“You heard all that?” Dairine said.
“If the Queen of Wellakh doesn’t keep her ears open,” Lady Miril said, “things deteriorate… especially around this one and his father.” She hugged Roshaun a little harder. Roshaun squirmed, but only slightly.
“There was a little, uh…”
“Friction?” said Lady Miril. “Always. These two stalk about in all directions doing good, and then hardly have a kind word for each other. If there’s a way for either of them to rub the other one the wrong way, he’ll find it. And in recent days the intensity of the game has increased somewhat.”
“Mother,” Roshaun said, looking at her with a surprised expression, “you saw all this coming.”
“It hardly takes a wizard to tell what’s going on with your royal sire, my son,” said Lady Miril, “when you’ve known him since he was just a badly behaved prince.” She grinned. “And as for you—”
Roshaun actually blushed. Lady Miril, though, went quite sober. “But the weariness has been growing on your father, Roshaun. And then while you were away, there was another attempt.”
Roshaun looked at his mother … and then the expression on his face went very strange.
“That was meant for me, was it not?” he said.
“I believe so,” said his mother.
“That was why you wanted me to go on the excursus,” Roshaun said softly. “You wanted me out of the way, on Earth.”
“The thought of a vigorous new power in charge of the planet would annoy some people,” Lady Miril said, glancing at Dairine. “They prefer the status quo to an unknown.”
“And then,” Roshaun said, “Father was caught up in an attack meant for me…” He turned a shade that even for him was pale. “And now, what I just did—”
Was the most idiotic thing I could possibly have done, Dairine heard Roshaun think. I have thrown my father straight back into the situation from which he thought he had finally been freed. I have—
Roshaun disentangled himself from Lady Miril. “Mother—” He held a hand out to one side. In it, blinding, appeared the little globe of white fire that was his manual. He slipped his other hand into it, feeling around for something. “We should go.”
“No, royal son,” said Lady Miril, and the fire-globe vanished. “Not in here. If you will be King in name, you must be King in action as well, or you leave your father in greater danger than before. A king does not sneak away. If he leaves, he does so where his people can see him.”
Roshaun looked over at Dairine.
“We can teleport, if you like,” he said.
“I don’t mind the walk,” Dairine said after a moment. “I can use it to compose myself.”
Lady Miril flashed Dairine an amused glance. “When will you be back, Roshaun?”
He paused. “I am not sure. Father has told you about the expansion…”
She looked grave. “Yes,” she said. “Go do what you must. We’ll wait. Dhairine—”
Dairine took the Lady’s hand again. “Go well,” Lady Miril said.
She turned away.
Roshaun headed for the door; Dairine went with him. About halfway down to the doors, she said, “I can’t wait to get out of these clothes.”
“The way you did before?” Roshaun said. “That was entertaining. And informative.”
Now what the heck is that supposed to mean?! Dairine thought.
“Probably not what you think,” Roshaun said. “But when you do resume your usual guise…” He reached out toward her as they went, and very casually tapped the cabochon emerald at Dairine’s throat.
“Not that,” he said. “That I think you should keep. It becomes you.”
“Uh, okay,” Dairine said, and blushed again, she hardly knew why. “It’s just—I’m hard on jewelry. It gets busted, or…”
The expression on his face was so strange that she said, “All right, sure, I’ll keep it.”
“Good,” Roshaun said. “Meanwhile—”
They were at the doors. Roshaun stepped through them. Dairine hung back, waiting. Out beyond the mountain of the palace, all across the plain, the two million Wellakhit people still stood, their quiet now more hushed than before because of the great height; and before them, near the slender rail at the highest terrace’s edge, stood Roshaun’s father.
Roshaun went directly to Nelaid and stood beside him at the edge of the terrace. Dairine watched Nelaid’s face, set and proud, as he turned it toward his son. After a few moments, Roshaun stretched out a hand.
His father took it. They stood there in the view of that great assemblage, and slowly an uncertain murmur went up at that gesture that Dairine guessed suggested more a joint kingship than one vesting solely in one party or the other.
“You told them?” Roshaun said.
“I did,” said Nelaid.
“Then by your leave, royal father,” Roshaun said, “I go. And, Father, I am sorry.”
“My son,” Nelaid said, “the Aethyrs go with you.”
And carefully, as if he wasn’t sure how to do it in front of all these people, Nelaid embraced his son. The sound from the crowd swelled, still confused, but somehow approving.
Roshaun let his father go. “I have to attach this to a substrate,” he said, as he produced his manual again and reached into it, pulling out the compressed darkness that was the subsidized worldgate.
“Go ahead, son.”
As Roshaun made his way back toward the wall near the doors, Dairine saw Nelaid throw her a look that was much less stiff than his regard had been earlier. She bowed her head to him again, not too far for fear of what the tiara would do, and then turned to join Roshaun, with Spot spidering along behind her.
“You were going to have some coordinates for me?” Roshaun said.
“Here,” Spot said.
Roshaun flung the darkness of the worldgate up against the wall; it spread out into a black circle a few meters wide. “One thing,” Dairine said, as Spot fed the temporospatial coordinates of the Motherboard World to the worldgate wizardry.
“Yes?”
“Something you said back there,” Dairine said, as the worldgate’s vacuum-warding subroutine snapped to life. “‘When we come home from this errand’?”
“It was a slip of the tongue,” Roshaun said after a moment.
“And therefore not true?” Dairine said.
Roshaun wouldn’t answer.
Dairine smiled and led the way through the gate.
6: Collateral Damage
Nita looked around her as they materialized inside the vast space of the Crossings Worldgating Facility. It was night there; as usual after sunset, the vast, remote ceiling had apparently vanished, and the milky turbulence of the upper atmosphere had cleared, letting the extravagant night sky of Rirhath B show through.
Automatically Nita did the first thing you do in the Crossings when appearing out of nowhere: she looked down to check whether the transport surface they were all standing on was “dedicated” or not. Fortunately, it wasn’t. “Come on, guys,” Nita said, “everybody out of the zone.”
Filif followed Nita over the line as Kit and Ponch and Ronan were crossing over in a slightly different direction. Ponch bounded past them, lolloping off down the wide central corridor of this part of the Crossings. “Don’t run!” Nita called after him, concerned that he would go crashing into some unsuspecting alien; but there wasn’t much point. They were easily a quarter mile from the nearest other beings who were catching late (or early) gates to their destinations. Ponch galloped along, oblivious, tail wagging, and no one paid him any attention.
Nita looked at her watch as Sker’ret poured past her, heading for one of the many bluesteel information kiosks that rose ten or twelve feet from the floor at intervals all along the length of the concourse. It really is later than we’ve usually been in here before, Nita thought. To her watch, she said, “Crossings time, please?”
The face of the watch restructured itself to show her the thirty-three-hour Crossi
ngs day. It’s nearly twenty-nine o’clock, Nita thought. Probably no surprise that traffic’s a little down.
Ronan had stopped just the other side of the line and was standing there staring up at the vast starry darkness overhead. Rirhath’s neighborhood of space was full of variable stars that slowly but visibly shrank and swelled while you watched. “It’s like they’re breathing,” Ronan said.
Beside him, Kit nodded. “You haven’t been here before?” Kit said.
“Once,” Ronan said. “It wasn’t anything like this then.”
Kit smiled. “The daytime view’s interesting, though I always wonder what’d happen to all that levitating stained glass up at ceiling level if they had a power failure. This is a lot less tense.”
He looked after Ponch as Nita and Filif came over to them. “You know what he’s after,” Nita said, looking after Ponch.
Kit shrugged. “Give him a moment to run,” he said. “When he comes back we’ll get down to business.” Then he yawned.
“You and me both,” Nita said, rubbing her eyes. “It’s getting late back home. We ought to think about where we’ll stop for the night.”
“Wherever Ponch leads us,” Ronan said. “My passenger’ll stand guard while we’re sleeping. Everybody’s got their pup tents with them, so they’ll be comfortable enough.”
“And I’ve got my cellphone,” Nita said. “If my dad needs to get in touch, he won’t have any trouble: Tom enabled his for the manual network ages ago.” Or at least at the moment it seemed like ages. She sighed. “I still wish we could sleep at home… I’m getting nervous about what’s going on there.”
“Going back and forth wouldn’t be smart,” Ronan said. “For one thing, it’d make us a lot easier to track. Might as well just send the Lone One an invitation to follow us straight to wherever we’re going.”
“Yeah, I know.” Nita knew he was right; she just hated to admit it.
Sker’ret was reared up against the nearby kiosk, using numerous upper legs to work its controls. Nita went over to him and looked over a couple of his topmost shoulders. Below the kiosk’s translucent surface, in which Sker’ret’s topmost two pairs of legs were partially embedded, several layers of patches of light flowed with characters in the Speech. “Find what you’re looking for?” she said.
Sker’ret curved a couple of eyes backward to meet hers. “Not yet,” he said.
He’s never this terse. What’s going on? She rested a hand on that beautiful candy-glazed metallic-purple carapace, just behind the head segment. “Sker’, are you okay?”
He sagged a little. “Not entirely.” He turned some eyes up to gaze at the deep red charactery now running up and down the kiosk-pillar’s length.
“If you need help—”
“Not at the moment. But thank you.” Sker’ret curved back another couple of eyes toward her. “What about Ponch?”
Down the concourse Nita could see the shiny black shape wandering along toward them, still wagging his tail. “I’ll see if he’s ready to start work,” she said.
Kit was standing there with his arms folded, shaking his head, watching Ponch head toward them. You were trying to overhear what he was smelling, Nita said privately. Any luck?
Kit gave her a resigned look. Motor oil, he said. Cocoa.
Motor oil? Nita turned to look up the concourse at Ponch again; he had paused to sniff at another of the information kiosks. I guess for him those smells symbolize what Ronan and the Champion are after?
That’s my guess, Kit said. He thinks he’s on the right track. All we can do is let him get on with it.
Ponch came ambling over to Kit, looked up at him, and nosed his hand. I’m hungry!
Ronan came back to them and looked down at Ponch. “So when do you get started?”
Ponch gave Ronan a slightly scornful look. I’ve been working ever since we got here. But I’ll need a little more time to sort the scents out. For the time being, you just talk among yourselves.
What amused Nita was that he was looking only at Ronan while he said it. Ronan looked a little taken aback.
Ponch turned his back on him. And while I work on the scent-sorting, he said to Kit, wagging his tail, we might as well get something to eat!
“I don’t know,” Kit said. “Maybe it’s not good for some people to be full of food when they’re supposed to be really sharp and heading out on the trail.”
Ponch gave Kit a very cool look. Oh, I get it. Deprive me and I’ll function better? Let’s see how that works. He sat down. Hmm, I feel strangely weak… Ponch fell over on one side with his tongue hanging out one side of his mouth; one eye looked pitifully at Kit. Can’t… seem… to move…
Kit looked over at Nita. “Blackmail,” Kit said.
Nita shrugged.
“Oh, all right,” Kit said. “Come on, let’s see what we can find.”
Ponch sprang to his feet, spun around in three fast, tight circles where he stood, and then shot off down the concourse. Kit jogged after him. Behind them, ostentatiously by himself, Ronan strolled away.
Filif came up next to Nita, also looking after them, but mostly at Ronan. “And to think that the One’s Champion is hiding in there.”
“One version of it,” Nita said. “An avatar, I guess we’d say, sort of a splinter of the whole Defender. As much as could fit inside a human being, anyhow.” She reached out to readjust Filif’s baseball cap. “The concept doesn’t seem to surprise you much.”
“Why should it? The One’s Champion does that kind of thing all the time, the Wind says. Seems like It loves to dress up.”
Nita grinned. “Well, you haven’t seen it the way we have,” she said. “It lived at Tom and Carl’s for a long time, disguised as a bird.” She rubbed one ear thoughtfully. “It had some issues then, too. Kind of a temper.”
She could feel Filif’s amusement. “Such was the Defender’s way with us, as well. It was the Great Tree, the Star-Reacher, that first caught the Wind in its branches and shared the sound of it with us.” Filif turned most of his eye-berries to look down the other end of the concourse, and upward toward the vast and splendid Rirhait sky. “Before that, the Wind was just another noise. After that, it became the sound of words and wizardry, the power to change our world…”
Nita glanced around them. “Fil, did you see where Sker’ret went?”
“Uh, no.” Filif rotated in place. “He was working at that kiosk.”
“We can always message him,” Nita said. “Come on, let’s see what they’re up to.”
The two of them headed in the direction that Kit and Ponch had gone. The Crossings might have been quieter than usual, but Nita didn’t mind that, since it meant that you had less chance of being run over by aliens and their luggage while rubbernecking. The place was nearly half the size of the island of Manhattan, and besides the actual worldgates—set into the floor all down the length of the concourse, as their entry gating area had been—it was also full of endless haphazardly stacked modular bluesteel “cubes” containing shops, lounges, living areas, food courts, and every other kind of facility necessary to cater to the needs of the thousands of species that used the Crossings as a vital transportation link among several major galactic and transgalactic civilizations. Even at a “quiet” time like this, there were any number of fascinating beings to look at as they wandered from place to place, gazing into the windows of stores or restaurants. Though not as many as usual, Nita thought.
“Is that Kit coming back?” Filif said to Nita. “Who’s he with?”
Nita peered down the concourse. “Doesn’t look like him.” She took another look. “But they’re human.” There were three people there, heading in their direction—two boys and a girl, Nita thought.
“Other wizards,” she said to Filif, as they got closer and it became plain that the approaching three were Earth-human and not some other variety. One of the boys, with shaggy fair hair, was wearing dark pants and a matching dark sweater that might have been some kind of school uniform; the
other one, a dark-haired kid, was in jeans and a windbreaker, close enough to what Kit was wearing and close enough to his height that Nita could see why Filif might have made the error. The girl, who had short brown hair, was wearing what seemed to be a short, richly patterned silk kimono over leggings and low-heeled boots, a look that Nita admired as soon as she saw it.
The newcomers were a hundred feet or so away from Nita and Filif when Kit and Ponch appeared from one of an array of cubicles over to the left. Over here, Nita said silently to Kit. We’ve got company.
Ponch came bouncing up to Nita, who reached down to ruffle up his ears. “So how was it?” she said.
We didn’t even go to a restaurant, Ponch said, in profound disappointment, throwing a reproachful look over his shoulder at Kit. He just went to a machine and put words from his manual in it and food came out. But there was only one blue thing. That was hardly enough. Look at me! You can see my ribs.
“Later,” Kit said. “We need to find Ronan and Sker’ret. And talk to these guys, I think.”
“Dai stihó!” the girl said, as they got close.
“Dai,” Nita and Kit and Filif said more or less in unison.
“You just up from the Moon?” said the boy in the school uniform, in a broad Australian accent. “The gate there still open?”
“It was a few minutes ago,” Kit said.
“Great,” said the boy. “We’re heading back.”
“Where’ve you been?” Nita said. “If it’s not private.”
The second boy shook his head. “Edge of the Local Group,” he said. “Over by IC 1613.”
“How are things there?” Nita said.
The first boy looked grim. “That galaxy was always kind of thin and spread out to begin with,” he said. “But it’s a lot thinner now. You know the Katahn empire there?”
Nita and Kit both shook their heads. Filif said, “I know of it. How does it fare?”
“Badly. Its systems are being pushed away from each other so fast that the empire’s falling apart,” said the boy in the jeans. “The big crowd of blue-white stars in the middle of that galaxy is being ripped up; the whole thing could turn into a blazar.”