First edit.

28: Game and Relativity

WNS Scorpion, sliding through poisoned waters for Baja, California-

Jeff Tracy would have liked to ask questions. Very little of Fermat's babble had made any sense to the tall, tired man… especially with young Albert Murchison Jenkins the Fourth running on and on about Hyannisport. Or, no… it now seemed that he'd shifted topics to "How in the hell I'm expected to find and refit a sailing yacht in time for the America's Cup?" Old money, Jeff was discovering, tended to be loud and myopic.

At the other end of their borrowed cabin, the females all clustered upon bunk and chair. There they shared out advice and toiletries, little things like a successful home phone call, hand cream and chap-stick being the source of much comfort. The conversation went this way and that, until Grandma Tracy shifted around a little on the edge of their hard bunk, passed the skin cream on to Carolyn Jenkins and asked,

"Your ma's been feeling poorly, I take it?"

The new Mrs. Jenkins hesitated a moment. Then, gazing around at the sympathetic faces of TinTin, Elspeth and Victoria Tracy, she began adjusting her blonde ponytail and pouring out her heart.

"Truly, Ms. Tracy, you've no idea! Mummy's been declining for ever so long, now. She's… the poor old dear seems nothing more than voice and willpower, these days."

("Who nevertheless manages to steer her family and corporation from bed, like an aging empress," Albert whispered aside to Jeff.)

Carolyn dabbed at her ash-reddened blue eyes with a Kleenex. Like her bulkhead-lounging husband, she exuded an air of calcified wealth and robust physical energy. (And to anyone but the stupendously rich Tracys, she might not have spoken at all. At least, not outside the bounds of a save-the-world charity fundraiser.)

"Poor mummy's worked so hard to raise Charles and I since daddy passed away in Morocco, and it's always been her wish to see me married to the right sort of young man. As a Cabot, I have a tradition to maintain, you see."

Everyone nodded and smiled, though the grand concerns of Carolyn Cabot-Jenkins seemed very distinct from their own.

"Well… once I'd come out at a succession of debutante balls, it was clear that I must ease mummy's heart and make an engagement, only…" here she spread her hands helplessly, "I hadn't the faintest idea whom to select! Imagine my predicament, please. Good blood and old money literally hanging ripe from the branches around me, but no… no spark. No," she giggled nervously, "love. It's silly, I know. Quite as much breeding and sense as the help, haven't I?"

Grandma Tracy only smiled again and patted her hand, so Carolyn took her small dog from TinTin's lap and went on, saying,

"No one caught my particular fancy, not in that 'forever-after' sort of way, but there was dear old Bertie, my friend since the days of Swiss Au Pairs and French boarding schools. So I… you'll hardly believe this, girls… I asked him to marry me, and he said 'yes'. Our wedding united two cold roast families who hadn't been linked since the fifteenth century! Mummy was so pleased, and everyone who matters at all was simply in transports."

She beamed at them, flicking a glance at the spot across the cabin where her husband appeared totally wrapped up in conversation with Jeff Tracy.

"Bertie's continued to be such a darling. Comfortable as brandy and a roaring fire, après-ski, don't you know. But I wonder… is that love? Have I stumbled upon 'ever-after'?"

Grandma looked from the anxious young woman to her good friend and husband, Albert Jenkins. Then, she said gruffly,

"Not yet, girl… but it's real close to the surface. There's somethin' good wants to come out'n all this, if you an' him stays together long enough to let it grow."

Carolyn seized her withered hand and squeezed it, as grateful for the forecast as a first-time harbor pilot.

"Oh, I hope so, Ms. Tracy. I do hope you're right. Over the phone just now, mummy hinted that she'd like to hold a grandchild before she passes on, and Charles is simply too young to provide heirs."

Against the far bulkhead, Albert leaned a bit closer to Jeff, muttering,

"And if the old battle-axe lingers long enough to make a third arm-twisting demand, I shall be most put out."

Jeff smiled in reply, being well acquainted with interfering parents and Byzantine family politics. Oddly enough, he rather enjoyed the Jenkinses. They helped keep him busy during an otherwise blind and worrisome journey.

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Thunderbird 1, headed due south-

Blasting full-out in his lightning-fast rocket plane, Scott took nearly an hour to reach the Antarctic coast. The light there was decidedly weird, bouncing dimly from low, red sun to grey water to bleak stone. But even in these conditions, he could see that things had changed.

Over-flying the area, Scott saw shifted ice, acres of bare rock and patches of what looked like struggling green. Grass, maybe? Or late mosses? Whatever, this new Antarctic was a far cry from the ice-bound meat locker he'd barely survived all those years ago. Still scary, though, with ice and great boulders avalanching, cracking and booming all over the thawing continent. Pieces of long-buried pine forest were coming to light, even, revealing what had been once, and might be again.

Beyond concern for the rising sea levels, though, Scott wasn't much interested. His fuel was low and his energy flagging. He needed a break… rest… food…

"Thunderbird 1 from Amundsen-Scott Station. This is Fred Darson, chief project scientist. Thunderbird 1, come in, over?"

Scott's unshaven face relaxed. He smiled, hit the comm switch and replied,

"South Pole Station from Thunderbird 1. What can I do for you, Mr. Darson?"

On the view screen, he could see his own reflection dimly overlaid against a rushing vista of dark mountains and shattered ice. He looked tired and lumpy. Fred's voice continued, brisk and professional as a tour guide's,

"Got a call from a mutual friend up north who said you might be headed this way, Thunderbird 1. We've got an open parking space and a few errands to run, if you feel like stopping by to pitch in."

The rush of gratitude Scott felt was akin to that he'd experienced when he and John had been found and rescued in long-ago Kansas. Then, it had been Air Force uniforms and loud, joking voices. Now it was promised shelter from an old friend. Still, in the absence of Shadowbot and private channels, he had to be cautious. Anyone at all might be listening.

"Guess I could divert for a day or so, if you've got some mail that needs delivering, or an out-bound crewman."

"Both, actually," Fred returned. "So, come on over, and welcome to the South Pole, Thunderbird 1."

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Thunderbird 2, arcing high above the grim clouds, while headed east-

Sunlight flooded the cockpit, bright and clean as though something hadn't just thrust itself from crumpled seafloor to spuming grey surface. But that was beside the point. In want of advice and assistance, Gordon called in to John. No names and careful phraseology, needless to say; they weren't private.

"Thunderbird 5 from Thunderbird 2. In a position t' receive, are you?"

"Yeah. Loud and clear. What's on your mind, 2?"

Beside the swimmer, Virgil shook his head, but Gordon smiled at the voice-only comm. John sounded well, if rather bored.

"As it happens, I'm out with a mate and headed f'r trouble, and it would, erm… bring considerable ease to us both if you might provide a bit of translation."

"Uh-huh…" There was a brief pause, as though somehow, John was checking their course and destination.

"See what you mean, 2. Okay… let me brush up my proto-Polynesian and figure a way to say 'We come in highly indigestible peace'. In the meantime, lock the doors and stay out of spear-cast."

"Understood, Thunderbird 5. Thanks f'r your help."

His game-fellow and brother was a peculiar sort, but absolutely reliable. Drop away for weeks on end, he would, only to pop up precisely when and where one most needed him.

"FAB. Talk to you as soon as I've got something solid, 2. Out."

Shouldn't take terribly long, Gordon reasoned, as John had very little else to do than a bit of repair work and washing up.

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Island Base-

Luckily, the island's sole natural harbor lay in a position to block most of the biggest waves. Otherwise, Barracuda would have had no place to safely put in. John's thinking was too fast for the real-world situation, his computer-enhanced reactions exceeding the prototype's ability to respond. Because of this, he came in all at a rush and nearly crashed the small sub. Not quite, though, thanks to probabilities that shifted from one pile to another like poker chips at a green felt gaming table.

He was going to have to re-synchronize with reality, because Five couldn't fix everything. There were no mooring rings, and no more dock. Even the boat houses and yacht were gone, reduced to sodden, grey-coated rubble.

John 'tied up' by adapting the prototype's force shield to envelope the sub and a nearby massive rock. She might get dented a little that way, but ought to stay in one place, so long as her batteries held out.

Things weren't so good outside, as John discovered when he climbed up for a first look around. Barracuda's wet deck tilted and rocked beneath his feet. Wind gusted and waves toyed with tree trunks, litter and dead fish. Clouds hung heavy and low; a bruised grainy purple that bled constant, weeping ash. It smelled like decay and spent matches out there, even through his air mask. But something more than wind was moving.

Perhaps summoned by Five, a spidery maintenance bot was dragging its way from cliff-side tunnel to shore, leaving a stuttering track through the ash. Hard to tell from this distance without consulting that dangerous other view, but the mech appeared to have lost a few legs.

Hefting a tool kit, John made his way out through Barracuda's pale force bubble; from boat to rock to rolling, debris-laden surf he went, and then to shore. It was the mess that bothered him most, the chaos that set him to tuneless humming and formulae quotation. He couldn't stand messes.

The maintenance bot came on, jerkily determined as an injured man crawling for help. John, deliberately blank but for checklists and primes, knelt down beside the battered thing and got to work. He had a few spare battery packs and a cold-solder tool, plus about fifty flash-drives' worth of diagnostic programs. Maybe he cared, too.

"Rough day, huh?" he remarked, trading a bit of his soul for another look at those field lines and floating numbers. There was the problem. Easy fix, once you knew where to cut and what to do.

Ten minutes' work had the remaining six legs portioned around and the rest of the bot patched up well enough to resume function. John patted its scuffed plastic carapace, and looked around himself, feeling like a man who'd just shifted the first small pebble of a massive landslide; one down, and holy shit to go.

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In the RPG, as far below Midworld as the land of Men lay beneath Heaven-

Three beings were met together to discuss a minor delay; a slight and amusing perturbation of flow. They were ageless things, driven by curiosity, as a sated and bored cat is. But driven still more by the newly-won chance to claim lives and territory. It was an old game, but a diverting one, all that made their immortality bearable.

The where of their meeting would have made no sense to fleshly beings. Too many directions, angles and flickering shapes. The when lay outside everything else, in a pent-breath slice of forever. Demon lords had no need of such quaint notions as place and time. They also had no real need of physical bodies, but sometimes took themselves forms, as you might put on a shirt.

Three, then, because that was the number for a quorum. First was the deadly Hooded One, whose appetite for terror had long gone unslaked. His garment was a dark and shifting thing which trailed off into mist. Maybe there were eyes in there, certainly a grave-cold voice, but that was all.

Next, the Crowned Skull, a thing born of conquest and raging hatred; that which stalked the battle fields of Midworld, drinking blood and breathing screams. Third came the Queen of the Lost, receiver of the unburied, reviver of corpses. She was pale and icy and hollow-eyed, her power growing with each lonely death and last sob. Cobwebs were her clothing, the end of all things her true desire.

A sort of dark pillar hung amidst them, into which each could search and look upon what transpired above. In it, the mortal ants they prodded and fed upon crept over Midworld, blind and helpless as worms. Gazing past human illusions of time and space, the Hooded One said,

"It seems we've been offered a bit of sport."