Диана Дуэйн - Lifeboats

Kit nodded. “Hurry up and wait…” There was no sense of where Ronan might have vanished to, or Dairine, or Tom and Carl; so they just found themselves a seating area—one of a series of benches that seemed made of some kind of metallic wood, as stark and plain as anything to be found in an airport on Earth—and made themselves comfortable. For a while they had nothing much to do but watch the passersby. These were mostly Tevaralti for the time being, as it seemed like humanoids of other species who came through the reception-support building were being hurried on to other destinations.

Having some time to people-watch, or in this case Tevaralti-watch, was interesting enough for Kit; getting a sense of the physical look of a new species was something that he always enjoyed. In their work at the Crossings both he and Nita had had quite a while to get used to aliens who covered up all over, aliens who didn’t cover up at all, and aliens who came down somewhere between the two extremes.

The Tevaralti seemed to come down on the “clothing optional” side of the discussion. Some of them were wearing various kinds of harness that might or might not have something like fabric or leather draped from this or that part of it (apparently never the same part, as far as Kit could tell, so this was no reliable hint as to what parts of themselves they might consider appropriate to keep covered. Maybe it’s just fashion…). Others seemed to simply wear their feathers—which came in all kinds of lengths and colors—along with various belts or straps meant to hold equipment they wanted with them. Even the amount of feather coverage seemed to vary, so that some Tevaralti seemed to have only head feathers (though these might be quite long) and others were as completely covered with feathers as most birds might be on Earth. It was very interesting, or would have been if Kit wasn’t primarily concerned with making sure enough Tevaralti got off this planet for him to have a conversation with one about this later.

Beside him, Nita was alternating between paging through her manual and watching the Tevaralti around them go by. But she didn’t seem able to concentrate for long on either. Finally she slapped her manual shut and let out a long, annoyed breath. “I’m so twitchy. Why am I so twitchy?”

“Millions of lives at stake?” Kit said. “The fate of a world hanging in the balance?”

“Oh great,” Nita said. “Like I needed to feel any more like I was a disaster movie.” She put one hand over her eyes. “And we know how well that always turns out for at least some of the stars.”

“Wait. With seventeen thousand wizards from Earth alone out on this jaunt with us?” Kit said. “We’re hardly the stars.”

“Oh good, then we’re the bit parts. And we know how that turns out! We’re the guys heading down some side street in Manhattan when Godzilla comes jaywalking along in front of us and starts biting chunks out of the Chrysler Building.”

Kit had to laugh. “We’ve had worse. Because you know we could talk Godzilla out of it. As opposed to—”

“Callahan?” said a voice nearby. “Juanita Llll?”

She threw Kit a look as they both stood up, turning to face the Tevaralti who was approaching their bench from behind them. “I really need to see if I can get the manual to drop that middle initial,” she muttered, “it’s nothing but trouble…”

For the tenth or twentieth time Kit made a mental note to ask Nita later what it was about her middle name that had her so annoyed. He always forgot, though, and so had little hope that this time would be any different. Meanwhile the Tevaralti coming around the bench was looking from one of them to the other, possibly unsure of what gender of person he or she or it was looking for.

“I’m Callahan,” Nita said. “Dai stihó, cousin. Where do you need me?”

The Tevaralti had ruffled brown feathers all over and a sort of long darker brown webby-looking tunic that the feathers stuck through in patterns, and a crest that was twitching up and down while she—at least Kit got the feeling it was a she—looked down at some kind of tablet-like reference device flowing with notations in the Speech. “They’re ready for you at your posting,” she said to Nita. “Your shiftmates will give you a brief orientation and then you’re off duty for six of your hours: your first shift on gatewatch is after that. So if you’ll come over this way, your hex is waiting.” And off she went.

They followed Nita’s guide over to the small hex complex inside the reception-support building—a set of twelve hexes, each offset a bit from the others and all in constant activity. One of them was pulsing softly, empty and waiting. “You’ve got everything you need in your puptent?” Kit said as the guide-wizard led them over to it.

“Way too much, my Dad says,” Nita muttered. “And probably you do too. But there were all these things I was working on, I couldn’t just leave them home…”

“I bet. But did you bring food?”

“Of course I brought food.” And she looked at him sideways as their guide gestured her toward the waiting hex. “Anyway, you’ll have brought enough for two of us. If I run short, all I have to do is raid your supply.”

Kit smiled. But then, as she was about to step into the hex, Nita stopped.

“Did you remember what you forgot?”

“No,” she said, annoyed. “But, you know… If it’s okay—”

“Of course it’s okay,” Kit said, confused. “What, the food? Or what?”

She turned around, walked straight out of the hex again, more or less plowed into Kit, and hugged him until his ribs nearly cracked.

When did she get so strong? Kit thought, and hugged her back. “That’s always okay,” he said, wheezing.

“Just thought I should check.”

“Checking’s okay,” Kit said, “but don’t expect a lot of change in the answer.”

Shortly Nita let him go… or at least it seemed like ‘”shortly”. Kit realized after a moment that she was looking up at him oddly. “Is it all right if I’m weird about this? The checking, and—”

Nita didn’t do uncertainty all that often, in Kit’s experience anyway, and when she did there was only one smart response to it. “Sure, but when are you not weird?”

She gave him a look that suggested the concept of punching him might just have occurred to her, and immediately let go of him and stepped back into the hex, as if intent on not allowing herself the opportunity. “Right,” she said. “Just, you know, be careful.”

“Why? What could happen?”

Her expression went both amused and sarcastic. “Okay, now you’ve doomed us. Because where we’re concerned, when would that ever be a safe thing to say?”

“Hmm,” Kit said. “Might have a point there.”

Nita shook her head at him in a sort of “what am I going to do with you” way: but still she smiled, even if it looked a bit uneasy. “Text me when you’re settled in,” she said.

“Okay.”

She nodded at the Tevaralti wizard. A moment later the hex pulsed blue around her, and she was gone.

The guide-wizard flicked her crest politely at Kit, then turned and hurried away. He stood there for a moment looking at the empty hex, then turned to make his way back to the seating area.

It’s not as though she’s not worth listening to most of the time, Kit said to himself as he went. In fact, nearly all of the time. But these days… These days Nita’s visionary gift was changing and growing, was kicking in in odd and unexpected ways. And something she said to you very casually, even offhandedly, might turn out days later to have been incredibly important. The problem was telling the ordinary things from the ones that were going to turn extraordinary. And most of the time there was just no way for Kit tell. Listen, sometimes I can’t tell, Nita had complained to him some days back. Sometimes these things just sneak up on me and pop out. Or something that I thought meant one thing turns out later to have meant something completely different. Sorry, but till I get some more control over this, we all get to be confused about this together…