“Now then my lad, this is not for you,” Ronan said in the Speech, holding the burger higher. “In fact it’s probably not good for you. Come to think of it, it probably won’t even taste any good…”
“My shiftmates don’t seem to think that’s a problem for these guys,” Kit said, as the sibik kept climbing. “Omnivorous.” Which was also on his mind as he reached down to grab the creature, mindful of what Djam had said about being bitten. “And I’m not sure it’ll believe the part about it not tasting good. Come on, let go, little fella… come on!”
The sibik wiggled its upper body sideways enough to look at Kit with a few extra eyes, but it didn’t let go of Ronan’s leg; the tentacles wrapped around it just stretched, rubbery in their stubbornness. Ronan, meanwhile, had burst out laughing, which wasn’t helping matters, mostly because Kit felt like joining him. “No, now,” Kit said to the sibik, “come on, just let go…” He didn’t want to hurt the little thing, so he just kept pulling gently until he started to feel the tentacles give. “Yeah, that’s right, look, we’ll give you something later, okay, but you can’t… have… that!”
The sibik let go all at once and Kit staggered back a step or so, then turned to toss it as gently as he could a short ways off into the grass. “Here,” Kit said as the sibik stretched its head up out of the grass. He fished the remains of the half-saltine out of his pocket and tossed it in the sibik’s general direction. A breath of wind kicked the cracker off to one side and out of sight: the sibik instantly vanished into the grass after it.
Ronan was nearly doubled over laughing, though one hand was still holding the hamburger safely up out of range. “Okay, that’s me done for,” he said, straightening with difficulty as he tried to get control over his laughter. “I’ve lived to see you nearly vanquished in single combat with a tentacle monster!” He managed to take another bite of his hamburger and get it down his face before he doubled over again, waving the remaining third of a burger helplessly in the air. “Sweet Powers that Be, feck me, I’m writ off.”
Kit wasn’t sure what to make of this cryptic sentiment, but he was sure he wanted to check his manual again. “Come on,” he said, “be ‘writ off’ over here…” And he headed back to the throne rock.
It took no more than a glance down at the manual to tell Kit that the gates were perfectly fine. He plopped down on the seat of the throne and Ronan collapsed beside him, still wheezing for air. After a few moments spent alternating between gasping and finishing his burger, Ronan recovered himself enough for words. “So is there anything else living around here I ought to know about? Like, anything bigger? If it’s anything like Tentacle Boy there, I’d rather not run into the regional apex predator.” He finished the hamburger and rubbed his hands on his jeans. “…Boy? Or girl? Or what’s the closest approximation?”
“You’d have to ask him-her-or-it. Or Cheleb, if hae turns up while you’re still here,” Kit said. “Hae seems to be our team sex-and-gender specialist.”
“Do I even want to know more about that?” Ronan said. “Never mind, doubtless eventually I will whether I want to or not.”
Kit, who so far today hadn’t had even a bite of anything hot, gave Ronan an annoyed side-eye. “And while we’re looking for answers to burning questions, where exactly did you get a hamburger?”
Ronan gave him a superior look. “My puptent contains wonders the likes of which your tiny mind may never be able to grasp.”
“Okay, so that was some ready-made thing,” Kit said. “But it was hot.”
Ronan rolled his eyes. “Am I or am I not a wizard,” he said, “and am I or am I not capable of politely asking an object to speed up the rate at which its molecules are presently vibrating? And what the feck else do you conceive heat to be? I think your encounter with the Giant Tentacle Monster’s thrown you off your game. Care for one?”
Kit hesitated. “Only if you’re sure you can spare it.”
“Of course I can spare one, my tent’s full of the things. And as it just so happens…” He reached out one hand with a flourish, stuck it into the empty air—his own otherspace pocket—and came out with another, this one in a cellophane wrapper. “I keep extras on hand in case I run into somebody who’s worn out from wrestling with a just-released kraken.”
Kit gave him a look and took the burger, then started hastily juggling it between his hands, as Ronan had apparently put it into stasis still hot. “Never gonna hear the end of this, am I?”
“Not till there’s no more mileage to be got out of it,” Ronan said. “Eat up or it’ll get cold and the bun’ll go to rubber. Sad sort of end for something that’s come the guts of a kiloparsec to get here.”
Kit pulled off the wrapper and tucked into the burger. It wasn’t half bad: he was tempted to go get some more ketchup for it—there was already some in there, and a slightly soggy but acceptable pickle—and then decided not to bother and just concentrated on eating. Ronan leaned against the back of the throne rock and gazed around him with interest. “If you’re extra nice to me,” he said after a moment, “I’ll come back later and let you have a couple burritos. Not perfect, mind you, could use some more heat in them, but every now and then the Tesco justifies its continued existence.”
Kit’s eyebrows went up: the Tesco Ronan was referring to was a grocery chain. “Wait. Grocery stores in Ireland carry burritos?”
Ronan just laughed. “Seriously, where the feck do you imagine Ireland is, in the Oort Cloud somewhere? Why would we not have burritos when we have hamburgers? I worry about the state of your brains sometimes.”
“Okay, don’t rub it in…” Kit had another bite of the burger. “Anyway, thanks. This is good.”
“The sausage rolls are better,” Ronan said. “Got anything to drink?”
Kit threw a look at his manual to check the gate monitoring array. “Water, milk, cola,” he said. “Some Mountain Dew—”
Ronan looked at Kit as if he’d grown tentacles himself. “What in feck’s name is Mountain Dew?”
Kit grinned and vanished into his puptent.
A few minutes later Ronan was staring suspiciously at a can of it after having taken his first drink. “This has caffeine in it? You could fool me. Tastes like liquid Gummi Bears.”
Kit shrugged, not having a lot of experience with Gummi Bears to start with. “I’ll take your word for it,” he said, pulling the manual back over next to him as they sat with their backs against the throne rock. “Anyway… kind of surprising to see you here. Or anybody else, without more warning.” The language in the manual about doing private worldgating spells in this already-gate-crowded environment had been unusually stern.
Ronan had another drink, shook his head. “Naah, as long as you use the interveners-only pad transport system, it’s okay. It’s pretty low-power, and it’s natively shielded against interfering with the implanted mass-transport gates. Find out the gate address of where you want to go, have the manual input it into the transport pad, and bang, you’re there. Like that TV show but without the fancy water effects.”
Kit nodded. “Seen Neets?”
Ronan shook his head. “Knowledge said she’s very occupied. No point in going where you’re not going to be welcome. Or a distraction.” He uncrossed his legs, crossed them again into what was apparently a more comfortable configuration. “Looks like they stuck her onto one of the more active gates…”
“Yeah, she mentioned.”
Ronan chuckled. “Probably they mean to have her lose her temper with it and terrify it into submission.”
Kit wondered whether there might not be something to that concept. “What about Dairine?”
“Seems quiet where she is.” Ronan shrugged. “Though I haven’t been over there yet.” He sighed and looked around. “This place you’ve got, though… it’s nicer than anybody’s that I’ve seen so far. We should all come over here in our spare time and have a picnic.”