Goddess of the Moon (Young Ancients: Tiera) (44 page)

"S'Tiera.
Y'se'ta b'tinken?" He spoke in Home tongue, which Tiera knew was actually
a highly sophisticated language technique, designed to allow those that spoke
it to understand and learn new languages quickly, since it caused their brains
to be wired differently. It was also faster and more efficient in certain ways.

She'd
learned that from Cynthia Blue herself, on the very planet they were on at the
moment.

"I
am thinking. Deep and annoying thoughts about things that have to be done.
Helping to fill the lake and who we can get to run the new stores." She
looked at him and sighed, then froze for a second. "Da... You used to be
an assassin, right?"

It
wasn't a question, but the young faced man next to her nodded, and looked
worried about her bringing it up in public.

"Yes..."

Tiera
took a deep breath, and went on. She looked around first, making certain that
no one could hear her. It was important enough that she cast around with her
mind, but found that no one at all was near or cared about what she was saying
at the moment.

"In
a few days I'm going back to Earth. Gerent is going to kill all the Ancients,
you know about that?"

"I
was told. Good choice, Gerent. Anyone else might hesitate at the end, knowing
that people they love might die, but he won't. Not with the world and everyone
else in the balance. He's harder that way than most would believe. I've heard
some things. From when you and Tim went to get him and Patricia from that jail
in Galasia?"

Tiera
nodded. She had too. How, when the guards came to rape Trice, over and over
again, Gerent fought, trying to stop them. He couldn't, being too small and
weak, and they raped him too, brutally, every time. To show him how little he was
worth. But still, he did it, every single time they came for Trice, even when
he was broken, and could barely move.

A
lot of people would have
fought
the men. Havar would have, and probably
won easily. But if it came to that, being beaten and raped, over and over, how
many would have kept fighting, knowing it was hopeless and that they couldn't
win? Knowing that doing so just meant more pain for themselves, and wouldn't
help anyone?

Except,
when the guards used him, that was one less person that could use Trice that
day, wasn't it? She hadn't even thought about that before, but she was willing
to bet that Gerent had.

She
teared up a tiny bit, but didn't hide it.

"Yeah.
Well, if the Ancients, our people, fail, if that trick doesn't work, then I'm
going to make sure they don't win." She kept saying that, but she was
still nearly certain that no one got what she really meant. If it came to it,
she was going to kill everyone left. All of them. Not that she wouldn't try to
get people, the real ones, off the planet first.

"I
see. Do you want me to go along?"

That
surprised her, but she had just pointed out that her kind and gentle father had
once been a professional killer, hadn't she?

"No...
I'm really hoping that it will just be a trip to pick some people up. Gerent
and Collette Coltress. Tim and Tor." If that happened at all.

Her
father looked away.

"Timon,
can he do that? Can he remove that Cordes? I love my boys, but I wouldn't have
one throw their life away only to lose two. I know that sounds hard..."

It
did. It was. Her father was also making a lot of sense, wasn't he? She took his
left hand, on the table and gave it a gentle squeeze.

"Honestly?
I don't think he can. I've done enough building now to know what it is he has
to be trying. He'll have to go in and somehow take out, or bind, billions of
individual connections in Tor's brain, without doing too many of the wrong
ones. This isn't like making those healing amulets or that anti-larval dust
that Tor did either, or Tim's shields. That... That was
one
thing, that
needed a lot of copies. This will take guidance for each thing set. Even if he
can make groups of things happen all at once, it will take tens of
thousands..." Her hands worked in the air, trying to show how it would all
work, but she knew it didn't make a lot of sense. "Even if Tor helps,
it..."

"Ah."
He looked grim and a bit hard for a second. "In that case, make sure that
those evil Ancients don't win. That Cordes... He needs to die."

For
a second she thought he meant all of the Cordes mentalities, which was a good
point, but then she understood. He was saying that, if Cordes took Tor over,
she'd have to kill him.

As
if she wouldn't? That had been her plan all along.

"I'll
see to that, if we have to. Now, tell me about the fascinating world of waste
management? Ali had an idea for it..."

They
spoke for a long time, eating occasionally, and then both got up to go and work
for the day. Her hauling sand and dust to turn into water, and him seeing about
getting Farlo and the others to make waste into dust, or sand, since it really
did make sense to do it that way. Douglas was nothing if not adaptable.

The
work wasn't hard really, since they used magic for it all, but it still took
time to get done, they just did more of it. There was, after two days of
constant work, by three teams, a nice little puddle of water at the bottom of
"Lake Two Bends" that didn't seem all that impressive at all. Not
until you realized that it was about ten feet deep and larger than the whole of
that village on Earth it was named for. It was just hard to tell, since it was
so far down still. Several hundred feet from where they were working.

Tiera
didn't see her normal people at all for a few days, working her shifts with
different people each time. A few of them were those disgraced people,
including one of the women from the first day, who was working hard the whole
time and proving out, as far as Tiera was concerned. She'd even managed to get
a clothing amulet somehow. It was one that felt like Sam Builder. The woman who
was tall and if a bit plain looking, managed to smile on occasion and pretend
not to be feeling bitter all the time. She didn't say much, though on the last
day Tiera was planning to be there, she gave the lady a speaking device.

It
took coordination to get her to turn the thing on, but Tiera pantomimed enough
that she understood the idea, eventually.

Looking
down at her, she smiled, as her case of Moon dirt was siphoned quickly into the
machine that turned it into water by Sara Debri.

"What's
your name?" She spoke softly, not trying to seem menacing or anything. She
wasn't a bully after all. Not really.

"Nikka
Pommes." It had a simple sound to it, but that was probably fake, she
realized. Not that it wasn't her name, but it probably wasn't the full thing.
No title had been given, for instance, and Nikka was likely a partial name.
That didn't really matter here though, did it?

"How
would you like to take over for me on this shift? I'm going to be gone for a
while, so that will mean steady work. You'll need to find someone to take your
place, but it will be a real job, not day to day labor." She wondered what
the woman would do, really, since her coming back each day counted toward her
six months and everything. This would just make it more certain.

More
real.

"Sure.
I can do that."

Sara
looked at them, and stopped making water for some reason. "I'll be gone
too. You'll need two people to keep this going. Can you work two machines at
once like I've been doing? It isn't that hard, but takes more attention than it
seems like." Moving out of the way, she got the woman set up, and looked
at Tiera. Meaningfully.

Then
she looked around, probably out of habit.

"I'm
going with you." Holding up her right hand she looked half ready to slap
Tiera down, if she said no. Then she went on, fiercely. "
I
can go
to Earth."

That...
was a nearly brilliant point. While it was a bit much for her to go just to spy
on Tiera, or even report, if she wasn't just doing it from there each day.
Having a person with them that could go to the surface, even if she needed her
own ship, that would be a great idea.

Still,
it felt off. Horribly so. Reaching out Tiera cheated and read her field, making
her own mind go smoothly blank to do it. The woman was horribly worried about
Tor.
Surprisingly
so. It was almost painful to touch, she loved him so
much. It wasn't a new thing either. Not at all. They were lovers, and she was
his girlfriend, but...

This
was like what she'd felt for Regina. That was why it hurt to look at. For her
at least. It was fresh and intense. Raw and dangerous too. This wasn't a girl
that would kill for her love. This was a woman, that would kill them all. For
him. If it would save his life.

Taking
a deep breath, Tiera nodded, not saying anything at first. When she did speak,
it was practical.

"Nikka
has this part, take her case and keep the line running." Then, for the
rest of the day, they did exactly that.

She
didn't really sleep a lot that night. It wasn't so much nerves as it was... No,
she decided, smiling a tiny bit. Nerves it was. No one came to find her, but
they didn't know, did they? She went outside, her shield wrapped around her
like an invisible blanket of comfort, and set up her first ship. She held her
breath for luck, flicked the amulet and stood there for three seconds, with
nothing at all happening. Then she noticed the clear bubble in front of her.
Just hanging there, gracefully. Reaching out, her shield ran into it, so with a
thought she made it the same color as everything around her, because the shape
reminded her of her new world.

That
didn't last long, since she changed the shape, making it vast, and long, with
slightly rounded edges. The front, where the bridge would be and the controls,
was large and had clear windows all around, so they could see out. She made the
thing look silver, thinking of Timon. Then she added a very faint purple line
for Tor, and above that, a soft sky blue one, that could be barely seen in the
light on the Moon. It blended with the silver and was more of a tint than
anything else.

That
was for Regina. It had been her favorite color.

Then
she had to run to her things, and get a Maker, which was still a stupid name,
and borrow an earth moving device. She filled the craft with air, but it would
only have to be done once. Then it would keep it clean, as long as they didn't
let it all out. If that happened, they'd need to make more. It would mean
taking some rock with them, she decided, loading that on directly, working for
hours, even if they'd never need that much.

The
ship was about ten times bigger than the palace they were staying in, and it
could get larger still, if they needed it to. It had five kinds of weapons
systems, a much better waste management plan, as long as you had the devices
she did, and would warm and cool itself on command. You could set that too, so
things would tend to stay in balance. She'd even built it on stone. Plain
glassy disks of lunar Focus Stone. It took hours to get the interior all set
up, and the only big difference between what she put together and an Earth Space
Fleet ship was that there was hardly any orange at all.

She
loved her Aunt Orange, but it was oppressive, the way she did things. This ship
had a lot of color, and it was tastefully enough done. True, others might have
done a better job of it, but it looked nice enough that she didn't feel a
subtle urge to scrape her eyes from her skull, or anything like that.

Then
she made a special tank on the bottom of the ship, a full layer deep, filled
with nothing but water. Or, really, she filled it about a quarter full and made
the ship move down a bit so it wouldn't slosh around. There were only five of
them going after all. She was starting to get it all ready for a deep space
voyage or something, which wasn't the plan at all.

Just
to be safe, she did a few orbits and then landed back where she started, more
or less. That meant there was a bit of time for a late breakfast, before
collecting everyone up for the trip. She didn't know how big of a fight they'd
have, getting out, since her mother didn't know yet, but it was actually
ridiculously easy,
that
way.

Everyone
was waiting for her at the table already. The only problem there was that
Karina was there too, along with Terry, and even more cutely, Taman. All of
them were already packed too. It was also heartbreaking, since she couldn't let
any of them go. Karina
had
to live, in case her brother didn't. That was
just so plain that she didn't even mention it at all. The red-haired girl was
dressed in military black and everything, instead of the brown that the rest
were in.

"I
have a right." She said it forcefully, but Tiera just looked at her, and
then spoke to Terry.

It
was five kinds of rude, ignoring a Princess like that, but they weren't in
Noram, were they?

"I
want you three to get with Guide. I have some ships. They're special, so go
slowly with them, since you... Well, just be careful. You can't follow us this
time. If we don't come back, you'll need to be ready to fight, whatever
comes."