Ship's personal log.
Okay, the game's progressing well, and it's only two days until the end of our first warp space jump. Hard to believe that a week has passed so quickly.
I might as well start actually commenting on game stuff inside this log, it's not as if anybody has even tried to get into it without my permission. Isabel teases me a little bit about 'getting too star trek' and always calling it my personal log - but hey - I'm allowed to get pretty trekker when we're actually on a spaceship.
Kyle's doing well with the psychic stuff, though I think that he's not even asking about the people closest to him. The wolves took out Lonnie because they thought that she was too much of a threat, which I still think was a bit of a mistake - even after she helped take out Maria, they might have been able to throw suspicion back on her, but that could have backfired.
Okay, that's all I'm going to say about werewolf for now.
Oh, I talked to Isabel about the 'what do we do when we get there' thing this afternoon. To my surprise, she did have a few interesting ideas - she's eager to learn and to travel, mostly learning about the different cultures and societies out there. She's also interested in trying to start a caregiving profession - like a dream analyst or something, if there'd be a need for that in Antarian society. She's going to try asking one of the crew about that. She was really excited about what I was saying about learning enough to really work with alien computers.
Then she brought up something else - what do we say about our relationship and do about our lifestyle when we get there? The aliens seem to already have the notion that we're lovers, which we are at least in terms of our emotional attachment, but - what would that mean in terms of their expectations? Would they want us to be living together? (Like, not wanting in terms of actually having a vested interest in it, but looking at us funny if we didn't want to.) Would somebody suggest that we get married, and have a big double wedding with Max and Liz?
Myself, I don't think I mind the thought of living with Isabel even after we land again, but I'm not at all sure about getting married yet. For one thing, I get the impression that Liz wants to have a special day all to herself, and come to think of it, Isabel would insist on that. And yeah, I'm just traditional-guy enough that I want to set the timeline myself - I want to pop the question to her, and having a pendant beforehand to offer her, and knowing that she'd freak out a little when I'm down on one knee...
Oh, we've got Antarian movie night tonight - most of us have gotten to the point where we'll follow most of the dialog, although Kristin has set up something where we can ask for quick translations if there's anything that we're missing. Apparently, the movie is one of the galaxy's best feel-good comedy-adventures - like their version of the Princess Bride. Actually, it's not Antarian I think, it's Gevinorian, which was one of the other planets that sent representatives to the Summit - old Antarian colonies from thousands of years ago.
I'll let you know what it was like later.
#
"How long do we have?" Max asked.
"Around twenty-five minutes, sir," Christin said. "You sure you'll be fine in here?"
"Yeah, this is great," Max answered. He and Liz were sitting in the games room, getting ready to watch the message from Sanctuary once it arrived. "Just feeling a bit impatient. Christin handed him a little wireless pad, full of vocabulary to drill on. Hmm, thanks." He tapped a few keys and turned it to an Antarian novella that he'd been working his way through.
"Just a moment," Liz said, tapping Max on the leg and getting up. Across the room, Lonnie was standing alone, and Liz got close enough to her to whisper. "Just wanted to say, I really admire everything you did in the game, even if it got you killed. Takes guts to make a big play like that, even if it gets people thinking that you're a wolf yourself."
"Maybe I should have been a wolf, it'd have been more fun," Lonnie said with a grin. "But thanks. Sometimes doing the right thing doesn't pay off, huh?"
"Sometimes just having a rep for being too smart doesn't pay off, does it?" Liz said, and Lonnie smiled. "Okay, well, we've got a little bit of time before we're finally out of warp. How about a game of... I dunno, gin or something?"
"How about quinto?"
"Umm... haven't heard of it, but sure."
"Okay, here we go." Lonnoe pulled up the game reference on the computer table next to them - she or somebody else must have pre-programmed it in. An identical set of thirty two playing cards, ace down to seven in each suit. "Okay, here's our starting decks."
"So we have identical decks?" Liz asked, a bit confused.
"Yeah, that's exactly it. We have all the same stuff, but it's what use we make of it that's the difference."
"Hmm." Liz thought. She actually liked that idea better than typical card games, where one person might get dealt good cards and another has all the worthless ones. "But we have the full deck, every time?"
"No, not after the start," Lonnie said with a bit of a grin. "One of us randomly deals seven cards away, so that they can't be use, and the other person puts the same seven aside. Why don't you tap the deck to start that."
"Alright." Liz tapped, and sure enough, there were some holes in her deck, and they were put in a tiny miniature pile that she couldn't get at. "So, what else is the rest of the game like?" She didn't want to have to make any strategic decisions without seeing how they fit into the whole of the rules.
"We have the same twenty-five cards now," Lonnie said. "You split them up into five poker hands, and set them up to go up against mine, one at a time. Whoever sends a better poker hand into a particular matchup wins points - the first matchup is worth three points, then four, five, six, and seven. You need thirteen points or more to win the whole match."
"Ah-ha." Liz started to think about that. "What if we tie on one hand."
"Points carry over to the next if possible - if we tie on the last, then all points carried over get split."
"Hmm." Liz's mind was racing with the possibilities. There were two different aspects of strategy here - splitting up the set of cards into a 'better' set of hands - maybe she could go for a straight flush, but that would take cards that are better used in some other combination. And then, the ordering was another kind of strategy - if she could figure out the order in which Lonnie would put her hands, she could probably beat each hand with one that was just a little better, except that Lonnie's best hand would go up against garbage. But it would take a lot of effort to overthink a girl like Lonnie in a battle of wits like that.
"Okay, let's go!" she exclaimed, and a little divider suddenly appeared in response to her words between them, so that neither could see what the other was doing with their cards until the showdowns began. First, Liz considered the seven dead cards, which she could examine but not do anything else with - and they made an unusual bunch. Ace and queen of clubs, King, nine, eight, and seven of diamonds, and eight of hearts. Not a single spade had been thrown away. Well, sometimes random shuffling would give you weird distributions like that. What did that mean here?
Straight flushes - the best hands in poker. Three straight flushes were possible, and there didn't seem to be any obvious tradeoffs in taking them. The club straight flush was weakest - only to the jack, but hearts and spades could be royal flushes - and it would be stupid to make them anything else. That accounted for fifteen of her cards straight off. Liz made the appropriate dragging motions to organize them that far and see what she had left for the dregs.
Ace, queen, jack, and ten of diamonds were left - also the king of clubs, nine, eight, seven of spades, nine and seven of hearts. Yeah, there wasn't much here. No triples of a given rank to make full houses out of, and no suit left with five cards in it for a flush. There was at least one card left of every rank, so she had the makings of a straight - probably best to go with the ace-high straight, because it would beat any other one, and it happened to leave two pair free for the junk hand - all the nines and sevens, and the one eight. Okay, good enough so far.
Now, what about the ordering? All of what she had done by putting these cards together was, as it happened, thoroughly straightforward - there hadn't been any tricky tradeoffs to puzzle over, at least not any that she'd seen. Lonnie couldn't improve on her power by giving up one of the straight flushes, could she? Probably not the royals - if she sacrificed the clubs, then that would give her... three nines and three sevens, to make two full houses out of. Also an extra eight, ten, and jack. Didn't seem to be really worth it. Don't worry about that, then.
Lonnie had to have played this before - she'd know some of the obvious ploys. Naive strategy - put your hands in the order of the scoring, best for last. Obvious trap - do 'one better' than every hand, except the best, which can be matched against the worst - and that could lead to a counter-trap, and so on. But the two best hands would tie this time around - how did that change the basic strategy. You couldn't beat somebody's second best hand by substituting your best - they would only tie. You could try putting two lower hands up against the royal flushes deliberately, and get all three other showdowns if you could guess one spot where she hadn't put in the low club flush, but - but that would only win three showdowns against two, and it would do no good if those two were the last two, since they were worth 13 points all by themselves - enough to win.
But you could tie one of those showdowns, royal against royal, and do the stepping stone strategy on the other four showdowns. Yes, that looked like the best alternative to hope four. Win three, lose one, tie one - probably tie the last one, so that you wouldn't need to worry about the points from the tie carrying over to the one match that the other player won. Okay, would Lonnie have figured that she'd get that far - yes. But still, where would Lonnie place her hands, based on all of that? Where would she think that Liz would place hers? Liz didn't know, and this was starting to give her a headache.
Thinking furiously, Liz came up with a number of random number tests that she could run just by looking around the game room, to come up with a starting list that Lonnie hopefully couldn't anticipate. What she got, in the end, was the two pair first, then the straight, then the two royal flushes, and the low straight flush in the end. There didn't seem to be anything too badly wrong with tha... no, she had to have one of the royal flushes last, so that if worst came to worst, she would at least tie the carry-over points from any previous tie. Switch the straight flush with the last before it, and - and lock everything in. There.
Lonnie still hadn't finished yet, and seemed to be more than a little uncertain about the best way to proceed as well. Finally she slotted in her final picks, and Liz waited to see the first few showdowns. Her two pair were beaten by a club straight flush, and her straight by a royal flush in hearts. The score showed that she was getting beaten, but Liz still smiled - she knew that Lonnie had used two of her strongest hands on these showdowns, and couldn't keep her from winning at least two of the last three.
And right then, there was a kind of a shifting in the walls and floor, as if the spaceship were a sea boat crossing the wake of another vessel. "Was that the insertion back into real space?" Liz asked. "I didn't notice any effect like that with the first warp transition?"
"Yeah, it's at about the right time," Max said. "You wanna come back over here?"
"Oh, um - yeah sweetie. We'll finish this up later?"
"Yeah," Lonnie agreed, though she didn't look eager for the conclusion. "Figured that you'd do something like the first derivative - not a variation off the naive strategy."
"Yeah, well, surprise," Liz said with a grin. "Well played though. You can't win them all." And she hurried over to sit next to Max again. "Do we know when the transmission will arrive?"
"Probably not for around another fifteen minutes," Lonnie put in. "Since we've been incommunicado for the entire length of the warp space jump, there hasn't been any way for Sanctuary to confirm our arrival time here, or our position. They'd leave that much leeway in order to not miss us entirely, I would think."
"Hmm - maybe you should go finish the game, Liz," Max said. "Hadn't realized it would be that long."
"Well, maybe I'm wrong," Lonnie answered. "And you don't need to get up, Liz, I can go through this without you." She tapped on the table a few times. "You win number three, you win four, and we tie five. Total score of fourteen and a half to you, compared to ten and a half for me."
"Okay," Liz said with a smile. "How about we play something quick that Max can take part in?"
"Hmm... like what?" Max asked, running his fingers over the skin of her neck and up to her ear.
"I'm not playing anything like that," Lonnie put in quickly. "Not that you ain't both cute, but I make it a point to never get mixed up with a couple as much in love as the great Max Evans and Liz Parker."
Liz giggled. "Okay, umm... I have to admit I'm not really sure what to even say to that."
"Pretty much why I said it."
At that point Alex and Isabel came in, saying that apparently the message was expected in only another two or three minutes, and they wanted to watch it there.
#
"Five minutes," Lonnie said, staring at the updating numbers, (in Antarian digits,) on the table in front of her. "Five minutes and ten seconds..."
"Come on, shut it with that routine," Isabel snapped at the other girl. "These things can't be exact - is it our fault for passing along the estimate?"
And right then, (about a second before Lonnie could say 'five minutes twenty' just to annoy Isabel, which she was certainly planning on,) a large patch of the wall brightened into an image, and Lonnie backed away from the picture screen so that she could see it in the right perspective. It was a bit weird to see an alien communique as a television picture, instead of just hearing a voice, reading words, or seeing a full holograph in three dimensions. The picture showed an old Antarian woman, looking slightly feeble but otherwise healthy, sitting in a comfortable carved wooden chair. She had gray-blue skin, baby blue hair, and pale pink eyes, but Isabel gasped, recognizing the lines of her face from her human projection that they saw in the Pod Chamber more than a year before.
"Hello my dears. I am Alinda dil Liaret, widow of King Sanren, and mother of - well, it gets a bit complicated from there, but you know who I am by that much, don't you kids? There's so much that I want to say that I'm not sure I could ever say it - we're hopefully going to be sending this message with compressed and multiplexed video streams, in order to send much more material than could be said in the time it will take to actually send and receive the message, including seperate messages for - well, hopefully for each of you, though if I have to leave anybody out, plese don't be offended, it's not meant as a slight - either I wasn't able to get everybody done in time, or there were some of you who I don't know well enough yet and can't figure out what to say. But first off, for everybody...
"I'm very glad to hear that you all left Earth on time, and without anyone being badly hurt. I don't have all of the details yet, but that cheers my heart considerably, and from what I've heard of Miss Christin and the Rahlicx crew that young Larek has sent, I'm sure that they'll be able to keep you safe and bring you back here." Isabel noticed that Max was rubbing his calf, where he'd taken a particle blast just before they 'left Earth safely', a wound that could have been especially bad if they hadn't found Christin and allowed her to heal him. Now it was good as new though, but she wasn't surprised that the memory was hitting him a bit now. "We don't know exactly what Kivar's personal reaction was yet, but I don't think that he can justify remaining on Earth for long if he's not able to catch any of you - or retrieve the Granilith soon - and Christin has indicated that she thinks that will be secure enough where it is from any forces that one is able to bring to bear for the moment. Well done."
"Now that you are well on your way, hopefully the biggest issue of the trip will be the tedium of any long space voyage. Hopefully hearing from me and a few other people here on Sanctuary will help to relieve the boredom somewhat - I'm also including a few little computerized diversions in the transmission that are particularly possible with the humans and human hybrids here on Sanctuary, hoping that they will appeal to some of you. You're probably also anxious about what kind of reception you'll get here at Sanctuary. There are a few of the citizens for whom you're all controversial, and slightly infamous figures, but I think that most of the people here are eager to welcome you on your arrival. Trying to sort out what they'll expect out of you and how to fly in the face of those attitudes when you feel that you have to - that may be harder to figure out." Max groaned softly to himself.
"For myself, recent news, including hearing indirectly from you my children among the stars, has cheered my spirit and even heartened my aging body. Kivar appears to be losing his grip of terror over my homeland, which brings some hope for the future, even though the first traces of freedom have chaos and suffering walking lock step with them. Among the other worlds, too, developments are good - Gevina and Taliernar have signed treaties of peace, trade, and mutual assistance with Rahlicx and each other, and both have signalled more discretely their willingness to support the Liaretians and our rebellion in certain ways. Even the Breoll seem to be thinking that it might be better for them to put a knife in Kivar's back than watch his flank zealously for sneak attacks. Word from the further-flung outposts is more mixed - there is some increase in peace and prosperity, except for where Kivar's fleet arrive and try to make examples for the sake of Empire.
"But that's enough politics... and indeed, I'm not quite sure what more to say at this point, except that I can't wait to see each of you - Max, Isabel, Michael... Ava, Rath, Lonnie... Liz, Alex, Maria, and Kyle. And I'd love to hear, and see, more from each of you before you get here. Okay, maybe I should quit before I start babbling away about nonsense like an old crazy lady. I'll do my best to attach personal messages for each of you, and get Tess and Rayde to attach their own messages - also, I think you might know somebody down at the switchboard. And - well, I'll see if someone younger and more vigorous than I could go out and record a video tour of the city, to give you an idea of what you'll find waiting for you when the ship lands. Goodbye, dear hearts."
At this point the video froze into a still image, and Isabel touched a computer control near her seat, pulling up the list of attachments - there were certainly a lot of them, including many marked private for certain people. Max, meanwhile, had gone for the intercom.
"Variun - how long before we need to go into warp-space again? I want to record a voice mail back to Alinda."
"Umm - only eighty-five seconds, Max. Sorry."
"What?"
"Yep - it's not safe to stay in normal space for longer than we need to, even this far from Earth and in a relatively unlikely spot. A tracer could be closing in on our co-ordinates. We've sent out the other messages we needed to, and calculated our next hop. We need to get going on it, and I don't intend to let you overrule me on this. It's my ship and my call."
"Don't make a big deal, Max," Liz said softly, reaching out to hold his arm. "We can take the time and make a really good message for her."
"Yeah, right," Max said, and smiled. "Wanna hear what Tess has to say?"
"No, not yet," Alex shot back a little bit too quickly. "How about the video tour?"
"Yeah!" Isabel agreed. "That sounds fun."
"I'll go see if her Majesty had anything to say to me," Lonnie said, getting up. "Probably not anything that..." But she broke off, and just waved slightly as she left the room.
Liz reached out and tapped the attachment listing for the video tour. All of a sudden, a new image appeared - an unfamiliar cityscape of brightly colored buildings, each story appearing to be smaller than the one above it and a completely different hue. "Alright, hullo earthlings, and welcome to Landorin city." The 'camera' spun around as its operator did almost the perfectly cliche 'film yourself and wave' trick - a pretty Antarian girl of around their own age, as far as Isabel could tell. "Starting here in the heart of the freeport district, where the presence of the Rebel Sanctuary has been an open secret for something like the last twenty years - but sssh, don't tell Kivar's people!" She giggled. "I'm heading off towards the louse sales - no, they're not actually buying and selling insects, it's just what they're called and I don't know why..."
#
On the werewolf's private discussion file around this point:
A: Excellent. Makes the Monty Burns tented fingers. Christin lynched, another innocent townsperson. That leaves the two of us to four of them... three of them after we make tonight's kill. We've almost reached the parity that we need.
J: What are Monty Burns fingers?
A: Oh, never mind. I keep forgetting that you haven't seen Earth tv. Hopefully if we get the trade made for Earth media, there'll be some Simpsons that I can show you. What do you think? Who should we off?
J: Isabel and Max seem to be the smartest left, the potential leaders - but I'm more worried about catching us a psychic. Whoever that is, he or she could be accumulating a lot of info to destroy us with.
A: Yeah, or the psychic could have dreamed about people who've already been killed, which makes the info worthless. Well, Michael could be the psychic, it sort of fits with why he's been pretty quiet. You wanna take him out and see?
J: Alright. Before we make that official, though, there's something else I wanted to talk to you about.
Alex: Come on, guys - it's already taken days for you to get this much back and forthing in, and people are really waiting for the end of night number three so that they can keep playing. Wrap it up, like, now.
A: Alright, Official on Michael - and J, whatever you're thinking of, just give it a try.
J: Confirm - we take out Michael.
#
"Hey, sweetie," Alex said, stepping into his cabin. Isabel was sitting on the edge of the bed and watching a video playing on the wall. "Going through it again?"
"Umm... yeah, what can I say?" Isabel replied, actually wiping a little bit of wetness out of the corner of her eye. "Can't believe that she went to the trouble of recording a message just for me - and one for you, and everybody else." She sighed slightly as Alex sat down. "Pause playback." The video of Grandma Alinda stopped playing out and froze still. "And - and she knows so much about us - about my adoptive parents, what life was like for us in Roswell - even how obsessive I get about organizing stuff and things like perfect Christmases."
"Yeah, that's pretty cool," Alex agreed. His own message had been much lighter on that kind of personal detail, which only seemed natural to him since he wasn't a surrogate daughter figure to the old queen or anything - very possibly a potential son-in-law or grandson-in-law or something like that. "Tell you what, why don't we try recording a video letter back to her and just ad lib it or something? See what we get? If it sucks, well, we can wipe it out and start over with a script and so on."
"Hmm... okay, yeah, that sounds great," Isabel agreed. "Computer, are you capable of video-recording us right here? Just from the perspective of the same place on the wall where the current file was playing?"
"Affirmative, video pickup is available from that spot."
"Umm... how's my hair?" Isabel asked.
"I am not programmed for esthetic judgements on matters of personal style."
"I wasn't talking to you, computer," Isabel said tightly. "Alex?"
"Alinda isn't going to care too much about what your hair looks like, Isabel," Alex pointed out first. But he could see in her eyes that she cared - this was sort of a first impression she would be making on somebody who was already very important to their lives, and would probably be more important still in the years to come. "It looks alright, actually - I always love you in a ponytail. Think your mascara might be a bit smudged, though."
"Oh, right." Isabel shuffled over to one of the bedside drawers to pull out a mirror and adjust herself. Alex thought of asking why she even bothered to put on makeup while they were on board ship, but decided that this would probably be the wrong time to ask, if not a conversation that he just shouldn't get into ever. Soon Isabel had decided that she looked presentable, and Alex would certainly have to agree. "Alright, begin recording."
The computer beeped softly and showed a little red light on the wall, probably both as visual confirmation of the record function, and to show exactly where they should look at. "Hello Alinda. Thought that we'd make a video letter together to send you, because - well, we do just about everything together lately, so why not this? Thank you so much for putting all the effort and little personal touches into the file batch you sent us - it was really very reassuring, and helped let us all know what we've gotten ourselves into. Landorin city looks very pretty, and a lot of fun - just how big is the rebel headquarters in the midst of all that bustling metro, anyway? Well, I guess we'll be able to judge that for ourselves. Umm..."
Alex squeezed Isabel's hand and took over when it was clear that she was faltering. "I'd especially like to thank you on my behalf, and for all of my friends who are only human, for the hospitality that you've shown us already, Alinda. Hope it's alright that I'm just calling you that - get the impression that you wouldn't like 'your Majesty' or 'my Lady' - and even 'Mrs Liaret' seems oddly formal in this case. Well, anyway, Maria and Kyle and I - we're nothing really to do with your family, except that we got to know the Royal Four while they were there in Roswell, but happy to be coming along for this big trip.
"Tedium is actually starting to become a big problem - a week and a half have gone by, with more than four and a half months left in the trip - but hearing from you was definitely a pick me up," he continued. "We've been playing a lot of games with the computer systems on board the ship, and still learning a lot about Antar and the nearby worlds, the language of course, and all sorts of stuff that's in the computer library. For instance, we've been learning recently that Landorin is on the planet Vrelayan, a fairly remote world out on the trade routes leading from the Antar cluster out towards Sector 371 and the Krevnarr Oligarchy. I guess that's probably part of the reason why you set the base up there - that all the merchant convoys going through disguise the ships coming and going on rebel business, and it's a place both beyond Kivar's direct rule and where he wouldn't immediately suspect you of going."
"I've been thinking about what you said regarding the choices we'll have to make when we get there," Isabel said, jumping in after a fairly short pause and changing the subject. "How some people will still identify me with Vilandra even now that we know that things aren't nearly so simple, and will be watching me to see what I do next when I get here." She took a deep breath. "I want to know more about my gift with entering people's dreams, and if there are any kind of cultural roles that carries with it in Antarian societies. Max has been learning about all of the traditions to do with the healer's powers from Christin, but there's nobody who can really tell me about mine. I have this idea of working to help people who have - who have recurring bad dreams or other issues because of problems in their lives that they've never faced or resolved properly, but I'm not even completely sure that Antarians have such syndromes in the same way that humans do. Depending on the limits of my abilities, I might even be able to use them to carry important messages for the rebels I suppose."
"As far as Alex and I, well... we're very much in love, although we haven't actually... consummated our feelings physically yet, but that will probably happen before we arrive, if only because we've been thrown into the same bed and there's four and a half months to go." Alex chuckled at the way she'd put that. "But we're not quite ready to get engaged or anything yet, and I did wonder if that would pose a problem with the two of us wanting to live together when we arrive at Landorin. Would it be beneath my honor as a princess of the house of Liaret, or something? Do Antarians even have the concept of living in sin? There's so much that's never really explained in the cultural texts in the computer, and I haven't quite gotten up the nerve to ask Christin or any of the crew."
"Let's see. Alex wants to become just as much of a computer genius with Antarian systems as with Earth processor chips. He's started looking up some of the information that's available here on the molecular light valve circuits that you guys use, some of the basic thinking node architectures that make them up, and a bit of the programming that's more intensive than just telling the computer how to play a particular board game or make chicago-style pizza. He's going to be amazing at it, I can just tell, even if he says that he's still only at the Antarian equivalent of sixth grade level."
"Glad to hear that you're in good health and high spirits, and it was nice to hear from Raydeleen, and even Tess. I was a bit surprised to hear her talking about leaving Vrelayan before we even get there, and signing up with the suicide corps marines. I think that Kyle is trying to figure out what he wants to say to her about that, but as for me... I do hope I get a chance to see her again, and I think that Max's son should get a chance to grow up knowing his true birth mother, even if they don't spend too much time together."
"One more question, and this might sound odd - of all the humans who are living in Landorin, is there anybody who was actually on earth as recently as 1989? I'm just asking because that was the year that we emerged out of our incubation pods, and it would be an interesting link back to home to be able to meet someone there who was part of regular Earth society and knows the same sort of time period that I remember."
"Alright, I guess that's enough to tell you about for now. We'll record a postscript before sending this off if there's anything else we want to tell you or ask you. Goodbye and hope to see you soon!" They both waved. "Computer, end letter and file as 'Isabel and Alex to Alinda, number one.'"
"Saved and filed."
"Good enough." Isabel turned to Alex slightly and smiled. "Should I have let you talk more?"
"No, I think I was okay with that, for now. Do you want to go get something to eat?"
"Yeah, and then we'll see about gathering what's left of the townspeople of West Roswell back together. I think the werewolves have struck again."
"Oh, no."
#
"So, the body of Michael, sometime lover of the werewolf girl Maria, was found in the morning," Alex said. "Townsperson. Day four starts now." He slurped up a spoonful of chicken soup. "Go to it."
"Yes. I have an announcement I would like to make at this point," Jevrok said, stepping forward. "Please it you to know that I am the town psychic. I must inform you at this point that Max and Kyle are remaining wolves. I was also able to determine that Michael was a townsperson, but..."
"Now hold on just a second!" Kyle exclaimed. "I'm the real psychic, which means that you must be a wolf, Jevrok - I'm not sure if you're the last or not. If... if you're not, then." He gulped. "Then it must be you as well, sweet Ava, because I've cleared Max and Isabel through my dreams. Also confirmed Lonnie as town, before she got attacked."
"Huh," Max said, looking around at both of the supposed psychics. "Well, I guess it won't be much of a surprise to say that I agree with Kyle - fits in a bit too neatly with Jevrok's supposed dreams, but I am not a wolf, so I have to say that he is. Vote Jevrok."
"And even though Kyle didn't clearly accuse me," Ava said... "I'm sorry, I'll have to vote for you, Kyle. Jevrok's claim seems to ring truer to me."
"Wow," Isabel breathed. "And you two psychics will vote against each other?"
"One moment," Jevrok murmured. "Ava, if you believe me, perhaps we should vote Max instead of Kyle? It does not matter which of them goes first - Kyle's dreams will have no more authority once they see that Max is indeed hairy."
"No, we should take Kyle out, if we can," Ava said determinedly.
"Because you think that I'd be more likely to vote for Kyle than for my own brother?" Isabel asked. Ava shrugged. "Well, I guess the whole thing comes down to my own judgement call... unless there's only one wolf, and it's Jevrok, in which case I can make a mistake and we can still get him the next time, huh?"
"But we can't count on that," Max said.
"No, I can't," she agreed. "If there are two wolves and I vote to lynch the townsperson, then it'll be two wolves to two town. The wolves will attack one of the town in the night, and then they'll be able to control the voting tomorrow."
"Right," Alex agreed. "You can take all the time you need to think about this, though."
"Well, let me see what I can work through by talking it out," she said. "Jevrok made his psychic claim first, and... and that seems to give him a little credibility." Jevrok smiled, and Kyle groaned softly. "The real psychic would know that he had to get his information out this time - in fact, perhaps he should have come forward last round, as that might have helped to save Christin." She stopped and reconsidered. "In fact... Jevrok, how much of this information did you have last round?"
"I... I knew that Max was a wolf, and Michael was not," he said. "Dreamed about Kyle this night period."
"So you didn't want to come forward, even though you could have identified Max, because you wanted to try and find out if there was a second wolf?" she said. Jevrok nodded. "And Kyle?"
"I knew that Max was alright, and about Lonnie, which had already become useless info," Kyle said. "So I had only one confirmed town to offer if I stepped forward."
"Right." Isabel sighed. "I guess what this all comes down to is how much I trust you, and I'll have to think about that for a while." She turned, about to leave the game room, and then suddenly whirled back around to face Kyle. "I do trust you. Vote Jevrok!"
"Are - are you sure?" Kyle asked. "Why so sure all of a sudden?"
"Don't try to talk her out of it, Kyle," Max insisted.
"Because of the chess game," Isabel said. "You started it, and that put Maria out of the running. I don't think you'd have done that, if you were a wolf, and knew that she was a wolf."
"Don't be so sure," Kyle muttered. "Ava was in that game too." He looked suspiciously over at her.
"But she didn't get things started," Isabel insisted, sounding more and more certain of herself. "It would have been suspicious to back out of things at that point once you had suggested it, and by going along with the flow, even if she sacrificed Maria, she'd gain credibility for herself. Nobody's suspected her until now, after all." Kyle nodded agreement. "Maybe she even tried to lose very subtly, so that Lonnie would get voted out without her being obvious about it. But I'm sure of my vote. Jevrok."
"Alright - are you guys sure of your vote too?" Alex asked. "We might as well see about wrapping this day up early."
"I'll stick with it," Max said. "Think we've caught ourselves another wolf."
"Yeah," Kyle agreed. "Do it."
"Okay... yes." Alex let out a breath. "Jevrok, a second wolf, has been lynched." A cheer went up in the room.
"I don't think we need to stick with the night secrets any more," Kyle put in. "This is almost over. I'll try to dream about Ava tonight."
"Hmm, alright." Alex thought about this. "Everybody put their heads down, don't look. Wolves, point to your pick for getting attacked in the middle of the night." There was a brief pause. "Yeah, that's what I thought. Kyle, you don't wake up from your dream this time. You've been killed by a werewolf."
"Vote Ava," Max and Isabel repeated in unison, not even looking up.
"Darnit," Ava said with a laugh. "Well, nicely played, you guys, and can we go again?"
"No, not for a little while yet," Max said with a laugh. "Once was fun, but killing people off over and over again without a break could get psychologically bad in a place like this."
"We could do Haggle instead, and trade stuff," Alex suggested. "Or - ooh, or maybe Lonnie and I could work out a game of party diplomacy."
Isabel raised an eyebrow at that. "You eager to spend more time with her, now?"
"Not as such, sweetie," Alex assured her. "Just, she's got a clever mind, and I remember playing 'extreme diplomacy' with her back when we were still on the run back on Earth. It could be fun, but if you don't want me to be alone with her..."
"We'll work it all out later," Max suggested. "I'm going to go tell Liz that I actually survived." And he headed back out of the room.
"Yeah, I didn't realize that we were going to get into the finale so soon," Alex said. "Lonnie, Michael, and Maria will probably be sorry that they missed it."
"I turned on the video recorder," Jevrok said with a slight smile. "They'll be able to review everything that way."
"Hmm, interesting." Ava sighed. "When I said that you should go ahead with whatever you were thinking of, I didn't think it would be a fake psychic role claim."
"Would we have been better off if I had let Kyle speak first?"
"Maybe a little," Kyle pointed out. "Even if they believed me, I wasn't sure that you were both wolves."
"But we'd have tried one of them, if neither came up with a counter-claim," Isabel pointed out. "That was certainly interesting, having the whole game rest on my judgement of you, Kyle. I'm glad I made the right choice."
"What?" Maria exclaimed from the door. "We missed it all?"
"Fire up that instant replay, Jevrok," Alex suggested. The steward adjusted a computer control, and on one of the walls, the scene from five minutes ago began playing, with Alex announcing how Michael had died.