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Mars has more people on it now. Bella has conjured herself a crown of seamless moissanite and star sapphire, and wears it around most of the time. She does something nice for Earth every Cygnus and makes routine public appearances, with the PR guy Libby found for her on the brainphone steering her away from missteps. (Most missteps. Occasionally she just disagrees with him.) Life is good.
It happens one day that she attempts to read Alice, thinking it about time to top off her supply of coins - and besides, even if it weren't, she does like to spend time with her boyfriend - and - he's not there.
Her first reaction is panic. She has known from the beginning that a contest between them would come down to reaction time. Did she screw up by introducing him to Ghosty - did something else happen - does some switch trip in the relevant template at a certain age, is hers decent only because he's young - has he blocked her off with his considerable power and begun to wreak havoc?
But of course there's a much more reasonable explanation. He's in Milliways, that's all, he found a door and wandered off without thinking to notify her.
Because visits to Milliways take only moments worldside. This has been true even when they've been into other's worlds: the door is at a very narrow slice of time except when held open.
But she checks again a minute later.
And he's still not there.
Is he dead? Did he think of - stumble across - cook up some way to die that would be so fascinating that he had to try it right then, without consulting her, without thinking of her and how it would hurt her at all, without knowing if stars can revive the dead -
Or did he, somehow, in spite of what is now magically bolstered love for her -
Decide not to come back at all?
She's getting ahead of herself. She can find out if he went to Milliways or not. She -
Stops before completing her wish.
If he's gone - if he's not coming back soon, or at all - then she has to work at least for a while with the coins she already has.
She will not spend a pentagon to see this one snippet of the past. She will spend a hex to gain past-viewing as a stable power she can use whenever she wants. If she chooses the right powers to make with her current supply of hexes, she may be able to coast for many years with almost no individual wishes larger than a square. Now that she has the template of Olympus to draw on she's sure she could find a way to compress wishes for more cities - maybe even planetsful of cities - into single stars, and she has a lot of stars from the days Alice spent turning.
And there have got to be other masochists in the world. Some might be comparable, or people like Shell Bell's Sherlock who'll willingly be made so.
Her empire will go on just fine.
Bella's just not sure - when she's finished designing and installing the power, when she's finished watching Alice casually walk through the kitchen door in his lair to Milliways instead and not come out - whether she will.
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self_composed
self_composed
[Got a Canadian new hire. Two of them, but I haven't asked the other if she wants asters or Earth money yet. Can you peer at future exchange rates and find someone who'd like to have asters in exchange for some suitable number of Canadian dollars to pay one or two people for the next while?]
"The geases have to be done out loud because of how I designed the power - I like to make it inconvenient for myself to do things I oughtn't - but I can install ground rules now if you don't have questions about how they're going to work or anything," Bella says to Sandy.
"The geases have to be done out loud because of how I designed the power - I like to make it inconvenient for myself to do things I oughtn't - but I can install ground rules now if you don't have questions about how they're going to work or anything," Bella says to Sandy.
self_composed
"New coins you make will appear somewhere in contact with your person. Especially since you're highly likely to produce coins in your sleep and not be able to direct that accurately, I want that automatically directed to someplace safe - even someone who travels to Amalthea and sneaks into your bedroom shouldn't be able to take your coins. And I really don't want you to give them away, either. You can make small, discreet wishes for friends, but the idea of all the secrecy is that I don't really want to have to explain where my magic is coming from anytime soon, and someone clever could get a lot of mileage from knowing who else has it. That one we can do with a geas or with a limitation on your coin repository preventing the coins from leaving it except by a wish from me or direct use by you."
self_composed
Since he doesn't exhibit a preference between the geas or ground rules option, and since she trusts ground rules to hold up against more situations than geases, she shrugs and implements it as such. And she makes him a chain like hers. She hands him his new expansible coin-chain. "Here. I have one like it, but you can't see it. Wear it. It won't come off unless I allow it, so you aren't going to pull it off in your sleep or whatever. It and coins on it will go through anything that isn't you or me, it and coins on it are invisible to anyone who isn't you or me, coins will go on it when you make them, it'll get longer if there get to be a lot of them, you can make wishes with coins on it but only I can take them off."
self_composed
"It's entirely possible that you'll be able to make all the coins you need to overnight. If that turns out to be not the case, I recommend wishing yourself some sort of regeneration power if you want to handle them yourself, or I can agony-beam it for you," Bella says in as businesslike a fashion as possible.
self_composed
"Splendid. Making you a mint now."
She takes a deep breath.
Hex goes.
"Wonder what color your coins are," she says idly. "Everybody's are different."
She takes a deep breath.
Hex goes.
"Wonder what color your coins are," she says idly. "Everybody's are different."
self_composed
"Experience some amount of pain - I'm in the habit of biting my cheek - and move it, left to right," says Bella. "Isn't that weird? But it makes sense now, doesn't it."
guiltless
Sandy bites his lip.
His chain acquires a triangle; he holds it up to inspect it. It's not glossy like Alice's or glowy like Bella's or sparkly like Elias Frobisher's: it's a dark, mottled red-purple like the inside of a bruise, and it's flat, without texture or shine.
"My favourite colour," he says happily. "Cool."
His chain acquires a triangle; he holds it up to inspect it. It's not glossy like Alice's or glowy like Bella's or sparkly like Elias Frobisher's: it's a dark, mottled red-purple like the inside of a bruise, and it's flat, without texture or shine.
"My favourite colour," he says happily. "Cool."
self_composed
Teleportation!
"Brainphone me if you have questions or whatever. Otherwise I'll expect a batch of coins in one Martian week."
"Brainphone me if you have questions or whatever. Otherwise I'll expect a batch of coins in one Martian week."
guiltless
"Sure," he says. "I'm probably gonna bug you about a teleportation power when I've got a spare hex to cover it."
self_composed
"You can wish for a copy of a power I have without actually having me explain what you're copying," she says. "You might not want to do that with all my powers. For instance, my regeneration comes with anaesthetic. But I like my teleportation design enough to recommend it to you, and it's simpler to operate than some of my arsenal."
self_composed
[Nope! I believe you said you wanted to live here if I hired you, which I have decided to do.]