“It sounds like grind-click,” Valin said. Grandmother finally caught up with Valin. It was late enough that all the younger students were tucked away in their housing units with their residence supervisors. Grandmother and Valin were sitting in the chairs on the eastern terrace. The air was cold with the turn of the seasons. She still needed to track down Betty and confirm the plans for her hunter’s camp.

  Valin’s grind-click was a word his Speedwell translator didn’t understand. She was hearing the original elf version just delayed. She should have expected that. Valin continued to provide translations for the Speedwell’s computers to work with, using his structure translator, but there were plenty of holes. There was no gender in the elven language, Engineer Whitman set up the translation to ‘guess’ the right gender from the surrounding conversation. The structure translator did a better job of it, although it always translated O’Rose’s gender to the feminine. Grandmother told Valin to spread a rumor that the elf couldn’t tell human males and females apart. She thought that was a good test of his skills. Grandmother would make sure chemistry was in the next set of words for Valin to record.

  “It produces grind-click-click that when consumed give physical effects. They can make you run faster, weigh less, increase your accuracy or feel rested,” the elf explained.

  The elf spent the first ten minutes of the conversation complaining he was too old to deal with all these young people and that his nap schedule was all screwed up. Looking closer at Valin, Grandmother thought the elf was enjoying himself. Grandmother didn’t trust the elf an inch, but he was a good source of information. So far nothing he told her was proven to be a lie. Some of his information was colored by his people's beliefs, just like the Companion’s was. Between the two she usually got a clearer picture.

  “What are they made from?” Grandmother asked. She needed to add solutions, elixir, tea, infusion, tinctures and maybe potions to the Valin’s next translation set too. She would have to look up all the words related to herbal medicine to start.

  “Plants, animal parts, salt,” Valin said. “I am not extremely familiar with the art. It is uncommon among elves.”

  “Is it a skill like cooking?” Grandmother asked. “Or is it a craft or a different magic field like Enchanting?”

  “A magic field,” Valin responded. “It’s a lot like Enchanting only for the body, not for items.”

  “Are the changes permanent?” Grandmother asked.

  “No, they wear off. There are different versions of the same grind-click-click that last different times. The longer lasting ones are made with higher tier ingredients,” Valin responded.

  “What about your jewelry making? Is that a separate craft or just advanced parts of other crafts combined?” she asked Valin.

  “My own people argue on that one. I believe it is a separate craft. The pattern network all gets tied together eventually. It is a small step from studded leather armor to mail or from mail to brigantine or from brigantine to cloth armor. None of the jewelry patterns are ‘on the edge’ of the pattern network, like a gathering bag, or door wedges, which is why some of my people argue it is not a craft of its own. When trained by a jeweler, it is possible to gain a jewelry pattern without ever learning an edge pattern. Which is why I think it is a craft. It is just a higher tier,” Valin responded.

  It was an interesting idea. A craft that could be reached by years of progress up from one of the sub-crafts, or could be shortcutted into with an instructor. It sounded exactly like the sort of thing the academy should offer. She wondered how many more there were.

  “One last thing,” Grandmother said. She pulled out the captain's remote access and played a loop of the camera footage from Londontown earlier in the day. “I suppose even if you have a name for them it won’t translate. What can you tell me about this species, besides their name?” She locked the video loop and handed the glass slate to Valin.

  Valin took his time looking at the slate. He ran his fingers over the glass. He tilted it so it reflected the light from the lamps mounted on the ship’s hull behind them. When he turned it over to study the back, Grandmother was glad she locked the slate. He would have accidentally hit half a dozen functions by now if she hadn’t. Grandmother wondered if Valin’s elf vision saw the screen differently. It was possible he couldn’t see the image.

  Finally he turned the slate back around and looked at the image. Grandmother couldn’t read his expressions very well. Valin’s large black eyes were devoid of emotion. His eyelids were a thin nearly transparent membrane that flicked up from the bottom. His skin was covered in small pebble-like scales which reduced its flexibility.

  He studied the image too long. There was a hint of something in his body language that Grandmother thought might be surprise.

  “Is this your true vision camera footage? Like those moving images of the coliseum fights?” Valin asked.

  “Yes,” Grandmother replied. “It was taken today in Londontown.”

  “What is it wearing?” he asked.

  “I don’t think it’s wearing anything. That’s its hair. I take it you don’t recognize it.”

  “No, I do not. I’ve never seen one before,” Valin tilted his head. “I can’t think of any story that fits it either. What did it look like when you were there?”

  “It appeared as a large human woman wearing blue touched leathers,” Grandmother responded, “carrying a bundle of furs.”

  “It is carrying the furs,” Valin observed. “Is that a club?”

  “I don’t remember any weapon at all,” Grandmother commented. “I should ask Todd if he noticed one.”

  “Is that how you spotted it?” Valin asked. “By using Todd’s guardian perk?”

  “Partly,” Grandmother said. “There’s been a lot of tension in Londontown recently. I kept thinking it was directed at me. This trip I decided I was getting too close to events that were clearly part of a Narrative. I considered what I knew and it felt like we weren’t the only ones visiting Londontown in secret. We went in openly and drew its attention. That was why Todd was able to spot it.”

  “An interesting choice,” Valin responded.

  “I first noticed that oddness in Londontown when we made the tour of human squares two years ago. That was before Companion found the coloring book in Chicago. This ‘woman’ could be the source of the book,” Grandmother observed.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “So you couldn’t see through its disguise, even at your tier?” Valin asked.

  “No,” Grandmother confirmed. She realized she hadn’t tried her ‘turn off all rendering’ trick. That was the only ‘tier six’ spell she knew and it wasn’t a spell exactly. “Todd and I took the time to learn that identify spell we found in the library on the trip to pick up Ed. I was able to see through its false identity data. Todd couldn’t. This individual is a tier four with yellow magic and a member of species sixteen.”

  “Sixteen?” Valin said, sitting up straighter. Grandmother had no difficulty reading his surprise at this news. “That means they’ve been around longer than the selkie.”

  “Yes, that is why I thought you would know something about them,” Grandmother agreed.

  “I’ll keep on the lookout for information about them when my duties here are done,” Valin promised. He held up the slate as if to hand it back to Grandmother. “What is this thing?” he asked before he released it.

  “Simply, it's a portable version of the computer in your quarters. It only works within a certain distance of the Speedwell. It is high enough technology that I think the structure would eat it in a day. They are available for purchase from the warehouse system. I can pay you in Speedwell coins instead of structure coins if you want to buy one.”

  “Yes,” Valin said. “I would like that. I have enough structure coins.”

  “I need to find Betty,” Grandmother commented. “I promised her I would build her a hunter’s camp.”

  “The woman of the bow,” Valin commented. “She is spending her nights in the last of the glass houses. Ava isn’t using it yet.”

  “Good,” Grandmother said. “I was afraid she was staying out in the cold.”

  The lights in four of the glass houses were on. Ava set them to simulate spring. The solid walls between the houses kept most of that light from leaking into the next glass house. The last two glass houses were dark.

  Grandmother started with the end house. She knocked on the glass door, to give Betty an alert that someone was coming before stepping inside.

  “Good evening,” Grandmother said as she stepped inside. The hunter was sitting just inside the glass house with her back against the glass outer wall. She was eating a sandwich. The sandwich must have come from the Speedwell. Grandmother wondered if Betty went inside to pick up the food herself, or if Muriel or someone else brought it out to her. Betty suffered from claustrophobia. She made it up to the medical center and back for her fertility implant, but she didn’t take the elevator. She took the stairs.

  “Evening,” Betty replied. Grandmother sat down on the ground next to Betty.

  “I wanted to check with you about the hunter’s camp. I know you and Muriel were working on getting a compost plant to grow inside the boundary, but I promised to set something up for you outside as well. Do you have any preferences for where?” Grandmother asked.

  “There’s a spot just north of the road I like,” Betty said. “There’s a stream and a pretty rock wall.”

  “Do you want a road or path put in?” Grandmother asked.

  “No, I’d like it better hidden,” Betty said.

  “What kind of structure do you want?” Grandmother asked. “I can build you something like this on the ground,” she said with a wave at the glass house, “or something elevated, like you are in a tree.”

  “I don’t want a tower,” Betty replied.

  “No, not like a tower. Just the floor would be high. I can still put a glass roof over it to hold the rain off you and leave the walls mostly open if you like, so you have air movement and a clear view of the surrounding area. If you're going to take students there, I should put a rail in place to keep them from falling out.” Betty was looking at Grandmother with a completely blank look on her face.

  “Here,” Grandmother said, pulling her slate from her pocket, “let me show you some options.” Betty’s eyes widened. She reached out and grabbed Grandmother's wrist, staring at the tablet.

  “What is this?” she demanded.

  “It’s a portable interface for the ship’s computers,” Grandmother explained. “Actually in your role as hunting instructor you should be issued one. It will allow us to remain in contact with you as you roam around, but you can’t take it into the structure….”

  “No, this,” Betty said, pointing forcefully at the recording still playing on the surface of the slate. Grandmother didn’t turn it off after retrieving the slate from Valin. Since she locked the slate to show it to him, even putting it into her pocket didn’t shut the screen off. “How do you have a picture of Uncle?”

  “Uncle?” Grandmother echoed back. She turned the slate so that both women could view the image. “I recorded this today in Londontown. I was just asking Valin if he knew anything about them. He didn’t. What do you know?”

  Betty looked off into the distance, remembering something from her past. Grandmother felt a growing sense of dread. She believed something tragic was in Betty's past that led to her claustrophobia. Grandmother feared she just stumbled upon it.

  “When I was young, I was separated from my family in a green. I cried and cried, but no one came, until Uncle. He picked me up and held me in his beard. He took me back to where my family was searching frantically for me. Just outside of their sight he set me down and told me to run to them,” Betty explained. A small half smile was on her face. Grandmother was relieved. This wasn’t the story of tragedy she was expecting. “Everyone was so happy that I was found. I don’t think anyone ever believed me about Uncle. I was very young and no one else saw him.”

  Betty was in her late thirties. Grandmother thought she was probably born before or during the early part of the Wizard's War. If Uncle was in human space around that time, he may have seen Redfalls, which would make it more likely that Companion’s coloring book, which contained a drawing of the entrance to Redfalls, came from the player.

  “Where was this?” Grandmother asked.

  “I don’t really know,” Betty replied. “I was too young. Although I can tell you it was a ruined green. The rain and cooler temperatures here remind me of it.” The ruined greens were all close to or in dark space. Grandmother suspected that dark space ringed the staging area the Speedwell sat in. There were only three ruined greens that Grandmother knew of that humans spent any time in, but there were many more. All three of the once occupied greens were close to Londontown and Chicago.

  “They were disguised when we saw them,” Grandmother told Betty. “Only the camera footage revealed their true form. I’ll have the computers search all our past footage for any sign of them. If I can track them down, I’ll be sure to tell them that you remember their kindness.”

  “I am in his debt,” Betty said seriously.

  Grandmother unlocked the screen and shut down the recording. She made a quick note to get Betty a tablet as part of her position and to add a charging set up to the hunter’s camp. She also made a note to start a search for Uncle in all their recorded footage.

  “Let me show you some options for the camp,” Grandmother said.

  Betty's chosen location was north of the road going to the structure entrance, on the east side of the ridge. It was heavily wooded in trees that the Speedwell’s machines and crew never touched. Betty picked a wooden structure, mounted high in the trees with a thatched roof. Grandmother was surprised at that choice. She expected Betty to pick glass.

  The restroom was screened with vertical poles and placed near one of the trees that went through the platform. That way the plumbing could be run along the trunk and be disguised as part of it. Grandmother added hanging round glass lights and an underfloor heating system. The kitchen was small. There was a cooking surface, water source and food storage. Grandmother added a note on her to do list to set up automatic food deliveries for basic needs. Grandmother offered Betty a bed, bunk or hammock to sleep in. Betty chose the hammock, even though she never heard of one before. She was excited to try it.

  The walls were rolling panels that could be tucked away. They were glass, decorated with vertical wooden poles that matched the restroom walls. Grandmother added them to provide protection from wind or extreme cold.

  “Can you build a larger one down the slope?” Betty said, pointing at the map Grandmother pulled up from the original survey. “For the students' use,” Betty explained.

  “Of course,” Grandmother replied. Grandmother dispatched the first robots before she went to bed. They would repair the existing underground utility tunnels that lay dormant under the abandoned western fields. A different set would extend that utility system up to Betty’s site. The site, in the deep shade of the trees, was not a good candidate for solar. Along with the power she would run water, data and sewage. The passage was large enough for a small delivery drone to run out and stock the kitchens. When she put the warehouse trading posts close to the eastern villages, she widened those corridors to allow the transportation of materials underground.

  A large complex of tunnels and storage vaults were under the central fields. Grandmother wasn’t certain anyone knew about them besides herself.