License to Ensorcell by Katharine Kerr

what no one knows,” I continued. “We do know that they only appear when the forces of Chaos are threatening the balance point to a dangerous degree. They showed up in America and Russia for the first time in the 1950s, when the U.S. and the Soviets were building atom bombs like crazy.”
    “The balance point?”
    “Between Chaos and Order. We live in Chaotic times, and so most people would think of me as an agent of anti-Chaos or Order. But really, I serve the balance, not either side, which makes me an agent for Harmony.”
    “Harmony is different from Order?”
    “It’s the product of Order and Chaos in balance.”
    I could tell that Nathan was actually thinking about what I was saying instead of searching for counterarguments, a trend I wanted to encourage.
    “Well, look,” I continued, “Too much Chaos, and things fall apart, like the poet said.”
    “‘The falcon cannot hear the falconer.’ That one?”
    “Yeah.” I was impressed despite myself. “But too much Order, and things stagnate like a silted river between narrow banks.”
    “I don’t know that poem.”
    “That’s because I just made that up.”
    “Not bad.” Nathan paused to consider something. “When I was put in contact with your agency, I was given a briefing about it, a very strange, very short briefing. I gather, though, that your Congress founded it back in the Fifties. Was that because of the flying saucer hysteria?”
    “That was part of the reason, yeah.” I wondered how much he’d been told. I didn’t want to give anything away. “The Air Force set up the first project, down in Palo Alto. That’s just south of here.”
    “And it grew from there?”
    “You could say that.”
    I smiled, he waited. Finally he looked into his mug, frowned, and set it down empty on the coffee table. “I’m really quite hungry. Do you think you might actually eat something if I pay for it?”
    “That has to be the worst dinner invitation I’ve ever gotten, but yeah, I’m hungry, too. One thing, though. Those pictures of Johnson. Are they here or in the office?”
    “Here, of course. I don’t leave things like that lying around.”
    “Bring them along. I want to show them to the stringer.”
    We ate at a local Chinese place decorated by someone who believed in a daily hosing down with Lysol—bare pale green walls, white tiled floor with an obvious drain in the middle, vinyl-covered chairs, Formica tables. They had at least covered the bare light bulbs with silk lanterns that dangled red tassels for a spot of color. The food, however, I’d always found to be first-rate. Whenever I took anyone there, I’d order a number of different dishes and then just sample them while the guests did the serious eating.
    When we walked in, Nathan stood looking narrow-eyed around the room. When a waiter tried to show us to a table in the middle of the room, he shook his head no.
    “Sorry,” Nathan said. “I’d like that table over there in the corner.” He gave me an apologetic smile. “I’m never comfortable unless I can keep my back toward the wall.”
    With a shrug the waiter led us to the chosen perch. He took my order, then trotted off to fetch the usual pot of tea.
    Nathan had never used chopsticks before, and he set himself to be charming when I tried to teach him over an order of tiger prawns. We laughed a lot, but when the waiter brought the lo mein, he also brought Nathan a fork. Nobody in the room wanted to see him covered in noodles and sauce, not while they were trying to eat. He’d kept his jacket on during the meal, too. It didn’t look washable.
    By the time we left the restaurant, the sun was setting off to the west, an orange glare behind the encroaching fog. Streetlights glimmered, waiting for full darkness. Shop windows and neon signs lit up in splashes of red and purple, glittering on the sidewalks damp from the fog. I love night in the city, cool, mysterious, jeweled with lights—I always feel that some magical thing