Kingdom of Stars (The Young Ancients: Timon Book Three) (33 page)

"So, Timon Baker, you seem to have lost your prize. I
thought I'd tell you that your little Tor, or should I say
my
little
Tor, is here already, all safe and sound. Do you know what that means?"

Yes. It meant that Tor had known where to find the others
already, somewhere in his head. That meant he could access Cordes's memories,
which probably meant that...

That Tim was full of wishful thinking, naturally. It could
also
be that Cordes had been waiting for him to leave to make Tor his slave. Timon
knew it might be naive of him, but he really didn't think it was the case. What
Tor had been doing, being only himself... It had been very powerful. So much so
that it pretty much had to be working.

"That your base is within two hundred miles of the Northwest
coast of Soam? Probably closer? My guess would be just past the northern edge of
where the water hit earlier, to try and throw us off the trail. No one would
think to look that close to the risk, would they? Am I close?"

The line clicked off.

"Oops, called that one a little well then? Me and my
big mouth, I should have taken a hit squad in."

There was nothing for it, except to swing that direction and
try to see if he could find any movement. This would be a great time to have
the gear that was on the Ranford. If they were able to get back to space, they
might be able to deploy things. It was almost all set up, so all they had to do
was dump the tiles, each made of focus stone and about the size of his hand, all
in white, into space. Then use the main control to watch what was going on. He
had ten of those units and five hundred satellites, so that several people
could use the system at once.

It meant stopping to connect with the ship, after he flew to
about where he thought the people would be snug in their base, but nothing
stirred. Well, him, but it seemed like a wild fox chase, even after he called
the instructions in and was informed that it would be at least a day or two
before they could get anything into place. It would be faster if he did it
himself, he was informed by a rather surly sounding Captain Peterson.

As if he'd made it hard? Everyone was exhausted though,
which he understood. It wasn't a thing he had time for personally, but the
knowledge was right there, in his own body.

It took seven hours to fly all the way back to Lairdgren and
that put him in late, but the others were still in Ali and Tor's front room,
sipping at alcoholic beverages and coffee, waiting for him.

"Hey, all." He sounded like he was going to fall
down, but Sherri helped him to the sofa and sat between him and the arm,
meaning Trice could move in on the other side.

Without explaining, he nodded at Ali.

"Tor's infiltrating the bad guys. He thinks we're mainly
all crazy, or at least did before he saw the damage in Soam, but he's fighting
Cordes, and seems to be winning for now." That would probably go away as
soon as he slept, but Tor knew that, and could go a long time without, if he
had to. "He also said he was sorry, but if you have to be mad at him for
this, you might as well take it out on me. It was my idea. I was pressed for
time though, and I don't do my best work on the fly."

Then, who did?

The girls and Kolb all looked at him like he was crazy, but
he smiled anyway.

"I need to get some rest. Things are about to get busy,
I think."

The next day was probably the worst he'd ever had in his
entire twelve plus years. That wasn't even just him being dramatic, he decided,
as the reports came in from around the world. Even having been tortured wasn't
as awful, and at the time he'd thought he'd found the bottom of what that word
meant. Austra had been reshaped by the events of the day before and heroic
efforts or not, millions of people had died. It hit all at once, but got worse,
as the estimates from everywhere else came in.

You couldn't see anything from the town near the Lairdgren
school at all. The day was cloudy and warm, but when it should have been clear
and warm, but other than that, it just seemed normal. People knew what had happened,
and were afraid. Timon was just sick.

It was a dense hard feeling in his middle, one that made him
dread blue light suddenly, because every time the damned communications device
went off, he got worse news. The only bright point was that Orange and one of
her crews had found Julie White, who hadn't been in Soam at all, having
actually gone well North in her hiding. All the way to County Baker, in fact.

She'd gotten in touch with Alice in order to arrange for a
trip back to her own lands, when the news hit, early in the morning.

That was it though, the rest was just death, either the ones
that had happened, or what would be coming. The Ancients were the very worst
too. Green was in the Capital, but had connected with them early, trying to
work out if Timon had any kind of plan. Since otherwise people were going to
starve the next year. The tentative figure placed that at about half the world
going hungry, if he couldn't fix it. He'd nearly frozen, having even part of
that dumped on him. In a way it wasn't fair, since he wasn't old enough to have
to carry that kind of weight.

Except that reality didn't count your age, did it?

Instead of answering, he fell into a trance and tried to
escape that way, working on ways to save his brother. It didn't take long at
all.

That part actually shocked him, because when he thought
about it, he knew how to encapsulate the needed proteins already, doing that
would shut the Rhetistics down cold. The hard part was that the action had to
be made permanent, which meant that he had to influence time itself, on a very
tiny level, to make it last for the rest of Tor's life. He could do it, he
knew. It was similar, in a very sideways fashion, to how Tor had made the
communications devices, of all things. The hard part was going to be what he
feared the whole time. The amount of work it would take, and the fine level of
control he'd need.

It was painful, but as he opened his eyes, sitting in Ali's
front room still, with others around him talking to different places, he knew
he wasn't good enough.
Tor
probably wasn't, if he were going to be
honest. That meant he had six months to become better, so at least there was
that. It wasn't enough time, but it was all he had, and while he might have to
learn to manipulate time on the small scale, that wouldn't buy him anything in
the real world that way.

So he forced himself deeper, controlling each part of every
thought, and then called Green back, clearly interrupting some kind of meeting.
From the sound of it, that would be in the full council, and people were a lot
less than happy. He could get that. They also didn't stop shouting at one
another in the background while his grandfather spoke. For the first time since
he'd known that man, he sounded stressed. Pained even. That and old.

"Hello?" The one word carried with it things that
Timon knew no one should ever have to bear. They all did now anyway. Things
were just too close to the edge of the cliff for them not to worry.

"Timon here. You asked for a plan. I have one."

His own words surprised him, since his mouth was moving, but
he didn't know what he was going to say next at all. It was like he was
watching it unfold, being too far back from things to control them. It wasn't
true however. That was just that little part of his mind that wasn't under his
discipline as of yet, trying to make sense of things.

It was the bigger part that was speaking however.

Green grunted, which was a thing that was so odd he wanted
to freeze, but Tim felt the words come out anyway.

"I'll handle the food portion of things. I have a plan
in place for it. I need a month. In the mean time everyone needs to share with
each other. I'll make sure no one starves, so tell people not to worry. No hoarding.
Tell King Richard to share the shields and weapons with the new forces. I'll
have more of those coming too. I'll work from the Ranford, so that they can't
kill me too easily. I want you and Brown to work with all the other Ancients
that aren't trying to kill us all. Also, get with Gerent. He has a solution if
the rest of us fail. Can you do anything about the radiation?" It was a
big problem in certain areas, he thought.

Count Lairdgren sighed.

"No. We can isolate the contaminated areas, but they'll
be useless for a long time. I figure that the plan must be for the others to
hide and just out wait the problems. I've tried to explain that to everyone,
but they insist on focusing on war, instead of survival. You can handle food?
How?"

"Magic." It was the only answer he had that would
work, after all. Instead of asking what that meant, Green grunted again and cut
the line. It was either that the man thought he had a good and workable idea,
or he just didn't think anything would be enough at all. If so, he was wrong.

Timon stood and waved to the others, holding his right hand
out blankly to Trice.

"We need to arrange passage to the Ranford. The rest of
you should stay here. It isn't going to be interesting or fun at all. I have
some building projects to see to." The way it came out, so drab and soft
it sounded almost like he didn't expect to survive the work. He
had
to
however. They had so many problems that if he didn't, the whole world might
just end.

So no pressure or anything.

He waited for responses from the others in the room, but out
of all of them only Sherri seemed to get it, the rest being too busy with their
own tasks. She moved across the space and hugged him close.

"I'm scared, Tim. I don't know what to do." There
was a plea in the tone, with her asking him to fix it all, or at least make her
feel better about it.

She was just looking for him to hold her, and possibly tell
her it would be all right, which it wouldn't. Except that they could still
survive, if they tried hard enough.

"I'll handle some of it. I need you to get ready, and
work the new people, that irregular army of Austrans and whoever else comes for
it, into a force that can move things into place when I have them ready. We
have to feed a big part of the world. Get with..." It took a second for
him to work out that no one was really going to be in charge of that at all. So
he didn't say anything for a moment. "Alphonse. Get with Prince Alphonse
and tell him that in a month we need to have a distribution network for
millions of pounds of food. Millions of
tons
or more, set up and ready
to go. Use the Fast Transport system and co-opt what you need." He started
to turn away, only to find the sandy blonde girl that was dressed like a
warrior holding his arm. He couldn't feel it at all, as deep as he was.

"Tim... I can't just start ordering people around like
that. Or just tell the Prince what to do... I-"

Timon nodded and took her communications device from the
pocket she kept it in. The move was familiar, and should have at least had them
giggling at the closeness of it, but neither of them made a sound as the slick
leather touched his fingers. It was hard to get it out, but he did it and hit
the sigil for the Prince about ten seconds later. It took time to find it. The
list was long after all.

"Cordes here." The man sounded a lot stronger
today than when Trice had been discussing the death of their friend, which was
the last time he'd heard him. He was even using his last name, like a military
man, which had to mean something important. His voice was deeper and more like
a commander's than anything. Timon didn't bother copying it.

"Alphonse. Tim Baker here. I'll have food in a month.
For everyone, I hope. We need a distribution network. I already assigned Sherri
Bonner to run it. Get with Smythe, and make sure she has a military rank that
will make people listen to her. I'll be working."

The man was well within his rights to snap at Tim for taking
all those liberties, but instead he acted like it had been the plan the whole
time. Probably just relieved that someone sounded like they knew what they were
doing.

"Good. I'll make that happen. Food, shields, and
weapons, in that order Tim. We need enough... For everyone. We can't pay for
it." There was a sad tone to the words, which was explained a few seconds
later. "I... We would have gotten Tor to do it, before, if he could. Don't
die, doing this. Not if you don't have to. I can't believe that Tor is a
traitor."

That had to be stopped, since it wasn't the truth and trance
state or not, it was his brother being badmouthed.

"He isn't. Cordes isn't even. Remember that, since we
may get Tor back." He couldn't add more, in case they were being listened
to, somehow.

"Yes. Thank you, Lord Baker. I'll pass the word.
Sherri? Sherilyn Bonner, isn't it? Baronetta?"

"Right. I'll have her go to the Flight Base later. She
has her own Fast Craft."

"Oh? Good. Is she available? We should talk."

"Here." Then after shoving her communications
device back into her hands, Timon walked out of the room, pausing only to pull
his wife up. They needed to go and boring or not, he wasn't leaving her
vulnerable to attack. Green might be right, and the others might have all been
hiding, but he wasn't going to trust in the guess of someone else. Not now.

It took hours for them to get to the Ranford, and he started
working as soon as materials were brought to him. It took more focus than he'd
ever used before, for anything, but he had what he needed, to get things
started, done in the time he'd set.

When he opened his eyes finally, he was alone in total
darkness. For a moment he wondered if he'd gone blind, a thought that didn't
affect him at all. Then he looked under his shirt, and saw the glow of various
amulets. He had a shield on, as well as clothing and one of his older, non-glowing,
healing amulets. Tapping the etched sigil helped his strength return, after a
few hours. When he got to the hallway, the door vanishing with a touch on the
wall, it was bustling with activity.

He saw fifteen people walking around, seeming as if they had
places to go. Without waiting he reached out and touched a small, very dark,
woman on the shoulder. She was in black, and it seemed like a military uniform,
like what the others all wore. Except him. He was in brown.

Timon saw the kinky short hair and facial features common to
Afrak and spoke in that language, which made her eyes pop open. Probably
because it was unexpected, rather than his horrible accent.

"I have magical devices that need to be taken to the
planet. Can you help me find who's needed for that?"

She looked at him blankly for a while, and then tilted her
head, which was an Afrak nod, he thought, rather than her just trying to be
cute or looking perplexed.

"Yes, this is a thing that can be done. Which
planet?" She smiled, her teeth looking very white, which was a trait of
her people. It was the contrast with the dark of their skin, he knew.

"Both. Mainly to Earth however."

That had to be the second planet she meant, the moon, which
meant the colony would be almost ready, he hoped. That worked, since he was
prepared for that too.

She ran off, so he went to shower, which was warm, but cut
off after a minute, to save on resources. There was a count down on the wall,
so he managed not to be covered with soap when it happened. That was a very
advanced use of the ship, he knew, but guessed that some Austran genius had
figured out how to make it happen. It had that kind of feel to the display that
had appeared on the wall.

He didn't shave, though he needed to, the mirror let him
know, his face covered with black hair that was longer than he thought it would
be. It had, he was almost certain, only been a month.

When he walked out of the bathroom, still nude, the
compartment was filled with people, all of them loading out pallets of crates,
taking things away. He wasn't the tallest person in the room, since there were
a few Noble giants, but he was close, he noticed. He was at least as tall as
most of the Austran men.

Timon didn't bother to feel embarrassed, even as a few
people stared at him. He just made some clothing appear, choosing a version of
court clothing, which made him stand out a bit. He had to resize the outfit,
since he was very thin now, but they worked. He had boots on and everything by
the time that Trice came in, along with Judith Kerry, who was back to her
orange cuffed black Captain's outfit.

"Timon! You came back to us. We were afraid... Well,
you know." Trice kissed him, and then laughed when Judy ducked in and did
the same, at least as well. Timon didn't really react to either one of them,
merely nodding as they stood back, their eyes looking slightly amused, rather
than hurt. They both had to know what a trance looked like.

"Food." He pointed lazily at the crates, and then
let the chattering women take him away to a large room with a ship in it. It
was another space vessel, and it had to be moved outside, joining with the
Ranford as it grew, so it would be large enough for everyone that was going. It
took about half an hour for that, and longer for the thing to be loaded, since
his quarters were on the other side of the ship. After that they were down on
the planet, near the large black and red city that his brother owned. Wildlands
Station.