“Roshaun?” Kit shouted.
A moment more! the silent answer came back as Roshaun kept reciting the spell. “—from the heliospasm into the following coordinate sets—”
More weapons fire spat from the far end of the crevasse, some kind of plasma blast, every blast perfectly targeted and every one knocking another Yaldiv down. Kit stared over that way, distracted as he wondered whether Nita somehow had two weapons going at once. No, of course, it’s Sker’ret—and then the claws scrabbling at his shield suddenly seemed significantly closer, as the shield bowed in toward Kit a little. He gulped, and concentrated on pouring more power into it, while more Yaldiv warriors than ever came boiling up out of the crevasse, flinging themselves at Kit’s shield. Kit did everything he could to ignore what was going on outside the shield now, a task made easier by the fact that there was nothing to see but the bodies and claws and tearing mandibles of Yaldiv warriors. “Roshaun?!”
There was no answer—and then, between one breath and the next, it was as if a star had fallen into the crevasse. The blinding light struck like fiery arrows through every space around Kit that was not filled with Yaldiv. Their rattling, scratchy roaring was now replaced by a high keening whine as they dropped away from the shield, knocked or blasted off it and down into the light. In the depths of the crevasse, Kit could hear the rumbling and rattling of shattering stone suddenly dwindle to nothing, swallowed up by a sluggish, heavy boiling sound as a blast of heat blew up from below. Kit said the few words in the Speech to retune the shield for heat as well as physical impact, and put a hand out to the shaking Memeki.
Ponch got under that hand as well, nuzzling it. Did we win?
“Let you know in a minute,” Kit said. There were no more Yaldiv cries. Slowly, in the silence, the hot light vanished, replaced by a low golden-red glow that, in turn, faded to a sullen red, cooling along with the newly melted stone that now filled the former crevasse.
Kit turned his back on the magma. Its heat was still intense, but not so much so that the shield was needed anymore, so he dissolved it.
“Neets!” Dairine went tearing across the cavern. Beside Kit, Memeki lifted herself up a little to watch her go. Ponch leaped up and shook himself, headed after Dairine.
Across the cavern, Dairine tackled Nita in a hug that nearly knocked her over. Nita, grinning, hugged her back while struggling for balance. “Neets!” Kit shouted as he went after Ponch, doing his best to not look like he was ready to break into a run. “Finally! Where were you?” He paused. “Where’s Sker’ret? Who’s—”
That other figure, who had transited in with Nita and had been facing the other way, now turned around, waving a hand in front of her face to fan away some of the rock dust still floating in the air.
Kit’s mouth dropped open. “What are— Why are— Since when are you supposed to be here?”
His sister smiled her sunniest and most infuriating smile at him. “Since I got hold of the manual,” Carmela said.
Kit’s heart simply froze.
“But this is all just too much for you right now, isn’t it?” Carmela said. “Never mind, I’ll go talk to someone I’m much more interested in. Oh, Ronan…” And she headed away.
Not even if the Lone Power Itself had walked into the cavern right then could Kit have done anything whatever but stand there in shock. Oh no, Kit thought. No, no, no, this is worse than bad, so much worse. What did I do to deserve this?
He turned back to Nita. To his complete astonishment, she was still hugging Dairine. “I was so worried about you.”
“I was worrying, too. What about Dad?”
“He’s okay.”
“Uh, Neets,” Kit said.
She glanced over at him, smiling. “Oh, and your pop and mama,” Nita said, “they’re okay, too, my dad says.”
“That wasn’t what I was worried about.”
Nita gave him a look. “You weren’t?”
He looked over at Carmela. “Neets, what happened with her?”
Nita’s expression was both bemused and appreciative. “She showed up on Rirhath B and blew six kinds of crap out of a bunch of alien invaders,” Nita said. “We didn’t get too much further into the details: there wasn’t time.” She paused and looked at Memeki.
Her expression appeared shocked, but somehow not in a way Kit had expected. It was almost as if she was seeing something she’d half expected. She let go of Dairine at last, and pushed her hair back on one side as she looked at the Yaldiv.
“This is Memeki,” Kit said.
Nita and Memeki exchanged a glance. “Yes,” Nita said slowly, “she is.”
Okay, this is getting weird, Kit thought, but I should be used to that by now. “We can’t stay here long,” Kit said. “More of these guys are probably coming; we should find somewhere else to be.”
“Okay,” Nita said, “but before anything else happens, I really need something to drink. Has she stolen all my sodas yet?”
Dairine looked innocent. “She would have,” Kit said, “except I stole some first and stuck them in my pup tent.”
Nita punched him gratefully in the shoulder. “Knew I could count on you,” she said, and headed that way.
Kit watched her go, then turned and let out a long, frustrated breath as he saw Carmela prattling away to Ronan. This is going to take forever to sort out, he thought as Ponch came trotting back toward him. Not that we’ve got that much forever left. “You all right?” he said to Ponch.
I’m fine! It’s so great that Nita’s back!
“No argument,” Kit said.
And Carmela! I wondered when she’d get here. I missed her! And everybody else was here, so she needed to be here, too.
Kit rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right.” He turned to Memeki. “Memeki, how are you feeling?”
Memeki appeared to be finding it hard to speak. Ponch nosed her. She was a little nervous at first, he said, but I knew you’d save us.
I wish I’d been that certain, Kit thought. Memeki was watching Filif lower the mochteroofs back into place, and Kit saw, to his satisfaction, that at least her trembling had stopped. “I was afraid,” she said. “But you protected me as you said you would.” She sounded troubled. “Yet why did the warriors try to kill me? Has my scent changed? I am one of the Favored; no warrior should dare to touch me!”
“I don’t know,” Kit said. He patted her carapace. “We’ll try to find out. Meanwhile, I think we’re going to have to get out of here pretty quick. Ponch, stay with her and take care of her, okay?”
I will.
He headed over to where Roshaun and Dairine were talking to Nita. “Roshaun,” Kit said, “that was a sweet one.”
Roshaun looked startled. “‘Sweet’?”
Kit laughed. “An idiom,” he said. “What you did, whatever that was, it was terrific!”
“I did a location-to-location matter transfer,” Roshaun said. “It was… surprisingly effective.” And he smiled.
“You find a volcano on this planet somewhere?”
“Oh, no. I borrowed some stellar metal from the system primary: iron, mostly.” Kit’s eyes went wide. “It’s a novel technique,” Roshaun said, and glanced over at Dairine.
Kit raised his eyebrows. The thought that Dairine had been not only practicing fast-deployment routines for pulling white-hot atmospheric iron out of stars, but also coaching someone else in it, freaked him out slightly. But then Roshaun’s good with stars. Maybe I shouldn’t worry.
In the meantime, there were two other things Kit was going to have to handle in a hurry, and it took him several moments to figure out which of them he disliked more. He sighed and went over to where Ronan was taking down his pup-tent interface. “Are you okay?” he said.
Ronan nodded, the usual curt gesture.
“Then do you mind telling me what just happened here?” Kit said. “I thought you said the Champion could cover for us!”
“I thought he could, too,” Ronan said. “But he’s on it again, reinforcing the safegua
rds that slipped.”
“And how long’s he going to be able to hold them in place this time?” Kit said. “If they slipped once, they’re likely to do it again. It’s the Pullulus, isn’t it? It’s affecting even him now.”
Ronan nodded. “Or his presence inside time, inside me. He didn’t feel it happening at first, and now he’s getting worried.”
“He’s getting worried!” Kit rubbed his face. “So when we get out of here, is he going to be any use to us?” Kit said. “And what about you? What—” The temptation to say What good are you without him? was considerable, but Kit restrained himself. “What’s it going to take to get him back into shape?”
“Getting rid of the Pullulus would do it,” Ronan said, grim. “And while there is one other way, it’d probably take another sixty or seventy years to finesse, so maybe we’d better concentrate on taking care of Memeki.”
“That’s another problem,” Kit said. “They sure wanted to take care of her.” He looked at the few fragments of Yaldiv warrior that had not been completely vaporized or blasted to other kinds of nothing during the attack. “Someone’s realized that she’s important. But not important enough that It came Itself.”
It’s still not here in a completely embodied avatar, the Champion said. That, I would feel immediately. It remains partly unaware … for the moment.
Kit held his breath at the sound of the Champion’s voice speaking through Ronan. It seemed to have lost a lot of the power he normally heard in it. “I guess we should be grateful,” Kit said. “But I don’t think it’s gonna last. Anyway, have the others all take their pup tents down pronto. We won’t stay here a second longer than we have to.”
He turned, then, and let out a long, annoyed breath. This couldn’t be put off any longer. Off by the former crevasse, Filif and Roshaun were checking over the mochteroofs, and Ponch had run over to them and the slender figure who now stood by Filif and was fluffing up his fronds. “Just look at you!” said Carmela. “You wore your hat all the way here!”
“It has become a personality thing,” said Filif, reaching up with one frond to adjust his Mets baseball cap. Kit had to smile slightly, as Filif’s sense of which part of the cap should face forward tended to change from hour to hour.
Carmela glanced down at Ponch, who was jumping up and down beside her, trying to get her attention. She got down to give him a hug, and started getting her face seriously washed as a result.
In the middle of this, Ponch glanced over at Kit and gave him a reproachful look. I can’t find any more biscuits, he said.
“That would be because you and Memeki ate every one you could find!” Kit said.
Ponch snorted and went back to slurping Carmela’s face. “And in the meantime,” Kit said, “I really need Ponch to be concentrating on helping us all get out of here to somewhere safer. So if you can please stop fussing over him—”
Carmela glanced up. “Now, here I am having some quality smooch-time with my favorite doggie,” she said, “and you’re just standing there ruining it. Bear with me while I ask one of these nice people for a spell or something to destroy you with.” She glanced around. “Filif! Would you destroy Kit for me, please? You’re such a honey. Thanks.” And she went back to scratching Ponch behind the ears.
“‘Melaaaaa!” Kit said as Filif came up behind Kit.
“If I were you,” Filif’s nearest fronds said very quietly in Kit’s ear, tickling it, “I’d bend in this wind, and not break yourself trying to stand against it.” To Carmela, he said, “Destroy him how, exactly?”
“Melted lead?” Carmela said. “Boiling oil? Forget it, those are way too retro. Disintegration’s big this year…”
Filif stood there looking innocently at the ceiling with all his berries as Carmela started to hit her stride. Kit just shook his head and turned away.
Off by the mochteroofs, Memeki stood watching Carmela and Ponch and the rest of them. There was no making anything of a Yaldiv’s expressions, but Kit got a sense from Memeki of something much like wistfulness, like a kid who stands off to one side of the playground, knowing he’s about to be picked last for a game, as usual. Kit swallowed: he’d been there. But there was something else going on besides that sadness—a strange and growing hope that something different was about to happen. Off across the cavern, as she was taking down her pup tent, Kit saw Nita pause, looking at Memeki, too. She glanced at Kit.
She’s terrified, Nita said silently. And not just for herself. But something else is going on, too. You feel it?
He nodded as he came up beside Memeki and patted her carapace again. “We’ll be ready to go pretty soon,” he said, “but you don’t have to be by yourself.”
“Kit,” Memeki said. Kit’s mouth dropped open, for it was the first time she’d actually used a name for any of them. “You need not take me anywhere else,” she said. “I must go back to the City, for I see I am putting you all in danger. Particularly Ponch.”
Kit looked at her thoughtfully, as Ponch, who had left Carmela to follow him, stood up on his hind legs and put his forepaws on her. We’ll stay with you, he said. We’ll take care of you.
The wash of fear that Kit caught from Ponch was astonishing: it made him wince. “I see how you do that,” Memeki said. “You care for each other. It is so strange. Somehow, though you come from so far away, you are like me. How, I can’t say.” And then she, too, sat down on the ground, a strange, jerky motion. She twitched. “But there are other reasons. I must return to the grubbery. My time—” She broke off, went silent, like someone distracted by a spasm of pain.
Ronan came up behind Kit and stood there for a moment, just a dark presence that said nothing. Kit glanced at him.
“Ponch is right,” he said. “If she’s going back to the City, we can’t just leave her there and tiptoe away, not after what happened here! We’ve got to stay with her and keep her safe.”
“That’s not going to attract any attention, I’ll bet,” Ronan said. “When someone asks, just what are we supposed to be doing hanging around her?”
“We’re her guards,” Kit said. “The One sent us.” His grin was a little grim. “Though what we mean by that won’t be what they mean by it, it’s still true. And if anyone gives us trouble”—he shrugged—”we play it by ear.”
Ronan shook his head. “I hope this works,” he said. Kit did, too. He looked around. “Are we packed up?”
Nita joined them. “All you need to do is take down your pup tent, and we’ll be ready to run,” she said. “What time is it outside?”
Kit looked at his watch. “About an hour till dawn. So we’ll go in half an hour?” He looked around at the others. Roshaun bowed agreement; Filif rustled “yes.”
He looked over at Carmela, who was leaning against one of the mochteroofs, fiddling with her curling iron. Kit let out another exasperated breath. “Fil,” he said, “can you retailor Sker’ret’s mochteroof for Carmela? And better put some training wheels on it.”
“I take your meaning; I’m working on that right now,” Filif said. “Fifteen minutes more will see the work done.”
Kit nodded. Neets, he said silently, we really need to talk.
You’re right, she said. We do. But she was looking at Memeki.
Ponch looked up at Kit. And about the biscuits…
Kit sighed. “Okay, so I hid a box,” he said. “Come on.”
***
Sitting cross-legged on the floor of the cavern, Nita drank her soda and watched Filif working over the last remaining mochteroof, while Carmela walked around it, kibitzing and apparently offering design tips. Off to one side, Dairine and Roshaun were sitting down and conferring about something. Kit and Ponch had vanished inside Kit’s pup tent. By the scarred-over crevasse, Memeki crouched, every now and then shivering a little. And in that shiver, Nita suddenly felt that both their biggest problem and its solution were buried.
She closed her eyes and breathed out, breathed in. The messages that were coming to her—whether as hunches or
visions or half-heard whispers—were getting so intense, in this past day or so, that she didn’t have to be asleep to have them. Is this going to be a permanent thing? she wondered. Or is this just the peridexic effect working? When all this is over, is it back to business as usual?
Don’t ask me, said the silent voice in the back of her brain. Nothing about this business has been usual.
She smiled slightly, opened her eyes again. Crouched down on the gritty stone in front of her, Spot looked up at her with two small, stalked, glowing eyes. “So how’re you holding up, small stuff?” she said. “You feel better since Dairine took you back home?”
“Much better,” Spot said. His voice was clearer than Nita had heard it for some time. Nonetheless, there was a hesitant quality to it.
“You don’t sound too sure.” She reached out and stroked his case between the eyes.
“There’s still much stored data to assimilate,” Spot said. “And it will take a long time. But in the short term, I can say that I seem to be more than I was. If I can just work out what to do with it.”
Nita laughed, just once, a brief and rueful sound. “That goes for both of us.”
“But at least you’ve come back from Earth with what we need,” Spot said. “The word that has to be heard.”
Nita gave Spot a look. “I have?” She found this news reassuring coming from Spot, and she needed the reassurance.
He wiggled his eyes at her and trundled back off in Dairine’s direction. “Getting a lot more vocal, that wee fella,” said the voice from behind her.
Nita cocked an eye up at Ronan, and took another drink of soda. I wonder if it’s contagious, she thought, catching a glimpse out of the corner of her eye of Kit coming out of his pup tent again. Ponch followed him out, and Kit started to roll up the access and pull it down out of the air.
Across the cavern, Carmela’s mochteroof skinned over with the simulacrum of a Yaldiv’s golden-green inner shell, but Nita was distracted from this by the unusually edgy feeling practically radiating from Ronan. “How’re you holding up?” she said after a moment.