“The trouble is, the thing was gravid,” Professor Torgeson told Lan and Papa and me. She’d asked us and Professor Jeffries to dinner in order to talk about their findings — Papa, because he would be working on the changes to the settlement spells with them, and Lan and me because we’d been there and they thought we ought to know. They’d have asked Wash, too, but he was back out riding circuit already.
“It’s a good thing we got it when we did, then,” Lan said soberly.
Professor Jeffries nodded. “It was carrying nearly fifty eggs, ready to lay … and the preservation spell worked well enough and fast enough that I believe we could hatch at least some of them, under the right conditions.”
“Why would you want to?” I asked.
“It’s a totally new species,” Professor Jeffries said with a little frown. “Think of how much we could learn from live specimens!”
“Think of the trouble it would cause if someone irresponsible got hold of one of those eggs and hatched out a creature that can absorb more magic than the mirror bugs,” Papa said. “And do it faster than the bugs, and on this side of the Great Barrier Spell. Not to mention turning people and animals to stone.”
“Exactly,” Professor Torgeson said. “That’s why we’re keeping it a secret, for the time being.” She gave Lan and me a pointed look, and we nodded.
Professor Jeffries looked thoughtful. “Yes, but we’ve been intending to open a study crt west of the Mammoth River for some time. Getting live specimens through the Barrier Spell to this side is always a problem, and they generally don’t do as well here. This would be the perfect opportunity.”
“Perhaps,” Papa said. He looked at Professor Torgeson. “How much have you been able to determine from the carcass?”
“Not nearly as much as I’d like,” the professor replied. “It’s clearly not native to the area where we found it.”
“Thank goodness,” Papa murmured.
Professor Torgeson nodded and went on, “Its flesh has a magical affinity for certain kinds of rock, most of which aren’t present on the Western Plains. I’ve a request in for a geologist to assist in making more specific determinations. It appears to absorb magic via a special organ near the brain. Even dead, it is difficult to detect with magic — it resists what it cannot absorb.”
“You were extremely lucky,” Papa said to Lan and me. He looked back at Professor Torgeson, frowning. “How on earth are we to incorporate something like this in the settlement protection spells?”
“I have a few ideas,” Professor Jeffries said. “But we’re going to have to talk the college into that study crt. We must have a place where we can research these things, and test our spells before we try to adjust anything in the field.”
“What we really need is a research expedition,” Professor Torgeson said. “Everyone who’s gone out for the past thirty years except for McNeil has been exploring, not researching, and even so we still don’t have proper maps for the territories past Wintering Island. And I suspect our scaly visitor came from well beyond there.”
“What makes you think that, Professor?” Lan asked.
“The rock affinities I mentioned before,” Professor Torgeson replied. “But I need that geologist to confirm it for certain.”
Professor Torgeson got her geologist, and pretty near everything else she asked for. The settlements had been in an uproar since the news came out about the medusa lizard, and the Settlement Office was disposed to be cooperative. All of a sudden, Professor Torgeson didn’t have to try so hard to get them interested in hiring historical excavators to go out to Daybat Creek, and they brought in nearly a whole trainload of scientists and magicians to help study the dead lizard and all the petrified animals we’d brought back.
I spent more time working for Professor Torgeson than I did at the menagerie. The professor was too busy with the medusa lizard to worry about all the questions coming in, so I handled as many of them as I could. I sent off samples of the petrified animals we’d brought back from Daybat Creek to everyone who’d asked for them (though I made sure I sent Professor Lefevre his first), along with the summary of what the professors had figured out about the medusa lizard. The most interesting part, though, was looking up information for her when she had questions about settlement country. It kept me busy through the rest of July.
Early in August, Lan came and found me down at the creek. It was a Sunday afternoon and so hot that even the mosquitoes were drowsing instead of biting people. I’d gone down to the wide spot where there was a bit of a breeze and I could hike up my skirts and dangle my bare feet in the cool water as if I were a childing. He sat down beside me and pulled off his boots, and we sat in silence for a while.
“I’m not going back to Simon Magus this fall,” he said abruptly.
I just nodded. “Have you told Papa?”
“This morning.” Lan looked down and kicked at the water. “He isn’t too happy, but he’s not making a fuss. I think he understands that I need more time.”
“You’re not going to just mope around the house, are you?”
Lan shook his head. “I’m going out to the settlements for the rest of the summer,” he said.
“Circuit-riding?” I asked.
“Not by myself,” Lan said. “Sort of as an assistant.”
“Circuits finish up in October. What are you doing after that?”
“I think I might do some work for the Settlement Office. They have all these reports full of information that I don’t think anyone has ever looked at properly.”
“Anyone could do that kind of job.”
“Not anyone,” Lan objected. “It takes someone who can organize and think and —”
I poked him. “I meant, it doesn’t take a magician.”
“I know,” Lan said quietly. “That’s why I want to do it. I want to try not being a magician for a while.”
“Then why are you going to ride circuit? That does take a magician, and a pretty good one, too.”
Lan sighed and splashed the water again. “I want both. I want to do something real with all this magic I have, but …”
“So you’re trying it both ways,” I finished for him. “Working with your magic, and without it.” It seemed a strange way to think of it to me, but I’d never thought I wanted to do great magic, the way Lan always had.
Lan nodded. “For a year.”
I smiled and flopped back in the grass that covered the bank. “It’ll be good to have you home, even if it’s just for a year. Maybe you can get Wash to drop by more often.”
“Maybe.” He gave me a sidelong look. “Are you going to keep working for Professor Torgeson?”
“Probably,” I said. “At least as long as she has things for me to do. After that, I’ll go back to the menagerie for a while.”
“For a while?”
“I want to go back out to the settlements,” I said. “Not as a settler. Riding circuit would be nice, but I don’t think I have the magic for it. Something else.”
“You’ll have to invent it, whatever it is,” Lan said after thinking for a moment.
I smiled again, pleased that he was listening to what I wanted for a change. “Maybe I can work for the new settlements, surveying the plants and animals they have on their allotment to see if any of them are valuable.”
“Or maybe the professor will get her research expedition going and take you along.”
“That would be nice.”
Lan flopped back on the grass to join me, and we stared at the sky and splashed our feet in the creek water. “It looks like we’re both on our way,” Lan said after a minute.
“On our way where?”
“Wherever we’re going.” He swept his hand out in a grand gesture that took in the creek and Mill City and all the land beyond in either direction. “Even if we don’t know yet exactly where that is.”
I thought about that for a minute. “Starting is good. You can’t get anywhere at all if you never start.”
Beside m
e, I felt Lan nod. “Now all we have to do is keep going.”
“Keep going?” I smiled without taking my eyes from the endless blue sky. “I can do that.”
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Across the Great Barrier fm-2 Page 26
