The Labors Of Jasper, Episode 18 free porn video

20Jas0018, The Labors of Jasper Episode 18; 6817 words The next morning three adult red caps stood at attention on the dock, Bad Tom, Badoesa, and Runs Funny. Badoesa had her twins with her and one other child. Jas yawned and finished drying her hair. She hitched up her panties, which were falling down. The tribe had passed these panties around. Everyone tried them on. They were stretched out. The panties would heal - in a week, or so, if Jas took care of them. Jas might take longer to heal. A day and two nights of fucking. When the tribe had finished with her, the demons had at her and so did the ship. She could barely walk. "Princess!" she yelled. "Breakfast! Chop-chop!" "Come in. Eat." Jas said. "All I can offer is shipfruit and fish." She greeted each of the twins. "You're alive!" She kissed each baby on the forehead. They turned away, fussy. Badoesa handed one of them to her. "You feed." Jas let the baby suckle. "Sorry, Avigu," she said, "I don't have much. The fucky sucky girl, though. She has plenty." She stroked the baby's face. "I saw them die, Badoesa." Badoesa spoke in her language instead of English. She said, "I saw it, too. He didn't kill my babies. Even Good Tom knows better than that. He killed two human babies." Jas growled. In this body, it sounded fierce. And dangerous. The baby reached for Badoesa. Jas handed the baby back to Badoesa. "Where's the rest of the tribe?" Bad Tom said, "They go home." Princess appeared outside. Jas could barely walk, even with two healing spells. Princess looked and probably felt worse. Princess looked down when she saw the red caps. She heaved for a moment, then calmed. "Get them food," Jas said. "No talking. I don't want to hear your backtalk in front of guests." Princess nodded. She rushed back inside. "We go with you," Bad Tom said, finishing his shipfruit. "Anwoiding says." "I'm turning your brother in for her bounty." "Is okay." "On another world." "Is okay." "There is war. We could die." Bad Tom checked around. Nods. He shrugged. "Is okay." "It's a bad war. Hive war." They conferred again. "Hive is bad. We fight Hive. Protect adopted sister. Protect Princess." He leered. "She obviously cannot fight one woman unaided. How can she fight Hive?" "At least send your children home." Everyone looked at Badoesa. "No. Anwoiding says. Look. I fight. I fish. I fuck. I teach ... Princess," she sneered, "how to girl. You," she pointed to Jas, "are terrible camp girl. You fucky sucky good, but you are terrible with children. Worser with cooking. Look at this shit breakfast. I teach Princess to girl. Starting with babies. Here. You feed. Change diapers." She handed the twins and pushed the toddler to Princess. "Now? You keep teeth?" She raised her fist. Princess cringed. She looked at Jas. Jas said, "Obey her like you obey me. Badoesa, are you going to tell her to murder me in my sleep?" Badoesa laughed. "Might tell her to fuck you. Anwoiding says protect you. Not kill." Princess pulled down her bra top and started feeding children. "Why is she wearing boob top?" Badoesa asked. "It amuses me. That was her hat." Badoesa inspected it. She grinned. "Fine joke. Nice skirt, milk girl. Here. You're doing it wrong. This way." Badoesa moved the baby. "Latch. You get very sore. They bite. I show you how to make milk tea. Come. Don't put babies down. Feed while working." A short while later, Princess offered tea to Jas. There were tears in her eyes. Jas took the tea. "It hurts, doesn't it? I feel for you, but not overmuch. At least you have milk to give. I was dry." "Drink up," Badoesa said. She also had tea. "I teach you to girl, too. One day soon you have baby." "Huh?" "Three babies, three women. We all feed. I like your kitchen." Jas drank her tea. Jas sent the ship back home to April City. A kabouterman emerged from the wall in the shower. For a moment, Jas thought Master Hoose had appeared. Apparently not. The kabouterman was silent, nodding when he could, giving terse answers when he had to speak. Yes, he spoke Spanish and Portuguese. No, he didn't know the whereabouts of Master Hoose. No, it would be no trouble to pilot the ship down the river, across the ocean, and up the rivers again. Yes, he'd always been in the shower, when he wasn't at the bow of the ship. No, he didn't need money or fuel. Or papers. Would he carry cargo? Did mistress want him to? Now the ship had a 'man' to pilot it. It wouldn't attract trouble in the same way that a drone ship might. Jas chartered a van to carry them and their supplies. Then she sent the chevaline to find Anwoiding. They rode to Quito. "You have my bow!" Jas exclaimed. "My bow," Badoesa said. "I even brought your useless arrows." "Do you know how to use it?" "It's a woman's bow. A child could use it." Jas cocked the bow. She nocked a dragon-killer arrow and split a pine tree with it. "Women's bow," she said. She retrieved the arrow and handed bow and arrow to Badoesa. Badoesa smiled. "Not know how to use this bow. You can teach." Princess stared at the tree. "Yes, Princess," Jas said. "That's the bow I aimed at you. Be happy I have a soft heart." The demons followed, invisible but not always silent. Badoesa kept looking around, as if she knew something was there, but maybe it was just imps, pinching her. Getting weapons into a freight box bound for Massover was tedious, even with Yara's diplomatic visa. But it got done. They rode in a semi- private car up the space elevator. Expensive. It almost emptied out Amoy Panis's credit spike. It took five days to get to GEO station, another two days to the fling station and a eighteen hours of riding in a cramped shuttle to reach Massover. The scar, called la Cicatriz, was visible proof that beanstalks could fall, that they all could die on this journey. The red caps were surprisingly polite in foreign lands. They participated with lifeboat drills and airball drills, fire drills, and decompression drills. They wore the clothes that Jas bought them. As soon as she showed them the shower, they took showers with soap every day. They seemed delighted that the hot or cold water came on instantly, even if it timed out soon. The dentist? Got some resistance. Princess went first. After she reported no tooth pain, the others followed. The dental assistant pulled Jas aside. "Government project?" she asked. "Why do you ask?" "I've never seen teeth like that." "I shouldn't talk about it." The assistant nodded. "But please be careful. If it might hurt, warn them first." The demons apparently were real. Inspectors on the space elevators and the shuttle hunted for stowaways. There was excess mass to account for, oxygen use, and carbon dioxide produced. Teaching red caps to wear an environmental suit was easy. Getting them to seal the helmet? Impossible. Jas rented an air buggy. They hauled all their equipment, three babies, five adults and three demons out to the Apollo 13 landing site. "Now we see if this was a wasted trip." Jas assembled a pylon. She charged it with the mana battery she'd designed and built. Unneeded. The red pylon found source mana immediately. The pylon flashed green then yellow. Jas moved the buggy around, and found the thin spot on a hill overlooking the landing site. All green. She opened a small rip and closed it. A puff of air appeared and rapidly dissipated. If she opened a large rip, a large blast of air would come in. This air buggy wasn't aerodynamic, and it had an underpowered power tractor motor. It might not make it into the rip, much less through it. *Thinking with your tits again?* Icky asked. *Open a one-way rip. Idiot.* Jas checked to see if anyone else had heard that. No. "Okay," she said aloud. "Yeah. Hmmn. Here." This was the code for that. Jas opened a large one-way rip. It held. Some air leaked in, but not much. They drove through it with ease. It was a park, with a plaque. Jas read the plaque. In the year 13307, primitive humans from Earth 33 made contact with us but ignored repeated attempts at communication. We closed the rip permanently. Bad Tom said, "This is Tsurgi." "Yes." "Not wanting to kill Hive here. Okay if we leave some?" "Kill any Hive you meet. They all will eat us." They had to equalize pressure across the buggy's door to open it. "Higher pressure than Massover," Jas said. Her ears popped. She showed the red caps how to equalize pressure in their sinuses and ears. Again. Icky looked up at the dome. She oriented on the shadows. *Settlement is that way. South. Take a shuttle to Three Rivers on the western continents. We're going east. Farm community.* The demons watched as others unloaded the buggy. Jas opened another rip. She sent the buggy through it, with a blast of air. She handed pylons to Icky. *Please tell me you won't activate these until we leave.* *After we all leave. I don't wish to get caught in the quarantine. I can't fly to Earth, you know.* Actually, Jas hadn't known that. Demon magic seemed more advanced than the magic she'd seen otherwise. Of course, she only knew what they'd taught her of demon magic. Like invisibility. Could she trust any of that knowledge? Jas fobbed through credit spikes and fairy gold. Here was a promissory note, supposed to be good in Red lands. They found a bank, went inside, scanned Princess, and received a small device that looked like a PAS or one of those pagers they use in restaurants. They bought tickets to Three Rivers and took the first balloon out. Now it was Jas's turn to goggle at the sights. An ionic balloon. It covered the distance in a few days. They transferred to a gas-filled balloon in low Earth orbit, and yet another balloon at an aerostat just where the sky started to turn from black to blue. Confusingly, they were all called airships - ships with air inside them for living things to breathe. The Great Lakes looked different on this Earth. Smaller. Somewhat different shapes. Lake Erie was missing entirely. During their ride on the second balloon, news reached them that the Hive invasion had spread to Luna. Nearside Station was feared to be a total loss. They landed in Three Rivers, near where St. Louis would be on Earth Prime. Even the rivers were different here. The Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri all came together in nearly the same place. The demons became visible in Three Rivers, and remained visible, never attempting to hide. Badoesa asked, "Friends?" She spoke in Tsurgi. "They can be friendly." Jas also spoke in Tsurgi. "Ya. Too friendly. Fingers in bad places." Jas nodded. The public library was pay-to-use. Jas paid for all of them to enter. She found news of the Red Chancellor easily, but not an address. It took an hour of expensive searching to find Melissa. Red Chancellor. The bounty on Yara showed up immediately. The console buzzed. A face appeared, androgynous. "Name?" "Reflet." Jas pronounced it Re-flay, although in the game it was Ref- let. "Occupation?" "Bounty hunter. Is this in response to my query?" "Do you have the escapee?" "Yes." "A car will appear." "I would like to negotiate." "Wait outside. A car will appear." A car did appear. It would carry two people. "Sorry," Jas said. "We all go or none goes. This escapee is tricksy." The car disappeared. A van appeared, a cargo van with no seats. They got in. Princess hesitated at the door. "Do I have to knock you out?" Jas asked. Squelch touched Princess. She collapsed. He looked at Jas. "That's two you owe me." He dragged Princess in to the van. The van had no windows. They traveled for hours. Eventually they were lifted by an airship. Or so it seemed. There was a general lofting sensation. Rocking, buffeting. Jas's ears popped several times. Princess woke up and was visibly shaking. They stripped her of her clothes. "Won't be needing these," Bad Tom remarked. His Tsurgi was more fluent than his English. They touched down roughly. The door opened. Armed soldiers pointed weapons at them. "Please leave your weapons in the van," one of the soldiers said in Tsurgi. He repeated the command in English. Jas weighed the odds for a moment. Then she unhitched her harness and laid the sword in the van. She pulled bow and arrows from the hand trolley and stacked them against the wall. She picked up a pack filled with pylon parts. "Is it okay to bring comms gear?" she asked in Tsurgi. "Let me check it." He inspected each item in the bag. "How does this work?" "Snap it together like this. See red light, yellow. If it flashes green, I have good comms. Yellow is marginal. This runs off your grid." "It's a pirate device." "I'm a bounty hunter. I don't usually pirate off the grid. I pay as I go. But, you know, some places don't have an abundance of mana. Earth 33, for instance." She disassembled the unit. The soldier checked with another. She checked her device. "She speaks truth." "Pass," The soldier waved Jas through. Jas turned around. "I'm in. I can't tell any of you to go or to stay. Don't know what's happening at this point. Can these guys stay in the van with our gear?" The soldiers consulted. "They can stay." Squick and Ick elected to come with Jas, as did Bad Tom. Badoesa handed the babies to Runs Funny. "Smash the babies if bad things happen. Don't let them grow up here." She joined the party. Squelch remained behind with a rucksack full of pylon parts. Soldiers accompanied them to the main house. Princess remained stoic and quiet. Being ordered not to speak had something to do with it. "We'll come get you, fucky sucky girl," Badoesa said in Tsurgi, "when your term of service is up. Sooner, if I can parole you." She touched Princess on the cheek. Princess cried. Then, wiping away tears, she cried some more. The Red Chancellor greeted them. "Ah. Precious cargo." He spoke in English. "Did you enjoy your stay on Earth Prime?" He laughed. Princess stood silently. "I'm sorry, sir," Jas said. "I ordered her not to speak. Do you want me to release her voice? She's dangerous. Spells, influence. Violent, too." "Even with the demon glyphs?" the Chancellor asked. "Yes." "Release her voice." Jas said, "You may speak, Princess." "It's a trick," Princess said. "I'm not ... who they say I am." "Who are you?" the chancellor asked. "I am ... Yara. I answer to Princess when they ask." The chancellor glanced at his assistant. "She speaks truth as she knows it." The chancellor spoke to Jas. "Who is this?" "Princess Yara Kusanac of the Green. She has at least three demon residents, a resident named Slave, and one formerly freed hob named Tom Good. Um. Good Tom." "She speaks truly." The Chancellor considered. "The glyphs are the Queen's. Test her blood." The assistant touched Princess with a wand. He read the display. "Royal. 98 percent match. 99. A hundred. Yara Kusunac. Looks like she tried to morph." Princess spoke. "I am not ... royal. This is a trick." "Truth as she knows it." "Yes, I heard. Your mother banished you. Test her ID again. Three places." The assistant touched the wand to the inside of Princess's cheek. He touched her pussy lips with it. Then he checked her nipple. Milk dribbled down. "Blue marks." The chancellor sneered. "No wonder you can barely speak." He smiled. "She is in estrus?" Jas said, "I believe so. She's probably not pregnant. I've had her on birth control for a while now." "What kind of birth control?" "Valentine." "I'm not familiar." The chancellor checked with his assistant, who shrugged. "It's an off-world product. It's been effective, up to now." "Really. She's not virginal?" "Hardly." Jas smiled briefly. "How did you catch this woman?" "She came to me asking for things I did not wish to give." "Some truth. Some fiction." "Trade secrets, Lord Chancellor. I can say that it nearly went bad for me." "Truth." "Who is this person to you?" The chancellor presented Melissa. "The object of my quest. I am tasked with rescuing her. Or buying her." "Another bounty? For a human woman?" "I accepted weapons and help. How much would it cost to buy her with my share of the bounty?" "Your share." "There are five adults here and two in the van. We all took risks to get here." "Some truth. Some fiction." "Right," Jas said. "Five of us, the princess, all of you folks. We have babies in the van, too." "Babies." "I advised against bringing them." "Truth." "See the purser in the front office. Take your woman, bounty hunter. Yara, come with me." The Red Chancellor left with Princess. Melissa fell in line with the 'bounty hunters' as they left. "Can you unlock her?" Jas asked one of the guards. "She has a habit of biting." "I think I can handle one human woman. Melissa, we're taking you home. Stevie, Sheena, Jasper. Girls College." Melissa asked, "Who is Reflet?" She pronounced it ref-let. "Reflet," Jas said, pronouncing it re-flay. "Spelled like ref-let. That's the name I go by when I'm adventuring." Melissa started shaking uncontrollably. "Shit. Missy? Hold it together for twenty more minutes." The soldier unlocked Melissa's restraints. Princess yelled, "Wait!" she ran up to them in the inner court yard. "Take me with you!" She fell on her knees by Jas. Jas patted her on the head. "Were you bad again?" she asked. "Yes!" "You escaped?" Princess nodded. She wiped tears from her eyes. Badoesa backhanded Princess, knocking her down. She grabbed Princess by her collar and dragged the girl back to the house. Jas felt a stab of remorse. She'd programmed Princess to make attempts to escape. She wondered how many bodies Yara-Good Tome had left in her wake. Badoesa came back a few minutes later. She was smiling. The purser paid them in gold. It was more than they could carry. "Can I get a promissory note?" Jas asked. "If you were a citizen, you could." "Non-citizens are paid in gold." "Yes." "Can we hire a truck?" "Call one." "Oh, you're so helpful." The purser bowed curtly. "Can I buy a hand truck? A cart? Something to carry this with?" "A hand truck is complimentary." "Thanks." They wheeled the box of gold out to the van. Soldiers were still stationed all around the van. Jas looked at the sky. "How do we get out of here?" "Call a tow," one of the soldiers said. "Walk." "Can you call one for me?" "No." "Can I buy water? I have gold." The soldier shook his head. "You guys have a shit job." He smiled. "Look. You guys flew us here in a windowless box. I don't know where we are, except that we are several hours from Three Rivers." One of the soldiers volunteered information. "You're at the estate." "Thank you. Where is the estate?" "Here." "In relation to Three Rivers?" "Oh. Two or three hours by transport." "East? West? North?" The soldier shrugged. "They transport us in the same box you rode in." "Where's the nearest town?" The soldier nodded to a wagon track through the dust and mud. Sagebrush. Trees in the distance. Mountains. "How far?" Jas asked. The soldier shrugged. "I've never seen anyone come this way." "Not one person?" He shook his head. "How did you guys get here?" "I was born here." "You lived here all your life?" The soldier nodded. "I went to basic training. They had palm trees. And a beach." Jas thought for a moment. "Where do you guys go for entertainment?" "The bordello. This girlie has been good to me." He grinned at Melissa and waved. "Right. Okay. Um. Missy. Here's some clothes." "These are too small," Missy draped a blouse over her boobs. She tried stepping into the skirt. It wouldn't fit. "These were the princess's clothes?" Melissa asked. "Yes." "You traded her for me. You made her undress in the van." "Yes." "That's despicable." "Can't disagree. But she tried to kill me. A few times." "I would, too." "Yeah, well. You weren't there. Look. Do you want to go back?" Melissa shook her head. "Do you want to stay here?" "No." "Come with us. Live free or die." Jas looked out into the scrub. "Dying is a real possibility. Hey soldier boy. Mind if I loft a drone?" "A what?" "A drone. It flies. Camera. So I can look for water." "This is a no-fly zone." "How far do I need to go?" "Go where you like." "To fly the drone. How far do I need to go?" "Those mountains." "You're fucking kidding me. You guys get one star on QQ." He looked skeptical. "It's a bulletin board for bounty hunters." "Don't go east. There's a Hive invasion." "Thanks. First useful information I've had." "The Hive landed in Three Rivers, just before you got here." Jas took a few kilos of gold. "Here." She handed out gold. "Girl, boy, girl..." She paused in front of Icky. "Whatever you are. Girl." Melissa asked, "Why am I getting gold?" "I dunno. Do you want some?" "Where do I carry it?" Jas wrapped it in a blouse they'd bought for Princess. "Instant purse. All you need is a hobo stick." After a moment of thought, Jas tied a knot in the skirt Princess had worn on Earth Prime. She put it on Melissa's head. "That had means you are a freed slave. Blood of your enemies." The red caps responded, "Blood of your enemies." So did the soldiers. Jas said to the others, "Take as much gold as you like." Each of the red caps took some gold. So did the demons. The demons were nearly naked. Jas wondered where the put gold. Jas tried handing gold to the soldiers. "Can't accept a bribe, sir," the soldier said. "It's not a bribe. Spend it in the brothels." He shook his head. "Right. Good for you. I'm leaving it here. Here's an idea. Can you call the purser? Ask him if we can leave the rest of this in trust for the princess." The soldier looked puzzled. "It's her bounty," Jas explained. "She'll get out of here someday. Thirty years, three hundred. Give it to her then." The soldier smiled. "Trying to keep the royal from hunting you?" "It seems wise to be generous." The soldier laughed. He relayed a message to the house, listened to the reply. "The purser says he can do that." "Beautiful. Let's walk." Jas hitched up her sword. She carried her bow, and a quiver of arrows. They wheeled the cart behind them, and also two hand trucks. Jas carried pylon parts in a rucksack, and drones on one of the hand trucks. "Watch the overhead," Jas said. "Flyer," Bad Tom said in Tsurgi. He pointed with his nose. It looked like a Hive wasp, but it flew like a wisp - one of those fireballs she'd seen in the northeast. "They're watching us," Jas guessed. He also spoke in Tsurgi. "To see if I loft a drone. Or to listen to our conversations. Don't leave anything behind that will get us killed." She looked at Icky as he said this. They found cottonwood trees in a dry wash. Dead, or dormant. Difficult to tell in the winter. Jas chopped branches. She made a travois. She also passed out poles for carrying gear. "We need water," Melissa said in Tsurgi. "I need shoes." She pointed to the paper sandals on her feet. "Yeah." "Upstream or down?" Melissa asked. Jas snapped three pylons together. He assembled a red pylon, a green one, and one he called Improved Gray. Red, flickering to yellow. Didn't seem to be any particular direction they favored. "Follow the road?" Jas asked. "There's a hill." It took two hours to get to the top of the hill. The warm day turned chilly. There was a town in the distance. Jas didn't see any activity. Trees, but they all looked dead. A line of dead or dormant cottonwoods on the other side of the town. "Might be water there," Jas said. "Those are dead trees, Reflet," Melissa said. "Can I use your real name?" "No. You know who I am now?" "Yah. They girled you?" "Yah." "Life sucks." "They girled Steve, too." "Who was the princess?" "Short answer? A princess. The princess. Long answer? Ask me later." "Go, you. There's no flyer overhead. Answer the question." "Not on this world." Jas snapped pylons together. Red, red, red. Jas asked his specs. *Recognize the waterway?* *Mapping in progress. No matches.* *How far are the mountains?* *50 km, +/- 10 km.* "Town," Jas said. "Shelter. If we're lucky there's water. Food if we can kill it." "I saw a -" Badoesa named an animal that Jas didn't know. "Is it good eating?" "No. But it means there is water." "Good news. Town?" Jas raised his hand. "Town." Melissa raised her hand. The red caps shrugged. The demons looked disinterested. They dug for water in the dry riverbed. They found damp soil but no water. They checked the houses. In one house they found two skulls and scattered bones. Humanoid, but not human. They found a box exactly like the box of gold the purser had issued them. Jas opened the box. It was full of gold. The bones had been picked clean and were old enough that they had nearly no odor. Tatters of clothing. A folding knife. A bowie knife and a crossbow with no string and no crossbow bolts. "No bandits here," Jas said. "That's the good news. Bad news is, not much water here or food." "I can boil up bones," Badoesa said. "Do you have water?" "There are plants. There is water. Feed the babies." Badoesa left with Runs Funny. They found shoes for Melissa, donated by one of the dead men. Blankets upstairs with termite damage. Jas salvaged what she could. She found a brown glass bottle of something that smelled like vodka. They raided other houses. They found drapes, a shovel, a bucket of coal and a snake, which Melissa killed with a shovel. "Dinner," she said. "Pass me the knife." Jas found a compass with some child's toys in another house. He found a map in what used to be a general store. The shelves were rotten with termites and most of the items were ruined by time. Jas found a nearly intact box of powdered soap. There were plastic bottles of chemicals that Jas didn't have translations for. The plastic looked fragile. Jas left them be. He found a map on the wall behind the cash box. It was old and crumbly. He took a picture of it with his specs. His secretary studied the map. *Black Hills, Lakotan Federal Territory,* she declared. *Possible location, Rapid City. The mountains have three cryptid hotspots on your list.* *Any water?* *Unknown. I see trees. There should be water.* Jas found coins in the cash box. Silver, gold, alloy, plastic. He threw them in with the heavy gold coins. Badoesa came back hauling a clay pot full of water. She also had a rabbit and the skin from a coyote and a collection of roots and edible greens. Badoesa praised Melissa for killing the snake and finding shoes. "See?" she said. "Even this one is a better camp girl than you, fucky sucky girl." Melissa looked from Badoesa to Jas. Jas explained. "She's trying to teach me skills." Melissa snickered. "I can tan that hide," Jas said. "If we had acorns." "Pee on it," Badoesa said. "Rub it with ashes." "Really? It's that simple?" "Rub it with brains, but I did that. Acorns good, too." They slept in a dogpile that night under drapes and termite-eaten blankets. It got cold. Bad Tom wouldn't let them light another fire. Hive monsters, he explained. It was bad enough they'd stopped in a town on a road. They huddled together for warmth that night. For the first time in recent memory, Jas didn't spend the night fucking demons or red caps. She dreamed of tentacle monsters, until they woke her for her turn on watch. It snowed on Jas's watch. Badoesa noticed the snow when she got up to pee. She woke everyone. "Collect snow," she said. "Snow is water," she explained to Jas. "I know snow is water," Jas said. "Then why you did not wake us?" "Um." "Uh-huh." They collected snow and filled every container they could find in town. Then the sun came up and the snow melted. Three liters of snow melt. Five liters in the clay jug. They headed out, following the road west. They came to a house and raided it. Dynamite. Bad Tom shook his head. "Not safe." He found a jar of strike-anywhere matches and put it in a rucksack. He found a digging bar. He hefted it then tossed it aside. Jas took the curtains and a tablecloth. "Blanket," he explained. "Poncho." He draped one over Missy's shoulders and tried to give one to Badoesa. "Give to Runs Funny. He gets cold." They followed the road to the next dry wash and then followed the dry wash, because Bad Tom was getting antsy about following the road. Badoesa dug in the dry wash and found water. She filled the clay pot. It took hours to fill. They killed another coyote. This time they ate the meat. It was tough. It tasted like the animal had been living on rotted carcasses. Badoesa and Jas fed the babies. Badoesa's milk dried up. This caused her much distress. She cried, rocking into Runs Funny's chest. "You need water," Runs Funny said. "We have no water." "I will find." "No, you stay. No hunting alone." Runs Funny left, looking for water. They found him the next day, injured. At his feet lay a dead cougar. They loaded him up on the travois and dragged him. He died before noon. Badoesa cried silently as she prepared the body. She took Runs Funny's knife and handed her own knife to Melissa. She gave Runs Funny's spear to Bad Tom. Bad Tom passed his own spear down to Jas. Jas touched the hilt of her sword. She nodded to Melissa. Bad Tom passed his spear to Melissa. It surprised her that she could even touch it. She gripped it with fierce determination. They left Runs Funny lying on a rock in the sun, his gold scattered around him. Badoesa put a prairie turnip in Runs Funny's mouth. She splashed liquor on the ground beside him. She said, "He was a good uncle." She took his hat and turned her back on him. "We go now." Melissa walked stiffly. It was plain to everyone that her feet hurt. It was equally plain that her glyphs pulsed with every bloody footstep. Jas called a halt. She assembled pylons. Yellow, flashing to red. She disassembled the pylons and studied the sky. Jas lofted a drone. She checked the riverbed ahead of them. "Some green plants. Coyotes or maybe wolves. Antelope. A camel?" "Behind us," Bad Tom said. "A mountain lion. Birds." There was a cloud of them by Runs Funny and the cougar. Jas flew the drone straight up. "Big fight by the estate. Airships, air support, explosions. Looks like they are evacuating." Bad Tom said, "Hive." Jas looked ahead. "There's water up there. I see a stream. Icky took Jas's glasses and operated the drone for a few seconds. "We need to move," she said. "Boys." The imps carried Melissa. They cradled her between them. Icky said, "They're gassing the Hive, already gassing that shitty little town we stayed in. If the wind shifts, it will kills us. High ground, now." Bad Tom nodded. He nodded west. "Ridge trail. We'll be skylighted, visible for leagues." Icky said, "Can't be helped." They started across the dry wash. Jas recalled her drone. Then her specs went dark and the drone fell out of the sky. They saw a series of flashes on the canyon walls. "Down!" Jas fell to the ground. "Orbital weapons." "Nukes," Icky said. "Or antimatter bombs." The shockwaves rolled over the top of the canyon. Rocks sprayed all around them. Dust clogged the air. Jas was the first to stand. She inspected her specs, opaque and inert. She tossed them aside. She opened her rucksack. She inspected her PAS. Bricked. She tossed it. Flashlight. Dead. Toss. Butane. She kept it. She might need to refill her boots. Melissa asked, "What are you doing?" She spoke in Tsurgi. Jas replied in English. "EMP. All my Earth electronics are torched." She inspected the other drone. Inert. She tossed it. "Less to carry, I suppose." Her clothes still worked. Biomechanical. Her brain mods worked. Seismic. No range, but at least she still had her library of spells and her secretary. The pylons! Jas assembled a pylon. It worked. Maybe? Yellow, green, red. Yellow, green, red. She disassembled it. "Let's go. Ridgeline?" Jas checked with Icky. Icky nodded. The imps carried Melissa again. They carried her without complaint. They didn't even molest her. Much. When they did, she didn't complain. She apparently had experience with imps. She'd had time to adapt. The view from the ridgeline was impressive. Five explosions had turned into one large mushroom cloud. The wind blew to the southwest, which meant they were relatively safe from fallout. Unless the wind shifted. Most of the structures in the town had blown apart. What remained standing was burning. Some of the trees, also. Jas asked, "Do you think they got them all?" Icky said, "Hells, no. They didn't even kill all the people. Some poor catamite is stumbling around with severe burns and radiation poisoning." They found water. As Jas drank her fill, she wondered about fallout. And giardia. Mana was sensitive to radiation. One of the things that caused stored mana to deplete over time was radiation. Could she set up a detector? There was a spell for that in her library. Huh. How common was nuclear war among the fey? She triggered the spell and immediately heard ticks and an occasional burst of static. It sounded like a cheap special effect. She muted the Audio2 and looked at the display on Viz1. Symbols she wasn't familiar with appeared, along with numbers on a log scale. Useless. She had no reference. Was this normal for her environment or elevated to dangerous levels due to fallout? She started a plot over time. That might be helpful. It would show trends. On impulse, she snapped a set of pylons together. Two of them displayed what Jas suspected was a glitch in her program. Green, yellow, red, green, yellow, red. The third one flickered from red to yellow. She disassembled the others and put this one at the top of her rucksack, turning it off to conserve power. Bad Tom pointed east. Just south of the mushroom cloud, which was now breaking up, there was another battle raging. Orbital weapons struck like lightning. Aircraft and airships assaulted something on the ground. It looked like a large battle. An airship fell to the ground as Jas watched. "How far away is that?" Jas asked. Her secretary answered, *Distance to horizon is 19 km.* "Too close." Jas pulled out the pylon and reconfigured it as an Improved Gray pylon. Same display. Red, flickering to yellow. Interference patterns. She walked with the pylon. It changed to solid red, then to red flickering with yellow. She smiled. Missy asked, "What are you smiling about?" "Interference patterns in eleven dimensions. It's rare to find a spot on this world that has a low-energy translation to Earth Prime. But." She changed coordinates, one at a time. Most of them were red and stayed red. She cycled quickly, adjusting the coordinate field further and further from Earth Prime. She saw a flash of green. She cycled back and all around the place that had flashed green. The sites remained red, occasionally flickering to yellow. A random glitch? Time was three of the axes in an eleven dimensional field. Huh. She moved on. Then she found a yellow that stayed yellow. She hunted all around it. No green, but there was a solid yellow. "Here," she said. Melissa asked, "Where is here?" "I'll figure it out later." Jas pulled a box out from the sling of blankets and drapes in the travois. Her mana battery. It was fried. "Fuck!" Squick touched her hip. "Not you. This fucking battery. That's our power supply to go home. It allows me to open a rip when conditions are merely marginal." "Do you have another battery?" Squick asked. "No." She grumbled and dumped it among the rocks and weeds on this ridgeline. She sat on it. After a moment she picked up her pylon and started adjusting coordinates again. She found green. It stayed green. "All right, we have power for this jump. We can do this. As long as it doesn't fade." She watched it for a while. It didn't seem to be intermittent. Not in the short term. "You guys want a ticket out of here?" Icky said, "You could be jumping into a bug world." "I hope not. I know if we stay, the battle over there will meet us here. Or they'll drop nukes on us. Or chemical weapons." Jas opened a rip. There were green plants on the other side. It looked like forest. High canopy evergreens. Park land? She stepped through, looking around. "It doesn't look like a bug world." Icky stepped through. "Do you know what a bug world looks like?" "It tries to eat me." It was green and warm here, but still wintery. It smelled like forests in the Kells. Icky nodded and pursed her lips. "Guys. These pylons have a limited store of mana." Everyone else stepped through. Icky pulled the pylon through to this side. Badoesa grinned. She went from plant to plant. She pulled leaves and shoots. She dug up roots. She tapped the bark of one of the trees and used her knife to dig out grubs. She spoke in her own language. "Food. I like this place." Jas remembered the other world she'd visited. "Watch for predators. I ran into saber-tooth cats in the last world I visited at random. Dire wolves. Giant bears." She closed the rip. She found her bow and cocked it. Picked through her arrows, counting them. Icky said, "This is where we say adios." She dumped her rucksack of pylon parts and started assembling pylons. She discarded the ones that were inert, or that gave odd displays. She dumped Jas's rucksack full of pylon parts and did the same with those. Seven working pylons, besides the one that was already forty-percent mana. Icky took four of them. She also took the depleted pylon. "Don't stay here long. The Tsurgi will send a team. Don't jump from this spot, though. Too easy to track." She opened a rip and stepped back into the Red world. "Call if you need help," she said. "Standard rates apply." She bared her teeth. The imps stood beside her and waved. The rip closed. The pylon read 10% now. Two rips, even on green. Not optimal. "Can we make camp?" Melissa asked. "My feet." Badoesa pulled off Melissa's shoes and tsked. "Soft girl." She spoke in English. Melissa nodded. "Is it unreasonable to wish for a Cain's Drugs on this world? Epsom salts." Badoesa grunted. "We find camp. Boil leaves and roots. You get tough soon." Jas scooped pylon parts into two rucksacks. She turned off the nearly depleted pylon. They walked quietly and cautiously along the ridge trail. The red caps were on high alert. Even the children were quiet. When they got fussy, Badoesa handed them back, one at a time, for Jas to feed or Melissa to cuddle. They came to a meadow. Bad Tom stopped. He scratched his nose. "Bird," he said quietly. Jas and Melissa crept up. It was a ground bird, taller than an ostrich, with colorful feathers and an overly large head. It had teeth. Melissa spoke in a murmur. "Jas, that's a dinosaur."