wall of dust. The Speech-symbols under Mamvish’s hide blazed as she reinforced her shield-spell, but she didn’t otherwise move. Then the whirlwind of dust blew right over them.
For a moment they were caught right in the center of the vortex. The hiss became deafening. Kit, standing there with the superegg in his hands, tilted his head back and found himself looking up at a view that even few wizards would ever have seen—the dark golden radiance of the Martian noontime sky, but just a circle of it, completely walled around by the upward-widening, brick-colored cone of a dust devil’s heart. The breath went out of him in wonder. But he was feeling something else as well, and couldn’t understand where it was coming from. I’ve seen this before! But that’s crazy. Where could I ever have seen this?
The moment passed as the dust devil did. A second later it was behind them, wobbling away across the Martian landscape again. Mamvish’s wizardry released them, and they all turned to watch it go.
“What a mess,” Carmela said. Kit had to admit that she had a point. The outcropping and the ground around it, which had been fairly clean after the dune had been blown back, were now almost entirely buried in the finest possible brown-red dust. Much more of it was piled nearly ten feet up the face of the black dune. Darryl whistled softly. Irina, the air around her hands gone quiet again now, clucked softly to her parakeet, which had taken to the air. It flew back to her, sat on her head, and shook its feathers out, raising a small red dust cloud of its own.
“Well,” Mamvish said, looking after the dust devil as it wandered away toward the horizon, “that was unusual...”
“You really think so?” Irina said. “You’ll be telling me you believe in coincidences next.”
Mamvish tilted an eye back toward Irina. “Not as such,” she said, “of course not. It’s safe to say that we’ve been noticed. But by what?”
“The planet?” Ronan said.
Irina threw a thoughtful look at him. “If Mars had a Planetary, we could ask him, her, or it,” she said, “but it doesn’t.” She sighed. “One more mystery.”
“Best we take them one at a time,” Mamvish said.
Kit hefted the superegg, which was getting heavy. “Let’s start with this one,” he said. “What do we do with it?”
“Well, we’ll have to keep trying to find a way to get it open,” Mamvish said. “Bottles like these usually lead to more of the same: the more of them you can open, the more you can find out about the species that left them for you, and why they left them. Some of them are just memorials. Some are cries for help. And some species foresee their own demise and leave you information about how they tried to stop it. If you can make sense of those, you can start working on a way to bring them back.”
“Assuming,” Irina said, giving Mamvish a wry look, “that bringing them back is a good idea.”
“Well, of course!” Mamvish said. “It’s not a course of action anyone rushes into. You need a lot of information before you reconstitute a lost species. Some of them are lost for good reasons. And you have to think about the effects of a reconstitution on the nearby planets.” She looked at Kit and the others. “Your world’s now technologically of an age to notice what’s happening here. If a new species suddenly turned up here, humans would be asking why.”
“They’d be doing a lot more than that!” Ronan said. “They’d be going completely spare.”
“Whether aliens would be reconstituted here is an entirely different question,” Mamvish said, waving her tail. “We’ve got a big galaxy, and plenty of completely uninhabited systems with suitable planets. Relocation is always a possibility. But that’s a question for later in the process.”
“Which you’ll need to continue without me, unfortunately,” Irina said, “as I need to get back to what I was doing at home. Let me know how you do with your
For a moment they were caught right in the center of the vortex. The hiss became deafening. Kit, standing there with the superegg in his hands, tilted his head back and found himself looking up at a view that even few wizards would ever have seen—the dark golden radiance of the Martian noontime sky, but just a circle of it, completely walled around by the upward-widening, brick-colored cone of a dust devil’s heart. The breath went out of him in wonder. But he was feeling something else as well, and couldn’t understand where it was coming from. I’ve seen this before! But that’s crazy. Where could I ever have seen this?
The moment passed as the dust devil did. A second later it was behind them, wobbling away across the Martian landscape again. Mamvish’s wizardry released them, and they all turned to watch it go.
“What a mess,” Carmela said. Kit had to admit that she had a point. The outcropping and the ground around it, which had been fairly clean after the dune had been blown back, were now almost entirely buried in the finest possible brown-red dust. Much more of it was piled nearly ten feet up the face of the black dune. Darryl whistled softly. Irina, the air around her hands gone quiet again now, clucked softly to her parakeet, which had taken to the air. It flew back to her, sat on her head, and shook its feathers out, raising a small red dust cloud of its own.
“Well,” Mamvish said, looking after the dust devil as it wandered away toward the horizon, “that was unusual...”
“You really think so?” Irina said. “You’ll be telling me you believe in coincidences next.”
Mamvish tilted an eye back toward Irina. “Not as such,” she said, “of course not. It’s safe to say that we’ve been noticed. But by what?”
“The planet?” Ronan said.
Irina threw a thoughtful look at him. “If Mars had a Planetary, we could ask him, her, or it,” she said, “but it doesn’t.” She sighed. “One more mystery.”
“Best we take them one at a time,” Mamvish said.
Kit hefted the superegg, which was getting heavy. “Let’s start with this one,” he said. “What do we do with it?”
“Well, we’ll have to keep trying to find a way to get it open,” Mamvish said. “Bottles like these usually lead to more of the same: the more of them you can open, the more you can find out about the species that left them for you, and why they left them. Some of them are just memorials. Some are cries for help. And some species foresee their own demise and leave you information about how they tried to stop it. If you can make sense of those, you can start working on a way to bring them back.”
“Assuming,” Irina said, giving Mamvish a wry look, “that bringing them back is a good idea.”
“Well, of course!” Mamvish said. “It’s not a course of action anyone rushes into. You need a lot of information before you reconstitute a lost species. Some of them are lost for good reasons. And you have to think about the effects of a reconstitution on the nearby planets.” She looked at Kit and the others. “Your world’s now technologically of an age to notice what’s happening here. If a new species suddenly turned up here, humans would be asking why.”
“They’d be doing a lot more than that!” Ronan said. “They’d be going completely spare.”
“Whether aliens would be reconstituted here is an entirely different question,” Mamvish said, waving her tail. “We’ve got a big galaxy, and plenty of completely uninhabited systems with suitable planets. Relocation is always a possibility. But that’s a question for later in the process.”
“Which you’ll need to continue without me, unfortunately,” Irina said, “as I need to get back to what I was doing at home. Let me know how you do with your
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