SEVENTY: Rare Company

“Are we going to pretend like your big sister wasn’t sitting on you three seconds ago?” Alden asked in Artonan, watching in fascination as Baby Stu morphed instantaneously into Stu-art’h, son of the Primary, very serious future Knight of the Mother Planet.

“That would be my preference,” Stuart said primly. He took his tablet over to his standing desk and set it up at eye level. At the periphery of his vision, Alden could see the Artonan boy’s hands casting a short repetitious pattern over what looked like a metal block.

He felt himself smiling in amusement. He tried to keep it down to a reasonable amount. “Okay.”

“Thank you for the interesting cultural <<highlights>> from your world. I did say I wished to study such things when we parted. I enjoyed the musicians.”

Alden stepped out of the elevator on floor nine and hurried toward his apartment.

“Who is that?” Stuart asked curiously as Alden passed by a guy in the hall.

“One of my neighbors. Another Ryeh-b’t. He’s got one of the cleaning skills.” There were so many Rabbits with cleaning skills in intake. Alden hadn’t even begun to memorize them all. “I think his name is Paolo.”

He must have been right because Paolo looked back at him. Alden gave him a wave and hustled to his door. It opened as he approached, and he slipped inside, sliding a finger over the line on the wall panel that would mark his apartment as Do Not Disturb on other residents’ interfaces.

“Do you live with many other Avowed?”

“I do now.”

“On Anesidora?”

“Yes.” Alden grabbed a towel out of the bathroom and wiped sweat off his face.

“It’s unusual that so many humans do that,” Stuart mused. “Avowed form communities on other resource worlds, but you’ve concentrated such a significant percentage of your population on a single island. Is it purely <<communal>> or…for some other reason?”

“Officially, it’s for the safety and security of regular people. I guess it makes it easier to separate us into convenient halves, too. Good Avowed stay on the island and follow the rules. Bad Avowed run amok and everyone worries they’re trying to take over the world.”

“It’s very premature for them to be concerned about that.” A furrow appeared between his brows. “Human Avowed aren’t nearly powerful enough for the Grand Senate to consider any request you might make for an <<authorized takeover>> and <<power restructuring>>. That’s taken other resource worlds a few centuries in the past. And the percentage of Avowed among your population is extremely small.”

Really, man? I wanted to talk about pandas, thought Alden, grabbing a glass from one of the kitchen cabinets and filling it with water. Apparently Stuart liked his culture chat more serious.

“What’s an authorized takeover?”

“They don’t let Avowed take leadership of your home planets without oversight. It’s almost always disallowed by the original Contract, so new negotiations have to take place and adjustments have to be made. And even when it isn’t forbidden, the <<intervention point>> is stricter for that than for other forms of <<civil warfare>>.”

The 1963 Agreement allowed humans to self-govern in most matters. It also allowed them to screw up and make war against each other…up to a point. The intervention number was eight million. When the eight millionth person died in something like a genocide or war, the Artonans were allowed to come over if they wanted, or send their Avowed in, to sort the conflict out according to their own preferences.

Apparently the number for many species was lower. Alden didn’t know how a collection of leaders had sat around and seriously insisted that they needed permission to make more people dead for human rights reasons.

But World War III was off the table at least.

The Triplanets had been more hands-on in the decades immediately following the creation of the Contract, when the discovery that the rest of the universe was out there and pretty far ahead of Earth had caused a lot of upheaval. Nowadays, they weren’t as eager to involve themselves. And in practice, especially for things like famines and natural disasters, the UN was usually requesting help before the Artonans offered it up on their own.

“My Instructors say that humans built Anesidora for breeding purposes,” Stuart said casually.

Alden narrowly avoided spitting out his water. Of course the talk goes there right off the bat.

“Um…everyone knows that’s part of it. Even if it isn’t polite to say it like that. I think a lot of humans would like more Avowed because it increases the amount of attention we receive from the Triplanets? It’s good for the global economy and our position among the resource worlds. And the Avowed here want more Avowed, too, because it makes Anesidora more politically powerful.”

If you crammed a bunch of people together and made it hard for them to spend time with anyone else, they tended to make babies with each other. Super couples almost always made super babies. And raising kids here was basically free.

“I think there are a lot of other reasons for it, too.” Alden felt the need to make it clear that there was nuance. He was not just living on some kind of superhuman farm.

“The older Avowed seem to like having our own government. It’s good to be able to use powers more freely. I think I’ll probably value being surrounded by people in a similar situation when I get used to it. There is a unique culture here, and it’s beneficial in plenty of ways. I’m still getting used to it. But it’s not only…whatever your Instructors said.”

He decided not to mention the conspiracy theory that Avowed had been collected here back in the old days so that the major global powers could more easily nuke the entire superhuman population if Earth ever decided they didn’t like being a resource world anymore.

Stuart opened his mouth. “What about—?”

“What are you doing with that metal cube?” Alden interrupted. “That is a cute looking metal cube.”

Stuart’s flicking fingers paused over the metal cube, and he turned his head to blink at Alden. “Cute?”

“Ah…wrong word. I meant the word for lightly interesting small things?”

“Hyektch? Maybe?”

“Yes! That one.” Earth was translating hyektch as “cool” which didn’t seem quite right to Alden.

“It’s still too close to cute,” said Stuart slowly. “That would be a better descriptive word for…well, never mind. I understand what you meant.”

“Don’t never mind me.” Alden knew from when Kibby was in a funk that that phrase was a good bit more dismissive in Artonan than English. “I’m actually putting a lot of effort into learning your language.”

“Oh. I was rude?”

“A little.”

Stuart sighed. “I was only trying to be <<accommodating.>> Hyektch is a very particular word. It’s the interest a child feels upon first <<encountering>> a pleasing new thing that is not beyond their ability to understand. You actually used it when you met…my ryeh-b’t.”

“Other Alden!”

Stuart smiled sheepishly. “Yes. Other Alden.”

“You remembered the specific words I used?”

“Not all of them. That one was both uncommon and particularly <<apt>>.”

“Other Alden is definitely hyektch. Where is she?”

“I released some bugs in her habitat for her to stalk so that she wouldn’t cry while I worked on this.” He gestured at the cube. “I’m preparing the metal to make a spell ring.”

“Interesting. Is it homework for LeafSong?”

Stuart shook his head. “No. I’m not wasting time on the enchanting courses. They require too much of a commitment. But I’m going to need…want a couple for my personal use soon. I could buy them. But there is satisfaction in making your own.”

Alden poured himself another glass of water and hopped up on one of the counter stools. “What are your rings going to do?”

“Assuming I don’t fail to properly craft and <<enforce>> the enchantment, this one is going to warm my hands when the temperature drops. I’m making another for small object <<levitation>>.”

“Look what mine does,” said Alden, releasing the water glass and letting it stick to his left palm before he wrapped his fingers back around it.

Stuart raised his eyebrows. “That’s an intriguing one.”

“I think so, too. It’ll even hold my bodyweight. Only for half a human second…”

“Did Master Ro-den give you that?”

“Sort of. Wait…just Master Ro-den? Did he lose his Distinguished somehow?”

Stuart didn’t seem like the kind of person who would be inaccurate with a title.

“He did.” The Artonan boy pursed his lips for a moment and then added, “The <<official stripping>> was announced a few days ago. The campus was <<abuzz>> about it like a summer klerm swarm.”

“I didn’t realize it was a thing that could happen.”

“It does. Of course. It’s very embarrassing for it to happen to someone of his age and experience.”

“Poor Joe.”

At Stuart’s look of confusion, Alden added, “He told me to call him Joe.”

“How bizarre.”

“He’s an unusual guy, I think.”

“He’s…<<infamous>>. For multiple reasons. But extremely talented. His summoning rights have been completely revoked now. I have labs next week. If he even shows up, I can’t imagine what the atmospherewill be like.”

It was something else to have access to wizard gossip. Alden hadn’t expected that from this call.

“I bet he shows up and acts like nothing at all happened,” Alden said. “And he uses just as many horrific swear words as usual and treats you all like morons.”

Stuart looked amused. “Do you think so?”

“I do. Call me and tell me if I’m wrong.”

“About that,” said the Artonan boy, “I don’t think you realize this. But I’m not allowed to just call you. Even if you contact me first.”

Alden blinked. “You aren’t?”

“I haven’t earned the right to summon Avowed. Wizards my age don’t usually gain provisional summoning rights for another four years, if they get them at all, and then they’re monitored.”

“But you can’t even talk to me socially?”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“I actually had to look up the relevant laws to check when I received your message. It hadn’t been covered in school, so I was surprised when the System indicated I would have to submit a formal request before replying to you, and that our conversation would be <<subject to mentor oversight>>.” He sighed. “It’s not as though I would have trouble getting approval for it. But I prefer not to give people reason to gossip.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to cause you problems.”

“You haven’t!” Stuart said quickly. “Please keep sending me messages. I mean…if you want to…you don’t have to…but you can contact me. Apparently. I just have to wait until the weekends to reply. When I can get someone here at home to make the call for me.”

“That’s why we’re talking on a tablet!” Alden realized. “Instead of through your—”

He gestured at his own eyes to indicate the other boy’s metal rings.

Stuart nodded.

“And that’s why your sister was sitting on you.”

Stuart blushed. “Can’t you forget that?”

“I don’t think I want to.” He smiled. “Ever.”

“Evul is very <<indulgent>> and <<lax>> about rules. I asked her because I knew she wouldn’t mind placing the call for me. I didn’t expect her to…to shove me under her <<lounger>> and squash me for half an hour first.”

Alden burst out laughing. “She squashed you for half an hour?”

“I am nearly an adult,” said Stuart in a peeved tone. “Who does that sort of thing to an adult?”