Диана Дуэйн - Lifeboats

“Because they’re just stories. And because they don’t automatically connect wizardry with the existence of other species.”

“That is so strange,” Djam said.

“Selective delusionality,” Cheleb said. “Evidence either of extreme intelligence or of species to be avoided at all costs, because can talk themselves into anything.” Hae was grinning that bared-teeth grin at Kit, which Kit for the time being took as approval.

“Maybe the second,” Djam said. “But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. A species like that could be incredibly effective with the Speech.”

Kit theatrically dusted his nails on his shirt. “We like to think that’s the case,” he said loftily. “Next movie?”

“More supplies first,” Cheleb said, “and double-check gates.”

The gates were fine, apparently having for the time being taken to heart the talk that Kit and Cheleb had given them. Nonetheless Cheleb kept a long and careful eye on the gate-array monitor that hae’d tucked into the upper right-hand corner of the large floating display that was now showing scenes of the snowy landscapes of Hoth. Meanwhile supplies were exchanged, and Kit opened one of his packages of saltines, just one, and split them between him and Djam and Cheleb. “I need to go easy on these, they’re all I’ve got… You guys okay with sodium chloride?”

They were. Shortly the tale once more unfolded itself, and Tevaral’s sun set a while before the Millennium Falcon dove away into intergalactic darkness in search of a man frozen in carbonite. And lacking any further interference by malfunctioning gates, as Tevaralti evening set in there ensued much more argument, and discussion, and confusion, and a lot of laughter, bubbling or trilling or Earth-style. The trilling, though, started getting mixed up with strange wheezy hissing noises. Kit was alarmed by this at first, but Djam knew what he was hearing.

“Cousin,” Djam said to Cheleb, shaking haem by one shoulder, “look at you, you’re fading. Go get some rest.”

“Start third one,” Cheleb said, even though hae could hardly keep his long eyes open.

“And anyway it’s my shift now, almost. And Kit needs to rest too. You don’t want to mess up his schedule just when he’s getting it started.”

“He’s got a point there,” Kit said. “Probably I should think about starting to wind down. Chel, look, we’ll all watch the third one together tomorrow, huh?”

Cheleb wheezed with weariness. “Should have triggered hormonal waking aids. Even without those, normally have better staying power than this.”

“There’s nothing normal about this situation, no matter how you come at it,” Djam said. “You had a long day yesterday, and the day before. So come on now, kehrutheh. Don’t bother reporting off to me; I’ve seen everything that happened, and you’re relieved.”

“Under protest, kehrutheh,” Cheleb said, and wheezed again as he got up, actually staggering against Kit.

“Come on, buddy,” Kit said, and put an arm around Cheleb as they headed back toward his puptent. Kit found himself wondering whether his perception of Cheleb as somewhat reptilian was predisposing him to think of his fellow wizard as unusually tough. Plainly this wasn’t the case. “You get some rest, all right? Part three can wait.”

Cheleb wheezed again as hae slapped the standing stone with one long-clawed hand and his puptent’s portal popped open. “No cheating and watching it without me,” hae said as hae vanished through into the darkness.

“Promise,” Kit said as the portal closed.

The twilight was deepening rapidly to darkness, and the wind was picking up as the local temperature dropped. Kit stood where he was for a few moments, and recited under his breath the small, brief spell that created a small spark of wizard-light hanging behind his left shoulder. With the light following him, he made his way back to the Stone Throne. Djam was already tucked up against the back of the Throne, his silver manual-Rod in one hand and his gate-array monitor rolled out of it. He glanced up at Kit. “Forgot something?”

Kit shook his head. “Just tidying up.” One of the things that Tom and Carl had drilled into him fairly hard regarding offplanet work was the need for the responsible wizard to pack out his trash and dispose of it correctly on his own turf. So now, as always, Kit gathered up the various wrappings and so forth from his snacking, wrapped up the four or five saltines that were left over, brushed the crumbs off onto the ground, and headed back for his puptent, where he had a few garbage bags stowed away.

He had to dig around to find them, as they’d gotten themselves folded up and stuffed underneath a small pile of books. Kit put the unfinished saltines aside with the other stacked-up food, shook out one of the garbage bags, stuffed the trash in it, and then fired it across the puptent to the back wall, where the faint shimmer of light defined the area that had a stasis field laid over it to keep anything inside it from going bad. And these shouldn’t be here, Kit thought, picking up the books and repositioning them off to one side of the non-perishable food boxes. And what’s this stuff doing down here, I thought I straightened all this up, did something fall over? Under some more books and a couple of sweaters and Tshirts he caught sight of a glint of metal: his antenna-wand. What’re you doing down there, huh? He collapsed it down to its shortest size and stuffed it in his back pocket. Gotta find you a better place. And here were more books, hiding under more clothes. …Seriously, why did I bring these, I was already getting bored with reading that one last week—

Outside the portal Djam said, “Kiht?”

Kit wasn’t sure how well Djam could hear him when he was in here; he went to the portal interface and stuck his head out. “What?”

“I’ve got a physical thing I have to handle before I settle in… could you take the throne for a few minutes?”

“Sure,” Kit said, grabbing his manual just in case Djam’s interface gave him some kind of trouble reading what was going on with the gate array. He grabbed a jacket, too, and slung it around his shoulders. Physical things, yeah, that’s definitely another issue. I need to find out what Ronan’s doing about that: maybe I can duplicate his solution here, or use whatever facilities he’s turned up. Don’t want to cause some kind of local sanitation incident…

He summoned his spark of wizard-light again to light his way and headed back to the throne. It was empty: Djam had taken his interface with him. He’s dead serious about this, Kit thought. Always good to see…

Kit parked himself on the throne and laid the manual down beside him, open to the array page. As far as the inner workings of the gating complex went, all was quiet over there. His gaze drifted out to the complex itself, bright under its hovering antigrav lights. The scene over there was the same as at any time since he’d come: the same dark flow of Tevaralti crowds in through the feeder gates, out through the terminus gate, waves and waves of people. And far less distinct, between the gate complex and the stone circle, there lay the great gathering of thousands of Tevaralti who would not pass the gates, the shadow of their presence starred with their tiny sphere-in-cube electronic campfires, the lights twinkling as fitfully as stars as people moved among them. Thesba had risen bloated in the east and was climbing the sky, golden and dull fire-red. Its light touched faintly on the Tevaralti camped beyond the glare of the gating complex, a sullen dim glow red as blood.

Kit shook his head as the wind rose and hissed in the grass around him. In the face of what lay before him, all the afternoon’s good cheer was fading to something thin and pale. He hunched his shoulders inside his jacket and sighed. Beside him, on the stone, the bar graphs illustrating the power levels of the gates rose and fell, rose and fell again, beating like small hearts. But it won’t last, Kit thought. Sooner or later these people will say, It doesn’t matter what you do, we’re not leaving: you can turn them all off now. Sooner or later the hearts will stop. His gaze drifted up to Thesba again. And I really hate that—