Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [154]
“Doesn’t exactly sound like a normal human to me,” said his twin, Torin.
“Me either,” said Andrew, who was in charge of finances and accounting at the Tamblyn water mines. “We watched you on the wellhead cameras.”
Jess smiled, and his skin tingled with a faintly visible aura. “Maybe I was showing off a little bit. The wentals allow me to do many things that must seem strange.”
Wynn and Torin, wearing skeptical frowns, sat beside each other on a cold block of ice. Insulated suits kept them warm, though Wynn clenched and unclenched his hands to keep the blood circulating in the chill air. Around them among the mining huts, many workers peered out with cautious curiosity, staying away from the strange manifestation of Bram Tamblyn’s only surviving son.
“Have you heard anything from Tasia?” Jess asked.
“No. Who knows how the Eddies have brainwashed her by now?” Wynn said. “We thought you might bring some news.”
“I haven’t been close to people much.”
Andrew retreated to the administrative shelter and returned in a moment with a chairpad for himself and a thermal bottle of pepperflower tea along with four cups. He sat on his chairpad, while the twins pretended to be comfortable on their frozen lump. Andrew poured a cup of the steaming, spicy beverage and extended it to Jess. “If you’re going to stand there looking all sparkly, you’d better tell us your full story. Here, have a hot drink.”
Jess did not touch the cup. “That’s not necessary, Uncle Andrew.”
“We’ve got a lot stronger stuff, if you prefer, Jess,” Torin offered. “We distill it ourselves.”
“I’ll tell you my story...but the wentals provide everything I need.” He briefly described how he had sifted the wentals from water molecules strewn across a nebula, how he began to communicate with them, how he seeded them on empty ocean worlds, and how, when the hydrogues destroyed his ship above an alien sea, the wentals penetrated his cells and kept him alive, while changing him forever.
Wynn blew out a long breath that emerged as a plume from his nostrils. “Those supernatural wental things you’ve got inside you, Jess—the ones you’re spreading around to other water worlds?—I’m not sure we want them living inside Plumas. I don’t care if you call them beings or ghosts or elementals or aliens.”
“They are enemies of the hydrogues,” Andrew pointed out.
Torin seemed just as concerned. “Even so, we’re trying to run a business here.”
“Don’t worry—I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize the water mines,” Jess said. “The wentals have agreed not to release themselves. They altered me fundamentally, in a similar way to how the worldtrees change a person into a green priest. I am fundamentally changed, charged, but they will not do so again. It was a conscious decision on their part, to save my life because I was the only one who knew about them. Here on Plumas, though, they will keep themselves separate, just like the worldtrees on Theroc.”
“What do the worldtrees have to do with it?”
“The verdani are elemental beings, much like the wentals—and the faeros, and the hydrogues. I can’t even begin to explain the incredible war that took place ten thousand years ago.” He shook his head. “But the wentals were nearly exterminated, as were the worldtrees. The hydrogues retreated to the cores of gas-giant planets, and the faeros hid inside the stars.”
“And now they’re all awake again and at each other’s throats.” Torin snorted. “Lucky us.”
“I didn’t come to saturate Plumas with wentals,” Jess said. “There are plenty of other places for them to spread. I flew here for other reasons—the most important of which was to see my home and my family again.”
Andrew looked relieved by these reassurances and stood up from his chairpad, as if ready to return to his work. He seemed to think all matters had been discussed and decided upon.
“After hearing you talk, boy, I’d give you a hug, if I could,