“My colleague Spot,” Dairine said.
Spot trained some eyes on Dori and then did a kind of squat on all his legs, his approximation of a bow or curtsy. “Charmed,” he said out loud.
Mehrnaz’s mama beamed at him too. “And aren’t you handsome,” she said, admiring the stark matte black of his carapace and the Biteless Apple glowing on his lid. “Wouldn’t you like something like that, Mehrnaz? Or someone, I should say!” And Dori giggled. It was a funny sound coming out of a woman her age, but cute in its way.
Mehrnaz threw a slightly apologetic look at Dairine and said, “He’s a one-off, Mama; Spot is unique. A being and a manual.”
“That’s so wonderful,” Dori said. “And how marvelous that he should come here! Come now, let’s have some of this lovely tea.”
That was the way things went for a while. Everything was lovely, or gorgeous, or wonderful, or so tremendous, or very exciting—that was the Invitational—and so on, endlessly. Dairine was beginning to wonder if it was possible for Dori to run out of superlatives, especially at the speed with which she spoke. Assessments and opinions fired out of her as if out of a machine gun. A very sweet machine gun, Dairine thought. But it’s like she thinks that if she talks fast enough, and doesn’t stop, she can keep everyone else from saying anything she doesn’t want to hear . . .
“. . . and this is all so exciting—would you like another biscuit? Try one of these pink ones, they’re lovely—but of course you know we would have had some concerns about Mehrnaz taking part, very general ones of course. It’s not exactly that we have any worries about her—”
Yes it is exactly, Dairine found herself thinking.
“—she’s been very strictly brought up, she always knows the right thing to do, but she’s led, well, something of a sheltered life here and of course even though there are so many wizards in our own family, she hasn’t got out that much into the wider community . . .”
And why’s that, I wonder? For the moment Dairine kept on smiling and nodding through the stream of chatter, occasionally making useful or encouraging neutral noises. But something about the way Dori’s monologue had started was bringing a submerged part of Dairine’s mind to an alert state.
All kinds of things routinely came up for discussion while she was doing her stellar management training with Nelaid. Some of these issues Dairine hadn’t mentioned to her dad, as she didn’t know how far down that road Nelaid had gone with him yet—notably the ones revolving around how, in a place like Wellakh, where a planet’s people were in an uneasy and ambivalent relationship with the wizards they’d chosen to lead them, life wasn’t necessarily always safe.
So much of what people say is coded, Nelaid had told her one evening while they leaned on that high baluster before Dairine went home at the end of the day’s work. They know what they mean, but unless in great danger or stress will not say it to you straightforwardly. People will couch their meaning in such a manner that you will never be able to say to them, when their truth is finally revealed, ‘You never told me that.’ They will be able to say, ‘But I did tell you, just not in so many words! I can’t believe you didn’t understand what I was talking about!’ And in their own eyes they will be blameless, while you are not. So always look for the code to see what it is truly saying. It will always be there.
Now, as she kept on nodding and held her cup out to have more tea poured for her, Dairine was realizing that nearly every word that came out of Mehrnaz’s mother’s mouth meant something else. And what it’s all about is that she’s not sure that I’m a safe person to take her baby away. She wants me to prove that I am!
Dairine’s initial urge was to take offense . . . but she caught Mehrnaz looking at her with a pleading expression that said Don’t, please don’t, I’m so sorry . . . ! So Dairine took another drink of her tea, and when Dori did too—as even for a wizard it was a challenge to talk while drinking—Dairine said, “You must be so proud! To be invited to one of these is a compliment from the Powers. To Mehrnaz and to you.”
“It is, isn’t it? Though naturally we only agreed to let her go along to this event with the understanding that she’d be very careful not to get in trouble somehow . . .”
The very slight emphasis on the word trouble was the giveway. It was amazing how once you’d kicked yourself into this mode of thinking, you started seeing what someone truly meant underneath the verbal output, as if there were subtitles. Trouble? No. Danger. From being alone in an unfamiliar place. Probably because of being a girl. Cultural stuff too. Ethnic? Religious? Hard to tell—
“—and though we have the greatest confidence in her—”
No you don’t. In fact, for some reason, you’ve got none whatsoever. What’s that about?
“—and of course she’s been properly brought up and knows exactly how to take care of herself—”
When she’s locked up safe in the house where nothing bad can happen.
“—we wouldn’t want her to get in any difficulty—”
Because you’re absolutely sure that she will, somehow.
“—or make any problems of any kind for anybody—”
Because you have absolutely no idea what she might get up to, and you’re terrified to let her out of your sight.
“—and make sure she has all the help she needs when she’s away in a strange place!”
God, poor Mehrnaz, I bet you have to put up with this all day when you’re by yourself with her. You must be about ready to chew through the walls!
At this point Dori stopped for breath long enough for Mehrnaz, who was fidgeting where she sat, to manage to say, “Mama, seriously, everything’s going to be fine! There’s nothing whatsoever to worry about.”
“Well, let’s be reasonable, dear—”
Dairine held her face very still, as in her experience any time a conversation with a parent included the phrase “let’s be reasonable,” it usually indicated they were about to stop being that way.
“—it is after all an unfamiliar city, and there are all kinds of people running about with their own agendas, and if you’re someplace where you can’t find help quickly if you need it, or a way to leave when you’re with people you don’t know . . .”
“But Dori, you do know from the orientation pack that the whole Invitational venue has manual visioning access,” Dairine said, copying her own mom’s inimitable calm-yourself-down tone of voice and phrasing. It was very reassuring, and very grown-up, and implied that anyone who was wasting time being concerned about this was silly—but it did it in the kindest sort of way. “The system will help you have a look at Mehrnaz anytime you like.” At least, any time when she’s told the system that she doesn’t mind being surveilled. “And it’s not like it’s exactly a private space. They’re holding the spell presentation and evaluation event in the big convention center over by the river. The Javits Center, it’s called.”
Dori looked astonished. Which tells me that you didn’t read the orientation pack very closely. Or at all. Either you couldn’t be bothered, or for some reason you didn’t think she was going to go. “But my goodness,” Dori said, “how can they possibly do that? Surely there’d be a dreadful commotion if nonwizards could walk right in there and see wizardry happening!”