Legal Tender 11

As Dhanali got more popular as a reporter and Steed expert, she found that people were recognizing her on the street - and she was getting a bit frightened in public. Though most Breeders now recommended using the process she'd helped discover for the addiction genes, there were still people who were bound and determined to prove that she would somehow 'ruin their business'. Some of that proof often involved public displays of anger, rocks, and the occasional stray psionic power. For that reason, she determined to find a bodyguard.
That came in the form of a tall man from western Stetil, a dark-purple skinned fellow whose skin had markings somewhat like Dhanali's family, in the same light grey color as his hair. He was not unattractive, but he wasn't the same kind of stunning man that would have been chosen to appear with her on a broadcast. He was purely 'off camera' material according to Zudhi and Nesh.
That was fine with Master Stenso. His gruff nature was echoed in his physical presense as well as his powers. He'd been born Bayaran, Bred by an innovative Fifth Degree Breeder. Because he was as good as he was at his job, guarding that Breeder, he'd been Raised and had promptly set himself up as a for-hire guard. That, and when one of his relatives passed on, he Inherited a small Hold. Bringing himself up to Membayar was a short step - he was talented with telekinetics as well as having a strong force field, both of which he used extensively during his work - his mind was keen and he could recognize talent like his when he saw it. His little Bodyguarding business would get a boost when Animal Mistress Dhanali needed him.
"It's a highly visible post, of course," Master Stenso said, and made notes on his little calculator. "And travel expenses would have to be included."
"All of your travel while working for me would be covered," Dhanali said, "as well as your fees. Plus equipment if you need it, but I would hope that we only require your personal abilities."
"I trust my own field, yes," Stenso said with a bit of a grin. "Then you should look this over and decide whether the fees are to your liking," he pushed the pad across to her, on the big dark table. His office was quite nice, he'd obviously made himself rather valuable over the few years he'd been fully in business. "You are talking about me doing the work personally, correct?"
"Of course I am," Dhanali said, "it isn't that I don't trust the others in your organization, but I figure, you're the one that would be recognized."
"It wouldn't do to have a Bayaran with just a company logo," Stenso agreed. "So?"
"They're fine, although I would like to add a clause that we might alter the contract at a later date if conditions change."
Stenso nodded. "You're a lot sharper than most Animal Masters I've ever dealt with," he said.
"Thank you, I suppose," Dhanali replied. She was either not impressed by the gruff exterior or not amused by it, but either way she enjoyed the compliment when she heard it. And it was sadly true, as well: most Animal Masters couldn't bother themselves to think past a few races ahead. She had to know all manner of information all the time, and her own Bayaran had trouble keeping up with her needs. She was thinking about using some of her resources to contract a specific type of Slave for her information shuffling needs, someone that would be with her for a while. But with this bodyguarding thing being necessitated, that might wait a while.
They signed off their contract, and agreed on a start date. Soon enough, Stenso would be needed. There was a semi-final coming up in Kua that would attract thousands of people, the newly built raceway grandstands were gigantic. Dhanali would often broadcast from a roaving locale, asking questions of trainers or jockeys, fans and locals as she could. It filled time, and it was a great way to promote their work. She studiously avoided betting parlours, and would only mention betting in a cursory manner when races were run. The odds were important to everyone, but their broadcasts concentrated on the sport itself, rather than the money it could bring. They were the only station doing so, until that time, but soon enough others would carry more than mere betting odds and hype for the Holders of the Steeds.
Stenso was a fixture, but he was also quite professional about his presence. He dressed well, but not so richly that he would move attention to himself. Since they broadcast mostly out of Stetil and Laiarta, occasionally in Ka but usually in parts of Zerin rather than other locales, it was not unusual to see a man such as Stenso - barrel chested and with a round strong face. But it was his power of using a force field, telekinetics that strongly affected the local area, that allowed him to work.
There was always a bit of distance around Dhanali when she reported, unless she was directly talking to someone. That distance could not be broken by much other than air and sound. Invisible, and that was both the frustrating and amusing part.
One sunny day, during a broadcast, someone decided to throw a stone at Dhanali while she spoke with her camera crew. The stone bounced off, striking a passing High Holder. Who turned and saw only the crew, no one disreputable enough to have done it. Twice more, and then the angry member of the crowd rushed up.
"What's goin' on here!?" He yelled, half incoherent with an accent that was faintly similar to Stenso's. "I been tossin rocks - you needs'ta be hit!" As he got closer, Stenso moved in. Standing mere handspans away from his charge, Stenso improved the density of the field, and allowed the man to approach.
He smacked with some silly noise coming from his throat, into what appeared to be thin air. Scrabbling at the dome of power exerted by the Membayar, the rabble could hardly believe his own senses. He was carted away.
Dhanali snorted a laugh, and gently leaned back to rest on Stenso's broad shoulder. "That was amusing. I've never seen anything quite so silly. Remember to do that again some time."
For the first time since hiring him, Dhanali saw a broad grin form on the man's face. "That's a nasty sense of humor you have there, Animal Mistress..."

Lin'es and her half brother Neshad attended the funeral, but with very different reactions. Though Dhanoo was their shared grandfather, neither of them was remarkably close to him - but Neshad had worked with him on a design that incorporated electronic equipment right into the homestead. The elfin-eared orange and brown-spotted young man thought highly of Dhanoo's abilities, and was given to a slight worry that his closer granduncle Zudhi would be passing on soon enough. Lin'es was a little less experienced with her grandfather, her ties more distant, and her face more drawn to neutrality than sadness. She was here for the readings and the Inheritances, certainly as several others were.
Memories were traded, sniffling discussions of how Dhanoo would be remembered abounded. The location was the isolated Ist homestead, unsurprisingly, though the Flip Ranch might have been more appropriate, since he spent most of his last days there.
Ginali was also growing old, and somewhat more quickly than her Membayar partner. Though she was clearly an Animal Master through and through, she'd still been born to Slaves, and her life would not be extended so far as those of higher Status. She dabbed her eyes, and remained fairly quiet.
Eventually as the funeral came to an end and Dhanoo's body was given to the ground, surrounded by the beautiful green marble that had made up his home, those individuals who had no relationship or were not Inheriting wandered home. Those left constituted a good number of relatives, and a close batch of friends. Many of them would get certain items that meant something only to their friendship - a set of books, tools and the like. But the children, grandchildren and such would be content to split the values of the several Holds that Dhanoo built up over his life. Obviously the Flip Ranch was not ready to be given away, but his shares in it were to be held by Ginali until her own death. Half a dozen other locales, ranging from a nice office (which Lin'es was to take over) and a stunning flatland that yeilded reeds well-known for textile weaving (that went to one of Zudhi's two children), a large chunk of unbuilt lands that Dhanali would be using for her Steeds, to a mine which had ores valuable to the metal trade. Neshad was pleased to learn that he would be getting that mine. It was small, but he knew that it could be expanded easily enough. And most of the ores in it were useful in his father's field.
"I wonder," Neshad said absently as they had drinks later on, "if he was disappointed that none of us followed in his field?"
"It's possible," Lin'es said, tilting her glass his way, "but if he was, he never showed it. Mother certainly never said anything about it."
They both looked toward where Dhanali stood, being tended by a pair of Slaves. She had taken the whole month off, but would have to start working again soon, since the racing circuit was headed into preseason.
"I wonder," Lin'es added a few moments after Dhanali was escorted back to her rooms, "if mother ever is disappointed in us?"
"For not being into Steeds so much as she is?" Neshad said, shrugging. "I don't think so. She's, well, you know how she is now. She's hardly concentrating on the Animal side of her Mastery. How can she blame us for not being up there training with her if neither of us really sport good powers to go along with it?"
"We both have decent abilities to sense, Neshad," Lin'es commented, "but I'm sure you are right. If she had chosen another Animal Master for a mate perhaps we'd have a different view."
Stenso's daughter and Nesh's son, rarely together. They both reflected the professionalism that their fathers genes brought - but Neshad always wondered how his younger sister got so much more mature than him, in such a short time. They were both in their twenties, and the century was nearing its close.
Neshad looked at the titles to his new Holds and said, "I'm just glad there weren't a mess of Slaves to distribute."
Lin'es let out a sighing laugh, "that's so true. That would be a mess. What with so many of us unable to Hold Hard Stock." That was one of the few points that many in the family could agree upon. They were much better businessmen and women than Owners. One or more of them had at one point attempted to work with Slaves, Raising to the status - but those attempts often landed a bad end.
"So what is it you're going to pass on to your children, Neshad?" Lin'es asked. "You long eared freak you?"
"Flame colored bitch," Neshad jibed. "I'm hoping to find someone that carries the same machinery powers that I have, you know." He looked at a nearby comm pad, and it came to life with but a thought on his part. "It's frightfully convienent. I wonder how many people know that we can manipulate machines?"
"It is a relatively new power," said a Breeder that had come to give his condolences and scope out the people. "If you wish, I could start looking for you."
"... And you are?" Lin'es asked, glancing over him and deciding she'd never met him before. He was tall and had brightly green hair and eyes, but his skin tone was a deep shade of russet-red. He looked like a fresh picked tuber.
"Beast-Master Breeder Nankai," he said while bowing, "I know your family through some Steed farming I've done with them."
"Ah, I see," Lin'es didn't look at all convinced. For that matter, neither did Neshad. Their family had close ties with certain Breeding circles, and this man didn't seem to fit among them. So... why was he there, really? It was clearly a question that both siblings wanted answered. Lin'es glanced around the tall man's shoulder and said, "perhaps we could arrange something a bit later. I'm sure that we have your contact information on hand. Neshad, look, we need to talk to Melvi about this mine of yours. She has machinery." She almost dragged her older brother by the elbow away from the Breeder, who politely remained behind.
"There's something completely suspitious about that guy," she said when they'd turned around one of the corners in the big house. "Don't you think?"
"I think But Lin, we've totally lost that spy-thriller thing in our bloodline, generations ago."
"Don't be silly. Both of us have powers we can use to track him."
Neshad stood there rather numbly and with his crimson eyebrows raised. "Do we?"
"Remember when we were children, and you showed me that trick you had learned? Following me about in the Hold?" Lin'es said. "Can't you do that any longer?"
"... I can, I suppose," Neshad said. "You're right, I can still use electrically powered objects for my vision. Normally I just kind of use it to work on the station's wiring."
"What a waste, then," Lin'es said with a grin on her dark violet face, "show me that you can still track, and I'll show you what I've learned how to do."
"That sounds dirty," Neshad said, and concentrated on the lamp which was next to where they had last been standing talking to the Breeder. "He's not there any more. Let me see..." He used his tracking powers through the electrical wiring, and located another object. A small rotating art piece, which caused him to be a bit dizzy when he used it as a point of view. "There he is, he's back in the mud hall. I think he's talking to someone but it's on a private sat line. I don't think I can interrupt that."
"Then let me try," his half sister said. "Watch out for me." She sat down in the soft cushioned dark-grey chair nearby, and went into a kind of trance. "I see him, now..." Her voice was a whisper, as though her body didn't want to accept any movement or commands. She was seeing and hearing - but from outside her body. Floating freely in the nothingness between people, Lin'es found their Breeder and listened in on his conversation.
To her, it sounded almost tinny, as though she was listening through a bucket or plastic walls. Sound from everywhere else reverberated and made it difficult to make out every word, but she got the gist of his conversation.
When Lin'es snapped back to her body, Neshad had fetched a glass of water and offered it to her. She looked tired out suddenly on opening her violet eyes. "He's plotting something, with a man I think is a High Holder. I couldn't catch the name, though."
"Any idea what he's up to?" Neshad glanced around the corner - they couldn't see the mud hall from there, of course, but he did it anyway.
"I think it has to do with your mines you've just Inherited," Lin'es said, narrowing her eyes in thought, "if he knows you have these powers, I wonder if he didn't already have something in mind..."
Neshad sat down in the seat next to her, cramming himself onto the chair built for one. He wasn't a tiny man, and she certainly took after her burly father. The chair strained, and Lin'es giggled at his idiotic behavior.
"I wonder then, maybe we go along with him, and see what's up. I don't want to pass up the chance - real or otherwise - to meet someone else with my abilities."
"I can't blame you," Lin'es. "You're... unique."
"Ain't I though?" He grinned widely. The arm of the chair gave way a moment later and deposited him on the floor right as a number of their elder relatives and family came into the hall.

"As you can see the contract clearly states this condition," said Nankai's Membayer lawyer. "It was there when you signed the contract."
"It wasn't," Neshad said, "In fact I made a copy of it."
"Copies cannot be admitted into this court," the judge reminded them. "We don't know when it was made, or whether you merely fabricated it."
"That's nonsense," replied Lin'es sharply, "if we cannot introduce a copy of the document - which myself and no fewer than two others witnessed," she recalled them clearly, since they were the operators at the station's print room, "then you cannot introduce that document," here she pointed to the contract in question, "since it may also have been altered or fabricated in the intervening time."
The judge was silent for a moment, and then he narrowed his eyes. "Point." He said. He turned to Nankai and his group. "Which actually brings up a very good question that I've been wondering about all this time. Where is the other copy of the Breeding Contract, Beast Master Breeder Nankai? The copy of which is meant to go to the sire of the child, since you Own the mother?"
"There was little need for it at the time," Nankai said abruptly, and his lawyer looked slightly peeved that he was talking without first consulting him about the results. "After all, Master Neshad and my Slave Melena had already consummated their-"
"Judge, I need to remind my client of certain privacy matters," said the Membayar beside the Breeder. He aimed a scathing look at the man, who almost seemed apt to continue even when he knew he was just putting fuel into the fire.
"No, that was a free admission to the court," the Judge said, trying to ignore the sputtering protests that the lawyer was giving off. He looked first at Nankai, then to Neshad. "Is this true, what he's said?"
Neshad furrowed his brows and said, "no, not to my knowledge. I signed long before I'd even met the woman. I could hardly have been having sex with a Slave without knowing it."
"Did you sign this contract?" The judge asked, standing - collecting it from Nankai's lawyer, and placing it before the "tech-elf". Neshad peered closely at it, touched it with his thick fingers, and looked back up at the judge.
"Sir, with all due respect, I cannot say if I signed this or not - whether it was a contract at the time I signed it."
That put a tic onto Nankai's face.
"And what exactly does that mean?" The judge asked, curious. He saw how Nankai rose a bit in color and fidgeted a bit, and recognized those things as a sign they were on the right track now.
"It means, sir, that I might have signed the paper," Neshad said, "but not necessarily while it was a contract. There are ways of getting signatures and then placing them onto other-"
"This is purely outrageous!" Yelled Master Quain, "what manner of lies are you tolerating in this court?"
"I am tolerating a bit of new information, for the sake of discovering the truth," the Judge said, calmly. "Now sit yourself back down and do not interrupt again, I'll have you charged."
As Quain lowered himself back into the leather and wood seat, Neshad rose from his own. "If I may, sir, my sister is a qualified psychometrist. She can read the paper's origin, perhaps the information there will help."
Given a pause, the judge nodded. "Well, in the interests of keeping the fairness in this courtroom - I will find in the courthouse another impartial examiner. I know we have one or more on staff." He rose back up to his full height, straightened his robes, and turned to the room again. "There will be a recess until a psychometrist can be located that can verify the origin of the paper and its contents."
He left to go do so, followed by the Bayaran running the room.
That left two rather irate parties, glaring at one another from across their desks.
"You know we've caught you in it," Lin'es said. "There's no escaping this one. You altered it, we know that."
"I didn't do anything of the sort," Nankai muttered and Quain nudged him to be silent.
In the three years since their grandfather's death, Neshad had begun getting the rich ores from his new mine lands. He'd also sired a child with Slave Melena, a young woman whose own powers echoed his but also drew from crystals and pure ores and not just technology. Their son was a long-eared bronze skinned boy with long ears and one too few finger on each hand. It was plainly obvious to both Melena and Neshad that the boy would be strongly powerful in the world of technology. However, it wasn't Neemal that was the problem.
It was that in his contract - or so Nankai claimed - the mines themselves were the bargaining chips instead of the sizable funds that had already exchanged hands, that would Free or Raise Neemal from being Owned by the Breeder. In this "new" version of the contract, Neemal was meant to be Raised at such time that either his father demanded it, or he turned fifteen and was tested at a Breeding house. Of course, the testing had already been started, by his Lord. The fine print on the contract that Neshad had actually signed read no such way of course.
"It was a huge gamble," Neshad said. "But you're going to learn why our family has pretty much given up gambling.
Nankai grunted, still smiling to himself. Shortly, the judge, Bayaran and a third person, a slender limbed young man with a bad haircut and too many ruffles on his shirt came into the room.
"Found him," the Judge said, and presented the young man. "Young Master Farn, this is the paperwork in question."
The Bayaran a-hemmed, and made sure that any of the offical paperwork needed, in this case an "expert witness" waiver, was signed off by everyone. The judge duly noted Nankai's hesitance to sign it. But the moment after he did, Farn picked up the contract and leaned against the judge's large desk.
"It's made locally, paper mill not more than fifteen kliks away from its forest. The... ink, the signature ink was produced in Kiran, imported. The rest of the contract's composition is different. The ink here," he indicated clearly to the judge and both groups, where the contract read, "is much ... much fresher on the contract portion, than the signature."
"So what is your opinion on this paperwork?" Asked the judge, but he wasn't watching the young man. He was watching the Breeder.
"My professional opinion is that this contract was printed onto paper that had an existing signature on it."
"Is there any doubt in your mind that the signature was there first?" Asked the judge, still staring at Nankai. He was giving that interesting eye-tic again.
"No doubt whatsoever." He said. Farn halfway saw that while the one set of people, a Breeder and Master, looked altogether angry at this finding, the other - a man and woman who looked enough like one another to be siblings? Didn't look nearly as harshly. He in fact thought that the woman, while a bit on the chunky side, was pretty attractive all in all. And there was something about her...
"Thank you, Master Farn, that will be all for today. I consider your court fees to be paid by the loser of this case, when I pass judgement, and I will make sure that Harkan here will get you a copy of the proceedings."
Farn bowed, and left the room, but he allowed his eye to drift toward Lin'es as he shut the great wooden doors.
While the judge, Bayaran and opposing team were all shuffling papers, Lin'es and Neshad exchanged a bit of a smile. "There's a good one for you, sis," Neshad muttered. "I found mine, sort of."
"He's good - honestly I don't know if I could have done that well." Lin'es said.
They paid attention again, when the judge clapped once.
"If this were a mere case of Breeding misconduct, or a forgery, I would say that it wouldn't be as serious." He drew in a breath, and looked at Nankai and Quain. "But it is more. It is a serious breech of good conduct in both legal and Breeding circles to alter a contract. The fact that you neglected to offer a copy of any contract to the Sire of this child is an infraction that I will consider added to the rest of this mess. Beast Master Breeder Nankai, I am going to find you guilty of misbehavior and fraudulent contract creation. You do not now, nor will you ever, Hold Master Neshad's mine Lands, and in addition I am going to grant the immediate Raising to Bayaran to the boy, Neemal, in the care of his father."
There was a kind of angry silence, from the desk where the Breeder and his crony sat.
"And, while it is not entirely warranted as I have found no actual abuse on record, it will be my pleasure to tell you that your Slave Melena will be going with the boy also as Bayaran."
"You cannot do that," said Quain. "That is so far above your jurisdiction in this case that-"
"While I'm going to say you might be right in some cases, Master Quain?" The judge said, holding his hand up and having his Bayaran take notes on the pair's behavior, "in this case, I do believe that the woman in question was being used only to procure Land Holdings on the part of her Lord. That is an unacceptable misuse of a good fertile Slave, sir."
There was more paperwork to fill out and determine who owed what to the courts, but as they left, both Lin'es and Neshad remained to gloat a bit before retrieving the new Bayaran Neshad held.
"That's why we don't gamble," Neshad said.
"Especially not on such a long shot," Lin'es added.
"It was hardly a gamble," Quain muttered as he pushed by. "It's a-" He stopped himself, the judge was still there listening in on them.
"You know you want to say it," Lin'es said, blocking the door briefly as he stood there. "That you two have done it before. Just that no one else has questioned it."
"That, Mistress, is pure speculation. And I would add, that the case is closed and your winnings should be collected before we have them thrown out for tresspassing." With that, he shoved by and was followed by a rather distracted Breeder.
"I know they've done it before, the cases just haven't crossed my courtroom," said the judge. "That's why I was willing to entertain your little 'gamble'. Bringing in a psychometrist was a good idea, I wouldn't have thought of that."
"Can I ..." Lin'es started to say, but stopped, and had all three men staring at her. The Bayaran gave a grin and chuckle.
"I'll go find him, Mistress," he said, and walked out to go locate Farn. The other two stood and watched Lin'es blush.

"Fesli?" Lin'es said, looking around the corner of her bedroom and into the broad white hall. "Fesli?" She stepped out, and saw her daughter - all of six years old, who lay at the bottom of the stairs to the second story - crumpled in a sobbing heap.
"Fesli!" The Mistress ran to her child, and felt an immediate wave of fear, pain and shame from her. Fesli's first day with new powers of empathy, and it turned into something far more serious. Lin'es took her daughter carefully into her arms. The bone in her leg was sticking all the way up to her skin, but it hadn't broken through. It also looked as though Fesli was cradling her right wrist. The violet color of Fesli's skin and the confusion of the colorful markings in bright gold and pale blue made it even harder to see just what else might be wrong - but Lin'es didn't see any blood.
Nor did she see any tears.
"It's okay to cry out, Fesli," Lin'es said softly, as she carried the girl to the office. It was possible that by now she was in shock - Lin'es didn't even know quite when her daughter had fallen down the stairs. It couldn't have been many minutes before she was found, they were supposed to be on their way to a musical show, and both of them were getting ready separately. Fesli was a very mature little girl, and she steadfastly refused to cry on the way to the healer. Lin'es carefully punched up a number to the nearby Breeder's house, and was immediately told to come as quickly as possible, as carefully as they could.
While the First Degree Breeder set about putting his own powers to work - he had a bit of psionics but not so much that he could work too long - Lin'es went to his office to call her husband.
He was at work, more than two hours away in Kua. The look on Farn's face was a strange one. "This is my fault," he whispered.
"Hardly - it was just an accident, she's a young child and she fell," Lin'es said.
"No - no, not that she fell..." He sighed, and Lin'es saw him glance down, he was looking at his fingers. "My fault that she broke her bones. I told you we should have consulted a Breeder about this..."
"We'll have to talk about that later," Lin'es said, worried. "But she will be fine. The Healer has set her bones and she's resting now, so the Bond here is waving at me to say." She flashed a smile at the short boy, who nodded and went back to the girl's side. "It will be fine."
"I'll be home in the evening," Farn announced, and took the rest of his day off.
Lin'es disconnected the vid, and peered into the recovery room where her colorful daughter lay asleep.
"I've given her a relaxant," the Healer said, "and she will need pain killers. I could only set the main leg bone, her wrist had to be done manually. It will be very tender. She has extremely light, fragile bones, Mistress Lin'es. It is a good thing that this fall was not onto some harder surface than your carpeted floor."
"That's what he meant," Lin'es said. She glanced from her daughter back up to the Breed Lord, Healer Wilka. "My husband said that he was to blame - could this be something about his side of the family? Mine has never had anything like this, really."
"It is surely possible. Some anomalies like your psionics are paired with mutations - not all of them beneficial." The older man drew up a chair and sat beside the bed, and Lin'es did the same. They spoke quietly, but not in whispers. "Perhaps his family line has a weakness in the bones. But that is certainly what has happened here. Fesli will need to be careful, probably all her life, with this kind of mutation."
"It... can't be cured?" Lin'es asked, more out of quick wonder than serious thought.
"No, no. It is a condition that is inherent to her powers." Wilka looked at Lin'es, and added carefully, "it may have been enhanced by the reinforcement of your own genes. I am not a qualified Breeder for that kind of thing, though. My specialty of course is merely healing."
"It's good enough for me," Lin'es assured him. "But, can you recommend a Breeder capable of ... well, testing or whatever it would take?"
"Of course." Wilka stood and said, "if you wish to take her home, you should do so. She will be asleep for another few hours at least, but there should be someone with her when she wakes. You may remain here, it's thankfully not so busy. I have the beds to spare."
While Wilka found the contact information to a good local Breeder of a higher Degree than himself, Lin'es gathered her daughter delicately and put her in the carriage outside. "I need to be at home, my husband will be coming back from Kua, and we should talk together."
"Well, good luck then. Bring her back if things change or get worse for her. I may have to find you more of the pain killers, if she requires them." He tucked the card with another Breeder's name and number on it into Lin'es' jacket pocket.
The ride home and the wait for Master Farn was mostly uneventful. Lin'es got a bit of her paperwork done for her last job, and wondered how much the bill was going to be for this little medical emergency. Wilka was an exceptionally nice man, but his services weren't going to be cheap either. When Lin'es heard the distinct jingle of Farn's carriage approach the homestead from the south, she almost lept to the door way herself. Two of the Bayaran in the house kept her occupied, one with bringing her a cup of water for Fesli, and the other assured her that he could in fact bring Farn into the house.
The tall and thinly handsome Farn entered with a great worry on his pale blue face. "Is she all right?"
"She's fine," Lin'es said. She explained the details of the injuries, and then asked, "you said that this was your fault - Farn, I don't blame you and you shouldn't blame yourself."
"I knew that my own bones break easily, but that's why I chose a bit of a lazy job." Farn admitted. "I'm the first in my family to have this kind of power level, so ..."
"Well I've collected a Breeder's contact from Healer Wilka. We'll take her to them when she's better." Lin'es said. As they spoke, Fesli stirred a bit, and both her parents felt a wave of strange garbled feelings. The empathy would have to come under control somehow.
The first thing that little Fesli said was, "are we at the show yet?"
Her disappointment as she woke grew strongly. She hardly noticed her wrist, instead Fesli's tears were because she'd missed the flower wreaths and sand sculpting contests.

Neemal and his mother relished the times that they could just rest outside the mines and return to their home. Getting clean and warm, laying in the sun, and generally enjoying being Freeworkers instead of Slaves - or Bayaran, which they'd earned their way out of quickly indeed, those were things that anyone would enjoy. But this pair seemed to love it more. Their lives had been hard enough, under Beast Master Breeder Nankai, but now their earnings showed when they worked for it.
Both of them were expertly able to extract ores from stone, locate the good crystals among the bad. Neemal's abilities with machinery and technology were much stronger than his mother's, and his sire was determined to make sure that he exploited them fully.
"How was the exhibition?" Neshad asked his son, Melena had already retired for the night, when Neemal wandered back out to the Hold's main house.
"It was fantastic," Neemal grinned. The colorful metallic patterns on his skin showed up in the firelight, and in that light too his fire-orange hair and dark eyes gleamed of their own accord. "There were all kinds of new devices. There was one, I think it was a Membayar from the mountains in Tana, he'd gotten some digging machine out there. It practically works itself."
"That's for me." Neshad laughed.
"You would take the easy way out," his son laughed at him. "But there was also a great flatbed, hover engined. It could mean we could transport the ores up through the regular walkways, instead of tunneling down for elevators."
"Did you get their-"
"Of course I got their contact information," Neemal said, indicating a pile of paperwork and cards on the nearby table. "You know I won't be able to afford that machinery, but you could."
"It's my mine, I think I should, eh?" Neshad said. He sat comfortably in a big chair near the fireplace in the northern Bohata home. "It'll be yours, some day. Yours and your mother's."
Neemal sat down on the floor next to his father's feet, staring at the fire. "Ah. Great. That means a life of effort for us, then. Thanks."
Neshad nudged his son with his knee, and then put his feet up on the young man's back in jest. "Yes... And you can start now. Just, um, don't move."
"I would trade anything to be able to manipulate fire instead of machinery, about now," Neemal muttered, while he slid his long-eared head out from under his father's feet. "Then I could make sure your poor exhausted little feet would be nice and warm."
"Brutal," Neshad said, sleepily. "Oh, say, your cousin was interested in that ... thing, whatever it was, that you were making for her."
"It's kind of a collection plate, for her to use to sense through."
"That's what she said. I reiterate, that thing."
"She'll be able to concentrate on it, I can tune it right for her so she can put it places and, well, you know, listen in on things with it."
"Why not just use a camera and microphone like everyone else?" Neshad muttered, "people'd think she's a spy or something."
"It runs in the family," Neemal said with a laugh. "There were some other distant relatives, asking about those things too. Do you think I should take them up on it?"
"What, you mean those Qhaleb people again? Don't they have enough trouble for themselves, they want to share it now?"
"I think they want to pay me," Neemal threw his stubby finger into the air. "That's a bonus I can't pass up."
"It's your payment, I say go for it. Just don't blame me when you get arrested for some weird law."
"Aww you're no fun, dad," Neemal said, "and you're really sleepy. What were you doing all day, anyway?"
"You know that antenna at the top of the Station in Stetil?" Neshad asked, and Neemal nodded. "Well it fell down - there was a storm. I put it back up."
"Yourself?"
"Mostly," Neshad said. "But it's back up now. It was pretty tough. It ripped out a batch of wiring and made a mess of the anchoring. We've both had a day."
Then let's call it a night, dad. Go to bed. I'll put the fire out, and you ..." Neemal let the fire remain, since his father had already fallen to sleep.