While there were any any number of more specific phrases you could use as a wizard on assignment and greeting nonwizardly people from astahfrith cultures, Kit saw the point of simplicity right now—specifically because after the emotional gutpunch he’d just received, he didn’t feel he was up to anything that complex. He just looked down into the big birdlike eyes of the little Tevaralti hanging onto him, and said, “Your friend here wanted to come home.”
The three parents-or-guardians were looking in astonishment at Kit and Ronan. “Honorable Interveners,” one of them said, “how do you come by our child’s sibik? We were in such pain for him, our child was in such pain, and— We’d thought in this great crowd the sibik had maybe come to harm, or, or been lost forever—”
With the Tevaralti’s glance toward the gates came a sudden sense of fear and distrust. Kit held himself still, not sure where this was coming from or what to do about it.
Fortunately Ronan showed no sign of being similarly affected. “We’re posted near here,” Ronan said, turning to gesture away back toward the ring of stones. “Our business is monitoring the gate complex to make sure it’s working correctly. And while we were doing that, your sibik found us—”
Kit restrained himself from adding And started eating us out of house and home. “And once we’d given him something to eat, he was able to start showing us the way back to where he belonged,” Kit said.
The little one who had Kit by the waist looked up at him again. They moult while they’re growing, these people, Kit thought, seeing feathers still in their narrow cylindrical casings scattered all through the downier feathers they were replacing on the youngster’s head and shoulders. Under his feather-coat the little boy was thin and gangly, and Kit found himself thinking back to when he was small and skinny and getting picked on a lot, and Ponch was the only friend he had—before wizardry, before Nita, before any of the other people he knew now who accepted him for exactly what he was.
“Thank you for finding him,” the little boy said. “He was sad and he was hungry and I was afraid he might starve.”
“No, he seemed to have been doing all right,” Kit said. “Sibiks seem pretty good at finding food. In fact I may have overfed him a little.”
One of the eyes on the back of the sibik—all of them having been squeezed shut until now—opened and regarded Kit. “Cracker,” the sibik said.
“What’s ‘cracker’?” the little boy said.
“Something he’s not going to get any more of, I’d say,” Ronan said. “Special food from a planet two thousand light years away.”
The parents-or-guardians looked impressed. The little boy looked suspicious. “It won’t make him sick, will it?”
“No, it’s all right for him,” Kit said. “I checked.”
“And having said as much, we should probably get back,” Ronan said, “because our pet-feeding duties are strictly unofficial.”
“Interveners for the One,” the tallest of the three adult Tevaralti said, “we’re deeply in your debt. Thank you for being so kind, for helping our child!”
Kit nodded to them as the youngster unwound himself from him, and the sibik threw him one last glance, closed its single open eye, and cuddled down into the boy’s shoulder again. “It’s our pleasure, cousins,” he said. He was about to say “Go well,” but then it occurred to him that this was possibly not the best idea: these people weren’t going anywhere.
Ronan turned away: Kit started to follow him. But the Tevaralti beside the tall one, a fluffier-feathered one in a long netlike garment, reached out to stop him. “Intervener— I’m guessing you don’t understand what’s going on.” The voice was distressed. “You’ve come a long way to help, we know you have.”
“Uh, yes,” Kit said.
The shorter parent looked regretful. “We can’t go, though. It’s not right for us. These others of our people, they feel that it is right, right for them anyway. But it’s not how we feel. We have to be of one mind, and we’re not… We’re just not.” There was terrible sorrow layered under the words, and a sense that there was nothing to be done about the problem… and the cold frightened certainty that there wouldn’t be much longer for it to be a problem.
Kit could think of about a hundred things he wanted to say to that at the moment: but none of them were a wizard’s business to let out of his mouth in such a situation. Finally, “I’m sorry,” was all he could find to say. “But I hope everything works out all right for you.”
The three parents-or-guardians bowed their heads to him. Kit turned away, feeling forlorn, knowing the hope was an empty one. He caught a last glimpse of the little Tevaralti boy hugging his sibik to him as his parents shepherded him away: then they vanished into the crowd.
Kit and Ronan made their way out into the grassland again, toward where the stone circle stood up alone against the northern horizon like fingers reaching up from the ground into the twilight. It was some while before Ronan said anything, which suited Kit. He was feeling extremely unsettled.
“That’s the first explanation I’ve really heard about from any of those people about what’s going on with them,” Ronan muttered at last, “and maybe it’s just that my interplanetary people skills are shite, but I still don’t get it.”
Kit sighed. “Neither do I.”
They walked on into the growing twilight. Inside the stone circle ahead of them, a light came on, spilling shadows out across the grassland from the stones: Cheleb had brought out one of the electric campfires. “I guess they have to do what they think is right for them,” Ronan said. “But it doesn’t make it suck any less, from where I’m standing.”
Kit shook his head. “Nope.”
They reached the circle of stones, and for a moment Kit just put a hand out and leaned on the nearest one, breathing out. He suddenly felt very tired in a way that didn’t have anything to do with a full day of gate monitoring.
“You sure you’re all right now?” Ronan said. “You really took a hit of some kind back there.”
“Yeah,” Kit said. “But I’m okay. I think I was just picking up something from the sibik because I was holding it. It was really glad to be back…”
“I got that feeling,” Ronan said, grabbing Kit by the shoulder and shaking him. “You make sure you’re all right now, yeah? Get some food in you tonight instead of feeding it to every bloody octopus that comes along.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that,” Kit said. “Gonna stay for the video portion of the evening?”
“No, gotta go,” Ronan said, “I’m taking an extra shift this evening: my daytime shiftmate gave me some extra time to come over here and I’ve got to get back there now. He has to take some time off.” Ronan looked over his shoulder. “All this has been getting to him. I can see why.”
“Yeah,” Kit said. “Okay. Look, text me later if you feel— You know.”
“Like kicking somebody?” Ronan said, amused.
“Like dumping,” Kit said.
Ronan took a big breath, sighed it out. “Yeah,” he said. “Same from your end.”
Kit nodded. “Let’s see how it goes.”
Ronan lifted a hand, a slightly weary wave, and headed back for the short-transit pad. Kit watched him go, then turned inward to go sit on the Stone Throne with Cheleb and give him a more complete shift debriefing before finding some food that no tentacles would now be grabbing for.
***
A cheerful enough evening ensued, though under the circumstances it took a good while for Kit’s mind and mood to settle. At least part of this is blood sugar, he thought. After all, he hadn’t really had all that much of anything today but coffee and crackers and a croissant, and bearing in mind everything he’d been up to, that wasn’t much.