she said, tapping her temple meaningfully, "then when will you ever trust me?"
"Remember when I told you about belief, Jyslin?" he asked in reply, and she nodded. "You represent something every fiber of my being opposes. No matter how much I like you, or how much I feel you're not the Imperium, my beliefs simply will not allow me to move in with you. If I do that, I'm admitting defeat and allowing the Imperium to win."
"But we go out. We have fun, we talk, we get along great together, we have great sex, and we do that other thing," she protested.
"I know, and sometimes it destroys me," he answered candidly. "Every time I come back from a date with you I'm kicking myself for being so weak, for compromising my principles because I wanted to spend time with you. I know you're the enemy, but I keep falling right back in with you, because I do like you, and I do want to be with you. I know I have to keep with you because of that other thing, and that contact always breaks my will and leads to the dates and the sex. Part of me wants to move in with you, but that part of me that opposes the Imperium won't allow it, and I know that if I did, I'd never be able to live with myself. Doing that would be admitting defeat, and that is something that I will never do."
She sighed, looking at her knees. "So your pride won't let you be anything more to me," she said.
"My pride, my beliefs, my upbringing, my conscious, just about everything but my affection for you and our stipulated mutual attraction," he answered honestly.
"So... at least I have one thing going for me. Aside from my cute ass," she said with a wan little smile. "What would it take to change that?"
"Oh, just your resignation from the Marines," he answered bluntly. "I cannot even think of having a relationship with a Faey who's a direct representative of a government I despise. No matter how much I understand that you are not the Imperium, Jyslin, you still represent it, and that makes you untouchable to my conscious. If you were a civilian, though, I probably wouldn't feel that way."
"I can't resign. I'm still in my conscription."
"Then we'll just have to wait," he told her.
She sighed, then chuckled. "So we wait. Don't make any long-term plans, Jason. In three years, I'm coming for you, and I won't take no for an answer."
"I'll be waiting."
"Good. Oh, and please don't feel bad when we go out," she told him. "Just think of it as practice for when I'm out of the military. I promise I'll burn my uniform before every date, just so you have some kind of symbolic gesture."
Jason laughed. "That might get expensive."
"Hell, money well spent in my opinion."
He was quiet a moment. "Sophistry," he sighed.
"What does that word mean?"
"Hypocracy," he elaborated. "I'm making up reasons to go against my morals just to justify doing what I want. But I know it's going to happen anyway, so at least why fight in that regard?"
She laughed. "It's the power of the cute ass," she winked at him.
"It's called thinking with the little brain," he grunted.
"Well, you can't justify being my lover or my boyfriend, but can you at least accept me as a friend?" she asked.
"I think I could," he replied, "as long as you don't try to make it anything more."
"Well, In Faey society, good friends often have sex," she told him with a coquettish smile. "Would your towering morals find fault with that? Since we'll be having platonic sex, not romantic sex. You'd be what we Faey call a breakfast friend. A friend we'll have sex with, that often stays for breakfast."
He laughed. "More sophistry," he accused. "That very idea is a contradiction in terms. Platonic sex."
She smiled at him. "Only to a human," she replied. "So, I promise to back off and be your friend, and only your friend. You promise not to shut me out, and we both agree that we have the major hornies for each other, and we may, when the mood hits us, have mind-blowing sex. Just platonic sex, no strings," she winked. "We also continue doing that other thing, until you don't need me to help you with it anymore."
"I think I can live with that," he agreed honestly.
"Alright then, we have a deal," she announced, standing up and extending her hand to him professionally, though he wasn't sure how professional she would look, standing there in a white bikini top and naked from the breasts down. He took her hand and shook it, sealing the bargain. "Now then, you can do something for me," she announced.
"What?"
She turned around. "Could you please find the burn-heal and fix this?" she pleaded, showing him the dark purple on the top half of her buttocks, which were rather noticably sunburned. So was her back, all the way up to her shoulders. There was a light strip along where her thong bikini had been on her. He saw the pattern of it and realized that the most burned areas were what was exposed when they were riding the airbikes. "I don't want to put my bikini back on until it's healed. Every time the strap shifted, it got very uncomfortable. That's why I'm walking around bottomless, hon. I promise, I'm not trying to seduce you," she said with a wink over her shoulder.
"Symone had it in the skimmer," he said. "She didn't come out with it, so it's probably still there."
"I'll go find it," she said.
Jason watched her bound up into the skimmer, then he leaned back and sighed. He hoped that their agreement would keep her from getting too aggravated with him. He didn't really want to go as far as he did, for she would be an eternal temptation to him, but he also knew that she was his only hope of mastering his telepathic ability. And because of that, he had to stay with her. But, he could admit to himself that he could be a friend to her. As long as she respected his ideals and knew where the line was, he thought that they'd actually get along rather well.
He knew he was compromising his principles, but not by a great degree, at least not enough to really feel guilty over it. At least now he felt that Jyslin understood him and understood how he felt, and she was also willing to accept that, work around it, respect his principles. He couldn't fault her for that, not one bit. She was being very understanding.
He felt it would work out. He'd had a week of training, and had learned how to tune out the stray thoughts of the other humans around him, and had learned how to send. He still wasn't very good at it, but he was learning. If he pushed himself, he'd be to the point where he was competent with this new power within two months. And when he was, he'd be safe once more.
At least he fervently hoped so.