She waved her arms in the air, frustrated. “Sure, it’s about having fun, too—you’d have to be incredibly obtuse and clueless not to have fun being a wizard. And there are about a billion ways to do it! But this guy—” She shook her head. Much more quietly Dairine said, “I really don’t like him. And I really don’t like that I really don’t like him. The worst part is that I don’t have any reasons for it. He’s one of my own kind, a wizard, and he rubs me the wrong way.”
Her father sighed. “You know,” he said, “there’ve been people I’ve worked with, occasionally, over the years, that I’ve had the same problem with. And I’ve never known what to do about it.”
“Wait for them to go away?” Dairine said.
“Sometimes they do,” her dad said. “Sometimes you’re just stuck with them.”
Dairine sighed in turn. “Two weeks…”
“It’s only been a few hours,” her dad said. “Don’t give up yet. Things may improve.”
“From your mouth to the Powers’ ears,” Dairine muttered. But she found it hard to believe that Roshaun was going to shift his behavior in any way that would matter.
Her dad handed her the glass from the drainer. “Before I turn in—anything I should know about the downstairs?” her dad said.
“They’ve got a pup tent each,” Dairine said, “and they’re probably sleeping in them. So if you go down there, make sure you turn on the light so you don’t stumble into any place you don’t want to be. They’ve also got a worldgate each, fastened to the bare wall, in case they need to get home in a hurry for some emergency. I wouldn’t lean any of your tools against those…You might not get them back.”
Her dad nodded. “It’s strange,” he said, “hearing them speak. It sounds like English…but it runs deeper, somehow. You hear undertones.”
“That’s the Speech,” Dairine said. “Everything understands it somewhat. But you’re hearing it with better understanding than a nonspeaker usually gets.” She finished drying the glass, put it up on the counter. “If it starts to bother you…”
Her father shook his head. “I’ll let you know,” he said. “But no problems so far.” He finished with the last glass, handed it to Dairine, and leaned against the counter.
“So what are we going to do with them for two weeks?” her dad said. “Regardless of where Nita and Kit might be, it’s too cold for us to go to the beach…though you might take them out that way once to show them the sea. I get a feeling there aren’t many oceans where Filif comes from.”
“You’re getting to like him already,” Dairine said, and smiled.
“I’m not used to having the plants talk back,” her dad said. “Or, if they do, being able to understand them. It’s an experience.”
Dairine nodded. “Well, we can help them get used to suburban life gradually,” she said. “Carmela wants to come talk to the visitors, anyway. And once they’ve got their disguise routines sorted out, we can take them around the neighborhood, to start with. They can even go over to the Rodriguezes’ and see Kit’s weird TV. For all I know, they may be able to see some program they’re missing.”
Dairine’s dad chuckled at that. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s try to keep them out of sight until we’re sure their disguises are going to stay in place. I really don’t want a UFO scandal erupting on my doorstep.”
“I’ll take care of that,” Dairine said.
“Good,” her dad said. He had been washing the last couple of dishes; he racked them up in the drainer. “I’m going to turn in, sweetie. It’s been a long day.”
“Yeah.”
Her dad grabbed Dairine and hugged her hard. “A long day for you, too,” he said. “No, leave those last two. Throw in the towel and go to bed.”
Dairine hung up the dish towel, but not before tossing a last amused glance at the two dishes still in the drainer. “You’re just hoping that Sker’ret will wake up with an urge for something in the middle of the night…”
Her dad grinned at her and went to bed.
Dairine took herself to bed after him, first walking through the house and making sure that doors were locked and lights turned off. Once up in her room, the tiredness came down over her as if someone had put a sack over her head. She kept blinking to keep her eyes open. But before she got undressed for bed, before she even thought of doing anything else, she turned to Spot, who was sitting on her desk as usual, and flipped his lid open. “Do me a favor,” she said. “Get me Roshaun’s profile.”
It’s right here, Spot said.
Dairine looked at the profile, once again examining that picture of Roshaun. She knew she was imagining it, but on this examination, after meeting the original, that picture seemed to have something that had been missing before: just the slightest sneer.
She glanced down the column of material in the Speech that was the public part of Roshaun’s name. There, embedded in the long intertwined tracery of characters, would be information about his personality, his abilities, his power levels and level of accomplishment as a wizard, and much else. But now that she looked at it, there was something strange about that long series of names he flaunted around. Some family thing, she’d thought at first. But Dairine had suddenly started having doubts.
Dairine read Roshaun’s full name again, slowly, not as a phrase in an alien language this time, worth savoring for the exotic sounds, but this time translating each word. Roshaun ke Nelaid, it began: “Roshaun of the princes’ line of Seriv, son of the Sun Lord, beloved of the Sun Lord, son of the great King, descendant of the Inheritors of the Great Land, the Throne-destined—”
Dairine sat there at her desk and was appalled, realizing that Roshaun had actually given her the short version of his name. It went on for about six more epithets, which sounded impressive but were difficult to decipher, and ended in the words am me’stardet Wellakhir, “royal and kingly Masters, Guardians, and Guarantors of Wellakh.”
Oh my god, Dairine thought. The situation was worse than she’d thought it could possibly be. They’ve sent me some kind of planetary prince, she thought. The Powers That Be really did think I was getting out of hand, and this is my punishment. I’m going to get to spend two weeks’ worth of holiday baby-sitting spoiled royalty.
She tried to read the rest of Roshaun’s profile— “Power level 6.0-6.8 ± 0.5; Specialty: stellar dynamics, stellar atmospheres and kinetics, consultant level 3.6…”—but she couldn’t concentrate. Very gently she put Spot’s lid down. Normally, her next line would have been, What have I done to deserve this? But she knew what she had done. Boy, Dairine thought, when the Powers That Be get annoyed with you, they don’t play around. She put her face down in her hands and moaned.
Then she opened Spot’s lid again and looked one more time at that endless name. That by itself was bad…very bad. It was also full of reasons for Roshaun’s self-importance. Still, Dairine thought, it’s no excuse for him to be such a snot. Maybe we can do something about that, given enough time.
But there was something even stranger about the name—not anything
specifically bad…just odd. Not once in that whole epic string of words was the word wizard mentioned, not even as a footnote.
Now what am I supposed to make of that? Dairine thought. Because even if he was the king of a world somewhere, or in line to be one, if he was also a wizard, that fact was more than worthy of being mentioned in the same breath.
Dairine lay there and brooded over it for a while.
You’re worried about Roshaun, Spot said.
About him? No, Dairine said. But he raises questions.
Like how to avoid killing him, Spot said. And behind the words, Dairine could hear that very characteristic, machine-accented laugh of his. It was something Spot had learned from her. It was one of the first things Spot had learned from her.