How Lovely Are Thy Branches

by Diane Duane

  It was always a little interesting hugging Filif, as you wound up getting a face full of something that felt like pine needles, even though the scent more closely resembled something like cinnamon instead of the kind of cool, green smell you might associate with a conifer. “You are so well met,” Filif was saying, “what a fine surprise, but what are you two doing here without my knowing about it? I’d thought the Knowledge would have alerted me that you were within physical-meeting range.”

  “Might ask you the same question!” Nita said. The instrumentality that managed the wizards’ manuals (and the many other ways that the Art’s practitioners accessed spells and other wizardly data) would normally notify you, if you’d asked it, as to the presence in your physical neighborhood of other wizards with whom you’d worked. Nita had a good number of these alerts embedded in your manual, not least for those wizards who (however briefly) had lived in her basement. “Should’ve had a notifier go off.”

  “Well, I only just got here,” Filif said. “Just out of the gate, in fact. Maybe that’s the problem. Anyway, the Master and I have business—some Interconnect Project details to sort out: I’ve been doing liaison work for the Demisiv side of the Project Authority.” He rustled a little, half-turning as Nita let go of him (and Carmela did not), and all the eye-berries on the free side of him glowed a little brighter as he tried to peer through the crowd. “He must’ve been delayed—he was in some other meeting, and said it might keep him a bit late.”

  “Well, never mind that,” Carmela said, hugging him again—or still—and then letting him go. “Your business business can wait. And if he’s coming along to find you, good! Two birds with one stone.”

  Filif half-turned in the other direction, and looked around him with more of his eyes. “Not sure I see any birds,” he said, sounding dubious. “Or for that matter, stones.”

  Nita laughed. Sometimes the wizardly Speech did fairly well at translating human idiom, but sometimes it completely failed. “She means she wants to talk to both of you at once.”

  “Well, that’s certainly preferable to hominid-on-avian violence,” Filif said. “Ah, now, here he comes. Not so delayed, then.”

  Nita peered around her, not bothering to look up, because there wouldn’t have been any point in trying to see the Master of the Crossings over the heads of any crowd: when he was moving at any speed, he moved low. To her own amusement, though, it was the sound of lots of sharp little legs clicking and clattering against the smooth floor that told her which way to look (in this case, behind her). Nita turned and saw him coming, and grinned, and as he caught sight of her through the crowd that parted before him, Sker’ret was already half rearing up so that his front three pairs of legs were off the ground and the head with all those stalked eyes was on a level with Nita’s. She held her arms open, and when he more or less crashed into them, she grabbed him and hugged him to her and thumped his dorsal carapace. “Sker’!”

  “Our saviors return,” Sker’ret laughed in her ear. “It’s been forever.”

  “It’s been last week,” Nita said. “Getting amnesic from overwork?”

  “No, I mean when the two of you were last here together.”

  “Two weeks then. Maybe three.”

  “Pedant,” Sker’ret said affectionately, gave her a squeeze and let her go.

  “And what about me?” Carmela demanded. “You’re late for my daily dose of alien snuggles!”

  “And whose fault is that? Anyway, you’re the alien.”

  “No surprise at this sudden appearance then, my cousin?” Filif said.

  “Excuse me?” Sker’ret said as he headed for Carmela. “I am the Master of this facility, coz. Of course I knew she was here: she’s got a facility-independent wizardly tracker routine associated with her. How else can I find her in a hurry if more invaders arrive and we need saving?”

  “My favorite stalker,” Carmela said, and hugged Sker’ret as if hugging giant purple metallic centipedes was the most normal thing in the world. Which, for her, it naturally was.

  “And why does her tracker work better than the Knowledge-based routines you’ve got hooked up to me?” Filif said, bending over in a sort of half-bow to Sker’ret so that they could brush their upper limbs together.

  “Because she can do a lot more damage in a much shorter time than you routinely would,” Sker’ret said.

  Carmela burst out laughing. “Oh, Sker’, you say that like it was a bad thing!”

  “So tell us,” Filif said. “What damage are you contemplating now?”

  “We’re having a Christmas party. And both of you are invited.”

  All Filif’s berries on the side facing Sker’ret, and all Sker’ret’s stalked eyes, exchanged a bemused glance.

  “And Christmas would be what?” Sker’ret said. “Is it a holiday of some sort?”

  “Don’t you remember? Remember how excited Filif got about this?”

  “Um…” Sker’ret was making a kind of thoughtful null sound that even in a Rirhait perfectly communicated a sense of I don’t want you to feel hurt but due to being really busy I have no idea what you’re talking about at the moment.

  “Fil,” Carmela said. “Explain it to him. Remember that time of year we told you about, the last time you came visiting? The time of year when we bring trees into the house and decorate them?”

  Filif looked astounded. “Wait. This is that time? Then what are you doing here? Mostly your folk are with family at such times, I thought!”

  “No no no, it’s not right this minute!” Carmela said. “Fifty days or so yet. Hold still.” She reached into her shoulderbag and came out with a small sleek tablet. “How’s your schedule around JD 2455550.52…?”

  “Well, let me check…”

  “I’m free,” said Sker’ret immediately. “One or another of my relief people can take those shifts for me. Powers forbid I should miss a party of yours!”

  Nita wanted to start shouting practical, sensible things like No, wait, this is all going way too fast, are you nuts…? But she took a deep breath, stood there hating Thanksgiving enough to be willing to think about anything else, especially when it involved going straight on past it, and peered over Carmela’s shoulder at the tablet. “That’s really gorgeous. Where’d you get that?”

  “It’s part of her detached staff package,” Sker’ret said. “Didn’t you get yours, Nita? I’ll see that it comes to you.”

  “Okay, Sker’, thanks,” she said. “What day is that?” Nita said to Carmela.

  “December 20th,” Carmela said. “And hey, the next day is the Winter Solstice. Very symbolic!” she said to Filif, elbowing him somewhere among his fronds and needles. “We’re having a sleepover on Almost The Longest Night! We can stay up all night and watch movies and eat popcorn and all kinds of things.”

  “Mela,” Nita said. “Your mama and pop… you haven’t even asked them yet!”

  “They’ll say yes,” Carmela said, waving a hand. “We’re going to do it exactly the way you did yours when Sker’ and Fil came to visit the first time. Elective-access ‘puptent’ accesses in the basement….”

  “I can always spare powering structures for ten or twenty of those,” Sker’ret said. “Let me know what you need. If the party’s heavily attended we can always install a temporary secondary gating hub like the one in your closet.”

  Nita rubbed her eyes for a moment. It’s always possible they will say yes right off the bat… And certainly since she became a wizard, stranger things had happened.

  Carmela was talking to Filif a mile a minute about popcorn garlands and boughs of holly and snow and Christmas cookies. “And a star, Fil, an actual star for the top of you instead of a baseball cap…”

  “But I like my baseball cap!” The protest didn’t have a lot of energy behind it: Filif was already starting to shake with excitement.

  “Just a temporary thing. Something festive! For the season. And lights, Fil, all colors of lights, and glass balls and ribbons and…”

/>   If she does get her mom and pop to say yes to this, Nita thought, this is going to be amazing. And it’s been such a crazy year. I could use some amazing right about now…

  “Sker’,” Nita said very softly, watching the armwaving continue and Filif’s delighted, excited vibrations increase. “Tell me something.”

  “Anything.”

  “Remember that paperwork I cosigned with Mela when we were here last, after Mars…?”

  “Yes?”

  “Is it possible…” Nita’s mouth went dry. She tried swallowing, had to work at it. “…that as far as the intergalactic community is concerned, I’m, uh, one of the people who… rules the Earth?”

  Sker’ret burst out in one of his ratchety laughs. “What? Rules? Oh, no! Not at all.”

  “Okay, that’s a relief,” Nita said. “Good.” And she sagged a little.

  “But you are on the governing board.”

  Nita’s mouth dropped open again. Then she closed it, because she simply could not find a reply.

  “We should go,” she said after a moment. “You two have business, and we’ve got a guest list to write.”

  “Of course. I’ll let you get on with it. And we’ll see you at your place again! This is going to be so exciting. In… fifty days?”

  “Sounds about right,” Nita said.

  There was more hugging, and then Filif and Sker’ret took themselves off down the concourse. Carmela kicked her hoverscoot back into levitation mode, climbed aboard, and said to Nita, “So that’s settled. Come on, Neets, we’ve got the far end of the concourse to look over…” And off she went, already humming “Feliz Navidad… Feliz Navidad… Prospero Ano y Felicidad…”

  This is going to be interesting, Nita thought. “Mela, wait up!”

  “I want to wish you a merry Christmas… I want to wish you a merry Christmas… from the bottom of my oooh wow look at that!”

  Nita sighed and scooted after her.

  ***

  Of course, even when you’re a wizard, getting the basic permissions settled for a house party for an indeterminate number of wizardly or wizard-friendly guests isn’t necessarily that easy.

  In the Rodriguezes’ living room a man was sitting in the easy chair closest to the entertainment system, with a tabloid newspaper open in front of his face. In front of him, sitting crosslegged on the floor in a position that was supposed to read as subordinate, and wearing what was meant to be a winsome smile, was his younger daughter.

  “Daaaaddyyyyy…”

  “I just got home, Carmela. From a shift that felt three hours longer than it really was. During which every single machine I touched found a new and interesting way to screw up.” Kit’s pop worked with the printing-press machines at the big Long Island newspaper, and since the operation had gone digital, he had been complaining more or less nonstop about the crankiness of the new equipment he worked with compared with the beautiful, reliable old printing presses of old. Kit had told Nita often enough that her dad had complained just as hard and as constantly about the old printing presses, way back when, but this didn’t seem to be a good time to remind anybody of that. “My head is aching, even my ears are aching, and the aspirin hasn’t kicked in yet, so if we could, you know, let this wait half an hour…”

  “But all you have to do right now is say ‘yes’ and then it’ll be quiet!”

  The newspaper behind which Juan Rodriguez was presently concealing himself rustled in a very brisk way. “Let’s try it the other way around, shall we? Let’s try having the quiet now, and then maybe the ‘yes’ will happen later!”

  “Okay, right on time, that was the appeal to reason,” Kit said in Nita’s ear. They were lurking in the kitchen, pretending to be getting something to eat while listening to the conversation through the pass-through window between the kitchen and the living room. ”Let’s see if she’s buying it.”

  “Seriously, pop-pop, it won’t be a big deal! I’m going to take care of all the food and drinks myself, and I’ll clean the house, before and after—”

  “Uh oh,” Kit said, very low. “Reverting to what she used to call him when she was eight. Helpless baby daughter and responsible cleaner of the house? Not a good match.”

  “That we’re having this discussion right now tells me that it’s a big deal already,” Kit’s pop said. “And that I should be wondering just why you’re leaning on this so hard. And whether I should go off the whole idea right now, so as not to indulge your instant gratification issues.”

  “But daaaaaaaddy—”

  Kit rolled his eyes at Nita. “Nope, logic’s the only thing that could have saved her there…”

  The newspaper being held up between Juan and his middle daughter dropped just long enough for her, and the two in the kitchen, to get a glimpse of eyes that were rather dangerously narrowed. “Answer hazy,” Kit’s pop said, rather pointedly, “ask again later.” And he went back behind the newspaper again.

  Carmela picked herself silently up off the floor and swanned off toward the back of the house and the stairs to her bedroom in a manner that just narrowly avoided being a flounce.

  Nita and Kit turned their attention back toward the sandwiches that they were theoretically constructing. Nita hadn’t actually gotten much further than the bread. “How’s this going, you think?” she said, very low.

  “Hard to tell,” Kit murmured, opening a cupboard and pretending to rummage around in it. “Sometimes she gets a lot of mileage out of the ‘I’m your favorite daughter’ thing. Some days, nothing at all. Especially when he starts thinking about her and Helena being in college.”

  “Tuition,” Nita said, and groaned under her breath.

  “Student loans,” Kit said. “It’s a good thing she’s just going to SUNY. But this still looks like a ‘nothing at all’ day.”

  “Don’t think I don’t hear you two lurking in there!” Kit’s pop said.

  “Not lurking, pop,” Kit said. “Nita’s getting a sandwich. She didn’t have time to eat anything at the Crossings.”

  “Because we were busy meeting with the friends who’re going to come!” Carmela said, swinging back into the living room and flopping down onto the nearby couch, where she lay staring at the ceiling in a vaguely hopeless way.

  “Who you want to have come,” her pop said, “and who you really should thought about not wanting to disappoint before you issued an invitation that you don’t know if you’re going to be allowed to fulfill!” He turned a page, and the paper rustled quite hard.

  “Uh oh, the getting-permission-first thing,” Kit murmured.

  “Yeah,” Nita murmured back, “I hit her with that. Didn’t count for much at the time. She was too buzzed.”

  “If she’s smart, she won’t push him…”

  Possibly realizing this, Carmela merely made a little disappointed moaning sound and went quiet.

  “Anyway, there’s plenty of time to think about this,” Kit’s pop said. “It’s not even Thanksgiving yet.”

  “But some of the guests need time to get their schedules sorted because they’ll be coming such a long way. Ireland! Germany!”

  “16 Aurigae,” Nita added helpfully.

  The newspaper rustled again, and this time the right-hand page twitched aside just enough for Nita to catch a glimpse of Kit’s pop’s eyes looking toward her over the tops of his reading glasses. “Sixteen what?”

  “Aurigae. It’s a star about two hundred and thirty light years from here,” Nita said. “An orange giant.”

  “About two hundred and thirty?” Kit’s pop said.

  “Give or take,” Nita said. “That’s where Filif comes from.”

  “So this is one of the three who stayed in your basement in their little holes in the wall,” said Kit’s mama as she appeared through the door on the far side of the living room that led to the back bedrooms.

  “Elective access gated spaces,” Kit said. “Puptents, we call them. They don’t take up any space in our space: just somewhere else. It’s like takin
g your home with you, a little.”

  His mama leaned on the passthrough’s shelf. “And the one we’re discussing, 16 Aurigae Guy—? This is the one who looks like a Christmas tree?”

  Nita raised her eyebrows at Kit. His mother had always seemed to have the superpower of being able to hear—or overhear—any conversation that took place under the Rodriguezes’ roof, no matter how far away she was in the house. Sometimes it was really useful, and sometimes it was a pain in the butt, but Nita had learned to deal with it.

  “He’s a Demisiv,” Nita said. “That’s both the planet and the species. They’re carbon-based like us, but they evolved… really differently.”

  “To wind up looking like they do, I’d imagine so.”

  Nita shrugged. “They’re related to trees the same way we’re related to the tetrapods.” She noticed Kit’s pop giving her a slightly confused look from behind the paper, and added, “You know, one of those fish species that got out of the water a long time ago, developed legs out of their fins and started walking around. There’ve been a lot of branches in the evolutionary tree between them and us. Same number of branches, pretty much, between Filif and his species’ ancestors.”

  “A lot of water under the bridge for his people, then,” Kit’s pop said.

  “Five hundred million years,” Kit said, “give or take.”

  “Huh,” said Kit’s pop: a neutral sort of sound. He went back behind the paper again, turned another page.

  Kit’s mama came into the kitchen and stood still in front of the stove for a few seconds, giving the cooktop a long thoughtful look. “Spaghetti and meatballs?” she said.

  “Sounds good, Mama.”

  “Then don’t overdo the sandwiches, you two.” Kit’s mama got down on one knee and started going through the cupboard under the counter: Kit and Nita moved to either side to get out of her way. “So what else does Mr. Christmas Tree Wizard do besides get all excited over the thought of being decorated?”