"Sounds about right."
"But Tom—" Kit was wondering how to phrase this. "That the dogs might be able to find things, that I can understand. But how can they findplaces? Because Ponch has started finding them."
There was quite a long pause. "That could be interesting," Tom said. "Has he taken you to any of these places?"
"Just once. Just now." "Are you all right?"
"Now I am. I think," Kit said, starting to shake again. "You sure?"
"Yeah," Kit said. "It's all right. It was just.. .nothing. No sound, no light or movement. But Ponch got in there, and he knew how to get out again. He got me out, in fact, because I couldn't do much of anything."
"That's interesting," Tom said. "Would you consider going there again?"
"Not right now!" Kit said. "But later on, yeah. I want to find out where that was! And how it happened."
"Well, pack animals do prefer to work in groups. From Ponch's point of view, you two probably constitute a small pack, and maybe that's why he's able to share his new talent with you. But until now, to the best of my knowledge, no wizard's found out exactly
where the dogs go to get the things they bring back, because no one's been able to go along. If you really want to follow up on this—"
"Yeah, I do."
"Then be careful. You should treat this as an unstable worldgating; you may not be able to get back the same way you left. Better check the manual for a tracing-and-homing spell to keep in place. And make sure you take enough air along. Even though Ponch seems unaffected after short jaunts, there's no guaranteeing that the two of you will stay that way if you linger." "Okay. Thanks."
"One other thing. I'd confine the wizardry to just the two of you."
Kit was silent for a moment. Then he said, "You're saying that I should leave Nita out of this..."
Tom paused, too. "Well, it's possible that the only one who's going to be safe with Ponch as you start investigating this will be you. The semisymbiotic relationship might be what got you out of your bad situation last time. You don't want to endanger anyone else until you're sure what's going on."
"Yeah, I guess so."
"But there's something else," Tom said. "I just had a look at the manual. Nita's assignment status has changed. It says, 'independent assignment, indeterminate period, subject confidential.' You know what that's about?"
"I have an idea," Kit said, though he was uncertain. "It sounds like she's chasing down something of her own," Tom said. "Usually when there's a formal status change like that, it's unwise to interrupt the other person unless you need their help on something critical to an ongoing project."
"Uh, yeah," Kit said. Now, how much does he know? "We just wound up a project, so nothing's going on." He felt guilty at the way he'd put that—but there were lots of things that "we" could mean.
"Okay. I saw the precis on that last one, though. Nice work; we'll see how it holds up. But as regards Ponch, let me know when you find something out. The manual will want an annotation from you on the subject, though it'll 'trap' the raw data as you go. And if you find anything in Ponch's behavior that has to do with more-normal worldgating, tell the gating team in New York—though the fact that a dog's involved is probably going to make them laugh, if it doesn't actually ruffle their fur..."
"So to speak. Okay, Tom. Thanks!"
"Right. Best to Nita." And Tom hung up, to the sound of more impatient barking. Ouch, Kit thought. The last few words made him hurt inside.
But he took a moment to get over it, then got up and went back into the kitchen to see about some spaghetti.
Friday Night
AFTER DINNER KIT WENT upstairs to his bedroom, pausing by the door to Carmela's room, at the sound of a faint hissing noise coming from inside. He knocked on the door.
"Come in!" his sister shouted.
Slightly surprised, Kit stuck his head in the door. His sister was lying on her bed, on her stomach, and the source of the hissing was the earphones she was wearing. On the TV, it looked as if a young boy in a down vest and baseball cap was being electrocuted by a long-tailed yellow teddy bear. "Oh," Kit said, now understanding why Carmela had shouted.
"What?" His sister pulled one of the earphones out.
"Nothing," Kit said. "I heard something going 'sssssssss' in here. Thought maybe it was your brains escaping."
His sister rolled her eyes.
"Isn't that kind of stuff a little below your age group?" Kit said.
Carmela ostentatiously put the earphone back in. "Not when you're using it to learn Japanese. Now go away."
Kit closed her door and, for once, did what she told him. Carmela was no more of a nuisance to Kit than she had to be at her age. She had even taken his wizardry pretty calmly, for an otherwise excitable fifteen-year-old, when Kit had told the family about it. After the shock wore off, "I always knew you were weird" had been Carmela's main response. Still, Kit kept an eye on her, and always put his manual away where she wouldn't find it; the thought of her turning into an older version of Dairine terrified him. Still, wizardry finds its way. If it's gonna, happen, there's no way I can stop it. His older sister, Helena, seemed safe from this fate, being too old for even late-onset wizardry. She had just left for her first year of college at Amherst, apparently relieved to get out of what she described as "a genuine madhouse." Kit loved her dearly but was also slightly (and guiltily) relieved to be seeing less of her, for she was the only member of the family who seemed to be trying to pretend that Kit's wizardry had never really happened.
Maybe she'll sort it out over the next year or so.
Meantime, I have other problems—
He pushed his door open and looked around at his room. It was a welter of bookshelves; the usual messy bed; a worktable, where he made models; the desk, where his ancient computer sat; and some rock posters, including one from a hilariously overcostumed and overmade-up metal group, which had been a present from Helena when she cleared out her room —"a souvenir," she'd said, "of a journey into the hopelessly retro."
Kit tossed his jacket onto the bed and plopped down into the desk chair, where he put out his hand and whistled for his manual. It dropped into his hand from the little pouch of otherspace where he kept it. Kit pushed the PC's keyboard to one side and opened the manual.
First he turned to the back page, the messaging area. There was nothing there, but he'd known there wouldn't be; he hadn't felt the "fizz" of notification when he picked up the manual. Then Kit paged backward to the active wizards' listing for the New York area. Yes, there it was, between CAILLEBERT, ARMINA, and CALLANIN, EOIN:
CALLAHANJuanitaL.
243 E. Clinton Avenue Hempstead, NY 11575 (516) 555-6786
power rating: 6.08 +/-.5 status: conditional active
independent assignment / research:
subject classification withheld period: indeterminate
Apparently the Powers had something planned for her... or were maybe just cutting her some slack.
Sounds like she can use it, too, Kit thought, feeling brief irritation again at the memory of the afternoon. Well, okay.
He paused and then flipped back to a spot a few pages after Nita's listing, running his finger down one column. There it was: RODRIGUEZ, CHRISTOPHER R. Address, phone number, power rating, status, last assignment, blah, blah, blah... . But there was something else after his listing.
Notes: adjunct talent in training
Kit sat back. Now what the heck does that mean?
He heard thumping on the stairs down the hall and glanced up in time to see Ponch hit his door, push it open, and wander in, waving his tail. The dog turned around a few times in the middle of the floor, then lay down with a thump.
Kit looked at him thoughtfully. Ponch banged his tail on the floor a few times, then yawned. "You tired, big guy?" Kit said, and then yawned as well. "Guess I am, too." "It's like chasing squirrels when I do what we did," Ponch said. "I want to sleep afterward." "I understand that, all right," Kit said. "Got a little while to talk?"