“Come on, Jim,” she droned as she approached. “I know it’s you. I can see something seemingly floating in the air by itself, like when you displayed your powers before.”
Taking my eyes off her for a second, I stretched out the hand holding the gems toward the figures on the shaft of light. Tilting my hand up, I curled my fingers over my palm so that they made a funnel of sorts. I then “poured” the gems out over the two forms on the light beam.
My intent was to split the number of gems evenly between the two figures. However, in my haste (or perhaps due to anxiety), I actually dropped a few more on one than the other. As with the driver Endow had gifted, the gems disappeared upon contact with the figures, and for a second I wondered if I should have thought about this more rather than acting on impulse. A moment later, however, Ursula was standing next to me and I had no more time to dwell on the subject.
Making myself visible, I said, “Hi. What are you doing here? I thought you were convalescing.”
“My injuries weren’t that severe and I made a quick recovery,” she replied. “I’m here because I received notice of an unauthorized presence in the room.”
“Notice?” I repeated in surprise.
She nodded. “Yeah, it’s kind of like a silent alarm. Lets us know when unauthorized persons are in an area under Endow’s purview — like this room. Now tell me, what are you–”
She stopped abruptly as she suddenly noticed what I was holding. Her eyes then shot to the beam of light, then back to the container and finally to my face.
“Oh, Jim,” she almost moaned. “Please tell me you didn’t try to do this.”
I didn’t say anything, merely looked at the ground forlornly.
“Jim!” she exclaimed, continuing. “You can’t do that! Only Incarnates can bestow gifts.”
“What did you expect?” I shot back. “I couldn’t just let them die, and no one else was doing anything.”
She gave me a sad, woeful look. “Look, I have to report this — tell Endow.”
“I understand,” I declared with a nod. “I’ll deal with whatever punishment is appropriate, but I’m not sorry.”
Chapter 47
I teleported back to my quarters after the conversation with Ursula. I had probably burned some bridges with that little maneuver, but as I’d told Ursula, I wasn’t sorry. It was something I had felt needed to be done (and in retrospect, I actually wished I’d done it earlier).
Now it was just a matter of when I’d be confronted about it. A few minutes later, Rune reached out telepathically.
<Something’s come up,> he said. <You ready?>
<Sure,> I stated in resignation.
A moment later, I found myself back in the area where Pinion had been killed. It had not yet been repaired, and therefore still resembled a war zone to some extent.
As expected, all of the Incarnates were present, including my number-one suspect. At the thought of the killer, I spent a brief moment considering whether I should have devoted time to completing research on the clues Cerek had provided rather than trying to save the people in the Cosmos Corridor. However, my resolve quickly strengthened, with me concluding that — all things considered — I had made the right decision. Moreover, depending on how egregious they considered my conduct, I might still have a chance at walking away with a slap on the wrist.
“So, shall we get started?” I said to no one in particular, ready to get this over and done with.
“Of course,” replied Endow. “Here’s the gear.”
“Gear?” I repeated, then noticed that she had her hand extended before her.
There, floating about three inches above her open palm, was a small metal cog. I immediately recognized it as the one that had previously resided on Pinion’s hat.
“After Pinion’s death,” Endow explained, “I returned to my quarters and found this waiting for me.”
“It appears that Pinion sent it there after he was attacked,” Rune added.
My eyebrows went up in surprise — mostly due to the fact that we apparently were not here to parley about my recent antics. It seemed that Ursula hadn’t ratted me out after all (or at least, not yet).
Wanting to keep the conversation on its present course, I said, “Why would he do that? I mean, I saw him use that gear as a weapon. Why would he get rid of it?”
“Because he was losing the fight,” Mariner surmised, “and he didn’t want it destroyed when the killer decimated this place.”
As he finished speaking, Mariner made a gesture encompassing the surrounding rubble.
My brow furrowed as I focused on what I’d just heard, trying to discern the meaning. After a few moments, I thought I had it.
“If Pinion wanted to preserve the cog, that means it’s a clue,” I deduced.
“More than a clue,” Static chimed in. “It’s evidence. It can pinpoint the killer.”
Chapter 48
Like many metal surfaces, it turned out that the exterior of Pinion’s gear was reflective. Although not exactly mirror quality, it did produce a likeness of things around it. More to the point, Incarnates apparently had the ability to extract past reflections from it.
In addition, the gear also had another unique attribute: it could, based on their powers, identify which individuals (i.e., Incarnates) were in close proximity or had used their sivrrut near it.
In short, it should be possible to use the gear to identify who was with Pinion when he died. However, the technique used to extract the information was going to be a little different than that used by the Incarnates to reverse engineer a crime scene.
“So what’s next?” I asked after the others had explained the importance of Pinion’s cog.
“One of us needs to work on the gear to extract the necessary information,” Endow answered.
“I’ll do it,” Static volunteered. “I was hoping to do more to find my mother’s killer.”
“Very well,” Endow said. No sooner had she stopped speaking than the gear floated from her hand to Static, who grabbed it.
“I’ll need a
