THE REFORGED TRILOGY: BOOK 2 — SWORD OF DREAMS
Chapter 4: Tynerion
“Attending college is expensive, but not nearly as expensive as not attending.”
– Xol, Dean of Vostra Nor University (202 PA)
Tiberius banged his fist on the cargo bay wall. On his other arm, Orphia hissed in irritation. The hawk fluttered over to the stair railing and landed again. Her sharp talons clicked on the metal.
Maeve sat cross-legged on top of the supply crates, stretching her wings. There were few places on the Blue Phoenix with room enough to do so. It felt good and served as a sort of… meditation, Maeve supposed.
Lunch had been less than an hour ago, but her stomach still ached painfully, hollowly. It was the withdrawals. Maeve hadn’t taken Vanora White or Pitch or any other chem in almost ten days. And two weeks before that had only been a few swallows of bitter narcohol — just to take the edge off — before she managed to throw the bottle away.
It was still so hard. Maeve woke up each night with cold sweat sticking the sheets to her clammy skin and her mouth full of a vile taste, like something long dead. Her body and soul begged for the release of a needle or drink every day. Did it ever get any easier?
Tiberius called Maeve’s name. She shook her head, trying to clear it.
“We need to talk,” he shouted down to her. “We’ll be landing in a few minutes.”
“I am coming.”
Maeve stood and then flew up to the catwalk that spanned the top of the cargo hold. She clambered over the railing and followed Tiberius back into the mess. Duaal lounged on one of the patched acceleration couches in the corner, rolling an antique silver coin across his knuckles. The rest of the crew sat gathered around a large table bolted to the floor and looked up as Maeve and Tiberius came in.
“Hi, Smoke. Want to sit?” Gripper asked.
She sat in the chair he offered. Tiberius took the couch opposite Duaal.
“We’ll be setting down on Tynerion in about an hour to meet with Xia’s friend,” the captain said.
“I’ll be flying,” Duaal announced.
“We should be able to land at the university field,” Xia said. “Vostra Nor is one of the smaller colleges here on Tynerion. There shouldn’t be much traffic.”
“We’re not on Axis anymore. No one here should know we’re God-damned criminals.” Tiberius pointed a thick finger at Maeve. “But we can’t take any chances. No making trouble. No getting into trouble if anyone else makes it. We’re going to get on and off Tynerion just as quick as we can.”
Maeve bristled. “Your species’ hatred of my kind is not of my making.”
“You don’t do much to change it, though,” Duaal said. “But even if you can behave, I think you should stay on the Phoenix. Gripper, too.”
“Huh? What did I do?” Gripper asked.
“You stick out, my friend. Like a giant green monster. Like an alien. You pretty much ground traffic to a halt on Axis.”
Xia frowned. Her eyes had gone a thoughtful lavender and she sighed. “Unfortunately, I think Duaal has a point. You do attract a lot of attention on most planets, Gripper, and there are a lot of students and scholars on Tynerion. They’ll want to study you.”
“You think they might, you know, grab me?” the Arboran asked. He chewed nervously on one of his claws.
“No, but they might make it hard for us to leave,” Xia said gently. “Grant money is tight and you never know what some glory-hungry scientist might do.”
“Alliance attitudes toward the other races of the galaxy are a disgrace,” Maeve spat. “Are Gripper’s only options to be caged aboard this ship or to be pinned to a dissection table?”
“Now wait a minute!” Tiberius thumped his fist on the back of the couch. “This is to keep you out of fights and the rest of us out of jail. I don’t give two bent pinions about your species.”
“You may not,” Xia said. “But a lot of other people do. A lot of people who live and work on Tynerion.”
“We want to put our best foot forward, captain,” Duaal added.
“I guess our best foot is a little smaller than mine,” Gripper said. He wiggled his thick, dirty toes. No one manufactured boots large enough for the Arboran to wear. “But do Smoke and I have to hide in our rooms the whole time that we’re working for this Xen guy?”
Xia shook her head. “I don’t think that’s necessary. Once Xen’s on the Blue Phoenix, he’ll ask a lot of questions, but he won’t be able to do much more. Besides, I don’t think Xen would be much of a problem. He’s a good man. It’s everyone else on Tynerion that I’m worried about.”
Maeve picked at the edge of the table with her fingernail. It was ridiculous and infuriating, but Duaal and Xia were probably right. Maeve’s all-too-winged presence had made plenty of past deals more difficult, or ruined them entirely.
“I will remain on the Blue Phoenix while we are on Tynerion,” she agreed.
“We’ll find something fun to do, Smoke.” Gripper gave her a friendly elbow that almost knocked the fairy out of her chair. “You can help me with my garden.”
“Lucky you,” Duaal said with a thin smile.
Maeve sighed.
With only a couple of stomach-churning bumps, Duaal set the Blue Phoenix down on Tynerion. As Xia predicted, there was no trouble landing at Vostra Nor University. Traffic was well-regulated and much lighter than the constant congestion of Axis.
When the ship was on the ground and powered down, Duaal jumped up from his seat and grinned at Tiberius.
“Not bad!” he congratulated himself.
“Looks good. We’ll make a pilot of you yet,” Tiberius said as he unbuckled his harness. “Now, let’s go. I want to settle the job and get underway as soon as possible. This rock makes me nervous.”
“Yes, sir.”
They met Xia down at the cargo bay airlock. Maeve perched like an oversized bird on the edge of one of Gripper’s vegetable planters. The Arboran dangled nearby, instructing her on the care of his garden. Maeve watched Xia, Tiberius and Duaal leave. She didn’t look happy. Duaal shrugged to himself. Maeve never looked happy. He ducked through the airlock and followed Xia outside.
It was autumn on this part of Tynerion. The trees that lined the perimeter of the landing field swayed in a crisp breeze. Red, gold and orange leaves covered the black blastphalt and filled the briskly swirling air with a dusty-sweet scent. Duaal took a deep breath and stretched his arms up over his head. Nothing was better than the open sky, inside a ship or out.
“Do you know where we’re going?” Tiberius asked Xia.
“Yes. It’s not far. Vostra Nor is one of the smaller schools.”
The Ixthian smiled. Her steps were bouncy and quick as she led the humans out across the landing field, through an open gate and onto the campus.
Tynerion was one of the first worlds colonized, venaformed and then settled by humans from Axis even before the creation of the Central World Alliance. In those days, it was all so new. There were other stars, other planets and plants, even new species of sentient life.
And from their new colony, humans studied it all. Research centers, observatories and laboratories sprang up all over Tynerion, then libraries and schools. When the Alliance was founded, new students flocked from all across the galactic core to study on Tynerion. Before long, the universities were overcrowded and more schools had to be built. Within a few generations, Tynerion became the center of academia in the galaxy.
If Vostra Nor University was a small college, Duaal had no idea what one of the big ones might be like. White concrete paths wound through lawns and circular rose gardens that separated buildings of myriad sizes and shapes. There were long lines of classrooms and lecture halls like rows of corn. A shiny observatory dome perched high on top of a blue-and-black trimmed building and heliographed blindingly in the light of the white binary suns. In the distance, a slim pyramid of glass and steel rose sharply from a forest-like arboretum.
Xia caught Duaal staring.
“That’s the botany department. It’s pretty much right in the center of campus. There’s a monument out in front to the original Tynerion explorers,” she told him, then suddenly laughed. “Every year, someone gets drunk, climbs up the statue and falls off.”
“Sounds like fun.”
It actually did. Duaal had never given college much thought, but it suddenly seemed like a pity that he would probably never get to go. Tiberius would be his only teacher.
And Gavriel.
A pair of girls bobbed past, balanced on a board suspended by an orange-tinged null-field, talking and giggling to one another. Xia took Duaal and Tiberius across an aromatic herb garden and then past a white stone lecture hall surrounded by a tall colonnade. A carved granite slab in a nearby flowerbed read Veskin Hall — Physics. They had to weave and push through a crowd of students, most about Duaal’s own age. A Lyran in a tweed suit stood on the roof, holding a leather pounceball over his head.
“Now stand back!” he called out to the students below.
On the other side of a lawn studded with sculptures of twisted metal, Xia pointed to a stately red brick hall covered in a thick net of ivy.
“That’s where we’re going, Xol Hall,” she said. “We used to call it the Xol Hole. It’s a little cramped inside.”
That turned out to be an understatement. They joined the tide of students and professors pouring in through the pillar-flanked entry. Doors lined the long hallway, crowded in between with display cases all full to overflowing with rocks, bits of old cloth in a thousand fading colors, fragments of pottery, shards of metal and vials of dust. The ceiling hung artificially low with sagging maps stapled to the spongy insulation tiles and genetic models hanging from thin, nearly invisible threads.
A kiosk flickered on one corner where the hallway intersected another crowded corridor. Xia stopped beside it and leaned close to make herself heard over the noise.
“Directions to Professor Xen’s office,” she shouted. The holographic display buzzed and flickered, then showed Xia what she had asked for.
Professor Xen (4)
Office 310
Third floor, fifth door on the left
Office hours: Open
A red line blinked through a wireframe map beside the instructions. Xia glanced down the right-hand hall to the elevators, but the foyer was full of waiting students.
“Come on, the stairs are over here,” she said.
By the time they reached the third story, Tiberius was huffing.
“This is ridiculous!” he protested. “I’ve been climbing mountains — real Prian mountains, not colony-world hills — since before either of you were born!”
“Maybe Prianus isn’t the challenge you make it out to be,” Duaal suggested.
“Shut it, chickling. I’m just getting old.”
Duaal laughed and chased after Xia, who had pulled ahead on her long legs. There were fewer people up here, but even more overfilled glass cases. Xia waved the men over to a closed door, fifth one on the left. A cartoon had been printed out and taped to the window, showing a comically frustrated Hadrian facing off against an exasperated Axial. The two shared a single dialog bubble: You show me your monkeys!
Xia laughed. “Pretty good.”
Duaal didn’t get it and tried to think of some subtle way to ask Xia to explain the joke to him. While he pondered, she knocked on the door.
“It’s open. Come on in!” called a voice from inside.
Xia opened the door for Tiberius and Duaal, then followed them into the office. Inside, it was only slightly less crowded than the hallway. A window looked out on the sculpture garden they had passed through on the way in. Monitors filled the other three walls, all displaying maps and news stories, photographs and charts.
Two desks took up most of the office, pushed back to back in the middle of the floor and leaving only a narrow gap around the edge of the room. A slender blonde girl sat at one of the desks. She had large green eyes and a pretty, fine-boned face. She smiled at the three visitors and stood up.
“Good morning! I’m Panna Sul, Professor Xen’s assistant.” She offered her hand to each of them in turn. “You’re probably here to see him, right?”
“Yes,” Xia said. “The kiosk said he was in.”
“Well, he should be, but Professor Xen is actually downstairs. He’s covering Professor Stark’s lecture. That should be over in about fifteen minutes. Can I get you anything? Coffee, fizz?”
“No, thank you,” Xia declined.
Tiberius and Duaal shook their heads.
“Please grab a seat,” Panna said, gesturing to a row of chairs beneath one of the screens. She grimaced down at the computer on her desk. “Are you quite sure I can’t get you anything?”
“I’m sure,” Xia said.
Panna sighed and sat down. “Back to grading undergrad essays, then. They all quote the exact same lecture. I swear it’s the only one they went to.”
Xia asked her a little about the college while they waited. Panna was more than happy to talk and answered the Ixthian’s questions at length. Duaal stared out the window at the wispy white clouds racing over the campus and a group of students sitting at a table in the quad below. One of them held a large datadex and gestured emphatically with it. The others nodded in agreement with whatever he said and scribbled down their own notes.
Even if he could go to a proper school like this, what would Duaal study? Science? Literature?
Gavriel had raised Duaal from stolen infancy to be a tool for his magic. That was about the only thing Duaal was good at… And he couldn’t study magic here.
Duaal pondered if Arcadians went to school for their magic — Maeve talked sometimes about the Ivory Spire, which sounded a bit like a fairy college — when Xen finally arrived. He was Ixthian, like Xia, with smooth silver skin and hair as white as the clouds outside. He was tall for a male of his species, but still stood only as high as Duaal’s shoulder. The professor’s hair was cut close to his skull and his antennae were the longest Duaal had ever seen. He wore similar clothes to Panna’s — dark gray slacks and a collared white shirt rolled up at the sleeves. There was a discarded vest tucked into the back of his belt.
Xia jumped to her feet and hugged him. “Xen!”
“Xia! You came,” Xen answered, returning the other Ixthian’s embrace. He sounded surprised but pleased. “This must be your captain. Tiberius Myles, isn’t it?”
“And our copilot, Duaal Sinnay,” Xia said. “I got your message anteday, on Axis. We came straight away.”
“I hear you’re looking for someone to fly you out to Prianus,” Tiberius said.
Professor Xen raised his white eyebrows at the captain. “Your homeworld, to judge by your accent. Yes, that’s exactly what I’m hoping to do.”
“Why do you need to go out to Prianus?” Duaal asked. “You and your lovely assistant seem to have plenty of work here.”
Panna blushed and grinned. Xen sat on the corner of the other desk and flipped open his computer. He touched something on the monitor and then, with a flick of his long forefinger, sent it up to one of the large wall screens. It was a colorful topographical map. Xen pointed to a large patch of dark red in the center.
“Recent tectonic activity out on Prianus has uncovered a new archeological site. It’s located up here, in the Kayton Mountains. There’s a local dig team up working the site now, but they lack the resources, equipment and personnel to do the job right. So they’ve requested assistance from Tynerion.”
“And you volunteered to go out there?” Tiberius asked, clearly surprised.
“Prianus isn’t exactly a popular site. It’s remote, hostile and unstable,” Xen answered. “No offense intended, Captain Myles.”
“None taken. Prianus is a hard world.”
“With hard people,” the professor said with a bit of a smile. “Now, the Alliance can’t actually fund additional archeologists, but is offering a tax benefit to any institution willing to field a team. Vostra Nor owes the Alliance about three years back taxes at this point and could use the break. I’ve been given admittedly limited funding to hire and supply our part of the dig.”
“Do you know what they’re studying out there?” Tiberius asked. He squinted at the map, scratching his bearded chin. “Prianus is covered in mountains. I don’t know this area.”
“The head of the Prian team, Kemmer Andus, has disclosed very few details. I’m not quite sure what we’ll find.” Xen quirked a small smile. “It’s made selecting my people and equipment an interesting challenge.”
“How many on your team? And how much equipment?”
“There are five of us in total and about two tons of equipment. Is that going to be a problem?”
“Some of you might need to bunk together,” Tiberius answered. “There are only three spare rooms on the Phoenix.”
“I’m sure we can deal with being a little cozy,” Xen said. “Accommodations on Prianus aren’t likely to be plush, either.”
“If Vostra Nor is funding you, then why did you call me?” Xia asked. “There are thousands of ships on Tynerion.”
“Maybe I just wanted to see you again,” Xen said. He gave Xia a charming smile.
She laughed, but wasn’t convinced. “You think I can get you a better price.”
“You’re as discerning as ever, my dear. I always mourned that you didn’t remain in research,” Xen said. He spread his hands. “Yes. The board of regents wants to spend less on my venture than they will save on the taxes. I’d like to use most of the color on the dig, not flying out to it. But the starships available on Tynerion charge criminally high fares. And the cargo space for my equipment… Yes, I would like something a little less expensive.”
“I appreciate your position, professor, but I’m not getting tax credits out of this,” Tiberius said, shaking his head. “My bird needs fuel and my crew needs to eat. What kind of colour can you actually offer?”
Duaal flinched and Xen pressed his shiny lips into a thin line at the bluntness of the question, but Xia watched the exchange with amusement on her face. Had they wasted their time flying to Tynerion? She didn’t seem worried about it.
“I can pay four thousand cenmarks for the journey,” Xen said. “I can also get you the university discount on any supplies or parts you might need while we’re on Tynerion.”
“That’s twenty percent,” Panna supplied.
Duaal scuffed the toe of his boot over the carpet. Four thousand cenmarks was a lot of money, but it was a long trip out to Prianus. Fuel alone would eat up more than a quarter of that.
“You can part with a little more than that, Xen,” said Xia. She put her elbows on his desk and gave the other Ixthian an arched look. “The regents probably charted out ten thousand for transport. Give us half of that and you still leave another five thousand for yourself.”
Xen blinked slowly and curled his long silver antennae. “I have missed you, Xia. Very well, if Captain Myles will agree. Five thousand cenmarks.”
“Alright, you’ve got yourself a ship,” Tiberius said. “When do you want to leave, Professor Xen?”
“Panna?” Xen asked.
“Um, Phillip has a lecture at noon,” she answered, glancing at her computer. “But I’m sure he would be perfectly happy to hand it over to someone else. We could be ready by seven tomorrow morning. Unless you need more time to buy anything else on Tynerion, Captain Myles?”
“Just basics for the trip,” Tiberius said. “We’ll need to feed all of you and pick up some extra recyc’ scrubbers and air filters.”
“I can order those now, if you like,” Panna offered. “I think we can get them delivered later this afternoon.”
“Let us talk to our mechanic before you order anything,” Xia said. She nodded to Panna. “But I can probably get a list to you in about two hours.”
“I guess I’ll need to finish grading these papers, then,” the girl sighed, tapping her computer with one finger.
“You had better. I’m not doing it,” Xen said with a smirk. He stood and held out his six-fingered hand to Tiberius, who shook it firmly. “We’ll see you tomorrow at seven, captain. I’ll transfer your fare this evening, after I speak to the deans.”
“About what?” Tiberius asked suspiciously, maybe wondering if Professor Xen would somehow betray the Blue Phoenix to Alliance authorities.
“I simply need to let them know that I’m finally leaving. I’m sure they will be thrilled. I think Charne is tired of my students digging up his quad. Tinkay already has my lesson plan and can take care of my classes for the rest of the semester.”
“We’ll see you tomorrow, then,” Tiberius said.
He gestured for Duaal and Xia to follow him and left the office. They made their way back out of Xol Hall and back toward the Blue Phoenix.
Once outside, Duaal whistled happily. “Finally, some real work! Things are looking a little better.”
Xia agreed, but Tiberius only shrugged.
“It’s work,” he said.
“Aren’t you happy to be going home?” Duaal asked. “I would love to see Hyzaar. I haven’t been there since I was a baby…”
Tiberius didn’t look at Duaal. He stared up into the fluffy white clouds. “Prianus is a long way out.”
Duaal wasn’t terribly excited to be going back to the cold, craggy planet, either. He had been on Prianus far too long with Gavriel… Still, Duaal could not fathom why Tiberius wasn’t grinning like a schoolboy to be going home.
Was that just a saying? Or did schoolboys actually do that?
Duaal studied the Vostra Nor campus. It was full of young men of all the Alliance races, walking and reading in the warm sunlight. An Axial man with burnished auburn hair and a square jaw caught his eye, lounging in the shade of a well-trimmed oak tree. Duaal whistled and Tiberius shot him a warning look.
“Don’t attract attention,” he reminded the boy.
“I wouldn’t mind getting that guy’s attention…” Duaal said with a grin.
“You’re going to get us arrested.”
“I wouldn’t mind getting arrested by–”
Tiberius grabbed Duaal by the arm and hauled him back in the direction of the Blue Phoenix.
