Welcome to Gaia! ::

Night fell before Asimov had packed together all the things she was allowed to bring with her to Babylon--and from Babylon, to Earth. The empty space of her little laboratory, the one she’d acquired upon being given her rank, mocked her. Where once she had scattered metals from a hundred worlds, there was now only dust and shavings. Where once she had hooked up a tiny recorded-music player, there was blank space. And her notebooks, those, too, were to be left behind. She was only allowed to bring one, and so it was that she hunched over one of the lab tables, hand cramping as she copied over a principle of magic that she hadn’t quite memorized yet. It would be important on the new planet.

Of course, Asimov was not the only one packing. The entire labyrinthine research facility would be locked down, traps laid in every hallway, sentient specimens terminated if they could not be safely moved. There would be nothing for the forces that had overrun the Academy to find, even if they did break in to Mistral’s halls. Perhaps they would find her mother’s glowing plants, perhaps a few tufts of the micro-oscillating fiber that they’d been working on, to update the uniforms of Mistral and Babylon; but nothing worthwhile. Nothing worth the kind of scouring attention they’d no doubt given the Academy.

She leaned back and stretched out her hands just in time to hear her door open. “Uncle Mendel,” she said. “It’s not time to go already, is it?”

Thank goodness. Asimov glanced at the chronograph on her wrist, and sighed. “I’m copying my journals,” she said, “because I, I thought, maybe…” She shut up, and cracked the knuckles of each hand individually, a chunk of fair hair falling into her eyes. “I don’t understand why we have to go! Everyone says it’ll be years before the enemy gets here.” With a sigh, she picked up her pen again, cracked her wrists and settled in again.

“We’re going to come back,” she said, stubbornness in every line of her jaw, in her narrowed eyes, as she scrawled down everything she could remember about activating the interruption glyphs on the sixth level. “And I’ll have to know all this. So, see, I can’t let Mistral’s magic stay behind in these books. They’re all going to get destroyed. And since Mama’s staying here, I have to have everything written down. Because otherwise, we’re all going to lose everything and then what’s the point?”

She looked up at her uncle, half-defiant, half-craving for his approval. “We will come back,” she repeated. “Won’t we, Uncle?”

She trusted her uncle, she really did, but she knew he was hiding things from her. Her mother was hiding things, too, they all were, because they thought she was too small. Asimov didn’t like it; and, well, she didn’t have to. They were more experienced than she. This was her home. She didn’t want to go somewhere else and have to deal with all their rules and proscriptions and… she wanted to stay in Mistral. “I’m almost done with my communication device,” she said, and that was whiny, but it was true.

This argument had been held a hundred hundred times, though, between Asimov and Menachem, between Asimov and her mother, between Asimov and her cousins. It would not make headway. “I’m done,” she said, putting her pen down and fanning the pages of her book. There was more she could write, but she didn’t think that it would help. All of the specifics of her projects… all the parts would be destroyed. Even after the war was won, it could take forever for trade to begin again. She wouldn’t get the parts for the longest time.

“I have to take these all to the burning room,” she said, joining her uncle near the boxes. Asimov picked up one of the smaller ones, making a face at the weight. “Will you help me?”

“I have to assemble it,” she said. “And ask the Cosmos knights about bringing my case to the Cauldron.” It hurt to consider the parts that she was now setting down, carefully, gently, among the other detritus to be burned. She had worked so hard to gather metals from far-flung places, to compare conductivities so the magic would be neatly transferred between all the different worlds and signets and wonders. Asimov rubbed her face with her hands and nudged the boxes forward with the toe of her soft sueded boots.

She took hold of Menachem’s arm and tugged him backwards. “Ready to fire,” she yelled, as if anyone else would be there--she couldn’t see anyone among the stacks, but it was lab policy to let anyone know if you were going to do something awful and explosive. Setting a bunch of delicate components on fire was definitely something ‘awful and explosive’. “Firing in twenty seconds!” She slapped the button to raise the barrier, clear crystal scored with small, careful sigils.

“Firing!” The next button was smaller, black, and she thumbed it. A halo of bright white light flared out through the crystal, and when it cleared, her projects were replaced by nothing but ashes. She lowered the barrier and took a few steps forward, into the downy gray-white, and kicked at the piles.

“And that’s it,” she said. “It’s gone.”

Was there any point in staying after her entire project was gone? She picked up more boxes, stacked them into her uncle’s arms. “I want to see it all burn,” she said, miserably. “It’s my work. This is my Wonder. I don’t want to go.” If her mother would just listen to reason… if her mother would just let her… She sniffled, and picked up the last box, and… put it back down. Asimov rummaged through her box, pulled out the blueprints, and the main housing for her communications device, and set them on the table.

Her throat closed up and she coughed, and coughed, and maybe she was crying, but. “I’m not going to destroy it,” she said, stubbornly, avoiding eye contact with Menachem because she wasn’t sure what she would see there. “They won’t know what to do with it. I’ll need it. When I come back, I’ll need it.”

She carefully lined up the housing with its double on the blueprint, and then returned to her box, hefted it up and toed the door open. “I’m going to stay until Mama locks the door,” she said. “I’m a knight of Mistral. I’d die here if she would let me.”

Duty. It was all about duty, in the end. Her duty was to live, and continue the line. Her mother and uncle’s duty was to send Phoebus and Asimov to Earth, where they would live out their days among the magic-fearing populace, and then to die here, protecting Babylon. She burned the last of the things from her lab, and then tucked herself into her uncle’s arms, hid her face in the warm-leather smell of his uniform. She didn’t know if she believed in the Cauldron anymore; oh, it was a real place, but even so, would she trust it to bring her back? “Mama already took everything I’m bringing,” she said, “I’d like to stay here for a while. You don’t have to stay with me.”