Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn From: hutch@ibeam.intel.com (Steve Hutchison) Subject: [LH][Colony] ... and Put it in your Pocket Message-ID: Date: Sun, 9 Jan 1994 08:11:13 GMT [ADMIN] This happens just after a certain celestial catastrophe. It's a sequel to "Catch a Falling Star." This post is copyright 1994 by Stephen Hutchison, permission granted to distribute via the usual Usenet channels and for archival. All other rights reserved. =*==*= The rock from beyond the sky smashes down into the room, exploding the building ... Plasma sprays, igniting the surroundings, and phases shift abruptly as kinetic energy is converted to heat. A small part of Low City burns. =*--*= "Drew's in th' bolthole." The girl wiped her nose, it was running because of the smoke and steam. She blinked at the wizzer. "You gonna help 'im?" The wizzer looked down at her grimy face and big watery blue eyes, and paused in his flight. He dropped down to the ground beside her. "Sure thing, kid. What's the skinny?" "He be bringing out th' Buff' 'Facz." She wrung her hands. "Over there. Th' struct just fell down." "Hang loose, goose. I'll go in now." The wizzer stepped off his magical flyin' jeckt and ran down the narrow alley into the bolthole. The girl sat down on the flyin' jeckt, waiting for Drew to come out. In the bolthole it was darker than the space between stars, smoke and dust made it even worse. "DREW!" The wizzer called out loud, stopped in the middle of the darkness. He reached into the dark and pulled out a glow from midair, a little firefly of light that spun off to the south wall and vanished downward. The wizzer followed. A long tunnel, winding back and forth, partly collapsed in a few places. The light stopped, sank to the ground, revealing a prone form, covered in a light dust of fallen rock. The light grew, when the wizzer got closer. It revealed the body to be a youngish man, or maybe just an old-seeming boy, with blond hair and a wiry frame and a face that looked a lot like the wizzer's face. "Drew?" Gentle hands touched the sticky spot on the side of the young Shunrunner's head. "Man. Concussion but no serious damage yet." He concentrated, eyes changing color with a faint flickering glow, echoed where his hands touched the young man's injuries. A moan came from the Shunrunner. "Drew, careful, I just fixed your head. Don't move, I need to check you for other stuff. This hurt? No, good. How about here ... yeah, thought so .... should be better now." "Pos thanks. I nog you. 'Raelf." "Ya betcha. C'mon, we have to get out of here. The fire up above is eating the supports, we'll have a collapse here in very short order." "I gotta get the Buff' Jeckts." Drew sat up, tentative, then with more assurance. "What are they?" "Th' holy stuff. Th' jeckts that we got from th' bastards when they sold our greatgreats th' Buff' an' all th' stuff inside." "OK. Where?" "Jus' down th' tunnel. In th' black box. Gotta be a Buffer t' touch 'em," he cautioned as 'Raelf started towards the opening. "Why?" "S'a tradition. Only Buffers an' ShunRunners get ta touch the Contrakz." "You take 'em then. We gotta get going." Drew pulled the box out of the tunnel. "Gimme a hand. Too heavy ta lug." "You sure?" 'Raelf made a raised-eyebrows expression that was dubious and amused at the same time. "You been in th' Shun, came out wit' Jeckts. People too. You gotta be honor'y Shunrunner. Nuff t' help lug 'em." "I guess you're right. OK. I'll help you lug this good lord what do you have in here, truelead?" 'Raelf sagged to one side as Drew shifted his grip and the weight of the small box was more evenly shared. "The Primmy Jeckt. (Uf) 'Sa rock 'bout th' size a my thumb." "Wow. Can I look?" 'Raelf pulled a black toothpick from behind his ear and shook it. It started to expand, growing into a two foot long wand. He muttered something incomprehensible about dirt and rock and pointed it at Drew. The Buffer lad glowed for a moment, and shook his head. "Wizard stuff?" He had a hint of distrust in his voice. "Yeah, makes your head harder in case something falls on it, makes you a little stronger for a while, so we can both haul the box post haste. Except you Buffer folks are kind of resistant. So we can look at the stuff in the box." "We got time?" "Uh huh. Here, hold on to this wand for a few seconds." Drew took the black stick, and felt a warm rush from it that went through him like a glass of LifeWater. "Whooo!" "Thought you'd like it. Show me this Primmy Jeckt." Drew opened the box. There were dozens of weird things inside, mostly papers with the faint magical glow that meant their ink would not fade. There was a rock, too, a small black thing that sucked up light like it was water into a sponge. 'Raelf whistled. "Oh man o man. Collapsed matter shell on a matrix core of pure ... hellation and damnfire." "What?" "This thing was ... oh man. I can't tell you." "Why not?" "I promised someone that I wouldn't. You keep close track of that black pellet with the runes on it. Some day your folk will have to use it. They'll know what to do when the time comes." He closed the box. "The papers are the deed, aren't they?" Drew narrowed his lips in a faint scowl. "Yeah. Th' Great Deed t' alla th' Buff' an' the contrack what keeps us all here. We got ta stay, can't leave 'cept with t'right kinda papers. An' they's only four of us got them papers, an' two of 'em is kept in here. You nog this is tell-nobody secret, right?" 'Raelf nodded. Drew slowly returned the nod, and locked the box. "Now five folk nog what's in th' box. Me, Old Anna, Simin, an' Bongard." 'Raelf flinched, hearing the last name. He looked at Drew speculatively and opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to change his mind. "Great. Let's get out of here." A creaking noise overhead signaled a shower of small pebbles; Drew ignored them as they bounced off his head. They grabbed either end of the box and ran back up the tunnel towards the surface. The creaking grew louder, and they made the main tunnel up just as a crashing sound behind them signalled the rush of dust and wind from the collapsed catacombs. Smoke and clouds of airborne grit spun around, somehow not coming close to the two as they ran. The little girl stepped out of the shadows. The wizzer and Drew had just come out of the hole in the ground. She waited to make sure it was all clear, and then moved quietly over to help them. Nearby, the noise of shouting and the alarm bells was punctuated by the sharp thunderstrokes of collapsing timbers, the crackle and roar of flames approaching. She looked nervously at the small moon, judging by its position how much time had passed. Only an hour. The wizzer clasped Drew by the arms, and called his flying jeckt to him. The girl dropped off to the ground, before it could take her to him. She ran to where Old Anna and Simin stood nearby. For some reason Bongard had failed to show in answer to the call. "Thank you," Old Anna said. She was thirty-two, 'Raelf guessed. She spoke with an uptown accent, not the lingo of the Buffers, but her body was the hard, spare, frame of a Shunrunner, and she had the same aspect of a survivor who can endure anything, and has. She took the hand he offered, shook it hesitantly. "My pleasure. It looks to me," he said, "like the land around here is going to be clear for the colonists." "Then Melwiss managed to bring this down on us?" She scowled. "Not his fault. Gods 'n' fates." She nodded slowly at his words, a sort of grim fatalism on her face. Beside her, Simin leaned over and began a whispered conversation with Drew. He stopped as Old Anna raised a hand, silencing them. "So we must find a place for our people while we fight these new invaders? We will fight, you know. This is our land, the contracts give it to us outright. Nobody owns it but us." "Far out. Well, I promised you I'd represent you, and I already had a talk with the colonists and their rep. He says his people won't displace you, and that they won't take your land without you being compensated." "Compensated? We have twelve families in the one block between here and the Shun. Their houses were knocked down by that rock, and more homes will be destroyed when that fire reaches here. The only reason nobody died was because of the seer. And Drew's Shunrunners, their base was destroyed as well. You know what we live on, the food that we can grow in the less twisted places and the trade that our folks can do in the Jeckts we bring out of the Shun. Will they compensate us for the loss of those things?" "I think so. They think they can." "Then we will welcome them, while we can. But they don't own our land. You tell them that, and tell that greedy old man." "I'll take it up with Melwiss first thing," he said, waving to the three leaders. "You'll get your compensation, if I have to sell him off for spare parts." He shot off, a sudden CRACK! behind him as he vanished towards the Great Blue. Not long later, the girl saw a big ball of something sparkling in the reflection of the fires, like a soap bubble and floating over the worst of the blaze. And not long after that, the bubble popped and dumped hundreds of gallons of seawater onto the fire, cutting off its spread into the Buff.