Диана Дуэйн - A Wizard Of Mars

“Besides a rock with your cell phone number carved on it?” Nita grinned. “We’re not sure. But we’re gonna find out.”

“Well, all right. But don’t get us invaded, now.”

“Daddy!”

He gave her a mischievous look. “Well, you can’t blame me. It’s kind of the first thing that comes to mind, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Nita said. “I know.” And she vanished.

5: Nili Patera

It was dark. Kit found himself staring at his bedroom ceiling, his eyes wide open. He was wide awake, but he couldn’t think why.

He lay there on his back under the covers for a few seconds, listening to the house. It was still, devoid of any of the little middle-of-the-night sounds that it made as the weather got warmer. And one other sound was missing, from the braided rug by the side of his bed: a small, faint whistling snore.

Kit sighed. Ponch, he thought. But his dog’s midnight snore was a sound he would not hear again. He turned his head on the pillow, fumbled for his smartphone and peered at the digital clock on its display. 3:38.

Which is what time on Mars? He closed his eyes again for a moment, trying to do the math for the time at Nili Patera. But math was no match for the image of the green-brown sandy soil under his knees, and the strange shining blue-green superegg in his lap. He could just feel the faint sense of some quiet power running under the surface of it, mute, waiting.

That was it, he thought, pushing himself up on his elbows. It wasn’t ready. It was waiting for something.

And what if it’s ready now?

Kit sat up in the quiet, gazing into the darkness, his heart pounding as if he’d been running somewhere. It was weird. Then, No, it’s not, he thought. Kit had had a lot of trouble getting to sleep when he’d finally gotten home and turned in. He’d been as wired as if he was seven years old and the next day was going to be Christmas. Well, what do I expect? I was on Mars. I actually touched an alien artifact that someone left there. I felt that it was alive—

And waiting.

He looked again at the phone. Mamvish said we should do some analysis first, Kit thought. Irina said, take your time…

Kit sat there for a few moments, listening to his heart pound. Then he threw the covers off, got up, and went to the desk by the window.

The manual was there where he usually left it when he was home. Analysis… Kit thought. He flipped the manual’s cover open and paged through to the Mars project section, then tapped the open pages so they’d glow in the dark.

The only new things on the main project page were the manual-generated précis of what the group who went up to Mars yesterday had found, and beside it, a few “read, noted” symbols from research team members who’d flagged the entry to let other team members know they’d seen it. Kit shook his head, unbelieving. Twenty-six other wizards working on this project and nobody has anything interesting to say? Kit thought, frowning. Even just ‘Hey, wow’? Come on, people…!

He let out a frustrated breath and flipped on through to the part of the master directory he’d bookmarked. I wonder, is Mamvish around?

He found her name halfway down the page, as usual, with that astonishing power level noted next to it— a four-digit level, when even the most powerful wizards on Earth usually only went as high as three. Even Irina’s level wasn’t as high. Yet at the same time, the level of respect Mamvish had been showing Irina suggested that, at the more elevated levels of practice, sheer power wasn’t everything. Even if you could blow up a whole planet all by yourself…

It was a creepy thought. Wizardry was usually about keeping things alive, or at least in one piece. And why would the Powers That Be want someone to blow a planet up? Kit thought. Especially their own? A sudden image came to him of Irina, standing alone in some desert place, terrible power building around her, while her face held still and cold, and her eyes—

Kit shivered. Now, where’d that come from? he thought. Catching something from Neets, maybe. He shook his head, glanced down at Mamvish’s listing again. Next to the short version of her name flashed a small knotted symbol that was Speech-shorthand for Occupied: on assignment. Next to it was a long string of symbols indicating that Mamvish wasn’t anywhere near this solar system, since the light-years-from your-location symbol had a tens-of-thousands augmentor suffix on it. Halfway across the galaxy, it looks like. And busy. Dammit…

Kit leaned back in his chair, tipping it back on its back legs and rocking for a moment in thought: then sat forward and turned some more pages in the manual. It’s quarter of nine where Ronan is, he thought. He must be up by now!But the “status” part of Ronan’s listing, when he came to it, was grayed out, a sign that the person was unavailable for some routine reason, usually sleep. I can’t believe it. How can any sane person sleep late after what we were doing yesterday?

Kit folded his arms on top of his manual and put his head down sideways on them, frustrated. Again he found himself gazing at the oval braided rug where Ponch could always be found between bedtime and morning, lying on his back, snoring, waiting for Kit to get up and feed him. I wish he was here, Kit thought. I’d just say, ‘Come on, Ponch, let’s go to Mars!’ And he’d jump up and spin around a few times and run out the door, ready to go…

Then Kit let out a long breath. He was a wizard, not a magician: and in a wizard’s world, there was no use wasting your time wishing for things you couldn’t have. You went on to the next option— by getting up off your butt and doing the necessary work. Even if there’s no one else to do it with.

Kit stood up, glancing down at the manual. Neets… But he could just imagine what she’d say if he woke her up at four in the morning, especially after the afternoon and evening she’d had. Kit flipped over to the fast-messaging area in the back of the manual and had another look at the terse message she’d left him about the results of the phone call from her father, and her annoyance on coming back to Mars when everything was settled to find that everyone else had left. Talk to you tomorrow AFTER LUNCH, the note ended. He could practically see her scowling.

Well, she’ll be over it after she’s had some breakfast and some time to relax. Kit straightened up, shivering: it was a while since the central heating had been on, and the room was chilly. I’ll jump up to my usual spot, then go check on the superegg from there. It’ll take less energy than doing a whole new custom transit.

Very quietly he pulled clothes on— jeans, sweatshirt, down vest— and then the hiking boots his pop had given him for his last birthday, when the family had driven upstate for the weekend and walked the Appalachian Trail through Bear Mountain State Park. Those boots had been getting more than Earth dirt on them the last few weeks, and the abrasive sand and dust of the much-eroded Martian surface was in the process of wearing the leather down to a nice beat-up patina.

Kit finished lacing up the right-hand boot, rubbing the leather thoughtfully: it was dry. Even though Kit always took enough air with him to Mars for a given visit, plus twenty percent in case of emergencies, that air tended to get very dried out while it was there. So did anything else inside the air bubble with him. Better find the neat’s-foot oil and leather wax for these things when I get back. Don’t want them to start cracking.

He picked up the manual and paged through it again, then whispered the thirty-eight words of a spell macro he used when he wanted to get in and out of the house quietly: one small subroutine that put an inch-thick layer of hardened air between him and the stairs, as a cushion for his footsteps, and another subroutine to ask the downstairs back door if it would please unlock itself in absolute silence.