Kit found himself wondering where the first truly deadly crack would form… the one that would go straight down into Thesba’s mantle and release the pressure that had been building up there for so many thousands of years. He tried to imagine it: the explosive spray of vast amounts of magma into vacuum, the brief blue-tinted destroying flame around the edges of the extrusion while close to the moon’s surface the blast of molten stone and metal shot up through the murky atmosphere at supersonic speeds, setting fire to the hydrogen and nitrogen there. Then the misshapen chunks of suddenly supercooled magma either starting to rain down on Tevaral—depending on the initial explosion’s dominant vectors—or settling into brief uneasy orbit around the planet, orbits that would soon decay…
And what about that, he thought, gazing past Thesba’s darkside limb to something as unnerving in its way: the hot red coal of mu Cephei, so many light years distant. But not nearly distant enough. From what Dairine had said about it, in the long term, it was another part of this world’s problem… even a more definitive one, in its way, than Thesba. Why go crazy trying to keep a planet running as a going concern when sooner or later, that’s going to go off and destroy everything in the near neighborhood?
And suddenly Kit found himself wondering: where does Earth stand as regards that thing? If it goes off—when it goes off—what’s the wavefront going to do to our world when it gets there?
Great, one more thing to worry about. He rubbed his eyes. Not in our lifetimes, anyway. No more than what’s going to happen with the Moon. But sooner or later…
Kit leaned his head against the back of the Stone Throne in the twilight and felt a sudden strange sense of relief that most of the errantry he’d been sent on involved relatively short-term problems, with relatively short-term solutions—and that most of the solutions had produced relatively positive results. I mean, sure, positive’s relative. You don’t get sent out on errantry unless it’s to make something better.
But there’s nothing we can really do about this. This world’s going to be destroyed, and a lot of Tevaralti are going to be destroyed along with it, no matter what we do…
Kit sighed as the twilight deepened and the stars shone more fiercely, actually casting faint shadows from the standing stones. Am I really cut out for this kind of work? he thought. What happens when I run into wizardries like this closer to home, things I’m needed for, that are more like unsuccessful surgery than anything else? Or like amputations? Where you’ve saved a life, but it’s never going to be the same for that person again, no matter how hard you tried?
The thought trailed off. Kit was more than aware that the universe didn’t come with happy endings installed as standard. Wizards were not omnipotent, and wizardry couldn’t fix everything, or stop everything. Sometimes there’s just not enough energy, he thought, or things happen too fast to stop, or you find out about them too late. Things like this, where no matter how much power you bring to bear on the problem, it still won’t help. Inevitable things…
The sorrow that rose up in Kit surprised him as he gazed across the plain, where the lighting hovering above the gating complex was now a beacon to the southward, and the distant glitter of electronic campfires coming on was like starlight to a sun. All those people, he thought, shaking his head, and tilted his head back to look at Thesba again, and let out a long pained breath, his eyes stinging. All this way we’ve come for them, and there’s nothing we can do…
From down by where Kit’s feet were stretched out on the long wide seat of the Throne, something rustled. And then a voice spoke.
“Cracker?”
Kit stared through the dimness and then—he couldn’t help it—just started laughing. “Oh no,” he said. “Not you again. Seriously, no…”
“Cracker please?” it said.
Kit rubbed his eyes. “You’re a clever guy, aren’t you,” he said. “You know a good racket when you see one. Sneak away from home, track down soft-hearted aliens, shake them down for food, then get carried home and welcomed like a returning hero.”
There was no immediate response to this assessment, just more rustling.
“Oh, come on,” Kit said. “Come up here.”
After a moment or so the long green-blue tentacles started curving up over the end of the Throne’s seat, and with a couple of jumping wiggles the sibik hoisted itself up onto the stone and then hunched itself down against it, abdomen raised so that it could look at Kit with all those hopeful eyes.
Kit rolled his eyes at his own inability to resist being taken for a sucker. “Come on,” he said, “I’ve got what you want right here…” He reached sideways to the opening of his otherspace pocket, found it, reached in, and pulled out the very last package of saltines.
Kit sighed as he turned it over in his hands. “Do you have any idea how far these have come? Huh?”
“Very far,” the sibik said, creeping closer.
“Yes, that’s right! Very far. Two thousand light years, nearly.” Kit pulled the cellophane at the top of the package apart. “And you and I are going to finish them up, right?”
“Please,” said the sibik, creeping closer.
Kit smiled, because he knew this move. At home it had once meant that in a few moments you wound up with a dog’s nose on your knee. And then sniffing at the bottom of the saltine package… and then in the saltine package.
“And thank you,” the sibik said, sliding over his knees. It was surprisingly heavy.
“Wow,” Kit said, “you’re better at talking than you were yesterday, aren’t you.”
“I think so,” said the sibik.
Kit thought of that intense wave of experience, of emotion, that had washed over him before and after the little Tevaralti boy seizing his pet again and cuddling it close. Something’s happened. To it? To me? Or both? Who even knows, right now? He turned his attention back to the sibik. “You remember what these are called?”
“Saltines.”
“That’s right. Now we’ll learn a new word, yeah?”
“Yeah please.”
“Good. We’re going to share.”
“Yes share, please and thank you,” said the sibik with enthusiasm, hauling itself up wholly into Kit’s lap.
Kit laughed. “Okay. Do you know what share means?”
It eyed him. “Tell me?”
“It means you get some, and I get some.”
“That sounds good,” the sibik said. “Who gets more?”
Kit snickered, then shook his head. “We both get the same. That’s what sharing is.” At least most of the time, Kit thought. Certainly the definition broke down somewhat with Nita where Ben ‘n’ Jerry’s “Cherry Garcia” ice cream was involved.
“Okay,” said the sibik, sounding just slightly regretful. “Please share the saltine crackers now.”
It was very demurely keeping its tentacles to itself, though they were twitching. There was no way Kit could delay rewarding such good behavior. “So this is how we do it,” he said. “I give you one. Then I give me one. And that’s the way it goes until we’re done and they’re all gone.”
“That will be sad,” said the sibik solemnly, its eyes not leaving the saltine package for a moment.
“Yes it will,” Kit said. He pulled the first cracker out and looked at it with a sigh. “Just so long as you’re clear that these are the very last saltines on this planet, and the next nearest ones are…”
“A long way away,” said the sibik.
“That’s right. So here.” He handed the sibik the first saltine.
It took it reverentially, stuffed it into that blunt-toothed, half-hidden eating orifice, and started crunching.
Kit took out the next one and crunched it up too, sighing just once at the thought of the ketchup which would not be going on any of these. Oh well, he thought. Mamvish’ll be putting that to good use. Some good use. One of these days, when all this was over, he was going to find out exactly what good use. I just hope it’s something that won’t make me need to reach
for the brain bleach afterward.
“So,” Kit said. “Want another?”
“I would like another saltine please,” said the sibik.
“Your syntax is really improving, you know that?” Kit said as he pulled out another saltine.
“What’s syntax?” said the sibik as it reached out and took the cracker.
“The way you speak. Sort of.”
It stuffed the second cracker into the eating orifice and started crunching again. “All right,” the sibik said perfectly clearly.
“Interesting,” Kit said. “Whatever you use to talk, it’s not the mouth you eat with…” He had his next cracker, and looked out past the sibik toward the plain, trying to work out in his head approximately where he and Ronan had found this one’s people the other day. I could take the pad over instead of walking all that way, he thought. The manual will have rough coordinates for the edge of the encampment…
“Another please?”
“Oh yeah, sorry. Here.” Kit handed the sibik its next cracker while feeling faint amusement at the roles that the Powers that Be appeared to have dropped him into here. Official Shouter at Machinery, he thought, pulling out a cracker for himself. Provider of Probably Controlled Substances to Species Archivists. And Freelance Animal Control Officer and Rehomer. …For certain values of rehoming.
But that thought made Kit pause. This entire project—the whole business of rafting life away from a doomed world—was in its way a gigantic rehoming effort. If no one was paying attention to the effect it had on the pets, if everybody was concentrating on the dominant species, maybe that was reason enough for his presence here, gates or no gates. Even if I can only help one of them. ‘All is done for each,’ isn’t that the saying about wizardry?
And anyway, what makes me think I know what job’s most important for me here? Kit thought about the little moulting Tevaralti boy, desperate to have his lost pet back, overjoyed to have him in his arms again. If somebody had sent a wizard to help Ponch if he’d been in trouble when I was just a kid, I’d have thought that wizard was the most important one in the world… no matter what the wizard thought he was doing.
“You’re not eating yours,” said the sibik.
“Huh? Oh. Yeah.”
“If you gave it to me,” the sibik said thoughtfully, “I could have more.”
More dog biscuits, said a familiar voice in Kit’s memory, yay!
Kit absently gave the cracker to the sibik, smiling slightly. Yet still he found himself wondering. He’s spoken to me before, often enough, through other people’s pets. Especially the doggy ones. These guys are doggy enough. Why’s he being so quiet? It was strange. Once Ponch had found out that he could communicate with Kit, when he was still a dog, it had been impossible to shut him up. Even now, when off about his newer, much larger business, he often found time to break through to Kit and have a word.
But not here, not now. Not directly.
Something’s definitely going on.
“You could let me have another more,” said the sibik pointedly.
“So I could,” Kit said, and handed the sibik another saltine to buy himself time to think.
Sometimes the Powers have refused to do anything but whisper when they didn’t dare discuss something in the open, Kit thought. In the Pullulus War, they couldn’t tell us about the Hesper. They could only hint and give us clues, because if we knew for certain who was coming, the Lone Power would’ve known what we knew, and would have moved against her. Not even the Winged Defender was sure what was going on until nearly the end.
Kit took a cracker for himself. But if the Powers could whisper… then the One could too. It, or one of Its avatars. Leaving the one who heard the whispers to work out what they meant, forge the connections: find the way through.
Pathfinder.
Kit ate his cracker and swallowed with some difficulty: his mouth was dry. He wished he could get up and fetch some water from his puptent, but he didn’t dare move. The sudden certainty of all this being intended had fallen across Kit’s mind like having a heavy wet coat dropped on him, and the effect was much the same: it made him shiver.
Yet after a moment he found himself sitting up straighter in response. He wasn’t in this alone. He had help: the very best help imaginable… even if for some reason that help wasn’t able to come out into the open and make itself available directly.
Now all he had to do was figure out exactly how to use it.
“Okay,” Kit said, “who’s ahead?”
“I am,” the sibik said. “You should take a more now.”
“Thank you,” Kit said, and had another cracker, while the sibik’s eyes all followed it with stark interest. When he finished the cracker, he said to the sibik, “Ready for another one?”
“Yes please.”
“Then here’s yours… and here’s mine.”
They ate their crackers together. “These are very good,” the sibik said.
“Yes they are,” Kit said, looking mournfully at the half-empty package. And soon I’ll be sitting here with a space octopus in my lap and no crackers left but Ritz. It was a bleak prospect. “Another?”
“Another more.”
“So you mean you want two.”
“I thought I said that.”
“Not exactly,” Kit said. “But here.” He gave the sibik two crackers, which it took from him each in a separate tentacle. Then it began regarding them alternately, unable to make up its mind which to eat first.
He couldn’t help snickering as the sibik abruptly shoved both the crackers into its eating orifice at once, with the result that crumbs started getting sprayed around again. “You’ve barely started working out how to talk,” Kit said; “learning how to count can probably wait until tomorrow.” Kit had another cracker himself. “Maybe we can get Nita over to tutor you. She’ll probably have you up to calculus by the end of the week…”
Dark eyes looked at him with interest. “What’s a calculus?”
“God, don’t ask,” Kit said.
They alternated crackers again a few times, until they were left looking at the last six in the package.
“Those are all there are?” the sibik said.
“Those are all,” Kit said.
“I am very sad,” said the sibik.
“So am I,” said Kit.
“Not because of the crackers.”
Add ‘Alien Pet Psychologist’ to the list, Kit thought. “Why are you so sad?”
“I couldn’t find them.”
The sorrow in its voice was unmistakable, and definitely had nothing to do with crackers. “Your people?” Kit said.
“My people. My person. He’s lost.”
“Well, this is the same problem you had yesterday, isn’t it?”
“No. That was just outside-smelling finding them. This is inside-smelling finding them.”
Kit held quite still.
“My person doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t know where home is any more. And my person’s sires and dam are so very sad. Because everything’s ending.”
“I know,” Kit said softly.
“They came so they could see their friends one last time,” the sibik said. “The ones who’re going away, who aren’t going to end.”
Kit’s insides clenched with sorrow, for that was a thought that had occurred to him before: How many of those little campfires are hosting last meals? Some parts of a family who think it’s okay to go, and some who don’t?
Kit swallowed again. “Are you sad because you’re—” He had to say it: there was no point in not saying it, in this landscape full of thousands of people who were thinking it right this minute. “Because you’re going to die?”
“No!” the sibik said, and pulled its tentacles in around it. “Everything dies! I don’t mind dying, as long as it’s with him.”
The previous stab of pain was nothing compared to this one. And as if feeling it too, the sibik made the most pitiful small noise Kit thought he’d ever heard in his
life, as if it wanted to cry but was holding it in. “But he doesn’t want to die. They don’t want to die. Yet they don’t want to leave either, they don’t feel like they can. And they’re scared, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Oh, baby,” Kit said, which was probably the least likely thing he’d ever imagined himself saying to a space octopus, and gathered it in and hugged it close. It threw all its arms around him and squeezed him desperately.
“Believe me, you’re not the only one who’s sad,” Kit said.
The sibik pulled itself away from him so it could angle its abdomen up and study him with those odd eyes. “Why are you sad?”
“It’s just—” Kit sighed and shook his head, and leaned back against the Stone Throne. “Maybe because I’m really, really frustrated and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
The sibik cocked even more of its eyes at him. “What’s ‘frustrated’?”
“Upset at something that’s making me unhappy. Something I can’t change.”
“Why does it make you unhappy?”
Kit closed his eyes for a moment, all too willing to block it all out—the lights down by the patent gates and the hopeless glitter of the electronic campfires, the downward-crushing weight of Thesba hanging up there in the sky and waiting, waiting to fall. “It’s hard to explain.”
But the sibik was waiting too. Finally Kit opened his eyes again and looked down at the ridiculous tentacly thing in his lap. “My pop told me this story once and the other day I started thinking about it—”
“Your pop,” the sibik said, “is that like a sire?”
You get hurt sometimes, said a memory, a whisper: your sire and your dam and your littermates... That makes me sad.
“Yeah,” Kit said, and swallowed with slight difficulty. I am going to drink a whole bottle of water after this. But the connection, the connection was there right now, tenuous, maybe fragile. The water could wait.
“All right. What’s a story?”
“It’s telling how a thing happened once.” Kit laughed at himself. “This is isn’t even a story, it’s more of a joke…”