“Your whole family teases you,” Nita said. “I’ve never seen them get so coordinated about it before.”
“Neither have I,” Kit said. “I don’t know whether I should be worried or not.”
“This is new,” Nita said, looking up at a double-hemisphere map of the Moon on the wall at the head of Kit’s bed. The map had a lot of different-colored pins stuck in it, in both hemispheres, though there were about twice as many on the “near side” of the Moon as on the “far side.” “Are you trying to win a Visited Every Crater competition or something?”
Kit threw her a look. “Go ahead and laugh,” he said. “I’m trying to get to know the Moon before it becomes just another tourist destination.” But his attention was on his desk by the window.
It was covered with schoolbooks brought home over spring break (the school did locker cleaning then) and notebooks and pens. What it was not strewn with were the three objects that had just appeared, between one breath and the next, and were floating a few inches above the cluttered surface. They were silvery packages about
the size of paperback books, wrapped with “sheet” force fields that sizzled slightly blue at the corners; and they were bobbing slightly in the draft from the nearby window, as its weather stripping had come loose again. “When are you going to fix that?” Nita said.
“Later,” said Kit. He inspected the little floating packages to see if they had notations on them. One did. A single string of characters in the Speech was attached to it and was waving gently in the draft: read this first.
“Is this what you got?” Kit said.
Nita nodded. “That one’s the mission statement,” she said.
Kit took hold of the wizardly package, pulled it into the middle of the room, and pulled the string of characters out until the normally curved characters of the Speech went straight with the tension of the pull. As they did, the package unfolded itself in the air, a sheet of semishadow on which many more characters in the Speech swiftly spread themselves in blocks of text and columns, small illustrations and diagrams, and various live and still images. SPONSORED ELECTIVE/NONINTERVENTIONAL EXCURSUS PROGRAM , said the header, NOMINEE AUTHORIZATIONS AND ANCILLARY DATA. NOTE: WHERE CULTURAL CORRESPONDENCES ARE NOT EXACT, LOCAL ANALOGUES ARE SUBSTITUTED . Beneath the header, divided into various sections, was a tremendous amount of other information about the world where they’d be staying, the family they’d be staying with, the culture, the locality where the family lived, the planet’s history, the climate, the flora and fauna, on and on and on…
“It’s gonna take me all night to read this!” Kit said.
“Relax,” Nita said. “It’s not like there’s going to be a test or anything! You don’t have to inhale it all at once. We’ve got time for that.”
“Yeah,” Kit said. It was just beginning to sink in how very far from home they were going. Kit was delighted, and at the same time, all of a sudden it was making him twitch.
He scanned down the data. Addendum to authorization: You may be accompanied by your adjunct Talent if desired. “Hey,” Kit said, “I can bring Ponch!”
“Great! And there are the dates,” Nita said, pointing to one side where the duration of the trip was expressed, as usual on Earth, in Julian-day format— 2452747.3333 to 2452761.3333, it said. She had her manual out and was paging through it.
“It sounds close,” Kit said.
Nita raised her eyebrows. “No kidding,” she said. “That first date is tomorrow at three in the afternoon. I didn’t realize it was so soon!”
“You won’t hear me complaining,” Kit said. “What’s the other date?”
“Exactly two weeks later.”
“Just before school starts again,” Kit said. “Good thing I finished my break work early.”
Nita made a face. “I wish I had,” she said. “I’ve got a few reports to do…I’m going to have to bring them with me.” Then she grinned again. “Fortunately, that’s not a problem. See that one there, the big one?” She pointed at another of the
packages floating over the desk.
Kit went to it, brought it into the middle of the room, and pulled its “tag.” Instead of unfolding itself, the package rolled itself up tight into a narrow cylindrical shape, losing its “wrapping” in the process. There it hung in the air, a silvery rod about three feet long and half an inch wide.
“What is that?” he said.
“A pup tent,” Nita said. “Watch this—”
There was another of those little threads of words in the Speech hanging down from the middle of it. Nita pulled on the thread. As if it were a window shade, a pale sheet of shadow pulled down out of the rod.
“That’s really slick,” Kit said. “What’s it for? Shelter?”
“Storage,” Nita said, “for the things you need to bring with you. It’s a claudication, but it’s a lot bigger than our little pockets.” She finished pulling the access interface down to floor level and straightened up again.
“Hey,” Kit said, looking through the shadow. He put a hand through the shadow: The hand vanished. Then he put his head in through the access.
Inside was just a gray space about the size of Kit’s living room, with a ceiling about ten feet high. The space was softly illuminated by a light that came from nowhere. Through the walls of the “pup tent,” he could faintly see his own room. It was a good trick, because from the outside there was nothing to be seen but the rod and the rectangular doorway hanging down from it.
When he pulled his head out, Nita was snickering.
“You should see how you look when just your head vanishes,” she said.
Kit thought about that for a moment. “What did my neck look like?”
“A guillotine ad,” Nita said.
Kit raised his eyebrows. “My mama would probably be interested.”
“We can show her later. Anyway, clothes and books and things can go in there…”
“Some spare food?” Kit said. “In case you wake up in the middle of the night and need potato chips or something?”
Nita gave him a look that was only slightly dirty. Potato chips were a recent weakness of Nita’s, one that Kit had started actively teasing her about. “Yeah,” she said. “A case or so of those…and see if I give you any.”
Kit grinned. “Okay,” he said. “What’s that last one? Did you open yours?”
“Nope,” Nita said. “It says not to. In fact, it just about screams not to. Check it out.”
Kit picked up the last package. It, too, had a “tag” of characters in the Speech hanging from it, but as Kit started to pull on it, a little half-transparent window appeared in the air, like a floating page of the manual. Nita peered over his shoulder at it.
DANGER!—CUSTOM PORTABLE
WORLDGATING LOCUS—DANGER!
DO NOT IMPLEMENT WITHOUT
READING INSTRUCTIONS!
The display skipped a few lines and then went on, in the Speech:
DEPLOYMENT INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Before departure: Insert coordinates of desired “home” egress points into
compacted routine package, including at least two alternate points for each
primary point (for use should primary point be occupied).
2. Transport compacted routine package to relocation site. WARNING! DO
NOT attempt to deploy routine package before arrival at final relocation site.
Note that basic deployments cannot be reversed once exercised.
3. After arriving at relocation site, attach coordinate package to supplied
power conduit package, choose an appropriate locus for installation, 1 and
activate in the usual manner. 2
See main documentation for details regarding operation and decommissioning
at end of legitimacy period. NOT RATED FOR TRANSITS OF MORE
THAN 150,000 l.y.
1
See attached annotation for cultural and logistical considerations.
2
This installation requires a matter substrate. Do not install in areas where
matter state is likely to experience unpredictable shifts. Do not deploy in
vacuum or microgravity. Retroengineering this wizardry is not recommended
unless you are confident that you have sufficient understanding of gate
substrates, hyperstring structure and string tension relationships, matter-energy
polymorphism. Consult your local Advisory or gating technician for technical
assistance.