Wizards At War

The calico koi gave her a morose look. “We’re talking to you, aren’t we?”

“Not a lot of future to predict at the moment, anyway,” said the marmalade koi. “Normally there are billions of branchings from one second to the next. Right now, though…”

“Everything’s started to look like mushroom clouds,” the mirror-scaled koi said.

Nita thought of her dream: of Della, brushing her hair aside. The news all sucks. She shivered in the chill. “But there’s something else,” she said. “It’s darker than usual on the far side of the Moon.”

“You saw that, too?” said the calico koi. “And the moon is no dream.’ Interesting.”

Nita swallowed. “Was it real?” she said. “Is that really going to happen?”

The koi all looked at her with eyes that were unusually unrevealing, even for fish. “Depends,” said the calico koi.

“On whether you can make it happen,” said the mirror-scaled koi.

“And whether it’s a good idea,” said the marmalade koi.

Nita grimaced. “And here I was thinking maybe it was you guys I really came back here to see,” she said. “A lot of help you are.”

“But we are,” said the calico koi. “We’re just not supposed to do it directly. That’s not part of being oracular. Our job is to make you think.”

“It takes some doing sometimes,” said the mirror-scale koi, its expression clearly scornful now.

Nita mulled that over. “So there’s still hope?”

“Always hope,” said the mirror-scaled koi. “But you can’t just sit there and stare at it. You have to do something with it.”

She nodded. “I wish there was something I could do for them.” Nita said, glancing back at the house.

The mirror-scaled koi looked at her with compassion. “Save the world,” it said. “And don’t get hung up on the details.”

“A world of dew,” said the mirror-scale koi,

“And within every dewdrop

A world of struggle.”

Nita nodded. She was learning to take her time with these utterances. They worked better if you let them unfold slowly than if you tried to crack them open like cracking a nut with a hammer. “I should get back,” she said. “You guys take care of yourselves.”

The fish bowed to her.

“And take care of them,” Nita said, looking back at the house.

“We’ll do what we can,” the mirror-scaled koi said. “But if anyone’s going to fix this, it’s going to have to be you.”

Nita nodded and got out her manual. A moment later, she was gone.

12: Regime Change

When Nita reappeared at the Crossings, she glanced around from the pad where she stood and was astonished. The whole place was crawling with giant centipedes—thousands upon thousands of Rirhait in blue, green, various shades of pink, and more shades of purple than she had known existed. At least, she thought, the place doesn’t feel as creepy anymore.

This far down the side corridor from which she’d originally departed, there wasn’t as much damage as there had been nearer the main intersection. Farther up the wide corridor, among the shattered shops and kiosks, some of the damage was being put right in what, for Rirhait, was a fairly straightforward way. They were eating it.

She headed up the corridor, and several Rirhait came flowing along toward Nita. They stopped in front of her, and one of them reared up about half of his body into the air in what Nita had come to recognize as a gesture of respect. “Emissary,” he said, “Sker’ret is waiting for you at the central control module.”

Nita nodded. “Thank you,” she said. “Please tell him I’ll be with him in a moment.”

They wreathed their eyes at her and flowed away. Nita headed after them, mulling as she went the things the koi had said to her. There was something about the structure of the second haiku that was puzzling her. Within every dewdrop, a world of struggle. It was going to take her a while to figure out what that meant. Not too long, I hope.

When she got down to the command center, she found it almost completely surrounded by bustling Rirhait. Not actually in the rack but within reach of it, Sker’ret was standing with his eyes pointing in many different directions, giving orders to the Rirhait all around him as fast as they presented themselves. As Nita approached, she saw one eye swivel in her direction. Spotting her, Sker’ret came flowing over to her, almost as if relieved to get away from the other Rirhait.

“Are your people at home all right?” he said.

Nita nodded as she came up by the control center, and leaned against the outer racking. “My dad’s okay,” she said, “but Tom and Carl—” She shook her head. “They’ve lost it.”

“Your Seniors!” Sker’ret looked at her in horror. “Mover’s Name, I didn’t think it could start happening so soon.”

“Just a check,” Nita said. “How long have I been gone?”