Destiny's Song (The Fixers, book #1: A KarmaCorp Novel) Read Online Free Page A

looking confused, but several other heads were nodding. Idea planted. Time to head back to safer ground. “Any more questions?”
    A girl with dark skin and an appealing grin bounced up next. “I heard your next assignment is to an outpost colony.”
    She said the last two words with the light disdain of a kid who’d been born on one of the Commonwealth’s inner planets. “It is.” Which was probably a secret, but if the thirteen-year-olds already knew, not a very well-kept one.
    The grin ratcheted up a notch. “What are you going to do there?”
    That was a secret, and I was pretty damn sure Yesenia kept trainees out of the Ears Only files. “Whatever is necessary to help alignment and the flow of good energy in the galaxy.”
    The questioner scowled, not at all impressed with being quoted KarmaCorp’s mission statement. “A colony planet doesn’t sound very important.”
    Definitely inner-planet born. “I bet fixing Andrew Takli’s fear of small spaces didn’t sound very important either.” Even a first-year trainee would know the story of the eight-year-old boy who had gone on to develop modern cryo-travel. They would have also heard the horror stories of Fixers who had failed in something simple they’d been sent to do and put whole cultures into tailspin. “Even the smallest assignment can have vast ripples out into the universe.”
    Which didn’t make me any happier about being sent off to get two people all hot for each other, but it would keep me doing my job.
    My interrogator wasn’t done. Her head cocked to the side, thinking. “Do you know why your new assignment is important?”
    “No.”
    The teacher shifted on the wall.
    I held the kid’s gaze. They wanted me to talk about what it was like to be a real-live Fixer, and that included flying blind more often than not.
    The girl met my gaze, her dark eyes thoughtful. “How come they don’t tell us?”
    The long answer would bore her to tears—the one about the very delicate balance of trust and autonomy that lived at KarmaCorp’s core and helped sustain a galaxy with more decency, generosity, and happiness than had ever been seen in human history. So I went with the short one. “We’d have to be in meetings all day and read reports until our eyes bled.”
    Groans rose up all over the room. I grinned. “We’re people of action, right?” And the price for that sometimes included not understanding why we acted. I’d try to remember that while I was encouraging two boondocks colonists to hop into each other’s pants.
    I looked around for another question and picked a nondescript girl with sharp, savvy eyes.
    She stayed seated and spoke in a clear voice full of bells. Definitely a Singer. “What’s the hardest part about being a Fixer?”
    I blinked. Most trainees didn’t see past the glisten and gloss for years yet. “Working in the field alone, I think. Having to make hard decisions without really knowing what the best answer is.” And knowing that if you screwed up, people died and communities failed and doorways into important futures slammed closed.
    The savvy eyes had a follow-up. “And what’s the best part?”
    I grinned. “Working in the field alone.”
    She grinned back and nodded appreciatively.
    That one was going places. I looked around, grateful that the waving hands were diminishing, and nodded at a slender arm in the back corner. A girl with bright orange hair slid to her feet with the kind of grace that could only belong to a Dancer. “Do you think they’ll find another Traveler soon?”
    I sure as hell hoped not. Talent was rough on all of us, but Singers and Dancers and Growers generally lived to tell their tales and scare small children in the pod nurseries. Shamans had it harder because they played with the most woo energies—the ones that came with very few rules and pissy manners. But the Travelers were gifted with all our Talents and the ability to move through space and time. They were rare, extremely