Katya hated the language.
Katya was good at learning languages, but English made no sense. Why did you have to know someone’s gender in order to correctly address them? That wouldn’t even work for some species - it only had words for two genders!
The near-complete lack of Path-role designations was understandable, but the ones it did have were divided up strangely. What was the difference between a mage, a wizard, a sorcerer, and a caster? She’d been called all of them in the past few days, and she hadn’t managed to figure out the logic behind which one was used.
The grammar was headache-inducing, but that was common. Learning a new language often meant new grammar, and English’s structure wasn’t that different from some other languages she’d studied.
She’d finally managed to figure out that Serenity was a word in English as well as a person and the name of the Settlement. Apparently the Settlement was named after the person instead of the word; Serenity must be more politically important than she’d realized, to get a settlement named after him. Even a tiny one.
At least the work the small leader had her doing made sense, sort of. They’d been overjoyed when they found out she knew how to make tools, and had enough of a kit to do something; for some reason, at least half of the tools they had didn’t work, and it didn’t seem to be a simple matter of replacing the mana core. It made Serenity's silly story of a society that didn’t use magic seem more real, even if it didn’t make any more sense. Why wouldn’t you just use magic?
She hadn’t figured out how to do what they’d asked originally - fix their old tools - but that was fine. They were happy about the new ones she made. She wasn’t anywhere near the best craftsman in her family, but she did have practice at making temporary emergency items.
It was hard to be sure if this would be a good place for her family or not. They did seem to lack magical craftsmen, but what did they have that would be worth living in a mana-starved environment? Even the mana cores they had came out of the “tutorial” that Serenity had mentioned, and was apparently a one-time thing. There needed to be a reliable source for it to be worthwhile.
“Katya?” The voice of the small leader called from the front of the storeroom. “Are you almost ready?”
“It’s close.” Katya increased the heat she was holding on the metal bar. Whatever metal it was made of did not want to fuse with the vehicle-box; some of that was the coating, but even after she removed it, the metal seemed to take an unusually high temperature before it would join, and she had to be very careful about not warping the thin … what did they call it? Truck bed? Another place where English made no sense; how was a carrying-box a sleeping place?
Her sensory Skill finally reported that the two were sufficiently joined and she adjusted the spell to slowly cool the metals. Warping now might not be as bad as earlier, but she still didn’t want to create a weak spot. This wasn’t intended to hold forever, but it should work for the trip. No one was going to be able to get out of the cage she was building in that amount of time, not with the active reinforcement of the mana cores.
Katya wrapped the cooling wrap around the new joint and slotted in a mana core. There; that would provide enough heat for it to cool slowly and evenly.
Of course, the cage was going to eat mana cores like candy. They were going to need an entire new set - of sixteen! - every half hour. It was an insane amount of wealth to burn just to hold a single prisoner. Mana-enhanced cuffs generally worked fine. Still, Doyle said they had enough even at that rate, and Echo backed him up and even agreed it was needed, and she was the Settlement leader.
Katya hadn’t even seen the prisoner yet.
“It’s done now. It just needs time to cool.” Katya packed up the small tool set she carried with her. Her father had given it to her the first time she’d visited after she left home; every member of her family had made something that was in it. The heat-fuser was made by her father himself; using it brought back memories of learning to work metal as a child.
“Great! We can leave after dinner.” Echo started to turn away.
Katya started. Echo didn’t know that much? Or had she said it incorrectly? “No, we can’t. It needs time to cool. That’s a minimum of a day for it to cool correctly. Anything less than that and the metal will cool unevenly. That’s why the joint is wrapped.”
“Oh. Then we can leave tomorrow?” Echo seemed a little disappointed but not too badly. “You know what that means?”
Katya looked at Echo warily. The small leader had a look on her face that Katya was beginning to recognize. “What?”
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“More language lessons!” Echo looked entirely too happy about that.
Katya hated English. She had to remind herself that the language was the problem, not the overly enthusiastic teacher.
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Almost a day later, Katya was swearing at colors. Why did they pick those particular colors to be the “primary” ones? Brown covered at least three different colors and Katya was pretty sure that yellow and orange were the same thing. The only way she could tell that they were different was that orange was usually darker.
It was a relief when Doyle interrupted the lesson. “You two! It’s time. Still sure you don’t want to stay here, Katya? It’s probably safer here than most places.”
“I’m not here to be safe.” She was here to check out the planet and see if her entire extended family should move, but her English still wasn’t really good enough to explain that.
Echo nodded. “You’re here for Serenity.”
“No.” Katya shook her head to emphasize the negative. It was clear where Serenity got that habit; there were a few gestures that seemed to be used in English, even though it was mostly spoken. “I’m here to - judge? The planet. For moving. Living? For living.” She wasn’t sure if that came across correctly. Time and crafting were where she’d started, and this wasn’t a concept that fit within the words she knew well.
Echo’s puzzled expression told her she hadn’t succeeded. “Later. After the planet opens, maybe my family will live here.” That seemed to work.
Echo’s expression cleared and Doyle laughed. “If they’re anything like as good as you are, they’d be welcome. C’mon, let’s get you loaded up; the prisoner’s already in the back.”
When they arrived at the truck, Katya insisted on checking the cage before anything else. She wanted to make sure that it was working correctly, especially if they were going to be moving a prisoner right behind where she would be sitting.
When she saw the prisoner, she knew why they’d insisted mana cuffs weren’t good enough. It was a rockfin, one of the relatively rare sapients without hands. They looked more or less like a large fish, even though they were a creature of the land rather than the sea; the ribbon-like fins on their underside were strong and flexible enough to support their weight and carry them around when a rockfin actually bothered to surface, while the ones on the sides and spine were supposedly vestigial weapons.
Rockfin were known for their affinity to Earth and Stone magic, and even relatively nonmagical rockfin could use stone tools without touching them and swim through the ground. Rockfin were generally considered benign neighbors, as long as you weren’t trying to mine anything.
Katya wasn’t certain how they’d managed to confine a rockfin until she realized she was completely overlooking where they were. They lived in dwellings grown from the trees; there was no reason they’d keep a rockfin confined on the ground.
She didn’t say anything to the rockfin as she checked out the cage. It seemed to be sleeping, and she didn’t have any desire to disturb its rest. The cage was already running and seemed to be in working order.
There were only four humans in the truck as they headed away from Serenity Settlement. Katya and Echo were in the back, while Missy drove and Doyle watched from the right-hand seat. Katya didn’t know much about Missy, but apparently it was her truck and she didn’t want to let anyone else drive.
It was strange. They were on the ground, yet once they were out of the forest, no one seemed to be paying any particular attention to the surroundings other than Missy. Katya kept a careful watch; even if there weren’t more rockfins coming to rescue the prisoner, you could never know what was out there.
It was a surprisingly good road; Katya could see the investment that was being put into Serenity Settlement already to run a road this far. The necessary spells were difficult and labor-intensive, and the equipment to do it without spells was so expensive it wasn’t worthwhile unless it was a large city.
Shortly after the first stop to replace the sixteen mana cores in the cage, Doyle brought out something Katya didn’t recognize until he spoke into it and a woman’s voice replied. A crystal distance communicator? It wasn’t a temporary message spell, so it had to be the better device, even if Katya didn’t recognize it.
It was quite small and seemed fragile compared to the distance communicators Katya’s Artificer uncle made. She knew he’d be interested, though he was unlikely to compromise on quality or allow them to be so fragile. They were far too expensive to make; he usually only sold three or four a year, and some years he didn’t make any. He only made one after he’d found someone who wanted to buy it, after all.
Katya tried to pay attention to the conversation; it was easily loud enough to hear, but she’d missed the beginning of the call.
Doyle held the device in front of him in a single hand. Katya had to resist urging him to put it somewhere safe; these people were all rich to be so careless! “-one of the invaders and not a monster, because it started squeaking at us when we had it surrounded and it doesn’t seem particularly hostile. Katya called it a rockfin; apparently they’re smart even if they do look like giant fish.”
“Katya? Serenity said he lost someone with that name, did she-”
The woman’s voice was interrupted by Doyle’s “Has to be her. She said she followed Serenity here. Echo’s been teaching her English but it’s not very good yet; all I’ve gotten out of her is that she wants to judge the planet and see if her family should move here. She doesn’t want to stay out here; d’you think we should ship her your way?”
“Yeah, get her info from her and - dammit. No ID. She won’t be able to fly unless - I know. I need to call Lex about the rockfin anyway, I’ll dump Katya on his plate. He can figure out how to get her here.” The woman on the other end of the communicator sounded annoyed.
“Lex?”
A sigh came over the connection. “Serenity’s name is Thomas Rothmer. I knew that, but somehow I assumed he’d have mentioned if his father was Lex Rothmer.”
There was a long pause before Echo asked, “Who?”
“You’re serious?” Doyle seemed to know who the woman on the communicator was talking about. “Why didn’t he say that? It might’ve changed Nightwitch’s plans.”