For what it was worth, Tuli did in-crease the food that he sent up to Sobon, though not by much to start. With Mian gone, and many mouths to feed, and no one com-ing by to sell more food, there wasn't a whole lot. Sobon, with all the ad-van-tages he had now, made the best he could out of it any-way, and was com-fort-able leav-ing the very next day to hunt for large game in the forests around the inn.

  The nom-i-nal prey an-i-mal in these woods was a large antlered beast called a bas-sar, and to Sobon's con-fu-sion, the herd that he en-coun-tered had one old-er male at its lead, with sil-ver-ranked qi that it proud-ly dis-played with some sort of qi crown. Sobon had no qualms or doubts that he could kill such a beast, but fol-lowed both his own and Alas-si's in-stincts, and hunt-ed the weak-est of the herd. The king bas-sar didn't even ob-ject, al-though he did ush-er the rest of the herd away and stood be-tween them and Sobon, pro-ject-ing a pres-sure that was halfway be-tween serene and mur-der-ous.

  As Sobon hauled his kill off, Alas-si whis-pered into the back of his mind. [ Per-haps some-day, be-fore we leave, you can hunt it. Bas-sar horns are good stock to make weapons out of. And that king... a horn with sil-ver qi would be an im-pres-sive tro-phy, and it would make a good weapon. ]

  Sobon, in re-ply, of-fered Alas-si a men-tal im-pres-sion of watch-ing a city blown apart by or-bital bom-bard-ment, of be-ing blind-ed by the blast even from hun-dreds of miles away. He showed her beam ri-fles that fire a thou-sand shots per clip, each shot blast-ing eas-i-ly through a half dozen mod-est-size trees with fin-ger-width beams. He showed her ar-tillary, mo-bile weapons plat-forms, close air sup-port, or-bital trans-ports, bat-tle-ships, an-nil-hi-la-tion can-nons, and the enor-mous en-er-gy flare that was a large ship tele-port-ing across in-ter-stel-lar dis-tances.

  [ Those are good weapons, ] Sobon told the sud-den-ly si-lenced spir-it. [ If I need a sharp stick to poke peo-ple with, I promise I will con-sid-er tak-ing them from the wildlife. I am sure it will be very sharp, and might even make them bleed. But if I want to cre-ate any re-al-ly use-ful weapons, I will need re-sources that an-i-mals can-not even con-ceive of. ]

  Alas-si had no re-ply.

  Sobon pitched in with Lui to help butch-er the an-i-mal, lean-ing more heav-i-ly on Alas-si's knowl-edge than his own or the girl's. It's not so much that the old woman had been much of a hunter; knowl-edge of these things had been among the ran-dom in-sights she gained fight-ing star-beasts. For Sobon's part, he al-lowed Alas-si's per-son-al-i-ty to come out and speak with the girl; al-though Alas-si would not have tak-en the op-por-tu-ni-ty to speak with her grand-daugh-ter, it wasn't as though she had noth-ing to say, or even that she had no de-sire to speak. She had sim-ply... buried her-self away from the world, spurn-ing all ad-vances from her fam-i-ly.

  When pressed to it, though, he could tell Alas-si liked Lui. Speak-ing with the girl sur-faced mem-o-ries of hers from long ago, when Alas-si was young and naive her-self. From what Sobon saw, she wasn't sur-round-ed by com-pan-ions, ex-act-ly, al-though there were sev-er-al peo-ple there, in-clud-ing the man who would be-come her hus-band. With some de-tach-ment, Sobon could ad-mit their courtship was... cute, if child-ish.

  Alas-si would not have joined the mil-i-tary had her hus-band not died to star-beasts. The quest for re-venge brought her, ul-ti-mate-ly, here. Sobon thought that she was too dis-tract-ed to serve well. Alas-si, only vague-ly pay-ing at-ten-tion to his thoughts, dis-agreed.

  [ If I had enough pow-er, then, it wouldn't have mat-tered, ] Alas-si groused in-ter-nal-ly, pri-vate-ly thank-ful that the work of butch-ery had pro-gressed to a stage where both she and Lui fo-cused on the meat and bones be-fore them. [ But the Com-man-der did not al-low those be-neath him to ad-vance. We served as fod-der, and once we had in-jured a beast, troops he ac-tu-al-ly liked were brought in to kill it and earn the greater share of the har-vest. The corpses were hauled away to be served to no-bles, I'm sure. At most, di-lut-ed beast blood was put in our soup broth, if there was no oth-er use for it. ]

  Sobon con-sid-ered the flow of mem-o-ries that poured through Alas-si as she re-count-ed the sto-ry, un-sure of most of what she was look-ing at. Over and over, though, she brought Alas-si's thoughts back to the one mo-ment she least want-ed to re-mem-ber.

  A spined star-beast shat-ter-ing her hip with a sin-gle spike, one of hun-dreds launched across a bat-tle-field. Alas-si's own mem-o-ry of it was cloud-ed by pain, but Sobon forced her find it, piece by piece, un-til she was cer-tain of some-thing.

  [ It was de-lib-er-ate, ] Sobon told her. [ A... greater star-beast, a leader. They con-trolled this pup-pet to in-jure more of your peo-ple in that bat-tle. ] Al-though she couldn't see from Alas-si's mem-o-ries whether a Ri'lef had been di-rect-ly pup-pet-ing the in-tel-li-gent star-beast which it-self con-trolled the less-er one, she was sure that the com-plex surge in aether pres-sure on the bat-tle-field was a form of pos-ses-sion. Even Alas-si, who was not par-tic-u-lar-ly sen-si-tive, could sense strong aether flows both to-wards and away from the bat-tle.

  Alas-si stopped, her meat cleaver rest-ing against the cut-ting board. [ Leader? The beast be-came berserk, sui-ci-dal. They do that, some-times. It's why the army can't send their elites to do all of the work. A berserk beast could in-jure even a com-man-der, and he was a Bright Met-al cul-ti-va-tor. ]

  [ Not sui-ci-dal, ] Sobon cor-rect-ed, not-ing her ter-mi-nol-o-gy, though she wasn't yet sure she cared about the specifics of qi and its rank-ings. [ It was sac-ri-ficed. ]

  "Grand-ma?" Lui's voice was con-cerned, and Sobon men-tal-ly rolled her eyes and backed off, al-low-ing Alas-si to have a lit-tle more time with her grand-daugh-ter.

  Still, in the back-ground, she tried to ac-cess Alas-si's un-der-stand-ing of qi lev-els, and their names. It wasn't en-tire-ly straight-for-ward.

  Qi went through two met-al phas-es, com-mon and bright, each bro-ken down into col-ors, and each col-or into star lev-els. Be-yond that, Alas-si only knew the gen-er-al terms "Gem phase" and "Flame phase", though she was sure each phase was di-vid-ed into col-ors and stars, and per-haps even sub-phas-es. So far, with the pos-si-ble ex-cep-tion of the reaper that killed Jom, Sobon es-ti-mat-ed she hadn't seen any-thing out-side of the first met-al phase of qi. Gold, the qi col-or she had seen in Xoi Xam and pi-rate cap-tain, was the high-est of the com-mon met-als, and the "break-through" that got one past the end of that whole phase and into the next was sup-posed to be har-row-ing.

  That reaper, though... al-though Sobon had no earth-ly idea what his ac-tu-al qi lev-el was sup-posed to be, the spir-i-tu-al pres-sure that she re-called over the weapon def-i-nite-ly had the aes-thet-ics of a gem-stone, and not a met-al, in her mind. Alas-si... seemed un-com-fort-able with Sobon re-call-ing even that much, al-though Sobon was not re-al-ly shar-ing with her, and she was do-ing her best to re-main dis-tract-ed.

  Too soon, though, there was noth-ing more to do. The meat was most-ly kept in a large cel-lar, which had some kind of aether pat-tern in-scribed on it. Af-ter de-liv-er-ing what she'd hunt-ed and clean-ing up, Sobon took con-trol back and went down to ex-am-ine the pat-terns, try-ing to match what them against the pat-terns the Coro-na had giv-en him. Per-haps pre-dictably, they didn't match at all--the qi pat-terns were not com-pat-able with raw aether. In-stead of fuss-ing with it, Sobon con-struct-ed a scaled-up anti-mi-cro-bial pat-tern, and with a ca-su-al use of aether, en-graved it into the back wall. As-sum-ing he hadn't messed some-thing up, it would only tar-get the air and sur-faces--a more ide-al pat-tern would purge the stored meat and oth-er foods of in-ter-nal mi-crobes, or at least pre-vent growth, but Sobon wasn't sure how to en-sure those pat-terns didn't tar-get any-one who walked in and scourge clean their in-ter-nal bio-mes.

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  Then, she fold-ed flat an aether har-vest-ing and fil-ter-ing cy-cle--some-what more com-plex than a dy-namo, but in-tend-ed to be left alone. Once start-ed, both pat-terns quick-ly ac-ti-vat-ed and Sobon no-ticed an im-prove-ment in the smell, though it wasn't bad to start with. Sobon glanced around at the food, not-ing noth-ing that was ob-vi-ous-ly un-hy-genic, not that she would have ex-pect-ed it.

  As Sobon stepped out of the cel-lar, her mind was still turn-ing over the var-i-ous thoughts of en-grav-ings and aether for-ma-tions that might be of use to the inn. She was sur-prised to find Tuli stand-ing there and wait-ing, an un-read-able look on his face. "You brought in meat," he said, stiffly. "I know you said that you need more food--"

  "It's fine to share it with oth-ers," Sobon said, calm-ly. "As long as I get my part of it."

  "With as many mouths to feed as we have, it will go quick-ly."

  Sobon met the younger man's eyes, feel-ing it odd to be look-ing at a full grown adult, and have to con-sid-er him a son. Sobon wasn't young when he died--he had joined the Mixed Marines in his twen-ties, and had over a decade in the ser-vice. Enough to be sea-soned, but nev-er put in enough dan-ger to qual-i-fy for a field pro-mo-tion. He had one ground cam-paign and many years of pa-trol ser-vice, with ex-tra train-ing and sev-er-al vi-o-lent peace-keep-ing op-er-a-tions. But still, if he had got-ten mar-ried ear-ly, he should just bare-ly be old enough to be a grand-fa-ther, and cer-tain-ly not of a girl as old as Lui.

  But his body--Alas-si's body which had twen-ty years on him, still felt strange to look at the man. He had been younger when he mar-ried into the fam-i-ly, and Alas-si had not paid him much at-ten-tion, es-pe-cial-ly not af-ter her daugh-ter died. But Sobon, look-ing at him, found the man... un-pleas-ant. He had the bear-ing of a man who was an-gry at the world, and a dis-po-si-tion that Sobon was sure meant he would be-tray oth-ers, even his own fam-i-ly.

  "I will hunt again in a few days," Sobon said, sim-ply. "One or two good serv-ings for every-one, and then stretch what is left."

  Tuli bris-tled, as though he didn't like tak-ing or-ders--or even rec-om-men-da-tions. It didn't make a whole lot of sense to her, or to Alas-si, but Sobon sup-posed he was very used to Alas-si be-ing noth-ing but dead weight.

  "There was a sil-ver-ranked bas-sar pro-tect-ing the herd. Tak-ing too much will only lead to a fight." Sobon didn't men-tion that it was a fight she ex-pect-ed to win--cer-tain-ly, once her body was health-i-er. The mere fact that she had faced the high-er-ranked beast seemed to cause an un-com-fort-able re-sponse in Tuli, but he sim-ply nod-ded in re-ponse.

  "Per-haps more than a few days, then. A beast like that, if it de-cid-ed to ram-page..." Tuli shook his head. "Mian will have re-turned by then. It won't mat-ter."

  Sobon didn't ques-tion that, and when an awk-ward si-lence start-ed to fall, sim-ply moved past the innkeep-er. She end-ed up wan-der-ing out in front of the inn; al-though sev-er-al of the res-cued were out-side, and Sobon didn't par-tic-u-lar-ly want to speak with them, more were in-side, and those seemed more rest-less. The ones out-side, for the most part, were med-i-tat-ing, try-ing to touch the aether of the world.

  Sobon stud-ied the clos-est, who might have been any-where from eigh-teen to four-ty, at his lev-el of mal-nu-tri-tion. Al-though he looked noth-ing like Jom--in fact, he had no idea what Jom had looked like, hav-ing nev-er seen a mir-ror--Sobon could still see an echo of the bro-ken-souled street rat in the man, like a crack in a fa-mil-iar shape run-ning through his spir-it. And what-ev-er aether--qi, re-al-ly--the man gath-ered, it seemed to pass out of those cracks, ra-di-at-ing off of the man as part of a mis-er-able stink. It was dif-fi-cult for Sobon to know if the man had been wound-ed, psy-cho-log-i-cal-ly bro-ken, or if he had sim-ply nev-er had an ap-ti-tude for qi, but he sus-pect-ed that the man would need se-ri-ous help if he was ever to grow stronger.

  Sobon wasn't en-tire-ly sure that her im-pres-sion of the man was right, how-ev-er. Dif-fer-ent bod-ies she'd had so far all had dif-fer-ent abil-i-ty to sense aether; Jom had bare-ly any, and the squir-rel had a dim im-pres-sion, but clear, like peep-ing through a tiny hole. Alas-si's spir-it was mud-dled, even af-ter he had in-fused it with fresh aether, and it was hard to dis-tin-guish how much of wha the per-ceived was the truth... and how much of it was dirty smears on the win-dow of Alas-si's soul. Was the man leak-ing aether be-cause he was in-jured? Did he just not un-der-stand how to work it prop-er-ly? Af-ter all, Jom had been called in-ca-pable of us-ing qi, but Sobon had used it as a weapon with-in min-utes of wak-ing up in his body. The sec-ond time, at least.

  Some-thing stirred as Sobon con-sid-ered that, some-thing like a faint wind. What it meant... she couldn't gath-er, al-though it was un-ques-tion-ably an aether ef-fect. For some rea-son, she felt like the wind car-ried a mes-sage... and that the mes-sage was re-ceived, some-where. Sobon frowned, won-der-ing again if some sort of plan-e-tary spir-i-tu-al god was mon-i-tor-ing her--or if the Ri'lef were.

  To her sur-prise, though, when Sobon sur-faced from her thoughts, she found that all of the peo-ple med-i-tat-ing were look-ing at her. Alas-si's own spir-it had a mo-ment of deep pan-ic at the thought--she was too used to hid-ing, shun-ning the light of day and all hu-man in-ter-ac-tion. Sobon didn't en-joy the thought of hav-ing to an-swer ques-tions... but nei-ther did she shy away from it. In-stead, she just raised an eye-brow in ques-tion at them, wait-ing to see if they would say some-thing.

  For some rea-son, they turned away, go-ing back to their med-i-ta-tions.

  [ It would be seen as a chal-lenge, ] Alas-si thought at Sobon, qui-et-ly. It wasn't as though Sobon didn't un-der-stand... she sim-ply wasn't used to be-ing the strongest per-son around, and in-stant-ly com-mand-ing the kind of re-spect he would have giv-en to se-nior of-fi-cers. And I can't get used to that, Sobon men-tal-ly chid-ed her-self. I'm go-ing to need to punch above my weight, and prob-a-bly live among peo-ple that can punch down. Prefer-ably with-out get-ting an-oth-er reaper mad at me.

  Alas-si, whether wise-ly or not, chose not to com-ment, and Sobon chose to busy her-self study-ing the inn. It was rel-a-tive-ly sol-id in build qual-i-ty; most of the out-er con-struc-tion was heavy wood-en planks, but when Sobon stud-ied it, he not-ed that at least it showed no signs of warp-ing, no gaps or splits. Sobon could feel a dim light of en-er-gy from the wood--not enough that it would have, or should have, had a sig-nif-i-cant ef-fect. Alas-si con-firmed that at one point, it had been tend-ed to by a pass-ing wood-qi mas-ter, but it had been years.

  Sobon rolled the aether rou-tines that the Coro-na had giv-en her through her mind, ap-pre-ci-at-ing the in-dex that the AI had im-print-ed on her, though she still wasn't sure on the de-tails of how the ad-vanced aether tech worked. Rather than fo-cus-ing on that, Sobon com-pared the pieces, try-ing to plot out a rel-a-tive-ly sim-ple bar-ri-er sys-tem. The ba-sics were sim-ple enough; the ab-solute min-i-mum was des-ig-nat-ed by a cen-tral point and a ra-dius, but Sobon chose a des-ig-nat-ed-space bar-ri-er, and carved small re-lay points into each ex-te-ri-or cor-ner of the inn, then went around and carved an-oth-er set near the roof, work-ing re-mote-ly with left-hand aether.

  Ide-al-ly, the bar-ri-er ori-gin would be at the cen-ter of it all, but in-stead Sobon went back into Alas-si's room and found a wa-ter pitch-er large enough to con-tain all the in-scrip-tions she would need. Con-nect-ing to points with-out a reg-u-lar geom-e-try took more work, but Sobon was just pleased to have her mind rel-a-tive-ly clear for what felt like the first time since com-ing to this blast-ed, back-wards, hell-soaked plan-et.

  Alas-si watched the pro-ceed-ings, gen-er-al-ly dis-con-tent. [ The ma-te-ri-als won't hold, ] the old woman grouched in-side of Sobon's head. [ The wood might have enough qi ca-pac-i-ty to hold against an iron rank, or maybe a sil-ver, but that pitch-er can-not hold or chan-nel even a cop-per star of qi. ]

  Sobon's analy-sis wasn't dif-fer-ent, ex-act-ly, but she shrugged it off. [ It doesn't have to hold, ] she replied. [ Most of the en-er-gy shouldn't even be flow-ing through the ma-te-ri-als. ]

  Alas-si's men-tal pro-jec-tion shift-ed un-com-fort-ably at that. [ That was al-ways the the-o-ry, ] the old-er woman hedged, [ but in prac-tice... ]

  Sobon shrugged off her con-cern. [ The geom-e-try is com-pli-cat-ed, and it'd be strange if you could de-sign it right with-out the math. Trust that I've done this be-fore. ] Left un-said was that the prob-lem didn't dis-ap-pear, even if the prop-er geom-e-try helped. [ Sim-i-lar-ly, the col-lec-tion al-go-rithm here shouldn't be hold-ing en-er-gy in the ma-te-r-i-al. ] When fin-ished, she set the pitch-er down, prim-ing the scripts with en-er-gy, and watched the aether col-lect.

  Any use-ful test would take time for the en-er-gy to ac-cu-mu-late, but Sobon's mind was al-ready mov-ing for-ward, to oth-er things she could do.