“What? Of course it is.”
And suddenly it dawned. “Wait. Do you mean—”
“Well, I’m a Muslimah after all, you knew that. What did you think the hijab’s about? It’s not because I don’t like how my hair looks or something.” Mehrnaz giggled. “Look, I need to wash up real quick. Is there a bathroom downstairs? Do you mind if I use it?”
“What? Sure! Down the way you came and straight back, the door right in front of you.”
Mehrnaz headed out of the living room. “Thanks. Just a few minutes for ablutions, and then I’ll be in here for ten minutes or so, okay?”
“Fine.”
Dairine wandered out and went into the kitchen. I am an idiot, she thought. It’s not like she was going to stop doing her religious stuff just because we’re on the road . . .
Spot paused in the middle of the kitchen floor and looked at her curiously. Should I go wake up the transport spell?
“Sure,” Dairine said. “Put it on standby until we get out there. Fifteen minutes or so . . .”
Right.
Spot headed for the back door, developing a set of manipulating claws as he went, and pushed the screen door open with them. Dairine let out an impatient breath as the door swung closed behind him—she’d been all ready to go. Well, never mind. Time enough for some tea or something.
She filled the kettle and put it on the stove, then fished around for a teabag and a mug. In the middle of this process, though, Dairine heard a sound she hadn’t been expecting: her dad’s car turning into the driveway. Oh great . . . ! But she got down another mug while she sat waiting.
A minute or so later her dad came in through the back screen door with a pile of mail from the shop. He smooched Dairine on the top of the head as he started to go past her, but she put out an arm to stop him. “Not right now, Daddy.”
“I have to change, sweetheart, and then I have to—”
“Okay, fine, but not right this minute. Mehrnaz’ll be in there praying.”
“Oh.” Her dad blinked as the kettle started whistling. “All right. I wanted some coffee anyway, and a sandwich . . .”
They puttered around in the kitchen together for a few minutes. “How’s it all going?” her dad said, pulling the sandwich makings out of the fridge: mayonnaise, mustard, ham.
“Not bad, so far.” Dairine wrinkled her nose. “How can you mix those? So gross.”
Her father grinned benevolently. “So finicky. Your friend in there—” He paused while he started to put the sandwich together. “Mehrnaz, is it?”
“That’s right.”
“Is that an Indian name?”
“Iranian. Her family moved from there to Mumbai after one of the big earthquakes.”
“Oh.” He went rummaging in a drawer for a knife. “I’m behind on all this stuff you gave me to read. Sorry. You two working together all right?”
“Yeah. She’s nice.” Dairine sighed. “Her family situation’s kind of odd, though.”
Her dad put his eyebrows up at that. “Problems?”
“Well, a lot of them are wizards.”
“You’d think that would make everything easier.”
“I did too, at first.”
“But not now?” Dairine’s dad looked thoughtful. “Interesting.” His eyes flicked in the direction of the living room. “Meantime, just so you know, Nelaid’s coming down to the shop tomorrow.”
Dairine snickered. “You should hire him.”
“I have to say, if he didn’t have such a long commute, I’d be tempted. Among other things, he has nothing but praise for a place where people don’t try to assassinate him once a week.”
Aha, Dairine thought. He has told him. And Daddy hasn’t freaked—
“Which surprises me,” her dad went on, intent on eating his sandwich. “I mean, we don’t exactly live in paradise here. It amazes me how many aliens who come to visit seem to like our place better than theirs.”
“The grass is greener on the other side, maybe?”
“Well, when a tree says that to you—or someone who could be mistaken for a tree—you pay attention.” He smiled. “Where is my favorite decorative planting? Has Filif come along to this thing?”
Dairine shook her head. “He’s home on Demisiv, I think. But then this is pretty much an in-system affair. Sker’ret’s the only non-Solar I’ve seen so far, and he was there to ride herd on the worldgating infrastructure.”
Her dad laughed in between bites of his sandwich. “Well, if he’s still in the neighborhood and he feels like a snack, have him stop by. All those boxes in the shop . . .”
“If I see him, I’ll tell him,” Dairine said. And she frowned. “Daddy . . .”
“I know that tone,” her dad said, putting his sandwich back on its plate. “And that face. What’s the problem?”
“Overprotective parents.”
“Meaning not me for a change?” he said. “Wow.”
On sudden impulse Dairine threw her arms around him. “You’re absolutely okay!” she said. “Seriously. Way better than most.”
“Wow,” her dad said again, and hugged her back. “Not every day I get a thumbs-up like that.” He gave her a look. “Maybe I’ll let you off the hook about this week’s shopping. Just this once.”
Dairine snorted, let him go, and picked up her tea. “At least, you got that way once you came out of your state of shock about your kids being wizards.”
“Well, I like to think Nita took the edge off a little and made things easier for you. You didn’t have it all that bad, I think.”
She wasn’t about to admit that he was probably right. “Is that ham okay?”
Her dad threw her a look that said he knew when the subject was being changed on purpose. “Yeah, it’s still fine. Not that it wouldn’t have been nice to have some of the pastrami that was on the last shopping list . . .”
“Oh please, not you too, cut me some slack . . .” Dairine muttered. “And what about this?” She picked up a jar from the counter and shook it at him. “I wondered where all my coffee was going so fast!”
“Your coffee? And who pays for all the groceries, may I ask? Besides, Tom said I should try it. Blame him.”
It was so funny to have her dad using Tom as an excuse that Dairine broke up laughing, and mostly failed at keeping it quiet. And immediately she started to get upset with herself because she wasn’t sure Mehrnaz was finished. But right then Mehrnaz peeked in around the kitchen door, smiling, and said, “All done, and it sounds like a good thing too—what did I miss?”
“Absolutely nothing, just my dad stealing my stuff,” Dairine said. “Dad, Mehrnaz, Mehrnaz, my dad, now come on, we need to get moving or you’re going to get missed!”
She allowed Mehrnaz exactly thirty seconds of putting her hands together and bowing and greeting her dad and being greeted back and all the rest of it before hustling her out the door. Once out, they half ran back down the garden together, Dairine leading the way, for she was starting to get excited now and didn’t care who knew. “This is going to be the hottest thing. I cannot wait. Especially because we’re gonna make Nita’s guy look utterly useless—”
Merhnaz started catching the mood from her and began giggling. “Is your father going to come along later?”
“He said he wants to if he can spare the time from work.”
“Good. He’s so nice! And so handsome.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” Dairine said. “Don’t say that in front of him whatever you do . . . he’ll never let me forget it. Anyway, there’s our spot. And there’s my Spot. You ready, big guy?”
All set.
“Then let’s go blow the Invitational open!”
The place was a zoo, as she’d expected. Near the cordoned-off space where Sker’ret or someone else from the Crossings had installed the mini-hexes for the beam-in space was a semicircle of cloth-covered tables: and around these tables easily forty or fifty wizards were crowded in together, checking diagrams and schedules on thei
r manuals or handheld devices and asking the people behind the table for help. On first taking in the hubbub, Mehrnaz froze.
“It’s okay,” Dairine said, “nothing to worry about, there are still lots of people checking in, we’re not late. Go on!” She nudged Mehrnaz from behind.
Mehrnaz moved forward into the group that was gathered around the tables with the hesitant determination of someone walking into a tiger’s lair for a chat while uncertain whether the tiger was in a conversational mood. Behind her, Dairine found herself feeling unexpectedly upset on Mehrnaz’s behalf. Uncertainty wasn’t that much a part of Dairine’s makeup most of the time. She tended to plunge into things and deal with the coping part when she was in the midst of the situation; how other people managed their own nerves wasn’t normally an issue for her. But suddenly that seemed to have changed. She wants to be able to deal with this, but because of how her life’s been, she has trouble with it. And what made it worse was that Dairine knew it would be wrong for her to try to shield Mehrnaz from what was going on all around them. It was the Powers who dumped her into this, or got the Seniors to. And she said yes. So she’ll either cope or she’ll melt down. All I can do is what the people around her haven’t been doing: give her space to do one or the other . . .
The crowd closed in around Mehrnaz and blocked her from sight, and Dairine stayed where she was and gazed around, prepared for any impulsive screaming or fleeing that might ensue. None did, though, and she let herself be distracted by the unfolding craziness. In her arms, Spot wriggled.
“Want to get down?”
Yes, please.
Dairine glanced around again. “Don’t get stepped on.”
All Spot’s currently visible eyes rotated on their stalks in the gesture he used to simulate an eyeroll. If it happens, it won’t happen twice.
Dairine chuckled. Got an eye on something?
I can feel some computer-associated projects in here. Might as well have a look to see if there’s anything that might be of interest to the cousins at the other end of space . . .
“Go on,” Dairine said, and watched Spot spider himself away through the crowd, drawing the occasional curious glance from bystanders as he went.
A few moments later Mehrnaz slid out of the crush of people with a couple of badges on lanyards and handed one of them to Dairine. “They’ve got some fairly heavy-duty wizardries wound up in these lanyards,” she said, almost breathless with excitement. “The nonwizards outside will barely notice us if we go out.”
“Smart,” Dairine said. “Come on, let’s check the directory over there and get you set up.”
They found the location that had been assigned to Mehrnaz without too much trouble. Mehrnaz stopped before the empty space and looked from one side to the other at the wizards who were already set up; and as she did, Dairine saw her go several shades paler in the space of about a second.
Don’t let her freeze, Dairine thought. “Right,” Dairine said, “this floating table thing they’ve got, do you want to keep it? Or push it out of the way, or vanish it? And what about the sign over it? Is it too big?”
“I’m, I’m not sure . . .” Mehrnaz said, and she started wringing her hands.
“Well, who do we ask?” Dairine said. “Come on, we need to get this show on the road. Table, yes or no? And let’s have the text you want on the sign.”
Mehrnaz gulped and recited her project’s title, watching as the letters and characters in English and the Speech flowed into being on the surface of the hanging sign, then began to scroll sideways. Moments later the table was covered with the written description of Mehrnaz’s spell. And seeing this happening, people who’d been passing by now paused, and some started gathering around.
Dairine looked at Mehrnaz as more and more wizards stopped in front of her stand to see what would happen next. And Mehrnaz looked back at Dairine with an expression that was getting more scared by the second. It was as if she’d imagined everything else about this experience except this: real people, standing around and staring at her, waiting for her to do something.
Dairine held her breath, for that second or so as frozen as Mehrnaz’s was. I can’t help her past this. I can’t. She’s got to do it herself. But the moment kept stretching into a breathless strangled silence, as if everyone around the two of them was waiting for some kind of explosion to occur.
. . . And then Mehrnaz let that breath go. She reached out into the empty air and snatched her wizardry out of it in a tangle of light, whirled herself around once, and spun the complex webwork of the spell around her head as she did, letting it unfurl in air—then cast it outward in front of the first group of onlookers. They all made room and watched the spell-web spin out, settle to the floor, and start annotating itself, and they all went “Ooooo!” And there was a patter of applause from some of the older wizards standing in the back of the group.
Mehrnaz’s glance met Dairine’s, and Mehrnaz grinned. “Fellow wizards and other cousins,” she said, “here’s what I’ve got to show you today . . .”
And she was off, and suddenly it was all as easy and calm as it had been in Mehrnaz’s home, except that there were a lot more people than Dairine being impressed. She’s got this, Dairine thought. She was made for this. The nerves were a blip . . .
She stood there watching Mehrnaz speak for a minute or so more, in the groove now, concise, confident, smiling, having fun. She doesn’t need me, Dairine said silently to Spot.
No, Spot said from somewhere down the long hall.
Fine. I’m gonna wander.
She quietly made her way off around and behind Mehrnaz and around the side of the crowd. Then, some yards down the corridor on that side of the huge hall, Dairine threw a look over her shoulder at Mehrnaz to see if she’d registered Dairine’s having left the immediate area. If she had noticed, it didn’t show; she was talking animatedly to the people who were watching her, gesturing at the spell that lay before them and already pointing out the most intriguing aspects.
Excellent, Dairine thought. Let’s go see what Neets’s guy’s doing.
There was another of the big directories hanging off to one side about halfway down the corridor. Dairine paused in front of it long enough to see that Penn was over on the other side almost directly opposite her. I could cut across . . . But why not see some more interesting stuff first?
So Dairine started out the long way, taking her time. But as she passed the tenth or twelfth or twentieth project where she wanted to stop and stare at some fabulous idea she’d never thought of and really should have, she found herself starting to speed up. And it was annoyance that was making her do it. If only they held this thing more than once every eleven years, Dairine thought. I could have been in something like this. I’d have blown them away—
“Excuse me,” someone said from behind her in a rich, deep Caribbean accent.
She turned in surprise to see a very tall, dark, skinny young guy wearing a polo shirt and, unbelievably, Bermuda shorts. He was clutching what appeared to be a thick, beat-up paperback book as he looked down at her. “Ah, excuse me, cousin, but is it possible that you are, ah, Dairine Callahan?”
“Uh, yeah,” she said.
“Could you, I mean, would you, if you have a minute it would be lovely if you would, um, maybe just sign—”
He cracked open the paperback and held it out to her, laid open at what was revealed to be a blank manual page. It took Dairine a moment to realize that she was being asked for her autograph.
She blinked. “Sure,” Dairine said, “sure, of course—” It struck her as she took the manual that this was exactly what she’d predicted would be happening to Nita sometime during the Invitational. It hadn’t occurred to her that she might be a victim too.
Dairine scribbled her signature with one finger; light trailed after it and burnt her name into the manual interface, glowing there softly when she finished. “So listen, cousin,” she said, tilting her face up to look at the guy, “how come you’re so interested
in—”
But the guy snatched the manual out of her hands, his face set in an expression of terrified admiration. “Uh, thank you, thank you very much,” he said, and then he turned, fled, and became lost in the crowd a few seconds later.
Dairine stood with her mouth hanging open. What was that about? she thought, completely confused.
. . . And why is it always the tall ones? The ones who’re going to give me neck strain?
She stood there for a moment more, waiting to see if maybe Panic-Stricken Bermudian Guy was going to come back. But he didn’t, and finally Dairine turned and walked on, trying to work out what had just happened. Okay, I did some pretty cool and dangerous stuff out on Ordeal, and later, but why would anybody be scared of me? I’m nothing to be scared of . . .
She kept trying to find her balance again, and found it, and then someone else stopped her—a tanned, nearly white-haired, beach-babe-looking girl who might have been Carmela’s age or older. She was sporting a bright print sundress and a broad Aussie accent, and this time it was some kind of tablet that was held out for Dairine to sign. And the girl talked at her politely for about five minutes and never met Dairine’s eyes once.
Finally Dairine extricated herself and hurried away as a horrible idea hit her. It’s not me these guys are talking to. It’s my power rating. Or what it was. How is it they can’t see past that? Because I’m not that person anymore. I was only that person for about six months. Not that that didn’t piss her off to a greater or lesser degree most days. It was simply extra annoying that no one seemed to be looking past the history, past the stuff in the manual, to perceive who Dairine was now.
She frowned at herself. Great. Jumping the gun a little here? From a sample of two? Anyway, look, no one else cares, they’re all staring at the projects. This isn’t about me.
And she scowled harder as she made her way along the display spaces full of eager and excited kids . . . But it could have been. It could have been about something I had some control over, something smart I made or did, instead of something that was an accident, the luck of the draw, just the way things went when I was under pressure and thought we were all going to die. Dammit—