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From: hutch@ibeam.intel.com (Steve Hutchison)
Subject: [LH] Inviting Guests
Message-ID: <CEFwt1.B15@ibeam.intel.com>
Summary: kickoff for Lighthouse party
Organization: Intel Corp., Hillsboro, Oregon
Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1993 19:58:13 GMT
Lines: 513

[ADMIN]  My apologies for this taking so bloody long to come out.
We moved from the small leased building my group was in, to a large
flashy new building with lots of flashy new connections, and it's
taken a while to get all the kinks out.  Anyway, this starts off the
party at ar'Elya and 'Raelf's lighthouse.  Many of you have already
arranged for characters to be there.  If you haven't and you want
to be invited send me email and we'll work it into the story.

 ==

The invitation said "Place this on any convenient door and walk through."

Rendall Merchant refused to go.  His first wife, long ago dead, had
brought her mother to live when they had married.  Her dowry, they
called the old woman, which was true in its way.  Certainly her
knowledge of the business had the same effect as a dowry.  He became
very wealthy.  When Llyrenea died, from the blue-spots plague,
mother-in-law stayed, helping him raise their two young daughters.  And
in time, she arranged a second marriage for him, with a girl who was
both loving and supportive, who brought a comfortable dowry of her
own.  And she helped mother-in-law raise the daughters.

But then the girls snuck out on Founders Day and went dancing with that
damned Satyr and came back turned into skunks.  And all his careful
plans and the three years negotiations for their bride-price, marrying
them into commercially advantageous families, and they got turned into
skunks.  And the most expensive Mage Guild transformists and curse
breakers refused to touch the spell.  Claimed hazard, and forfeited
their work deposits.  And the black-market mage he'd hired, well, the
fellow had refused to meet him after his attempt failed.  Rendall was
livid.  The lowlife didn't even give a refund.

So when the invitation came to the party, Rendall spat on it.  But
mother-in-law decided she wanted to go.  She insisted.

=======

The open doorway looked out on a panoramic view of the hills that
were growing in the distance.  Curled in a formal nest, a liquid
metal cat-humanoid was tinkering with an obscure mechanism, tweaking
a finely machined part.

Sprawled on the floor below, a second shining catperson was packing
clothing into an anodized aluminum suitcase.  He waited for the
one in the nest to look up, then spoke.

<<Do you think Granma ar'Elya will be surprised when we show up?>>

<<Probably will.  Your Grampa 'Raelf will be too.>>

The mechanism throbbed momentarily, then a screw fell out.  The
tinkerer bit back a snarl.

<<Did you tell them I graduated?>>

<<__STAY__ you irritating little piece of ... ahh.  No, I figured
you could do that yourself, Spark.>>

<<Good!  I'll pretend I'm just one of the cargo handlers then.>>

<<Do you have a Nexus body yet?>>

<<Uh huh.  Got it from the shipment leader.>>  Spark stood up
and flickered, changing momentarily to a different shape.

<<Ugh.  I see, not too special, is it?>>

<<Nope.  I figure I can get a better one when we get there.>>

<<I hope so.  Maybe your Grampa will give you a template.>>

<<Yup -- if he remembers me.  Gotta go now.>>

The machine thrummed again, this time continuing to function.
The catperson watched as Spark went out the door, a shining
contrast to the melting hills in the distance.

<<Good luck, little one.>>

==========

For a place as crowded as it was, the kitchen wasn't too crowded.

Or at least, that was Kardia's take on the matter.  'Raelf was beside
himself.  Raelf, and then a bigger 'Raelf who called himself Lex, and
an elf who was also 'Raelf who called himself Miro, and 'Raf who looked
like Lex only furry and with a strange face.  Kev was in the kitchen
too, ducking in and out from between the four of 'Raelf in order to get
some food for breakfast for him and Little Rat and Kardia.  As he wound
his way through the kitchen, ar'Elya came out of the walk-in freezer
carrying a large fish, which she took over to a prep table.  She was
followed by H'Ro and A'Ree with a big bucket of ice.  'Raelf pointed
them towards the back of the kitchen where Ilya was doing something
mysterious with a big bucket that had a crank on it.

"Boy, dey's busy," Kev said, bringing a sack of peaches and a bag of
some kind of dry breakfast cereal and a pitcher of milk and another
pitcher of fruit juice and a bag of bread for toast and a couple of
soft-cooked eggs that Lex deposited on top of the precarious stack as
Kev wound his way out to the door.

Kardia rescued the pitcher of milk and the fruit juice before Kev could
drop them.

"Thanks, Kardja," he said.  "Kin you talk yet?"

When she shook her head "no" he sighed, and reached past her into a
shadow to scritch Sceadu on the head.  "You's gonna be a good dog,"
he said confidently.

The construct-hound patiently allowed the familiarity and stayed
watching as Kardia helped Kev and Little Rat prepare their breakfasts.
She made a small bowl of the cereal for herself, as well.

"Good, huh?" Kev grinned, as Kardia scrunched her face up in a grimace
and quickly drank down some fruit juice.  Little Rat smiled behind her
hand.  "Too sweet, huh," she said, and Kardia nodded enthusiastically.

"Isn't," Kev retorted, and cracked the top off his egg, managing to use
something not too far from Elvish table manners.  Little Rat tried not
to giggle and did the same thing.

Kardia shrugged, and added some sliced peaches to her cereal.  The
aromatic tartness of the fruit took the sickening edge off the cereal;
Little Rat was eating toast between bites.

"Dey's makin' food fer da party dat's happenin' tonight," Kev said
conspiratorially.  "We gets ta go wit' Dougl and get s'more stuff for
da party too!"

Kardia grinned and beeped his nose, making him giggle in response.

The meal only took a few minutes, eaten at kid-warp speed, and then
the two children said goodbye to Kardia and ran out into the garden
to play.  She sighed and cleared her dishes away, smiling at the
careful stack of bowls, cups and plates that Kev and Little Rat had
made in the Dumbwaiter -- cups on the bottom and plates on top.

======

<<Incoming delivery on D Cargopad in thirty minutes>>  The voice was
impersonal and remote, and it took Dasham a moment to realize that it
was coming from 'Raelf's pendant.

"What's that about?"  She quirked an eyebrow at the amber crystal.

"Oh, just some traffic.  Got a few supplies comin' from home, and a
shipment of surfboards going out."  'Raelf continued the equation he
was writing on the whiteboard.

"Thirty minutes?  You're cutting it close," she observed.

"Nah.  I'm not even gonna timejump -- just as well, Dash m'dear.  I'm
still pretty sore from the fight.  It's all I can do to keep things
sequential for my own self.  I've even resorted to using machines..."

"Indeed?"  She glanced at the formula he was writing.

"That has some promise, 'Raelf.  Still, I don't believe it will be the
real answer to my problem."

"Not until Kardia finishes stripping out the curse you're carrying."

"Which reminds me, how is she doing?"

"She'll be coming by this afternoon for another fitting, I think."

Dasham paced nervously, wincing once as her foot twinged in sudden
pain.  She hobbled over to the lab bench.

"Dash, please let me fix that?"  'Raelf knelt at her foot, massaging
the sore spot gently.

"No, I don't want you doing anything that might mess up Kardia's
measurements."

"Fine.  At least let me massage it?"  He didn't wait for permission,
beginning to press hard along the trigger points inside her arch.

"Oh, that's lovely," she whispered.  "Thank you."

"You're welcome.  Hmm.  It's a bit of arthritis.  Your speeded aging is
stressing your immune system, Dash."  He reached into a pouch at his
side, pulling out a jar much too large to fit inside.  "These are
analgesic, totally non-magical in origin.  Kardia can adjust for their
presence in your system at today's fitting."

"All right."  She took three of the white pills, swallowing them with a
conjured glass of water.

"Where were we," 'Raelf muttered, "Oh yeah.  The formula here.  This is
a variation on the Mikros Polyphasic Orthosomatic Elixir Vitae.  I took
out the morphic determinant, since you probably don't want to be turned
into an immortal brainless sex kitten.  The tonic and anagathic are
supplemented by the addition here and here of the alchemic ruby and
first tincture of herbs, respectively.  These are basic for establishing
an ageless state, which fits priority one of your modified list.  The
effect is metastable based on the presence of more than .023 hexitae
background mana diffusion.  There are no toxic effects on deprival of
minimum bmd for function, and in the four test cases with properly
modified formula tested in laboratory cats, the only side effect is a
resumption of normal aging process at the usual rate.  Restoring
minimum bmd for function reverses the aging process at a par rate."

He paused for breath, and Dasham interrupted.

"Fine, this looks like it will meet the first condition, after all,
but what about the second and third conditions?"

"I have a single solution which should meet your requirements.  It
requires that I construct a type of extremely tiny mechanical entity,
I call them nanogolems, which can function with or without the use of
standard mana.  There are four varieties: life support, repair, event
archival, and adaptive."

"Explain, please?"

"Life support will allow you to function in hostile environments with
some limitations.  The nanogolems have a set of standard wards and
elemental gatings which they can use to provide you with the necessary
air, water, and so forth, as long as they have some sort of energy
available to convert.  They have a catastrophic failure defense which
would activate a variety of stasis in the event that you were in an
environment too hostile to sustain life."

'Raelf took a swallow from his tea mug.

"Define `too hostile' please."

"Oh, elemental planes, the hells, that sort of thing."

"I ... see.  Go on."  Dasham narrowed her eyes.

"Repair would be able to physically reconstruct you even in the event
of destruction of most of your body.  It's somewhat limited.  In the
event that you were destroyed in a place with insufficient bmd for the
repair function to do metaphysical regrowth, it would have to find
materials the hard way.  And in the event of a severe trauma such as
loss of the brain, it can only recreate persona to the last archive.
But it _can_ summon spirit by truename wherever the archetype mix
supports that function."

"Ah.  Yes.  Well.  I suppose that if I were killed in one of those
places my spirit would be dead in any case."

"Who's to say," 'Raelf replied.

"Uhm.  Continue."

"The event archival nanogolems are very hard to destroy.  They keep a
continuing second memory, and with some training, you can use them as
an alternative to remembering everything in your life.  This isn't
important now, but it will be when you get older."

"I never thought of it."

"Well, my people had to solve the problem early on."

"Of course.  Please, the last system?"

"Adaptive nanogolems serve three functions.  First, they'd allow you to
modify yourself via magic or slower means, to handle the conditions in
a different universe.  This is semi-automatic, and functions like the
breathing reflex.  Second, they let you sense things about the universe
that you've adapted for.  It's similar in some respects to my own sense
of archetype perception, but I used a template which we provide to
offplanar Traveller students.  I've licensed it for you, but you'll
have to pay the fee.  It's not huge, it's just the regs for the T.
College.  Anyway.  Third function is that it lets you do some
customization to your body, but we don't advise playing around too much
with that until you spend a few years figuring out how it works."

Dasham nodded.  "Fine.  About these, whatsis, nanogolems.  Are they
safe?"

"Well, yes.  As safe as anything else in the world."

"I'll have to think about this."

"Sure.  I'll show you the lab cat we installed the testbase in, if you
want."  'Raelf stretched, making popping noises.

"Certainly, but some other time.  I'm already an hour late."

"Oh, no prob, I told the building stabilizer that it needs to make
the time flow faster in here."

"You WHAT?"  Dasham half-shouted.

"Two hour meeting, half hour elapsed relative to Guild baseline.
Trust me, it's safe, and you needed a break from the politics."

"'Raelf, I'm getting old too fast.  Your trick stole even more time
from me."  She scowled, wringing her hands, and began pacing again.  A
single lock of white hair escaped the severe ponytail that imprisoned
her still-mostly-auburn tresses.

"How so?  It's no worse than walking cross-town, with the local time
distortions."

Her angry expression deflated as she thought about it.

"I suppose.  Hellfires.  'Raelf, how much longer will Kardia be?"

"I can't say.  Two weeks tops.  She's farther along than she thought
she would be.  You'll be fine, lady."

"Can't you do something?  Put me in slow-time?"

"Not a good idea.  Thorn, remember?"

"Archmage Thorn is doing his best to be one, all right."

"Yeah.  How goes the investigation -- who sent the clone of ...sage to
the meeting?" 'Raelf began meticulously packing his tools.

"We can't tell.  I know it wasn't Urcohea.  He couldn't hide the truth
if he had, not from my otherworld contacts.  And the trail dead-ends at
the demon summonings from the Inferno dimension."

"Yeah.  Well.  Thought it might."

"Explain please?"  She rubbed her forehead, squeezing off the beginning
of a headache.

"Ask ...sage who might have some of his blood, or hair.  Or spit.
Anything, really.  Besides me, that is."

Dasham nodded.  "I've sent that elf forty-three ethermail messages
since this whole thing started.  No response."

"He's like that.  Gets busy, nobody can drag him out of the library.
Besides, I think he's onto something personal."  He placed the tool kit
into one of his pouches, and closed the pouch.

Dasham frowned at the blond mage.  "Personal?  Don't tell me, I don't
think I want to know right now."

"Okay.  Hey, do you have the night free?"

"No, why do you ask?"

"Oh, we were gonna invite you to a party at our place.  Let you see how
far along Kardia is, meet the family, relax, get out of the politics."

Dasham looked pained.  "I'm afraid I must decline.  But thank you for
the invitation.  Perhaps some other time."

"Sure.  Maybe once you've figured out your replacement."

"Ahhhhh, yes, replacement.  Right.  Let me think about this elixir
you've described here, and the nanogolems thing, and if there are no
problems, it holds promise."

"Fine.  Hey, gotta go, transport's just passing outer Fire."

"Of course it is."  She watched him fade into thin air.

========

On the Astral Plane, the transport looked like a glowing sphere.  In
the real world it turned into a big long box on swollen black wheels,
with a door on one end and a heavily armored mechanism attached to the
other end by a massive cotterpin.  A passenger and crew compartment sat
inside the armor, above the mechanism.  The front of the armored engine
bore a silvery emblem, the sign of the 'Maek family transportation
system: a stylized canine, stocky and aggressive.

A prolonged hiss of air and a shuddering rattling noise accompanied the
mechanism's shutdown.

<<Greetings, 'Raelf,>> the driver said.  <<Where's thy lovely mate?>>
He dropped down to the floor of the loading dock.

'Raelf grinned delightedly, hugging the simian-looking fellow.
<<Riki!  When did you take over this route?>>

<<Oh, I've been working Felderan road, just wanted to swap with Radix.>>

<<Wow, you old bandicoot, it's good to see you again.>>

<<Yeah.  So where's your shiny rock?>>

<<She's around somewhere.  Had some business in town.  She'll be at the
party tonight.  You are coming to the party, right?>>

<<Didn't give it much thought.  I've got two new 'prentices fresh out
of school, doing the rounds today.  You want them to come too?>>

<<Sure, just make sure they're on best behaviour.  We're having some of
the local folks here and I don't want just anyone learning all our
weaknesses.>>
 
The driver waved and two figures moved inside the cab.

<<They're getting ready to offload.  You got the loaders?>>

<<Sure, over here.  You rated on a class three Fork?>>

<<Yah.  Here, you gotta sign for this stuff.>>  He pulled out a manifest
list and waved it at 'Raelf.

<<Okay ... Geesh!  What's this -- 'Rikitanni, why am I being charged
double for shipping?>>

<<What?  Oh.  That's a double shipment.  Two standard kilotons ephemeral
matter, instead of the one you ordered.>>

<<Why?>>

<<Two for one sale.  Or so they said at the factory.>>

<<You're kidding.>>

<<Well, you do pay the shipping.>>  Riki grinned, showing yellow gorilla
teeth.

<<Right.  Sure.  Fine.>>  'Raelf signed a rune on the manifest.  It
glowed and the back of the longbox glowed in response.

<<Grwll.  Yah.  I'm glad Ilya brought that extra manipulator online ...>>

A purple hose snaked out of the wall and into the back of the longbox.
Somewhere, a throbbing noise started.  Meanwhile, 'Raelf had changed
bodies, becoming a fourteen foot stone statue with four arms.  He walked
into the side of the longbox, followed by Riki in a glowing exoskeleton.

When they came out they were carrying crates, quickly loading them onto
pallets along the walls.  As they finished, the purple hose stopped
pumping, and detached itself.

<<Well, that wasn't too bad.  So introduce me to these two apprentices,>>
'Raelf said.

<<Sure.>>  Two more apelike humanoids came out of the cabin.  They looked
exactly like Riki, gorilla-shaped bodies with slightly longer legs and
classically ugly faces.

<<Sir, ephemeral matter delivered,>> the one on the left said.

<<Hold it,>> 'Raelf commanded.  <<Cute.  You didn't think I'd know you,
did you?>>

The lefthand ape pulled back her lips in a polite grin.  <<Sir?>>

<<You're ar'Elya's cousin Cyl'ene.>>

She bowed. <<Yes, sir.>>

<<Why the ape shape?>>

<<Mister 'Rikkitani provided it.>>

'Raelf laughed.  <<Riki has really poor taste.>>

Riki bared his teeth smugly, but 'Raelf ignored it.

<<Now,>> he said, looking at the righthand ape.

<<Sir?>> The ape blinked at him.

<<Grandson, you don't think you can fool _me_ by
scrambling your outer presentation, do you?  I
invented that trick.  Come here, give your old
feeble grampa a hug.>>

The ape-man wrapped hairy arms around 'Raelf and
squeezed, laughing.

<<So when did you graduate?>>

<<Last month.  This is my summer job.  New system
they do now, we get postgrad credit for working.>>

<<Fantastic!>> 'Raelf bowed towards the lefthand
ape and offered his hand.  The ape returned the
grip and 'Raelf shook it excitedly.  <<Welcome,
Raye's kind of busy until this evening but she'll
be so glad you came.  Spark, you have GOT to see
how this house turned out!  Cyl'ene, you've got to
meet Jameson...  C'mon, Riki, let's go, I've got
bheer in the kitchen below.>>

He lead them all to the down ramp.

<<And besides, there's a party tonight.  Which reminds
me, we've gotta get you kids some party outfits, that
grunt body just doesn't wash in polite company.>>

<<Of course it washes,>> Riki replied, <<At least once
a week whether it needs to or not...>>

======

It was an hour before sunset.  The Gate in the garden
opened, and an elderly woman walked through, propped up
on a knotted wooden cane.  The garden was lit by pleasant
yellow torches, the citrus aroma making the bugs stay away,
and through the archway before her, the old woman saw a
comfortable room, with pleasant music playing inside.

She walked in and sat next to an elven woman.  There were
drinks being handed out by a faintly glowing automaton,
and a spread of appetizers on the small table beside the
couch.  She tasted one -- creamed salmon with savory spice
on a sweet cracker, with some kind of cheese.

"Good party?" she asked.  Against one wall of the round room,
a set of drums and other instruments was set up, but there
wasn't a band there yet.

"Don't know yet," the elvish woman replied.  "It's starting
off well enough..."