Irresistible Forces

carried on in a group, singing, teasing, and even tussling sometimes.

Like kids again. Or like teenagers. Dan kept apart a bit, and Jenny remembered that he'd missed most of these nights — the singing, the horseplay, the maneuvering for possible bedmates. She noticed Yas maneuvering for Dan. That'd be nothing new, but she was glad he wasn't responding tonight.

In Chestnut Copse; Yas went into her building alone with a last, hopeful look, Gyrth turned off at the next corner, leaving Jenny and Dan alone for the last little way. Nothing unusual in that, except that, for the first time, she was nervous.

It was just that it had been a strange day, but she hoped he wouldn't touch, wouldn't even want to talk. Perhaps he felt the same, because he walked beside her in silence, and by the time they came to his place, that silence was comforting as a lambswool blanket. It said that everything was all right.

The fixer's flat took up the whole ground floor of a large house. They held parties there sometimes because no one else had such a space to themselves. Jenny still lived at home.

They paused at the bottom of the steps. 'Night, then,' Jenny said.

'I'll walk you to your place.'

She stared at him. 'You expect a blighter to leap out of the pavement?'

'You never know.' But then he smiled. 'I'm just not ready to go to bed.'

Tension ricked her shoulders, but she said, 'Oh, okay, then. Thanks.'

He touched her arm. 'You're feeling the effects of the music, aren't you?'

'No. Yes, but it was okay. It was good.' She might as well tackle it. 'Did you make it happen?'

'I helped.' He turned her, and they walked on. 'I am the town's fixer, after all.'

'What were you fixing?'

'The closing of the gates upset a lot of people.'

How often did he do things like that? Could he, did he, fix people's moods? Fix hers? They were on her street now, a tall terrace facing a small park called Surrey Green.

'It's a bright-burning night, and I'm not ready for sleep,' he said. 'Do you want to walk around the park and talk some more?'

It was the dead hour on a chilly night, and Jenny felt drained, but she couldn't not go. Something important hovered here. They walked through a gap in the hedge, but as soon as they were away from the sparse street lights, she couldn't see what was in front of her feet.

She stopped. 'I'm likely to break a leg.'

Dan put an arm around her. 'Then you're with the right person. Come on.'

'It'll still hurt.' It came out light as she'd hoped, but her entire skin was jumping as she let him lead her forward. 'Night vision, too?'

'Right.'

And what else?

There was talk about fixers and sex. Yas spoke about Dan in a way that suggested things. But this was Dan. They'd played in the sandbox here together. Say something, Jenny. Something light and normal.

'The anthem really is terrible, isn't it?'

'Awful. But you know, that used to mean full of awe. And terrible might not be a word to toss around these days.'

No talking about terror or awe. 'Perhaps we should write a new one.'

'I don't think you can do that with an anthem. It has special powers.'

No talking about special powers. 'Do you think Yas'll resign over not getting that promotion?'

'No, she'll sabotage her rival and get her way in the end.'

'Poor rival.'

'Some people are forces of nature.'

Jenny knew then that he wanted to talk about forces of nature, about powers, about blighters. Was it because she'd admitted to sensing things, revealed that she might have a bit of whatever made up the fixers? She'd rather bury that in the Surrey Green sandbox.

Distant streetlights glinted on bits of the playground, and she grabbed on to the past. 'Remember the hours we used to spend on the swings here?'

'And the high slide.'

'You certainly kept the fixer busy.'

'I sometimes wonder if that caused it. If it's infectious.'

She stiffened, on the edge of pulling away. 'Really?'

He laughed and snagged her tight. 'No. I could always do weird stuff. Mum and Dad tried to get me to hide it, but testing sniffs it out anyway. Remember that time you caught the cricket ball funny and thought you'd broken your finger?'

'Yes.'

'You had.'

Jenny remembered the horrible pain that had suddenly eased, so that when some adults came running they thought she'd been making a fuss about nothing. They'd been — what? — eight? Dan hadn't even touched her. He'd just stood there saying stupid things like 'Are you all right, Jen?'

She knew he didn't glow or anything, but she'd thought he had to touch. She tried to remember whether there'd been a tingle. She'd probably been in too much pain.

'We're lucky, aren't we?' she said.

'You and me?'

She bumped him with her hip. 'Gaia! The perfect planet. Healthy, fruitful. Rare earths to pay our way, and fixers to mend almost everything.'

'And blighters,' he pointed out.

'Perhaps every grail has to have a python.'

'I'd rather have the fluffy bunny. But blighters aren't too high a price to pay.'

Jenny thought of the refugees. 'Still? Could the price become too high?'

'When there's no choice, the price can never be too high, can it? Earth's recovering, but it's still trying to ship people out rather than take them back. Even spread around other colonies we'd be an unbalancing factor.'

'So it's Gaia or nothing. That's all right. I can't imagine leaving.'

They wove through the playground where the swings, the slides, and the roundabout sat still, as if waiting for ghostly children. A vision swept upon her — of the whole of Gaia like this. The blighters didn't destroy things, only animals and people.

'There's no real danger, is there? From the blighters? I mean to Gaia.'

He didn't immediately answer, and chill seeped into her bones. He was going to be honest, and she wished she hadn't asked.

'There's danger,' he said at last, grabbing a bar of the roundabout and spinning it as if doing so might whirl something away. 'People are being ashed. A lot of people, and even more animals. But the local fixers and teams from Hellbane U should be able to control things, especially now that people are leaving. They've been told to kill all the large animals before they leave so the blighters won't have anything to feed on.'

'Feed on?' She moved out of his arm, spinning the slowing roundabout as an excuse.

'Where else do the victims go? They're consumed, so it has to be a kind of feeding. Of energy, we assume. The blighters are a form of energy.'

Jenny shivered, even though it wasn't really so shocking. It was more that she'd not thought much about blighters before. Why should she? They were nasty, but they hardly ever popped up even near the equator, and if one did, a fixer got rid of it before it could do more damage.

Like pimples — of a lethal sort.

The roundabout had slowed again. She gave it a running spin and jumped on. 'So you're going to starve them, and that'll be an end of it?'

'That's the plan.' He caught it, spun it again, and joined her, but on the other side for balance. The world