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 w