Sobon con­sid­ered the "hid­den base­ment" sta­bi­lized only af­ter every cor­ner and edge was lined with a sta­bi­liz­ing rod. The next step re­quired a bit of con­vo­lut­ed log­ic that Sobon had to work out with a men­tal scratch pad; it reg­u­lat­ed the ef­fect of grav­i­ty, pro­tect­ed the rods from harm, sealed off out­side ob­ser­va­tion, and iso­lat­ed the in­ter­nal space, ex­clud­ing the nar­row re­gion by the edges where the rods were. From in­side, you wouldn't even know there was a nar­row me­chan­i­cal space pro­tect­ing the base­ment, while from the out­side, there was al­most noth­ing to de­tect--just a very odd bunch of rods, none of them aether-rich, in a very nar­row space.

All in all, by the time that part was done, you'd be hard pressed to jump down the hole and not be­lieve you were in a base­ment, if one with weird, qi-formed walls. That didn't mean it was done; ide­al­ly, an­oth­er set of rods in­side of that would be the real de­fens­es for the space, and then a phys­i­cal set of walls and floors would be fab­ri­cat­ed on top to hide those. But what Sobon want­ed most was the abil­i­ty to prac­tice his art with the cer­tain­ty of no out­side ob­ser­va­tion, and this pro­vid­ed that much.

Ac­cord­ing to the Ri'lef notes on qi, Sobon was sup­posed to acclimate his body to high aether lev­els by soak­ing each or­gan in it one at a time. For the lo­cals, this was com­pli­cat­ed; even at Sobon's Gold Qi rank, many of them were still learn­ing to use qi, with­out un­der­stand­ing the un­der­lay­ing prin­ci­ples. Most­ly, they didn't have the in­stinct to cre­ate pure, at­tuned aether, so there was a se­ri­ous dan­ger they would sat­u­rate their or­gans with qi that be­longed to oth­er peo­ple and things in the world around them--an easy way to com­plete­ly cor­rupt an aether struc­ture. For­eign aether would con­tin­ue to op­er­ate by its own rules, and it was dan­ger­ous to leave that in­side of your own sys­tem.

Of course, Sobon's dy­namos pro­duced pure, at­tuned aether--it was their pri­ma­ry pur­pose. So while the lo­cals would spend ages very slow­ly pu­ri­fy­ing ex­ter­nal qi in or­der to sat­u­rate their or­gans with aether, Sobon could do it al­most at will. That didn't mean it was wise to dump in un­lim­it­ed amounts, of course, but Sobon had nev­er in­tend­ed that. If any­thing, her ex­per­i­ment with try­ing to evolve her pre­vi­ous squir­rel body, which had end­ed dis­as­trous­ly, proved that the lo­cal 'qi' wasn't some mir­a­cle pow­er ca­pa­ble of more than raw aether. No, Sobon intended to act on the safe side, and acclimate her­self in a man­ner sim­i­lar to the Crestan Marines Aether Adap­ta­tion Pro­gram.

That it­self was es­sen­tial­ly an au­to­mat­ed, sur­gi­cal ver­sion of the same con­cept. Sobon had un­der­gone it when he was pro­mot­ed to a Class VI cy­borg; his own per­son­al aether gen­er­a­tors were mon­i­tored for their pu­ri­ty, but once they were churn­ing out raw at­tuned aether, he was put to sleep for a few days while the aether was pumped into one fleshy bit af­ter an­oth­er, mak­ing sure that they could all han­dle enough aether to not be poi­soned when his cy­borg bits were work­ing at their rat­ed ca­pac­i­ty. In the­o­ry, it shouldn't have been nec­es­sary--the cy­borg bits were well shield­ed, and the aether rou­tines locked into spec­i­fied re­gions that shouldn't have even need­ed shield­ing--but war put stress on even the best laid plans, and war­riors need­ed to be ready for any­thing.

So Sobon sim­ply put to­geth­er a se­ries of scripts that would build up aether in­side of her or­gans and bones, one at a time, and ded­i­cat­ed a cou­ple right-hand dy­namos to the same. She could have used high­er forms of aether--and may in time--but she had the most right-hand dy­namos, and this first pass pro­vid­ed the most im­por­tant ben­e­fit--at­tune­ment. While Sobon had been able to get Jom's body to ac­cept his will, even un­der duress, it had fought him, be­cause in the end, it had nev­er be­longed to him--in fact, it had nev­er be­longed to Jom. Aether at­tune­ment made one a mas­ter of one's own flesh, and when the first lit­tle bits of Alas­si be­gan to prop­er­ly re­spond to Sobon's will and in­tent, she fi­nal­ly be­gan to breathe a sigh of re­lief.

This had nev­er been so dif­fi­cult with the cy­borg parts of Sobon's body. Un­like bi­ol­o­gy, they were pure from the start. Bar­ring soft­ware is­sues, good aether-tech pros­thet­ics were what­ev­er you need­ed them to be. Ex­cept of course af­ter tak­ing sig­nif­i­cant dam­age, like from your ship ex­plod­ing around you.

At the end of that day, Mian re­turned from the city look­ing brighter than Sobon had ever seen him. "Lui, Alas­si," he said, near­ly bounc­ing as he shut the gates be­hind him. "I spoke to­day with an al­chemist, Fau Mide. When I said that Lui was a very sen­si­tive girl, she seemed in­ter­est­ed. I said I would bring you to speak to with her to­mor­row." At that, Lui perked up. It was nice, Sobon and Alas­si agreed, to see a look of hope on her face.

Still, Sobon con­sid­ered qui­et­ly. She could take the op­por­tu­ni­ty to vet the so-called al­chemist, or al­low Lui and Mian to do it. The choice had con­se­quences; be­ing too pro­tec­tive might cause a re­ac­tion in the al­chemist, and the oth­er lo­cals, but not pro­tect­ing Lui if she need­ed it might lead to some­thing worse.

"Grand­ma Alas­si?" Lui's voice broke through Sobon's thoughts, and she made her choice in that mo­ment, turn­ing to look at the body's grand-daugh­ter, who Sobon him­self had start­ed to think of as her own.

"Tell me about this al­chemist," she or­dered Mian, and the man's face--which had been shad­owed by some­thing, doubt per­haps--cleared up and be­came thought­ful.

"Thought­ful, I think. She had a hard edge, but the air in her shop was clean. The qi around it was straight­for­ward. I as­sume there were wards to make sure of that."

Sobon fit those to­geth­er into a rough im­age, and nod­ded. "Al­right. If you think she's worth trust­ing, then I'll leave it to the two of you." Lui bright­ened again, but in Sobon's mind, it was equal­ly im­por­tant to see the sat­is­fied look on Mian's face. Be­cause Sobon want­ed the girl to be hap­py--but she also trust­ed that Mian was an adult, and put at least a lit­tle thought into things.

That evening, they all went out to get food in the city in­stead of cook­ing for them­selves. Al­though Sobon wasn't keen to spend the boun­ty mon­ey quick­ly, she wasn't too stuffy to want to cel­e­brate, at least from time to time. It did mean can­celling the aether-at­tune­ment pat­tern, but Sobon trust­ed that she still had time.

The restau­rant that Mian had found was not just a com­mon inn, and its price was a match for its at­mos­phere. The three of them were tak­en to a side booth, and a po­lite Djang woman in a de­cent ap­prox­i­ma­tion of fine clothes took their or­ders. All three of them had a healthy ap­petite. Mian had a heavy rice and meat dish, with some very heav­i­ly spiced pep­pers lay­ered thick, and sauces thick enough that Sobon had no idea their con­sti­tu­tion. Lui had some­thing more like a meat and veg­etable pie, al­though it was sealed on the top and di­vid­ed into sec­tions. Sobon her­self had a meat-gar­nished sal­ad, which the serv­er as­sured her was made from qi-rich plants. It was tasty, with var­ied tex­tures and spices, and Sobon could tell that the qi was calm and di­gestable, some­how, but Sobon re­gret­ted not get­ting some­thing more in­ter­est­ing af­ter smelling both of the oth­ers' din­ners.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Over din­ner, Mian talked more about the al­chemist's shop and the woman her­self. Short and thin, he said, with a freck­led face and deep-col­ored hair that she kept wrapped up in a scarf. She looked young, but with enough qi that she could be old­er than she looked. She scowled when she thought Mian was wast­ing her time, but took him se­ri­ous­ly when he spoke. Her shop was clean, with lit­tle on dis­play but what ap­peared to be an ex­ten­sive back room. Al­though Mian didn't know enough to re­al­ly test her, she didn't seem to be idle. Mian fig­ured that meant that she kept busy.

In the end, by the time they all were home and abed, Sobon was hope­ful that, if she ac­cept­ed Lui, it would be good for the girl. Noth­ing was ever cer­tain, but the pic­ture added up to some­thing good.

The two left rel­a­tive­ly ear­ly in the morn­ing, and when they did, Sobon felt tru­ly alone for the first time in a bit. Not in a dis­tress­ing way; it sim­ply meant that Lui and Mian had their fo­cus else­where, and weren't think­ing about her, and that was fine. She found her­self stand­ing in the mid­dle of the court­yard, con­tem­plat­ing, when she de­tect­ed a spir­i­tu­al pres­ence. That might have meant a num­ber of dif­fer­ent things--every­thing from an ac­tu­al lo­cal spir­it of some kind, to a lo­cal mage, to a plan­e­tary spir­i­tu­al god, or pos­si­bly one of the Ri'lef en­gi­neers, pro­ject­ing across the world with an ad­vanced aether mech­a­nism.

She kept a men­tal eye firm­ly fixed on the spir­it, but couldn't tell much of any­thing from its form or aether sig­na­ture. It chose to ap­pear hu­manoid, but its pres­ence was bare­ly a shad­ow, hid­ing what­ev­er it was ca­pa­ble of. What­ev­er it was, it passed through Sobon's de­fens­es like they didn't ex­ist, and paused to look at Sobon, watch­ing her watch­ing it. Sobon didn't speak first, though she did pro­ject a gen­er­al, in­quis­i­tive spir­it wave.

[ Crestan, ] the spir­it sent back. [ What does 'myth' mean to you? ]

Ri'lef, then. Sobon con­sid­ered the ques­tion, and how best to an­swer it. Even hav­ing thought about sim­i­lar ques­tions re­cent­ly, it was a very open-end­ed ques­tion with a lot of very deep and mean­ing­ful prob­lems buried in it. In­stead of try­ing to bun­dle up her thoughts, Sobon spoke slow­ly, out loud, trust­ing that the spir­it was pay­ing care­ful enough at­ten­tion to 'hear' her.

"Myth... is some­thing wide­ly be­lieved, but rarely or nev­er ver­i­fied. It is both very dan­ger­ous, but also nec­es­sary for so­ci­ety to func­tion."

There was a re­ac­tion in the spir­it when Sobon said 'nec­es­sary', or per­haps just be­fore, when she was putting the thought to­geth­er. [ Why do you be­lieve it is nec­es­sary? ]

"Not all myths are. My peo­ple have spent cen­turies think­ing about the foun­da­tion­al so­cial myth--the ones that give lead­ers the right to rule. Ul­ti­mate­ly, it is nec­es­sary for it to be myth, be­cause the process of con­firm­ing that it's true in­ter­feres with gov­er­nance. But in those times when you aren't con­firm­ing it, when you aren't pos­i­tive that some­one de­serves to rule, then that gives oth­er pow­ers a chance to sneak in and at­tempt to cor­rupt the sys­tem."

The spir­it, in her mind's eye, shift­ed its pro­jec­tion to be a hu­manoid fig­ure, if in­dis­tinct, with its hands clasped be­hind its back--with a sort of in­for­mal, but schol­ar­ly air about it. [ As long as a leader has the pow­er to rule, why do they need a myth of le­git­i­ma­cy? ]

"That's an old ar­gu­ment," Sobon said. Sobon had first heard it him­self in pub­lic school­ing, and al­though he hadn't been sat­is­fied by the an­swers back then, in ret­ro­spect, it was much clear­er. "If you are al­right with your rule slow­ly de­cay­ing, then you don't need the myth of le­git­i­ma­cy. But you ei­ther de­lib­er­ate­ly cre­ate a myth of le­git­i­ma­cy, or the peo­ple cre­ate one for you, and the myth cre­at­ed by the peo­ple will be flawed. When­ev­er your ac­tions don't line up with the myth, peo­ple start to be­lieve that you shouldn't rule. If that hap­pens con­stant­ly, be­cause the myth doesn't rep­re­sent the ac­tu­al lead­ers, then peo­ple start to be­lieve that the rule is ac­tive­ly il­le­git­i­mate. Peo­ple work­ing for an il­le­git­i­mate ruler will sab­o­tage it in small ways, and those add up over time."

The spir­it's fig­ure re­act­ed sub­tly, but its in­dis­tinct form made read­ing the re­ac­tions dif­fi­cult. [ What qual­i­ties make a leader worthy of rule? ]

"That--" Sobon start­ed to say one thing, and then an­oth­er, and then a third, be­fore qui­et­ing. "I think if I could an­swer that ques­tion, I would be do­ing some­thing else with my life be­sides risk­ing it in a bat­tle for an­oth­er world's fu­ture. I'm a Ma­rine, not a philoso­pher."

[ You could have fooled me. ] The fig­ure's spir­i­tu­al voice car­ried an un­der­tone of hu­mor, but Sobon thought it was the kind of 'pure' tonal ad­di­tion that meant it was pho­ny. [ What makes a leader un­wor­thy of rule? ]

"There's no an­swer to that. Or, no sin­gle an­swer." Sobon shook her head. "If an en­tire so­ci­ety wants to be led by a bru­tal dic­ta­tor, can an out­sider say that their leader is wrong to an­swer that call? If a so­ci­ety wants to be meek and pow­er­less, can an out­sider say the leader is wrong by let­ting them stag­nate? If a leader does some­thing that so­ci­ety doesn't want, suc­ceeds, and ar­gues that their ac­tions were nec­es­sary to suc­ceed, is the leader right? And even if they are, should so­ci­ety for­give them?"

"Mas­ters Cuil and Tare--they were fa­mous Crestan philoso­phers--talked a lot about the spir­i­tu­al health of a so­ci­ety. In the­o­ry, you mea­sure a good or a bad leader by whether they im­proved or harmed the spir­i­tu­al health of so­ci­ety. But a lot of peo­ple who came af­ter seemed to hold to that phi­los­o­phy while be­ing so..." Sobon shook her head. "I don't even know. What­ev­er they did, it wasn't right. But why? I could spend years study­ing my own peo­ple's his­to­ry and not be able to tell you."

[ So you do not be­lieve it is as sim­ple as suc­cess. ] The spir­it's tone was even, if some­what un­pleas­ant.

"It can't be. Suc­cess is a mea­sure of pow­er, and so­ci­ety grants every new gen­er­a­tion pow­er. How much varies by class, ed­u­ca­tion... and many oth­er things. You can't just say that some­one is wor­thy of lead­er­ship be­cause they were giv­en pow­er. They also have to have goals that align with..." Sobon paused, look­ing for words, then shook her head. "...with some­thing that So­ci­ety wants. I don't know. A greater good, maybe."

[ Is the dri­ve to cre­ate greater good enough to for­give sins? ]

Sobon paused, then stud­ied the spir­it again. Some­thing about the ques­tion seemed out of char­ac­ter for the Ri'lef, at least, giv­en what she had seen of them so far. "That's a means and ends ar­gu­ment. I was taught not to trust any­one who tries to ra­tio­nal­ize evil, but then I joined the mil­i­tary. We are..." She con­sid­ered her words very care­ful­ly. "We are the em­bod­i­ment of bring­ing about good by do­ing evil. Ob­vi­ous­ly, we be­lieve it is pos­si­ble to do so. We also take care not to do too much evil, not by our own will. But we are be­ing com­mand­ed from above, and we can't do much about those or­ders."

"In short," Sobon fin­ished, "It's com­pli­cat­ed, and I don't have an an­swer for you. Now..." Sobon stud­ied it. "Who... or what, are you ex­act­ly?"

The spir­it pro­ject­ed a sense of amuse­ment, and van­ished, leav­ing Sobon with no an­swers.