I have a message from another time... Eyrie Productions, Unlimited presents UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT - SYMPHONY OF THE SWORD No. 2 - Interlude in the Golden City in A Benjamin D. Hutchins (c) 2001 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2405 Corwin Ravenhair woke from a dream of cold and pain to find himself warm and comfortable. The transition was gradual, sliding from one to the other, and as it happened, the vaguely troubled look on his face changed to a smile. Rather a smug one, as it happened. He'd been dreaming that he'd had a drive failure of some kind, and had burned the hell out of his hands making some dumbass mistake or another while trying to fix it, that he was drifting powerless in deep space without life support power or working hands to repair it with, all alone, waiting to die. Not a nice dream. The difference, as consciousness slowly, deliciously replaced the illusion, was like night and day. Here in the real world, he wasn't cold; he was warm. He wasn't in pain; he felt wonderful, wrapped up contentedly in the quilted covers of a very comfortable bed. He wasn't in any danger of dying, and he wasn't alone. There was a warm, soft, sweet-smelling shape beside him, nestled in the protective arc of his arms, her breath warm against his cheek. Everything as it should be. Grand-dad's in his Heaven, all's right with the World. ... Wait. Slowly, carefully, he opened his pale blue eyes. Bright green ones twinkled mischievously back at him. "Good morning, sleepyhead," said their owner in a voice that was as soft and warm as the rest of her. Corwin recoiled, fumbled with the covers - his hands seemed to be rather clumsy this morning - and whipped them back, then realized a nanosecond later that that might not be the best course of action. Fortunately, he discovered that he was dressed - well, wearing his black silk pajamas, anyway - and so was she - well, in a green flannel nightdress, anyway. She was small, a little younger than he, just starting to round off; she had a lot of wavy flame-orange hair to go with those emerald-green eyes, pale skin, and a birdshot pattern of freckles across the bridge of a button nose. "Vigdis?!" Corwin sputtered. "What the hell are you doing here?" Vigdis beamed at him. "The Chief sent me to make sure you were OK. You know, keep an eye on you, make sure you were sleeping all right... " She leaned closer, batting her thick eyelashes at him. "... Take care of any needs you might have... " "Cut it -out-, Vee," he grumbled, putting a hand on her shoulder and giving her a gentle push away. "Too -young- for this crap," Corwin muttered. He went to wipe his hands down his face, then blinked at them as he realized that they were bandaged, swathed like a mummy's mittens. They didn't -hurt-, but... ... Oh! That wasn't a dream. Or rather, it was, but it was a dream based on reality - his previous day, except with all the good parts taken out. And thinking of the good parts, where - Vigdis, undaunted, slid nearer, draping her arms over his shoulders, and said, "Don't be that way, Corwin. You know I'd do anything for you. Any of us would... " He opened his mouth to tell her once more to lay off; just then the door opened and Utena Tenjou poked her head in. "Hey, Corwin, are you - " She skidded to a verbal halt, stood looking perplexed for a moment, and then turned bright, bright red. Corwin, looking over Vigdis's shoulder at her, matched her hue for hue. "Um, sorry... should I come back?" asked Utena. "Yeah, in about - " Vigdis began, but Corwin got one of his mitts on her shoulder and shoved her away, not-very-gently this time. "Get the hell -off- me, Vigdis, dammit!" he snapped. "Who do you think you are, my Aunt Urd? Get lost!" The little redhead stared at him with a shocked, hurt expression for an instant, then covered it up with a very mature look of wounded dignity. Slowly, she gathered herself up, stepped down from the bed to the floor, brushed her nightdress straight, and said, "Well, fine. See if I ever sit a vigil over -you- again, Corwin Ravenhair." "Nobody asked you to," he replied grumpily. "Fine," Vigdis repeated, elevating her chin. "Be that way," she added, then turned on her bare heel and marched out of the room without so much as a "hello" for Utena as she brushed past and on into the corridor. Utena watched her go with a puzzled expression, then moved into the room, shut the door, leaned back against it, folded her arms, and said with concern in her voice, "You were -awful- to her, Corwin. It's not like you." Corwin tried to rake his hands back through his hair, failed owing to the lack of gaps between his fingers, and sighed. "She's a pain in the ass," he replied. "Always has been, always will be. That was Vigdis Brightblade, youngest of the Valkyrior." Utena blinked. "That little kid? She's a Valkyrie? She's younger than you are!" Corwin nodded. "Almost a year younger, but she has the gift and the mark to prove it, so she's a Valkyrie. Truth to tell, she's one of our best in weapons trials... but she's a pain in the ass." "She seems pretty fond of you," Utena observed wryly. Corwin sighed, shaking his head. "They all do that." He got out of bed, found his robe hanging on the back of a chair, and belted it on. Now that he had a chance to look around, he knew where he was: this was one of the guest chambers in Odin's palace, smack in the center of the Golden City of Asgard. It was opulent, mostly white marble and dark wood, with a polar bear's skin on the floor for a rug, a fireplace, and a curtained French door that led to a balcony off to one side. "Look, I'm the only guy who's ever been a Valkyrie, right?" Corwin asked rhetorically as he went and drew back the curtains, flooding the room with sunlight. "Right," said Utena. "So... all the Valkyrie... facilities," he went on, looking uncomfortable. "There's only one set. Right? So there are sixteen of them, and one of me, and all that training... ever since I was old enough to pick up a staff, I've had to put up with them. Sometimes I love them - it's like having sixteen aunts. Well, fifteen and a bratty little cousin. But sometimes... sometimes it's like having sixteen Aunt Urds." Utena blinked, then shivered. "Brr." "Exactly," said Corwin. He opened the French door and went out onto the balcony. Utena followed him out, and they stood with their elbows on the railing. "It's all an act," continued Corwin. "It started about a year ago, when I... started getting taller. One of the chalkboards at Valkyrie HQ, last time I was there, had current odds on which out of the seventeen of them would be the one to... " He trailed off, his ears flaming scarlet, looked away, and continued in an almost inaudible voice, "... make a man out of me." Utena looked puzzled. "You said there were sixteen." "Sixteen regular Valkyrie." "... Oh. That's... uh. What sort of odds do they give -her-?" "Twelve to one, last I looked," he replied. "Better than Gudrun Truemace, but then, she's not into guys." "... Uh -huh-." "When Brunnhilde first put up the list, she left Vee off, 'cause at the time, she was only 12. Vee pitched a fit about it. She hates to be left out of things. Wants to be just like the others - one of the girls, y'know - field tested, battle ready, et cetera, et cetera. So she conned Hildy into sending her to look in on me this morning, just so she could give me a little more hell." He sighed. "I keep hoping she'll grow up someday. Then again, Mom never has. She encourages them. Thinks it's -cute-." He shook his head. "Aunt Urd's a bad influence. Anyway, don't worry about Vee. She's off somewhere having a good laugh about embarrassing me like that in front of you." "Hmm," said Utena noncommittally. "So," said Corwin, shaking himself out of his disgruntled reverie. "What do you think of my other hometown?" Utena smiled, looking out at the southern half of Asgard from their lofty perch on the Palace's south tower, and didn't know where to begin. This was her first good look at the place in daylight. They'd arrived in the middle of the night - actually the wee hours of this morning - and she'd been paying too much attention to landing-beacon assignments and ATC updates inbound to Asgard Spaceport to gawk out the runabout's windows at the city. Besides, at that point she'd just, with Corwin's careful vocal coaching (he couldn't do it himself, not with his hands like that), flown a runabout INTO A BLACK HOLE and emerged through a blaze of rainbow light into a star system no one would ever find on any chart; the implications occupied whatever part of her mental capacity wasn't tied up in landing the Kenduskeag. Once on the ground, she was still too busy for sightseeing. On the way in, riding in the back of a Capital Defense Forces ambulance, she'd been too concerned about Corwin, who was suffering from severe burns to his hands and had been electrocuted badly enough to require CPR earlier in the eventful evening. By the time she'd been assured to her satisfaction that he would be all right (and commended for her resuscitation efforts by the paramedic), she'd realized how dead-tired she was despite her fitful naps during the downtime, and so she'd seen him installed in this room, then gone to the one next to it and fallen into bed without taking off more than her shoes and jacket. When she woke, she'd taken a bath and so forth, then put on fresh clothes (who brought their luggage from the runabout? She didn't think it had been her) and come straight across to see if Corwin was all right. So here, now, on this balcony, she was getting her first real look at the City of the Gods. It was like nothing she'd ever seen before. In her life, she'd seen some impressive places - New Avalon, the glittering City in the Sphere, was at the top of that list, with Tenchuu, the High Priest's home city back in Cephiro, coming in second just for the grandeur of the shrine complex and Zagato's Tower. But Asgard... Asgard was like a combination of every great place she'd ever seen. Just from this balcony, she could see several castles in different styles (one of them looked surprisingly like the Castle in the Sky), what looked like a grand cathedral, many long, low buildings with roofs of glittering golden shields, hundreds of cozy little square houses topped with beautiful bright blue tiles, ultramodern silver spires, highways that looked like they were made of white marble and gold, streets paved in brick just like back in Tenchuu, a mighty clocktower of black stone and silver... it was dazzling. Off in the distance loomed snow-covered mountains, and there was a pleasant edge of not-quite-chill in the air, even on an August morning. "I'm... " She shook her head, smiling at him. "I have no words," she told him. He grinned and patted her arm with one of his bandaged paws. "Want to get a better view?" "Sure," she replied. There was a knock at the door. Corwin went to answer it, Utena trailing curiously behind, and admitted two people. One of them was a tall, slim woman with white-blonde hair and green eyes; she was dressed in a silver-buttoned black uniform and had a white armband with a red cross, and carried a metal-shod wooden staff that resembled Corwin's own warstaff, Stick, but that the wood was snowy white and the runic inscription red. The other was the second biggest man Utena Tenjou had ever seen, not quite as tall or as wide as Moose MacEchearn, but outrageously muscular. Moose, from high-gravity Hoffman, had a layer of thick, resilient padding on most of his body that muted the imposing effect of his immense stature and bulk. This man lacked that; every muscle on his body stood out in hard relief, like a marble sculpture dressed in jeans and a football jersey a size too small for it. He had a hammer hanging from his belt and long, coarse, plaited red hair and beard. "Well, Corwin," boomed the man. "I see you're none the worse for your latest adventure." "That's what we're here to determine, Thor," the blonde woman chided him gently. "I've read Jan's report," she added to Corwin. "It seems you had quite an eventful night." "Yeah - I was stupid," said Corwin. "Wouldn't have made it if not for - oh yeah - Utena Tenjou, this is Kijana Whitestaff, the medic of the Valkyrie; and my uncle, Thor Ironhammer, god of thunder." "Aha!" said Thor. "So -you- are the famous Utena Tenjou!" Utena felt her face go at least pink. "Uh... famous?" Thor grinned. "My little sisters all speak glowingly of you," he informed her, hands on his hips. He reached out one massive hand and mussed her thick pink hair, much the same way she liked to ruffle Corwin's spiky black mop. "Welcome to the Golden City! Hopefully our young Cavalier will bring you back to see us many a time." Kijana let this byplay go on without her, instead unbuttoning Corwin's pajama shirt to make a calm, clinical survey of the yellowing bruises on his chest, left by Utena's frantic resuscitation efforts. She checked his pulse, looked into his eyes, then placed her thumb in the middle of the mark on his forehead. Utena noticed then that Kijana didn't have one - only the triangles on her cheeks. Thor did; his forehead's mark was square, with a hollow diamond in the middle. "Mm," said Kijana, nodding gravely. "You've had a close call, Son of Tomorrow," she told Corwin. "Your pattern is partially detached from the system. Nothing that a realignment visit to the Engine won't repair, but it speaks of a very, very near thing. You had already started to depart from this plane when something dragged you back." She turned to Utena, looking impressed. "A powerful Working, Miss Tenjou - beyond my own abilities. I understand now why Lady Verthandi has chosen to watch over you." "Uh... thanks," said Utena uncomfortably. "No, it is I who thank you," replied Kijana. "Because of you, we haven't lost our Cavalier in Silver and Black." "(First rule of communication in Asgard,)" Corwin muttered wryly to Utena out of the corner of his mouth. "(You can make anything important by capitalizing it.)" Utena stifled a giggle. Kijana smiled and said, "Now, Lord Corwin, if you'll sit down, I'll see to your hands." Sighing with a sheepish smile, Corwin sat down on the end of the bed. Kijana dragged over the chair from the room's writing desk, sat down opposite him, and started unwrapping one of his hands. Utena perched herself next to him, on the corner of the bed, kicked off her shoes, and pulled her feet up to sit cross-legged, hands on knees. "Your craft is under repair," Thor informed Corwin as Kijana worked. "Lenneth will want to give you her report later in the day." Corwin nodded. "OK. If I have a clean bill of health," he said, nodding with a grin to Kijana, "I'll go out there later and take a look." "As you requested, your mother has been informed only that you had an equipment problem and, being nearest X-21, came here to have it seen to," Thor went on. "I requested that?" "You did," Thor replied. "You were quite insistent about it, in fact. Something about not wanting Verthandi to fret all night." Corwin smiled. "OK, that makes sense. Do you know if any of them plan to come here?" "Urthr already is," said Thor. "I don't think she believed the message." "Oh. Uh... great," said Corwin, trying not to look nervous. Urd had really been quite good about things so far, behaving herself, not being a pest about Corwin's complex friendship with Utena, but then, while Utena stayed with his mother and him on Tomodachi, Urd had her two sisters looking over her shoulder to make sure she didn't get up to any shenanigans. Here in Asgard, if the other two stayed in Midgard, she could be a problem. "Oh, before I forget," Thor added, "your grandfather would like you and your charming companion to dine with him this evening in the Great Hall." Corwin blinked, looking suddenly up at his uncle. "The Great... what's the occasion?" Thor shrugged. "When did Dad ever tell me anything?" he replied wryly. "He probably just wants to get a look at your first girlfriend." "I - " Utena said. "She's - " Corwin said. They both stopped, reddening, and gave each other "well, what?" looks. Thor chuckled. "Well, back to work," he said. "Rivers to divert, giants to slay. Have a good day, Corwin, Miss Tenjou. I'll most likely see you at dinner tonight." "OK, see you, Uncle Thor," said Corwin, waving with his free hand. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Ironhammer," said Utena, resolutely casual. Thor grinned. "You call me Thor, I call you Utena?" "Deal." "Then I'll probably see you tonight, Utena." He moves quietly for such a big man, Utena thought as she waved and he vanished out the door. "Well," said Kijana Whitestaff clinically. "That looks good. Jan always was a wizard with burn treatments, no pun intended." Corwin's right hand was fully unwrapped, and Utena's eyes widened in amazement. Where last night it had been a ruin of charred flesh and blackened bone, fissured with horrible red cracks to the raw meat beneath, now it was... Corwin's right hand, a little pinker than usual, but nothing amiss. Briskly, Kijana unwound the dressing from the left one too, and it was in a similar condition, whole and healthy. "Mm," said Kijana with a satisfied nod as she turned them over, flexed the fingers, and prodded at the fleshy bits. Then she looked Corwin in the face and said in a professional tone, "Give the new skin some time to cure. No weapons handling for two days, no heavy sparring for five. Avoid abrasive surfaces and don't lift anything without good handholds. All right?" Corwin nodded. "I'm OK for regular tasks? Piloting and the like?" "Best to wear light gloves, but yes, you should be all right for that sort of thing." He grinned. "Thanks, Kijana." Rising, he asked, "Do you know if the CX-68 is around?" "In your mother's workshop, right where she left it. You have a key?" Corwin nodded. "Well, I'll leave you to it, then. Remember what I said about your hands. And take it easy in general, for a few days, all right? Let Lenneth fix your ship and take your ease in the Golden City. You may feel better after a night's sleep without pain, but you've not all your strength back yet." Corwin nodded again. "OK. You know best, Kijana," he added, grinning. "Say, listen," he added in a low voice as he went with her to the door. "If you see Vee... I was a little rough on her earlier. You know how I get when people surprise me right after I wake up. If you see her, could you... y'know, kind of smooth things over?" Kijana sighed. "I'm a doctor," she said primly, "not a counselor." Once Corwin showered and dressed, he and Utena went down into the streets of the Golden City, following Corwin's memory to his mother's workshop. "Do I want to know who your grandfather is?" Utena asked as they walked along one of the brick boulevards. "Mom's father? Um, well... he's... you know, Odin." "Odin." "Yeah." "The All-Father." "Uh-huh." "Ruler of all the Aesir and Vanir." "Yup." "You and I are going to be dining at the same table as Almighty God Himself." "Pretty much, yeah. And I imagine the rest of the Aesir Council will be there - Uncle Thor, Balder, Heimdall... " "Great," said Utena wryly. "And me without my dress uniform." "I wouldn't worry about it," he replied. "Thor will just show up in the same damn thing he always wears... " He paused, thinking. "I think I have one of my dress uniforms. Have to check my apartment... " "You have an apartment?" "Yeah, over on the Street of the Eternal Heroes. I don't use it much - mainly it's just a place to keep my stuff when I'm in Midgard, which is most of the time. Mom doesn't really have a place here in town anymore, except for the workshop, and unlike her, I've never really developed a taste for sleeping under workbenches." Only because Dorothy wouldn't let you, thought Utena with an impish grin, but she didn't say it out loud. "So - what's this C-whatever we're looking for?" she asked instead. Corwin grinned. "The CX-68," he said, delight apparent in his voice. "One of Mom's greatest inventions. Ah, here we are." He stopped at what looked like the Asgardian equivalent of a warehouse, white stone and blue tile roof instead of corrugated tin. He plied the lock on the door with a key conjured out of somewhere, opened the door, and then sent the key back to wherever it came from. "C'mon in," he said. "There's nothing in here that'll bite. At least, not while you're with me." A few minutes later, the big steel door on the side of the building rolled up, and with a deep, lusty mechanical roar, an automobile catapulted out of the warehouse and up the street. It was low-slung and compact, a white and scarlet roadster with a long, bulging-fendered hood, two glaring round headlamps flanking a recessed oval grille like a jet intake, and an abbreviated trunk behind a cramped passenger compartment that could seat four, as long as the two in the back didn't mind sitting with their knees pressed tightly together, facing each other. Corwin, his hair whipped from disorder into complete confusion by the slipstream, grinned a great bug-catching grin as he slung the machine onto the ramp and up onto Highway 6A, the central bypass to the loop road that encircled the Golden City. "This is the CX-68, huh?" Utena called to him over the roar of the engine. Her own hair was pulled out behind her in a great pink streamer, and though she knew she'd have some brushing to do before dinner if she didn't want to look completely scruffy, she didn't mind it - the cool wind felt too good, too free, after her brush with mortality in a small dark room the day before. "This is it," Corwin replied, shifting gears. "Mom built her in 2246 for the Nekomi Motor Club, for a vintage-themed road race. It was called 'The Greatest Cars that Never Were'." He shifted again, settling into a comfortable cruising speed as the slightly banked highway curved up to meet them, roadlamp pylons whipping past with a rhythmic sound. "This is a '1968 AC Cobra 2+2'," he told her. Utena looked over her shoulder at the pair of jump seats, then understood and grinned. "The classic Cobras were two-seaters!" she said. "Your uncle Keiichi taught me that!" "Exactly!" Corwin replied. "The idea was to build a car that some great twentieth-century manufacturer never made, but -could- have if they'd thought of it! One of the other teams brought a '1995 Stanley Steamer'. Fastest steam-powered land vehicle in history! That was a slick rig, even Mom was impressed." They barrelled up the highway in a companionable silence after that, the sound of the slipstream and the roar of the 427-inch engine making it necessary to shout to be heard anyway. Corwin took 6A out to the loop road itself, Highway 6, then rode that halfway around the city before jumping off onto Highway 91, which, according to the big green sign at the interchange, would eventually take them to Alfheim. They weren't going that far, though; after only a few miles northward, Corwin pulled off at an exit and followed a twisty, narrow track up the side of a hill (with much relishing of gear changes). Presently, they pulled through a thicket of tall pine trees and into a guard-railed parking area - - and spread out ahead of them, in a panoramic vista that took up the whole horizon, was Asgard. As the CX-68 came to a halt, Utena put her hands on the windshield frame and stood up in her seat, her face lit with undisguised, delighted awe at the fully revealed grandeur of the seat of the gods. From where she'd been looking before, she couldn't see its most impressive feature, because she'd been using it for her vantage point - Odin's palace, greatest of the castles of Asgard, rising up out of the center of the city in a great cascade of towers. It was as much modern skyscraper as medieval castle; there was something Art Deco, streamlined and self-consciously futuristic, about its setbacks and crenelations, and yet its great central bulk spoke of fortifications ancient when the world was new. From its tallest, central spire, a beam of light bright enough to be plainly visible now, in broad summer daylight, thrust brilliantly into the clear blue sky. "-Wow-," said Utena. Corwin mirrored her position in his own seat, grinning. "Gives you a chill, doesn't it? I've seen it hundreds of times and I -still- feel it." "What's that light?" "The Beacon of Creation," Corwin replied. "It's burned since Mom and the others restarted the World-Engine after the Ragnarok. Part of the new program to make sure such a thing can never happen again. Even in the worst, darkest storms, it burns a hole through the clouds to reach the sky, but in the dark, it doesn't cast light - it just -is- light. Which makes the court astronomers happy," he added with a wry grin. "Can you imagine the light pollution if that was a beam of normal light that size?" "Yeah, no kidding," Utena chuckled. They had a picnic lunch sitting on the warm hood of the softly pinging Cobra - big, substantial sandwiches put together by someone on Odin's kitchen staff, chips, and cans of an odd beverage that was sort of a cross between root beer and what gold might taste like if it were edible - then sat back against the windshield for a while and watched the air traffic over the Golden City flit here and there on inscrutable errands. They didn't speak, or even particularly think. They just sat there, enjoying being alive, being safe, and being together. Corwin had his hands behind his head, legs crossed at the ankles, stretched out full-length on the hood of the car; for a few minutes he looked like he might have dozed off. Utena leaned on her elbow and just watched him for a minute, trying to memorize every line of his face now that the pain and worry were erased from it. She didn't often see him in complete repose like this; even when idle, he was usually thinking about something, bringing out the faint lines on his forehead and between his eyes. Presently, he seemed to feel her gaze on him, and opened one eye curiously. "Copper for your thoughts," he said. "I was just thinking," she said quietly, "how lucky I am that I didn't lose you yesterday." He smiled, sat up, and patted her free hand. "Me too," he replied, the seriousness in his tone and his eyes putting the lie to the lightness of the words. Then, just when the moment threatened to get maudlin, Corwin said lightly, "Welp... I guess we'd better go see what Lenneth wants to show us." He got down from the hood, moved toward the driver's door, then thought better of it, put his hand on the driver's rollbar, and vaulted the center console into the passenger seat. "Kijana said to take it easy on my hands," he said with a pious smile. Utena grinned and hopped over the door into the driver's seat, adjusted it back a bit to account for her longer legs, fiddled with the mirrors, then fired the Cobra up and aimed it for the city. She discovered immediately that there had been a very good reason for Corwin's uncontrolled grin on their way up here: it was impossible to drive this car -without- grinning like that, if you like your cars fast, agile, and noisy. It was a different experience from Uncle Keiichi's well-mannered Lancer Evo-3X or Corwin's refined Griffon limousine; this car was all business and no manners to speak of, just horsepower, traction and razor-sharp close-ratio steering. Just getting it down to the highway was an exhilarating adventure, to say nothing of opening it up once they got there. They reached the spaceport, navigating by the big green signs and the occasional frantic hand signal, in a little less than ten minutes. When I get a car of my own, said Utena to herself as they left the Cobra pinging by the curb and headed into the spaceport concourse, God willing, it'll be a car like that. Lenneth, the Valkyrie mechanic, was a slim creature with big blue eyes and pale gold hair; she was dressed in a smudged gray coverall like the ones Corwin usually wore to work on cars and spacecraft, and she was brisk and businesslike as she led them to the revetment where the Kenduskeag sat, its dorsal surface dismantled to allow Lenneth and her technicians access to the warp core and fuel tankage beneath. "The explosion in the primary deuterium tank that crippled your runabout," she told them, pointing at the mangled section of the overhead equipment bay where the tank had been, "seems to have been caused by a mechanical defect in the tank itself, probably a metal flaw in the pressure neck. Unfortunately, you jettisoned the tank, so we'll probably never know for sure, but I haven't found any sign of sabotage; no explosive residue, nothing that might account for such a catastrophic failure. If I had to guess - and I do - I'd say it was a manufacturing defect." Corwin nodded. "I figured. It had to be either that or an impact through one of the microgaps in the navigational deflector fields." "I can't rule that out entirely," Lenneth replied, "but there's no sign of any foreign object, even on the atomic level, and of the two occurrances, a flaw in the tank is a lot more likely." She cocked her head. "Looks like you just got star-crossed." "Looks like it," said Corwin, nodding again. "Fortunately, I had a countercharm on board," he added, grinning at Utena, who put her hands behind her head and did her best to look innocent. "So Kijana tells me," said Lenneth with a calm smile. "How long until she's spaceworthy again?" Corwin wondered. "Well," Lenneth replied, her sea-blue eyes twinkling, "Kijana says you need to take it easy for five days in order to fully recover from your adventure, so... " "... Five days," said Corwin. Lenneth winked. "You're a clever boy," she said. "I might almost believe you -are- Skuld's son." "So," said Utena after they'd stopped by Corwin's apartment, parked the CX-68 out front, and were walking back toward Odin's palace in the gathering afternoon shadows. "So," Corwin replied. "Are -all- the women you grew up hanging around with gorgeous like that?" "Huh? Oh... yeah, I guess so. If you say so." Then he gave her a sly look and said, "I thought you weren't into that kind of thing most of the time." "I'm not," she replied, giving him a don't-you-start look. "I'm just making an observation. I mean, counting your mother, I've seen four Valkyrie now, and they're all these spectacularly beautiful women. I'm not -blind-." Corwin shrugged. "Maybe I'm just used to them. Besides, are you counting Vee in that list?" "Well... yeah," said Utena. "Did you ever actually look at her? She's like a little miniature Juri, except for the freckles." Corwin gave her a weird look. "O... K," he replied. "I think maybe we'd better step lively getting to dinner. Low blood sugar's obviously interfering with your mental processes... " She hit him on the shoulder. Utena Tenjou was not a person easily intimidated, but the Great Hall of Asgard was a pretty intimidating setting. It was about the size of the ballroom back at Ohtori Academy, except with a higher ceiling and totally different decor - heavy rafters of smoke-darkened wood, stone walls studded with fireplaces and torch sconces, and a great long pair of trestle tables, one along each side of the big rectangular room, were the key features. Up at the end of the room, there was a raised dais like a stage; in front of this was another, shorter table set crossways across the room. Tonight, this was the only table with anyone sitting at it. Corwin, dressed in his black and silver Valkyrie dress uniform, introduced Utena, who had brushed her hair glossy and summoned the Rose Knight embellishments to her Ohtori uniform, to the Council of the Aesir, Asgard's ruling body. Despite its name, not all the gods on it were Aesir; Frey and Freya Lightwalker were Vanir, and nobody really knew quite -what- Peorth Charmsinger was, except possibly Odin. Odin Winterbeard, Ruler of the Gods, reminded Utena of a department-store Santa Claus, except that his gray clothes and eyepatch made him look like Santa dressed as a pirate. He was jolly like Santa, though, and seemed bent on making his guest feel at home despite the fact that she was surrounded by fully-fledged divinities who were old when Corwin's immortal father was centuries yet to be born. "This isn't a formal dinner," he assured her, nodding her to her seat between Corwin and an empty chair. "If it were," he added dryly, "I'd be a bit wroth at the one who's decided to be -late-." "Keep your shirt on, Pop," came a familiar voice from the great doors leading into the Hall. "I'm here." And so she was; taking her seat on Utena's right, a big, unsettlingly open-looking smile on her face, was Corwin's Aunt Urd. Urd was a tall woman, and like all the other women of Asgard Utena had met, she was startlingly beautiful. She was different from most Asgardian women, though. The women among the Aesir and Vanir tended to be very fair-skinned, in some cases - Vigdis Brightblade, for instance - almost outright white. Vigdis's near-transparent skin made Utena's own milky complexion look positively ruddy by comparison; she was an extreme example, being a flaming redhead, but still, the women of Asgard tended to be pale in Utena's experience. Not Urd, though. Her skin was a dark copper color, about the same as that of Utena's Dantrovian friend, Azalynn dv'Ir Natashkan. Her wavy snow-white hair made her look even darker. The lines of her face, though they bore a family resemblance to her sisters, Verthandi and Corwin's mother Skuld, had a difference about them, a sort of angular felinity that was accentuated by her slightly slanted devil-green eyes. Urd was, in appearance at least, a breed apart, and she carried herself so as to leave no doubt that she quite well knew it. As a matter of fact, now that Utena looked at her, in this light, dressed in the formal robes of the Asgardian court, Urd looked a little like Himemiya. I think, Utena told herself ruefully, that has more to do with how much you miss Himemiya than what Urd actually looks like. Next you'll be seeing her in mirrors. At the thought, she glanced reflexively at the shiny surface of her butter knife, but there was only her own reflection there tonight. "(Something wrong with your knife?)" Corwin murmured. "(Huh? Oh... no, 's fine,)" Utena replied, putting down the knife and feeling faintly silly. Meanwhile, in the face of Odin's continued slightly-grumpy look, the dusky goddess sighed and said, "OK, OK, I'm sorry I'm late. I was working in my lab and lost track of the time." Odin tried to glower at his most wayward daughter for a few more moments, gave up, and relented with a faint smile. "Very well," he rumbled. "I believe you already know Miss Tenjou?" "Sure I do," said Urd with a grin. "How you been, kid? I hear you had a little bit of an adventure yesterday, you and Captain Excitement here." "No big deal," Utena replied. "Just some mechanical problems." Urd nodded, winking one of her emerald eyes. "Sure," she said, and clapped Utena on the shoulder, making her epaulet chain jingle. Dinner, despite Corwin's creeping dread of his aunt, went quite well. The food, as befitted the All-Father's kitchen, was excellent, and not as... -basic- as Utena had been expecting from the table of the Norse gods. The main course tonight was a sweet-sausage lasagne that was just to -die- for. She made a mental note to try and get the recipe. Unlike last year's dorm, the Duelists' Castle on Jeraddo had (or would have, when the Duelists were done remodeling it) a kitchen, so, at long last, she would be able to cook her own food instead of being at the mercy of a school's indifferent meal plan. "Mm," said Corwin. "Nall would kill for this lasagne." "Where is your draconic companion this day, Corwin?" asked Thor. "Tomodachi," Corwin replied. "He claims he doesn't like warp drive, but I think it was because if he'd come along for this particular practical, he'd have missed Aunt Bell's chicken stew tomorrow night." That sent a laugh around the table; it was apparently well-known among the gods that Corwin's boon companion was a Class-A chowhound. At the meal's end, the gods got up one by one, excused themselves, and said it had been a pleasure meeting Utena. To Corwin's infinite relief, not one of them called her anything like "Ravenhair's young lady," of which he had been going in dread all through the meal; it was just the sort of thing that, for example, Frey would say. When the others were all gone, Odin got up from his seat and said in a formalish tone, "Grandson - I would speak with you for a few moments in my study." Corwin, recognizing the tone, got to his feet, bowed, and said, "As you please, All-Father." Smiling at Utena, Odin went on, "Worry not - I won't keep him long," and then the two of them left the Great Hall through a side door, leaving Utena alone with Urd. Urd watched them go, waited for the door to close, then grinned and hopped up on the stage, facing Utena. "A little bird told me," she said, "that you had a little more than some mechanical problems. Way I heard it, Captain Excitement just about signed himself into the Book of the Dead, and you went and got him back." "I don't know if I'd go -that- far," Utena replied. "I mean, you make it sound like some kind of miracle or something. All I did was what they taught me to do in school, and... " She paused. "And it barely worked," she went on after a moment. "I... almost lost him." Urd looked around, as though to make certain they were really alone, then alighted from the stage, spun the chair next to Utena around, and sat down on it with her arms crossed over the top of the back. "Kijana didn't want to lay this on you in so many words," said the Norn of Memory, "but I think it's important that you know. News flash, sister: For a second, you -did- lose him. Haven't you noticed that the circle on his forehead's broken? His pattern had started to detach from the Celestial System. When an Aes by blood dies who hasn't passed his Trial, there's no afterlife for him," she explained. "He just... comes apart. All that makes him who and what he is, dissipates into the universe. No trip across the river, no chance to march in the armies of either side on the Final Day - just oblivion. It's why failing the Trial exacts the ultimate price." "What are you saying?" asked Utena, somewhere between puzzled and belligerent. "That Corwin -did- die? If that's the case, then how is he here?" A horrible thought struck her then, seizing her heart in a grip of ice, as she remembered something the ghost of Dios had told her, on a balcony in Toronto. ["I died and my body kept going without me... "] Urd saw the color drain from Utena's face and reached to take hold of her hand. "No, no, don't worry," she said, her green eyes intense. "That's what makes it a miracle. You understand? He'd started to dissipate, and -you brought him back-, pulled the essence of him back together and bound it back to his body where it belongs. That's something even -I- can't do. Maybe, just maybe, all three of us - me, Bell and Skuld - we could make something like that happen. Maybe. And then again - maybe not." Utena gazed into the uncharacteristically serious face of Corwin's aunt for a few moments, trying to grasp what she'd just been told. "What... what does that mean?" she finally asked, her voice hushed. "I'm not sure," Urd replied honestly. "It's unique in my experience. I'm sure it has something to do with the power inside you, the one Belldandy helped you seal, but more than that... it's a measure of the bond between you. You... you just -refused- to let him die... and you felt it so strongly that it mastered your sealed power. And so... " Urd spread her hands, palms up. "Voila." The two women sat in silence for a few moments, regarding each other thoughtfully in the flickering torchlight. "So," said Utena in a small voice, "what now?" Urd shrugged. "Who can say? My bailiwick is the past, not the future. Oh, I've been known to involve myself in a travail of the heart or two," she added with a wry grin, "I -am- the goddess of Love, but... " Just as quickly, she became serious again, more serious than Utena had ever seen her, and she went on, "I've sworn an oath on my own blood not to interfere with you. Skuld feels that strongly about it, that she doesn't even want me joking about it; and I think she's right, so, for once in the cycle of the cosmos, we agreed. If an Aes ever swears something to you on his blood," she told Utena sternly, "he'll die before he breaks that oath deliberately." Utena nodded. "How much do you know about... about me?" "Enough," Urd replied enigmatically. She got to her feet. "Listen, I'd better go. I might have said too much already, but I don't think so. I think I'm still in good faith. I just wanted you to know how special what you did is, and to think about why you did it; that's all. Where you go from there is up to you." Utena, though a bit confused, smiled gamely. "Well... thanks," she said. "Thank -you-," said Urd. "And hey - tell Corwin to quit cringing whenever he sees me coming, willya? His mother doesn't want him to know she swore me to blood to keep me out of his hair, but you might at least hint that I'm trying to behave myself," she said with a grin. Utena grinned back and said, "I'll see what I can do." "Thanks. Well... see you around, Utena." "Bye," said Utena, and Urd left the Great Hall, leaving the Duelist alone with her thoughts. She wasn't sure how much later the other door re-opened, and Corwin emerged. He, too, looked as though something heavy had been put on his mind; he gave her a sort of distracted hello and led the way vaguely out through another of the side doors into a corridor. "Problem?" asked Utena. "Mm? Oh... sorry," said Corwin. "I was just thinking... Grand-dad just told me that the Council are starting to plan my Trial. He thinks they'll be ready to call me sometime in the next six to eight months." "Oh. Well, that's -good- news, isn't it?" "In a way," Corwin replied. "But it's pretty -heavy- news either way." "Any idea what it'll be?" "No," said Corwin. He stopped before a tall, heavy, iron-banded door. Instead of producing a key to use in the big, old-fashioned cast-iron lock, he closed his eyes in concentration for a moment. A ball of white light sprang into existence in the palm of his left hand; he placed that light to the keyhole, which seemed almost to suck it in, and there was a great CLUNK from within the door before it swung slowly, silently open. "C'mon," he said softly. "I want to show you something." They descended a great flight of stone stairs, and Corwin picked up the thread of their conversation, saying, "The Council never reveals the substance of a petitioner's Trial until the briefing, just before they send him on his way. Usually it's some kind of quest or ordeal - spend a month in Jotunheim and come back alive, steal something from some demon prince's palace in the Pit, slay a wyvern up in Alfheim - something like that. Something difficult and dangerous." "Six to eight months, huh... so probably early summer, after the school year ends." "Or during spring break," Corwin replied, nodding. "The Council isn't really concerned over whether I miss some mortal schooling." "Mm, I suppose not. At least you have some time to prepare." "They'll tell me a week before I'm due to be sent," he told her. "That's part of the tradition - the petitioner gets one week to prepare for the Trial however he sees fit, with the aid of a single companion. The only restriction is that the one who helps him prepare can't be the one companion he's allowed to take with him on the Trial itself." "I guess you'll be taking Nall with you for the Trial?" Corwin nodded. "It'll be his Trial too." "Well... good luck," said Utena, feeling as she said it that it was kind of lame as encouragement went, given the scale of the task involved. Still, it was the best she could think of at the moment, and judging by Corwin's smile, he took it in the spirit it was meant. She wondered where they were going, and just as she did, they arrived at another one of those great doors. Behind it, she could hear something - a rumbling, clicking, hissing noise. It reminded her of the sounds of newspaper printing presses in old movies. Corwin did the same thing to this lock, then turned to her and said, "Back in April, when you told me... about your life... you said that when you met your prince, you were searching for something eternal." Utena nodded. "Uh-huh." Corwin's blue eyes were steady on hers as he said, "Very few mortal eyes have ever passed this point, but if you still want to see it... there is something eternal behind this door." He reached back with one hand and placed his palm against the portal. Utena felt her breath catch in her throat. On the face of it, it seemed kind of a silly thing for him to claim - but this was -Asgard-, the basement of the palace of the Father of the Gods... "Are... are you sure it's all right?" she asked in a hushed voice. He smiled. "It'll be fine," he assured her. "Just don't touch anything." "I won't. I promise." Nodding, Corwin turned to the door and repeated the procedure he'd done to the one at the top of the stairs. It swung open onto darkness, the mechanical noises getting louder, and a warm wave of air rolled out over them, redolent of machine oil, hot metal, and the very faintest whiff of ozone. Corwin held out his hand; resolutely keeping her own from trembling, Utena took it, and he led her into the clacking, hissing, whirring dark. She could feel steel decking under her feet; he guided her hand to a cool iron handrail, then beckoned her silently to follow him. She could barely see him in the darkness of the room, following the mathematical pattern of his tunic's silver brocade as it glinted in the dim light filtering in through the open door behind them. They walked perhaps fifty feet; then Corwin stopped, and Utena stopped behind him. The noise was all around them now, not just ahead, and behind them, the distance to the door swallowed up the feeble light from the hallway, enclosing them in darkness. Then - The lights came on. They were standing at a circular platform about ten feet across, at the end of a long catwalk which led back to the door they'd entered from. In front of Corwin was a semicircular bank of controls, a keyboard and a lot of levers, dials, toggle switches, and buttons, all in gleaming old-fashioned brass and black Bakelite. It looked like the control panel for a spaceship as envisioned by the Earthmen of the late nineteenth century. Below them, stretching from the wall behind them to another as far away in front of them, and to an equal distance on both sides, was the most mind-bogglingly complicated machine Utena had ever seen. It was driven by a massive bronze shaft which entered the chamber through a huge brass bearing set in the far wall, underneath a catwalk platform with a similar, less elaborate-looking control panel on the wall above it. This shaft spun into a collection of conical gears which whirled in a pattern too complex for her to grasp all at once, throwing power off to drive a hundred, then a thousand, then twenty thousand cranks and rods and rocker arms and cogs and planet gears, doubling back on themselves, constantly shrinking into ever-smaller, ever-finer complexity, like a fractal diagram of a steam locomotive. It hissed and clicked and sang all around and beneath them like a live thing. "What -is- it?" Utena asked, her voice low with awe. "Yggdrasil," said Corwin. "The World-Engine." "World-Engine?" she repeated. He nodded. "It's a computer, a mechanical computer, designed and constructed for the sole purpose of constantly restating the rules and parameters of all Creation." "That's what it's doing?" Corwin nodded. "That's all it does. In a way, it's casting the same massive spell, over and over again. You might even say it's -praying-, praying for the continuation of Time and of Life. Through its endless function, it maintains the Nine Worlds. If it failed, the whole of Creation, everything that is, everywhere, would vanish. Time itself would end." "So... it's never stopped?" "Once. Once, during the Ragnarok, it stopped - was partially destroyed - by the efforts of my uncle Loki, the wickedest of the gods. A cunning trickster, a master manipulator, Loki tried to rewrite the Engine's operating program - hack the whole of Creation - to give himself power that outstripped the All-Father's. Urd stopped him, but he wrecked the Engine, and that was very nearly the end of everything." "What happened?" "Mom gathered the brightest and best from Asgard, Valhalla, and the mortals she and Dad brought here to help, and they rebuilt it... while Aunt Bell took over for the crippled Engine." "A single person, doing the work of all this?" "A single person, praying for the survival of all the Nine Worlds," Corwin confirmed. "Bell is the Norn of Today. She saw it as her duty to sacrifice everything, if need be, in order to ensure that there would -be- a Tomorrow for Mom to inherit. She was willing to expend her whole lifeforce, if that was what it took." He smiled. "Luckily, Mom works fast, so it didn't go that far. The new version is more robust," he added, gesturing. "It's designed to -survive- an incident like the one that destroyed its predecessor." He patted the console with a smile. "Anyway," he said, "this is the Engine that drives Time itself; so - by definition - the World-Engine is eternal. More than that... the World-Engine is Eternity itself." Utena gazed at Corwin for a few long moments, uncertain of what to say, uncertain whether anything she could say would be adequate. He seemed to understand that, though; he just looked back at her, with the same little smile - so much like Kaitlyn's private little smile - that he'd worn when he'd taken her to the Moon and shown her that there was no such thing as the End of the World. He put his hand on her shoulder and said softly, "Look as long as you like; I've just got a little thing I have to do, and then I'll be back." She nodded, still caught up in the spectacle of the Engine. Still smiling, he went to the center console and sat down on the little brass stool built into the floor there. His fingers flew over the old-fashioned mechanical keyboard; he adjusted a couple of dials, pulled one lever, and then placed his hands on the two brass knobs which jutted up from the edge of the console. The printer on the left side of the console beeped, chuntered, and then yellow light rose from the brass knobs to suffuse Corwin's entire being for a few moments. Then the printer stuttered for a few more moments and fell silent. Corwin got up, ripped the printout off the top of the printer, surveyed it with a satisfied smile, and then stuffed it inside his tunic. As he rejoined Utena at the railing, she noticed that Urd was right - the circle on his forehead -was- broken, divided into two semicircles with a gap at top and bottom; but as she looked, the two marks glowed, then grew back together, sealing with a bright flash back into their original form, the unbroken ring around the perfect central dot. "Ah," he said. "That's much better. Now Kijana can stop worrying about my being disconnected from the System... " "Do the gods have to do that kind of thing often?" "What, resync like that? No... most never have to. It's only necessary in cases of extreme trauma suffered a long way from the Engine. I just know how to do it because, as Skuld's son, I've been trained in Engineering with a capital E. She expects me to take over from her someday as the Watcher O'er the World-Engine." "Lot of responsibilities," Utena mused. "Valkyrie, god, Engineer... when your Trial is over, are you... going to stay in Midgard?" "I certainly plan to," he replied. "Leave all my friends? I mean, I have friends here too, but it's a lot easier for my Asgard friends to visit me in Midgard than vice versa." "Oh. Well... good. I mean, I'd hate to think that you'd have this great victory and then we'd never see you again. That'd be awful." "Like what happened to you?" said Corwin, his voice gentle. "Well... yeah," she replied, looking downcast. Corwin slowly, hesitantly put his arm around her shoulders, pulled her close. When she didn't resist - in fact, she leaned against him, head on his shoulder - he smiled and told her, "When I've passed my Trial, I'll do everything in my power to help you in your own quest. One day soon, I -will- take you and your bride on that tour of the cosmos. Hell, we'll tour the whole damn Nine Worlds if you want!" he declared, making a sweeping gesture at the quadrant of the World-Engine they faced. Utena turned her head to look into his eyes; her own were looking rather damp as she said hesitantly, "Corwin, I... " He smiled. "I have a vague memory," he said, "of kissing you yesterday, right before I faded out again when the drugs kicked in." Her cheeks went pink. "Uh... yeah. You did." "Well," he said ruefully, "what a shame." She took a half-step back, out of the sweep of his arm, and put her hands on her hips. "A -shame-?" she demanded, mildly incensed. Corwin nodded, his eyes serious and a trifle sad as he replied, "I wish the memory weren't so vague." You shouldn't do this, Utena thought, you were just up on your high horse yesterday about how you weren't leading him on, how you'd never play games with his feelings, and what do you call this? It's not fair, even though he came as close as he'll let himself to asking for it, even though he knows it can't lead anywhere, it's not fair to him to do this! She thought all that; but she kissed him anyway. Only once, and only for a few seconds, and he, incredibly, let it end without a movement to recapture it or a single sound of regret. "That was for not dying," she told him softly. Corwin smiled and brushed the palm of one still-slightly-tender hand across her cheek, thumbing away an errant tear. "It's getting late," he said. "You should probably get to bed. C'mon; I'll walk you up." He shut off the lights at the door, sealed it behind him, and took her upstairs - up to the hallway, sealing this door as well, then up to the tower where their guest rooms lay on opposite side of the corridor. "Well," said Utena, feeling a bit awkward, "um... thanks... for showing me that. It was really... special." Corwin gave her his sleepy smile - it was, she decided, one of her favorites, out of the wide range of smiles he had; there was a special softness and openness about it, as if fatigue accentuated all that was warm and kind in his face - and replied softly, "You're welcome. Sleep well, Utena." "You too," she said, and she watched him cross the hall and vanish into his room. Shaking her head, Utena sighed at herself and went to bed. The next day, the bright sunlight of Asgard seemed to erase the awkwardness that had existed between them at the close of the night before. They spent the next few days taking day trips around the Asgard area, visiting Monument Beach (from which a person could have watched the naval component of the great Ragnarok battle, fifteen years ago); hiking in the mountains of Alfheim; running the ridge roads of the Southern Reaches in the CX-68; riding the trails of Odin's royal forest on horses provided by the Valkyrie - Utena hadn't been on a horse in over a year, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that she hadn't lost her touch; and one day exploring the catacombs beneath the Golden City itself by torchlight. It was all a grand, if forced, vacation from the grind of Utena's starship training, though they did still toil at the bookwork part in the evenings. So it went that, by the beginning of the next week, when Kijana Whitestaff finally certified Corwin fully recovered and Lenneth did the same for the Kenduskeag, Utena and Corwin were themselves again, ready to jump back into her interrupted space training with both feet and catch up the time they'd lost. Her examination was scheduled for the twenty-fourth, but Corwin was confident they could make it, if they doubled their efforts and didn't let up until the prize was within reach. Since that was pretty much the way Utena approached -everything-, she didn't find it much of a stretch as proposed strategies went. On Monday morning, August eighth, they said their goodbyes, thanked the All-Father for his hospitality, and gave Urd, who had been hanging around the Golden City the whole time, a lift back to Tomodachi. Vigdis Brightblade turned up at the spaceport to help them load their supplies and things back into the runabout. Corwin could tell that the littlest Valkyrie was still annoyed with him for his treatment of her earlier. As he restocked the microscopic galley's cabinets from a box of foodstuffs Vigdis had brought, he essayed the delicate task of apologizing. "Listen, Vee... I'm sorry I yelled at you the other day. I just... it was embarrassing, you hanging on me like that. I know you think it's funny, but... " "I understand," said Vigdis with a peculiar combination of wanting to accommodate, but not wanting to give up a well-nursed grudge just yet. "I guess your girlfriend can't take a joke?" "Utena is not my girlfriend," said Corwin patiently, filing a box of Bisquick under C for concrete. "She's a girl, and she's my friend, but we're not... you know, involved. She's engaged to somebody else." "Uh-huh," said Vigdis with an air of monumental unconcern. "So why'd you yell at me, then?" "I just tried to explain that," Corwin said. "Look, Vigdis - you don't just climb into a guy's bed like that. If I'd been dreaming and thought you were... somebody else... then that could have gotten -really- embarrassing. Maybe even dangerous." "You wouldn't hurt me," replied Vigdis with complete complacency. "Not deliberately," he replied, "but people don't always realize what they're -doing- when they're asleep. All I'm saying is, I know the others think it's cute to hassle me like that, but you ought to -think- before you do things like that. I was very startled to see you there like that, and I don't like being startled, especially first thing in the morning. It made me grumpy, and I yelled at you more than I should have, and I'm sorry. OK? That's all I'm trying to say." Vigdis hopped down from the table, looked up at Corwin for a moment with very serious eyes, and then said, apropos of nothing at all, "Gosh, you're getting tall." He blinked at her, then put a hand behind his head and gave her his sheepish chuckle. "Clean living," he informed her. "Uh-huh," said Vigdis skeptically. "Well, stay clean, then," she said. "I guess I'll see you around, Corwin." "Uh... yeah. Take care, Vee." She nodded, trotted out of the room, and disembarked, passing Utena in the hatchway with a rather cursory nod but little else in the way of acknowledgement. "Did you apologize?" she asked Corwin as she entered the galley. "Yeah, but I don't know how well it took," he replied. "I think she's mad about something, but damned if I know what." He sat down at the galley table and sighed heavily. "Women." "Yeah... can't live with 'em, can't sell 'em for parts," Utena replied, punching him in the shoulder. "C'mon, Captain Excitement, let's get ready to raise ship. Aunt Urd wants to get home in time for 'Brave Little Zolie'." "She's got every episode on tape," Corwin grumbled. "She can watch Hyelian kids' shows any time she -wants-... " As the Kenduskeag rose from its revetment and soared off into the sky, one small figure stood apart from Lenneth, Kijana, and the others, staring up at the fast-dwindling little starship until it was gone, her green eyes glistening. If she's not your girlfriend, Corwin Ravenhair - if she's engaged to somebody else - then why was she kissing you in the Engine room? Can't you see that she's no good for you? I guess you can't. But then, you're only a boy. Boys aren't good at that sort of thing. Gudrun told me that. But that's fine. I'll help you. I'll -make- you see. Vigdis Brightblade turned and left the revetment. If she hurried, she could make it back to the Home Office in time to file a request for a Surface World training assignment before the Assignment Desk closed for lunch. /* Joe Satriani "The Crush of Love" _Live in San Francisco_ */ Eyrie Productions, Unlimited presented UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT - Symphony of the Sword No. 2 - Interlude in the Golden City in A The Cast (in order of appearance) Corwin Ravenhair Vigdis Brightblade Utena Tenjou Kijana Whitestaff Thor Ironhammer Lenneth Winternight The Council of the Aesir Odin Winterbeard Urd Snowmane Engineer Benjamin D. Hutchins Conductor John Trussell Brakeman MegaZone Back from LISA Anne Cross At the Switch The Usual Suspects The Symphony will return