Диана Дуэйн - A Wizard Of Mars

Up behind her on the jetty, Nita heard an odd sort of strangled pop. She scrambled around and peered up, one hand on her charm bracelet again, ready to wake up the light-diverting cloaking spell so she could pull it down over her and S’reee if need be. But there wasn’t any need. Halfway down the jetty, Carmela had just walked out of the air and was heading toward them down the rough stony path on the jetty’s top.

Nita let out a breath of mild exasperation. “Mela,” she said as Carmela got down near them, “you can not just go appearing out of nothing around here! People could notice.”

“But they don’t, mostly,” Carmela said, clambering down among the rocks to perch on top of one of the biggest ones near the waterline, dangling her legs over the edge. “Isn’t that one of the weird things about wizardry on Earth? Everybody says they want magic in their lives, and when it happens right in front of them, usually they don’t believe it. ‘Oh, she must have been there a moment before and I just didn’t see her,’ they’re all probably saying.” Then she paused and looked around. “Except, listen to me: who’s all saying? There’s nobody here. You’re just being paranoid. Loosen up! Good morning, Miss S’reee…”

S’reee, half-submerged except for one big eye, was bubbling in amusement. “And dai stihó to you, K!aarmii’lha. What brings you down here?”

“Well, my main project for the day is to go shopping,” Carmela said, “and this time Nita is finally coming with me.Aren’t you, Miss Neets?”

Carmela scowled a very overstated scowl at Nita. Nita laughed, glancing at S’reee. “She’s the only one I know who can make a shopping trip sound like a death sentence.”

“Well, depending on where you shop at the Crossings, it could happen,” S’reee said, rolling over in the water. “Some of the boutiques there are very species-specific: you’d have to watch what you bought. Sea’s Name, even some of the restroom facilities there could be fatal if you walked in the wrong door.”

“S’reee, it’s hardly about the toilets. We know all about which ones not to go into!” Carmela said.

“And if we didn’t, we could always ask Dairine,” Nita said under her breath, with a smile.

“Never mind the restrooms,” Carmela said, “it’s the stores that are interesting, S’reee. The clothes stores, especially. We’ve got to get Neets out of all those these floppy sweatshirts and jeans! I’ve asked her to come with me at least six times now.” Carmela bent down toward the amused S’reee in a most confiding way. “But she just keeps handing me these lame excuses. ‘Sorry, saving the universe, can’t go shopping today!’ So help me talk her out of this morning’s one! Which I’m sure she will now provide for us.” And Carmela turned expectantly to Nita.

A wave splashed higher than others had— the tide was coming in— and Nita paused to wipe spray off her face. “I was going to go up to Mars first.”

Carmela covered her eyes theatrically. “Knew it, S’reee,” she said. “It had to happen. She’s finally come down with Kit’s Mars bug!”

“Well,” S’reee said, adopting a fairly diplomatic tone, “you have to admit, it is hard not to find it exciting—”

“Especially when he’s up there with Ronan and Darryl,” Nita said.

“I know,” Carmela said. “That was going to be my first stop before I hit the Crossings. I was hoping Neets would come along with me so we could give them a good joint tease before moving on to more interesting things.”

“No way, Mela!” Nita said. “Not a good idea! All the signs point to this being some obscure boy thing. The note Kit left me had ‘Keep Out, Male-Bonding Road Trip’ stamped all over it.”

“All the more reason to crash the party!”

Nita began to sweat, realizing how much aggravation she was going to catch from Kit if she turned up on Mars with Carmela in tow. “No, seriously. You’re right about how many times you’ve asked me to go. Why don’t we let them get on with it and go shopping instead?”

“Too late, Neets,” Carmela said, and stood up. “I’ll go without you.”

“To Mars??” Nita said, now becoming seriously concerned.

Carmela smiled slightly and reached into one deep pocket of her jumpsuit. From it she pulled not the curling-ironish laser dissociator that Nita was expecting but a TV remote. This she flipped expertly in the air and caught.

“I had a word with my closet,” Carmela said. “Actually, I had a word with the TV remote that Kit did his magic tweaking on, and it had a word with my closet. And then, so I could have control of the worldgate in the closet when I’m away from home, the remote talked to Dairine’s sweet little Spot, and cloned itself for me. Took no time at all.” She smiled delightedly.

“Wait,” S’reee said. “‘Your closet’? Is that inside a house here?”

“Yup. It’s in my bedroom.”

S’reee looked puzzled. “You have a worldgate in your house? What does it run on? Besides wizardry, I mean. The necessary ‘hard’ power outlay would be considerable.”

“I’m told I have a parasitic virtual catenary conduit from one of the nondenominated gates at the Crossings,” Carmela said, and laughed. “Whatever that means! Sker’ret’s got it plugged into something or other; that’s all that matters. My closet even has a Crossings gate number, though it’s unlisted. Like a real classy Zip code.” Carmela juggled the remote from hand to hand. “So now I don’t need to bother anybody else to give me rides …and if I want to go to Mars, the boys can’t stop me. Come to think of it,” and she grinned at Nita, “you can’t stop me! Because you don’t really want to. Do you?”

“Uh—”

“Oh, Juanita Louise, don’t look so stricken!”

Nita clutched her head. “Carmela. Do …not …say …the L word!”

Carmela laughed. After a moment, to Nita’s horror, so did S’reee. “hNii’t,” S’reee said, “I think she’s got us both in the drift net at the moment. We may as well give in gracefully.”

“‘Us’? You want to go, too?”

“Why not? I’m not all that busy this morning. If she’s supplying free transport—”

“Not free,” Carmela said promptly. “This interspatial transport is supplied to you on a promotional basis courtesy of the Planetary Government of Rirhath B and Crossings Properties HyperIncorporated.” She produced a very prim and proper expression. “Because I know that in wizardry there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Then Carmela grinned. “But I can take as many people as I like whenever I like to, because Sker’ret said I could… and what the Stationmaster of Rirhath B says, goes.”

Nita sighed. “She’s got us there.”

“So it’s settled then. Where exactly on Mars are we going?”

Nita pulled out her manual. “Wait a sec, ’cause I have no idea exactly what he’s been up to—”

After a few moments Nita found the spot where Kit had filed his précis. “Uh-oh.”

“What?” S’reee and Carmela said in unison, but Carmela with much more relish.

Nita tsk-tsked softly. “He just couldn’t leave that egg alone,” she said. “Looks like it hatched! And sent out some signals.”

S’reee, partially submerged again, listened to what the Sea had to tell her about this. “Odd. Four signals went out from the artifact. But I’m seeing five hot spots on Mars where wizardry is either working or waiting to start.”

Carmela looked confused. “So where are the guys?”

Nita paged back to Kit’s précis, found the map he’d labeled with the signal targets, and tapped the page: it updated. “Looks like the northernmost of the targets. Some crater called Stokes. Yeah, there are their life signs— S’reee, you seeing this?”