Home Random Page


CATEGORIES:

BiologyChemistryConstructionCultureEcologyEconomyElectronicsFinanceGeographyHistoryInformaticsLawMathematicsMechanicsMedicineOtherPedagogyPhilosophyPhysicsPolicyPsychologySociologySportTourism






Cephei IV / Tevaral 16 page

“Okay,” Kit said. He wasn’t sure he knew how he felt about any of this just yet. He shook his head. “It’s just that it was, I don’t know… Such a little thing.”

Tom gave him a look. “There are no little things,” he said. “Only things whose full relevance hasn’t yet become plain. Give it time.” And he glanced at his watch. “Speaking of which—” He patted Kit on his shoulder. “They’re calling my gate. See you at home.”

And he was off.

***

 

And when Kit and Nita caught their own gate, maybe twenty minutes later, and got into Grand Central and the shielded end of Platform 23, they found that the reverse timeslide had already been implemented for them. It was ten minutes after their initial departure time from GCT.

Kit stared at his watch. “This is so weird. It does not at all feel like it, but it’s Wednesday again.”

“And you still have a test on Friday.”

“I was hoping you would wait at least five minutes before reminding me of that,” Kit said. “Five minutes?! …But no.”

“And I am completely shattered,” Nita said in horrified realization. “Why am I feeling it all now? I was fine five minutes ago…”

“Five minutes ago,” Kit said, “tomorrow wasn’t a school day.”

“Ow,” Nita said. “Revenge. You are so mean to me.”

“You started it…”

“No I didn’t.” She sighed. “Anyway, it’s timeslide backlash. We’ve had it before. Just not when we weren’t also completely wrecked by other things.”

“Speak for yourself,” Kit said.

“I am. As usual. …But you know what I really want before I crash?”

“Tell me,” Kit said, as they walked around toward the protected transport area.

“Pointlessly crunchy chocolate cereal with no nutritive value.”

“Go for it. All I want is some saltines.”

“Why did I know you were going to say that? Never mind. Let’s go.”

Kit had almost forgotten how good it felt to be free to do a beam-me-up spell. Moments later they popped out in Nita’s favored landing spot out in the sassafras-shielded part of her back yard. Within a few minutes after that Nita was having her cereal in a house that was blessedly quiet, as her pop was at work and Dairine wasn’t back yet. Kit waited only long enough to see that she was sitting down, as he could tell she was fading already.

“My folks are waiting,” Kit said. “I should go.”

“Oh God,” Nita moaned, dropping her head onto the table beside the cereal bowl. “Tomorrow really is a school day. I hate this!

“Yeah,” Kit said. “Look, you really are wrecked. So am I.” He reached out and rubbed her arm. “See you tomorrow morning?”

“Yeah.”

***

 

Kit walked home and found his mama and pop standing in the kitchen, looking expectantly at the back door. Kit looked at them blearily. It’s so weird, he thought. It feels like I left them standing here a hundred years ago…

“Twenty minutes,” his pop said. “You’re late.”

“Give me a break! I walked over from Nita’s.”

His pop smiled. “Ever the gentleman. How’re you feeling?”

“Wrecked.” Because there still wasn’t a better word for it. “You got the texts?”

“Yeah. Still reading them, actually…”



His mama was looking at him curiously. “I don’t know, Juan,” she said, looking thoughtfully at Kit. “But it looks like someone’s filled out a bit. What’ve you been eating?”

Kit thought it would probably be better not to get into the cheese-in-a-can too much. They were going to have enough to say about all the saltines. “Vegetables,” Kit said.

His mama’s eyebrows went up, and she stepped forward and put the back of her hand against his forehead for a moment, then reached down to take Kit’s pulse.

Kit laughed and pushed her away. “Mama!”

“Just checking,” said his mother.

Kit grinned, then yawned. It was all hitting him at once. “Gonna crash,” he said. “Make sure I don’t miss the alarm in the morning?”

“I’ll make sure,” his mama said, and kissed him. “See you in the morning, sweetie.”

Out she went, the door shutting behind her: moments later the car started and she was gone, off to work. Kit stood there wobbling slightly as he got his coat off and tossed it over one of the dining room chairs. “So,” his pop said, scrolling down through the texts, “world saved as planned?”

“Not as planned,” Kit said. “Absolutely not. But saved? Yeah.”

“Good,” Kit’s pop said, “because it’s hard to tell from some of these. This one has a lot to do with marshmallows.”

“Oh.” Kit started laughing again. “Yeah, they were kind of a problem that night. Was that Friday? Saturday? I can’t remember.”

“I don’t know,” his pop said, “it’s got all these JD numbers over it...”

“I’ll give you a better timeline tomorrow,” Kit said. “There’s all this paperwork they’re going to make me do. They make you write it all up when you save the world…”

“Such a nuisance,” Kit’s Popi said, and came over and gave him a hug. “Go on, get some sleep, you look like you need it.”

“Yeah,” Kit said, able to summon up at least enough energy to hug his pop back. Then he hauled himself up the stairs to his room.

He paused in the doorway, looking at everything. As so often happened after spending a lot of time away in a new place, everything familiar also looked somehow small and strange. And the knitted-rag rug by the bed was still empty. Yet at the same time… not so empty: Ponch’s presence still made itself very much felt even though his physicality might be absent.

Or not so absent, some places. Tentacles! “You goofy mutt,” Kit said. “What am I going to do with you?…”

Kit shuffled in and stood for a moment looking at his desk with vague disgust—the math books and notebooks still scattered across it where he’d left them, a hundred years ago. Dammit, Kit thought, calculus still exists. But that was a problem for another day. And now I have to make my bed.

He turned, prepared to throw the portal against his closet door and go in and fish his blanket out. But then he realized he was already staring at a bed all made up with blankets and sheets. I have the best mama in the world, he thought. Any world. Oh God I’m wrecked.

He fell onto the bed face first, arms spread, reveling in the marvelous smell of sheets and pillowcases and blankets and in not having to move.

“Better get some rest,” Carmela said from down the hall in her room, “because you have to start studying for your test again tomorrow.”

“I hate you,” Kit said. “I completely forgot about calculus for almost a week. It was wonderful.”

“It’s still there, though,” Carmela said from the hallway.

“Yes. And so are you. Better if you didn’t remind me.”

“Better if you were nicer to me,” Carmela said, sticking her head in the door, “or when I’m a wealthy cocoa smuggler I won’t buy you your own starship.”

“Who needs a starship when we’ve got worldgates?” Kit said, not looking up. “The technology’s way inferior.”

“Snobby,” Carmela said. “Starships are cool.” She trotted down the stairs.

Kit turned his head. “Only if you can afford to pay the crew!” he shouted after her. But a moment later the back door banged shut.

Kit turned to go face-forward into the pillow again, inhaled from the pillowcase the smell of the fabric softener his mama favored for the laundry, and instantly fell asleep.

***

 

In the middle of that nap, it struck him as not even slightly surprising that Ponch was lying on the bed with him. They’d been having a conversation for some while, but at the moment Kit couldn’t remember how it had started.

“Timeheart’s such an echo chamber, though,” Ponch said. He was lying with his hind legs splayed out to one side underneath him, his nose propped on Kit’s shoulder. “The more central it gets, the more connected everybody is. The Powers work in and out of each other all the time, the One works in and out of all Its avatars… Anything can get heard. And because the Lone Power is still a Power, It can still hear some things too. That ability can’t be removed from It. Once given, gods can’t take back their gifts.”

“Mmm, kind of a problem.”

“Yes. And sometimes things are delicate; sometimes they have to happen just so, if they’re going to happen at all. It’s like stalking a squirrel. You twitch at the wrong moment and they see you, next moment they’re up a tree and it’s all over…”

“So sometimes you have to whisper.”

“Yes. But I knew you’d hear me,” Ponch said. “You always did. You hear me even better now.”

“Sometimes, anyway.”

“Oh, most of the time,” Ponch said. “Sometimes, like this, it’s important. I knew you’d get it. You were always smart; if I got smart, it was because of you. So this went real well.”

“I hated running out of saltines,” Kit said. “But somehow I knew that was you.”

“And you gave them all away,” Ponch said, nuzzling him. “So typical. Whatever I know about sacrifice, I learned from you.”

“Well, okay, that’s good.” He reached up to scratch Ponch behind the ears. “But now there’s a whole species of creatures crazy about saltines and living in a world where there aren’t any. You’re gonna have to do something about that.”

“Always thinking of everybody else,” Ponch said. “Leave that with me. I’ll take care of it. You get some sleep.”

So Kit did.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TWELVE:

 


Date: 2015-12-24; view: 586


<== previous page | next page ==>
Cephei IV / Tevaral 15 page | February 14, 2011: Tevaral
doclecture.net - lectures - 2014-2024 year. Copyright infringement or personal data (0.007 sec.)