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Grey Chronicles
Twenty
The medical facility was smaller than what Iain would have expected on a ship with a potential crew size of fifty thousand, but then he considered Tirsuli healing as well as the ability of the Theodora to manufacture new medics as needed and understood. The facility was a large chamber that held two dozen objects four meters long, two meters high and three meters wide. They looked uncomfortably like overlarge coffins.
Each was a medic, an automated treatment unit with hardwired programming and an internal power supply good for a couple of centuries of constant use in case the facility lost power. One of them would bring back to life anyone who wasn’t completely dead when put in it.
Iain jumped when the closest one hissed as it released pressure and the top half slid upwards to reveal a soft looking platform inside. The platform would be completely sealed when the medic was closed up.
Theodora’s hologram motioned towards it. “I am adding a secondary medical facility with oversized medics in case I have to treat a pokegirl who is in her transformed state and cannot, for some reason, be put in her pokeball. I’ve also installed healing machines in strategic locations on every deck.” She smiled at them. “There is only one conditioning machine in the entire ship. It’s in the brig and Iain, Eve and Ninhursag must all sign off before it can be used.”
Eve blinked. “Who made that rule?”
“Iain did.”
He smiled broadly. “That way if we condition someone you had to agree to it.”
“What happens if I don’t?”
“I can always shoot them.”
The walls were lined with cubes a meter on a side. One of them drifted away from its resting location and came to a halt in front of Iain. It opened to reveal it was filled with shelves and hooks for hanging things. Theodora flickered, appearing next to the cube. “Please remove all of your clothing and equipment. You can store them here.” She turned to April. “It isn’t necessary to strip patients, but anything placed in the medic with them will be dissolved by the medic to keep it from interfering with treatment.”
“That means people strip unless it’s an emergency.” April eyed the medic curiously. “Can I learn how it works?”
“Of course you can. I have no secrets from the inner clan.”
“What if Iain tells you not to tell us something?” Canaan grinned when Theodora chuckled. “It’s a good question.”
“It is indeed, but in that case the secret is Iain’s and not mine. All of you are allowed to keep secrets from each other and I will keep your secrets unless I feel they will endanger the clan. At that point I will inform Iain, unless I feel he’s the threat. Then I will inform the maharani and the beta.”
Iain began undressing. “Ninhursag, I don’t know how long this is going to take. We may miss our meeting with Lucifer.”
The Elfqueen shrugged. “She’s rescheduled already. Now it’s our turn. If we need to, we’ll send her a message letting her know.”
Iain put the last of his clothes into the cube and sat down on the edge of the medic as it closed up and returned to its place on the wall. He swung his legs up and lay down. “Theodora, do this.”
The medic soundlessly slid closed. Light flared softly along the seam where the top and bottom joined. When the light faded, the seam was gone. Theodora smiled suddenly. “While he’s meditating he’s given me permission to repair all of his already healed broken bones.”
April frowned. “He has those?”
The hologram nodded. “They predate his arrival in the pokegirl universe and therefore do not show up as injuries on the general medical scans that you learned from Irena. The Nursejoy breed does have a version that is more detailed and will display any injury or condition no matter its status, but it is likely that as a breed the Night Nurse doesn’t care about previous injuries unless they begin to affect her patient’s mobility significantly.”
“I’ll have to find a Nursejoy to train us,” April muttered. She pulled out a pokedex and looked around. “How about some chairs?”
“They are en route,” Theodora said. “I didn’t expect you to camp here while Iain’s mending.”
“You’re lucky we don’t want beds, a kitchen and food storage,” Vanessa said as she entered the medical facility. “Where he is, we will be.”
Theodora folded her arms crossly. “He is perfectly safe where he is.”
“It’s more than that,” April replied. “We want to be near him and that has nothing to do with how safe he is. Speaking of which, how long is this going to take?”
Canaan shrugged as a large, six wheeled remote rolled into the room. It had a flat section in the back that was filled with an assortment of chairs as well as two overstuffed couches. It stopped and the items on its platform began floating off to deposit themselves against the walls. The Splice continued to watch the unloading with bemusement. “He’s not entirely sure what he’s doing and is figuring this out as he goes, so how long it will take is unknown.”
“Can we see him,” Sofia asked as she dragged a chair out next to the medic and settled into it.
A hologram sprung up over the medic. Inside it, Iain was lying with his eyes closed and breathing slowly and deeply every twenty seconds.
April eyed the display professionally. “Why are you keeping his respiration rate so slow?”
“I am not doing anything to him. I haven’t even begun the repairs to his skeletal structure and will not until he is finished. Iain slowed his breathing as he entered his meditative state.” Theodora patted the top of the medic. There was, of course, no sound from the impact since she couldn’t really touch it. “All I am doing is monitoring what he is doing. If he tries to die I will prevent that from happening, but other than making sure he has the nutrition he needs to survive and removing any wastes, that is all.” She glanced at April. “Interfering in any other way could have unforeseen consequences, both for him and for the other organic life on the Theodora.”
Ninhursag looked at Eve from where she had draped herself over a couch. “Tell Lucifer that the meeting is canceled. We’ll reschedule once we know Iain is finished. Oh, and tell her that she needs to be getting her people ready to go. This is one of the primary reasons why we came back after all. In the meantime, get comfortable, girls. We may be here a while.”
***
The medic hissed with escaping air as the top rose. Raquel looked up from the tablet she was reading. “Theodora?”
The AI’s voice came out of the air. “He’s fine. All bones are healed and he says he’s done with integrating Mhodvitnar’s memories with his.”
“Let everyone else know he’s awake.”
“Are you sure? He may need a few minutes to orient himself before he’s mobbed by his women.”
Raquel frowned and then gave a Gallic shrug. “He may, but if I don’t inform them immediately they’ll take it out of my hide. Inform them that he’s awake and ask that they give him a few minutes alone.”
“I don’t want either of you to tell them I’m awake.” Iain sat up slowly and swung his legs off the bed. He pushed to his feet, wavering slightly before he steadied. “Clothes.” The cube was already headed toward him. He began dressing as soon as it opened up. “How long, in reality?” He smiled crookedly. “I mean as real as reality gets.”
“It’s been nine days,” Raquel informed him. She had gotten up and was standing nearby in case he needed help. “How long was it to you?”
“One thousand six hundred forty nine years, five months and three days.” He shrugged into his shirt and belted his pistol on. “That’s how long it took subjectively to live Mhodvitnar’s life.”
Theodora stepped forward and peered into his eyes. “How do you feel?”
“Am I still me?” He smiled thinly. “I am. Am I the same as I was before I integrated Mhodvitnar’s memories with mine? No, but every instant in time changes the people passing through it. I know a lot more, but each truewizard manipulates magic in a slightly different manner. I have to decide if I want to mimic how he does it or adapt what I’ve learned to how I do. I suspect that it’ll be harder in the long term to adapt it to my style of magic but better for me since it’ll be instinctive and therefore less likely to have unanticipated effects.”
He took Raquel’s hand and she stepped closer with a happy smile. “Will any of these changes help you, Iain?”
“That’s an excellent question and the answer is I don’t know, at least not in the short term.” He reached out with his mind. Ladies, I’m awake.
Eve appeared a heartbeat later, followed by Pandora, Ninhursag, Canaan and April. Dominique was the last to arrive. She was nude and dripping water all over the deck beneath her. Soap suds streaked her skin. “I’ll be back in five.” She vanished.
Iain raised a hand, chuckling as he did so. “I’m not going to wait for her. First of all, I’m done with the integration and second, I don’t know what’ll be different, if anything, as far as my behavior goes.”
The Megami-sama cocked her head. “What exactly did you do?”
“Have you ever imagined you were someone else? And while you were pretending you did things like you were this person?” He continued when Eve nodded slowly “Well, it’s a little like that and a lot like being in a powerful dream where you’re someone else. To integrate his memories I had to live Mhodvitnar’s life. I did what he did, felt what he felt, tasted what he tasted and everything else. I almost died when he did. He picked up some oddball disease before his powers activated and it made him miserable for a couple of months and I lived that with him. Dwarven food and diarrhea make for an unpleasant combination.” His eyes hooded. “It can get a little confusing sometimes. The thing that attacked us and killed Hathor was called a seeker. In my memories, I sent it to kill us or to report back to me if I was too strong to kill. In my memories I ordered the death of Hathor and personally murdered Scheherazade, Irena, Montsho and Sable.”
Eve put her hand on his shoulder sympathetically. “Oh, Iain.”
Dominique appeared. She was dry and had thrown on a long shirt that hung down just below the curve of her ass. Naturally it was his. Her crimson hair hadn’t been brushed and was artfully disheveled as it spilled down her back. “That’s awful.”
Eve leaned down to peer into his eyes. “How are you feeling?”
Iain chuckled and took her head in his hands, pulling her closer. He kissed her gently and snapped her neck with a sudden movement. He stepped back as she fell and shot Dominique in the center of the chest. The explosive round blew gobbets of meat through the back of her shirt. “Not bad.” The surviving members of his harem began to spread away from him, but shock slowed them fatally as Ninhursag’s chest appeared over his front sight. His finger tightened on the trigger.
Canaan gasped. Iain blinked as Eve cocked her head. “Iain, are you all right? You zoned out there for a second.”
He glanced at the Splice. She looked into his eyes and took an involuntary step back from him as he turned his attention back to the Megami-sama. “Sorry, had a bit of a daydream there. My mind will probably wander somewhat from time to time, so everyone be ready to cut me some slack when it happens.”
You wanted to kill us all, Canaan said into his mind. Shock filled her mental voice.
He didn’t try to deny it. I didn’t act.
The Splice turned to Ninhursag. “While this mental wandering is going on, I am going to insist that I be Iain’s primary bodyguard. After all, the mind is my specialty.”
What’s this about?
You can’t kill me the way you thought about doing to Eve and Dominique. I’m too tough for one of your pistol’s bullets or your enhanced strength.
He smiled slightly. You think I can’t figure out how to kill you if I have to?
I have no doubt that you are resourceful enough to find a way to kill me if you decide that it’s necessary or even if you just want to, but I can protect the others while you’re trying. Your mind is suddenly more like my Amachamp’s was and I want to protect everyone involved while you’re coming to terms with the changes.
Ninhursag nodded. “Makes sense to me. You’ve got him.”
What if I like the changes?
That’s still coming to terms with them. As long as you don’t murder the harem wholesale, I don’t care. And no, that doesn’t mean I’d be happy if you decided to kill us off piecemeal, either. But if you decide that you want to kill more outlanders, all I’d ask is that you let me help.
He let her feel his amusement. I’ll keep that in mind.
***
Iain sat down next to the redhead and looked out over the lake in the park. Unlike the smaller family garden, the park ran the diameter of the Theodora, and so was a cylinder two kilometers in diameter and a hundred and fifty meters high. A holographic sun floated in the sky and warmed the air with its rays. Clouds scudded by overhead, but were thin enough to only occasionally dim the sun. “Afternoon, Cherry.”
Monica looked at him evenly for several seconds. “Hi, Iain. What are you doing back here?”
“I became ill and had to return for a little while.”
“What happened?”
“Something I ate disagreed with me.”
Canaan burst out laughing.
Monica eyed her sourly. “I don’t suppose you’re here to tell me I can go home, are you?”
“I would be only if you’re willing to leave Camille with me.” He shrugged. “I’m not leaving my child here to be inculcated in the propaganda of the Blue League and I’ve been informed that I can’t abort her pregnancy. It’ll offend too many people in my family. And if I decided to come back and steal the baby, you’d be waiting for that sort of thing. I’d still get the child but the butcher’s bill would be pretty steep and Eve’s against it. That kind of limits my options.”
You could remove the fetus and put it into a clone tank for development.
Yes, Theodora, I could, but I think that disappearing them and leaving evidence in the space where their house used to rest that Kerrik Wolf is pissed about this might help the league decide not to pull this stunt again.
What kind of evidence are you going to leave? The house is currently shrink-wrapped against hard vacuum and is stored in my manufacturing space.
I’m leaving that to April. It’ll give her a chance to vent.
You do realize that terrain around where the house used to be is likely to be toothpicks when she’s done. And by toothpicks I mean tiny, charred, frozen and pulverized toothpicks.
Yeah, it will. She and Canaan will leave a nice large boulder in the middle of the rubble with my message of displeasure carved in it. I suspect it’ll be as big as they can move, so I expect it’ll be impressive enough that investigators won’t miss it. Then they’ll contact the league to report a problem at Monica’s house.
Canaan glanced at him. We intend it to be at least ten tonnes, so yes they will find it. Maybe we’ll paint it Day-Glo yellow. Government officials can be so stupid, after all.
Theodora sounded amused. If you enlist my aid, I can manufacture you a thousand or so tonne steel stele so you can leave something much more significant.
The Splice grinned suddenly. I like that idea.
Monica waved at the lake. “It’s amazing that we’re inside a spaceship. This looks so real. Camille is flying around looking for raspberries.” She glanced at him. “Will she find any?”
“No she won’t. We’ve got some great grape and other berry bushes planted but no other fruit as of yet.”
Canaan eyed Donna where she stood guard and snorted. “You need to look at the positive aspects of this change in your life, Chambers.”
Monica frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Where we’re going you won’t be a failed minister. You’ll be Monica Chambers and you’ll have the chance to be whoever you want.” She snorted again at Monica’s expression of surprise. “We are not going to keep you and your harem under lock and key in Texas. As long as you keep in touch you’ll be free to go almost anywhere you want.”
“Almost?”
“All of the leagues except Texas are hurting for trained tamers and trained pokegirls. If you leave for Blue, as an example, you’re likely to find that you’ll be stripped of most or all of your pokegirls. On top of that, since you’re pregnant you’re obviously fertile and several leagues are sequestering fertile women for breeding programs. So we’d probably insist you stay in Texas so we don’t have to mount a rescue mission on top of everything else we’re doing.” She grinned. “On the other hand, if you’re that stupid I’m more than willing to kill a lot of people to recover Camille and possibly even you.”
Monica ignored the implied insult. “Why isn’t Texas hurting for tamers and pokegirls?”
Iain answered. “Oh, it is, but it has no power to confiscate anyone’s pokegirls. The people with pokegirls who want to fight are in the TDF or are fighting as unorganized civilians and the people with pokegirls who do not want to fight don’t.”
“What if someone who doesn’t want to fight has pokegirls that do?”
Iain shrugged. “If they want to fight badly enough then they change to a tamer in the TDF.”
Donna looked more shocked than Monica. “I don’t believe it!”
Canaan grinned. “Considering the power of an alpha bond, a pokegirl must really want to fight if she does, but it happens. It’s like Sadie Pokens all year round. Sometimes the receiving tamer will compensate the family that’s losing a pokegirl, but in that case half of the value usually goes to the pokegirl who is leaving. It’s an incentive for a pokegirl to try to negotiate compensation before leaving her previous family without her, which helps to mitigate any bad blood.”
“Sounds like nothing more than bloody chaos,” Monica muttered.
“There is an element of that but it’s much more orderly than you’d expect, even when you include the fact that these customs are still evolving. It’s part and parcel of a society where people are expected to be honorable and self-reliant. You’ll see.”
“So you’re not going to chain us to your bed?”
Iain chuckled. “That would make certain activities with my family rather difficult, so no.” He sobered. “Canaan is right. I’d prefer if you remained local to my home but it doesn’t really matter. I will come to you if I have to.”
“What for?”
He blinked. “This is not punishment for stealing my seed, Cherry. It’s about the fact that my son, which is essentially what Camille is carrying, is going to have me as his father and neither you nor Camille get to tell me he’s not. I can’t leave her in the Blue League because we both know that the league is hoping he’ll have an author’s powers so they can raise him to be their loyal soldier. They’ll probably take him away as soon as he’s born so they can indoctrinate him properly. What they don’t understand is that if he is exactly like me, he’ll never be loyal to them.”
Monica frowned. “I don’t understand. It’s a proven fact that children can be conditioned and that the conditioning stays when they’re adults.”
“That’s called indoctrination and it does hold for normal people, but not for people like me. If that child is as much like me as the league hopes, one day he’ll be powerful enough to completely ignore what they want and to punish them if they try to make him toe the line.” He gripped the soil with his fingers until they turned white. “And no child deserves what the league would do to him to try and make him loyal. Whether they were cruel or nice his life would never be his.”
“Are you that powerful?”
Iain was quiet for a second. “I told the current Minister of Defense to pound salt up his ass, kidnapped a former Minister of Defense and her family and I fully expect to get away completely unscathed. And that’s just what happened on this short visit. Yeah, I think I am.”
Monica was looking out over the lake. “I think you are too. What will happen next?”
“I’m sorry you’re upset at me.” She’d brought it on herself, but Iain didn’t feel a need to point that out to her. “Next I have to have a meeting with some people who are going with us and then I have to pay a visit to Sofia’s family. She wants to see them again before we leave.”
Donna grinned. “That’s nice.”
Iain grinned back, his smile mirrored by Canaan. “Yeah, it is.”
***
The island was a little over a kilometer long and five hundred meters at the widest point. Iain stood at the northernmost point of the island and looked into the deep ocean on this side. On maps of your world this island is called Platte Island and is part of the Coralline Seychelles chain north of Madagascar. Platte Island is one of the few islands around here to survive the pokegirl holocaust.
Iain didn’t exactly ignore his twee but he wasn’t paying much attention to it either. His mind was elsewhere as he worked to master energies that were almost completely foreign to him. It was like trying to hold the wind or, more accurately, water. The trick was to think about how he did magic and apply that to the foreign magic to make it accessible. Finally he looked back at Dominique, who was sitting on a rock and watching him closely. “Learn anything?”
“A great deal,” she said slowly. “And much of it will be applicable to my magic. Are you ready to do this?”
Instead of answering her, he looked at the drone resting on the soil next to the beach. It was a standard multipurpose long range reconnaissance drone for the Theodora, a dull cylinder fourteen meters long and a meter and a half in diameter. In Iain’s eyes, it was about the same size as a Greyhound bus. “Are you ready?”
Theodora’s hologram appeared next to the drone. “I am.”
Iain turned to face the waves. On this side of the island there was no breakwater and the waves crashed against the rocks in sprays of water a dozen meters high. He spread his arms and focused his will before shouting in an echoing bellow. “Baraz-Felakgundu!”
For a long moment nothing happened and then, in the next instant, a large hammer appeared hanging in the air in front of Iain. It was glowing a soft magenta and lines of white energy slowly crawled over its surface. At its arrival, the air filled with a heavy expectancy that seemed to make the air thicker and harder for Dominique to pull into her lungs.
Iain chuckled. “You just sit there and hope I’ll be dumb enough to touch you.” The air grew heavier for a moment and Dominique found herself gasping for air. “Theodora.”
There was a soft crunch as the drone lifted off and moved to hover over the hammer. A hatch opened in its bottom and it drifted down until the hammer was inside it. Then the opening closed. The drone began moving upwards, gaining speed as it climbed. As soon as it was high enough to be safe, it jumped ahead, ramping up its acceleration as the air thinned.
Theodora appeared beside Iain, using the holographic drivers in the pokedex on his belt even though it was turned off. “Apparently you had no need to worry. The drone is functioning normally and is still registering the weight of the payload. Everything is on schedule. The probe will impact the sun in nine minutes and will be traveling at ninety eight percent of the speed of light when it enters the sun’s outer atmosphere. Nothing will survive, especially not a hammer made of low technology steel.” She cocked her head. “The hammer has attempted to teleport but, as instructed, I placed a teleport block on the drone. It did not leave the drone.”
“Let me know the minute the drone and the hammer are destroyed.” Iain reached out and took Dominique’s hand. “Let’s go find the others.”
Sofia and Zareen were collecting shells along the shoreline while April and Pandora put out a picnic and stood guard at the same time. He could see Ninhursag and Eve dimly in the trees, the Megami-sama standing watch while his maharani gathered twigs and leaves from plants she didn’t recognize for later growth into trees and bushes. Raquel and Canaan were far enough down the beach that Iain couldn’t tell what they were doing, but he sent a mental message to them both to return and saw them begin heading back.
You have ten minutes. The thought felt like Pandora.
“I probably have more than that,” he muttered. “She’ll probably be late.”
“I could be early,” Lucifer said as she appeared on a small windswept dune.
“I suppose you could,” Iain admitted with a smile, “but I’d be very surprised if that were the case.”
Lucifer’s eyes swept over him. “I understand you were injured. It hasn’t been that long, are you well?” Behind her, April scowled darkly.
“I’m fine. I have lots of healing magic available in my harem and the injuries weren’t really that severe.”
The Megami-sama nodded. “I’m glad to hear that, Iain.” She glanced at the picnic. “Can we eat? That smells heavenly and I haven’t eaten today.” April had blanked her face but apparently not quickly enough. “April, what’s the matter?”
The Duelist glanced at Iain and where Eve and Ninhursag were approaching. She spoke in a low voice. “Do you intend to try to have children with Iain?”
Lucifer blinked and her eyes flicked towards Iain for a second as she flushed slightly. “I will be a pokewoman within a few years and he would be an excellent choice if I can convince him and you. Does it bother you that I find him desirable?”
April’s scowl returned and slowly faded. “It does, but at least you’re honest about it.”
Confusion appeared on Lucifer’s face. “I don’t understand.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” April looked at Iain. “I won’t protest if you wish to entertain the possibility.”
“Thanks,” he said slowly, “but isn’t this a little premature?”
April cocked her head. “If you sire them won’t you want to be the father to any children of hers?”
“I’d think that considering what we just did you’d know the answer to that.”
“I do, Iain, but I wanted to make sure you did. Getting to know Lucy better now will enable to you to decide what you do or don’t want to do later on when it becomes important.”
He gave a grudging nod. “You’re right.”
“What’s she right about this time?” Eve dropped a bag full of assorted plant bits far enough from the picnic that Zareen was unlikely to mistake it for part of the meal. “Well?”
Canaan’s fangs gleamed in her grin. “Lucifer wants to fuck Iain until at least one of them can’t move.”
The Megami-sama turned white and then bright red. “I did not say that!”
“I remind you that you stand in the presence of a rather powerful telepath.” The Splice wriggled her antennae for a heartbeat before announcing in a clinical tone. “You’ll note that she is denying saying what I’ve claimed and not the claim itself.”
“Enough.” Iain’s voice was hard. “Lucifer merely said she was considering approaching me to have children with. April gave her,” he frowned, “blessing isn’t the right word. She said she wouldn’t protest.”
Dominique smirked when everyone else turned to stare at the Duelist. “She thinks what Lucy wants to do is better than what Cherry and Cammie did since she did ask.”
Raquel snorted. “Iain should not have gotten in the way. Then there would not be a problem.”
“What part of ‘enough’ did you not hear?” Iain unconsciously rubbed his chest with his free hand as he waved at the basket of food with the other. “April, I think you and Raquel should serve.” He dropped down to sit cross-legged in the sand. “First we break bread and then we’ll talk.”
Some while later Lucifer leaned back and sighed contentedly. “That was excellent.” She gestured at a yellowish red cake. “I don’t recognize that but it is very good.”
“That is kiveve,” Sofia answered. “I made it. It is made from,” she paused her ears flicking as she searched for the right word, “a kind of pumpkin.”
“I liked it a lot. It’s not too sweet.”
“Thank you.”
Iain handed his plate to Zareen. “Lucifer, we contacted you as soon as we came back so you could get started preparing for the move. How long do you think it’ll be before you and your people are ready to go?”
Lucifer hesitated. “There’s been a development, I’m afraid.”
Iain sighed. “There always is. What is it?”
“I’ve had what essentially boils down to an uprising in the ranks of the Sisterhood. It happened when word got out that I was selecting people to move to your new world.” She smiled slightly. “It was led by the contingent I picked up from the refugees you and Kelvin saved from that prison.”
Pandora folded her arms. “Just skip to the end.”
“As a group, they insisted on coming with us. That started a cascade reaction and, in the end, almost everyone in the Sisterhood demanded to join the people I’d chosen.”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Why did the refugees do this?”
Lucifer looked surprised. “Iain, they were dying and you gave them love and life. That’s really important to us and, while they’re not bonded to you, they want to be where you are. You emit this energy that,” she paused, “it’s hard to explain, but I’ve felt it too and I think it’s part of the pull you and Kelvin have that I was warned about on the Daisy Mae. It makes pokegirls want to be around you and to do what is necessary to make you proud of us and happy with us. I haven’t felt anything like it for a very long time. In fact, I haven’t felt it since,” her eyes widened and she peered closely at Iain, “you are a lot like him. Are you James in disguise?”
The color drained from Iain’s face as he stared at her. “Ladies,” he said in a strangled voice, “everyone who can use a truth telling spell do so.” He waited for a few seconds as various pokegirls did as he requested before clearing his throat loudly. “I am not Sukebe. I have not been Sukebe. I am not Sukebe with amnesia. I am not Sukebe reincarnated and I don’t carry his soul, not in my body or in a Ziploc bag. I’m also not his evil twin Skippy.” He looked around, his voice growing stronger. “And the fact that Kelvin has this same whatever it is suggests that it may be a manifestation of some previously unknown author ability.”
“You believe these things,” Lucifer said slowly, “but you cannot know if you are not him reincarnated.”
“It’s hard to be reincarnated if you’re not dead and Sukebe didn’t die in either world.” He smiled broadly. “Although Raven intends to cut him into tiny little strips and feed them to hogs if she can find him.” His smile faded. “Besides, if I were Sukebe things would have turned out very differently.”
Lucifer gave him a searching look. “How?”
“I wouldn’t have piddled around like he did. He was a plot device and I’m eminently practical. If I decide humanity has to go and I have the resources he did, then go they will and no Chinese or anyone else would get a chance to muck up my plans.”
The Megami-sama gaped at him. “You really believe that.” Iain realized that her truth spell was still active and clamped his mouth shut before he spoke again.
“He already did it,” Ninhursag said with an amused smile. It became a grin at Lucifer’s horrified look. “Or he did if you believe that he creates what he writes. In one of his stories, a different Sukebe didn’t bother with the Red Plague and instead put out a different virus. It made every female human in the world undergo threshold. There weren’t any more human women on that world until children began being born from pokewomen and they had normal chances to undergo threshold. But since the humans knew nothing about pokegirls needing tamed, a bunch of them went feral. While living amongst the men. And in urban areas. And in large numbers pretty much at the same time. All over the world they quickly exterminated society from the inside out.”
“That’s enough,” Iain said as Lucifer seemed lost for what to say. “Let’s get back on topic. Lucifer, how many people are you talking about coming with us?”
The Megami-sama took a deep breath. “I’m talking about sixty five thousand people, Iain. Roughly a fifth of those are combat troops and the rest are support and dependents.”
That many troops would be the numerical equivalent to a US Army Division and support elements would turn that into a corps. There hadn’t been that many people in Sabine County before Sukebe had fomented war against the people of Earth. Theodora spoke while Iain was trying to wrap his mind around how many people would be moving. As it would be for only a day or so and if I filled my internal processor space with every one of my parasite ships capable of transporting living cargo and tied their life support into that of the Theodora we could carry all of them without any undue difficulty. If the situation was to exist for more than a few days I would want to build temporary housing inside my processor spaces or external modules for housing. More likely I would push to give me the time to manufacture a personnel transport built specifically for this purpose and it could follow us through the gate. If you are curious it would take me about two weeks to build a ship of that type along with its associated parasites. However, you will need at least that long to perform a proper reconnaissance before moving on Sofia’s family.
Iain really did not want to be breathing in what sixty five thousand other people had been exhaling. Make the transport. I’m sure we’ll find a use for it afterwards. “Can you be ready to go in two weeks?”
Lucifer gave him a startled look. “You would take all of us?”
“Not to my bed, no, but I’ll take them to One as we agreed.”
April snickered loudly. “You’d die. From us before they could kill you, probably.”
“To be honest, Iain, I didn’t think you could move that many people at once.”
He glanced at Ninhursag and Eve before shrugging. “The truth is that I have a spaceship. It’s a large manufacturing complex with engines and armor and it’s going to make a transport to carry all of your people. To put you in the Theodora we’d have to pack you like cordwood and that wouldn’t be fair to you.”
“You can make a ship to carry us in two weeks?”
I started construction as soon as you authorized it so if you tell her I’m already working on it, it will be true.
“Well,” Iain said slowly, “the truth is that the Theodora is already building the ship.”
“Oh.” Lucifer looked impressed. “I’m glad you’re on our side.”
“You never answered the question,” Ninhursag said suddenly. “Will you be ready in two weeks?”
Lucifer rose. “I make no promises but I think we can. I’ll push everyone as hard as I possibly can and if we abandon our facilities instead of demolishing them and hiding the remains we should be ready to go before your deadline.” Her eyes hardened. “And if we’re not I will know the reason why.” She smiled suddenly. “I will be in touch with you regularly, Iain, if you don’t mind, both for this and so we can get to know each other better.”
“That’ll be fine.”
‘Thank you.” She vanished.
***
Iain Grey
Living Harem
Ninhursag - Elfqueen & maharani
Eve Grey - Megami Sama
April Grey - Duelist & beta
Dominique - Blessed Archmage
Pandora - Fiendish Archangel
Canaan - G Splice (Hunter Amachamp & Alaka-Wham)
Zareen - Nightmare
Raquel - Fiendish Rapitaur
Sofia - Peekabu
Vanessa - Evangelion
Dead Harem
Eirian - Silver Dragoness
Aurum - Gold Dragoness
Skye - Blue Dragoness
Emerald - Green Dragoness
Beryl - Red Dragoness
Julia - human
Ling - Cheetit
Matilda - White Tigress
Liadan - Twau
Sorrel - Armsmistress
Natalie - Blazicunt
Slutton
Ranch employees
Daphne - Whorizard
Lynn - Growlie
Chuck - Doggirl
Ryan - Ponytaur
Winifred - Rack (German)
Rosemary - Kitten (Uruguayan)
Allison - Umbrea
Silver - Ponytaur
12 Elves
2 Elfqueens - Dionne & Adrianna
Joyce - Milktit
Lara - Milktit
Lake Employees
Heltu - Wet Queen
6 Wet Elves
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