“I won’t force you to do the same to me,” Megan said. “At least, I hope I never do.”
“Do you know why the caged nightingale won’t sing?” Paul asked.
“You said that before,” she said, looking up with unshed tears in her eyes.
“It is because it knows that it is supposed to fly free,” Paul said. “When you can’t sing anymore, I’ll know that it is time to release you… or know that you will never sing again.” He looked at her sadly for a moment then stood up. “I have to go.”
“Paul, you are not going anywhere,” Megan said. “You’re still not strong enough.”
“I have things I have to do, Megan,” Paul said. But when he stood he swayed on his feet.
“There,” Megan said, triumphantly.
“Blood flow, that’s all,” Paul said. “I stood up too fast.”
“I’ll wake everybody up again and we’ll start all over,” Megan warned. “Where do you have to be? What can’t you do from right here?”
“I need… I don’t have to be anywhere. But I need to recall my avatars and find out what they have been doing while I’ve been… busy.”
“You’ve got projections running and not monitoring them?” Megan asked.
“They’re sentient avatars,” Paul corrected. “For all practical purposes they are me. It was proscribed pre-Fall, but it’s the only way to keep track of what is going on. I need to recall them, soon. They’re not… fully stable. I need to recall them and then send out new ones.”
“Well, you can do that here,” Megan said. “Right?”
“I need to be undisturbed,” Paul pointed out.
“There’s an empty room right there,” Megan said, pointing at his chamber. “And I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed. And when you’re done, I’ll make sure that you’re fed and comforted and cosseted and…”
“Okay, okay.” Paul laughed, hushing himself as one of the other girls stirred and snaked a hand across the body next to her. “I’ll go in there.”
“And I’ll watch. Is there anything I should be aware of?”
“No, it’s a harmless procedure,” Paul said, walking to the room. “Mostly.”
Paul reclined on one of the pillows and closed his eyes, appearing to go back to sleep or into a trance. But almost immediately he began to twitch as if hit by some invisible force. And he muttered.
“Bloody hell…” Pause. “No, no, no how stupid can one vacuous bitch be? Released?” Pause. “Ekmantan.” Pause. “Ships? Dragon-carriers?” Pause. “Damn them.” “Talbot.” A hiss of anger.
It went on for what seemed like hours and he became drenched with sweat, the increasing anger boiling off of him like a vapor.
She rose after a while and left quietly. All of the other girls were still in sodden slumber so she picked through the detritus of the orgy until she found the remains of the carafe of wine and a jug of water. She carried both in and resumed her vigil.
Paul finally settled down, stopped twitching, mostly, and appeared to dream. He muttered from time to time unintelligibly. She listened as closely as she could but there was nothing that was understandable. Finally, he opened his eyes, looking wan and pale.
“Harmless, huh?” she asked, sitting him up and propping pillows behind him. She held a glass of wine to his lips and then followed it with water.
“This one was harder than normal,” he admitted. “I’d been away too long.”
“And you do this regularly?” she asked.
“Usually every day,” Paul admitted. “It’s how I keep track.”
“What are dragon-carriers?” she asked.
He looked at her sharply, then shrugged.
“The UFS has rigged out one of the warships to land and launch wyverns and greater dragons,” Paul said. “I’d heard about it, but didn’t really expect it to work. Well, it did. They destroyed the force that we sent down to the Isles to disrupt their negotiations with the mer. Now Chansa wants to build some of his own, so he can protect the invasion fleet.”
“What do you think?” Megan asked.
“I think we’re playing to their game and that’s what I told Chansa,” Paul replied. “We’re just about evenly matched for power at this point, so we can’t use that against them. But just making our own carriers isn’t going to win us control of the sea. We need something to deal with the dragons. I told him to consult with Celine about modifying our dragons and get a group together to consider how to counter theirs.”
“Do you think it will work?” Megan asked, handing him the water.
“We have to take Norau,” Paul shrugged. “There are five power plants in Norau. We’ve tried everything from sedition to infiltrating attack teams, but most of them are well away from the coast and we can’t use teleport. If we take the plants, or capture that bitch Sheida Ghorbani, the war will be over. But taking it will be… difficult. They’ve armed every peasant in the field and they make them train with the arms. There are areas that haven’t done that, though, because Sheida’s too stupid to make them. We’re going to concentrate our attack on those areas. But we have to get there first, which means controlling the ocean. And we can’t do that if one carrier can destroy six of our ships, five of them without ever coming in sight of the ships. And the carrier had less than a full complement of dragons.”
“What are dragons afraid of?” Megan said. She’d wished for a month now that she had some way to get word to the other side. This was operational intelligence, stuff that could be acted on. Especially if she found out the counter plans. She had to figure some way to smuggle out information. There had to be a way.
“Nothing that I’m aware of,” he said, getting a far away look as he accessed the Net. “Their wings are monomolecule fibers, so no hurting them there. Their underbellies aren’t, though. I’d say that a well-placed ballista bolt would take one down.”
“Lots of dragons?” Megan prompted.
“Lots of bolts,” Paul smiled in response. “Chansa’s problem, I’ll let him come up with the solution.”
“Who is Talbot?” Megan asked. “You’ve mentioned him before.”
“Duke the Honorable Charles or Edmund, take your pick, fucking Talbot,” Paul said with a frown. “He was one of Sheida’s little fuck boys before she became a council member. He apparently threw her over for her sister. He’s now the commander of the eastern defenses in Norau and he was on the mission to the mer-folk. Apparently he put some spine in those Changed abominations, because they killed everything that Chansa sent at them. Chansa is simply furious. He not only lost the orcas and a kraken but a reasonably competent field agent and a very good source. All thanks to Duke Fucking Talbot.”
Megan decided that she much wanted to meet “Duke Fucking Talbot” someday and give him a very friendly kiss.
“And the rest?”
“We’ve settled the negotiations with the replacement for Minjie’s replacement,” Paul said with a grin. “You had a perfect plan there, my dear. I let Celine handle all the arrangements. I understand they almost have the blood off the walls. She sent a very small and somewhat intelligent spider into his quarters. When he was in flagrante delicto, it bit him and paralyzed him. Then its momma came in and finished off the job.”
“What happened to the girl?” Megan said, horrified.
“Boy as it turns out,” Paul replied. “Nothing, the spiders had very specific instructions. I made that clear to Celine. Much more horrible that way.”
“Paul,” Megan said, glancing around. “I can’t guarantee I’d notice a spider.”
“I would, my dear,” Paul smiled. “I don’t keep up a PPF when I’m with you ladies, but nothing can come in or out.”