Диана Дуэйн - High Wizardry

"I still don't get it," Nita said. "She doesn't have a manual!"

"Are you sure?" Carl said; and "Have you gotten a computer recently?" said Tom.

"Just this morning."

Tom and Carl looked at each other. "I thought only Advisory levels and above were supposed to get the software version of the manual just yet," Carl said.

"Maybe, but she couldn't have stolen one of those any more than she could have stolen one of the regular manuals. You're offered it… or you never see it."

Nita was puzzled. " 'Software version'?"

Tom gave her a wry look. "We've been beta-testing it," he said. "Sorry^ testing the 'beta' version of the software, the one that'll be released afte we're sure there are no bugs in it. You know the way you normally do spell: You draw your power diagrams and so forth as guides for the way you want the spell to work, but the actual instructions to the universe are spoken aloucf in the Speech?"

"Uh-huh."

"And it takes a fair amount of practice to learn to do the vector diagrams and so forth without errors, and a lot of time, sometimes, to learn to speal(the Speech properly. More time yet to learn to think in it.

Well…" Ton sat down again and began turning his empty glass around and around on the table. "Now that technology has proceeded far enough on this planet for computers to be fairly widespread, the Powers have been working with the Senior wizards to develop computer-supported wizards' manuals. The software draws the necessary diagrams internally, the way a calculator does addition, for example; you get the solution without seeing how it's worked out. The computer also synthesizes the Speech, though of course there are tutorials in the language as you go along."

"The project has both useful and dangerous sides," Carl said. "For one thing, there are good reasons why we use the Speech in spelling. It contains words that can accurately describe things and conditions that no Earthly language has words for. And if during a spell you give the computer instructions that're ambiguous in English, and it describes something inaccurately. . well." He looked grim. "But for the experienced wizard, who already knows the theory he's working with, and is expert in the Speech, it can be a real timesaver."

"A lifesaver, too, under special circumstances," Tom said, looking somber. "You two know how many children go missing in this country every year."

"Thousands."

"It's not all kidnappings and runaways," Tom said. "Some of those kids are out on their Ordeal. . and because they don't have time to become good with the Speech, they get in trouble with the Lone Power that they can't get out of. And they never come back." He moved uneasily in the chair. "Providing them with the wizard's software may save some of their lives. Meantime. ."

Carl turned over a or two in his manual, shaking his head. "Meantime, I want a look at Dairine's software; I need to see which version of it she got. And I want a word with her. If she lights out into the middle of nowhere on Ordeal without meaning the Oath she took, she's going to be in trouble up to her neck. . Anyway, your folks should know about all this. Easier if we tell them, I think. How 'bout it, partner?" He looked over at Tom.

"I was about to suggest it myself."

Nita sagged with relief.

"Good. Your folks busy this afternoon, Neets?"

"Just with the computer."

"Perfect." Carl put out his hand, and from the nearby kitchen wall the phone leapt into his hand. Or tried to: the phone cord brought it up short, and there it hung in the air, straining toward Carl like a dog at the end of a leash. "I thought you were going to put a longer cord on this thing," Carl said to Tom, pushing his chair back enough to get the phone up to his face, and hitting the autodialer in the handpiece. "This is ridiculous."

"The phone store was out of them again."

"Try that big hardware store down in Freeport, what's its name- Hi Harry. Carl Romeo. . Nothing much, I just heard from Nita that you I got the new computer. . Yeah, they stopped in on the way home. Yeah. What did you decide on?. . Oh, that's a sweet little machine. A lot of nice software for that." Carl listened for a few seconds to the soft squeak-1 ing of the phone, while Picchu left off chewing on Carl's Coke bottle and | began nibbling delicately on the phone cord.

Carl smacked her gently away, and his eyebrows went up as he listened. | "Okay. Fine. . Fine. See you in a bit. Bye now."

He hung up. "That was your mom in the background," he said to Nita, "insisting on feeding us again. I think she's decided the best thing to do with adult wizards is tame them with kindness and gourmet cuisine."

"Magic still makes her nervous," Nita said.

"Or we still make her nervous," Tom said, getting up to shut the doors.

"Well, yeah. Neither of them can quite get used to it, that you were their neighbors for all these years and they never suspected you were wizards. . "

"Being out in the open," Tom said, "causes even more problems than 'passing'… as you'll have noticed.

But the truth works best. The front door locked?" he said to Carl.

"Yup," said Carl. He looked down at his side in surprise: from the table, Picchu was calmly climbing beak over claw up the side of his polo shirt. "Bird-"

"I'm going," said Picchu, achieving Carl's shoulder with a look of calm satisfaction, and staring Carl right in the eye. "I'm needed."

Carl shrugged. It was difficult and time-consuming to start fights with a creature who could rip your ear off faster than you could remove her. "You do anything nasty on their rug," he said, "and it's macaw croquettes for lunch tomorrow, capeesh?"

Picchu, preening a wing feather back into place, declined to answer.

"Then let's motor," Tom said. They headed for the garage.

"Lord," Tom said, "who writes these manuals, anyway? This is better than most, but it still might as well be in Sanskrit. Harry, where's that cable?" Nita watched with barely suppressed amusement as Tom and her father dug among the manuals all over the floor, and Tom went headfirst under the desk. "Computer seems to be running, anyway," Carl said.

"Had to drag Dairine away from it before she blew it up," said Mr. Calla-han, peering under the desk to see what Tom was doing.

"Where is she, Daddy?" said Nita.

"In her room. You two must really have run her down for her to come home so early."

"Which train did she take?" Kit said.

"She didn't say. She looked a little tired when she got in… said she was going to go read or something.

Tom, is that plug really supposed to go in there? It looks too big."

"They always do. See, this little bit inside the casing is all that actually goes in. Mmmf. ."

Carl, standing beside Nita, reached around the back of the Apple and hit the reset button. The A> prompt that had been there vanished: the Apple logo came up again. It had no bite out of it.

Nita stared. "Uh huh," Carl said, and hit the CONTROL key and the letter C to boot up the system. The A> prompt came back. Then Carl typed a string of numbers and figures, too quickly for them to register for Nita as anything but a green blur. They disappeared, and a message appeared in the graceful Arabic-looking letters of the wizardly Speech.

USER LOG?

"Yes, please," Carl said. "Authorization seven niner three seven one comma five one eight."

"Password?"

Carl leaned near the console and whispered something.

"Confirmed," said the computer politely, and began spilling its guts in screenful after screenful of green.

"Pause," Carl said at one point. "Harry, I think you'd better have a look at this."

"What, did we plug it in wrong-"

"No, not that." Nita's father got up, brushing himself off, and looked at the screen. Then he froze. He had seen the Speech in Nita's manual once or twice, and knew the look of it.