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Organization: Penn State University
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 18:28:44 EDT
From: The Dreamer <ASG102@psuvm.psu.edu>
Message-ID: <94157.182844ASG102@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: [Party] On the Beach
Lines: 315


"I GOT IT!" shouted Erik.  He dashed across the sand in his bare
feet and positioned himself below the falling sphere.  When it
came within reach, he touched it lightly with his fingertips
sending it back into the air in a slow arc.

"MINE!" shouted Lex.  He leaped into the air and pounded the ball
across the net and toward the rear of the opposing team's side.

Luthor dove for the ball, but couldn't get there in time.  It hit
the sand with a soft *thump* ... the game was over.  Defeated,
but laughing, Luthor got up and brushed the sand off his
leggings.  "You two make a good team."

"Thanks, but it was Lex who got the final point."  Erik glanced
at his muscle-bound teammate.  "Nice spike."

"Nice set,"  Lex replied.

"Nice butt,"  Erik said smacking his partner on the rear.  Lex
wrapped his arms around Erik and whispered something in his ear
that made Erik blush.

"Yuck.  If dey starts makin' out again, I is gonna be sick."
Kev threw a handful of sand at the couple.

"I think it's kinda neat."  Little Rat said with a small squeal.
She eyed Kev mischievously.

"Rat, if you tries ta kiss me, I is gonna sock ya one.  I mean
it."  He stared at her, wary, and started to back away.

"Here I come Kev.  I'm gonna plant a great big sloppy one right
on yer lips."  Little Rat got up from the sand and began chasing
Kev across the beach which caused a few chuckles from the
remaining people near the volleyball court.

Luthor walked over to Erik while putting on his shirt.  "Are you
going to keep playing or come back to ShadeHaven with Serene and
me?  We don't want to stay away from the other guests for long."

Erik looked to Lex who shrugged indifference.  "I think we'll
stay out here for a bit longer.  We'll be in later when the house
thins out.  You know how we are with crowds..."

"Yes, I know."  Luthor smiled sympathetically.

"Just be sure you don't miss the toast at sunrise," Serene added.

"Of course, my dear.  It would be an honor."  Lex spoke in an
exact imitation of Luthor's voice finishing with the accompanying
bow.  Luthor shook his head and laughed.

"Before you go, can I ask you something?"  Erik asked, turning
serious for a moment, "Aren't you up at the house too?  I thought
I saw you at the party, then I came down here to meet Lex and you
were on the court in the midst of a game."

"I just added a few ripples to the time stream.  Nothing to worry
about, just something I've been working on while you were at the
Lighthouse.  I'll write it up as part of my thesis." Luthor smiled,
put his arm around Serene, and began walking back toward ShadeHaven.

Lex looked thoughtfully after them.  Erik finally shoved him to
get his attention.  "You better warn him about timeforks," Lex
said quietly.  "That cloak is already a paradox, and Luthor's
putting himself in danger doing that so casually."

"What do you mean?"  Erik frowned.  "You never have explained
that business about time.  I mean, you've said that you and
'Raelf and ... some of the others, are time brothers.  What does
that mean?"

Lex grinned.  "C'mere to the water, I'll show you."

He led Erik to a place by the edge of the beach where the rock
cliff climbed almost straight up.  A small stream came out midway
down, and ran across the sand into the ocean.

"See, how this water has made a sort of branching pattern like a
tree?"

"Yes.  Is this is the branched probability model you were showing
me the other night, when we were talking about the difference
between Shadowmaking and your kind of magic?"

"Same model, sort of.  Now look here.  The same water is going
down all these branches.  Where it ends up, it's different,
changed by the branches, right?"

"In a way."

Lex pulled a black stick out of his hair and stretched it out to
pencil length.  He went to each of the forks in the miniature
delta, and connected them back together, shoving the sand around
to cut off the excess branchings.

"OK.  Now, see what's happening, the same water is now going down
all the branches, but it joins up again."

"So let me see if I understand this.  You're saying that instead
of following the different timelines, which each of these
branches represents, you stay in only one of them."

"Right.  Only sometimes we don't, like when there's some kind of
big disaster coming."

"Like that thing you fought."

"Exactly.  Now, you see that the longer the branches stay apart,
the more the water is going to change," Lex gestured and the
water in some branches turned red, while others turned blue or
green.  "And the more change, the harder it is to get it to mix
together well at the end."

"Oh.  So what does this have to do with Luthor?"

"He's got two dangers if he isn't careful.  First, there's the
paradox of being in two places within one inertial frame at the
same instant in time."

"I've seen you do that.  And ar'Elya does it all the time."

"Raye's got more dimensions than you do, and a different kind of
mind.  Each body is still connected.  And I have special
training, and my family has paradox built into our natures."

"Oh.  And a Shadowmaker doesn't?"

"Not the same, lover.  You guys have chaos built in, that's a
little different.  Also is the reason why it's dangerous for you
to mess with time too much.  Generica ... is very forgiving of
temporal paradox.  The rest of Nexus will tolerate it, if you're
careful not to do anything lethal.  Most other places really
don't like it at all.  When I timelooped myself in order to stop
Lord Raven, I wasn't expecting to survive it.  There was too much
paradox there."

"Hey.  Look, I thought that all the timestreams were equal.
Don't they all exist?  I was going to say, at the same time, but
that isn't right, is it?"

Lex snorted.  "I love these languages where the words don't exist
to describe what you want to say.  Yeah, they all exist but they
don't all have equal reality.  There's maybe three or four of
them at any point in meta-time that are real enough to persist,
the rest sort of fade off."

"Oh.  So what should I tell Luthor?"

"To be careful.  You'll be ... uh, I dunno if I should tell you
this right now, you haven't decided yet."

"Decided what?" Erik demanded, when he was interrupted by an
impatient cough from behind them.

"You guys gonna yabber all day or play some volleyball?" asked
H'ro, clad only in the tiniest pair of leather shorts.  He was
tugging on them as he walked, trying to make sure he was covered
in back. Beside him stood A'ree, wearing a black sports bra and
lycra shorts that showed off her washboard stomach and well-
toned form. She was adjusting her wrist guards as she came up to
the net, and the sun glinted off her eyeshades which still bore
the name of her old sponsor, "Drink 'kan Kola, it disturbs!"

"Looks like we have some real competition, Love.  Time to stuff
them."  Lex gave Erik a quick kiss and then they moved into
position, preparing to receive the serve.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

'Raelf watched the volleyball game from the shade by the fire
pit.  He sighed wistfully.  From behind him, a hand closed on his
shoulder and he leaned back into it.

"Hi, Raye," he said, still staring at the game.

"You could join them," ar'Elya said, and draped a dark blue lei
over his head, then started rubbing his shoulders as it fell into
place.

"Nah, I'm too sore," he replied.  "But that really helps," and he
leaned harder into her kneading hands.

"Sore?"  She looked at him with silver eyes.

"Yeah.  Oh, don't worry, it's on purpose.  I wanted to do
something to take my mind off things, so I helped the Southside
Shunrunners rebuild their quarters."

"Ah," she said, a little sadly.  "Yes, they'll be a while
recovering from the disaster.  Losing Gard and Bongard."

"Not to mention the 'liff.  No, they're doing ok now for
supplies, with the tithe from the Bismanians."

"That's good.  Have you heard anything from the kids?"

"No.  Hey, we haven't talked for a few days."  He reached a hand
up and clasped her wrist in a caress.

"No, we haven't.  And it's been really hard on all of us."

"I know.  I'm thinking of trying it again today."

She moved around him and sat down on her knees to come level with
his face.  "Are you sure, dearest?"

"No.  But it's an auspicious time.  Just an hour before sunrise,
the ruling planets in trine."

"El'n's intuition?" He asked looking into her eyes.

"Yes.  Love, if it doesn't last, please don't be upset."

'Raelf nodded silently and turned his attention back to the
game.  "Look at that -- you're cheating and Dave's cheating and
poor Erik has to resort to Shadowing."

She laughed.  "He isn't doing all that badly, beloved."

"No?  I guess not -- geez, that must have hurt."

"It did," she replied.  "Please tell Dave not to spike the ball
into my face quite so hard."

"No prob -- the game's breaking up now anyway."

The four volleyball players gave the ball over to a group of
onlookers, who started trying to move the ball back and forth
without missing it.  H'ro and A'ree had grabbed Erik and were
carrying him by his arms and legs while Lex sprinted the distance
to the fire pit.

"Hey, little bro," he said, slapping a hand against 'Raelf's
uprised hand.  "You look all dragged out again."

"Building houses," 'Raelf replied.  "How's the shaping?"

"Four more boards finished last night," Lex replied.  He leaned
over and kissed ar'Elya on the forehead.  She smiled brightly
back at him.

"Cool."

"A-one and a-two..." the warrior twins chanted and swung, and
Erik was unceremoniously dumped onto the sand. ar'Elya helped him
to his feet.  "Thank you, milady," he smiled.  He bowed, allowing
his GREY cloak to coalesce from the mist around them so he could
swirl it cavalier-like.

"Not at all, kind sir," she replied, and took the last of the
extra lei's off from around her neck.  This one was a flagrant
bundle of orchids, black and gold and red and pink and spotted
and quite suggestive in a floral sort of way.  He fingered it and
tucked one into Lex's hair, then reconsidered.

"Doesn't match the eyes," he said.

Lex smiled and sniffed the flower.  "Nope.  Goes quite well with
GREY though."

Before they could continue H'ro handed them both cocoanuts that
had been filled with something that smelled alcoholic.

"You trying to get us drunk?" Lex asked.

"Yah.  Party, man,"  H'ro pumped a massive fist in the air and
hooted.

"Right," 'Raelf snickered.  "Hey, did either of you end up
talking to that Ray Dumont guy?"

"Who, the zen hermit?"  Lex shrugged.  "What's to say?"

Moving to the table, away from the shade of the decidedly not
native palm trees, Erik looked across the spread of strange food.

A'ree picked up a wooden plate and began filling it with various
things -- fruit, and a few slices of something orange, and a
whitish paste.

"You as hungry as I am?" she asked conversationally.

"Yes, I think so -- but I don't know what most of this is."

"This white paste is Poi.  It's an acquired taste.  The orange is
papaya, the red stuff is some kind of a berry thing that 'Raelf
picked up somewhere.  It's not really authentic.  The blue bowl
has breadfruit from Kron Park, which tastes like bread and
butter.  The real thing doesn't."

"There are no utensils."

"Right.  Here, this is the traditional way I was shown to eat
Poi."  She put her index and middle finger together and smeared a
long dollop of the white paste into the vee between her fingers,
then put it in her mouth.  She swallowed and offered her plate.

"OK, now you try it."

"Sure."  Erik picked up a little of the stuff, and put it in his
mouth.  It had a very bland flavor, only a hint of sharp, vaguely
sour in the aftertaste.  He swallowed convulsively and picked up
a piece of fruit to take the taste away.

"Yes," he said when he could manage it.  "Acquired taste."

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

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     Love and Peace and Fun in the Sun,
                -The Dreamer-