Jim Baen's Universe

Introducing: Stories by new authors

Giving it 14 Percent

Written by A. S. Fox

Illustrated by Barb Jernigan

He was reading a comic book when it happened. "Ombudsman." Fiona's voice buzzed over O'Malley's console. "Time to work. Level A, Main Conference Room."

O'Malley rose and put on his coat. It had been in the closet, waiting in shrink-wrap and desiccators for a good fourteen months. He rolled his shoulders, swallowed his fears and developed the mien of a man genuinely thrilled to be working for StarDrive. Having worked less than ten full days in the past eleven years, his mastery of this skill had paid the rent for quite some time now.

"Fiona, you may be the only person here that I truly love."

"I'm a computer." The voice remained dispassionate and hollow.

"My point exactly."

O'Malley worked in the tallest building in the world—the StarDrive Tower. Management arranged workers according to rank. Each successive rank earned a seat of power in a small office one step closer to the shining beacon of progress, otherwise known as Level A, the Top or HQ. He worked on the second floor and had never been called to an office higher than the hundredth floor.

He took an elevator down to the foyer and stopped before The Door. Above it hung an epic painting of a starship breaking the bounds of light. StarDrive's stated goal was to produce a faster than light spacecraft. The Chinese felt that, for form's sake, even the elite should enter and leave via the main door. It was perhaps the only vestige of their eighty-year Communist experiment. O'Malley put his hand in the fingerprint reader, half expecting to get a shock. Instead, the door opened and he entered. The Door gave one access to a special elevator, filled with sofas and upholstered chairs, which fired directly to the executive floors high above.

He sat while the elevator conveyed him to the executive entrance. Four enormous jade Foo Dogs guarded the corridor. O'Malley had heard rumors from his fellow Ombudsmen that StarDrive had liberated them from a failing nation-state. Beyond those lay various personal offices guarded by the Dragon Ladies of the Imperial Royal Secretarial Service: beautiful, lithe, Asian women of indeterminate age who would serve tea. Possibly they were also capable of typing, calculating particle mechanics or killing a man with one blow. O'Malley would probably never know.

He was ushered in by one such stunning beauty, handed a cup of Irish Breakfast tea—Twining's bag still in the cup to show they cared—and plunked at the end of an enormously long and, theoretically, intimidating table.

"I am Number One," a voice announced. Ten somber, middle-aged Chinese men wearing blue pinstripe suits faced him. In the logic of The Organization, Number One actually ranked fourth in the corporate schema.

"Good day, sir." O'Malley sipped his tea. They had over-brewed it by fifteen minutes. He smiled and drank more.

"We have a problem," Number One continued. They all smoked; O'Malley could barely make out the rough vicinity of his voice. In all the time he had been working for StarDrive, he had never gone more than three sentences before one of his betters would ominously say "we have a problem."

"That, sir . . ." He enunciated to carry across the room. ". . . is why you pay me. How may I assist?"

The men appeared embarrassed. "We have a problem with our space ship, with achieving light speed. We need your help."

"I'm sorry." O'Malley tried not to drop his jaw. They were being polite, among other things. Politeness usually meant someone had died. "I'm not an engineer or a scientist. I work for your human resources department." He sighed and then added, "At a very low level."

"We know," a different voice answered. "But your name is O'Malley and we thought you might be able to help us with this specific problem."

He sipped his tea dry; a Dragon Lady refilled it with Jasmine White leaf. He savored its crisp sweetness and tried to be motionless. He had heard it worked for lizards and certain kinds of rabbits.

"You see . . ." a third voice spoke.

"We have men hallucinating upstairs," the leader finally spoke, pushing forward. This was Han, the actual number one of StarDrive. O'Malley had never met him, but the Chairman Mao-sized banners of him on every floor familiarized a person with his general likeness. He saw now that a wart or two had been tastefully airbrushed off the inspirational posters.

"Europeans?" O'Malley thought he caught the drift of the problem. Hallucinations would be terribly bad press.

"No." Han waved dismissively. Europeans apparently were beneath his concern. "Nationals, of course—important men, pilots and engineers."

"The nature of these hallucinations?"

"Our men . . ." Han hesitated. "These men are very trustworthy and I know many personally."

Great tension filled his voice. The message was clear. I trust them, you better trust them too. Or else.

"Our men believe they are seeing leprechauns."

"Leprechauns." O'Malley kept a somber face.

"Yes," one of the adjutants agreed.

It all clicked. "I'm the only Irish employee you have, then?"

One of the men nodded with obvious disdain. "It would appear so."

"And you felt that being O'Malley would give me some ethnic, some Irish born, insight into these hallucinations?"

"Exactly." Han nodded. Silence sat upon the boardroom. Finally, Han put out his cigarette and announced with finality, "You leave immediately."

O'Malley tried not to spit. Although he understood that being in the world's tallest building also connected him to the StarDrive Space Elevator, he had never given it thought. He'd read the brochures during training. A satellite stationed many thousands of kilometers above the towers trailed a cable that linked the building, itself and an ancillary ballast-weight station with a tube built like a human spine. Inside, a bubble-shaped elevator made the transit. Five hours from tower to space station, four from space back down. No bends, no discomfort, no sense of gee-force or blastoff; they even had some kind of gyroscopic system that buffered it against the winds in the upper atmosphere. You could drink tea on the way up.

When they ushered him into a semi-sterile room, he panicked. A new set of Dragon Ladies rushed forth and disencumbered him of his outer garments; olive drab overalls and a maroon sweater with elbow patches and matching knit cap replaced them. A particularly fierce Dragon Lady grabbed him and shoved two half-slipper, half-rugby cleat contraptions over his bare feet. After that, a pale red-haired woman who proved more terrifying than the Dragon Ladies arrived. She smiled and donned similar garb. He noticed she wore a Celtic cross layered with thick Gaelic sigils and some very not-Christian iconography on its edges.

They were dumped in a chute, which turned out to be the actual elevator. It was cramped and not the luxurious ride he had been led to believe existed. He and the woman huddled as the bubble rocketed into the air, faster than his lunch could follow.

"O'Malley." He spoke between hyperventilating gasps.

"Cassie." She threw her head back, clearly exhilarated by the ride. "You're from the North." She spoke Gaelic. "I saw your file. Worked in a pub, almost got a chemistry degree from Dublin, but you come from Belfast. Moved about the same time The Troubles were erupting and all those bombs started putting holes in Buckingham Palace."

O'Malley frowned. "Where are you from?" She spoke Gaelic? She spoke fast in Gaelic?

"Kilkee, but I'm a Traveler." It explained her dark eyes. Travelers were the gypsies of Ireland, though it was disputed if they were also Rom, like their Eurasian counterparts.

"My people are actually from Ballyclare, but yah. I was from Belfast. Not anymore." He shut his mouth and ignored her until the slingshot of first acceleration slowed.

"Were you any good at chemistry, O'Malley?"

"I moved to Pontianak to tend bar at a local Irish pub." He counted to twenty. "Why do you ask?"

"Malaysia had extremely porous borders with little oversight of foreign passports at the time; that meant . . ." She shrugged suggestively.

O'Malley rolled his eyes. His lunch had returned to its proper place. "How does a Traveler end up subletting her services to a Chinese spaceship company?"

She laughed and touched his shoulder. "I was visiting my sister Ling Ling, adopted. She works for StarDrive and when word came down that they needed an Irish religious expert, I apparently was the only one in Indo-Malaysia."

"Wasn't there a panda named Ling Ling?" O'Malley tried to pry his shoulder loose.

"Mom was extremely creative." She smiled and kept her grip.

By the time they had arrived and the grim Chinese technicians lifted them from the capsule, O'Malley had discovered that Cassie liked groping men. It took him another few seconds to realize he still spoke perfect Gaelic, that his employers apparently knew what he used to do for a living and, most importantly, he did not like zero gravity one tiny bit. When they were ushered into the spinning sector with its two-thirds gravity, he breathed a deep sigh of relief.

Then a group of terrified looking Chinese engineers confronted them with The Problem. It boiled down to this: at twelve percent light speed the ship began to shake and shimmy, things got a little blurry and light got sort of fuzzy. At fourteen percent, the leprechauns started appearing. That was that.

The chief pilot promised them that they would be taken to the place where the little men showed up consistently; apparently no one had thought to film the operation. O'Malley tried unsuccessfully to suggest it. Instead the captain stiffly informed them the ship would again be at fourteen percent translight within the hour.

The two Irish nationals endured the preflight check and the acceleration out of the star dock. The gravitational spin of the starship's twin hulls ceased, putting them in freefall. "You don't believe in little men, do you?" He rubbed his protesting stomach.

"Cassie. And why not?"

O'Malley snorted. "Okay. First, because there are no leprechauns. Second, because if there were leprechauns, we'd have seen them somewhere other than outer space. And third, did I mention the part about there being no green bonnie men?"

"What is your first name?" She brushed his arm. He told her. She made a face. "What was your mother thinking?"

"Oh, no. Da had three jobs. First, making us, second, naming us and third, dying early enough to leave a pension to feed us. The rest was me dear Mum."

"I think I'll call you O'Malley." The ship launched into some new phase of its altogether gut-wrenching throttle through space.

::Eight percent translight:: a crisp voice informed them in Mandarin.

"All women do." He tried not to grimace more than was necessary. Good thing they hadn't given him tea with cream and sugar.

::Ten percent translight:: The chairs started to vibrate oddly and his feet felt numb.

::Twelve percent translight:: The voice sounded dubious. It might as well have screamed "Danger! Leprechaun Alert!" The light did seem a bit gooey.

"Did you know that the light in Ireland actually moves infinitesimally slower than normal light?"

"Whadya mean?" O'Malley turned his face to see her dark and clearly mad eyes.

"Scientists in County Cork proved it two years ago. The speed of light across most of Ireland is actually one eighteenth of one percent slower than the universal constant."

"So what? Do you think that proves . . . "

::Fourteen percent translight:: came the terrified announcement.

POP! Something small, green and grinning stood three paces in front of them.

"Good morning," said the leprechaun in lilting, if old sounding, Gaelic.

"Okay." O'Malley pointed to the little man in his green suit, trimmed with gold brocade and buttons, shoes with brass buckles and a genuine shillelagh. Dimpled and thick nosed, exactly like the pictures, the elf stood two feet tall. "That's a leprechaun."

"Told you so." Cassie smiled gleefully.

"You speak the Mother Tongue?" The leprechaun stepped closer.

"We do." Cassie addressed the tiny elf in her own Southern Traveler's Gaelic. "Hello, fey friend of Mab."

The leprechaun bowed and kissed her hand. Suddenly he turned around, as if there were something coming up behind him. "Oh."

Pop! He was gone just as the ship began to decelerate.

::Kill engines, kill engines!:: Apparently the crew did not find the little men as reassuring or polite as Cassie did.

The captain reestablished gravity and raced back to the pair. Had they seen them? Yes. Now what, he demanded? It took all O'Malley's ombudsman training and quite a bit of convincing to explain that they were going to have STAY at fourteen percent translight for a while. That assumed the Chinese wanted him to actually hold a conversation—with, yes, he admitted they were obviously something—these guys who looked like leprechauns.

In the end he got the guarantee of a night's sleep in semi-gravity while the crew radioed HQ and received further orders. O'Malley tried a toothpaste tube of something called General's Chicken Paste Number Four and gave up trying to have an appetite. Then he padded as quietly as possible to what seemed like a secluded nook. It provided a bed contraption that folded out, an air mattress and solar blanketing with electric toe warmers. He looked left and right, saw neither a pagan woman nor men of any height, Chinese or Irish, and tried to go to sleep.

He wasn't sure if he had been asleep or merely in that sweet dozy place right before actual sleep when he felt her slip into his bed. "Cassie?" As if some other nearly six foot, mostly naked and highly aggressive woman with red hair would sneak under his sheets.

"It's me." She began kissing his neck quite effectively.

"You're a stranger." He squirmed away.

"Not anymore." She rubbed his back.

"Um, I'm not that kind of girl." He wracked his brain for a better line.

Cassie laughed. "When in Indonesia, do as the Indonesians."

"But we're in outer space. And I have to figure out why there are leprechauns here."

"Why not ask them?" She blithely drifted off to sleep, apparently satisfied with merely having gotten in to his bed on day one. It seemed an incentive to solve the situation before day two.

On day two they managed to do the meet and greet with the leprechaun, find out his name was Tibbles of Green Burroughs and that Tibbles seemed astonished that they did not believe in him. Then came the hysterical screaming, the deceleration and the heinous accusations from terrified Chinese pilots who had to call the dread Chief Han and report Complications and, worse, Delays. Cassie's suggestions gave O'Malley his first headache in a decade.

O'Malley tried barring the door using a special computer code. She apparently could hack those. Thankfully, she contented herself with merely riding the night through holding him in her arms.

By day five, he had given up hope of evading Cassie at night, Tibbles by day, and the hysteria of the entire StarDrive Corporation pretty much constantly. The woman could get through furniture, welded doors and air locks.

"Why don't you make yourself useful?" He jabbed her when they woke up on day six, she having found him buried in the cargo section under a heap of welder's tools.

"I've been trying." Cassie pinched his cheek. "But you apparently missed a couple pages out of the manual. Goddess magic is usually sex magic and you keep avoiding me."

O'Malley scratched his head. She had a certain logic. "But there isn't any magic, Cassie." He had to admit the thought of sleeping with her seemed quite appealing, it always had. He just wasn't that kind of girl.

"How do you think I got through welded doors, silly?" She ran her fingers along his forearm.

"Um, I was wondering about that," he confessed. "But magic?"

"Magic."

"Well, if you can do magic to open my doors at night, why can't you do other magics?"

Cassie sat up from their secret bed; tools crashed as they fell off of her. A frightened mechanic jumped and ran, yelping something. "You really don't understand, do you?"

"What?" O'Malley felt very queasy.

"Didn't you have a grandmother?"

"Drank herself to death."

"Aunts, older female relatives, the little old lady down the alley?"

"Blown up or shot by the Ulster Unionists or Orangemen, except for the old lady down the street who taught me how to make pipe bombs."

Cassie shook her head and kissed his forehead. "Well, if you had a nanna, she would have told you lots of stories about the olden times and magic and the Celtic knots, the runes, the secrets of the Picts and such, our own weavings and doings."

"I've read the books."

"Do you know the difference between blood magic and circle magic, between weavings and callings, between unions and dispersals?"

O'Malley looked her in the eye. She seemed neither mad nor gleeful. In fact, Cassie looked outrageously serious, exactly like the Chinese pilots talking about their Pulse Drive buttons. "That would be a, um, a no, I guess." He grew quiet. What if she wasn't crazy?

"I can't call forth a fairy circle without some base of power and, unfortunately, there isn't any in outer space. But I can use you, and to do that I have to use a weaving and a union. The easiest way would be to sleep together but if you're absolutely hell bent to avoid my embrace, I can probably just drain half your blood and set up some kind of kettle in the back." She gave him a wicked leer.

"Why sex, why blood? There's no logic in it." He hated the sight of his own blood. He opted against telling her his fainting stories.

She smiled. "On