Chapter 7

Giira, 27 Oraa, 4392, Orthodox Calendar

Thursday, 14 July 2007, Native Regional Reckoning

Huntington, West Virginia (Native designation), Orala Nature Preserve, American Sector

As promised, Temika returned early that morning, as Jason was taking some measurements to study the feasibility of installing an external water tank at that location. The work kept his mind off worrying about Tim, and besides, it really needed to be done. He’d woke up before dawn, unable to sleep and with a sore neck from falling asleep in the recliner, then made the plans for it while waiting for the sun to come up. He needed to pick a location along the path of the original water line, which he could only guess at given he had no ground-penetrating portable sensors. He’d found the water shutoff valve down by the sidewalk, and could only assume that the water pipe was going to go in a generally straight line to the house. If he didn’t want to dig up his yard, he’d have to install the tank’s connection to the house’s piping inside, and run the pipe into the house from the tank outside. That was probably what he was going to do, for digging up his hard with a shovel was going to be a very long and exhausting proposition. This location, by the house in the back yard, was a possible tank location if he hooked the tank into the plumbing inside the house. He’d already surveyed a few possible locations if he decided to hook the tank into the plumbing outside. Either way he went, he had to make sure that the tank was connected so it could fill the hot water heater. He looked at that and saw that it was electric, so that wasn’t an issue. It had shut itself off when he got the electricity back up, because the water tank was empty. The fact that this house was all electic was a lucky coincidence, given that most other houses around used natural gas appliances.

He was in the back yard when he heard her Harley rumble in the distance, then steadily get louder and louder as she approached. He finished writing on his little note pad, then closed it and walked around front just as she turned the corner, still wearing the same clothes she’d had on the day before. She parked her bike in front of his house, then turned it off and raised her goggles as he walked out to her. Jason made sure he wasn’t listening to her thoughts as he approached her. He would respect her privacy. “Mornin’, sugah,” she greeted. “Y’all have a good night?”

“Well enough,” he answered. “There’s been a change in plans.”

“What?”

“You’ll get the bike in a couple of days,” he told her. “I made contact with a friend on the outside last night, and she told me that the space-based sensors can pick up an airbike.”

“Shit,” she grunted.

“So she’s going to trade me the two bikes I have with two bikes that won’t get picked up, ones that have special signature maskers.”

“Sounds like quite a friend.”

“Not precisely a friend,” he chuckled. “I’m paying for them, believe me. This friend has the soul of a robber baron. But she has some connections and can get her hands on what I need, and she’ll help me despite the danger of it.”

“She must be a blueskin.”

“She is. I have a few Faey friends, I’ll admit it. But they’ll help me even with me being out here, so that means that they really are friends.”

She grunted, then chuckled herself. “Ah can’t argue with that, sugah. Ah never really got tah know any of them. Ah was too busy thinkin’ up ways to make life hell for them.”

“Some of them aren’t that bad,” he told her. “I’ve always had a towering hatred of the Faey and their system, and I guess I still do. But I’ve met a few Faey who—“ he chuckled ruefully. “Well, a few Faey who weren’t about to take that as an excuse not to get to know me. One was quite militant about it, and in a way, I guess she managed to make me see that not all Faey are bad. There are some good ones out there, it’s just hard to see them, I guess.”

“Girlfriend?”

“After a fashion,” he admitted. “She certainly had that kind of interest, but no matter how much I liked her, I couldn’t justify that kind of a relationship with her. Because she is Faey. She got me to accept her as a person, and I do care for her, but she’s still part of a system I can’t live with. When I started getting too close to her, I realized that getting into a relationship was going against everything I believed in. It also made me see that I was becoming a part of their system, and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if that happened. And well, here I am.”

“Sorry tah heah that, sugah,” she told him. “So, when do you want me tah take you across the border?”

“Next week, probably,” he said. “This friend who’s going to swap bikes will need me to meet her when we do it, and I’ll have to take the bikes there. So I might need your help with that.”

“Sure, sugah. After all, one of them is mine.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “So I’m kinda stuck til I find out when and where that’s going to be. Want some breakfast?”

“Hell, why not? Ah don’t never turn down a free meal. You got that AC fixed yet?”

“Nope.”

“Then Ah ain’t stayin’ long,” she grinned. “It’s gonna be hot today. Ah’d rather be out on the road with the wind coolin’ me off than sittin’ in a swelterin’ house.”

“Yeah, I noticed it was a bit warm, and it’s still early. Maybe I should get the AC going. I hate heat.”

She laughed. “Get that AC goin’, and Ah might move in,” she teased.

“And give up being able to wander around the house naked? I don’t think so,” he said dryly.

Temika broke up in laughter.

He fed her a breakfast of frozen pancakes and eggs, then said his goodbyes and let her get on her way. According to her, the Josephsons back in Lavalette called her in, and they probably wanted her to deliver some mail to Abe’s son over in Gallipolis. She also got a call from the Parkers down near Williamson, who probably had some chickens they wanted sent to someone. Jason was curious how she carried anything big, given she was on a motorcycle and all he could see on it were the admittedly voluminous saddlebags. But then he remembered that that model of Harley could tow a bike trailer, and he’d bet she had a couple of them sitting here and there.

He gave over on the water for right now, because a look out at the thermometer he had hanging from the post of the porch showed him it was already 85 degrees, and it was only 10:00am. He took his toolkit outside to the air conditioning unit, then started working on it. He really would like some air conditioning, he had no idea why he waited this long to deal with it. He guessed because though it was July, they’d had a few pleasantly cool nights, and he’d been outside most of the day.

An hour into the operation, he discovered that the problem with it was just a simple case of rusted fuses and a decayed set of belts. The unit was designed to sit outside and endure the elements, and had fared very well in the years since it had last operated. He rode a bike down to the Lowe’s a few miles away and scavenged for the parts, and found what he needed. Without electricity, materials that dealt with repairing electrical equipment was still laying around. The belts he found weren’t in all that good of a shape, but they’d do until he found something better to use as a replacement. Three years of sitting without climate control had done some dryrot damage to the rubber, but they were still strong enough to do their job for now.

He rode back to his house and installed the parts, regreased the axles, and then cleaned everything up, then went in and turned it on. The smell coming out of the AC ducts was pretty stale and acrid, but after a few minutes, he felt cold air flowing against his palm.

It was working.

Jason sighed in relief and closed the front door, then cranked the temperature down to a nice 60 degrees, both to cool it off and to suck out all the humidity and moisture that had permeated the house for over two years. That would help clear out that dank smell that still lurked in some rooms. He meant to go out and continue working on the running water, but decided that he was just going to sit in his nice cool house and enjoy it for a while. There were things he could do inside.

He did get back out there around two o’clock, after having finally decided on installing the tank near the house in the backyard and hooking it into the plumbing inside the house. He went out and shut off the water valve that connected the house to the rest of the unused city water system, then marked where he was going to drill the hole through the wall to connect the pipe. He made a list of the things he was going to need to make it work. The external tank for sure, and he’d have to install a water pump, filtration, and purification system in the basement, probably beside the water heater. The tank would feed water to that system, which would clean it and pump it out to the house. He could connect it into the main incoming water pipe, which he’d found coming through the basement wall in the same room as the water heater. By cutting that pipe and connecting the pump there, it was just as if the water was coming from the old city system. He’d have to install a smaller pump on the external tank, and the best thing to do would be to run a pipe down to the Ohio River, draw water directly from there. He’d also need a filter on that one, or the external tank would quickly fill with sediment from the muddy water of the Ohio.

Those pumps were added to the list he was preparing for Kumi.

The tank itself wasn’t an issue. If he couldn’t find one that suited him, he could just make one. There was plenty of sheet metal to be had, and designing and building a water holding tank was child’s play.

He ranged out that afternoon to look for a good water tank, but after finding none, he used the airbike to drag a couple of abandoned cars back close to his house. Their sheet metal would be good for the tank. After that was done, he saw it was about time to go back to the border, so he locked up the house, pulled out an airbike—remembering his night goggles this time—then activated his intrusion deterrent system after getting a safe distance away. He returned to the same place he had called her from the day before, then sat down and dialed her number. He got the very same operator when the line was answered, who took one look at him and glanced down. “One moment,” he said before Jason could say anything. He was put on hold, and seconds later, Kumi appeared on his panel display. She was wearing a very elegant gown, made of what looked like black silk with a low neckline. There was red material gored into her voluminous sleeves, and a necklace of glittering crystals, probably diamonds, graced her sleek neck. Her gown was both simple yet elegant, without elaborate embroidery anywhere but along the upper edge of the bodice, what looked like birds with twigs in their mouths taking flight along the edge of her neckline, flying towards her shoulders. “Wow,” Jason said in appreciation.

“You like?” she asked girlishly, stepping back and turning a circle for him.

“It’s very pretty on you, Kumi,” he said honestly.

“Thanks, babe,” she grinned, sitting down in front of her panel. “When I told my mom I was going to go to Terra to inspect the house holdings, she decided to throw me a party. She thinks I’m starting to get all respectable and shit.”

Jason laughed. “If she only knew.”

“She’d burst a blood vessel for sure,” Kumi said with a wolfish grin.

“At least you’ll be the best dressed girl there.”

“Flatterer,” she accused. “So, hit me with your new list. I know it’s coming.”

He laughed. “You scare me sometimes, Kumi.”

“Hey, I’m young, but I’m not stupid,” she told him bluntly. “I’m sure you thought of several things you need after we hung up yesterday.”

“You’re right. Let me send you the file.” He did so with a few presses of keys.

“Got it. Hmm, I don’t even know what some of this stuff is, but I’m sure Fure can find it. What do you want carbidium for?” she asked, looking at him.

“To shield the PPGs I’m using to power some stuff I have in my house. It should be dense enough to shield the PPG signatures from sensor sweeps.”

“Oh. Shit, babe, that’s a good idea. I didn’t think of that. Raw carbidium ain’t too expensive, either.” She wrote a few lines down on that little notepad by her desk. “Ok, here’s the deal. I’m leaving after the party, in about six standard hours. It’s only gonna take us about two hours to get there, so I’ll be in orbit over Terra in about eight standard hours. Now, I have to go through some stupid meetings with some other house people, and I’m supposed to get a tour of Washington by the Imperial staff, then my time’s my own. So, let’s give me a few hours to get some rest, and then I’m all yours.” She brought up a map of the eastern United States on an interactive window, then touched her panel display, which caused a red dot to appear on the map. “I’m gonna land inside the nature preserve, and I’m gonna set it up so I land there in the late afternoon, then leave after dark. We’ll do our business after the sun goes down,” she told him, dragging that red dot back and forth. “I already told them I want to check out the nature preserve and see if I can find some interesting stuff to take home.”

“You get a tour of Washington? Nice.”

“I hate it, but they expect use to do it when house nobles of our rank visit. Especially since my mom decided to go with me,” she fumed a bit.

“What are you in the house, Kumi?”

“My mom’s ninth in line for the house throne,” she answered immediately. “I’m twenty-second. I’m a Countess. My mom’s a Duchess. We’re way up there.”

“I see,” he said with a whistle. “No wonder she wants you more involved in house affairs.”

“Yeah,” she grinned. “She missed out on being the Governor of Terra by this much,” she said, holding her thumb and forfinger an inch apart. “But the Grand Duchess decided to give it to one of her daughters instead. Anyway, so let’s pick a spot. Make it close to where you are, but not right where you are. There won’t be no trouble with me getting there, cause I already told my mom to stuff all the security. She knows I’ll just leave them behind anyway. We’ve been through all this before,” she grinned. “I’m bringing a personal security detail, and convinced her they’ll be enough She won’t know I’ll leave them in Washington too. Only people coming with me are Fure and a few servants I can trust, and a couple of personal bodyguards I know I can trust. I figure you’ll have chased out anyone on the ground that might cause us problems.”

“You’re right,” he agreed, looking at the map. “Does it being in the open matter?”

“Not at all,” she answered. “The ships in orbit know better than to spy on me. I’ll kick their asses if they try.”

“Meanie,” he chuckled.

“I’m a girl who likes her privacy, and I mean it,” she said bluntly. “The drop ship I’m bringing has some anti-surveillance gear, and it’s going to be running when I come down.”

“Ok, how about right here?” he asked, touching the screen over an old national park called Beech Fork Lake. It was only about ten miles from where he was, but it was an open area with access for a dropship as well as immediate access to the cover of the forest. “It’s an open area by a lake, you should be able to land there.”

“Can you get there in time?”

“Yeah, I can get there. I’ll wait in the forest until after sundown, then come out to meet you.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll park an airbike in the clearing to tell you where I am.”

“No, just wait. My dropship has sensors, once we’re close they’ll lock onto you. We’ll land in the nearest clearing.”

“I understand,” he assured her.

“Okay, so, be there at sunset tomorrow your time,” she ordered. “I’ve added a bike carrier so you can carry this stuff off, so don’t make any other plans for that.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s an anti-grav attachment for an airbike, for hauling shit.”

“A bike trailer,” he mused.

“An archaic word, but yeah. Military airbikes are all capable of pulling a carrier. Just one should do it, there won’t be that much. Just don’t pull it all the time, the carrier won’t have a signature masker.”

“Alright.”

“I gotta go. Tomorrow, sunset, here,” she said, causing the light to illuminate Beech Fork Lake.

“I’ll be there.”

“You better, I’ve got all your money,” she said with a wolfish grin.

“By the way, you’re dead sexy in that,” he teased, returning her compliment from the day before.

“Well thanks, babe,” she said with a demure smile. “Don’t be late.”

And he wasn’t. He arrived at Beech Fork Lake very early, at four o’clock, but it had been slow going. He’d wanted to get there much earlier, to give himself time to check over the area, but an unpredicted glitch had slowed him down. Temika hadn’t come back yet, so he was forced to tow the second airbike by starting it up and putting it in “neutral,” which was just making it float, then dragging it with a rope using the other airbike. The riderless airbike’s computer didn’t want to move, trying to retain a static position, so it was like pulling an anchor sometimes, especially when he went downhill. He ended up going at a virtual crawl almost all the way, because the faster the towed airbike was pulled, the stronger the engines tried to retain its position. There was nothing he could do about it; it was either tow the airbike like that, or turn it off and drag it on the ground, and that wasn’t really an option. He ended up moving at a speed that was just a bit faster than a walk all the way down the pothole-infested Route 152 that linked Huntington to the road leading to Beech Fork Lake.

It had been a nervous ride. He’d seen movement up in the hills several times on the way, but he wasn’t sure if it had been wildlife or people. Three times he nearly cut the rope with a knife and bolted, but there had been no attacks or anything like that.

He arrived at what used to be a narrow parking lot in front of a strip of waist-high grass that covered the ground between the forest and the lake’s edge. This was some kind of a spur off the main lake, for the lake looked more like a narrow estuary; it was only about a hundred feet to the steep opposite bank, which rose up directly into forest. There was the rotted remains of a rope in the water, and the faded signs told him that this had been the swimming area. Well, the partially overgrown parking lot was perfect, for there was enough open space that wasn’t overgrown with high grass for Kumi to land her dropship, and he was only fifty feet from the treeline.

With his railgun in his hands, he carefully patrolled the woods around his chosen site, and found them to be empty of any human life. That took him about two hours. So, confident he was alone, he rode each airbike up into the treeline one by one, then sat down on a log and played a game of chess against the computer using his panel to pass the time and wait for sunset.

About a half hour before sunset, he heard the high-pitched whine of the dropship’s engines. He suspended the game and put his panel away in the backpack he was wearing, then set it down by the airbikes and moved up to the treeline to look. Kumi’s dropship was huge, painted bright red, and emblazoned with the crest of Trillane on both sides and on the undersides of each large wing. It was a whale-looking vehicle, with a wide beam and a shallowness that made it look like it wallowed through the air, but the pilot maneuvered it with surprising agility as he lined up in the old parking lot and the landing skids extended. He set her down as gentle as a feather, and the back doors opened as the back ramp extended, even as the pilot was shutting down the engines. There were two people in that doorway, two women wearing bright red combat armor but not helmets, carrying MPAC assault rifles readied in their hands as they walked down the ramp. They were either sisters or twins, because they looked very similar, and had the same bluish-white hair cut in a pixie style. A tall, thin Faey male stepped out behind them, and then, to Jason’s surprise, he was followed by a three foot tall humanoid-looking creature with bright red skin, short white hair, a pair of red whip-like antennae jutting out of that hair, dead black eyes, and seven fingered hands. Kumi herself appeared a moment later, wearing a black jumpsuit of sorts with the Trillane crest sewn onto the left side of the chest, over her heart. He felt four separate mental sweeps pass over him, but he kept his mind carefully silent, causing them to slide over him without recognizing him. It was an automatic reflex for him to do that, but he wasn’t quite ready to give himself away yet.

You think he moved before we landed, my Lady? the Faey on the right asked in an open sending, which Jason could pick up.

No, he’s right around here, Kumi’s mental voice replied. I checked him out before we came here Meya, he’s supposed to have unusual mental discipline for a human. So much so that he can defend himself against talent.

I thought humans were defenseless, the one on the left mused.

Not all of them,I guess, Kumi answered. Cause he’s within two hundred shakra of us right now, but I can’t find his mind.

I think there’s more to this human than he leads you to believe, my Lady, the male sent with quiet reserve. Given this kind of remarkable defense the human seems to have, and given the fact that now we do know that at least one human has expressed talent, I think it’s safe for us to assume that this human ran because he feared backlash. After all, it is very well known and documented that he has exceptional mental discipline and a strange resistance to our talent. It might entirely be possible that he has talent himself, and if that’s the case, you should have nothing to do with him.

You have the soul of a worrier, Fure, Kumi scoffed mentally. Even if through some miracle he did have talent, I really could care less. He’s paying me very well to help him, and besides, I like him, and he needs me. If he really did run because he’s afraid they’ll think he has talent, or he really does have talent, then hell, he did the smart thing.

That’s almost a treasonous position, my lady.

If you’re so patriotic you’re willing to let someone turn you into a walking zombie for the good of the Empress, then why don’t you prove it? she challenged with surprising vehemence.

Ah, I’ll pass, my Lady.

Then can the hypocracy, she sent at him shortly. If you knew the Secret Police were coming for you and you had a place to hide, I’ll bet my panties you’d be gone so fast your shadow wouldn’t know where you went.

That caused both the Faey bodyguards to start laughing.

I probably would, my Lady, Fure admitted candidly. Shall we begin to unload?

Jason looked back to check on the airbikes, then moved to a different tree for a better view. He had no idea why he was hiding, but he had to admit, he was picking up some good information by doing so. He was easily within their sending range, and he was eavesdropping on it all. So far, he had to admit, what he’d heard endeared him to Kumi more and more. If she didn’t care if he had talent or not, maybe that would help her keep silent if it ever became common knowledge that he really did. He doubted that would ever happen, but it seemed that Kumi would never rat him out, no matter what she heard about him. That was good, and made him feel better.

A faint sound to his flank caused him to glance that way, then he caught a glimpse of something move. Immediately he raised his railgun and aimed it in that direction, opening himself slightly to listen for any random thoughts that would tell him if it was an animal or a person. He wouldn’t actively sweep, because that was active, and one of the Faey might notice it when his mind ghosted across theirs. So he was instead using the passive version, listening for thoughts. It wouldn’t do much good against a Faey who had her mind closed, but it would tell him if another human had somehow managed to slip in on them. Jason went hot on his railgun, and the cable capacitors gave off an ascending audible whine as they charged, which only took about half a second.

“Freeze!” a harsh barking command came from behind him, in thickly accented English. He glanced over his shoulder and saw one of Kumi’s bodyguards on the other side of the tree, about ten feet away, with her MPAC aimed at his back.

“Hold on!” Jason called in Faey. “I’m here to meet Kumi!”

“Turn around,” she ordered in Faey, and he saw her partner step out from behind a tree in front of him. She’d made the sound he’d heard, and he was impressed. In that brief moment he’d looked away, both of them had slipped off, and the one in front of him had gotten that close to him before making any sound that he could hear, and she did it wearing all that armor. She was good.

Jason complied, raising both hands with his railgun held by the barrel. “I’m here to meet Kumi,” he repeated.

Stand down you two, that’s him, Kumi ordered with her mind.

She lowered her weapon and nodded. “What is that thing? Some kind of human weapon?” she asked him curiously.

“Something like that,” Jason answered as he lowered his arms, put his weapon back on safety, then slung it over his shoulder.

“Well, don’t just stand over there,” Kumi called to him as she came down out of the dropship.

Jason met her outside her ship, and she offered her hand to him with an impish smile on her face. He took it, careful to hide his true thoughts from her the way Jyslin taught him, and shook her hand firmly. Jason was very certain to totally lock his mind so he coudlnt’ hear them send anymore. He didn’t want to give away that he could, and since he was almost too comfortable with being able to do it, he might let something slip in conversation that he wouldn’t have heard any other way. He didn’t want to run any risk at all that Kumi would leave here thinking him to be anything other than a normal native. He figured that Fure was already very suspicious of him, so he had to be very, very careful. “I’m glad to meet you in person, Kumi. You’re taller than I expected.”

“You never saw me with anyone else,” she grinned. “Ok, I have it all packed onto this carrier here,” she said, pointing up into the dropship at a squarish device that was sitting on the deck. “Everything you asked for is there. Korm,” she prompted, holding out her hand. The little red guy reached by the door’s bulkhead, then brought out a large black case that he had to carry with both hands. He waddled down the ramp and handed it to her, then she gave it to him. “This is your money. There’s about thirty thousand there, more or less. It’s the leftover minus five percent. Here’s a list of it all, and how much it cost, so you can doublecheck the figures.” She handed him a small panel display, which was really nothing more than a display for showing very small embedded files. A Faey’s version of a spiral notebook.

“I trust you, Kumi. Even if that is a bad thing,” he added with a smile, pushing it back at her.

She laughed, pushing it back. “Keep that,” she told him. “I put a few things in there I thought you might need, that you didn’t ask for. But I didn’t get exotic or expensive,” she assured him. “Oh, yeah, give me your panel.”

“Why?”

She took the case from him, then knelt down and put it on the ground. She opened it, then took a sleek black panel off the top of a series of neatly stacked credit notes. “Because of this,” she told him. “Just dump your panel on a stick and trade me. You want this one.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s got a hardwired tightbeam link to an orbiting transceiver, about this big,” she explained, showing him her clenched fist. “And that one’s set to tightbeam directly to a Civnet satellite. It’ll redirect your panel’s Civnet signal so they’ll think it’s bouncing directly off a satellite, and they can’t track that unless the sensor array literally gets directly into the path of the tightbeam signal. That way you can use Civnet anywhere in the nature preserve, and they won’t see it.”

“Wow, that’s—thanks Kumi. This is nice,” he said sincerely, taking his backpack off his back. He set down his railgun and started working his panel out, then he reached into his pack for a memory stick and inserted it in the stickjack. He brought up the panel and had it dump to the stick, wiping out the panel’s onboard memory in the process. It only took it about five seconds. Then he removed it and offered the panel to Kumi. She took it with a nod, but her eyes flashed as Jason noticed motion to his side. He looked that way, and saw that one of Kumi’s bodyguards had picked up Jason’s railgun.

“Myra!” Kumi snapped authoritatively.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” she told them all professionally. “It’s custom. Did you build this, human?” she asked him curiously.

“I’m not going to answer you,” he told her flatly. “And I’d appreciate it if you gave it back.”

She just smiled at him, then to his surprise, she disengaged the safety. She must have seen him do it. The indicator light went green as the backglass panel turned red, indicating the weapon was hot and ready to fire, and she quickly turned and brought the railgun up to her shoulder. Jason jumped up, having to crush the urge to actually try to attack her with telepathy—a suicidal stunt given his current company!—but he was too late to prevent her from aiming the weapon safely at the opposite bank of the lake, then pulling the trigger.

There was that familiar BEE-yah! sound followed up by the sharp crack like a whip, and the instant corkscrew smoketrail that linked the muzzle of the weapon to the sudden explosion of mud, dirt, and buried root on the steep hill of the opposite bank, as the slug impacted the embankment and was stopped, which caused the backblow effect that made the weapon’s round blow huge holes in things it couldn’t go through. Bits of dirt and wood arced high into the air, dropping into the lake like rain, and one particularly large piece of root landed not five feet from Myra’s foot.

“Trelle’s garland!” the bodyguard gasped.

“Demir’s sword!” the other bodyguard exclaimed.

“Holy shit!” Kumi said, somewhat less diplomatically, but just as emotionally, as her bodyguards.

“And that is why I’m here,” Jason snapped angrily, ripping the weapon out of Myra’s hands. Now it was time to talk fast, and he clamped down tightly on his own thoughts, projecting only the thoughts that would back up what he was saying, so it would seem to them that his thoughts reinforced his words. They would see his thoughts suddenly become audible to them for a moment, as if he’d lost his control of his mind in a moment of anger, and what they saw there would back up his statements. “I will not give this to the Faey. I will not give them weapons to use to oppress my people, or any other people.”

“What is this thing?” Myra asked, pointing at it. “Some kind of mass driver? It fired a solid mass, didn’t it? How did you propel it? Is it explosive? Have you tried it against armor?”

“Myra!” Kumi shouted at her. “Get back on the dropship, now,” she ordered hotly, pointing at the red craft. “That—I’m sorry. I did not give her permission to do that. I swear to you, Jason.”

“I believe you, Kumi,” he said shortly, glaring at the Faey bodyguard openly.

“But I have to say, I’m impressed,” she said appreciatively, looking at the gun. “I’m surprised a student could build something as complicated as a weapon, and make it actually good.”

“Thanks. I think,” he added uncertainly.

“You weren’t planning on taking over the Imperium, were you?” she asked with a wink.

Jason laughed ruefully. “Actually, it was just an experiment,” he answered honestly. “It worked, but a little bit too well. When I ran, I brought it with me, and it’s the best weapon I have right now.”

“I thought you said you had good guns. I’ll give you a couple of MPACs, Jason.”

“I have a couple,” he told her. “But this is lighter, and easier to carry.”

“That it is,” Myra agreed before she started walking away.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure, thanks for offering, though.”

“Okay,” she said with a nod, as Fure backed the first airbike down out of the dropship, the one with the carrier. The carrier looked like a big black box, complete with a lid. “There’s just you, so you’re going to have to tow the second airbike. I have a tow cable for you, we’ll just hook up the airbike with the carrier to the other one, and you can tow both the bike and the carrier.”

“I had to tow the others here, and it took forever,” he growled. “The bike didn’t want to move.”

“These are a bit different,” she chuckled. “When you hook up the tow cable, the bike will go into tow mode, and it’ll follow the towing bike.”

“Thank God,” Jason said fervently. “I wasn’t looking forward to creeping along all night to get back home.”

After Fure backed the other airbike down, Jason got a good look at them. They were bigger than his other airbikes, though they were built on the same basic design concept. Both were painted black, and they had the familiar extending windscreen and backglass display in the dash, but these also had a heads-up display that appeared on the windscreen, and a few more controls on the panel below. “These ride just like regular airbikes, but they go faster,” she told him. “I have the manuals for them on a stick in a box in the carrier, so you can read up on the extra controls they have. These are military, babe, remember that. They’re armed. I didn’t take the weapons off. The only things I took off them were their locator beacons. So don’t just go and randomly press buttons, babe, you might be in for a nasty shock.”

“I’ll be careful,” he nodded.

“Ok, here’s the tow cable port, and here’s the hook for the hard connection,” she said as she pointed, then Fure handed her one end of the tow cable. It had a looped eye and a plug, with a data cord wrapped around a reinforced metal cable. She deftly plugged in the data cord, then hooked the towing cable into the receiver. She unlooped it as she walked to the back of the other bike, then pointed out the reciprocal parts on the other airbike before hooking them in. “There, now the towed bike will follow the one you ride,” she told him, going back to the first one and pointing at the display panel. It had [TOW MODE: SLAVE] blinking across the top border. “When you take them, just inch out til you pull the cable taut, then wait a few seconds for the towed bike to calibrate. After that, just go. The towed bike will mirror every move the bike you’re riding makes.”

“Okay, I can handle that.”

“Good. Now, come up into the dropship so we can do one more thing.”

“What is that?” he asked as she started up the ramp. He followed out of curiosity, up into the dropship. He saw that only about half of it was the cargo compartment, and there was a door at the far end for the cabin. They went past Myra, who gave his railgun a long, speculative look, and he followed her into the crew cabin. The short red-skinned servant scurried out quickly as he moved into a cool cabin with rows of deeply cushoined chairs covered in what looked like beige leather or some kind of synthetic material, like vinyl or something.

She turned around, and to his surprise, she was unzipping the front of her jumpsuit. “Strip, babe,” she ordered.

“What?” he asked in confusion.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to rape you,” she said with a naked leer. “You can’t wear this with clothes on.” She turned a chair around, and pointed to an open-topped box with black armor in it. “Remember when I had you strip down to your undies?” she asked with a wink. “Well, I got a good enough vid of it to get your proper measurements for heavy armor. So I had it made. I’m going to teach you how to put it on, using this,” she said, turning the chair on the other side, which had a box of armor as well. “I do it, then you do it, because I want to make sure it fits properly before you leave. Oh, and I get a picture.”

“Of what?”

“Of you naked. It’s for my collection,” she winked. “I collect naked pictures of handsome guys. Nothing sexual or anything, just a naked picture of you. Call me a soft porn collector,” she said with an outrageous grin. “Now, if we had more time, I’d be jumping all over your bones in a heartbeat, babe. You’re drop dead sexy. But my mom will start looking for me if I stay here too long, and I don’t think either of us want to see a squad of fighters drop in on us. Especially if I’m banging an outlaw native in my dropship at the time,” she grinned.

“No, that would be a bit embarrasing,” he said mildly.

“Embarrasing my ass, I’d just have trouble explaining all the equipment sitting outside the dropship,” she snorted, pulling her jumpsuit down off her shoulders, exposing a pair of firm, smallish breasts. The breasts of a teenage girl, and that reminded him that that was exactly what she was. It was easy to forget that, since she seemed so mature. “Mother doesn’t care who I’m fucking, babe, as long as I don’t make it common knowledge if I’m banging commoners. She says it’ll tarnish my reputation. She’s such a hypocrit,” she growled, shimmying her jumpsuit down over her hips. “I think she’s had every servant in our house between her legs, and they’re all commoners.” She pushed her jumpsuit down, then bent over and pulled off her boots before stepping out of it. She had no panties on, showing off a very tone, very tight little body, complete with her pubic hair shaved down a single narrow strip. “You can stare to your heart’s content after we get this done,” she told him.

“Sorry,” he said calmly. “Just had to take a moment to appreciate you.”

“Why thank you babe,” she said with a demure smile, turning around for his benefit, tilting her hips, putting her hands on her hips, and looking over her shoulder at him before turning back around. He understood Faey mentality enough to know that she would not be offended by that kind of remark. In fact, she’d take it as very high praise. “I work out enough. I’m proud of this body.”

“You do a good job,” he complimented sincerely.

“You’re so sweet,” she gushed as he started undressing.

He felt a tad awkward as he stood there naked, but she didn’t seem to notice. The first thing she did was pick up a small camera. “Okay, I get my picture first. Just stand there, babe, you don’t have to pose or grab yourself or any shit like that. Like I said, I just want a picture of you,” she told him as she backed up a few steps and brought the camera to her eye. He felt very uncomfortable at the idea of that, but she’d done so much to help him, he couldn’t really refuse her. Not over something that was just mildly embarrasing. She seemed to take several, then put the camera back on the seat from which she’d taken it and grinned at him. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, I guess,” he said uncertainly.

“Don’t worry babe, I won’t do anything with it. I just like to collect them. I don’t even jerk off to them.”

“I did not need to know that,” he said ruefully.

She laughed and picked up the codpiece of her armor. “Okay babe, this is what you start with. It all anchors to this, so we put this on first.”

Seeing Jyslin put on her armor was not the same as doing it himself. He watched Kumi and tried to mimic her, but he didn’t do it very well. She had to help him with each piece, showing him how they locked together. At first he was afraid that those joints would pinch him, but after he got some of it on, he realized that the interior of the armor blended together, the padded lining actually seemed to anneal with itself to form a continuous surface. He brought that up to Kumi, who just nodded. “It’s a kind of gelatinous material that merges with itself when it’s touching,” she told him. “Before they discovered it, they wore a skin-tight body suit under the armor. Now the inner lining does that, so it’s one less thing we have to put on.”

“That makes sense,” he said, picking up the front of the breastplate. It had a gorgeous etched relief of some kind of large, majestic looking bird, its wings spread to cover the upper chest and its head just under the upper edge of the breastplate. Very detailed, very life-like and just damn beautiful. He also noticed after looking more closely at its edges that it had dataline fibers embedded in the edge. “This is powered?” he asked in surprise. There was no other reason there would be dataline fibers in the armor.

“You think I’d have them make you those outdated pieces of shit they make our soldiers wear here?” she challenged. “I wouldn’t put my vulpar in that junk! This is mainstream armor, babe, not hundred year old surplus shitty-ass junk. Crystalized neutronium carapace, laminated neutronium interior carapace, environmentally sealed, climate control, on-board computer, anti-grav system, on-visor display with multiple vision modes, comm and ECM integrated into the helmet, nested MPAC autocannon pods in the forearms, smartgun links for rifles and weapon systems, bio-reactive servo strength augmentation, what you’d find in a suit of real fuckin’ armor.”

“I’ve never seen this before, and I’ve never heard of some of that. I have no idea how it works.”

“I’ve got manuals and tech specs for it,” she assured him. “You’ll be able to figure it out. Oh, you like the bird?”

“I love it!” he said immediately. “What is it?”

“A picture I found in your human literature. It’s called a, er, fee-neex,” she said in uncertain English.

“Phoenix,” he corrected absently, looking at it. It did kind of look like a picture of a Phoenix. Very majestic. “That explains the flame relief on the greaves.”

She nodded as she locked her breastplate to her stomacher. “I’ve always been one for fashion, even in armor,” she grinned, holding out her own. It had the profile relief of a Vulpar on it, the ring pattern on the tip of its two tails marking it as a female. “Just like my name,” she winked, then reached down for the back of the breastplate.

She walked him through getting the armor on, then once it was done, he let her inspect him. “Good, it fits perfectly,” she nodded. “Is it pinching anywhere? Does the weight feel distributed equally? Feel any gaps? You should feel the lining against every square kidin of your skin. There shouldn’t be any gaps, except maybe in the cup,” she said with a teasing wink. “I had to kind of guess there, since I didn’t get to see.”

“No, it’s very comfortable,” he told he, rotating his shoulders and swinging his arms back and forth. The armor was thin, it was light, and it did not hinder his motion in any way. He felt curiously naked with it on, because it didn’t feel like clothing. The only thing that told him it was there was the weight on his back, for the back of the armor was built out a little and probably enclosed the armor’s power generation system, and maybe a few other systems, like climate control and life support. It felt like he was wearing a light backpack, actually. He put on the helmet and felt it lock to the neck collar, and he found himself looking through tinted glass. It suddenly became alive, Faey text scrolling across the edges of his vision, which he didn’t both to read. He looked at her, and a little yellow circle appeared around her chest, with a little line pointing at Faey text [Faey—COM] it read. The air he was breathing in the helmet was fresh and cool. He went to take the helmet off, but found it locked. She showed him where the release locks where, buttons he had to press down on both sides of the helmet to make it come off. He did so, shaking his head back and forth. “I’ll need a bandana or something for my hair,” he noted to himself.

Satisfied, she showed him how to take it off. Once they had all of it off, again standing there facing one another naked, she sat down on the chair behind her and looked up at him. “Alright babe, put it back on, I won’t do anything but explain if you get stuck this time.”

He did his best, but he got stuck once or twice and she had to explain what he was doing wrong. He got all of it on, then took it all off, then she had him put it on by himself one more time. That time he managed to get it all on without any guidance, then remove it. “I think that’s enough,” he said.

“Yeah, that’s good,” she agreed as he bent down to grab his pants and underwear. He looked down at her, and she had an odd expression on her face. “What?”

“I’m wondering if we have enough time,” she said, looking him up and down boldly, then she sighed. “Probably not though. A pity. If I had you home, you wouldn’t get out of my room for three days. Your body just screams all night long, not a quickie in the seat of dropship. Not that that wouldn’t be fun, though,” she added with a giggle.

“Well, I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said evenly, stepping into his underwear.

“I’m pretty sure I’ll get a chance at you,” she winked. “I’ll have to invite you up to my home sometime for a weekend holiday. And if it ever gets too hot for you here, you can always come hide out with me. You can be one of my personal servants,” she said with a sultry smile.

“Jyslin would kill you.”

“Jyslin’s not around,” she said with a little sigh when his briefs covered up the object of her attention. “Besides, she wouldn’t really care all that much. I don’t like love you or anything. Besides, all that time out there by yourself? Men aren’t suited for it, they need sex every few days or they get bitchy. If you get desperate, just call me. I’ll sneak over here and relieve your frustration. Trust me, I’d love to do it,” she said, leering at him again.

Given his exposure to Jyslin and Symone, he knew that she was quite serious, but also that she meant it as a compliment. It was one way she was trying to exhibit her willingness to be friends with him. After all, in Faey society, casual friends often engaged in sexual relationships, because Faey didn’t equate sex with love or monogamy. He remembered when Symone made him a similar proposition, so at least this wasn’t too much of a shock. It was only shocking in that Kumi was offering friendship, and maybe a bit surprising that she was taking that step so quickly. Unless, of course, her only motivation was sex. She was a noble, maybe nobles had different ways of doing things than commoners.

“Well, thanks,” he said sincerely. “I appreciate the offer.”

“If I find I have some free time before we go back home, it’ll be a solid offer,” she warned. “After I did all this for you, I fully expect a little action from you if I can find the time. Business is business, but part of this was a favor, and I expect a little favor in return.”

He gave her a look, and saw she was serious. “Well, I guess it would be extremely rude of me to decline,” he said honestly. “And I do think I’d enjoy it,” he said, looking her up and down boldly, just as she had done to him.

“You understand Faey better than I thought,” she said with a sly smile.

“I lived around Jyslin too long not to,” he told her as he pulled his shirt back on. He reached down and picked up her jumpsuit, then handed it to her. She grinned as she took it, then stood up and started putting it on. He put the armor back in the box, pausing to admire the Phoenix etched into the breastplate, then he picked it up and carried it out to the airbikes along with the case of money. He put them in the carrier, glanced at all the other stuff in there—it was almost completely full—then closed the carrier’s lid.

Kumi came down the ramp, hopping a bit to get her boot back on, then boldly slapped him on the butt. “Was it good for you, baby?” she asked outrageously.

Jason laughed. “Thanks for the armor, Kumi. I hope I never have to use it.”

“Amen,” the other bodyguard, Meya, said with an agreeing nod.

“I need to get back in the air, no doubt my mom thinks I’m up to no good out here,” she grunted. “Remember, you can use that panel anywhere, anytime, and they can’t track you. So never be afraid to call me up if you need anything, or if you just want to talk or something. I’m sure it’s gonna be lonely out here,” she told him.

“I’ve met a couple of squatters that are pretty friendly, so it’s not like I’m completely alone out here. If I were, I wouldn’t need the armor,” he frowned.

“Well, the clothing and that suit will stop just about any kind of weapon the humans have out here,” she told him. “So rest easy, babe. You’re much safer now.”

“That I am, and it’s thanks to you,” he told her with a nod.

“Any time, babe. As long as you can pay for it, of course,” she grinned.

“You’re a pirate, Kumi,” he chuckled lightly as he mounted the airbike that would tow the other.

“At least I’m a friendly pirate,” she winked. “If you need anything else—“

“I’ll keep it in mind, but I think we need to make this our first and last business meeting,” he told her. “In a little while, it’s going to be very dangerous to know me. Right now, they know I’m officially missing, because I missed my semi-annual physical. They’ll realize I’m gone by tomorrow, when they look back through the records and see that I went out in my skimmer and never came back. I figure they’ll have search parties out along my flight path by Sunday.”

“Seems quite a fuss over a single student,” the male, Fure, said.

“A student who’s a candidate for research,” Jason told him evenly.

“Ah. Yes, they would look for you,” he agreed.

“Well, I’d say you could certainly pull your weight in research,” Meya told him, looking at the railgun slung over his shoulder. “I’d love to borrow that for a while.”

“Meya and Myra have an obsession with guns,” Kumi told him with a chuckle. “They’re twins, sometimes I think they share the same brain. They have a collection of guns from all over the galaxy. I think they even have a couple of those ballistic guns from Terra.”

Meya nodded. “We have a hunting rifle and a pistol,” she told them.

Jason got the airbike ready to move. “I’ll be on my way, Kumi,” he told her. “Thanks again for all your help.”

“Hey, no sweat, babe,” she told him. She stepped over, then leaned up and kissed him. It was not a chaste kiss. “Remember, if you need anything, call me. You’ve got plenty of money to pay me,” she winked.

“You are a pirate,” he chuckled.

“I’ve done the looting and pillaging,” she whispered in his ear. “I’m looking forward to the raping part.”

“You’re an evil girl, Kumi,” he accused lightly as he engaged the airbike’s engines, being very careful not to hit any of the extra controls.

“I’m not evil, I’m a noble,” she replied with a wicked smirk. She then stepped back while he pulled the airbike slowly forward, until the cable became taut. When it did, the towed airbike lifted up a bit more off the ground, as did the carrier, and a message [TOW READY] flashed on the display panel of the airbike he was riding. He waved to her, then pulled forward carefully. The bike and carrier behind him followed along easily, and he immediately got comfortable with the idea. He drove them out of sight of the dropship, along the road that would take him home. He wasn’t going to go there until well after he was sure Kumi’s dropship was out of sight of this area, though. Not because of Kumi, but because it was only smart, just in case. So, when he reached the junction of 152 and 75, he turned left instead of going straight, starting towards Kenova. He’d go that way for a while, then double back and get home a little later.

One thing was for sure, though. Kumi was a lifesaver.

The clothes she’d picked out for him were not bad at all.

He’d gone through them already. She’d obviously done her homework, for everything in that box of neatly folded clothing was Terran style, in Terran-looking fabrics. She’d sent him several pairs of jeans, some slacks, tee shirts, button-down shirts, even three denim overshirts which he was so fond of wearing. There was a baseball cap, a billed hat with a cloth drape that fell down over the neck, even a pair of soft fabric slippers. On further inspection, he found that the fabric wasn’t really cotton or denim or whatever, but an ultra-thin fabric that just looked like it. There were two layers of it with the armored cloth in the middle. He put on the jeans, and found them to be light, comfortable, and surprisingly soft. They also fit perfectly. He reached into the second box and found a full-length black duster-style coat, nice and baggy. It had an internal holster built right into the coat for a plasma pistol, one on each side, as well as quite a few pockets on the inside and outside of the coat. The coat was surprisingly cool, probably made of some kind of material that breathes or something, even when he took it out in the warm, muggy night and saw how hot it was out of air conditioning. There even socks and some underwear in that box.

Armored underwear. Kumi certainly had a sense of humor.

He went through the rest of it, and found everything he asked for in the carrier, which he had parked outside the house while he unloaded it. The equipment he wanted was there, a good supply of generic parts, and at the bottom were a bunch of small tiles of carbidium. He picked one up, and was a bit startled. That small tile, only about a square foot and one inch thick, weighed almost a hundred pounds. There were twenty of them in there, which was about a ton of carbidium he could use to build shields for the PPGs he had powering stuff. Kumi was very thorough in picking all kinds of different kinds of components and equipment for him, and she even included some bench tools for fabricating things. That was when he realized that she didn’t really know what to buy, she simply bought a package for a workshop. Tools, materials, all of it bundled together for an engineer looking to set up a new workshop. He remembered seeing something like that on Civnet.

He set up some of the tools in the room in the basement that held the water heater, then put away the clothing and stored the bolt of armor cloth that Kumi had included, in case he wanted to make armored clothing of his own. He took the carrier and the airbikes down to the skimmer, then had to fuss with them a bit to get all of them into it. They filled up his entire cargo hold. He had to unhook the carrier from the second airbike, which took him a little bit to figure it out, then store the carrier in the back and the airbikes in the front. They were wider than his recreational airbikes, and just barely managed to get in there side by side with one facing the front and one facing the back. He locked the skimmer back up and walked towards his house, when Temika’s Harley started tickling his ears. It was about time, she was only a few hours late.

She’d gotten to his house before he did, and he didn’t like what he saw. She was slumped over the handle bars of her bike. He moved towards her and saw her trying to get her leg up and over the saddle, and that was when he saw the blood. Her shirt was soaked in blood on the upper right side, and her jeans had blood soaking her right outside thigh and trailing down, leading from a rip in them that exposed a deep laceration.

Jason ran up to her and grabbed hold of her, then pulled her off the bike. “Temika!” he said quickly. “What happened?”

“Ah wasn’t payin’ as much attention as Ah should have,” she said ruefully through a wince of pain. “Mind the shouldah, sugah. Ah got clipped.”

“How bad is it?” he asked as he pulled her arm over his shoulder, looped a hand around her waist, and started helping her to his house.

“Not as bad as it coulda been, that’s fo’ sure,” she answered through gritted teeth. “The bullet went all the way through.”

He got her inside and into a bed in an upstairs bedroom. She didn’t object when he cut her vest and shirt away with a pair of scissors, removed her shoulder holster and set it aside without having to damage it, then pulled her bra strap down to get a look. The bullet had hit her in the right shoulder, just under her collarbone, and did indeed pass all the way through. There was an exit wound high on the back of her shoulder, above her shoulder blade. From the angle of the bullet, whoever fired it had to be below her when he did so for it to travel like that. The wound wasn’t life-threatening, more than a graze but less than a hard hit from the bullet, but he’d bet that it hurt like hell. He was tremendously relieved when he saw that. The only issue that might cause problems was how much blood she’d lost. “Let me go get my first aid kit,” he told her.

She nodded. “Ah ain’t movin’, that’s fo’ sure, sugah.”

He fetched the kit, full of what a Faey considered emergency first aid supplies, half of which he wasn’t entirely sure of what they did. He did recognize the liquid bandage, a material he could apply to a cleaned wound and cause it to seal over and stop bleeding. It was as good as stitches. The liquid had a compound in it that urged rapid healing in the damaged tissue, he remembered. “I’m going to have to clean you up some, Temika,” he warned. “That means you’re going to have to—“

“Ah ain’t gonna fuss about modesty with mah doctah, sugah,” she told him with a weary smile, reaching up with her left hand and unhooking the two cups of her bra, where they joined.

“Okay, just so you understand,” he said. “I think I’ll have to cut the straps. I don’t want you moving that shoulder.”

“Go ahead. Ah’ve written all these clothes off anyway.”

With his scissors, he cut away the straps of her bra, then removed it. He did have to take a brief look of appreciation at the generous curves of her breasts. Temika was built. He then cut down the sides of her jeans and removed them, exposing her legs and the nasty gash in the side, that continued to stain the sheets with blood. “Okay, try to roll up on your side, so I can get at both sides of the gunshot wound,” he instructed.

She did so, and laid very still as he washed the blood off her, then cleaned the wound with antibiotic wash and applied the liquid bandage. Luckily the gash in her leg was on the same side, so she remained in that position as he cleaned that wound as well, then applied the liquid bandage. It certainly wasn’t that good of a job, but he figured it was good enough. “There, you’re done,” he said, looking at her back. He saw several scars on her back, old injuries that marked the battered life of a woman who lived in a society of anarchy. “I’m going to have to move you to another bed, this one needs changing,” he told her. “What happened?”

“Ah got ambushed by some people Ah ain’t nevah seen before, just south of Ironton,” she answered. “There was four of ‘em. Ah managed to get past ‘em, but one shot me with a little holdout pistol as Ah was ridin’ ‘em down. They just two of ‘em now,” she said grimly. “When Ah shoot someone with Ol’ Betsy, they ain’t gettin’ up.”

“What about this?” he asked, touching her leg above the gash.

“After Ah got hit, Ah almost lost control of mah bike,” she said. “Ah caught the tip of a tree limb of a tree that was fallen across the road.”

“Ouch,” he winced.

“Yeah, ouch,” she mirrored. “Give me a hand and help me where we’re goin’.”

He didn’t help her to another bedroom, he carried her. He set her down in the bed in the master bedroom, which he’d cleaned up for his own use before he started sleeping in the basement. He checked to make sure that the liquid bandage had held, then pulled the blanket up. “I’m not much of a doctor, but I think you lost a lot of blood, so you need to drink some juice or something,” he said uncertainly.

“Ah’ve lost more blood than this,” she told him. “Yo’ right, sugah. I need tah eat and drink, and stay warm.”

“Let me go get you some, and try to find you a shirt.”

“Forget that, sugah,” she chuckled. “You done already saw ‘em, ain’t no reason hidin’ ‘em now. Besides, it’d hurt too much right now tah try tah get my arm through the sleeve. Ah would ask if you could find some panties, though. Ah don’t think I want to wear this pair for the next week or so. Ah don’t have any spare clothes in my saddlepacks right now. Ah had to take ‘em out and stash ‘em in one of mah hidin’ places to make room for some stuff Ah was deliverin’.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

After feeding her and making sure she drank lots of water, he ranged out in the darkness and tried to scavenge some clothes for her. It wasn’t easy. Clothes were a desired item, so there was very little out there to be found. He returned empty-handed, and told her as much when he went to check on her.

“Well, shit,” she sighed. “Alright then, plan B, Ah guess. Whatevah you have layin’ around that you think might fit me.”

“I should have better luck tomorrow,” he told her easily. “If worse comes to worst, you can just send me to one of your hiding places for them.”

“Ah think you’d have too much trouble findin’ them. We’re bettah off jus’ goin’ with what you have that might fit me.”

He nodded in understanding. “There’s a bathroom right through that door,” he told her, pointing. “I’ll find a crutch or cane or something to help you walk.”

“Mah leg ain’t that bad, sugah. Ah can limp around.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, sugah,” she agreed. “All I really need is a sling for mah arm.”

“I’ll make something up,” he promised.

A sling was easy enough. He had it made for her in a matter of minutes, and found a solution to her clothing problem. He ripped the sleeve out of a button-up shirt that had been in the house, one of the ones he’d washed, then ripped it most of the way down the side. That way she could simple slide her arm through that hole, which was then closed using a couple of safety pins he’d found in the house. He found that a pair of his old shorts fit her well enough, though her hips were wider than his, but they served their purpose. She fell asleep rather quickly after eating and dressing, and he monitored her thoughts as she drifted off to sleep, just to make sure she didn’t think the wounds were that bad. And she didn’t. She was more angry with herself for not being more vigilent more than anything else. She considered the wound an annoyance, not a life-threatening ordeal.

He waited until she was asleep, then wandered back downstairs. He had lots to do.

Bajra, 14 Suraa, 4393, Orthodox Calendar

Thursday, 29 July 2007, Native Regional Reckoning

Huntington, West Virginia (Native designation), Orala Nature Preserve, American Sector

Temika was his houseguest for nearly two weeks, while she recovered from her injuries. Though he did rather enjoy having someone to talk to, he found that Temika could be rather irritating at times, mainly because she hated being injured and hated feeling like she was being a burden to him. Temika was a doer, not a sitter, and having to sit around was driving her nuts.

Despite that, she was nice to have around, if only because she was a fabulous cook. She could even make boiled water taste good. She’d grown up in the bayou regions of Alabama, and had learned how to cook from her mother and grandmother, from women who took cooking as seriously as most human beings took breathing. Cooking was about the only activity she could do without earning a dark scowl from him, and only when she wasn’t trying to cook fifty things at once. He had nothing against her moving around or anything like that, but she kept wanting to use her right arm, and every time she did she slowed down the healing process in her shoulder.

Those two weeks were both quiet and tense. Jason was now officially missing, and he knew that they were out looking for him. They’d probably already searched his flight path, but luckly for him, his flight path continued past his current position, and went by some nintety miles east; he’d descended under sensors north of where he was, then doubled back. So they wouldn’t start seriously looking for him until after they got past where he’d vanished. When they didn’t find him, then they’d think to start looking in other directions from where he disappeared, because by then they’d know that he didn’t crash, and his skimmer was nowhere to be found. That’s when they’d start suspecting that he didn’t have an accident or fall prey to a squatter, that’s when the suspicion would arise that he vanished on purpose. And that was when they’d get serious about finding him. They might even bring in a space-based sensor array to sweep the area.

That was what he was preparing for. He’s already worked out how to conceal the PPGs he used for power, by using his molecular sprayer to coat prefabricated pieces of sheet meta