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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 181: Takano 139
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Brown 349
At work the next day, Tommy was trying out her new toy, reading the minds of coworkers ranging from her supervisor Mister Granville to Billy, the mailroom boy who had a crush on her. The latter was not terribly surprising, as he was trying to think of how to impress her and persuade her to go out on another date. The former impressed her, because he was actually thinking about work. She didn’t learn anything significant, though.
However, she did look forward to the next lesson, and hurried home after work. It didn’t help much that she was there first, but since she was first in the door she figured she might as well put together some dinner for them. She fried up some pork chops, boiled a can of whole potatoes and drained and mashed them, and heated a can of peas. She didn’t really care for peas, but her time in the forest had introduced her to foods for which she cared considerably less. Brian was home before she had gotten very far along on this, but she told him dinner was cooking and he should get cleaned up and let Vashti and Derek know to come soon.
As she served the food using pretty much every pan in the house, Brian commented, “We still need to get some dishes and tableware and stuff. I’ll try to pick up something this weekend.”
Derek then asked, “What would be a good time for us to come in to BBS for, I guess, job interviews?”
“Tomorrow morning, when Tommy and I go in.”
“Good. That way Vashti and I can get set up and out of your hair.”
Tommy jerked, almost spilling her drink.
“No, no. We have the extra bedroom. It’s perfect. Like it was designed to be.”
“We don’t want to impose, Tommy. You’re very kind, but--”
“But nothing. This would be great. Right Uncle Brian?”
He nodded. “I see no reason not to. It is up to the Brown’s however. They might want more privacy than they can have here. But please, I would be genuinely glad to have you, and we all know Tommy is your number one fan.”
“That’s my job,” Vashti objected with a wink at Tommy.
“Number 2 fan then.” Brian allowed.
Derek looked over at Vashti, and she seemed agreeable, so he nodded. “Well, then I guess we’re home.” Vashti and Tommy both cheered.
Twenty minutes later Brian was out the door headed for choir practice. Vashti helped Tommy clean up, learning how to wash dishes. Then they settled at the table, and Derek started with Vashti.
“Remind me. I taught you how to read minds back on the Wanderer, and I also taught you telepathy there, so we could talk without the android wondering what we were saying. Then in the Parakeet world you learned how to tap a language center. Am I forgetting anything?”
She shook her head. “No, that’s about it.”
He nodded. “Well, I learned to seek thinking minds, but I only did it once, to find my mother before I was born. I learned to communicate with alien minds on Wanderer, but I don’t know that you could ever use that here--maybe if an alien shows up, I can teach that to you. So I think the next best choice is summoning animals. I did butterflies, snakes, bees, wasps, salamanders, chipmunks, squirrels, and a bird or two, plus a fox, a turtle, and some fish.”
It struck Tommy that being able to summon fish would have been quite helpful in her previous world, but she didn’t mention it.
“To do it, you have to reach out telepathically, and you need the pattern of the kind of animal you’re trying to reach. I started with butterflies, because I thought they would be safe. That’s probably the best place for you to start--it’s a bit late in the day for summoning most of the animals I’ve summoned, and we don’t really want to summon mice into the house. But I think that means you don’t actually get to try it until tomorrow. Good?”
“Ready,” she replied.
Derek seemed to be composing himself, then stared at Vashti, and there was a moment of silence before she said, “Got it.”
“Good. Next, you’re going to teach Tommy how to project a psionic skill pattern. I’ll repeat it after you. Tommy, you’re going to have to find someone you can use this with, so you can learn it by doing it once. I’d just be careful with it--psionic skills are a lot more powerful than you might think.”
“Ready?” Vashti asked.
“I--I think so,” Tommy replied, and then there was that connection, and she suddenly had a clear mental pattern for what she had to do with her mind to teach someone else the things she was learning.
Now she just had to figure out who.
“Well, I’m going to bed,” Derek said. “Don’t stay up too late; you’ll want to make a good impression tomorrow for this job interview,” and he headed up the stairs leaving Vashti and Tommy behind.
They talked about girl things, and Tommy realized that they had a lot more in common than she might have thought. Vashti had been raised an Arabian princess in a fantasy medieval world, and got married at seventeen, and after spending a year or two in space, maybe a year in a world going through an industrial revolution, and quite a few months in a future world where her husband and his best friend were contestants in gladiator games, had been in a battle against spirit powers to save the people of a city. Tommy had been raised in a turn of the twenty-first century home, ran through a few worlds in rapid succession with one long stay in a world similar to this one but without superheroes, and a stretch in a futuristic underground habitat leading to an extended camp in the woods. Yet for that, they were within a year of each other in apparent age, and shared something that could be considered similar in their experience. Of course, Vashti had Derek; but she had had Lauren to help her for quite a while, and Johnny Angel before that.
On the other hand, she didn’t have anyone quite like Derek.
“I don’t guess I’ll ever get married,” she sighed. “I’m always going to look like I’m sixteen.”
“Oh, don’t think that,” Vashti said. “There are worlds where you would be considered an old maid. I certainly think that being married is wonderful, but it’s got its down sides.”
“Oh?”
“Well, for one thing, here we are, and my life here so far hasn’t really been about what am I going to do next, but more about what is Derek going to do next, and how do I help make that happen. You don’t really live for yourself once you’re married. That’s good in a lot of ways, but in some ways it isn’t. For example, you chose to be Truth, because you had abilities you could use in a situation in which you could save some people. I might wind up a superhero here, too, but it would be because Derek needs me to be that for him. I don’t mind that; it’s a good thing, really. But--well, I guess what I’m saying is that there is a benefit to being independent, and there is a different benefit to being married, and you shouldn’t swap the one for the other simply because you like the look of it. That’s especially true for us: we don’t get to go back.”
She nodded. There was truth in that.
Suddenly they heard the front door. “Is it that late?” Tommy said. “Brian is home from choir practice. I’ve kept you up.”
“I don’t mind,” Vashti said. “It’s been fun.”
Brian walked into the kitchen. “I could murder a hot drink,” he said. “What do we have?”
“Tea?” Tommy answered. “I mean, I could make a pot of coffee, but we’d throw out most of it this late, and I haven’t seen those little packs of instant hot chocolate so that’s a rather challenging drink to make.”
“Tea would be great,” he said. Tommy rose and started some water on the stove, got her cup from her mess kit, and found the teabags in the cabinet.
“So, what’s up?”
It occurred to her that she could read his mind, but decided against it.
“Oh, I seem to be dealing with egos.”
“Egos?” Vashti encouraged.
He brushed them off. “You don’t want to hear about it.”
“Sure we do,” Vashti said.
He seemed to consider it for a moment, then continued. “There’s a woman in the soprano section who has a lovely voice, and there’s a song I would love to have the choir do with her singing the solo. However, there’s another woman who believes she is the church’s female soloist, and that she should sing all the solos. She does have an excellent voice, a strong, clear sound; but she’s really more of a mezzo-soprano, and this song would tax her range. I don’t think she would sound good in it at all. She, of course, thinks otherwise. I don’t want to offend her, but it’s starting to look like either I drop this song or I lose a solid member of the choir.”
Vashti nodded. “I don’t know if this helps,” she said, “but when we were in the Living Colors Dixieland Gospel Band, Derek more than once said, I hope I can put this right, that his job was to make each of the rest of us look good, and our jobs were to make him and each other look good. Anyone who was trying to make himself look good was ruining the sound.”
“He’s pretty sharp,” Brian said. “I can see where that might help, if I can get everyone to see that what matters is not who sings the solo but how the song sounds. I’ll give that some thought.”
Tommy delivered a cup of tea. “Thanks,” Brian said, and blew on it before sipping.
“Well, I’m off to bed,” Vashti said. “Apparently I have an early day tomorrow.”
“I suppose I should go, too,” Tommy commented. “You going to be alright?”
“I’ll manage,” Brian said. “G’night.”
“Good night,” and she headed to her bed.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
