But then she sagged a little. “At least I think I can,” she said. “Because sometimes I get so tired . . .”
“Come on,” Dairine said. “For a while, anyway, let’s go relax someplace where nobody’s going to beat you up.”
14
Canberra: The Post-Semis Mixer
THERE WAS A MIXER that night in one of the bigger function rooms of the convention center, and it spilled out onto yet another of the terraces facing the lake. At least a few hundred people were there: wizards and their guests, people who’d fallen out of the first round but were continuing to follow the event, or others who were attending for the first time because things were getting more exciting.
Possibly the most relaxed people were the forty or so contestants who headed the deselected in this stage. Bigger and slightly more ornate deselection tokens had been handed out—they glowed silver—and some discreet trading was going on. Some of it was less discreet: Nita could see that the poker group had once again convened over in one of the corners, and a pile of blue- and green-glowing tokens from the previous round now had some sparks of silver in it.
Not quite so relaxed, of course, were the five finalists. Nita stood there shaking her head once more in amazement that Penn had managed to make it through. It was hard to reconcile the trembling, freaked-out guy she had nearly had to shove into the judging room with the judges’ brief assessment, published at the end of the round, of “a promising and generally well-constructed wizardry presented with some style and élan by a forthright and well-spoken contestant.” They must have really seen something there, though, Nita thought. I guess all that work that Kit and Dair and I did has paid off. But after this, it’s all up to him. And the spell . . .
Penn had recovered enough to be laughing and joking and showboating around the room the way he had on the night of the first round, swanning out onto the dance floor to bump and grind and boogie with anyone who would hold still long enough to let him get close. Nita noticed with some amusement that he was doing a lot better at finding dance partners as a finalist than he had as a survivor of the first round. Well, maybe that’ll keep him out of trouble for a while.
As for Mehrnaz, maybe she preferred not to dance, and as Nita looked around, she didn’t see her at all. Two of the three other finalists were standing by one of the food and drink tables, deep in conversation. Wonder if we’ve got a little something else besides competition going on there, Nita thought. One of the pair, a handsome, dark, broad-featured Finnish guy whose first name was Joona and whose second name had so many vowels that Nita had stopped trying to say it after the fourth or fifth attempt, was laughing as he drank some kind of near-beer, and was gazing out at the room as if he still couldn’t quite believe what had happened to him. The other one, a tall, willowy Indonesian girl named Susila Pertiwi, was drinking coconut water on the rocks and talking quietly to Joona between fits of laughter. This intrigued Nita, as both their projects had been highly involved and detailed—Susila’s having to do with microgravity management framed as a technology that conventional scientists would be able to “stumble across” in decades to come, and Joona’s involving the rerouting of cold water currents in the Atlantic to rejuvenate the Gulf Stream and heal the somewhat damaged southern Atlantic “heat-pump engine” that maintained healthy ocean temperatures but had recently been suffering on account of climate change.
Right now, though, the two of them seemed mostly occupied with making eyes at each other. Nita thought it was very cute. She hoped the fifth finalist, an Iowan guy whose name she thought was Maxwell and whose project she couldn’t remember for the life of her, was having as good a time.
“Yeah,” said a familiar voice in her ear, “they’re a real pair of lovebirds, aren’t they?”
Nita snickered at Carmela’s whisper. “Wondered when you’d get here,” she said. “I thought you’d decided to take another shopping day.”
“Woman does not live by shopping alone,” Carmela said. “Sometimes the excitement is elsewhere.”
The first sentiment struck Nita as ridiculous coming from Carmela, and she was opening her mouth to say so when she saw a slim, tall, dark-haired figure in black jeans and black T-shirt weaving through the crowd toward them with a dark drink in one hand. “Aha,” Nita said. “Might’ve known.”
“And what are you two plotting and planning?” Ronan said as he eased up to them, walking carefully to spare his pint of Guinness.
“The fall of empires, the destruction of civilization as we know it, the usual,” Nita said. “When did you get in?”
“Oh, just now. I was about to go to bed when suddenly the idea came to me, ‘Why don’t I transit halfway around the planet and completely screw up my internal scheduling for no particular reason?’” He took a solicitous slurp through the head of his pint and paused to wipe away the mustache.
“Well, I don’t care about the reasons. It’s nice you could make it.”
“And why wouldn’t I come? Seeing as somehow both you and Kit have managed to come out winners in this thing.”
Nita shook her head. “We’re not winners yet . . .” She swallowed. It was silly to think about things like jinxes; they didn’t exist. Still, she didn’t want to talk about the possibilities too much just yet.
“All the same,” Ronan said. “Thought I’d see you guys before the real stress begins.”
“And speaking of stress, what have you done to your head?” For Ronan had developed a bold silver-white streak springing from his part in the front.
“Took all the white hairs this one’s giving me and put them in one place,” Ronan said, flicking his gaze toward Carmela.
“I’m missing something,” Nita said.
“He’s going in with me on a trading venture,” said Carmela.
Ronan waggled his eyebrows at Nita. “Chocolate.”
“Oh God,” Nita said. Chocolate was unique to Earth, and fulfilled numerous roles among a multitude of alien species: currency, drug, priceless collectible, aphrodisiac . . . The sudden image of Ronan and Carmela as some kind of Han Solo and Princess Leia, transiting stealthily from one star system to another with cargoes of contraband cocoa, suddenly sank itself into her brain. “Maybe,” Nita said, “the less I know about this the better. Listen, have you seen Dairine?”
Carmela pointed over her shoulder to another table at the far end of the room. “She was after an iced coffee or something.”
“Okay. You going to be here for a while?”
“Till closing time. I’m looking to add some partners.”
“I’ll catch you later, then.”
She headed over to where Dairine was pouring cream into a tall glass of coffee and ice. “Feeling the strain, Dair?”
Her sister sighed. “It’s either this or those energy drinks, and they all taste awful. You okay?”
Nita nodded. “Not too bad.”
Off to the side, someone in the circle of guys and girls in the nearest corner said in a broad Aussie accent, “Dealer’s choice. Five card stud . . .”
It was Matt. “I’m in.”
“James, you’re always in. A veritable rock of innocence in a suspicious world.”
“Stop buttering him up, Matt. I’m in too.”
“Sarah! Good woman, you. Lesser beings have refused to come back for another round after such punishment.”
A tall blond lady slipped into the circle and got herself comfortable. “Hey, wait for me, Matt!”