Sci-fi Cultivator Thing: Chapters 4-6

It's been a minute since I posted any of this, so here a link to the collection for this story (assuming this link actually works) where you can find the first parts if anyone wants to go back and read them. Also, no, I still haven't come up with a title for this thing.

Collection Link

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4.

Elder Li gave Jason a considering look across her desk. He returned her gaze with the same studied blankness he adopted with all of the elders and his so-called “seniors.” Not that any of them had been an ounce of help after his supposed fall from grace. Yet, he’d only met this elder a handful of times over the years. She was borderline reclusive, preferring to focus on her cultivation and direct disciples. Jason had the distinct impression that the she was only part of the sect as a matter of personal convenience rather than out of any particular loyalty. If he’d had any intention whatsoever of staying in the sect, that might have bothered him. Now, it was an advantage.

“Did you grab the tiger’s tail by accident?” she asked.

He couldn’t tell if she was mocking him or asking a real question. It could go either way. Then again, she might have considered the question nothing more than small talk. He’d never been more than adequate at sect politics, despite all his training. He felt that lack rather acutely at the moment. However, he couldn’t simply ignore the question, no matter how much he might want to. He was still a nominal member of the sect, which gave her wide latitude to punish him if she decided it was necessary.

“No, elder. If anything, I had the tiger’s tail thrust into my hands. Very much against my will, I might add.”

“Ah, so that’s why he let you get away with extorting the sect.”

Jason tried to mask his irritation at the word extortion. He’d been told to name his price. So, he had. That could hardly be called extortion. It seemed that his frustrations managed to elude his control enough for her to notice. She lifted an eyebrow.

“So, there is a person in there,” she said.

“Elder?” asked Jason.

“I remember you, you know. I recall when you were the prince of the sect.”

“That was long ago.”

“Not that long ago,” said Elder Li, shaking her head. “Your father has always been a fool. That brother of yours is worse.”

Jason chose to remain silent. Nothing good could come from replying to those comments. She watched him for an excruciatingly long time before breaking the silence.

“Cowardice?” she asked.

“Prudence,” he replied.

Elder Li lifted her hand, and Jason felt qi swirl around them. Then, he frowned as she placed a technological device on the desk that he didn’t recognize. She pressed the top of the device. Jason felt a low hum in the air. The sensation wasn’t painful, but the unnaturalness of it made him feel uncomfortable.

“There,” she said. “Now no one is listening in.”

“Who would dare listen in on you, elder?”

“You’d be surprised. I know I was.”

Jason knew he was unarmed with the information he needed to speak on that topic. He took the safe path.

“I see.”

“Do you?” she asked, looking amused.

“I doubt it, but it seemed impolite to not respond.”

“There is a difference between prudence and paranoia.”

“Easy to say when your brother isn’t actively hunting you through the sect.”

“Would you like me to kill him for you?” she asked.

Jason froze. Was that a test? An offer? Was she planning some kind of coup in the sect? She said no one was listening in, but he only had her word for it. Maybe his father had put her up to this. It wasn’t beyond the Patriarch to tell him that Elder Li hated Alex just to see where his loyalty was. It was also possible that this was all a setup for Elder Li, who seemed to have little to no respect for Jason’s father or brother. Maybe it was a setup for Jason and the elder, and there were sect guardians waiting to burst into the room and kill them both if he answered wrong. Elder Li remained silent and unreadable, simply waiting for his reply. The safe answer was no. Even if she could kill Alex, he doubted she could kill his father. Not unless she was doing an extraordinary job of hiding her strength and had been playing a very long game. Then again, cultivators were good at playing long games.

“What would the elder hope to gain from such a seemingly rash act?” hedged Jason. “I suspect the Patriarch would take issue with it.”

If he could weasel a little more information out of her, he might be better prepared to answer the question.

“Oh, you are cautious. You take after your mother so much more than your father. It’s why I had such high hopes for you. Let me guess. Right now, you’re trying to figure out why I’d make such an offer. You’re wondering if this is some complex setup. It isn’t, and I’ll even do you the courtesy of telling you why. If I wanted to kill you, I’d just kill you. As for your father, I have nothing to fear from him.”

“Elder,” said Jason in a cautioning tone. “He is very powerful.”

She waved a hand as if that were nothing and said, “His power is trivial. Yes, he exceeds me in pure cultivation, but that’s the wrong kind of power if he wishes to confront me.”

She gave him an expectant look, as though her meaning should be obvious to him. And he thought it was in a general sense. Elder Li clearly believed that she had some backing that made her immune from anything his father could do to her. Maybe she even did, but he didn’t know the specifics.

“Oh,” she said with a look of sudden understanding. “He never told you. Of course, he didn’t. The coward. Couldn’t bring himself to look weak in front of his son.”

Jason knew he was being baited to ask the question. He just wasn’t sure that the answer would be worth its cost, and there was always a cost for information like that. As though she could read his thoughts, the elder smiled at him. Jason sighed a little and accepted the inevitable. Elder Li clearly wanted him to have this information. He suspected that he was going to learn it whether he wanted to or not.

“Never told me what?” Jason asked.

“The truth, naturally. About this sect and it’s presence on this planet.”

“And what is that truth?”

“This sect is nothing but a distant splinter of the true Pristine Sky Sect. Your father,” she said with dripping disdain, “was banished to this trivial little world with his family and lackeys as a punishment. Frankly, they were sent here to get them out of the way somewhere they couldn’t make any more problems for my family.”

Jason’s mind whirled. So many things he’d never understood suddenly started to move around in his mind like the pieces of a puzzle. He didn’t have the full picture, yet, but he thought he was starting to see it.

“And you?” he asked.

“Someone had to keep an eye on them. I drew the short straw. As a rule, I don’t interfere as long as they keep their stupidity confined to this planet. But your father knows full well that I could spit in his face, publicly, and he’d just have to take it. I can also butcher that whelp brother of yours and there is precisely nothing your father can say about it.”

“But why would you help me? Don’t all cultivators worship strength? I’m not that strong.”

“They do, but it’s not the only thing that matters. Cultivators live a very long time, as you know. Strength can be acquired if you’re smart and diligent. Stupidity, on the other hand, is forever. There was certainly a time when strength was all, but that was also a time when the height of technology was building roads out of stone. Now,” she said, gesturing to a nearby window, “civilization spans across countless solar systems. Give it a few thousand more years and we’ll probably have spread across most of this galactic arm. Despite what people like your father and brother believe, you can’t keep something that sprawling together using nothing but brute force. Thank all the gods that the imperial family knows that.”

Jason felt a line of cold sweat trickle down his back. Everything she was telling him was so far above him and his station that he felt threatened just hearing it. His father would likely kill him for knowing half of this.

“But where do I fit into all of this?” Jason asked.

“That is a very good question. You, unlike the rest of the men from your line, are not a moron. Even before you brother came along, you had proven yourself willing to hold your own counsel. There are a shocking number of cultivators who never learn to do that. I had hoped that you would ascend to the position of patriarch. It would have meant inevitable change for the better. It also would have allowed us to slowly reintegrate this sect with the sect proper. That could still happen.”

“If my brother were out of the way,” said Jason slowly.

“For example.”

“And if I decide that I simply want to leave.”

Elder Li studied him in a way that made him feel like she was sizing him up for a dissection.

“Why would you want that?”

“Because he is still my brother. I wouldn’t mourn for long if he fell out of a very high window, but I’d rather not be responsible for ordering his death. That’s the sort of thing that gives you a heart demon, unless I’m badly mistaken.”

“You’re not, although I’m surprised you realize that. I think most people in your position would have been quite happy to order his death. He’s always been a bastard.”

“Well, that’s true enough,” said Jason. “Even if it weren’t, though, I have no love for this place. Why would I want to stay here?”

“Not tempted by the role of patriarch?”

“No. I barely wanted the role when I was being groomed for it. After all these years, I’m absolutely certain I don’t want it. I just want to get far away from all of,” Jason waved his hands in an all-encompassing gesture, “this and never look back.”

“What about your mother and sister?”

Jason gave Elder Li a hard look.

“Just how closely have you been monitoring me?”

“That didn’t require any special monitoring to figure out. You’re more than smart enough to have figured out a way to leave if you wanted to. Something had to be keeping you here. It wasn’t loyalty to the sect or your father. You’re not that close to any of the other disciples. You’ve very carefully kept yourself separated from mortal affairs. The options were limited.”

“If I get sanction to leave, then it won’t be a problem.”

“You don’t honestly believe that, do you?” asked Elder Li with a pitying look.

“No, but there isn’t much I can do about it now.”

“I suppose there isn’t. What if I gave you an alternative to running away to a frontier world. Which ones were you looking at? Risen’s World and Alabaster?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t want to go to either of those places. You wouldn’t like it there.”

 “You seem awfully sure of that.”

Elder Li laughed and said, “I am sure because no one likes it on the frontier worlds except criminals.”

“And what’s this alternative you’re suggesting?”

“Entry into the Pristine Sky Sect. The real Pristine Sky Sect. Not the main branch, of course, but my sister is the matriarch to one of the major subordinate branches. I could arrange for your entry there.”

Jason narrowed his eyes at the elder and said, “I expect that this isn’t as simple as you’re making it out to be.”

“Nothing ever is.”

“So, what’s the catch?”

“First of all, complete the task that’s been given to you. I don’t expect you to find her alive, but it would be good if you could at least return the girl’s body to her family. It shows good faith on our part. You can think of it as a sort of audition. A way to demonstrate your competence to the larger sect.”

“Anything else?”

“You’ll owe me a favor.”

That was the caveat Jason had been expecting. His initial reaction was to decline. Elder Li was far too mysterious, regardless of how helpful she might seem at the moment. She was also far more powerful than he was and that situation wasn’t likely to change anytime soon. He could find himself tasked with assassinating someone or dozens of other things he would find repulsive. If he threw in with her, he was tying himself to her star, and her star did not seem to be on the rise. It seemed very unlikely that a favored member of the true Pristine Sky Sect—assuming such a thing even existed—would have been given the task of overseeing a banished house. The more likely scenario was that she had screwed something up. Screwed it up badly enough that her seniors had wanted her out of sight for a good, long time. Her intervention on his behalf could prove a double-edged sword coated in poison.

On the other hand, if what she was saying was true, he could potentially find better training, resources, and even a true mentor in the larger sect. That was more tempting than he wanted to admit after so many years of being ignored and denied resources. He might even find a mentor powerful enough to intervene should repaying Elder Li’s favor include some wholly unreasonable demand on him. That wasn’t a certainty, but it was a possibility. Of course, entering a new branch of the sect wouldn’t be a smooth transition. Not as a foundation formation cultivator. He’d be walking into a situation with an existing hierarchy, factions, and biases about which he’d be wholly ignorant. He’d have to fight like a wild animal for everything, but even that would be a refreshing change.

Still, he couldn’t see what Elder Li actually hoped to get out of any of this. She’d given him some potentially dangerous information and a promise of an improved situation, but the benefits she’d get were negligible. A favor from him wasn’t worth that much. Even if she was out of favor with the larger sect, she was still a peak core cultivator if he was reading her qi correctly. There was literally nothing he could do or acquire for her that she couldn’t already get for herself with a few words in the right ears. Especially on a small world like Plum Blossom where peak core cultivators stood very near the peak of power. It was different in other parts of the Imperium, but they weren’t in a different part of the Imperium.

Unless what she wants isn’t something tangible, he thought. If she was anything like him, her goal was probably to escape this planet. But she couldn’t do that as long as her orders held. He wondered if she was hoping that his performance would reflect positively on her. No, not just me, he thought. That wouldn’t be enough by itself. She must have made deals like this before if that’s her angle. The entire conversation made more sense if that was her long game. If she made a habit of sending the sect disciples who performed well, it might make the leadership more amendable to recalling her and sending someone else who was more recently out of favor.

“You’re trying to make out that is a great kindness you’re extending me,” said Jason. “Except, it’s not, is it?”

It was risky to confront an elder that directly. It was especially dangerous with an elder he didn’t know well, but Jason needed to get a better read on her. Instead of the anger he expected, the woman laughed.

“It’s definitely not altruism on my part. Although, I do believe you’d make a good addition to my sister’s branch of the sect. She prefers smart cultivators to those who blindly pursue strength.”

Jason mulled that over for a second before he barked out a laugh.

“Ah. I see. So, you’re angling to get a favor from me and from her.”

“Naturally.”

Jason leaned back in his chair and thought things through. He wasn’t ready to agree just yet, but he thought that there was a discussion to be had.

“Hypothetically speaking, what kind of terms were thinking of for this favor?”

Elder Li beamed at him and said, “And this is why I always liked you better.”

5.

Jason refrained from smirking as Elder Li escorted him past his brother and out of the sect. Alex made no attempt to hid his towering fury at being so persistently thwarted in his goals. Yet, even that rage couldn’t prevent his flinch when Elder Li turned her cold gaze on him. As Jason and the elder stood outside the gates, he couldn’t help but feel a little apprehensive. It manifested as a mild churning in his stomach. There was no turning back now, though. He had struck his bargain with Elder Li for better or worse. While he was aware of an old adage about bargaining with the devil you know, he had chosen to bargain with the devil he didn’t know. He’d done that in no small part because the devil he knew wanted him dead.

“You remember what I said,” asked Elder Li, the mask of an indifferent cultivator firmly in place.

“I do, elder,” he answered in the guise of the dutiful disciple of the sect.

Even as they spoke, he couldn’t help but look around. He’d spent so little time in the mortal city that surrounded them. For all intents and purposes, he might as well be on a different planet from the one he grew up on. His knowledge of this place was based on information gleaned from the Imperial Archives and stories he heard other disciples tell of their questionable adventures among the mortals. His experience was limited to a mere handful of trips among the towering buildings that looked as though they meant to scrape at the sealed gates of the heavens themselves.

“And you have the tools I gave you?” she asked.

He lifted a hand slightly to indicate the storage ring on one of his fingers and said, “Yes, elder.”

“Good. And I believe this is your transportation,” she said, nodding at a vehicle that was descending from above.

There was a crest on the side of the vehicle that Jason didn’t immediately recognize but assumed was for the governor’s house or perhaps his official seal of office. Jason wasn’t sure if he was meant to be impressed by the crest or the vehicle. He wondered if mortals would be if they saw it. He offered Elder Li an appropriate bow and walked over to the vehicle. It gave off a faint presence of qi, but it felt old and somehow stale to his senses, as though it had been cut off from the natural world and sealed in a bottle. As he considered the function it served for mortals, he supposed that might not be all that far from the truth. The door of the vehicle slid open, and Jason stepped inside.

He glanced around as he settled into the seat. There was no one waiting for him. There wasn’t even a driver. It amused him a little to know that the vehicle had been quite literally sent to him in the same way that a message might be sent to him. The door slid closed with a quite hiss. It took a little self-control not to react with the vehicle rose from the ground. He had been inside such conveyances before, but not nearly often enough to feel entirely comfortable with them. The feeling of stale qi intensified as the vehicle merged seamlessly into a line of other vehicles flying at a predetermined height. It was harder to repress the grimace then. He wanted to rip them all apart to release that qi, but he doubted that anyone would thank him for that action.

Instead, he looked out the window at the buildings and the masses of people about which he knew next to nothing. No doubt, they had holidays, traditions, worries, and joys that could find no place in imperial reports. He could speak with great authority on the industries of Plum Blossom, the yields of their crops, and even their likely economic future. But of the people…nothing. For him, there had only ever been cultivation and the sect. A world apart. The Jianghu. A place in which mortals had no business. He bore them no ill will and would come to their defense as and when honor demanded, but he had no interest in them.

They were too fragile, and their lives too brief. He’d heard other cultivators refer to mortals as mayflies. Jason found the term unnecessarily insulting and somewhat inaccurate from anyone who wasn’t at least a core cultivator, but he understood the sentiment. A sect member might lock themselves away for a decade or more in solitary cultivation. By the time they emerged, a mortal they had known might have grown old, died, or had children who themselves had grown into adulthood.

Even as he looked out the window, the mortals in view seemed to be in a state the bordered on panic as they raced from place to place. He could easily spend an entire month doing nothing but contemplating on the essential nature of qi. Such an action would no doubt seem like madness to a regular human loaded down with concerns about…Jason wasn’t entirely sure what. Jobs and family most likely, even if it was a concept of family entirely different from what he understood it to mean. He did hope that most mortals had better familial relationships than he enjoyed. Even so, he couldn’t help but marvel a little at all of the technology he saw.

As supernatural as cultivators might seem to mortals, his stunted education made everything from the vehicle he rode in to the massive screens displaying news from across the Imperium seem magical to him. That much of that technology had some root in cultivation practices made it seem somehow more mysterious to him, rather than less. How had mortals and cultivators bridged the essential divide between the mystical and scientific? He had so many questions, but perhaps the answers to those questions were closer than he might once have imagined. At least, they might be if was successful in his errand.

It took a surprisingly short time for the vehicle to arrive at an estate. Where the rest of the city was a conglomeration of artificial materials, the estate was dominated by nature. Vast lawns bordered by what appeared to be a minor forest stretched out in every direction. It felt almost decadent in its contrast. Not that he had more than a few fleeting moments to enjoy that oasis of nature before he was led inside by an elderly servant who took him to an office.

“If you’ll please wait here, sir, the Governor will be with you presently,” said the man.

Jason offered the man a shallow bow to acknowledge his words. After a few moments when nothing happened, the window proved an irresistible temptation. In an almost unconscious act, Jason began to cultivate, taking advantage of the strong wood qi in the immediate area. It wasn’t as potent as the qi in the cultivation pod, but did prove the strongest qi he’d felt anywhere outside of such a pod. What a waste, he thought. The entire city could have been like this if only they’d been more conscientious. Still, he took advantage of the moment while he could. It proved a short-lived cultivation session as two men soon entered the room. One of them wore a suit with a collarless white shirt beneath it, while the other wore an unflattering gray uniform. Jason made what felt like an easy deduction and aimed his attention at the man in the suit.

“Lord Governor?” he asked.

The man in the suit seemed startled by something, while the man in the uniform openly glared. Jason sighed internally. He hated playing the absurd role of the “young master,” but he was here on behalf of the sect. That meant he needed to protect the reputation of the sect. By the belligerence in the man’s expression and bearing, the guy in the uniform was going to make him play that detestable role.

“You’re the one Patriarch Yang sent?” asked the man in the suit.

It was clear that Jason wasn’t what the governor expected.

“I am.”

“They sent us a child,” growled the man in the uniform.

“Leon,” said the Governor in warning.

Jason finally turned his attention to the man in the uniform.

“A child? And how old are you?”

“I don’t answer to boys,” said the man with an open sneer.

“Leon!” snapped Governor.

“I don’t see why not, as you are but a boy,” answered Jason. “You can’t be more than what? Fifty years old?”

“That’s right.”

“Then you should leave this room because adults need to speak about matters far beyond your meager years.”

“Is that right, you goddamn punk? And how old are you?”

“I am one hundred and fifty-seven years old, child. And if you speak out of turn again, I will snuff out your pitiful life,” said Jason, releasing a bit of his killing intent. “You should know when you stand in the presence of your betters.”

The uniformed man jerked as that almost palpable malevolence crashed over him. For a moment, it seemed the uniformed man might well lose consciousness or crumple to the floor. The Governor seized a fistful of the stunned man’s uniform. Whether it was in anger or to keep the other man upright, Jason couldn’t tell. Since he wasn’t confident that he could avoid hitting the Governor, he withdrew his killing intent. The Governor dragged the uniformed man to the door, jerked it open, and all but threw the other man into the hallway.

“You are no longer in my employ,” said the Governor in a cold, angry voice.

That seemed to snap Leon out of his fear-trance.

“Lord Governor. Please—”

 “I warned you not to anger the cultivator. Leave you uniform and credentials with Andrea.”

With those final commands, the Governor slammed the door. He turned to look at Jason with a panicked, apologetic expression.

“Forgive me, Lord Cultivator. My former underling clearly did not receive the appropriate training.”

Jason waved away the man’s concerns. He simply wanted to get what he came for and be on his way.

“He’s irrelevant. Shall we proceed with your problem.”

“Yes, of course, Lord Cultivator. Please sit,” said the Governor, leading Jason over to a questionably comfortable looking chair.

Jason eased himself down and found that the chair was, indeed, designed for appearance rather a pleasant sitting experience. He put it out of his mind. He didn’t intend to be in the Governor’s presence for long.

“I understand that your daughter had gone missing,” said Jason.

He’d hoped to forestall anything like small talk or tea, but that hope was dashed when a very nervous woman came in carrying a tea set. He checked his irritation and aimed what he hoped was a friendly expression in the direction of the servant. It was always hard to tell how successful he was with those efforts when it came to mortals. Most of them were afraid when dealing with cultivators which threw off everything in their posture and countenance. He patiently endured the wait while she poured them tea. Then, he listened with growing impatience while the Governor droned on about things that Jason truly did not care about. It was only after ten solid minutes of Jason’s absolute silence that the Governor trailed off.

“Well,” he said with a cough, “I suppose we should talk about Lily.”

“Yes,” agreed Jason in relief. “Let’s talk about her.”

6.

As Jason left the Governor’s office, he felt a surge of empathetic pity for the missing girl. The politician had spoken at length about her while saying almost nothing of substance. It hadn’t taken long for Jason to realize that he wasn’t the only person with a neglectful father who only cared about how their child’s perceived failures reflected on them. Was that a character flaw in most powerful people? If so, he supposed it was at least a partially understandable flaw. The demands on his father were many. He expected the same applied to the Governor. Even so, Jason couldn’t help but feel that he would be doing Lily a bad turn if he actually brought her back to this place.

Yet, that was what he would do, one way or another. Both his duty and his own needs demanded it. The hypocrisy of that wasn’t lost on him, but Jason hadn’t wanted this task in the first place. It had taken a massive bribe to get him involved. It had taken an even more enticing bribe to get him motivated. Whatever sympathy he felt for Lily’s situation didn’t outweigh all of those potential benefits. Besides, he reminded himself, she might already be dead. The fool of a Governor had waited days before seeking out any help. Jason wasn’t any kind of an expert on crime, but it seemed unlikely that abductors would have neglected to contact the Governor if this was all about a ransom. If someone had murderous intentions toward the girl, that person had gotten all the time they needed to carry out those intentions.

“Or the Governor was lying to me,” muttered Jason.

“Lord cultivator?” asked the woman who had clearly been waiting for him in the hall.

She wore an alarmed expression, which he supposed was only reasonable given what he’d just said. Unfortunately, she didn’t look guilty or suspicious, nor had he sensed anything in her negligible, mortal qi to suggest deception. I guess she wasn’t in on it if the Governor is playing some kind of game here, thought Jason. Not that he felt particularly confident in that conclusion. He wasn’t an investigator. He didn’t even like mystery entertainment. In a contest of deductive prowess, Jason expected he’d be little better than average. It wasn’t the kind of skill that cultivators valued or honed.

In the cutthroat world of the Jianghu, people were far more likely to announce their murders than hide them. They wanted other cultivators to know what they did, and who they did it to. The only ones who hid their work were assassins. Even that was a thin veneer of obscurity. As often as not, their employers would proudly proclaim their victory over some hated rival. The assassin might go unpunished, but the hand that had moved them would step into open view and invite reprisals. For all the violence, Jason thought the Jianghu was a much more straightforward place than the mortal world seemed to be. He imagined that Alex would have arranged for him to suffer from some terrible, tragic “accident” if they’d been born into a normal human family,

Shaking his head, Jason turned to the increasingly confused and impatient woman who had been standing there while he was lost in thought. Another cultivator wouldn’t have found that wait particularly long. He supposed it was easy to be patient when you could measure your life in centuries or millennia. Then again, a cultivator might have also used that time to reflect on their path or even to get in a brief bout of cultivation. Jason considered if that was another fundamental difference between his world and that of ordinary humans. He spent much of his time focused inward, while mortals were by design or circumstance focused almost entirely outward.

“You are?” he finally asked the woman.

“Andrea. I’m—” she hesitated. “I guess I’m in charge of security for the Governor and his family now.”

“I see. Do you have anything to share that might prove helpful in finding the girl?”

Andrea’s face went tense in a way that Jason couldn’t readily interpret.

“Her name is Lily.”

Jason felt the rebuke in those words. He’d clearly offended this woman in some way, but the source of that offense was ephemeral and hovering just beyond his reach. Was it that he hadn’t used the girl’s name? That seemed like a trivial reason to him. It wasn’t as though he had a personal relationship with any of these people. If anything, using her given name struck him as overly intimate, given the circumstances. He lifted an eyebrow a little.

“Lily, then.”

The security woman, Andrea, gave him a dissatisfied look before smoothing her features into a professional, neutral mask.

“We do have some information,” she said. “Follow me.”

Jason trailed after the woman and tried to discern, not for the first time, why the Governor had asked for help from cultivators and not the mortal authorities. It seemed to him that they would have been far better placed to help in these circumstances. Now that he thought about it, that was a question that he might be best served by putting to the woman he was following. He held his peace until they were closed inside an office. He put up a thin qi barrier to shield them being directly overhead by someone in the hallway, although there was little he could do about any kind of surveillance devices inside the room. He fixed the woman with a stern look. She went pale and retreated two steps from him.

“Why am I here and not the mortal authorities?” he demanded.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” she said.

Watching her qi ripple as she lied now made him far more certain that she hadn’t been lying earlier.

“I’m a cultivator who has spent most of his life inside a sect. I know virtually nothing about mortal technology.”

That drew a surprised look from Andrea, who said, “You don’t? But I thought cultivators and—”

“They did, but my fa…The Patriarch had particular ideas about my education. All of this,” he gestured around the office that brimmed with technology, “means nothing to me.”

Andrea frowned, but didn’t say anything. Jason continued.

“I have no understanding of crime in this city. I wouldn’t have the first idea where to look for—” he almost said the girl, but corrected himself. “I wouldn’t know where to look for Lily. The fact of the matter is that the only thing I might be helpful for is retrieving her from people who don’t wish to return her.”

“Why is that?”

“Because I am a cultivator. While I know nothing about your world, I’m exceedingly well-trained in violence. So, I ask again, why am I here and not the mortal authorities?”

He hadn’t intended to be menacing. The way the woman leaned back from him suggested he’d done it anyway. Andrea stared at him in silence before exhaling a breath that he was pretty sure she’d been holding. She walked over to a chair and slumped into it. She looked resigned and even defeated in some vague way he didn’t think either of them could articulate.

“You’re here because the Governor is embarrassed by Lily,” said Andrea in a subdued voice. “She’s not what he thinks she should be. She’s willful. Defiant. And she’s self-destructive.”

Jason frowned at that last part. He had ideas about what self-destructive behavior meant, but only from a cultivator perspective. He’d seen people make choices that would boost their strength now, but ultimately cut their paths short. He had a feeling that wasn’t what this woman meant when she said those words.

“Self-destructive in what way?”

That drew a bitter laugh from the woman before she said, “In what way? How about in every way. Drugs. Drinking. Abusive boyfriends and girlfriends. Spending time with the kinds of people her father hates without recognizing that her father hates them for good reasons.”

“Ah,” said Jason, unsure of what else he could say. “Are you sure you should be telling me that? Isn’t it indiscreet?”

“Those are only secrets in the most official sense of the word. You could find out the same thing from the Imperial Network with less than five minutes of effort.”

“Anything else I should know?”

“The truth is that we have a pretty good idea of where she is.”

“Then why not send the mortal authorities?”

“Because, if he contacts the mortal authorities, it all becomes official. Word will get out regardless of whatever promises are made. He’ll be publicly embarrassed, again. He doesn’t want that.”

Jason finally understood.

“Of course,” he said. “And cultivators are notoriously secretive. My sect wouldn’t discuss what happened because we never discuss what happens with the mortals.”

“Just so,” agreed Andrea.

“I might grasp the Governor’s desire for secrecy, but this all seems ill-advised. Couldn’t you simply negotiate with whoever she’s with for her return? Even pay for it? It’s my understanding that money is a powerful motivator for mortals.”

“We would if we could, but the people she’s with aren’t interested in being helpful.”

“And who is she with?”

Andrea gave him an uncertain look. Jason took that as a sign that she thought he wasn’t going to like her answer. His first thought was that the girl had somehow gotten herself mixed up with another sect, but he dismissed that thought. If it were another sect, he wouldn’t have been sent. Or, barring that, he wouldn’t have been sent alone. One of his seniors, a core cultivator, maybe even an elder would have been sent to procure the girl’s return. If those negotiations failed, it would likely have taken an elder to facilitate Lily’s exit from another sect compound. Even that would likely require a great deal of bloodshed. No, it couldn’t be another sect, which meant it was some mortal faction. Andrea finally answered the question.

“She’s with the techno-cultivators.”

The woman leaned back as if she expected him to erupt in rage. He didn’t know why. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He knew why. The so-called techno-cultivators were the subject of some debate among the sects. There were some who expressed outright fury about anyone not of the sects trying to claim the title of cultivators. An attitude that struck him as odd since they tolerated the existence of wandering cultivators, who were, by definition, not of sects. Others were indifferent, seeing them as nothing but pretenders to a path. Jason was of the latter camp and simply snorted in derision.

“They’re not cultivators. They’re just pathetic mortal cyborgs pretending they understand something about cultivation.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” said Andrea.

It was a safe answer, and probably a true one as well. While cultivation was better understood by mortals in the Imperium than it had been in ancient days, it was by no means a transparent topic. The basics of qi-gathering were available to anyone and everyone for purely pragmatic reasons. No sect possessed the resources necessary to train the billions of children born each year. Even the imperial family didn’t want to be bothered with the hassle of that kind of an education program. Especially when comparatively few people would show even the faintest ability. Those with talent would find their way with the available resources, at which time they could apply for membership in one of the countless sects that dotted the Imperium worlds.

That being said, internal sect politics remained as opaque to outsiders as it had always been. Even someone close to a powerful mortal like the Governor wouldn’t be much better informed than a person chosen at random off the street. As for what cultivators thought of the ridiculous cyber-cultivators, he could understand why Andrea had been hesitant. Not knowing how he’d react was a dangerous proposition for her. After all, if he decided to kill her, there was very little that could or would be done about it. The imperial family was a sect in all but name, and the Emperor was the Patriarch for everyone. His nigh-immortality did show in his thinking, however.

Right or wrong, the laws favored cultivators. It wasn’t quite as lopsided as it had once been, but cultivators could still get away with murder with the flimsiest of excuses. The biggest change being the need to provide those excuses. Jason didn’t particularly agree with those laws. He was of a very traditional if somewhat out of favor mindset. Cultivators should restrict their confrontations such that mortals weren’t involved. They shouldn’t lord their power over mortals unnecessarily, and it was almost never necessary in his view. He saw that kind of flaunting behavior as a moral failure. How weak did you need to be that treading on the helpless was the only way to reinforce your worth? He shook off those thoughts and regarded Andrea for a moment.

“In other words, you simply need to direct me to these pretenders. I’ll retrieve her.”

He could see the hesitation on her face. When she didn’t immediately voice whatever concern she had, he sighed.

“What is it?” he prompted.

“Forgive me, Lord Cultivator, but I fear that it won’t be as simple as that.”

“Why is that?”

“The techno-cultivators aren’t like…They aren’t like a sect. There is no compound for you to visit or, well, I’m not sure exactly what you would do if there was.”

Jason rubbed a spot on his forehead where a sudden pain had erupted.

“There isn’t a compound. Of course, there isn’t a compound.”