Portals are not mystical. If you approach a portal as if it is unknowable, you set yourself up for failure. Portals are also never a matter of ‘feel’. They require rigorous calculation to determine the exact location and speed of both points being linked. This is why creating a portal without a Path Skill is impossible at distances greater than what can be seen or continuously measured. Even as little as the motion of a world itself can interfere with setting up a portal.

Serenity snorted. It started off reasonable but then moved right into overcomplicating things. Yes, you’d need to know where a portal was going. Yes, changes in relative location would matter. That didn’t mean a Path Skill was required. Perhaps it was from growing up on a world with computers, but Serenity was confident that appropriate measurement and sensing would work.

If he could figure out how to build a portal at all, he’d just have to figure out how to do it based on a coordinate system and he’d be able to get pretty close. With the aid of satellites, he could probably even manage it with a world’s normal movements.

There were probably other ways, as well. Perhaps a ‘beacon’ that ‘told’ where the other end of the portal was or should be? Something like that would explain how Tzintkra found them on Earth. it would probably also explain why some of them didn't seem to show up; there was no reason to expect that all portals were the same. It didn’t really help Serenity that much, unfortunately; without an idea of how the ‘beacon’ worked, he couldn’t make a divination spell that was cheap enough to be viable around a large area like this settlement’s outer perimeter.

The next section of the book was all math and geometry, and even a quick look at it told Serenity that wherever it was written, they hadn’t had a Newton. They might not have even had a Pythagorus; he was pretty confident after reading it that a lot of the problem wasn’t the magic but the understanding of the world behind it.

Well, perhaps they’d had a Pythagorus. They did seem to have his theorem, after all. Unfortunately, in order to measure distance at an angle, it seemed to be all they had. Trigonometry was completely missing. They couldn’t do anything with angles directly, so they had to build the “true distance” by building up the “true heights” of each piece by stacking triangles.

On top of that, there seemed to be a correction that came from nowhere. After reading the text, Serenity thought it was probably a factor for the curvature of the planet, but it seemed to be completely empirically derived from experimentation with portal location.

There had to be places with better geometry than this out there. No, he was confident there were; he’d skipped a lot of the basics at Blackthorn Academy, but several of the math classes had used more advanced geometry than this. This must be just this particular writer or maybe planet, but either way it didn’t help.

Serenity had a headache. He hadn’t worked with that much geometry since high school, and he was rusty - especially when the geometry was poorly stated and overly complicated. Hours of math meant he needed a break.

Serenity trotted out of his treehouse. Echo’s was dark, but Doyle’s was still lit so he headed over there and tapped his claws on the door.

Doyle opened the door and looked out; it was a moment before he looked down at where Serenity stood. “Serenity? Wasn’t expecting you tonight.” Doyle looked like he wasn’t yet getting ready for bed; he wasn’t wearing shoes, but other than that he was still in the same clothes he’d worn for the drive.

“Went out for a walk to clear my head after some bad math. Saw your light was on, didn’t expect you to be up.”

Doyle yawned as he gestured for Serenity to come into the treehouse. “Yeah. I tried, but I get insomnia some nights. It’s best to get up when that happens. Up for a bit then I can get some sleep. I made some tea?”

Serenity looked around with envy. Doyle had actual furniture. Not that it mattered that much right now, but it would be far more comfortable if he didn’t stay in his dragon shape. He hopped up one one of the chairs, then hopped back down. Tea would be a lot harder to drink without hands.

“Sure, tea sounds good.” Serenity took a moment to shift back to his chimera shape. Someday, he might be good enough to handle a teacup in his dragon form, but he simply wasn’t, for now.

Doyle shook his head. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.” He freshened his cup and poured a mug for Serenity. “So what’re you doing math for?”

Serenity sipped his tea. Herbal of some sort, with a tangy aftertaste. Serenity wasn’t familiar with it. It made sense that it would be herbal if Doyle was drinking it to help him sleep. Chamomile maybe? That was supposed to be good for sleep, right? “Portals. I’m trying to find the one your rockfish friend came through. It’s still open, and the settlement’s not happy about that.”

Doyle frowned. “What does math have to do with that?”

Serenity shook his head. “I’ve got a book on portals. The first part seems to be on how to calculate direction and distance between locations so you can open your portal in the right spot. Only the math is terrible and I had to work through it to make sure it wasn’t doing something completely different and useful.”

“Ugh.”

They sat at Doyle’s table for a few minutes, then Doyle yawned again. Serenity drained the rest of his tea. “I should be letting you get to bed. Thanks for the tea.”

Doyle nodded and waved Serenity away. “See you tomorrow. Good luck with the portal thing.”

Morning found Serenity sprawled on a pile of pillows, asleep. He’d tried to go back to the dreamspace to read more of the book, but he was too tired and fell asleep instead.

The inside of the treehouse was dark and quiet until Echo decided it was time for Serenity to be awake. He didn’t hear her enter, but he certainly felt it when she started to tickle his foot.

He’d never realized baby dragon feet were ticklish.

“AAAAHHHHHH!” Serenity scrambled away from the tickling before he started laughing.

“Oh good, you’re awake.” Echo stood up and started to walk out of the treehouse. “Breakfast’s ready. After that, we can talk about what’s next. I didn’t want to bother you about the dungeon setup yesterday, but if you need a break from hunting for the portal…” The door swung shut behind Echo before Serenity could reply.

Dungeon setup? Did he hear her correctly?

Breakfast was scrambled eggs, hash browns, oranges, strawberries, bell peppers, tomatoes, and goat’s milk. The only seasonings were salt, some kind of pepper (from the taste, Serenity was guessing habanero), or horseradish.

Doyle noticed Serenity’s expression and explained as he sat across from him at the small table. “The settlement provides food, for now. It varies a bit, but there are always chickens and goats. Which fruits and vegetables are available varies. I had to buy salt and oil - it’s just not worth the effort to make our own oil. Gathering the produce is one of the big things we spend time on. I’ve been looking for places to sell it; at the moment, the only place we’ve been selling is farmer’s markets. From what Missy says, it’s not that different from living on the ranch for her; she was in charge of their garden.”

“This one’s bigger and I never kept goats.” A short, plump woman took one of the other spots at the table, then held her hand out to Serenity. “I’m Missy. Can’t believe I got into that mess, but unlike Doyle, I don’t know how to hotwire a modern car.”

“Eh, it’s not like it’s one of the ones with a chip in the key. It’s just a remote start.” Doyle didn’t look up from his breakfast. “Anybody with the right knowledge could do it. Setting up the solar panels was tougher; I really hope the trees aren’t going to drop stuff on them.”

Serenity couldn’t answer that question, so he didn’t say anything. Trees usually did drop stuff, but this settlement felt far more like a dungeon than the outside world, and dungeons could be different. He wasn’t certain which set of rules applied, or if they would change with time.

They probably would. This was a time of change, after all.

Serenity ate, but felt like something was missing. He’d gotten used to having meat with essentially all of his meals, and there wasn’t any. He’d just have to have more eggs.

“Echo said you were going to help her with the dungeon setup. Can you get us enough of something that we can make this a production farm or ranch? Right now, we have more than enough for us, but not nearly enough of anything to compete with the big guys. The only advantage we’ve got is that this shouldn’t all be ripe at the same time. So we’ve got stuff out of season. If you can keep that going…” Missy stopped and shook her head. “Hellfire. I never thought I’d run another farm and here I am telling you what I want for it! Still, we can make this work. If we can find a place to school the kids, anyway.”

“Why did you stay here? Why are you trying to make something work instead of going somewhere that’s already set up?” Serenity still didn’t understand that. What was the point in trying to make a new town with only four adults (if he counted Echo) and six kids?

Missy didn’t hesitate at all; she sounded fierce and determined. “Nowhere to go. Emily and I don’t have anyone else, anymore. That’s how we ended up stuck on the ranch. A chance at a farm with these resources? Lots of food and a free house? That’s far better than a single mom with three kids and no savings is going to manage anywhere else. Even if it fails, it’s a few years where at least I know my kids’ll be fed and sheltered. There are some issues and we need to start making money to buy the rest of what we need, but this is the best chance I’ve seen since Joe passed.”

Doyle smiled and spoke in the slow, calm voice he usually used. “We’ve got our reasons. Emily’s a bit less pushy than Missy, but she has basically the same options. Echo could go to her aunt, but I think she wants to make it on her own. As for me, well, about half my family’s talking about moving here. Including my daughter and my future in-laws. They’re even more eager than anyone else; apparently they have legends about trees like this.”

Echo pulled up the last chair and plopped into it. “It’s hope, it’s that simple. That’s why I named the settlement after you; hope’s your job. I want Serenity to be a beacon.”

That was either profound or silly. Serenity wasn’t certain which.

“Not that I think we’re anywhere close to that yet. So! Which do you want to do first, track down that portal or go deal with the dungeon?” Echo clapped her hands and looked eager.

Echo’s words made Serenity’s mind jump to the last time he’d tracked down someone. He’d been trying to find Made’s boyfriend Bob for Lancaster and ended up finding the Hegemon Worm Queen. If only tracking down the portal could be that easy, but he didn’t know how to find whatever signal it used, and it wasn’t like there was a trail he could follow back to it; portals didn’t move. The rockfin’s portal-.

Serenity took a moment to realize that he was missing the obvious. The portal might not move, but he knew of someone that had come out of the portal. He didn’t have to track the portal if he could trace the movements of the rockfin, the same way he’d traced Bob’s movements. “Do you have anything from the rockfin?”