Rift in the Races (55 page)

“It’s up, Captain,” said Roberto.

On the screen, Roberto had zoomed in the star map to show the sector at the edge of the Prosperion system. A blue line, shaped rather like a barbell, round on either end, straddled the solar system’s edge. “The blue line is us,” said Roberto. “You can see where we started, just outside of Naotatica. There ….” The dot at one end of the barbell pulsed for a moment. “And this is where we ended up after the first teleport.” The other end pulsed. “Now, if I zoom out, and add in our current coordinates, this is where we are now, nearly a light year out.” The solar system shrank considerably; the two dots seemed nearly to merge, and the line extended itself into an expanse of blackness where a new dot appeared. “There.”

“Ahhh,” cooed the conduit. “Nicely done.” He forgot to condescend for the moment.

“Now,” went on Roberto, “if I back it out more, you can see where the rest of the fleet ships are. And, just for fun,” he zoomed out further until another solar system appeared on the far left of the screen, “there’s the Hostile system, as confirmed by Orli—I mean Ensign Pewter. That’s the end game.” The view now showed a tiny dot at the far right of the screen for Prosperion’s sun—and, by proximity, the ship upon which they sat—, a tiny dot at the far left for the Hostile system sun and a third dot that was well short of the halfway mark between the two.

The conduit let out a long, low whistle. “Siren’s songs, that’s a long bit, isn’t it?”

“It is, sir,” said Roberto.

“We’ve hardly made a mark.” He leaned forward and squinted at the place on the map where all their progress had been reduced to one small dot, shared in common with the planetary system he’d felt they’d already left far, far behind. “Hardly a mark at all.”

“We get farther exponentially, Conduit,” chimed in Envette, the confidence born of both youth and power sparkling in her bright eyes. “It’s only a matter of time.”

“Those ships may not have time,” said Captain Asad. “We don’t know if there are Hostiles in pursuit or not. They insist there are none, but we can’t be sure given the … unknown abilities of the enemy. And Ensign Pewter reported that Meade encountered one on his way to the Hostile sun.” He made a conscious effort not to look at the magicians as he spoke, resenting having to rely on one of their kind for that sort of intelligence.

“Orli didn’t see anything while she was out with Altin after that encounter, though,” Roberto added. “And they did look, sir.”

“What Ensign Pewter saw in her ridiculous visual scan of some spec of space while she was AWOL hardly constitutes actionable reconnaissance, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir.” He turned back to his com, biting his lip.

The captain turned back to the conduit. “So, you can now see where the other ships are. Can you get us there or not?”

The conduit stared at the screen for a long time, walking up to it and laying his hands on it, fingers close together, where he measured it as he might have a horse or prized ox. “Lieutenant, can you fold this thing back up to where it was the time before?”

“The proper terminology is
zoom
, Conduit. Might be important in a fight someda—”

“Lieutenant,” snapped Captain Asad, and rightfully so. “That will be enough. Answer the question.”

“Sorry, sir.” To the conduit, “There you are, sir.”

“Good boy,” said the conduit, his smirk only hidden by the fact his back was turned to most of the bridge so he could study the display.

He studied the new map. Near the left edge now, he could see the red dots marking the retreating ships, for retreat was how he saw it, regardless of how much the ship captains all seemed to protest the idea, insisting that it was simply a change of course to accommodate a rendezvous. While the conduit could now see that the progress he and his team had made out of the Prosperion system was still minimal on this scale, at least the desired distance, the length of the journey, was now made clear. He couldn’t translate his cognitive understanding directly into a spell, but it gave the foundation for the emotional sense of it, which did play a great role in casting incongruent spells. It was something they could work with.

He measured the distance a second time with his hands, laying one against the next and making his way along the large wall monitor, a slight nasally whistle audible as he breathed, the room gone silent as he sidestepped his way across the display. When he was done, he turned to his concert of mages and interpreted his results. “Assuming this mirror is accurate, it’s roughly twenty times farther than what we’ve accomplished just to reach those other ships.”

“
Monitor
, sir,” corrected Roberto. Anticipating the captain’s rebuke, however, he leapt forward adding, “and it’s 3.375 times the distance, exactly, at 3.197 light years, or roughly 16.207 times ten-to-the-twelfth of your Prosperion measures. Give or take a few.” He looked smug even though he’d ballparked that last figure for the sake of payback. Even Captain Asad couldn’t entirely hide the twitch at the corner of his mouth. He, too, was tired of the condescending nature of the Prosperions, though it was his duty to hide it, as he’d been reminded repeatedly in recent weeks by the fleet’s still-new admiral.

“Very well,” said the conduit, not realizing, or not caring, that he’d been toyed with a bit just then. “We’ve got our work to do, people. It’s time to start making real progress.” He turned to the captain with the expression of one who feels an act of courtesy is a chore and said, “If you please?”

Captain Asad didn’t hide the irritation behind any mask of courtesy either as he reluctantly relinquished his chair to the conduit so that the concert could once again begin their work. Captain Asad resented the order that placed them on the bridge. But the conduit had insisted, and the admiral agreed. The Earth people had no telepaths, and so ideas and mental imagery could not be as readily conveyed between conduits and captains as they were on
Citadel
. Orders had to be issued in accordance with the events derived or caused by both types of travel and technology, which meant all the key players had to be in the same room. “If I can give up my seat, so can you,” the admiral had insisted. “It’s not like we’re flying the ships when they are doing their thing anyway.”

The teleporters quickly moved their chairs around the bridge in as roughly circular a formation as possible, then took their seats, facing inward at the conduit, who sat upon the captain’s chair like a nesting peahen wriggling about in a pointed way and making faces so as to let everyone know how fabulously comfortable he felt that particular chair was. When the captain failed to take the bait, the conduit went to work.

He pulled a diamond seeing stone from the satchel he now carried with him everywhere. It was filled with them, a thief’s dream, enough to buy a manor house or several townhouses in Crown, and yet the conduit toted it about as if it were little more than a sack of potatoes. Hardly that, though, for these stones were being put to great use, use that would ultimately change the fate of Prosperion forever.

The seeing stones in that satchel were an advanced variety, improved-upon versions of the original concept that Altin had developed and used to make his way out toward the stars. Each of the conduit’s diamonds had Altin’s original enchantment on it, but in addition, each also had a seer’s mark—the same mark found in every TGS office in every major city on Prosperion—a mark that any wizard with sight could see. These stones, unlike Altin’s, would not be visible only to the wizard who set them in place. Although, for the time being, the only seers and teleporters being given the rhythms of the mark were those aboard the fleet ships and those working on
Citadel
.

Additionally, all ten ships in the
Aspect’s
group had one of these seeing stones enchanted with the essence of its place and name. With one of them on board, teleporters could send people to and from the ships as easily as they liked—though no such thing was allowed as yet. The secret cadences of those seer’s marks would be even more stingily guarded than would the codes for the seeing stones that would eventually serve as beacons to guide future Prosperion space travelers across the galaxy. All together, this was a great work, the first major effort of the Royal Space Program getting underway.

And so it began in earnest now. Preparation was over. It was time to begin the mission for real. The Royal Space Mages had their first job to do: a rescue mission—as the conduit insisted privately to his people that it was. The conduit straightened himself in a dramatic sort of way, hoisting aloft a huge diamond in his hand. “All right, people, let’s see if we can’t find those ships.”

When they found them, which they did after the course of several exhausting days of blind casting and follow-up seeing spells, the bridge erupted in shouts and cheers. They’d done the impossible. They’d actually scouted out the fleet and located it across a vast area of space. It was like finding the proverbial fruit fly in the hurricane. The mages were ecstatic, and a message was quickly sent to the ships ordering them to hold position and wait for the
Aspect
to arrive. When asked where the
Aspect
would appear in relationship to the fleet, the conduit answered, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “To the east.” Captain Asad held his comment in check and relayed the “information” to the admiral, who could do little else but shrug.

Afterwards, and with little more fanfare than a few shouts and fist pumps, the mages set themselves to the task of teleporting the ship farther than any previous test had done. They were about to travel over three light years in a moment’s time. A monstrous distance and one that had many on the bridge fidgeting nervously or, in the case of the captain, looking even more stone-faced than usual. The conduit noticed it of course.

“People are always afraid of that which they don’t understand,” he pontificated in the notoriously perverse way of conduits attempting to be magnanimous or to show support. “Ignorance is the bane of progress. Cowardice the antithesis of glorious legacy.”

“So is being a dick,” Roberto whispered to Ensign Nguyen, whose snickers caught the attention of conduit and captain alike. Captain Asad had not quite taken to tacit approval of those sorts of remarks, but it did seem his hearing was not what it used to be these days.

When the
Aspect
appeared in its new location, the fifty-three ships that made up the bulk of the fleet were waiting for them. “Welcome to the neighborhood” crackled over Captain Asad’s com badge so suddenly it startled them all in the moment they arrived. “Get her fired back up, and I’ll send over the wine,” said Captain Metumbe of the
Socrates
.

Laughter followed from everyone on the bridge, except Captain Asad and the conduit of course, as nervousness gave way to relief. No one said it aloud, but they were all glad to have confirmation from the
Socrates
that they weren’t out here all alone with all systems down. The fact that they were still alive was also a welcome discovery.

After the initial celebration came the all-hands-on-deck fifteen-hour rush to get everything relit, recalibrated and re-networked. And it wasn’t only the
Aspect’s
crew that had work to do, for as soon as the systems recovery looked to be working as planned, the concert of teleporters left immediately, their work only just begun. They still had nine more ships to bring out to complete the re-gathering of the fleet.

Soon enough, that too was done. The
Sarajevo
proved to be the fastest restart of the group, and despite being the fourth ship teleported out, it was operational before all the rest, followed in turn by the others in what had become a good-natured race. The
Aspect
, even with its short crew, still managed to finish near the middle of the pack.

An air of great optimism filled the fleet for the first time in a long while, felt most keenly by those ships that had been recently involved in the nearly catastrophic battle. For them, seeing the ten ships appear out of thin air as if by, well, as if by magic was inspiring beyond hope. While plenty of them spoke of the possibilities such a thing portended when it came to getting them all back to Earth, most dared not let hope run that far ahead. It was good enough to know they had wizards on their side, real ones—and of that, there simply could no longer be any doubt.

Unfortunately, however, at about the same time this new optimism was spreading throughout the fleet, so too came word that Hostiles were forming up at the edge of sensor range.

Captain Asad was still frowning about that coincidence when he joined the video conference already underway.

“… it’s still too damn soon, magicians or not,” the admiral was saying as his image appeared in the upper-right quadrant of the
Aspect’s
main viewing screen. Some twenty captains were aboard the
Utah
, seated around a long conference table, the rest attending via video feed. “We’re not ready to fight them yet. An attack now would be suicide.”

“We’re better off fighting eight than eighteen or eighty,” said Captain Metumbe, seated across from the admiral and a few chairs to his right. “I say we go while the going is good. Look, there is Asad joining us now, his ship back online already, and with a short crew. The rest will be back up in a few hours at most. The fleet is at full strength. Let’s keep these bastards pruned back. Give us breathing room to make repairs.”