Slave Line (The Young Ancients) (33 page)

Tor wondered what to do for a long time, just staring at her, trying not to lash out. Violence was bad and he'd hurt someone by mistake. That was horrible of him. Probably the worst thing Tor had ever done and he'd killed people. It had happened because his mother wasn't a very good person though. That was pretty clear. Something would have to be done there.

"OK." He nodded for a bit, thinking about what he was going to say next. She was family and that was important, but if she didn't think he was worthy of respect it wasn't worth bothering with her any more, was it?

"Fine. I brought this on myself and so did you. I'm no longer your son. Don't speak to me, don't ask for my help or aid. Don't seek comfort from me when all around you falls apart because of your hidebound and stupid insanity. You've driven me from you time and again and only now am I strong enough to tell you this. No more. You are often a horrible person, a bully with words and a harpy of the first rank. I'm finished with you now and for forever." Everyone was staring at him, but he looked at the Carriage hovering about twelve feet up. He had to float toward it, moving almost six feet off the ground, using the variable setting on his Not-flyer to just reach the bottom. He turned it off with a thought, which caused the remaining rope to fall down, laying in a loose curl on the ground, limp and fraying at the ends.

Kind of like his life.

No one said anything as he went and packed his belongings, which wasn't a lot of stuff, then came back and set the carriage up again at a level he could work with. The whole thing was a mess and he couldn't see any other way out of it than to leave. No one moved to go with him.

"Alright. I'm going back home then. I guess I'll see you when you're ready?" He looked at Ali and then Trice, who both just looked back, not saying anything. Well, he was angry, but he wasn't writing them off. Just his mother. That was hard, but it was time. She deserved it.

Trice started crying and Ali locked down totally, nothing getting past the wall that she turned her outer self into. His mom started yelling at him... Because that was the right thing to do given the situation no doubt. If you were a bully used to getting your own way through intimidation it made perfect sense.

"Don't you leave without permission young man. If you leave here now, don't ever come back! I'm serious!" She sounded angry and like she really was.

Tor knew differently and shook his head slowly.

"No. You're not serious. You had your world challenged and couldn't take it, so tried to hurt me in a way you knew actually would. Guess what, it worked. Congratulations, you're successful. But you'll reflect on this and eventually realize you were just mad at the time and don't want one of your children to go away forever, no matter what you say now. The thing there is... I
am
serious. This is what you earned from me."

"How can you say that, after all I've done for you..."

"You have to weigh in all you've done
too
me as well. You just managed to tip the balance. Anyway... Goodbye." He started to close the hatch when someone actually spoke up. He expected it to be Ali or Trice, maybe even Tiera, but it was Denno. He sounded scared now. More than Tor had ever heard before. He looked it too. Terrified.

He'd been only mildly pained while being kicked.

"Tor, I didn't try to fool you at all. I need you to help us. If we have as little time as it seems, you might be the only person on the planet that can get us ready. I know that they might be friendly, or have a different purpose in mind other than attack or harm, but if they aren't and we haven't made preparations, we won't stand a chance. Just being capable of defending ourselves might make the difference... Don't leave us. Please?"

One of the Blues spoke then, Tor wasn't certain which one, but it wasn't Cordes Blue, she sounded a little different. One of the others.

"There is truth to that statement. We lack conventional infrastructure to prepare the needed vessels in time. If what I've been told is true, you may be the best practitioner of your kind of technology available at this time. While others will appear past this point, we may not have time for them to become your equal. Is your current anger worth the lives of everyone else? Is it even worth the potential for damage to our world, if that is the cost of your lack of involvement in this project? It is clear we need a unified force in this. Nothing else will work given the time frame and resources."

Tor watched them all through the open hatchway, his mother already standing with her arms crossed, looking smug now, as if she thought that she'd won something. The woman that used to be his mother. It was a real enough argument, what Blue said, at least in potential. Yeah, other people were good at building too and should be able to build the needed vessels physically. A version of the larger house field should actually work, reshaped and with the needed modifications for air and water. Combined with some kind of propulsion. But that didn't give them faster than light travel, which they needed if they had to face things that moved across the void of space. He didn't have an understanding of how to do it either, but taking even one person away from the effort could be the thing that caused it to fail.

It embarrassed him after making so many declarations, but he couldn't abandon an entire planet. That would be wrong too. What could he do? Just give in and be the weak one again? Be the good little slave that everyone expected him to be? That didn't seem like something he really wanted to bother with anymore. Oddly enough the solution came from the Cordes in his head. It was simple enough.

All he had to do was hold to what he'd said about his mother, it didn't have to be him that left, did it?

"I'll stay. We need to arrange for her to leave then. She isn't welcome where I am. If that isn't acceptable, which I do understand, then I'll leave." He pointed at his mother, as if no one else would get who he meant.

She screamed at him. Not yelling, not just a raised voice, but a blood curdling bellow that had no articulation at all. A sound of pure rage and hatred.

"How dare you! How dare you try to make me irrelevant! I'm your elder young man and not someone to just cast aside on a whim. I'm your better and not a hidebound male that always thinks with their hormones. You're just a foolish child that doesn't know what's good for you!"

At least everyone else stared at her like she was being a moron too. It was kind of nice to know someone else actually saw it as her problem for once.

Then she told them all that she wasn't going anywhere. Tor just shrugged, tired of it all already.

"Fine. If you all vote to do something about this, let me know and I'll see if I can help build something. Or perhaps Laurie Baker here will do the work instead? Since she's my better after all. I won't make a personal problem into something for the whole world though, when she fails to even try. You know where I live." Tor looked at Ali, who simply looked away, like she was mad at him, or frightened. What did they think he was going to do though? Just take their crap yet again?

It hit him then. That was precisely what they all expected. He'd just buckle under in a day or two, accepting whatever bits of kindness they had for him, just so he wouldn't have to be alone. Only he didn't have to be anyway. Theirs wasn't the only love or friendship anywhere. He could do without it.

It wouldn't be easy or fun, because he actually had a heart left, for some reason, even after everything, but that was life. You did what you had to and then dealt with the remainder, no matter how bad it got. Even if it meant being alone forever. This didn't though. It couldn't. Tor wasn't who he was before, which meant he could see some things for the first time, but he wasn't evil either. He didn't want to hurt anyone, he just didn't want to be abused.

It was hard, but maybe walking away was the only...

Something came out of the north in the sky. It reminded him a little of the Austran craft he'd seen before. It left a cloud behind it in a thin line, but was smaller than the others. It was thinner and more like an arrow than anything he'd seen in the sky before. then he saw there were several of them. Ten, no... Fourteen.

"Um... things!" He pointed knowing what they were, but searching for the name in the Cordes memories, they were coming in fast, faster than his craft flew even.

"Missiles! Get into the house! Everyone. Inside, inside!" He kept yelling as he ran switching to Chinese, which got part of the villagers to run, though not all of them in the right direction. One of the Blues ran to their craft, but the others moved inside as fast as they could. Tor stopped though. Those  weapons had to have come from a craft or a launcher nearby. They wouldn't have the range to come from too much farther away.

Doubling back he got into his Carriage and sealed the door. He didn't have time to get out of the way, but maybe it would survive the blast. He tried to lift anyway, just in case he could beat it. His first guess turned out to be right and not one, but three of the explosives smashed into him, spinning the craft as it was knocked back, throwing him around several times, because the new movements weren't synched to the motivational field. A bit of an oversight on his part. His nose crushed into the flying control panel in front of him so hard he lost consciousness. Even with his shield on. He woke with a broken arm, the right one, and his face gushing blood hard.

On the good side he still had all his teeth.

Smiling Tor rose into the air and headed toward the place where the aircraft most likely was, flying away faster than he could go. It had the right familiar triangle shape and blue-gray color.

He followed it anyway, even as it kept gaining distance on him. He chased it for an hour, but finally it got too far away for him to see anything. It hadn't just gotten away, it might as well have vanished. His arm ached, bulging against the skin, but not breaking it. His nose was broken too. He was familiar with the sensation of that. It burned in his nasal passage from the damage and he could taste the blood, a bitter taste of copper and iron.

Using his left hand to steer, which still felt awkward, he headed back to Lyn's hoping that everyone was still alive. It would be a hard thing to handle if not, but it was clear that one of the Ancients had tried to have them all killed even if everyone was alive. The logical people to look at would be the Ancients that hadn't shown yet... and Denno.

Those were Austran craft. At least they were built to look like it. Same shape and color. Tor didn't notice any markings, but then he never had on any of their "Airplanes", had he? No need for that, because there were so few of them in the world now. There should be less than forty.

Unless Black or Gray had some hidden out?

They were both late, but not unexpectedly so, not yet. It made sense that it was Denno though, didn't it? If they were from his land, he could have called them in somehow. Even Tor could see ways it could be done, if he really wanted too. Was that what his plan had been all along? Get all the Ancients together and kill them all for some reason?

Tor didn't know if that could be the case, but he'd find out.

Chapter nine

Oddly enough, it was the Cordes in his head that got him to calm down before he got into the meeting house, suggesting that it might not have been Brown that called in a death strike right on top of his own head. No one would have done that, not just to get at a bunch of people they could have taken out with a strike that didn't kill themselves too. It probably gave them all a reason to at least be considered innocent to begin with. Or insane. But if that was the case it shouldn't be that hard to figure out who was guilty.

Crazy was kind of hard to hide long term.

Tor started to limp inside, his right leg aching too, even though he didn't think it was that badly injured. Just a bruise on the thigh where he'd landed on the top of the seat, just before his arm had broken. Floating in was faster anyway. He didn't know what to expect inside, but what he found wasn't good. Several of the villagers were dead and had been dragged into the huge open space. Ali was going around and tending everyone that was still alive, while the rest of them stood around yelling at each other.

Apparently even Ancients could get worked up when people tried to kill them. that was good to know, since eventually he'd be as jaded and world weary as they were. It was pretty clear to everyone present that Denno looked pretty bad, since he'd arranged the whole thing in the first place, getting them all in one place. Orange was busily shaking him by the neck for instance, causing the smaller man to turn bright red.

"Get us here then slaughter us all? Who are you working with? Is it Black? Gray? What do they hold over you to make you willing to sacrifice yourself? Talk damn you!" She backhanded the smaller man, knocking him out instantly.

Tor shook his head.

"Orange, wait..." It surprised him a little, but the woman turned to look at him and relaxed a bit, dropping the man in her hands allowing him to land on the ground limply.