“Seriously Den? He tried to kill my daughter, one of us. Using a weapon that's barely allowed under the treaty and then only because you've promised to keep their numbers down. Glost shouldn't even know what a nuclear bomb is, much less be trying to build one. Something isn't right here. Glost knows too much and is pushing too many boundaries to ignore. When we get to White, I'm going to recommend calling a summit. This is too big for just us to handle. God.”
Then they argued about summits for another hour, finally, eyes drifting shut on their own, and, being woken by stern arguments again, Tor moved to the hindmost chair and activated his quiet field. They could bicker like hens if that made them happy, but Tor was getting some sleep. The magical light was already too bright, that plus talking was just too much. The chair was comfortable enough and laid flat when he pushed a lever and straightened his body, once his eyes finally closed he decided not to open them for several long hours.
Finally after four days of this Tor grew fed up and when the other two slept he rose above the waves by about a foot, using the low driving mode, and moved them along at about a hundred miles per hour. Going faster was an option, but it made a ripple in the water if he did. That could be seen from the air, he thought. They were at the thousand mile limit before Burks woke up and over Soam an two hours later. Tor hovered up high, not knowing where they were to go next.
If Burks had a problem with it, he could climb out and walk, Tor decided.
The constant fighting had worn him down and he was about to start hitting people. Since all the people on board could kick his behind, that wasn't a good thing to be feeling. Dangerous even. The only thing stopping him at the second was how much he cared about his own health. Once that level of frustration was breached, when he cared more about making it stop than his own safety, violence would ensue.
That would mean Tor needed to cheat, if he wanted to survive it. Oddly enough a plan formed. He couldn’t use it yet, but it should work…
True, they were nice and quiet while they rested, but Denno kept trying to get him to agree with him, even though Tor didn't know half enough to be involved in the decision making here. Burks had been careful not to agree with him on that when Tor finally said it out loud, but it was obviously what he'd been thinking too. Jerk. Assuming Tor was to uneducated to make a simple decision.
It was true, but still…
When they woke Tor created a hatch on either side and opened them, hovering about five thousand feet above the ground, which he lowered quickly so they could keep breathing easily. The area they were over had mountains, so they were actually way higher than it looked. It got their attention, which was the point.
“Without arguing, which way do we go?” Tor said reasonably, ready to tip them out if they didn't get along at least passably well.
“North-east, I think.” Burks didn't grin, but Tor could still tell he wanted to.
“Point.” Tor said, trying to not sound half as gruff as he felt.
Burks did, quickly, Denno looking on with slightly wide eyes for some reason.
OK, Tor was being a bit moody about it, but it wasn't like he really planned to do anything, say dump them both out to fall to their deaths, they'd just bugged him enough that he wanted to, that was all.
They found the city of stone easily enough, The only gray spot in a sea of green trees and foliage. The place was lovely, but much larger than he expected, at least ten times the size of the Capital in Noram. Tor slowly landed on a flat gray space that was both empty of people and reasonably close to where they were supposed to be. At least the others claimed that. Tor didn't care as long as there was a bath, or shower, even a bucket and a stiff brush, wherever they were. Even a container of clean sand would be good. The fact of the matter was, even though no one had mentioned it, they all stank badly from being closed in for so long without a way to clean up. They had a tiny restroom in the back, but no shower facilities. The carriages just didn’t. He hadn’t thought to build that in.
He’d have to fix that.
The city they were in was amazing though, Tor noticed even through the surly haze that covered his mind. It was all stone, every visible bit of it, natural rock had been cut somehow, into massive bricks the size of small houses, then placed together to form structures. If they used anything but rock to do it, Tor couldn't tell. There were people about, short and brown, with dark hair and bright red and blue skirts on. That's all anyone wore, a skirt, including the women.
As a group they had small breasts, the few well endowed women sagged dramatically even from a distance. They didn't seem to smile much, but when a strange craft lands in your front yard and weird looking smelly people climb out, that could put a person off their game. Tor and the Ancients just stood and waited by the craft, not trying to go anywhere or even sitting. Maybe it was rude to sit here? Tor wondered if he should put the vehicle away but Burks didn't say anything, so he left it, just in case they had to flee quickly for some reason.
Say a large group of people indicating they should leave?
No one looked hostile though, just curious. After half an hour a boy, one that looked about ten or so, ventured over with a basket of fruit and offered it around. It wasn't poisoned and seemed to be free, so Tor took a funny looking banana that was all red, large and very fat compared to the ones he’d seen before and ate it. It was wonderful. Anything edible not from a jar would have been of course. Austran food sucked, hard, and after day three in that little pot of a vehicle, everything had started tasting like sweat and body odor anyway. Gross.
Burks quickly thanked the boy, who spoke to him for a while, in a language that Tor didn't understand at all. He listened as closely as he could, hoping to catch on. The language was pretty, and a few of the words were really close to Noram standard, so that gave him something to start from, the word endings were different, but there seemed to be a regular pattern to it all. More than what he was used to even.
The boy left them, still just standing, and other people came by to look, openly staring, which with their four days of beard growth, strange colors and bizarre, meaning more than a short skirt, clothing had to look out of place. They kept just standing and waiting though, and finally sitting and waiting, as dark fell. Tor wanted to sleep but didn't know if it was safe. He and his grandfather had shields, but Denno didn't, and if something happened it would be hard to protect the man if Tor was off dreaming of hand pies.
“Don't worry Tor, it's safe here. Violence is unheard of, like in Afrak, except that here it was a purposeful choice that everyone agreed too and a change of culture over thousands of years.” Burks sounded slightly bitter.
Probably over Afrak, where peoples fields had all been changed using “genetics” to make violence nearly impossible. Not bigotry or sexist behavior, just the ability to fight back against it. The idea still bothered Tor too. Of course that his own grandmother had been the one to do it made the whole thing even worse. For him at least. The people there probably wouldn’t care who did it. Honestly, he wasn’t sure they could.
She wasn't exactly a pleasant person, not if you were a man at least. Identical to his mother and possibly his little sister Tiera. But harsher somehow. It was a situation that could end up going horribly wrong. If Tor became Burks, well that wouldn't be too bad over all. He was an alright person as far as that went. But if his mom became Lara? God, that would be bad. The short answer being that he didn't think the world could survive two of her.