Free Wine of the Gods 1: Exiles and Gods by Pam Uphoff

as one that seemed to be able to break up nitrogen and water for a scant bit of ammonia to fertilize the crops. The power requirements were so low Gisele persuaded a couple of the unpowered young women to try them. They promptly made songs out of the rhymes and went dancing and laughing through the fields, fortunately watching where they put their feet. The young men were drawn to them like flies. Harry made sure they were armed, and spent some of their time looking for predators.
    "We're going to grow into a very strange society." He watched Gisele carefully soaking the bandages off his leg.
    "Yes. I need to figure out how to boost people's immune systems, and repair systems. I don't like the looks of this. It's taking too long to heal."
    "Think about what you'd like to see. What should the cells be doing? How could you twist them to do it?"
    "Humph. More T cells, to the injury site, for starters, and the repair . . . the cells at the edges ought to be becoming less specifically a specific tissue and edge back toward a stem cell. Then they should multiply enormously, then get all specific again."
    "Think about how it would feel, how a cell would feel, fading back into the past."
    "Feel? I know how it's done, chemically. It's just a little twitch, to restart the body stem cell process, that's fairly well understood." Gisele sat down, looking dreamy eyed and absent for a long moment. "And triggering cell reproduction. Humph. Yes." She waved a hand at his leg. "That should help, unless you dissolve into a gooey grey mass of stem cells."
    Harry chuckled a bit nervously. "We aren't exactly following proper test protocols for any of the things we do. Perhaps we should think carefully and proceed slowly."
    Gisele looked down at his leg. "What the hell am I doing? Telekinesis on a microscopic scale? Assembling the enzymes or ribosomes that are needed? That's what I was picturing . Was I forcing a pattern on the cells' internal mechanisms to make them manufacture what I think you need?"
    Harry shrugged. "I'm not sure that rationalizing it will make a bit of difference. Although I suppose if you believe it could put a bit more oomph into it."
    "I should work out a verbal trigger, so any one with . . . Harry, are we making magic spells ? Have we always done things by magic? I swear sometimes if I stop paying attention, the past just slips away. The other women don't have this problem. And they're magic too. Muriel and Phaedra and I can get together like some story book coven and do things well beyond our individual abilities."
    "That's right. Trios, no, Triads, wasn't it? For women, and three Triads is a pyramid. Men work best in fours and eights."
    "A compass rose of magicians. I remember someone saying that." Gisele frowned. "A very logical young woman. She analyzed what was going on, and made the fellows line up according to the compass points. And sometimes she'd shift them around, and it always made the magic stronger. I wonder who that was?"
    "Mark and Derry have power genes. Maybe, with Wolf, Romeau and me we can try a few major tasks."
    "Eight, Harry. Add in a few of those older boys as well."
    “Ye s. I was thinking about what to teach the kids, setting them up for independence. I shall have to add group magic drills to the plan.”
    "We already know how to do a great many things. It may be that we already know all of this. The bug repellant, the medical usage. Maybe we just don't consciously remember." Gisele's brows drew together as she hunched her shoulders. "I don't like this not-remembering. What did they do to us, that we can't remember?"
    "And who are they? "
     
    ***
     
    Harry found himself hovering over the shortwave. The village of Gibraltar kept the beacon turned on. The one month anniversary of their exile came and went. Another week passed, and the gate did not open.
    And some internal tension Harry hadn't noticed eased inside his chest. Perhaps in two years they'd be hunted down like animals, but for now they