Диана Дуэйн - A Wizard Of Mars

“Some places, no. But in this case, yeah. Hominid species can have a lot in common, depending on how their biologies work. There are always cultural variations, but—” Nita held out her hand for the phone, took it, and played briefly with the joystick, then handed the phone back. “Go through that section, and you can get a species-to-species and culture-to-culture values comparison. Have it generate you a matching-features chart.”

“Like one of those compare-before-you-buy websites?”

Nita grinned. “Close. But let me know when you’re ready to talk to Nelaid, and I’ll send him word.” She went back to her cereal, eating faster so it wouldn’t have a chance to go soggy. “He was real gracious about this. Which he doesn’t have to be: he’s sort of a king. He’s used to having people jump when he says, not the other way around.”

Her dad nodded, went back to watching Dairine and Nelaid while Nita finished her cereal. Shortly he said, “What exactly are they doing?”

“It’s complicated,” Nita said. “Nelaid’s family are responsible for keeping their planet’s star from acting up. It’s not the kind of wizardry it’s easy to do from a distance. Sometimes you have to get in there under the hood and fix things.”

“‘Get in’?” her dad said. “Into a sun?”

Nita nodded, eating the last of the cereal, then reaching for the mug of tea. “It’s pretty specialized work. Roshaun did it for our Sun while he was here.”

“And she was there for that?”

Nita nodded. “She had to be. I mean, it’s our star. It wouldn’t have mattered if Roshaun’d been a specialist at the galactic level: he still would’ve needed a local rep on hand to explain things to the star. A system’s primary has a really deep connection with creatures born in its system. If an alien wizard tried to do anything significant to the Sun without an Earth-born wizard there, the star might think somebody was trying to tamper with it who didn’t have permission.” Nita shook her head. “Could’ve gotten real ugly.”

Her father gave Nita a slightly cockeyed look. “The star might think?”

Nita sighed. “Daddy, I know how it sounds, but believe me, sometimes it’s safer to treat inanimate things as if they were animate! Awareness levels in matter can be real situational. Anyway, I think Nelaid’s teaching Dairine how to get into a relationship with stars besides her own. Seems like a good addition to her skill set. She always did like the high-powered stuff.” And the way her power levels have been dropping off, she may start needing finesse to keep doing that work. She’s not going to have brute new-wizard strength to fall back on now… Nita got up to put her bowl in the kitchen.

“So you’re going off, too, now?” her dad said. “Whereabouts? Mars?”

“What, just because you think Kit’s there?”

“Well, that’d be the normal assumption, wouldn’t it?”

Nita had to laugh. Even her dad knew the score.

“Yeah, I’d say.” She washed her bowl and put it in the dish drainer. “Well, guess what? Unlike just about every other wizard you know, I’m actually doing something close to home. Got to go to the beach and talk to S’reee. I had an idea last night before I went to sleep about something we’ve been talking about for a while.” She came back into the dining room, bent down, and kissed her dad on the cheek. “You okay with this now?” She glanced at the phone.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Good. I’ll be back later.”

“Before you go to Mars, or afterwards?”

“Maybe before. It’s not like he doesn’t deserve his own private time up there.”

“‘Boys are from Mars,’ huh?”

Nita snorted. “Believe me, I’ve been starting to wonder.”

“Okay. Keep me posted.”

Nita headed for the stairs again, smiling slightly. This is working pretty well so far, she thought. If I’m real lucky, he won’t get the bright idea that it’d be fun to watch me the same way he’s watching Dairine.

Well, you know, the peridexis said in the back of her mind, if it came to that, you could always tell him I refused to do it.

She snickered as she headed up the stairs. “Bobo,” she said, “I know I can count on you. But let’s not worry about it right now.”

“You say something, sweetie?” her dad said from down in the dining room.

“Just talking to my invisible friend, Daddy…”

There was a pause. “Why do I even bother asking anymore?”

Nita laughed under her breath. She went into her room, threw some things into her backpack— a magazine or two, an extra sweater. Then she put out a hand and whistled for her wizard’s manual.

You’re really going to bring that with you? Such a crutch.

“We’ve had this discussion before, Bobo,” Nita said, opening it and paging through to the messaging area to see what Kit might have left in response to her note of the previous day. “I kept my little blue baby-blankie for a real long time, too…”

The peridexis fell silent, possibly confused. Nita grinned and looked at the messaging pages. The note she’d left Kit the previous day was grayed out: his response was underneath.

Headed out to check things out with Darryl and Ronan. Didn’t want to bother you so early. Probably back around the middle of the afternoon. Take a look at my précis when you have a moment. K.

Nita raised her eyebrows as she closed the manual. Kind of terse for him, she thought. Maybe he’s realized how annoyed I was about him dumping me yesterday, and now he’s feeling guilty? Good. But I’ll take a look at the précis as soon as S’reee and I handle business, and then go see what he’s up to. No point in making him suffer all day if he’s learned his lesson.

She shoved the manual into her backpack, then slipped one strap over her shoulder and pulled a preset transit circle out of her charm bracelet. Nita dropped it to the floor, where it came alive in the proper blaze of fiery characters in the Speech. Nita looked at it with unnecessary relief. Just a dream, before, Nita thought. Just a dream…

She stepped through the circle.

***

The boulder-built breakwater jetty that sticks out into the water on the east side of Jones Inlet once had a U.S. Coast Guard station associated with it. The station was gone now, the old low building at the jetty’s landward end demolished: no structure remained but the tower at the bayside end that still held the light and horn. The horn was silent, since the morning was bright and clear. The light blinked as usual, making a faint tink, tink, tink noise that could be heard by anyone within twenty feet of the tower, even over the wash and rush of water where it ran up against the stones of the jetty’s base.

Nita came out under eye level, from the landward point of view, on one of the big guano-streaked stones nearest to the end of the jetty. She had a low-energy visual shield-spell around her—a simple wizardly cloaking surface that redirected the images of objects behind her so that they appeared in front of her, making it seem as if she wasn’t there. Nita held the slide-around cloaking spell in place while she glanced around to make sure no one in the area could see her. Fishing boats came in and out of the Inlet all the time, so this was something of an issue: but at this time of morning, the commercial boats were already out in the bay, and the small casual boats— charters that took parties of game fishermen out after sailfin and swordfish— were either well away or not yet ready to go to sea.

No person or craft was anywhere near enough to see her even with binoculars. Nita killed the shield-spell, then sat down on the stone and stared down into the murky water, where long, silky green weed attached to the big gray-black rocks swayed and rippled rhythmically as the water washed and splashed against the jetty. The image from her dream, that impossibly high wave with the pale struggling sun caught in it, rose before her mind’s eye again.Water, water everywhere, Nita thought. Why does it keep turning up in my dreams? But not even the koi had any answers to that question.