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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.
self_composed
guiltless
"Well, I used to have dreams that weren't about them, but that's been happening less and less often," he says. "I don't really remember if they ever weren't there."
self_composed
"Ingot powers are funky," says Bella. "But it's sounding like yours shouldn't be a problem." She ramps up to full speed, closing her eyes, and contemplates. Finally she says, "I'm going to tell Libby about the power and consult with her, but if she clears you given that you're hired."
self_composed
[Sandy's got an ingot power that I don't think you knew about. Tentative conclusion from me and Lazarus is that it's not an issue, but I wanted to run it by you.] And she summarizes what they know about Sandy's friends.
prima-sequentem
[I am weirdly unsurprised,] she says when Bella is finished. [If Sandy and Lazarus agree that Sandy's not-so-imaginary friends aren't a problem, then so do I.]
self_composed
[Okay. I'm going to hire them both. In case one quits. Or vanishes into Milliways,] Bella says.
"Let's head to Marspire and talk compensation," says Bella to Sandy, and she waves to Lazarus and teleports herself and her future mint-hire.
"Let's head to Marspire and talk compensation," says Bella to Sandy, and she waves to Lazarus and teleports herself and her future mint-hire.
guiltless
"Okay," says Sandy. "Money is awesome. I like money. Please pay me. And can I have a planet? Or a moon or something?"
self_composed
"Do you want Canadian dollars, or Imperial asters, or something else? And you may choose a small Jovian satellite, such as Amalthea, to start with, and we'll see what you do with the place."
guiltless
"Amalthea sounds pretty. Sure," he says. "And I think I'd rather have Canadian money for now; it's probably easier to change that into asters than the other way around, right? Because you're the one who's magic."
self_composed
"I am indeed the one who's magic." She is about to ask Mary to see about buying the Empire some Canadian dollars in a minute. "Bearing in mind that you may not attempt to use stars and any of those will have to go to me regardless of how many you make - does a quota model sound fair to you? Assuming I can get comparable output from your co-worker-to-be, barring emergencies, I would like to be getting two stars, a dozen hexagons, and some thirty pentagons each week. I can make my own squares and triangles, although of course I will be happy to take those off your hands if they should wind up cluttering your volcano castle or whatever on Amalthea. There will also need to be some combinations of geases and ground rules installed to prevent coins from leaving your possession except to be turned in to me or wished on for personal use, the nondisclosure agreement will continue to apply including to how discreet you'll need to be about using your coins, and I recommend that you consult me or Lazarus about the precise design of any hexagon-sized wishes while you're getting used to things."
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.