The blue box was partly overlapped by another one, in a lighter shade of blue. It contained the words:
For accurate and secure message storage and delivery, manual messaging functions require each party's manual to supply a coordinate based on the intersection between each wizard's personal description in the Speech and his present physical location in a given universe. Message dispatch and storage cannot be achieved when one or both addressees are in transit or experiencing transitory states between universes. Please remessage when the condition no longer obtains.
"Oh, well, I guess that's okay, then," Dairine said in astonishment heavily tinged with irony. She looked at Nita. "Another universe? That's normally not a transit you make without permission from seriously high up."
"Yeah," Nita said. She opened her manual again and paged through to where Kit's status report was.
Dairine hit a couple of keys; the monitor changed to show the same view. Under the listing for the water wizardry, Kit's status report said:
Present project: access-routine investigation and stabilization, training assignment with adjunct talent; situation presently in development. Detail reference: in abeyance due to possible Heisenberg-related effects; update expected c. Julian day 2451796.6.
"Adjunct?" Dairine muttered.
The thought went through Nita like a spear: He's working with someone else! At first it seemed ridiculous. But considering how I treated him... why shouldn't he want to work with other people? I've brought this on myself. Idiot! Idiot!
"Whatever else is going on," Dairine said, "the Powers That Be know about it. Look, here's an authorization code. They must have some way of keeping tabs on him if They've even got a projected update time in there. Point six... that's after dinner, I guess. Try again then."
Nita closed her manual, feeling slightly relieved. "Yeah..."
"But Neets, look," Dairine said, "if you're worried, why not just try to shoot him a thought? No matter what the manual's doing, it's not like your brain is broken."
"Unusual sentiment from you," Nita said.
Dairine's smile was slightly sardonic. "So maybe I'm mellowing in my old age," she said. There was more of an edge than usual on the expression, but Nita got the feeling it wasn't directed at her... for a change.
She sat down on the bed, pushing the area rug around with her feet. "Never mind. If he's in another universe, I doubt I've got the range to reach him."
"Probably you're right," Dairine said. "But that's not the reason you're not going to try, is it?"
Nita looked at her sister and found Dairine regarding her with an expression that actually could have been described as understanding. "You're afraid you're gonna find that he's shut you out on purpose," Dairine said, "and you couldn't stand it."
Nita didn't say anything. Dairine glanced away, looking at the computer, and hit a key to clear the screen. "Well...," Nita said at last, "lately it's been harder than usual to hear him thinking, anyway. And he's been having the same trouble with me."
There were things that that could mean for wizards, especially if they'd been working closely together for some time... and Nita knew Dairine understood the implications. "Neets," Dairine said at last, "if you're really that worried, you should take the chance, anyway. It's better than sitting here busting a gut."
"I hate it when you're right," Nita said finally.
"Which is always," Dairine said, "but never mind; I'm used to it by now." She went back to tapping at the keyboard.
Nita let out a long breath and closed her eyes.
Kit?
Nothing.
Kit? Where are you?!
Still nothing. Nita opened her eyes, as upset with herself, now, as with the situation. She must have sounded completely pitiful and helpless, if he'd heard her.
But I don't think he did. And that by itself was strange. Even when you called someone mind to mind and they refused contact, there was always a sense that they were still there. This time there was no such sense. And the manual, as Nita opened it once more to the page she'd marked, and looked at it again, still reported Kit as out there, doing
something...
"Nothing?" Dairine said.
"Not a refusal," Nita said, trying to keep relief out of her voice. "Just... nothing. Maybe he really is just out of range."
Dairine nodded. "Just have to wait till he gets back, then."
Nita sighed and headed downstairs. As she came into the dining room, she heard someone in the kitchen. Turning the corner, she saw that it was her mother, standing there by the counter and looking bleary as she drank a mug of tea and gazed out the window.
"Mom, you look pooped!" Nita said.
Her mother laughed. "I guess. Even after I went to bed last night I had numbers going around and around in my head... Took me a while to get to sleep. Never mind, I'll have a nap before dinner. Speaking of which, where has Kit been the past day or so?"
Nita tried to think of what to say. Her mother glanced at her, glanced away again. "Just so I can keep the leftovers from piling up," her mother said. "I just like to know when I'm supposed to be cooking for five. You think he might be along tonight?"
"I don't know for sure," Nita said. "I'll tell you when I find out."
"Okay. I'm going to the shop later, if you want me." Her mom had another drink of tea, then put the mug aside. "Some paperwork was missing from what your dad gave me yesterday, and I need to go root around in what he calls a filing system. Did we miss anything from shopping last night?"
"I think we need more milk."
"I think we need to buy your sister a cow," her mother said, and went off to get dressed.
Nita went up to her room to kill some time until she could reach Kit. It was annoying to be mad at someone, but it was even worse to discover that you were wrong to be mad at them, and worse yet not to be able to apologize to them and get it over with. I'm never gonna, make this mistake again!
Or at least I sure hope I won't... because it just hurts too much.
When Kit got over to Tom and Carl's place with Ponch, he wasn't surprised to find Tom already working —sitting out on the patio in jeans and T-shirt and a light jacket, typing away on his portable computer at the table next to the big square koi pond. "It's the only quiet time I get before the phone starts ringing," Tom said, letting Kit in the side gate. "Come on in, tell me what you found..."
Over a cup of tea, while Ponch sprawled under the table, Kit described what Ponch had been doing, and Tom looked at the "hard" report in his Senior's version of the manual, which was presently about the size of a phone book. Tom shook his head, turning over pages and reading what Kit could see even from across the table was a very abstruse analysis indeed, in very small print.
"This is a new one on me," he said at last. "I'll ask Carl to have a look later; the worldgating and timesliding end of things is more his specialty. But I'm not even sure that what Ponch is doing is either of those. And I can't find any close cognates to this kind of behavior in any other wizards' reports."
"Really?" Kit said. "How far does that go back?"
"All the way," Tom said absently. "Well, nearly. Some of the material before the first hundredth of a second of the life of this universe is a little sketchy. Privacy issues, possibly."
He shook his head and closed the book. "Kit, I'm not sure where you were. I'm not sure it can even be classified as a where, as a physical universe that, given the right geometries, can be described in terms of its direction and distance from other neighboring universes. Ponch's place might be another dimension, another continuum even, completely out of the local sheaf of universes. Or an entirely different state of being, not physical the way we understand it at all." He shrugged. "He's found something very unusual that's going to take some exploring before we begin to understand it. At least your whole experience is stored in the manual, and you'll want to add notes to it later. It'll help the other wizards who'll be starting analysis on it."