Gestation by John Gold (love books to read .txt) 📗

amount of attention the psychologist has been paying me scared him. My head pounds constantly, I often get nosebleeds, and sometimes, I read the material for next year’s studies just to relax. Fragments start to fall into place when you’re reading a book. You start to see connections between facts, and it can be so engrossing that, like in my case, you spend a day straight reading your physics textbook. My subconscious plays all kinds of tricks on me. I see the formulas without using virtual reality, and just thinking about variables is enough for me to pull up the formulas they’re expressed in. It’s getting hard to sleep. I struggle to fall asleep because of the thoughts that keep running around inside my head, and I get nosebleeds when that happens. Sleeping in the capsule for six hours at a time is plenty to get the rest I need.

∞ ∞ ∞

The next morning, it’s the cold that wakes me up. To get warm, I run over to the blacksmith’s house as fast as I can, using my new ability. I need to start building it up, otherwise I’ll die without even noticing it.

I find the smithy by following the noises coming from it. The building is right next to the mine, and there are enormous trees growing around it. There’s a short fence, too. The first floor is made out of stone, while the second was built from wooden logs. The picture is completed by a large smithy with a sizeable forge under a canopy. It may be early morning, but the boss is already working.

“Hi there.” He jumps in surprise. “Brigadier Caris sent me for some nails.”

“How many times is this going to happen? I hung that bell just for people like you so you can let me know that you’re walking up,” the blacksmith replies, looking at me carefully. “Oh, you aren’t from around here.”

“Right, and I’d like to be your apprentice.”

“Can you forge?” The blacksmith casts a clingy glance at me.

“My blacksmith profession is pretty well developed, though I don’t have any experience forging. I won’t hold you back. All I need for my work is a place to stay and some skills, since I’m going to have to stay on the island until the ship gets here.”

“Hm, a tempting proposition. I could use an apprentice, especially since you’re already a professional blacksmith. What skills are you looking for?”

“Any smithing skills, anything useful at all, really. They say your wife is a good sorceress, so I’d love to learn something from her, too.”

Just then, somebody steps up behind me. It’s only because of my imp eye that I notice. The somebody is completely silent, too silent for even the blacksmith to hear. I look down, concentrating. Then, the blacksmith catches a glimpse of the person. His changing expression tells me that much. I hear a voice come from behind me.

“What makes you think that I’ll teach you anything?”

“Why not? I can help you. I’m a good herbalist, and I can pay you in herbs. A sorceress like you probably needs them all the time.”

The blacksmith puts his hammer down and steps out from under the canopy.

“Clarissa, he’s here because he has a quest. Put your knife away.”

She walks around in front of me, and I see a girl around twenty-five years old. She’s wearing camouflaged pants and a shirt. A shock of leaves camouflages her head.

“I imagine the boy in the tree is your son?”

I noticed him when I was walking up. My enhanced perception highlights all the hidden things I’m capable of seeing.

“Gart, come down and say hi to our guest.”

“Practicing?”

“Yes. I’m teaching the boy how to hide and hunt in the forest. How did you find him?”

“I’ve spent time working on my perception.”

“If you can see someone camouflaged in a tree, how much time was that?”

“Quite a bit.” I smile, proud as a cat with the sour cream. It’s the first time anybody has complimented me on how well I’m doing.

“Ah-h, whatever. I’ll teach you, but these are class skills, so you won’t be able to completely learn them. I’m Clarissa, this is my husband Claude, and the boy is our son Gart.”

He’s a couple years older than me and looks to have put in some good work on his attributes. His muscles are well developed.

“How were you able to find me?”

“You moved.”

“So?”

“The perception skill enables you to spot deviations from the norm. Trees don’t move by themselves, even in the wind, so that’s not the norm.”

The boy was surprised by my explanation.

“This is going to be fun.” The blacksmith ruffles the boy’s hair. “I’ll take you on, though there isn’t much chance of you picking anything up. The rule is that you can’t learn the main class skills.”

“That works. By the way, can you mine ore here?”

“Just copper and tin. That’s all anybody’s been able to find.”

“Well, still worth a try.”

After taking the nails, I run off to the wharf to make sure I’m back in time for lunch. A well-worn path leads down to the village from the blacksmith’s house. I don’t see any animals, though there are plenty of herbs. The herbalist inside me dies a little every time I continue on without picking them. I’m forced to convince myself that I’ll collect everything I see on the way back. The carpenter in me giggles and yammers on about how all the trees on the island are going to be sacrificed to my crazy experiments. I can practically hear him sharpening his axe, and it’s funny to hear my consciousness splitting.

Caris and his brigade are clearing yet another fishing schooner, and that’s where I find him.

“Caris, I brought you the nails.” The wily character forgot to tell me that there were 200 kilograms of them, and I would’ve had a hard time if I weren’t so developed.

“Thanks,” he replies, chewing on his lip as he continues. “If you’d been lying about your strength attribute, you wouldn’t have been able to bring them here.