Thresholder

“Alright,” said Hella once the man in blue armor had left their ship. They’d deposited him in Berus, at an abandoned farm building two miles away from the town he’d been staying in. “For future reference, do not tell people we can kill them?”

“Why?” asked Eggy, cocking her head to the side. “It was funny. He liked it.”

“He was wearing his helmet the entire time, cloaking his voice, and he has the power to remove any emotion from his speech anyway,” said Hella.

“Right, but he liked it,” said Eggy. She must have seen something on Hella’s face. “I mean, he did, he liked it!”

“He likes power,” said Hella. “He doesn’t like feeling powerless. When he’s threatened, he plays it cool, but everything we’ve seen from him says that he also thinks about how to deal with the threat, and often, how he deals with the threat is by striking first.”

“Nah,” said Eggy. “I was being quite charmingly forthright with him. We could have killed him! He’s got to respect me saying that, doesn’t he? I mean, he’s Perry, we’ve spent like — how long on him now?”

“Months,” said Hella. “Though I’m sure if Earth Command had seen that first contact, they’d have had me summarily executed.”

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,” said Eggy. “Earth Command sound like total dicks.”

“They were responding to a calamity they’d never seen before,” said Hella. “If the result was fervor, if their policies were draconian … I’m going to have nine kinds of court martials if we ever make it back.”

“I won’t say a word,” said Eggy.

She twirled around and went to the large window that featured the rolling skyline of New Amsterdam as seen from the Montaigne River. It didn’t go with the room’s current configuration as a loft, but from Hella’s perspective it was the best of both worlds. Her actual loft had been much smaller than this space was, and the view had been the side of a skyscraper, which necessitated having curtains up if she didn’t want people looking in on her.

“I would love to visit here someday,” said Eggy. They didn’t go into each other’s quarters all that often, when they even had quarters. In some worlds, the door was just a door, opening up against metal. In others, the backdrop didn’t work.

“Someday,” nodded Hella. “And your world —”

“Nope,” said Eggy. She turned back and smiled at Hella. “Nope! Hard nope!”

“And you don’t want to talk to me about it?” asked Hella.

“Fuck ‘em,” said Eggy. “That’s all you need to know. I am your brilliant science officer, you are my bold captain, and we can only hope that we never see hide nor hair of that world ever again.”

Hella nodded. The gist of it was that Eggy’s world had some weird ideas about how people should comport themselves, and Eggeltina had decided from a very young age that these ideas were stupid and beneath her. Her father had encouraged her and either cultivated or fostered a love of science in her, then promptly died at the worst possible time, leaving Eggeltina adrift. The young Eggeltina had been forced by circumstance into an arranged marriage, where she was expected to be a ‘matron’, requiring stodgy clothing and the bearing of children. She’d been able to get away with not having children and had proven her worth as a scientist to her husband, but that had only gotten her work stolen from her.

Which was right about when the Farfinder had shown up in the wake of yet another thresholder battle. The pitch for Eggy was that she’d get to travel the multiverse, learn science that no one else knew, and could do whatever the fuck she wanted. It was really only the last thing that needed to be said to her.

“Then let’s get to work,” said Hella. “Whatever the cloaking technology or magic Fenilor has, I want it.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” said Eggy. “But the fact that he’s cloaking us so much means that it’s going to be hard to figure the cloak out.”

“Do you have a way to check places that are currently cloaked?” asked Hella. “Narrow down his possible location, or figure out specific locations that we can go check on foot?”

“I can do that,” said Eggy. “But if he’s smart, he’ll have cloaked a bunch of places that don’t have any particular meaning. Then we’ll spend time going to waterfalls and mountaintops, and that might be lovely, but wouldn’t let us learn much.”

“Assuming he has the resources,” said Hella. “If it’s something he can only do for himself, we can pin him down, and if there are limits, we can see what’s important to him.”

“Maybe send Perry out to check those locations,” said Eggy. “I mean, if he’s willing.”

“I’m pretty sure he wants to be absolutely anywhere other than with that clone,” said Hella. She paused. “How much did you send him?”

“Compact digest,” said Eggy. “We have more data than will fit on his armor. There’s a readme, he can request more, or I can give him an external hard drive.” She shrugged.

“Hopefully he doesn’t get distracted,” said Hella. “It was supposed to be a show of good faith.”

“There’s also enough in there for him to make some scary weapons,” said Eggy. “I didn’t include all the schematics, but on this world? With what we know? Yeah … I have to imagine that Fenilor is fucked. Pardon my language.”

In Hella’s experience, Eggy only said ‘pardon my language’ to emphasize the swearing.

“He might have been here for as long as five hundred years,” said Hella. “We’re fairly sure that he’s got a power that increases over time and with battles, and he’s been sandbagging against a hundred thresholders, taking their things, usually killing them outright based on the map. He’s had at least some support from state-level actors for the last sixty years or so. I really want you not to underestimate him. And if we happen to meet him, I want you to not tell him that we can kill him, because that’s a boast we can’t back up.”

“Sure, sure,” said Eggy. “Seems like he would take it a lot worse.”

“Now come on, we have more work,” said Hella. “I’m hoping that Cark has more information from the ground.”

~~~~

Marchand started reading through the data dump, which had come to them in the form of a single email titled “Important Stuff For You To Know”. It was only loosely organized, with no table of contents giving a map to the many files inside it. Some of the files were labeled as reports of various worlds the Farfinder had visited, some were sprawling digests of experiments that had been done under different physics regimes and what had been learned from them, and others were diary entries. The Farfinder’s computers mostly operated under what they called ‘normal physics’, the things that stayed more or less constant from world to world, and they had been adding in more and more data as they went.

“It appears they didn’t give us access to their personnel files,” said Marchand. “I’ll start on compiling what I can from their notes.”

“I’m not sure that’s necessary,” said Perry.

“I will note you didn’t make a request for them to stop keeping an eye on you,” said Marchand. “Was there a reason for that, sir?”

“They’ve already seen everything,” said Perry. “And if they’re watching us, that means they can intervene if necessary. Besides, I could make that request and they could refuse. Maybe they would, citing security concerns. Or maybe they would say ‘oh, okay, we won’t look’ and then look anyway.”

“Should we have protocols in place, sir?” asked Marchand. “I’m not convinced that their intentions are entirely noble.”

“We don’t even know their capabilities,” said Perry. “Let it ride. Focus on getting what you can from what they’ve sent to us, show me the most relevant bits, do your synthesis thing.”

They were standing in a field of leafy plants, some distance away from the rings of flowers that surrounded the lantern complex. The golden dome was visible in the distance, further along than it had been. Mette and the clone were there, along with Dirk and Moss. Several nanite clusters had been sitting there the whole time, collecting information on everything that had happened, recording conversations, but Perry would rather hear it from them and confirm later instead of squating outside and having Marchand compile yet another digest.

“Nima appears to have had an altercation with the clone Kestrel, sir,” said Marchand.

“What?” asked Perry. “Why?”

“It appears that news of the murder quickly reached these shores, which I suppose is unsurprising,” said Marchand.

“Is he … dead?” asked Perry.

“He’s only injured,” said Marchand. “He’ll recover. He appears to have gotten the better of her.”

“Shit,” said Perry. “I guess I underestimated him. Do you have a replay?”

Marchand put it up on the HUD, a lossy reconstruction, and Perry watched. For someone with no equipment and no powers, it was a stunning display of bravery, and while he’d been seriously injured and hadn’t actually gotten the better of her, he had still somehow won.

It made Perry feel no small amount of pride, and he wasn’t entirely sure why.

“Let’s go then,” said Perry. “If we don’t need to worry about Nima, or we need to worry about her in a different context, then we can keep the armor on.”

“If you think that’s best, sir,” said Marchand.

Perry made his way to town, running at a pace that didn’t drain the suit’s energy or his own personal reserves all that much. When they were closer, Marchand highlighted all the relevant people on the HUD as reported by the nanite network that had been left in place. Mette and Kestrel were together in their room, while Dirk was with Moss in the warehouse that contained the cloning machine.

“We’ll go to Kestrel and Mette first,” said Perry.

“They appear to be indisposed, sir,” said Marchand.

“Meaning?” asked Perry.

“It’s a delicate situation, sir,” said Marchand. “One which perhaps should be dealt with via careful and consideration discussion at a later date.”

“They’re fucking?” asked Perry.

“No, sir, if you insist on putting it so crassly,” said Marchand. “I believe they finished some time ago, and are now in conversation. They are not dressed for company, sir.”

“Alright,” said Perry. He really should have assumed that would happen, especially with him away, but in his mind he’d assumed that they would be more platonic. He didn’t know where he’d stand with Mette, but it wasn’t as though she’d been his girlfriend or anything. Maybe she would want to carry on with both of them, though the thought made him uncomfortable.

“Shall I let you know when they’re decent?” asked Marchand.

“I suppose,” said Perry. He turned toward the warehouse and moved that way instead.

He got some looks as he came into town, which was to be expected given the bulky blue armor. Some people ducked inside, but others just stared, wondering who the hell he was or why he was walking around. They might have stared more if they saw that he was a fully recovered Perry. Part of the reason he’d left was so there wouldn’t be any of that, but now that Nima was gone and there’d been a superpowered fight in the middle of the town — if only barely — that was less of a concern.

The warehouse had two guards, both of whom had gotten up from their chairs when they’d seen him approaching.

“It’s Perry,” he said.

They gave each other a look, which he took to be them trying to figure out whether to stop him, or maybe how to stop him. They stepped aside though, and Perry moved through the door, closing it behind him. When he looked at Dirk and Moss, they were staring at him.

“How’d your scouting mission go?” asked Dirk. “Gather any good intelligence across the water?”

“Nothing much,” said Perry.

“Bullshit, I know you shot the king in the face,” said Dirk.

“I knew you knew,” said Perry. “I thought we could have a fun little back and forth about it. Look, it was an accident, an automatic function of the armor that I hadn’t foreseen.”

“Your armor automatically shoots people?” asked Dirk.

“Sometimes,” said Perry.

“Is there a chance it’s going to shoot me?” asked Dirk.

“Are you a monarchist?” asked Perry.

Dirk frowned at him. “You know where my loyalties lie.”

“I do,” said Perry. “I’m sorry. Sorry if … I don’t know. If this screws things up.”

“Well, thanks for asking, but it does,” said Dirk. He had his arms crossed. “The very first thing a new ruler does when they come into power is get as tight a grip as they can on things. We have people in Thirlwell, some of them natives, some of them from abroad with the right skin color and accent to blend in. If you want to actually replace the monarchy, you need organizations in place. You can’t just shoot the king in the face and call it a day. Why were you within a hundred paces of the king?”

“I made contact with Third Fervor, his captive thresholder,” said Perry. “He wanted a meeting with me. I thought I would be able to talk with him, maybe come to some kind of understanding.”

“Then you shot him in the face,” said Dirk. “Great.” He looked the armor over. “And you escaped without a scratch?”

“I had a lot of scratches, actually,” said Perry. “I’m all healed up and repaired now though.”

“Have you spoken with Kestrel?” asked Moss. “He fought with Nima. She accused him of having killed the king, which wasn’t too far off.”

“She doesn’t matter,” said Perry. “If I find her, I’ll kill her. Let me know if you have any information on that subject, but she’s weak enough that I could kill her without my usual tools. My guess is she’d be dead as a doornail to a gun. For the time being, she’s irrelevant.”

“She’s a monarchist,” said Dirk. “You couldn’t have warned us about that?”

“She doesn’t know about this machine,” said Perry, pointing to the looming contraption sitting next to them. It didn’t seem to be in use, which he was grateful for. “And I didn’t think she’d do that, attack me. You’ve searched her room?”

“There was nothing,” said Dirk. “She’d made quite the little workshop up there, but the masks were all gone, and from what we know of her movements, she must have stashed them somewhere else, at a fallback point.”

“She didn’t use one?” asked Perry.

“Nope,” said Dirk. “Maybe she couldn’t make it work with her armor. I’m not sure.”

“Irrelevant,” said Perry. He sighed. “That other thing we talked about, that guy you were supposed to find for me? What’s the word on that?”

“Nothing much,” said Dirk. “Some sites that I was told to go check, projects with some overruns that smelled funny, but … no. You’re used to information flowing faster, more freely, I get that, but here? I have to wait on letters, and you had better believe I’m not sending those letters in the clear, which means time for encryption and decryption, hoping that it doesn’t get cracked.”

“Your encryption is probably worthless,” said Perry. “Just so you know. Worthless against me, Third Fervor, and other parties.”

Dirk sighed. “Alright, great to know. It would have been more great to know considerably earlier. How the hell do you get past a one-time pad?”

“We cannot, sir,” said Marchand. Perry was very thankful that this had been said as a whisper in his ear and not out loud.

“Keep using encryption, just don’t trust it,” said Perry. “And assume there are some secrets that are going to come out in the open. I was able to gather more information on Third Fervor and her abilities, but I know that’s secondary to you.”

“Look,” said Dirk. He cast a glance at Moss, then back at Perry. “Take the helmet off?”

Perry removed the helmet and held it in one hand, allowing them to see his face. They hadn’t seen the armor before, and Moss had been gawking at it.

“Of all the people you could have shot in the face, the king of Thirlwell is the one I’ll miss least. He’s a shit. Our intelligence in Thirlwell has been pretty good for the last few years, thanks in no small part to me, and yeah, definitely one of my top picks for face-shooting.” Dirk took a breath. “However. It’s incredibly inconvenient that he’s dead now. We didn’t have the right people in place to capitalize on it. We have several agents in the country, the usual agitators and spies and whatever else. Those people are all in danger, people you put in danger.”

“I could help with that,” said Perry.

“I’m not asking for your help,” said Dirk, holding up a hand. “I’m interested in hearing what that help would look like, but I’m telling you where we stand now, which is that we don’t have the capacity for making war against Thirlwell, not when it would be — from what we know — trivial for Thirlwell to fire on civilians.”

“Are you asking for a ceasefire?” asked Perry. “Or for action?”

“At this point?” asked Dirk. “I don’t trust you for shit. I don’t think you’re going to turn on us, I just think you’re terrible at accomplishing our mutually beneficial goals. Maybe you’re working on your own designs, and maybe that’s going great for you, but my guess is that it’s not.”

“Not really, no,” said Perry.

“What I’m asking, what I’m hoping, is that you just tell us before you do anything that’s going to fuck up enormous amounts of work and put people’s lives in danger,” said Dirk. “Ideally, we have a conversation about it, and you’ll say something like ‘hey, I’m going to meet with the king’ and I’ll say ‘no, don’t do that, you idiot’, and you’ll say ‘well I’m going to anyway’ and I’ll at least have time to pull people out. Open communication. Partnership. You’ve got your own stupid thing going on, we’ve got out vital work, we want to make sure that we’re not stepping on each other’s toes.”

“To be honest, I thought you would chew me out more,” said Perry.

“To be honest, I laid into Kes,” said Dirk. “Got a lot of my frustration out that way, even though he seemed as stunned as I was.”

“Like I said, it was a malfunction,” said Perry. He looked over at Moss. “You’ve been awfully quiet.”

The dwarf shrugged. “It’s not my business.”

“In point of fact, it is your business,” said Dirk.

“No,” said Moss. “I replace lanterns with domes. I build things. I help provide an example of the culture to those who are only starting to understand it. This? This isn’t the culture. It’s something that will disappear once the final monarchy is gone, necessary only as long as there is struggle.”

“There are other worlds,” said Dirk. “Other monarchies beyond the stars.”

“They’re not our concern,” said Moss.

“They sure as hell are, if they’re going to come looking for us, if there are more where he comes from,” said Dirk, pointing an accusatory finger at Perry.

“It should be rare,” said Perry. “A pair of thresholders every few hundred years, something like that. Though maybe less, if this place is nice and stable.”

“Dirk, you overstep your bounds,” said Moss. “You overstep what the symboulions have asked of us, what the Command Authorities have deemed necessary and prudent.” He stood with his feet shoulder-width apart, as though he might have to push Dirk over.

“I’m doing what needs to be done,” said Dirk. “I’m dealing with the problems as they come. I’m in the right place at the right time, and you know that Thirlwell has been one of my projects for a very long time.”

“There will be a reckoning,” said Moss. He turned to Perry and softened his tone. “You are welcome to stay with us, of course. The more I’ve seen of this thresholder business, the more I’ve thought that we might need your protection. I hadn’t realized just how dangerous you people could be.”

“I’ll be here another hour or so,” said Perry. “I’m mostly checking in. Get that radio up and working as soon as possible, linked to as many other stations as you can to increase the range. I want to be able to come back here if need be.” He turned to Dirk. “Anything you need to get your people out. I’m serious. It’s my cock up, I take responsibility.”

“I’ll think about it,” said Dirk. “Your counterpart, you think she’s going to strike back?”

“Depends on the new queen,” said Perry. “Third Fervor is a follower, not a leader. At least, that’s my read on her. Though I don’t know if she’ll follow a queen as well as she’d follow a king.”

“And the heir, Tantin, was that you too?” asked Dirk. “Another malfunction?”

“No,” said Perry. “I don’t know who that was, if it wasn’t just a coincidence. Smells funny though.”

“Mmm,” said Dirk. He looked over at Moss. “We’ll make some moves. We’ll see about salvaging this mess as best we can. Most likely it’s a few years of work down the drain.” He turned back to Perry. “I want a full debrief. A full debrief.”

“Later,” said Perry. “I need to go see the other guy, make sure he’s not going to die.”

He left the warehouse. The conversation had stung, but he understood it, and he had definitely been the one to give Marchand free rein. Some of Dirk’s spies and provocateurs were going to die, or at least have to stop their plans, and action in Thirlwell was going to grind to a halt — unless Fenilor came in and wiped out the rest of the monarchists, which seemed unlikely.

“Are they done?” asked Perry, nodding to the bedroom.

“Mette is getting dressed, sir,” said Marchand. “I believe she’s heard some of the commotion that your arrival caused.”

“Then let’s go,” said Perry. He hesitated a step though. “How is the digest going? You’re still synthesizing it?”

“I am, sir,” said Marchand. “With the amount of data, it will take some time, especially if you intend for me to be seeing to my other duties as well. I would estimate a few hours, though there are certain things I could tell you now, if you’re in a hurry.”

“No hurry,” said Perry. “I’m going to trust you to understand my priorities.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Marchand. “It’s an admirable level of faith, given our recent misunderstanding. I will endeavor to do my best.”

Perry still hesitated. “They went through Esperide,” he said. “They spent some time there, maybe concurrent with us, then showed up here?”

“Their timing wasn’t concurrent, sir,” said Marchand. “They were there from shortly after we left until roughly a day ago.”

Perry paused, trying to think about how to phrase what he wanted to say. “Did they get information from the space station?”

“There is considerable information from the space station, yes sir,” said Marchand. “It appears that they were able to wholesale copy information from nearly every computer system on or around Esperide, including a complete copy of Esper, which is somewhat concerning from a security standpoint.”

“They can see the future,” said Perry. “Or something like it. The space station, did they … did she make it?”

“From everything in their logs, it appears that they predict no survivors,” said Marchand. “With the exception of Brigitta and her unborn child.”

“Her — what?” asked Perry.

“My apologies, sir, I’m still collating the data as we speak,” said Marchand.

“You said the words ‘unborn child’,” said Perry.

“Yes, sir,” said Marchand. “It appears that she was somewhat less infertile than previously believed. As far as their prognostics go, it will be a healthy baby boy in most timelines.”

“Fuck,” said Perry.

“I know this isn’t something you wanted, sir,” said Marchand.

“No, that wasn’t a bad ‘fuck’,” said Perry. “Just … fuck.”

“Mmm,” said Marchand. There was a short pause. “Sir, earlier I said ‘mmm’ as though I understood, but I don’t believe I do understand.”

“It’s fine,” said Perry. He shook his head. “It’s not something I can deal with right now, not something I can actually affect. The Farfinder, it can’t go backward?”

“I will need to continue with analysis of the logs, sir,” said Marchand. “It does not appear that anyone has written an FAQ for us.”

“If we can go back to Esperide,” said Perry. “If we can get back there … I don’t know.”

“Is the priority not to return to Earth, sir?” asked Marchand. “Miss Richter should currently be in cryonic storage.”

“No, I know,” said Perry. “And … I mean, we’re going to do that, we’re gathering the pieces to do it, I’ll steal the cloning machine if I have to, or have Mette figure out a better way to do it from the schematics. But we need to go back to Esperide.” The cloning machine was a long shot. Richter had talked a lot about cryonics, and so Perry had learned that one of the things they did was to remove all the blood from the body. That blood would surely have spoiled in the intervening two years, assuming that they had even kept it, which meant that he would have to make more blood somehow, and that wouldn’t necessarily work.

“I’ll make it a priority, sir,” said Marchand with the aggrieved sigh of an assistant who’d been asked to do the impossible.

Perry had been standing in the center of town too long, attracting stares, and walked into the building where his bedroom — Kestrel’s bedroom — was. He went up the stairs, making sure that the heavy armor wasn’t putting too much strain on the wood, and met Mette in the hallway.

“Perry!” she said, eyes wide. She glanced back at the bedroom door, seemingly involuntarily. “How … how’s it going?”

“Fine,” he said.

“I didn’t think you’d be coming back,” she said. “I mean I knew you would eventually, but — you know. You didn’t check in.”

“Sorry,” said Perry. “I should have.” He turned his head very deliberately to look at the bedroom door. “How is he?”

“Injured,” said Mette. “There was a fight with Nima, about whatever went on in Thirlwell, and —”

“I saw it,” said Perry. “We can talk about it later. I want to keep you in the loop. But I meant … emotionally, spiritually, how’s he doing?”

“Spiritually?” she asked. She shook her head. “I don’t know about that. But emotionally? Good, I think. He was happy to beat her. You saw. It was validating for him. He saw his own worth, even if he saw it in a stupid way. And you?”

“Me what?” asked Perry.

“He didn’t come out how you wanted him to,” said Mette. “Then you took off across the sea and didn’t check in, which normally I’d think was because you had important shit going on, but … are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” said Perry. “I was just expecting something different. I didn’t know how I would react until I was reacting. He’s not me.” He shrugged, which seemed like more of a grand gesture with the armor on.

“Not you,” said Mette. She was staring at him as though she could see his face beneath the helmet. “Because he’s not powerful?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” said Perry. “Me without the power is … I don’t know.” He looked at the bedroom door again. “I need to talk to him.”

“Have at,” said Mette. She slipped past the armor, and Perry waited until she had fully gone by before he moved to the bedroom door.

He wasn’t sure whether to knock or not, and decided that he would.

~~~~

Kes stared at the blue armor. He’d heard some commotion from outside, but hadn’t actually seen anything, because he couldn’t twist around without significant pain in his leg. Mette had gone to investigate, and maybe just to get on with her day.

Perry looked massive in the armor. It was adding a fair amount of height, and from the outside, there was no way to maintain the illusion that it wasn’t a machine for war. All Perry needed was a gun of some kind. The shoulder-mounted one was supposed to be a backup, a weapon of last resort, with the armor more than capable of wielding all kinds of heavy weapons. Perry had only experienced that once, during some training with Richter, which meant that Kes had only experienced it once.

At any moment, that shoulder gun could pop up and instantly kill Kes. It was a loaded weapon that Perry carried with him nearly everywhere when the armor was on.

“Hello,” said Perry.

“Hey,” said Kes. He shifted in the bed. “Didn’t know you were coming back.”

“Got sidetracked by something,” said Perry.

After an awkward pause, Perry reached up and pulled the helmet off. However long he’d been in there, he looked like he’d just stepped out of a shower, but without the wetness. He had more hair than Kes remembered, a fuller beard.

“This is for you,” said Perry, reaching into a compartment of the armor and throwing something across the room to Kes. Kes almost fumbled it, which would have been embarrassing, but he managed to get his fingers around it.

It was a tooth.

“Thanks,” said Kes.

“Not here,” said Perry. “We need a plan for it. I can almost kind of channel moonlight, which means we can run you through some cycles, and there are uninhabited islands. Still, it’s the work of at least a week, maybe months, and you’re not going to be safe to be around until it’s handled. This world has a strong moon. Next world — if there is a next world — might have something stronger, harder to keep control under.”

“There might not be a next world?” asked Kes. He was gripping the tooth like it was a lifeline, so hard that the sharp roots were digging into the palm of his hand.

“There have been developments,” said Perry. “I’m not sure that this is the place to talk about them though. We have enemies … and also allies.”

“If we can alter our trajectory,” Kes began, but Perry shook his head.

It was so odd, like looking into a mirror but his face moving under its own volition.

“I fought with Third Fervor. I wouldn’t say that it was in my favor,” said Perry. “She has portals, and another transport power. I’ll give you the earpiece, and stick around here with March, so you can listen in on what she told me. I don’t think it will help you though.”

“Nima,” said Kes. “I fought her.”

“I saw, in the logs,” said Perry. “You did well.”

Kes nodded. “I didn’t actually win. She ran away because she thought I was you.”

“Still,” said Perry. “It means if I go up against her, she might underestimate me.”

“You’d crush her,” said Kes. “Though we didn’t have masks on. I don’t know if that’s going to change things. Probably it won’t. Mine aren’t strong, and she didn’t have all that much more time to get one done.”

“We’ll get it sorted,” said Perry. “I’m worried she’s going to link up with Third Fervor. The logical place for her to go is across the water to Thirlwell, if she’s worried about me and hates these people.”

“She’s probably there already,” said Kes.

“Bah,” said Perry. He looked to the side, and it was like a painting, something that could be hung in the National Gallery.

“Do I … have a spirit root?” asked Kes.

Perry looked back at him and blinked. “Yes.”

“Oh,” said Kes.

“No flower to activate it though,” said Perry. “We have digitized books, but so far as Moon Gate knew, achieving second sphere was something that took many years of diligent training and no small amount of natural aptitude. You can start on that, but it’s long term — very long term. We’re not staying here another two years. We’re maybe not even staying here another two weeks.”

“Because of what came up?” asked Kes.

“Yeah,” nodded Perry.

“You watched the recording from last night?” asked Kes.

Perry frowned. “Of the fight?” asked Perry.

“No,” said Kes, shaking his head. “Fenilor.” He watched Perry’s perfectly impassive face. “He came here. He knew it wasn’t me somehow. He told me that we might have to fight, once everything was done. He meant play fighting, just enough to open a portal, but … I don’t know. I’m not sure he’d just give us a pass.”

“Marchand?” asked Perry, lifting up the helmet. “You have a record of that meeting?”

“No, sir,” said Marchand. “There is a suspicious error in the logs, though I know you’re not in the habit of looking at them. I had not suspected that the issue was magical in nature, and will update future logging to account for this.”

“Warn me if it happens again,” said Perry. He looked at Kes with a frown. “He’s dangerous. Probably more dangerous than we are. We need to have a plan to take him down. We need to gather more information on him, by whatever means necessary.”

Kes told Perry everything he knew, which wasn’t much. He tried to repeat the conversation verbatim, but he’d gone a long time depending on Marchand for recordings and being able to play back exactly what was said with a transcript. He wondered whether his ability to recall had been atrophied from disuse.

When Perry was satisfied, he opened the shelf space, and rather than making Kes move, pulled the entire bed in through the aperture with his brute strength. It was just barely wide enough.

“It’s safe in here?” asked Kes.

“I don’t know,” said Perry. “There’s a lot of science we’re missing. But I’m going to take the armor off and let Marchand give you the rundown, okay?”

“Alright,” said Kes, swallowing.

“March, before I start getting undressed, is there anything that you can tell me?” asked Perry. “Anything you’ve seen while going through the logs?”

“The work continues, sir,” said Marchand. “It does appear they’ve taken significant amounts of video of Third Fervor and her movements. They compiled a dossier on her, including an ability we were ignorant of, along with boundaries to her known abilities.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Kes. “What is this?”

“We’re going to hope this place is secure,” said Perry. “I flooded it again, by the way, sorry.” There was water on the floor, and the smell was back. It was a surprisingly hard place to clean. “The short version is that we have some people from outside this world, not thresholders, who want us for … well, science, I guess, but also in order to save this world from collapsing. Fenilor has been here gaining power through some kind of flaw in the system, and it’s not great for the world.”

“If he leaves?” asked Kes. “Or in general?”

“I don’t know,” said Perry. “I’m assuming that it’s not great in general, him sticking around, but March has video and can fill you in.”

“Sir, perhaps the other news might be best delivered by you,” said Marchand.

Perry frowned, and Kes watched his face. Kes didn’t actually know his own expressions, since he’d never had to read his own facial cues.

“These people have some lossy precognitive ability,” said Perry. “They came here from Esperide, following the hole our portal punched between universes. Which means that they didn’t just check in on the space station, they were able to peer into the future. Brigitta doesn’t end up consigning herself to death to bring the space station down. She survives. And … she’s pregnant.”

Kes felt the wash of good news and sat for a moment, thinking about that. “You’re going to be a father.”

Perry stared at him. “We are, right?”

Kes watched him, trying to remember if he’d been that standoffish when he was Perry. Maybe it was the second-sphere ability to hide all traces of emotion. They might have to talk about that at some point, if only so Perry could emote more around other people. “I think, sitting here, no sword, no ring, no tooth,” it jabbed into his hand, “no armor, no mystical powers … I came to terms with the fact that we had different lives.”

Perry watched him. He had cold eyes, Kes decided, and that had to be second sphere, because they had the same eyes. “We’ll get you back up to speed. I’ll find you a weapon, some armor, maybe we can steal something off one of the others. When we have a plan for how to do it, we’ll have you eat that tooth and then … we’ll hope that you don’t kill someone.”

“I’ll eat it if things are dire,” said Kes.

Perry nodded. “I’m sorry for going away. It was just … not what I expected.”

“Not what we expected,” said Kes. “I have those same memories, the thinking that went into it, the idea that the clone would be a force multiplier.”

“Yeah,” said Perry with a sigh. “And we’ll get you there.” He handed the helmet over. It was heavier than Kes remembered. “Watch through that, get up to speed, I need to go do a full debrief with Dirk. I’ll keep the space open, so we can talk.”

Kes wanted to say something more, to ask what this was all for. It was a question that had been on his mind. Instead, he put the helmet on.

He hadn’t worn Marchand since being cloned. The smell of the interior of the helmet was familiar but muted, his nose no longer that of the werewolf’s. There was a bit of sweat, a bit of slightly-sweet plastic, and a tang of metal. The screens came alive at once. They’d seemed impossibly detailed and responsive when he’d first used them, and some of that wonder came back to him after what felt like an age without it — without knowing whether he would ever so much as see it again.

“Alright,” said Kes. The wounds in his leg were aching and itching, but he was feeling good, secure with his place in the world. He’d have to find something to do with the tooth, which hadn’t left his hand. “Marchand, play back the relevant bits.”

“Very well, sir,” said Marchand.