How? Sker’ret said anxiously. Filif’s nearly out of energy. I can’t retool the whole wizardry while we’re in here. We’ll never last! We’ve got to get out, or we’ll all—
No! Dairine gulped. There’s still one thing we can try. Spot!
Spot popped his lid up. We’re not going to lose anybody in my solar system, she said. Not on my watch!
Dhhairihn, Filif said, his needles all trembling, what are you—
I’m going to get him out of there, she said. And turned—
What in the Powers’ names are you doing? said a casual voice, infernally calm, intensely annoying.
He came walking up out of the Sun, the way someone would come walking up out of the water—occasionally slipping a little to one side or another, blown off kilter by the furious wind inside the Sun, but otherwise unhurt. And slowly the tachocline was beginning to calm.
Dairine looked at Roshaun as he ascended calmly and regally back into the wizardry and locked himself once more into the matrix.
We should get out of here as quickly as possible, he said, because there are about to be three or four CMEs in rapid succession, and anything in the solar atmosphere that’s not Sun is likely to be smashed like an egg within seconds. He looked over at the Rirhait. Sker’ret?
Sker’ret said one word. The second after that, they were standing in the incredible darkness of a backyard in suburban Nassau County, and the wizardry that had surrounded them flickered and went out.
Dairine staggered out of her place, snapping Spot shut and holding on to him, because if she didn’t she would do something else. She was ready to weep with terror and relief, and was intent on not doing so. She lurched toward Roshaun, who stood several paces away from her, and stopped.
“Why did you do that?” she shouted at him. Or at least it was meant to be a shout: Her throat seized up on her and it came out as more of a squeak.
Roshaun paused for several breaths. “Because I didn’t have to,” he said at last. And he said it in the Speech, so it was true.
But his eyes, which would not meet hers, told her that there was more to the matter than that.
Still breathing hard from what she’d been through, Dairine turned away and walked back to the house, slowly, and went into her room and shut the door. And only then did she allow herself, somewhat later, the very smallest smile.
Eventually, Dairine heard the others make their way down into the basement, seeking out their pup tents. She let them do it undisturbed. The morning would be soon enough for debriefings. We’ve had enough stress for one night, she thought to herself, as she got undressed and got into bed.
But she lay awake in the dark for a long time, considering the annoying economy of the Powers That Be, Who hate wasting anything. And none of this was an accident, she thought. They saw the trouble coming. And we were sent exactly what we needed to prevent a catastrophe.. exactly the right tools for the job. An
expert in solar dynamics. A tree who’s afraid of any fire but that one. And a fixer par excellence…All crazy people, all with nothing to lose because it’s not their world, not their star. And all personally committed beyond even their commitment to the Powers…
… because of knowing somebody here.
Dairine had no idea when she finally fell asleep. In the morning, the sunlight streaming in her window woke her up…and it was just normal sunlight, not something much more terrible. Spot sat on her desk with his lid open, showing her the SOHO satellite feed, which was showing three of the most spectacular CMEs anyone had ever seen, bubbling off the inward-rotating limb of the Sun in great splendor and fury. But they were decreasing in energy rather than increasing, and the speculation among the satellite people was that the Sun was in for some quiet times ahead.
She got up and dressed. And as for me, she thought, maybe some less quiet times.
Dairine grinned and went down to say good morning to the houseguests…to one of them in particular.
****
Epilogue Nita and Kit waited there a long while, in the darkness beyond atmosphere, to make sure everything was safe. But, finally, the lights in the sky died down, and there were no more of those fading cries of joy to be “heard,” no matter how they listened. Space’s own silence, briefly jarred out of its ancient composure, reasserted itself.
Come on, Nita said silently to Kit.
They transited back down to the planet’s surface and stood above the house by the sea, looking down at the thatched buildings, the warm lights still in the windows, the flying sheep in the pens, all gathered together; everything looked utterly normal, peaceful. Nita let out a long breath. Peaceful the place might be. But normal?
They heard nothing but a great silence. It was not merely a matter of sound, but of the effect of many minds that had been in that world but now were gone, gone off to do other business, to live other lives. They left behind them a world that was empty, and strangely innocent and clean: an old world made new.
Quietly, the two of them went down to the house and moved through it, looking around one last time. Kit blew out the lamps. Nita went out to the little outbuilding that had been their bedroom and undid the worldgates from the wall, collapsing them. Then, she didn’t know why, she folded up the coverlets they had been given and left each of them carefully at the foot of its bed.
Afterward Nita went outside, having packed up the pup tents and worldgates, and found Kit over by the pen, letting the ceiff go free. Ponch charged joyously into the pen one last time. The ceiff flew up in a storm of wings, honking, and Ponch chased them down the beach, well into the distance.
“They’ll be okay,” Kit said. “They were wild a long time before there were
any more sentient species here to take care of them.”
“I know,” Nita said.
They stood there, watching night fall on Alaalu. From Nita’s point of view, this was a world she would not be coming back to for a while. It was too full of memories, and too empty now by comparison. And some of the stuff I heard here, she thought, I’m going to be digesting for a while…
“I wouldn’t have missed it,” Kit said. “Not for anything.”
Nita nodded. “They’re okay, anyway,” she said.
Kit laughed softly. “Considerably more than okay,” he said. “Imagine it. Not needing bodies anymore. They’ve got a whole world of new worlds to get used to.”
The silence fell again, and in it there were no whispers, no voices except the most ancient one—the immemorial whisper of the tideless Alaalid sea, saying the single word it knew how to say, over and over again. “Come on,” Kit said. “We should get back and see how things are at home.”
“Yeah,” Nita said.
There was a pause while Kit yelled for Ponch, and Ponch came bouncing back along the beach. Is it time to go home?
“Yeah.”
Oh, hoy, Ponch barked, dog food again!
Kit threw Nita another of those looks that suggested he thought his dog was making fun of him. She rolled her eyes. If there was anything she knew about Ponch today, it was that she understood him even less than she thought she had the day before, but this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. “So how do we route this,” she said, “now that we’ve decommissioned the custom gates?”
Kit shrugged. “We still have return tickets for the Crossings in our manuals,” he said. “I guess we just go back to the drop-off point and call for pickup. After that, we route back home through Grand Central.”
And then he started to laugh.
Nita stared at him. Kit was laughing so hard that he had to lean against the rails of the fence. “What?” she said. “What is it?”
“Oh, jeez,” he said, and tried to speak, and then had to stop and give himself over to the laughing again. Nita rolled her eyes and leaned against the fence until he should get over it.
“Well?” she said.
“What Urruah said to us before we left,” Kit said, and started snickering.