Ponch slipped his head through the wider of the two loops, then shook himself. The loop tightened down.
“That feel okay?” Kit said. “Not too tight?”
“It’s fine. Let’s go.”
“Okay,” Kit said, and stood up. He slipped his wrist through the other loop and pronounced the six words that got the environmental and tracking functions of the wizardry going, the parts that would snap them back here if anything life threatening happened. The “chain” flickered, showing that the added functions were working. “Right. Show me how.”
“Like this—”
Ponch took no more than a step forward, and without a moment’s hesitation that darkness slammed silently down around them again. This time at least Kit was sure he had air around him and Ponch, and he had oxygenation routines ready to kick in if their bodies were affected by any kind of paralysis. Nonetheless, Kit still couldn’t move, couldn’t see anything.
Or could he?
Kit would have blinked if he could have, or squinted. Often enough before, in very dark places, he’d had the illusion that he could see a very faint light when there was actually nothing there. This was like that—yet somehow different, not as diffuse. He could just make out a tiny glint of light, far away there in the dark, distant as a star….
It faded. Or maybe it wasn’t truly there at all. Oh well. Ponch?
Here I am.
And abruptly Kit really could see something, though he still couldn’t move. Down just out of range of his direct vision, though still perceptible as a dim glow, he could tell that the “leash” was there, the long chain-structure of the wizardry glinting with life as the power ran up and down it. It was unusual to be able to see it doing that, instead of as a steady glow; there was something odd about the flow of time here. Maybe that was the cause of the illusion of breathlessness.
Kit tried to speak out loud but again found that he couldn’t. It didn’t matter; the leash wizardry would carry his thoughts to Ponch. What do we do now? Kit said silently.
Be somewhere.
Kit normally would have thought that that was unavoidable. Now he wasn’t so sure. Well, where did you have in mind?
Here.
And something appeared before them. It was hard to make out the distance at first, until Kit saw what the thing was: a small shape, pale gray against that darkness, except for a whiter underbelly.
It was a squirrel.
This was so peculiar that even if he hadn’t been frozen in place, Kit still wouldn’t have done much but stand and stare. There it was, just a squirrel, sitting up on its hind legs and looking at them with that expression of interest-but-not-fear you get from a squirrel that knows you can’t possibly get near it in time to do anything about it.
Okay, Kit said in his mind, completely confused. Now what?
Shhh.
The instruction amused Kit. He wasn’t exactly used to his dog telling him what to do. But suddenly, a little farther away, there was another squirrel, rooting around in the grass, looking for something: a nut, Kit supposed.
And then there was another squirrel… and another. They were all doing different things, but each of them existed absolutely by itself, as if spotlighted on a dark stage. Next to him, Ponch shifted from foot to foot, whimpering in growing excitement.
There were more squirrels every moment … ten of them, twenty, fifty. But then something else started to happen. Not only squirrels, but other things began to appear. Trees, at first. I guess that makes sense; where there are squirrels, there are always trees. They were unusually broad of trunk, astonishingly tall, with tremendous canopies of leaves. And slowly, underneath them, grass began to roll out and away into what built itself into a genuine landscape—grass patched with sunlight, wavering with the shadows of branches. The sky, where it could be seen, came last, the creamy blue sky of a suburban area near a large city, spreading itself gradually up from horizon to zenith, as if a curtain were being lifted. Finally, there was the sun, and Kit felt a breeze begin to blow.
Ponch made a noise halfway between a whine and a bark and leaped forward, dragging Kit out of immobility, as he tore off toward the nearest squirrel. The whole landscape now instantly came alive around them like a live-action version of a cartoon: squirrels running in every direction, and some of them rocketing up the trees, all of them in frantic motion—especially the one that Ponch was chasing as he dragged Kit along. This was an experience Kit had had many, many times before in the local park, and all he could do now was try not to fall flat on his face as he was pulled along at top speed.
Kit laughed, finding that his voice worked again. Briefly he considered just letting Ponch off the spell leash. But then that struck Kit as a bad idea. He still had no sense of where they were, or what the rules of this place were. Better just tell the spell to extend as far as it needs to, so he can run.
It took a few seconds to change the loci-of-effect and extensibility variables—longer than it normally would have taken, but then, Kit thought he wasn’t doing badly for someone who was being hauled along through a forest at what felt like about thirty miles an hour. Finally Kit was able to extend the leash, then slowed down from the run until he was standing there in the bright sun between two huge trees, watching his dog go tearing off across the beautiful grass, barking his head off with delight.
He’s found Squirrel World, Kit thought, and had to laugh. There was seemingly infinite running room, there was an endless supply of squirrels, and there were trees for the squirrels to run up, because there had to be some challenge about this for it to be fun. No, what he’s found is dog heaven. Or at least Ponch heaven…
Ponch was far off among the trees now. Kit sat down on the grass to watch him. This space had some strange qualities, for despite the increased distance, Kit’s view of Ponch was still as clear and sharp as if he were looking at him through a telescope. Ponch was closing on the squirrel he’d been chasing. As Kit watched, the squirrel just made it to the trunk of a nearby tree and went up it like a shot. Ponch danced briefly around on his hind legs at the bottom of the tree, barking his head off, then spotted another squirrel and went off after that one, instead.
Maybe this isn’t exactly Ponch heaven after all, Kit thought. Could this be the dog version of a computer game? For there didn’t seem to be instant wish fulfillment here. Ponch still wasn’t catching the squirrels; he was mostly chasing them.
Kit watched this go on for a while, as his dog galloped around over about fifty acres of perfect parkland, littered with endless intriguing targets. The question is, where is this? Somewhere inside his mind? Or is it an actual place? Though it’s a weird one. Their entry here hadn’t been anything like a normal worldgating. Normally you stepped through a gate, whether natural or constructed, and found another place waiting there, complete. Or sometimes, as he’d seen happen in Ireland over the summer, that other place came sweeping over you, briefly pushing aside the one where you’d been standing earlier.
But this was different. It’s as if Ponch was making this world, one piece at a time…
He gazed down at the grass. Every blade was perfect, each slightly different from every other. Kit shook his head in wonder, looked up and saw Ponch still romping across the grass. There was always another squirrel to chase, and Kit noticed with amusement that the ones that weren’t being chased were actually following Ponch, though always at a discreet distance. So he won’t be distracted? When Ponch managed to pursue one closely enough that it actually had to run up a tree, there were always others within range when he was ready for them.
How is he doing this? Kit wondered. “Ponch?”
Ponch let off a volley of frustrated barks at the squirrel he was chasing, which had gone halfway up one of the massive tree boles and was now clinging to it head down and chattering at him. Kit couldn’t make out specific Skioroin words at this point, but the tone was certainly offensive. Ponch barked at the squirrel more loudly.
“Yeah, okay, get over it!” Kit yelled. “
There are about five thousand more like him out there! Can you give it a rest so we can have a few words, please?”
Ponch came galloping back to Kit a few seconds later. “Isn’t it great, do you like it, do you want to chase some, I can make some more for you!”
Kit had to laugh. “Sit down. Your tongue’s gonna fall off if it waves around much more than that!”
Ponch sat down beside him and leaned on Kit in a companionable manner, panting energetically and looking entirely satisfied with life.
“Look,” Kit said. “How’re you doing this?”
“I don’t know.”
“You must know a little,” Kit said. “You told me yesterday, ‘You’re not there until you do something.’ What did you do?”
“I wanted you.”
“Yes, but that was the first time.”
“That’s what I did.”
Kit sighed and put his head down on his knees, thinking. “This,” he said, “what you did just now. How did you do this? Where did all these squirrels come from?”
“I want squirrels.”
“Yeah, and boy, have you got them,” said Kit, looking around him in amusement. The two of them were completely surrounded by squirrels, an ever-growing crowd of them, all sitting up on their little hind legs and staring at Ponch, all intent and quiet; as if someone in a whimsical mood had swapped them for the seagulls in The Birds. “Where did they all come from?”
Ponch sat quiet for a moment, and stopped panting as a look of intense concentration came over his face. Then he looked at Kit and said, “I wanted them here.”
Suddenly Kit got it. The way Ponch used wanted was not the way it would have been used in Cyene; it was the form of the word used in the Speech. And in the wizardly language, the verb was not passive. The closest equivalent in English would be willed; in the Speech, the word implies not just desire but creation.
“You made them,” Kit said.
“I wanted them to be here. And here they are.” The dog jumped up and began to bounce for sheer joy. “Isn’t it great?!”
Kit rubbed his nose and wondered about that. “What happens when you catch them?” he asked, to buy himself time.
“I shake them around a lot,” Ponch said, “and then I’m sorry for them.”
Kit grinned, for this was more or less the way things went in the real world. But then he paused, surprised. He’d slipped and spoken to Ponch in English, but the dog had understood him.
“Are you able to understand me when I’m not using the Speech?” Kit asked.
Ponch looked amused. “Only here. I made it so I would always know what you’re saying.”
“Wow,” Kit said. He looked around him again at the patient squirrels. “Have you made anything else?”
“Lots of things. Why don’t you make something?”
“Uh,” Kit said, and stopped. The ramifications of this were beginning to sink in, and he wanted to make some preparations. “Not right this minute. Look, you wanna go see Tom and Carl?”
Ponch began to bounce around again. “Dog biscuits!”
“Yeah, probably they’ll give you some. And if they have a spare clue for me to chew on, that wouldn’t hurt, either.” Kit got up. “You done with these guys?”
“Sure. They wait for me. Even if they didn’t, I can always make more.”
“Okay. Let’s go home.”
Ponch acquired a look of concentration. A second later, the landscape went out, as if a light had simply been turned off behind it, and Kit felt a tug on the leash. He followed it—
—and they stepped out again into early morning in Kit’s backyard: birdsong, dew, the sound of a single station wagon going down the street in front of the house as the newspaper guy threw the morning paper into people’s driveways…
Kit took a deep breath of the morning air and relaxed. From above them came an annoyed chattering noise. Ponch wheeled around and began dancing on his hind legs and barking.
“Didn’t you just have enough of those?” Kit said. “Shut up; you’re going to wake up the whole neighborhood! Come on. We need to go see Tom.”
***
Nita rolled over in her bed that morning, feeling strangely achy. At first she wondered if she was catching a cold; but it didn’t seem to be that. Probably it’s just from being upset, she thought. Hey, I wonder…
She got up and padded over to the desk, where her manual lay. Nita picked it up and flipped to the back page, hoping to see some long angry rant from Kit. But there was nothing.
She broke out in a sweat at the sight of the page with not a thing on it but the previous two communications. He must be completely furious, she thought. This is gonna be awful … and when Dairine hears about it, she’s going to laugh herself sick. I’ll probably have to kill her.
Nita put the manual down, pulled open a drawer in her dresser and extracted a clean T-shirt, then pulled it on along with yesterday’s jeans and turned back to the desk. I wonder what he’s up to, though. Maybe he’s out working on the water with S’reee.
Nita flipped through to Kit’s listing in the directory and glanced at it. Last project: mesolittoral water-quality intervention, for details see reference MSI-B14-/XIiii-βγ66384-67/1141-2211-ABX6655/3: other participants, Callahan, Juanita L., hominid / Sol III, S’reee a/hruuni-Aoul-mmeiihnhwiiilr, cetacean / Sol III; intervention status complete / functioning…
Nita’s mouth dropped open.
…anentropia rate 0.047255-E8; effectiveness rating 3.5 +/- .10; review scheduled Julian date 2455105.5—
Oh, my God. It’s working!
The initial reaction of sheer delight at the solution of a problem that had had them all literally running in circles for so long was now drowned by a nearly intolerable wave of combined embarrassment and annoyance.
…And they got it working without me.
He was right.
I was wrong.
Nita sat there in shock.
I am so stupid!
Yet she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe it. And she was still listed as a participant in the spell. Nita paged back to the section where intervention references were kept, and shortly found a copy of the spell diagram that Kit and S’reee had been using.
Nita traced the curves and circles of it, all apparent in an enlarged hologrammatic format when you looked at the page closely. The basic structure of the wizardry was derived broadly from the last pattern she and Kit had worked on together, before they started disagreeing about the details. It was missing any of the extra subroutines she had insisted were absolutely necessary to make the spell work right. The detailed versions of the effectiveness figures were at the bottom of the page, updating themselves as she watched, demonstrating that the water coming out of Jones Inlet was indeed getting cleaner by the second.
And she somehow still just couldn’t believe it. Nita tapped the page so that the diagram would spring up out of it and hang there glowing in the air in front of her, and then she sat and stared at it as it rotated gently, displaying all the curves and tangles of the spell diagram. It works. He was right.
Nita sat there in the grip of an attack of complete chagrin. What an utter dork I’ve been, she thought. I’m going straight over there to apologize. No, I’m not going to wait even that long.
She flipped back to the messaging pages, touched the message from Kit to wake up the reply function. “Kit?” she said in the Speech. “Can we talk?”
Send?
“Send it,” Nita said.
Then she waited. But to her complete astonishment, the page just flashed once, leaving her message sitting where it was. And down the page a little notification appeared:
Message cannot be dispatched at this time. Please try again later.
What?? “How come?”
The notification blanked out, replaced by the words: Addressee is not in ambit. Please try again later.
Nita stared. She had never seen such a description before and didn’t have any idea what it meant.
She
put the manual down on the desk. “Keep trying,” Nita said, and started rummaging around on her desk for her phone. Where is that thing? Lately she’d got out of the habit of leaving it in one usual place when it wasn’t in one of her pockets or her bags or stuffed in her claudication. Gotta stop doing that. Did I leave it down on the table again?
Nita pulled on some jeans and a T-shirt and went downstairs. It was quiet; there was no smell of anyone having been making breakfast down there. I may be the only one up. And there was her phone, on the table. She grabbed it, speed-dialed Kit’s number.
It rang a couple of times, then someone picked up. “Hello?”
It was Kit’s sister. “Hola, Carmela!”
“‘Ola, Nita,” said Carmela, in a somewhat odd voice—she had her mouth full. There was a pause while she swallowed. “Sorry, you missed him; he’s not here.”
“Where’d he go, do you know?”
“Nope. He left a note on the fridge; must’ve been early… said he was going out to do some wizard thing and he’d be back later.”
“Today, you think?”
“Oh yeah, today. If he was gonna be gone longer than tonight, he sure would have told Pop and Mama, and they would’ve screamed, and I would’ve heard it.”
Nita had to chuckle. “Okay, Mela. If he comes in, tell him I called?”
“Sure, Neets. No problem.”
“Thanks. Bye-bye.”
“Byeeee…”
Nita hung up and shoved her phone into her pocket. He’s out on errantry. But where? I should have been able to find him. It shouldn’t matter if he was on the Moon, or even halfway out of the galaxy. His manual still would’ve taken the message. It’s not like the manuals care about distance or lightspeed.
After a few moments Nita went back upstairs to see what her manual might be showing. The last page still hadn’t changed.
I don’t believe this, Nita thought. I ought to call Tom and Carl and see what they say. Where is he that the manual can’t find him?!
She picked up the manual and pulled out her phone again, then paused as she realized she’d have to Tom and Carl what had been going on. She was too embarrassed.