Good Guys by Steven Brust

Author:Steven Brust
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

10

THE FRENCH QUARTER

One day toward the end of her training, Marci had been sitting in the cafeteria, off in a corner, and William, her favorite instructor, had walked up and sat down across from her.

“So,” he’d said. “Want to tell me about it?”

“What?”

“Jolene told me there’s been something on your mind for the last week and she couldn’t get you to talk about it. Maybe you’d be more comfortable talking to me? I feel like we have a certain rapport.”

“Yes,” she heard herself saying. “We do. All right.”

William smiled and sat down across from her. He had one of those smiles that made you think everything was going to be fine, no matter what. “Spill it, then,” he said.

She opened her mouth and closed it again. Words were harder than numbers, because they could mean so many different things, and even more when arranged differently. It wasn’t that she didn’t know the answer; it was that she wasn’t sure if there was a way to say it that wouldn’t be offensive. But one of the things that made William a good teacher was his patience.

“Here’s the thing that bothers me,” she said finally, speaking slowly and choosing her words as best she could. “We’re doing all of this research, right? Into curing diseases, and ways to improve infrastructure using magic, and all of that.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Well, it bothers me that we’re keeping it secret. That maybe we can cure myelogenous leukemia. How can we just keep that to ourselves?”

“Oh. Yeah. I know.”

“It bothers you, too?”

“Yeah. Only, what’s the alternative? We’d have to reveal what we can do. Then what happens?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yeah, neither does anyone else.”

“They aren’t burning witches anymore.”

“I know.”

“In all this time, someone must have, you know, revealed things. Or tried.”

“Yeah.”

“What happened?”

He said, “That’s something that’s supposed to come up a little later in your training, but what the hell. There’s a division of the Foundation called Investigations and Enforcement. We call it the Ranch because they’re a bunch of cowboys. They handle that sort of thing.”

“Handle it.”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“A sorcerer’s ability to detect and tap into the grid can be removed.”

“Oh,” said Marci.

“You won’t need to learn that unless you want to work for I and E.”

After a moment, she said, “Do you think doing that is right?”

He shook his head. “I wish I knew.”

* * *

“Hey, Laughing Boy,” said Susan. “How are the eyes?”

“Getting better. You, in particular, are a delightful fuzzy blur and I can tell you have black hair, which I couldn’t have yesterday. And that must be Marci behind you.”

“It’s me,” she said.

“How are you, Marci? Doing all right?”

“My vision’s healing faster than yours, but I have some burns on my face and neck that are going to take a few weeks and that I’ll have fun explaining to my boyfriend.”

“Yeah. Sorry. Where are you staying?”

“They put us up in a hotel,” said Susan. “Saved the expense of a slipwalk, since they knew we were going to be here anyway. When are they letting you out?”

“When I can see again.

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