A Wizard of Mars, New Millennium Edition (23 page)

“Someone I met out on errantry—”

“Hey, great! Another wizard?”

“Oh, no, not at all. We can’t all date wizards, hNii’t! I met Hwiii’sh a few weeks ago up by the Grand Banks when I was on a meal break in the middle of a team wizardry. You know how it is, there are always tourists around who’re all itchy to see wizards doing what they do...”

Nita smiled ironically, letting the “dating” reference go by. She was so used to hearing this kind of thing from kids at school that she’d stopped protesting, since it just made everybody sure they were right. 
With luck, they’ll stop eventually
. “Well, tourists aren’t a problem I have all that much,” Nita said. “So tell me all about him! What does he sing?” That being what you generally asked whales instead of “What do you do?”

“He sings 
aouih’hweioooiuh’hhaii!t.
”

Nita had to listen to the word in the Speech to make anything of it. “Am I getting that right? He’s a 
food critic?
”

“And very stuck up about it, too,” S’reee said, blowing a big wet laugh. “You should hear him going on about Arctic krill, and South Cape squid, and all the rest of it! Fortunately he thinks it’s a big deal that I’m a wizard, so I don’t have trouble holding my own when his ego starts to run riot...”

Nita leaned against the jetty and relaxed while S’reee talked, enjoying the fact that for once she had time to kick back and laugh at the concept of a whale who did nothing but share news about the presence and quality of food with other whales. But then lately it seemed rare for Nita to have “quality time” like this— time without school or schoolwork hanging over her head, or some terrifyingly heavy piece of wizardry that needed her attention. 
More of this, please, and enough saving the world for this year!
 Nita said silently to the One. 
Actually having the summer off, like a normal person, would be very, very nice!
 Not that she could ever be precisely normal again: wizardry kind of precluded that.

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-tsk
ed 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?”

S’reee’s eyes were unfocused. “Yes. There’s no missing Darryl’s life sign, in particular; it’s unique.” She flipped a fin, looked up at Nita.

Nita nodded, not looking up from the manual: there was something strange about the diagram she was examining. Not knowing what to make of it, she flipped back to the messaging page and touched Kit’s note to bring the contact up to live status. “Hey,” she said in the Speech. “What’s going on up there?” And she waited.

Nothing.

She looked up. Carmela was giving her an odd look. “Is there a delay?” she said. “Mars is a long way off.”

Nita shook her head. “Lightspeed isn’t an issue for the manuals.” She turned back to the map on Kit’s précis page, scrutinized it. “I don’t like this. The manual says we can’t go there.”

“What?”
 S’reee said.

“The manual says the sites are ‘Unavailable, blocked by previous declaration, investigation ongoing, comm functions blocked during evaluation.’”

“Whose previous declaration?” Carmela said, “and whose investigation? Blocked by who? And what—?” The rest of what she was saying got lost in the splash of S’reee submerging again.

“What?” Carmela said. “Did I say something wrong? What freaked her?”

Nita shook her head. “She’s looking it up in detail. She gets her wizardry data from the Sea. She’s more senior than me— she may be able to find out more.”

Some moments later, S’reee surfaced and blew. “All I get is what you’re getting,” she said to Nita. “Definitely something to do with the superegg’s transmission this morning— there are multiple delayed wizardries working. But don’t ask me what they’re doing, I can’t get an analysis. Because what I’m getting makes no sense. The Sea can’t give me enough context for a translation.”

“Alien wizardry,” Nita said, getting more unnerved by the second. “Dangerous, you think?”

“No telling. But that fifth site isn’t blocked. There’s some kind of wizardry there that’s alive and running, but not doing anything ...just waiting.”

“And transit’s not prevented?” Carmela said.

Nita shook her head, showed Carmela the manual page. “There. Get the coordinates and do the honors. We can have a look at that hot spot: and when we’re actually on the planet, we might be able to reach the guys. Or get a better idea of what’s going on with them.”

Carmela looked at the manual page and spent a moment tapping numbers into the remote. Nita was surprised to hear it make a little series of electronic beeps, at which Carmela’s eyebrows went up. “Oh, you can do that?” she said in the Speech. “Sorry.” She pointed the remote at the manual, pressed a button.

The remote chirped; Carmela looked up at Nita. “It can take a scan. I didn’t realize.”

“hNii’t,” S’reee said, “you had a cloaking routine ready? Putting it up around us might be good. About a twenty-meter radius—”

Nita tucked the manual away, pulled the spell out of the charm bracelet, and said the words that kicked the spell into action. As she did, S’reee levitated gracefully out of the water, keeping just an inch-thick shell of it around her so her skin wouldn’t dry out. “I’ve got all the air we’ll need. K!aarmii’lha?”

Carmela raised the remote, hit what would normally be the channel-change button.

They vanished.