But that wasn’t likely to happen for a long time. Nita glanced around, seeing nothing outside the shield but the usual scatter of reddish stones and sand. “Everything behaving itself at the other spell sites?” she said.
Yes; those wizardries have run their course. Just as well— they were potentially quite dangerous, especially the second one.
Nita blinked as the peridexis showed her a few glimpses of the previous visitations. “Yeah,” she said, and shivered: she’d never been wild about the whole war-machine concept.
But certainly elegant in that the wizardries were built with the expectation that each triggering wizard would set the parameters of his own test... and then be required to understand the trigger in order to defuse the attack.
Nita stood looking southward for a moment. “Sounds almost like you approve, Bobo.”
I can hardly fail to appreciate good workmanship in a spell, that’s all, Bobo said, sounding a little hurt.
She snickered a little as she turned, looking southeastward toward Burroughs crater. “Well,” Nita said, “maybe it’s just as well I wasn’t on site when one of those other spells was live. No telling what might have turned up.”
She turned back toward were the city was hidden and abruptly realized that something was standing between her and the slight waver of the force field. It was a small red-suited alien creature wearing what looked like oversize white sneakers, white gloves, a green metal tutu, and a shiny green helmet that appeared to have a scrub brush attached to the top of it. Out of a dark and otherwise featureless face, large oval eyes regarded Nita with mild alarm.
“What happened to the kaboom?” the creature said. “There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!” And he scuttled through the force field and vanished.
Nita just stood there for a second. “Bobo ...?!”
Just a flicker of residual spell artifact, Bobo said, unconcerned. Nothing to worry about.
Oh yeah? Not sure I want to know what this says about my relationship with Mars. “Do me a favor?” Nita said as she headed for the force field herself.
Speak, demand: I’ll answer.
“If there’s a spell against the use of an Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator, get it ready. Just in case...”
Nita stepped through the shield, looking cautiously around her. To her relief, there was no further sign of her own brief Martian moment. But the city was there: a handsome place, futuristic-looking in a charming and retro way— doubtless accurately reflecting Kit’s take on the Burroughs Martian books. Nita had read them years previously, but for some reason their vision hadn’t really appealed to her. She’d had too much trouble syncing the writer’s ideas about the Martian climate and terrain with what people now knew to be true about the place. And the concept of egg-laying humanoids and green-skinned, multi-armed tusky guys riding ten-legged lizard creatures all over the landscape and shooting at each other with radium guns simply struck her as funny.
He likes it, though, Nita thought. Just what makes it so interesting for him? The whole place lay still and quiet now, the wizardry running down. But... I wonder. I should still be able to see what he saw, if I work at it. It’s just the recent past, after all, and the imagery was wizardry-based to begin with. I might be able to use the visionary talent a little to patch into it.
It would be like the viewing she’d been doing in the library cavern a while ago, though she would have to power it herself. Nita closed her eyes. Let’s see—
The proper state of mind took a few minutes to achieve. As she’d been discovering more and more often lately, this kind of vision was usually more about letting go than about staring at something and willing yourself to see the reality behind it. Realities were shy, Nita was discovering. To get a good look at them up close, you had to tempt them out by holding still and letting them get curious about you— the way a nonwizardly person might pique the curiosity of a wild bird by standing still for a long time with an outstretched handful of birdseed.
When she started getting that sense that things outside were becoming curious about her, she opened her eyes and looked around casually. The city was alive now, as Kit had seen it. Little ships were streaking around among the towers, and Nita noted that some of them looked a lot like those she’d seen as part of the exodus from Shamask-Eilith. Interesting ...And then she caught sight of the gates of the city starting to open.
Hmm, she thought. Let’s have a look at that.
Instantly Nita was down there, standing on the wide white roadway outside the gates. So was Kit— or the Kit of a while ago. And as the gates opened, out came something that Nita hadn’t quite been expecting ...
Would you get a load of that, Nita thought. A genuine Martian princess. Well, sort of genuine.
Nita walked around them, observing, as Kit and the stranger met. God, Nita thought, she’s really pretty. Though did Kit even notice, the way she’s dressed? Or not dressed.
Her smile was more wistful than annoyed. There was nothing wrong with Nita’s figure: it was average for her age. But she couldn’t help but feel scrawny and non-toned next to this interplanetary pinup girl. And the way the princess moved, and the way her hair floated in the air, made Nita feel clumsy and inelegant. But this isn’t about elegance,Nita thought. There’s something else going on here. Specifically— that spell was personality-locked. Whoever designed this piece of work wasn’t looking for just anybody. They were looking for Kit.
But why?
Nita watched that beautiful shape come close to Kit, taking his hand, looking into his eyes with real emotion. But as she watched, she caught a glimpse of something else under the red-Martian illusion. Something dark—
Now what the—? But the glimpse was gone, and she was looking at the beautiful girl and Kit again.
Nita frowned, then let out a long breath and shut her eyes again. Don’t try to force it, she thought. Doitsu and the other koi had said it often enough. Vision comes in its own time. Pushing won’t help, but intention will. Be patient: wait. But wait with purpose.
She stood quiet and waited, thinking of the sun on the water on the koi pond in back of Tom’s house: the ripple and the flicker of it, coexisting with what lay under the surface, only hiding what was under there when you looked at it from the wrong angle. There was no rush: what she needed to see wanted to be seen, would be waiting for her when...
...she opened her eyes again. Standing in front of Kit was a tall, slender young girl, not red-skinned, but gray— as gray as polished stone. Around her head, smooth as a sculpture’s, clung and wavered a long rippling cloud of hair that was more like smoke than anything else and was a deep twilight blue. Her clothing did not change, and under its light veiling and the glint of her ornaments, her body merely hinted at female contours without showing the anatomical details that would have been normal for humans on Earth.
So, Nita thought, this is what the people of the First World made themselves into after they came. This is someone from Shamask-Eilith ...and now, by location anyway, a Martian.
The eyes looking into Kit’s were pupilless and solid, and their depths were that same vivid dark blue, almost black: but they were expressive— hopeful and, yes, overjoyed, but also frightened. It’s as if whoever lives behind those eyes is scared this can’t be true, Nita thought. As if she sees something else happening: something much worse than this.
For just a second those indigo eyes glanced in Nita’s direction. Then immediately they looked away again, disturbed and afraid. A sense of déjà vu promptly caught hold of Nita, disturbing and dissolving the vision— but not before she remembered what it had reminded her of. That glimpse in the mirror the other morning: instead of seeing herself, seeing this stranger, with the strange implication that they were somehow connected. Somehow the same.
“Bobo,” Nita said.
At your command, imperious leader.
Nita began to wonder whether Bobo had been spending too much data-grab time slumming on the local nostalgia-TV cable ch
annels. “That name-development and analysis utility I was using on Carmela?”
What about it?
“Run it on Kit’s welcoming committee. Save the analysis for me. I’ll look at it later.”
Running. Power deduction will be deferred until the end of the run.
“Fine.”
Nita scowled as the more accessible illusion of the Martian princess re-manifested itself—copper-skinned, doe-eyed, the perfect humanoid alien, physically gorgeous: a genuine fantasy heroine and a teenage boy’s dream. But younger than she is in the books, Nita thought, walking around the Martian princess figure and Kit as they looked into each other’s eyes and spoke words she couldn’t hear. Someone’s designed this particular apparition just for Kit. How? And why?
She stopped, folded her arms, and stood there for a few moments, trying hard to think straight and not be thrown off by her own feelings, especially when she had no information to go on. Yet suddenly it came back to Nita what that stone had said to her up on top of Elysium Mons. No one’s been here. Just him, and her. The other one.
The other one.
Nita scowled. What’s going on between them? she thought. It wasn’t like she was jealous or anything. But she knew Kit, and this sudden out-of-nowhere relationship made no sense to her. Also, there was no missing the sexy-looking component to this meeting. It was being used on Kit as some kind of way of getting at him, she was sure.
Nita frowned harder. Though she’d occasionally been curious about it, Kit’s fantasy life wasn’t her business. But someone else, someone or something associated with the Shamask-Eilith presence here on Mars, was not above exploiting it for its own purposes. And that was worrying Nita.
Especially now that she thought she knew why Mars had so long been associated with war in human thought. Nita knew from her reading in the manual that all living thought was connected—though the connections could take strange twists and turnings through space-time. Whatever the mechanism, some distant whisper of the ancient conflicts obsessing those who fled here from the First World had over the millennia filtered through into the dreams and imaginings of the beings on the next planet over. We’ve always known, Nita thought, maybe since we started writing things down. Maybe even longer.
Kit had come here looking for the romance and mystery of lost ancient life, and the possibility of resurrecting it, making contact with it, learning its secrets, helping an empty world find its life again. Nita wondered what he’d think when he found out that the Martians weren’t indigenous, but immigrants.
And based on the past behavior of the species that, it now seemed, had lain hidden on Mars for so long— assuming that the history that she and Carmela and S’reee had read or experienced in the cavern was true— the thought of having any close dealings with the Shamaska-Eilitt was making Nita nervous. To these guys, Nita thought, all was fair in war. But what about love?
She let out a long breath. The information in the Cavern of Writings had been short on details about the personal lives of the Shamaska-Eilitt. They might be very nice people, for all I know. But their behavior as a species made her think otherwise.
Still. Nita let out a breath. It’s too soon to judge. And what Kit’s been interacting with here is basically a recording: a wizardry set up to talk to someone who triggers it, and then get them to do ...
...what?
Nita watched Kit and the princess start toward the gates together. Let’s just go have a look ...she thought, and started to follow them. But as she did, the whole scene started to go hazy.
Uh-oh! she thought. Bobo, wait, we need to pump some energy into this thing! Shift the payout to me. I don’t mind—
But it was too late. The whole view— city, Kit, princess, and all— faded away to bare Martian landscape in a matter of just a few seconds.
Sorry, Bobo said. There wasn’t time: the illusion’s power reserve exhausted itself in something of a rush.
Nita made a face. Almost as if somebody didn’t want me to see something.
No, that’s just paranoid... “Never mind: I can get the details from Kit.”
Of course.
“Do you have that persona analysis for me?”
A pause. Unfortunately, no. The outer spell ran out of power before the full analysis could complete.
Nita let out an annoyed breath. “Can you keep working on whatever you got before the playback went down?”
Of course. Just note that it may take some time to extrapolate the missing data.
“Go for it.”
She turned away and looked toward the Sun. Down low, near the horizon, she could see that little spark of blue-white fire twinkling slightly in the troubled air. “Dust storm coming up,” she said under her breath. “Well, I want some lunch, and I can catch up with Kit afterwards. Let’s get back.”
***
The Rodriguez household was not exactly in an uproar when he got back, but a sense of disruption was clear when Kit came in the back door. There were suitcases in the back hall and in the kitchen, and voices in the living room, laughing and talking very fast: Kit’s mama— the deeper of the two voices, more of a contralto— and Helena’s soprano.
Kit swallowed and headed into the living room. His mama was in scrubs, having apparently come from work over her lunch hour. Carmela was there, too, sprawled on the couch. And in the midst of everything, sitting on the floor and going through the contents of another suitcase and dividing them between two piles destined for the laundry, was Helena.
Kit had always considered her as more or less a larger version of Carmela: a little taller, a little longer-faced, with darker, bigger eyes; broader across the shoulders and in the chest, definitely bigger in the hips. But Helena had dropped some weight since she’d gone away in September, which surprised him—and the new haircut, level with her jawline but short in back, left Kit wondering whether Helena had decided that she wanted to look as little like her little sister as possible.
Whatever the case, here she was, sitting in the middle of the living room, talking a mile a minute and dominating everything, the way she liked to do. “And I told him that he wasn’t going to take me by surprise like that,” she was saying to Kit’s mama, “and he said to me, ‘Oh, really? Well, we’ll see how you do on the exam.’ And I just laughed at him! I mean, he never—”
Kit leaned over the chair nearest the dining room, And Helena caught the motion: her head turned, and she took him in. “Kit!” she said. “My god, Kit, look at you!”
She jumped up and practically leaped on him to hug him. Then she held him away from her. “You are six inches taller!”
“Seven,” Kit said. “Making up for lost time.”
Helena laughed and mussed his hair, then let him go and collapsed into the middle of the floor again. Kit tried to put his hair in order without making too much of an issue out of it, as there were few things he hated more than this particular gesture of sisterly affection. “How’ve you been doing?” Helena said. “You done with school yet?”
“On Tuesday.”
“That’s so great!” Helena said. And she glanced around. “Hey, where’s—” Then she stopped herself, and her face fell. “Oh, I am so sorry,” she said. “I was going to ask you where Ponch was.”
“It’s okay,” Kit said.
“I’m so sorry about him,” Helena said, the laundry she was sorting momentarily forgotten in her hands. “It’s like he was here forever. It’s so weird with him gone...”
“I know,” Kit said. His mother hadn’t given Helena all the details, simply telling her that Ponch had “been in an accident,” which was true as far as it went.
“How are you doing?” Helena looked into his eyes as if that would be enough to tell her what she wanted to know.
Kit flashed briefly on the princess’s eyes, then turned his mind purposefully away from that subject. “I’m okay. Getting ready to kick back a little over the summertime.”
“Yeah,” Helena said, and paused, as if there was something else s
he could have said but was having second thoughts about. “So am I. You heard about the craziness, I guess...”
“Mela told me a little.”
Helena sighed. “Yeah,” she said, “so much for my poor broken heart.” But to Kit it didn’t sound all that broken. “Back to playing the field.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Carmela said, “considering the twelve million phone calls you’ve had this morning...”
“Oh, you know how it is,” Helena said. “Everybody wants to be in touch all of a sudden when they hear you’ve been dumped! It’s nice of them, but they’re all ‘Oh, my god, why aren’t you crushed?’ And I just have to keep saying, ‘It’s all right; I saw it coming; it’s not like I’ve been run over by a truck! There are a million other fish in the sea, yada yada yada...’”
Kit’s mama glanced at him with a resigned expression as Helena kept talking. There had been some joking in the family when mama had complained about the house getting “too quiet” when Helena went off to school. It’s not that Mela’s not talkative, Kit thought. But at least when she talks, she says something.
“Let me get rid of these before they pile up,” Kit’s mama said, coming into the middle of the room to pick up some of the laundry. “You want me to start these up?”
“Sure, mama. On delicate!” Helena shouted after her as she left the room.
“Delicate, sure...”
“You ever do any laundry at school?” Kit said. “Or have you been saving it up till you got back?”