“Is Serena with you?” asked Leanne, through my PC.
“Yes,” I sub-vocalized back.
“Just checking.”
The two horses had repeated their greetings while I was interacting with Leanne.
“Will you please come with us?” asked wings.
“The aquatics are ready for you,” added horn.
A short walk took us to water, where a solid jetty had been constructed. Two fish like beings were waiting there, one on each side of the jetty. While home was a small continent surrounded by water on a largely inhospitable planet, and my island was just that, a small island, I’d never paid much attention to what was in the sea. My eyes were always on space.
Popups told me the one on the left was a dolphin, and on the right was a whale. The whale was substantially larger than the dolphin, and they looked nothing alike, except being sea creatures.
“One falls, another rises,” said the whale.
I had no idea what it meant, until I saw all five of them were looking at me. Serena was beaming.
“You mean Thorn is gone, and I’m here instead?” I asked.
“Not exactly,” said the dolphin. “You both carry the same burden. A carrier is gone, another rises to continue.”
Great. They loved riddles. Or being vague. Or annoying. I wasn’t sure which.
“And?” I prompted.
“We make you the same offer as we did Thorn and his mate,” said horn.
“Which was?”
I had no idea where this was going.
“When they ask too much of you, you may come here.”
Wings sounded serious, but with a horse face, how could you be sure?
“Who asks too much what?”
The four of them laughed. The two horses sounded pretty much the same, although tonally different. The dolphin’s laugh was high and somehow infectious, while the whale’s was low and booming. Serena had her hand over her mouth. I shot her an annoyed look, which she ignored.
“They will ask much of you,” said the whale, when it stopped laughing.
“They will not stop asking you,” said the dolphin.
“As they did not stop asking Thorn,” said wings.
Now I was beginning to get a handle on the situation. They seemed to know enough about Thorn’s life to think mine was going to go the same way.
“Thorn was a judge. I’m Imperium military. No-one is going to be asking me anything.”
They all laughed again. The horses looked like they were going to fall over. The whale almost flopped out onto the jetty. The dolphin went under.
“Dream on, dearest,” said Serena.
I waited until the four locals were again in control of themselves.
“I’m not accepting that for a moment, but I will accept your offer. What do you mean by come here?”
“We have accepted your Imperium as our protectors,” said the dolphin, “and we will allow some limited visiting of our planet. But not allow anyone to settle here who was not born here.”
“But you are the sole exception,” said the whale.
“You and your mate,” added horn.
“We understand you like islands,” said wings.
“We will give you one,” said the dolphin, “when you are ready to hide from those who won’t let you.”
I chose the easy path, and bowed my head in acceptance, after which the whale and dolphin departed. The two horses showed us back to where we’d arrived, and pointed out where to put the station rifts on this end.
We discussed the need for two of them, one coming down, and the other going up. They were to be wide enough for a grav sled to come through, but nothing larger, and to not allow any weapons or any implement which could cut or dig, or anything with wheels or which might mark the landscape in any way. They didn’t care how I prevented them, as long as they couldn’t get here. It wouldn’t stop anything coming down from orbit in a more conventional way, of course.
The station AI sent me a station plan with where to put the rifts, and an image of how that area looked now. It was in the place where a standard airlock would normally be, but had been replaced by a fake wall to avoid freaking people out with the illusion of stepping into space. Two arrows were already marked on the deck in front, showing the way down, and the way coming back.
I concentrated, and put both single direction rifts into place. Over the top of one of them, I added the word ‘up’ as a permanent sign hanging there magically, and added ‘down’ over the other one. At the station end on the down side, I put a sign saying anyone with weapons, or cutting or digging implements would not be allowed through. Neither would anything with wheels.
After a moment’s thought, I suggested to the station AI it needed somewhere on hand for people to lock away anything not allowed through, while they were down planet, and possibly an avatar to keep things in order.
I motioned to Serena, and she stepped into the up side, didn’t reappear for over a minute, and when she did, she was no longer wearing a sidearm.
Almost immediately, Tollin stepped out with a woman and two kids behind him, and the kids immediately squealed and headed for the horses. The thunder of hooves and flapping of wings indicated they were about to be reinforced.
More families came through, all of them awed by the scenery and horses, as well as some other animals and birds which began appearing. Among them was my own team, and their AI’s, along with Leanne and Tamsin.
But it was Jill who had the biggest reaction.
“Oh my giddy aunt!” she shrieked. “A unicorn!” She looked around, and took a big breath. “And a pegasus!”
She was rooted to the spot for a moment.
“Oh my fucking god!” she yelled, drawing some frowns from a few of the parents, and ran over to hug the neck of Horn.
The bewildered horse looked at me with a definitely confused look on its face, as she let go, and hugged Wings as well.
Tollin and his family were laughing, as was quite a few of those who’d just arrived. I looked at him with an eyebrow raised.
“Mythical beasts on old Earth,” he said, as if that was all that needed saying.
Eleven
The diplomatic cruiser arrived at the station promptly at midday.
It was the same ship we’d been going to use when we met the fungus, but it had been substantially remodeled around the cargo deck. While about the same size as Judge, it was a completely different configuration, and much older. While it was armed, they were conventional cruiser and smaller turrets, firing what they appeared to be with no upgrades. In a one on one fight, Judge would rip it apart quickly. This also meant it was useless as a warship. But as an armed diplomatic vessel, it was ideal.
If the station denizens considered it odd for a diplomatic ship to be armed, none of them ever said anything within the hearing of any of our AIs.
Judge had been the only ship to jump back, the rest of the team still down on the horses’ planet. The last I’d seen of Metunga was on all fours, with a child on his back, racing another child riding a unicorn. A number of other kids were swimming with a bunch of dolphins who’d turned up to see what was going on. All of them were wearing suit belts, so their parents were not worried about accidents.
I rifted the four of us, myself, Serena, Leanne, and Tamsin, over to the cargo deck of Diplomat, as the ship had now been named. We found a large group of people waiting near the airlock, and as I looked into the ship using my magic sight, I could see areas created on both sides of a central walkway, waiting for beings to sample the wares of different planets. People from those planets, a lot of them chefs, cooks, and sales-beings, were waiting to serve. A lot of butlers were waiting as well, especially in sections which were obviously bars. With the ship being a half kilometer long, and the cargo deck being most of that length, there were a lot of kiosks, bars, and beings to operate them.