“OK, Burks Green, who's the Green man of legend,” looking at Weasel and Tiera he shrugged.
“Grandpa to you two and me. Um, he's also me, as you might be able to see. We'll go into that later. Over there we have Dan Green, our Uncle and ma’s brother.”
Tor nodded to Denno, gesturing with a closed hand and giving a seated bow as the man found a seat for himself, near the end of the table. The poison seat again. Poor guy probably thought it was his place or something.
“Denno Brown, the Ancient of Austra, roughly your Uncle. Your Aunt Lyn here you should both know. Tim, I want you to work with her for the next few months on building. She's good. But then you know that don't you. Met already and all that?” He sighed.
“Next to me, is Laurali Green Baker. My mother. Also Gray as you see, but her own person too, I hope. Oh, um Ma?” Tor dropped into home speech.
“Grand-da didn't tell you, but your natural mother is the leader of Afrak, and still alive. Also an insane man- hating old bat that is, essentially you, like I'm Green, only you two are closer I think. Watch the whole crazy thing will you? I'm not really kidding there or I wouldn't be this blunt. Nearly started a war with weapons master Kolb when we were there.”
Oops, he hadn't meant to do that, talk in ways that others couldn't understand. No one said anything though.
“The charming and intelligent young lady to my right is Tiera Green Baker. Also like we are Ancient genes and all that and this man is Builder Timon Green Baker, know as Weasel. Also as we all are. Only by feel I'd guess he's a son of the gray line. The first I think, if Lara was honest in what she told me. That will have to be checked though. Seems right.”
“What!” Laurali had been a little quiet until then but suddenly she roused, a bit angry seeming.
“Yeah, your mothers alive and really hates all men, beyond reason too. Not kind and considerate like you are at all.” Tor said quickly, knowing that wasn't the topic at all.
“As to the other part, about Tim, well, Burks, Lyn, if you'd check his field? You too Tiera. We'll wait for you to do that.”
The Ancients both walked over to him and touched him, one at a time, then checked each other and then Tim again. Tiera sighed and walked around the table.
“I don't know how to do this…”
Blinking Tor explained it to her. It was probably a little subtle for her if she hadn't been practicing, but he didn't mention that. She tried and then sat back down.
“I think I can tell it's him, but that's about all. He has about five other fields on I think?” She shrugged. Tor checked and nodded.
“That's right. Well we can practice a bit if you want. I know you want to take maths at school, but having an extra skill never hurts. I need to get back to that too. Math I mean. Oddly it keeps kind of coming up as something needed.”
“Now, before we go on, why don't we see about getting some food?”
Without going anywhere it started coming, almost immediately. There literally couldn't be any way for people to listen in the walls, could there? Unless Collette had build in listening holes or something? She was a spy after all.
He'd forgotten that part of things. Oh well.
It did get them good service, no matter how it worked.
They checked for poison but it was a lot more cozy than the palace, everyone just pulling a poison detector and using it openly when the food came. It was a family meal after all. They just didn't know who had access to the food, so they checked.
He let everyone finish before talking about anything. Not even asking Lyn what she was doing in Noram. That was obvious to him, at least in part. She was going to school and learning to be a builder. A freaking great one at that. As far as he was concerned, she was going to keep doing that too. At least until she finished. If Burks had a problem with it, Tor would just build his own school and hire all the Lairdgren personnel away. That or go to Vagus and help her learn himself.
It was Denno that spoke first looking around the table for a while to get everyone’s attention.
“The summit is in a week and we all have to go. All of us. It's very important. I guess we should get you all up to speed first, but we can start that in a day or two. Right now every Austran spy in Noram is on the way here and should begin reporting tomorrow. Tor and his people will check them out and if they aren't insane murderers, send them home. I don't really expect you'll find anything. The most telling thing will be how many don't show up.” He spread his hands, then touched his face, thinking.
“If they don't, that doesn't mean guilt of course, they could be dead, missed their flight or simply hiding, since they fell in love and don't want to go back. Noram… has its charms, after all.”
Like trees, but Tor didn't mention that. Austra was nice.
Except the parts he'd seen of course. But that still left hope for the rest of it.
“Sorry Denno. I can do the part with the Austrans, but I won't let my family go off to some summit of Ancients without knowing what it is and why we should be there.” Tor held up his right hand as the man started to speak.
“OK, I get that I can't stop them either, if they choose to go, but I won't go myself without more information. You've been dodgy about all this to the extreme. First you tried to force this summit and now you want us, some of us literally kids, and the rest, like Mother and Uncle Dan must just about seem like that to someone like you, to go to this thing?” Tor tilted his head and looked around the room, and did a mental count, feeling slow and tired suddenly.
“Heh, you're trying to control a vote, aren't you? Like how they do things in Austra? Do the Ancients vote on stuff Burks? Lyn?” He glanced at them both and got a nod from Lyn at least.
“That's right Tor. I don't know if that's the plan, but we do vote on everything. If you might be able to back up what you want in a few thousand years, you get a vote, so that's everyone at the table. This would be about half the Ancients in the world right now, unless the Blues all come. I… Cindy Blue and I don't get along.”
Denno spread his hands and smiled towards the girl.
“Let by-gones be by-gones? She's bringing her kids too and that will give us a solid voting bloc. This is important…” He leaned in and whispered.
“Three groups are coming Lyn. Three. One is clearly Four-ten. The others aren't… anything I've seen before. Blue either. We need to work together and we… We need to put the treaty in abeyance. Austra can't stop them, not alone. Cynthia promised to do everything she could, but…” The good looking man shook his head, making his now short hair shake a little.
“Fuck Brown… I'll need to see the specs of course. I… Vagus can't help. We don't have anything, thanks to Blue, unless you want to fight them on horseback. If we have to fight.”
Lairdgren shrugged, “you know the math as well as I do. Most groups willing to travel across the void are going to be hostile if they find a resource rich planet on the other side and have to have planned for it. We know for a fact that the Four-ten were designed to do just that. They shouldn't be here.”
Tor had to tilt his head and then raised his right hand again.
“Um, three what? From which void? The one at the bottom of the universe? What is the Forten?” He waited then, Denno sighing, as if Tor was stupid but telling him that would be bad. That was true of course, especially if the man wanted his vote on something.
“Space fleets. We don't know if they're coming to invade or not, um, from the sky?” He glanced around the table as if they wouldn't get it until both Tiera and Laurali snorted derisively.
“We know what space is, continue.” Laurie showed pretty good restraint for her, not yelling at the man at all. Not that she yelled a lot, but Lara Gray probably would have. It was a real point. Something was different there, but they were the same person? Maybe…
Tor just didn’t know, the instructions, the built in ones, must be different somehow. Not totally?
Denno explained.
“The Four-ten were the fleet we sent out to colonize other worlds, just in case we didn't make it here. That seemed… More possible than not back then to tell the truth. We don't know who the others are. It could be anything. Aliens even. That… Might even be likely. The technologies used are all different at least. We don't even
