021 - Acclimation, Orientation, Initial Goals

Journal of Steven Caplan: Day 1

Retrospectively, my first complete day on a different planet – I am farther away than any of the NASA boys ever got.

Waking first, Caspian took opportunity to do for Steven what he had not done for himself before leaving for Terra. He had to use himself for a source, but then asking anyone else to stand still would have been potentially problematic. Caspian then cast a spell that copied Caspian’s knowledge of his native language and implanted it into Steven’s mind. It would take several days to work out and for Steven to get to fluency, but once done he could then communicate with at least some of the natives.

Steven slept until lunch. He had not slept this long in a long time, but felt fully refreshed. The language had not yet taken hold, but Caspian did not expect it to yet; Steven could only try to gesture what he wanted, as there were no common words between what Steven could speak and what the locals could. The refreshment did not last, as he collapsed just after dinner and did not wake until a little before dawn.

This village being little more than a way point for the local high mountain herders and trappers, there was little for Steven to equip with. Also they mentioned that the Krogg Caravan had kept to itself, and had left before afternoon the day before; there were no extra women with them when they left.

This bothered Caspian as it meant that they probably had already disposed of Roxanne, and he had to find her first, before trying to go after the children. He tried to explain this to Steven the next morning as they hiked out from the village.

Journal of Steven Caplan: Day 2

What have I gotten into?

Steven called him on that. “What do you mean by that?”

Caspian responded, thinking carefully. “Your children are safe enough while they are in the caravan’s care. They are two days or so south of us now. They have most of a season’s travel south to their destination. We can catch them by sea with relative ease. But your wife could be in greater trouble. She can’t communicate with any of the locals, and there are some who would kill her or worse, should they discover her heritage.”

Steven was slightly puzzled. “Kill her just because she is not from around here?”

Caspian shook his head. “No. Kill her because she is descended from an elf. She is a half-elf. Her mother and grandmother were only children, and only bore daughters. Her grandmother is too youthful for her age; all three of them look almost identical. Her great-grandmother died within days of her husband. That is because that great-grand was an elf, from one of the clans’ local to this planet. There are some who think that kind of interbreeding should not happen and will kill the offspring out of hand, if they can.”

Steven had to think about this. “How do you know so much about my wife’s family?”

Caspian waved this off. “Alistare Kevan is the contact for all who travel to your planet from this one, at least for those who know about him. It is part of his job to keep tabs on all the immigrants and their families, and to keep the new arrivals out of trouble. He has a chart with your wife’s pedigree, and where you all live.”

Steven bristled at this. “That’s an invasion of privacy.”

Caspian just continued. “If he used it for nefarious purposes, yes. To keep people out of trouble, well, that’s his job. As for some of what I said, that is common knowledge about half-breeds, to those who know. Their lifespan links to their mates; so they die near the same time, while aging inwardly almost as slow as a full elf does. They only breed to their own sex, and only once. That you have two is truly rare, and marks your family as special.”

Caspian had to bite his tongue from saying any more. He wanted to tell more, but did not think Steven would be able to absorb any more, for now. As it was, he would have Steven’s acclimation to mana to watch for, on top of everything else.

They were hiking through a forest with dense enough cover that Steven could not clearly see the sky. They walked through the early spring forest, with buds and blooms around them, and patches of snow not yet melted. The trees were larger than Steven had seen in most of the forests he had been in. They also looked to have survived several fires, with few low hanging branches, and little accumulation on the floor. The air seemed both heavier and more energizing. Steven had also noticed that everything seemed to be a bit heavier. At first he though it was just fatigue. Once he could march forty miles and still have energy to make a sniper hide; now he was acknowledging to himself that he was not in as good shape as he once had been. He did spot tracks of several different critters, but while they looked patterned, he could not put specific animals to the tracks from memory.

Steven hiked a bit in silence, then stopped and looked around, and at the tracks on the trail they were following. “You say that this caravan is heading south. You said that Rox is probably not with them. Which way are we headed?”

Caspian had not stopped. “West. To find the right trees to make the replacement trackers, I need to get to a lower elevation. The fastest way is west. New trackers, and then we can see where to go to find Roxanne and your kids.”

Steven caught up. “Why not just teleport?”

Caspian remembered asking this question as a child to his own father. “To teleport safely, by any of the known methods, one needs to know where he is going. To open a gate, one usually needs a known object to focus on. For what I need, I don’t know exactly where I need to go. Just teleporting a straight line distance has the danger of damaging either the caster, or whatever the caster has his spell shunt out of his way. No, ethical and polite teleporter’s don’t do that.”

Steven had one last important question, to Caspian’s judgment, at the moment.

Steven asked it. “How many days march to where you can get your stuff?”

Caspian was quick to respond. “Five days. Maybe six, depending on the pace you can keep.”

They continued hiking west all day. Steven kept wavering between this being all some kind of hoax, and taking it at face value.

The forest continued to have a sparse tree population compared to what he knew in the Tahoe Basin and Sierra Nevada area, with few low hanging branches, but the upper canopy was thick enough that the sky could not clearly be seen. It reminded Steven of some of the forests he had seen in Washington and Oregon, and some few parts of Germany. It rained from time to time, but with the canopy of trees, it only drizzled on Steven and Caspian as they marched through the forest.

*          *          *

Margot Winslow always enjoyed going to visit her daughter, and grandkids. The cleaner air and altitude of Carson Valley agreed with her. Her husband, Mike, on the other hand despised any gain in altitude, equating that with getting cold. He refused to travel to Tahoe in the winter. In lighter moments he claimed to be allergic to snow. Margot, on the other hand, enjoyed snow, so long as it was not moving sideways. She had seen enough of that growing up in Nebraska. For her purposes she was well enough off in Santa Cruz, California.

Now events happened that had left her wondering a few things. First were the strange dreams, about flying through space. Then there was the phone call. She had heard of Judge Kevan; that he was a good judge to go before, and a stern man personally.

When he called Thursday evening to report that Roxanne and the kids had been abducted, Margot was devastated. Then when he said that his best investigator was on the case, and to call Steven and tell him to trust the investigator, and go with him, that had been strange. More so was that he had only given a single name, “Detective Caspian.” That was different. But her instincts said that this was all right. Last he said that Roxanne and the kids had been taken back to Margot’s grandmother’s home world, Tywacomb. That was something she had not ever told Roxanne, or Mike. Her grandmother had said that if that name was invoked, to follow her instincts. So she called, and relayed the message.

She then told of this to Mike.

The next day, Friday, Margot had gone to Sacramento, and found this Judge Kevan, and taken him to lunch. The information they shared was quite startling, to both of them. He had been surprised that she had known that her grandmother was an elf from another planet. When he had told her of the origin of the kidnappers, she quickly put together that Rox and the kids had been taken to her grandmother’s home world. Then he mentioned that Caspian and Steven had already left in pursuit. Margot was a bit dumbfounded by this. She left lunch promising to keep in touch.

She drove to her husband’s work place, and told him everything she knew, start to finish. And also why there was no good reason that Roxanne had not been told of her half-breed status. They decided to do what ever they could to keep things in order.

When she finally got back to her office, for the last 20 minutes of the day, she found two messages from a Sheriff Deputy investigating the abduction, one from Judge Kevan, and a handful from her work she had neglected that day. She told her secretary, partners, and boss generally what she had been up to. Also that this might take up unexpected time in the next while.

She then planned to drive up to Roxanne’s place on Sunday, see the deputy then, and take care of the house. Mike begged off the trip, having other things he wanted to do. Margot recognized it as his dislike for traveling, for personal not being the same as important, his recognition of her abilities, and let it go.

So here she was taking a Sunday drive from Santa Cruz through Tahoe, going to her daughter’s house to finish cleaning it up and to close it up until Roxanne and Steven returned. She arrived just after ten a.m. and let herself in.