Words formed in the air this time, the edges of the letters iridescent. At first, Lane thought they were another weird symptom of his decades-long headache. They stayed where they were when he tilted his head, though, which was a clue.
“At last.” Lane tossed the book he’d been rereading onto the other end of the sofa. “Took long enough.” He pushed himself up and stepped to where the passage was slowly building itself in the wall of his den that wasn’t occupied by his sofa, the tiny kitchenette, or the bookshelves full of used books. Lane bounced on the balls of his feet as he wondered where on Earth he would find himself this time. Maybe Istanbul again? Anywhere was good as long as they had good food. He would, metaphorically, kill for a fresh cup of coffee.
Telling how much time had passed out in the world was always chancy from inside the LAMP, but it felt like it had been much longer than usual this time. His supplies were running short, and he’d had to read everything in the place three times over. While Granters didn’t need as much as people who lived outside a LAMP, it was still nice to have fresh supplies.
Each new word shimmered into being, solidifying in a way he felt more than saw, and as one after another slid into place, shaping a path between his rooms and the world beyond the LAMP, Lane could smell the edges of the place he was about to step into. A bit flat and metallic to his scent-starved senses.
Likely not Istanbul, then, but possibly still a place with some interesting foods to try once he got the Wish taken care of. If things went to trend, it would be something frivolous and easy that wouldn’t really change anything. Three of the last four Wishes he’d granted had been for the latest sports car. The fourth had been some fancy exercise equipment.
After a minor eternity, with a stir of the air that felt like a Call, the connection between the LAMP and the world was complete. Lane was ready, hovering on the threshold.
He stepped through.
As the universe re-formed around him, he said, “Okay, what can I—”
No one was there. He saw consoles and computer equipment mixed with books and some mementos. A stuffed elephant sat on a shelf tucked under a corner of sloping ceiling at eye level, a creased postcard of the cliffs of Dover on its lap. The jumbled pile of odds and ends somehow seemed cozy. The wall was less than an arm’s length away.
“Oh!”
The soft exclamation came from behind him and he spun around. A girl stared at him, wide-eyed. He glanced down and realized he’d forgotten to change. Not just his clothes, which were the jeans and faded Star Wars T-shirt he’d most liked growing up, but his body, too. People expected someone older, more mysterious when they Wished. But maybe it wasn’t so bad. The girl seemed like she was about his age, not counting the centuries he’d been a Granter, which he never did. Seventeen at most. And already staring at him as if he had two heads, which he didn’t. Just the one. He had unexceptional brown eyes and hair, and copper skin; he was as human as she was, mostly.
Though she was much paler, her skin somehow chalky, as if she didn’t get enough sun. Even the brown of her cropped hair was washed out. Her eyes were sharp and quick, so maybe that was just the style now. Her clothes were a good hint that styles had changed since he’d last been Called. She was wearing the soft stretchy material he usually thought of as pajamas, but what she wore was much more like a uniform than he’d ever seen someone wear to bed. She had to be the new Wisher. The LAMP orb rested in her hand.
Lane smiled and bowed to her. “The contract is complete. What Wish would you have?”
The young woman cocked her head to one side. “The contract?”
That wasn’t in the script.
“Yes, the contract.” Lane frowned. How had she activated the LAMP if she didn’t already know? “Hasn’t someone explained what the LAMP does?”
She was still staring at him in a way that he wasn’t sure how to interpret. It didn’t really seem like a smile, for all that her lips turned up at the edges.
“Not in so many words. I’ve been trying to work it out myself for the last few years.” She stood up. The battered old chair she’d been curled up on hit the far wall of the tiny room. “I didn’t expect anything would happen.”
A hint of wonder: he recognized that. He’d seen it so often by now that he could see it before they knew they were feeling it. Sometimes they liked to talk about themselves before they settled down to business. It used to be his favorite part, but right now, Lane just wanted to move on. She rolled the LAMP in her hand and studied him.
Then she smiled. She extended the hand that wasn’t holding the LAMP. “I’m Ariadne. It’s nice to meet you.”
Lane froze. He really should have remembered to change. Wishers didn’t interact with Granters as people, and he wasn’t comfortable with this shift. As he glanced from her hand to her face, he could feel the energy sizzling through her, but she was outwardly still, ready to wait until he answered the unasked question.
He hesitated and then took her offered hand and shook it as briefly as he could. “If we could get to your Wish?”
She didn’t let him escape that easily. She raised a brow at him and stared. Lane was sure Ariadne had never met his grandmother, but she captured her expression perfectly. Lane’s cheeks heated.
“I’m Lane.” He paused; then, hoping to get back to a professional tone, he added, “Ma’am.”
At that, her smile grew into a grin. “ ‘Ma’am’ is my mother. I’m just Ariadne.” She let go of his hand, and Lane stuffed it into his pocket. “Before we get to the Wish, you said something about a contract. I want to make sure I understand what I am agreeing to. Can you review it?”
It was unusual, but if she wanted to go over it line by line now, he could humor her. “Okay, point me to a coffeepot and we’ll get to work!”
“We don’t have any coffee on the station. Caffeine has so many side effects it was phased out a generation ago in anything more than ten milligrams.”
Lane understood each word, but he still had no clue what Ariadne was saying.
“I don’t understand,” Lane said.
She said, “I’m not sure I do either, but regulations must be followed. We do have a tea shop. Maybe they’ll have something that can help.”
Ariadne grabbed a coat that was made out of the same jersey fabric as her pajama outfit, stuffed the LAMP into a pocket, and pushed open a door Lane hadn’t noticed before.
“Come on,” she said over her shoulder.
* * *
Lane stepped out of the room onto a metal stair and gaped. A vast lattice, like lace made from girders and glass, arced overhead. A vibrant neon-blue light radiated from every pane. Nestled in the hollow underneath, falling away from this tiny room tucked up near the sidewall, was a town. But it wasn’t like any town Lane had ever seen.
“What is this place?”
“Welcome to Vale. The oldest research station in Venus’s clouds.”
“Venus?” Lane’s voice cracked.
Ariadne leaned on the railing as she turned toward him. “Yep.”
“But…” Lane inspected the dome again. “When did Venus turn blue?”
“It didn’t. The glass is absorbing the energy, blue shifting the light as it processes it. That’s used to feed the magnetic drive that keeps the station hovering.”
“Oh, well, that’s impressive.”
She shrugged. “I suppose. I’ve probably just been here too long. None of it seems special anymore.” She avoided looking at him as she spoke. “Come on. We should get to the shop before second bell.”
Lane trailed behind her as they descended the stairs but couldn’t help sneaking glances up at the wonders she so easily dismissed. What could she want to Wish for, if this was where she lived?
* * *
Ariadne passed the counter, answering the shopgirl’s greeting and tossing out a quick order as she hustled Lan
e into a booth near the back, as far as possible from the big windows at the front. It could have felt like she was trying to hide him away. Instead it felt like she was hiding and had pulled him along with her.
The shopgirl had to be several years younger than Ariadne. Lane’s best guess was she was around twelve, much younger than any he’d seen working in stores last time he’d been out of the LAMP. When the teapot arrived, the girl stared at him until Ariadne shooed her away. Once she left, Ariadne stopped peering around the corner toward the front of the store and started preparing their tea. Lane finally tried to find words to explain…everything.
“I’ve never had to do this before. The story is something you tell yourselves, as the LAMP is passed on. I’m Called and ask what the Wish is, grant it, and it’s done. Then I can go back to my books.”
“I don’t need a novel,” Ariadne said; “I need information. I have to know the consequences before I can make an informed decision.” Lane fumbled his drink. She grabbed a cloth and wiped up the small spill. “I know. But my mother is the head of station. Unnecessary risks are not tolerated.” Her voice twisted on the unnecessary, but she didn’t give him a chance to ask about it.
She leaned back in her seat, her mug cupped in her hands, and said, “Tell me a story.”
“There are stories about Wishes all across the world—I guess worlds, now that people have made it to Venus.” A smile touched his lips, but just briefly, as Ariadne waited for him to continue. “Most stories get it more wrong than right. But we don’t contradict the myth. We’re not demons, or spirits of fire or air. We’re people. Mostly.”
“But you live in here?” Ariadne pulled the LAMP from her pocket and held it cupped in her palm. It glowed softly in the artificial light of the shop.
“The LAMP’s more of a passageway or gate than a house. It’s not like I shrink down and go live inside a glass sphere until the next Call. My place is pretty much the same as a regular apartment.” Lane considered what he’d seen of where she lived and added, “Where I’m from, at least. It just connects to the rest of the world through that.” Lane gestured toward the LAMP.
“Where are you from?” Ariadne asked. Lane hesitated. She hurried to continue. “It will help me understand this lamp.”
“You don’t really need to understand the LAMP.” Or me, he didn’t add aloud. This was a transaction. Simple and easy, if she would let it be. “You just need to make a Wish.”
She shook her head. “If there are rules, I don’t know what they are. I won’t know if you can help me or not until I understand how this works.”
He needed to redirect the conversation. “The limits of my power to grant Wishes don’t have anything to do with the LAMP or where I’m from. They come from the contract.”
Confusion knit Ariadne’s brow.
“I’m not explaining this well.” Lane ran a hand through his hair and then tried again. “You know contracts, right?”
Ariadne nodded. “My mom runs this place. Sometimes she does more contracts than science.”
“Then you know the basics. This whole thing”—he gestured to himself, the LAMP, and her—“is a contract. Everyone has their role and their obligations. You Called me. For that, you get a Wish.”
“One? I thought there were three.” Ariadne placed her elbows on the table as she leaned forward, interested.
Now that they were on safer ground, he picked up his mug again, letting the warmth seep into his hands. “That’s just in stories. Wishes are a one-time thing. Because there’s only sufficient energy if you Wish for something with all of your being. It has to be what you want more than anything else. Most people don’t have three of those Wishes.”
She drummed her fingers on the table. “Okay, I can live with that.”
Lane nodded. “I’m basically a conduit. I am able to channel that Wish into something that can affect the world.”
“And you can change anything?”
Something in the way she stilled after asking the question, leaning forward just a bit, fingers flexed on the LAMP, made him pause before he answered.
“I can do things; I can’t change people.” She moved, maybe to object, maybe to interrupt; Lane didn’t wait to see. He continued, “Because Wishing another person different is never the right answer. Even if you figured out some way to make it happen, it doesn’t end well.”
“You think I want to change someone else? No, Lane, I wouldn’t have spent this much time trying to change something I could fix on my own.”
“Then what do you want? I can feel how much you want whatever it is.”
Ariadne’s mug clinked as she put it on the laminate and then pushed it away from her. “You already told me it wouldn’t work.”
“Tell me what you were thinking. There might still be something I can do. I’ve had a bit more time to know the ins and outs of this than you have.”
“Maybe it was just company I wanted. Something new and different. Maybe I was bored, since all my friends are gone.” The last words were bleak, cutting to the heart of whatever she wouldn’t tell him. Her Wish mattered deeply to her.
“Where did they go?” The question escaped before he could stop it. And once it was out, he was surprised to find that he wanted to hear the answer.
Something twisted in Ariadne’s face. “Oh, they went to Earth for school. Just like everyone when they turn fourteen.” She held his eyes, challenging him to say something.
Lane was fairly sure whatever he said would be wrong, but he couldn’t let the silence stretch. Not with the way she was staring at him. Still, he hesitated, nervous—for the first time in a very long time—about saying the wrong thing.
He took a moment to wish again that there were coffee instead of weak tea in his cup. He gulped down a swallow and almost choked in surprise as he tasted hot, strong coffee. “What?”
He’d been asking the cup, not Ariadne, but she answered anyway, her words chips of ice. “I know you haven’t seen many people here yet, but you will when second bell rings in a few minutes, letting off the main shift. The station is home to service members, research personnel, maintenance people, and their minor children. Once you reach fourteen, there’s no place for you here until you’re ready to take on a job, which, due to labor laws about the dangers of work on stations, is twenty-one. No one stays.”
“Except you?”
“Except me. Ask me why.”
Anger simmered just under the surface of her words, but Lane could tell that talking about it was helping Ariadne. Somehow. He was already getting energy from helping with Ariadne’s Wish. He wouldn’t have been able to Wish himself coffee otherwise. “Why?”
“Just before I turned thirteen, I developed immune thrombocytopenic purpura, which means I have really low platelets. I bruise when I brush the corner of a table. Going through the acceleration of liftoff, I’d die. And if we got my platelets up enough to survive leaving Venus, it would wear off before landfall on Earth. It’s been deemed an unnecessary risk.”
Ariadne scanned the shop, but from her expression, Lane didn’t think she really saw any of it. He recognized the restlessness, impatience, and frustration that he felt when he was stuck in the LAMP too long. Or, further back, before he was a Granter and was looking forward to being anywhere else. When that feeling hit, he was able to manage it, because he always knew that sooner or later he would be someplace new.
Ariadne met his eyes and said, “I can never leave here. I can’t even try to get a job until I’m twenty-one, no matter how many certifications I collect in all this spare time. Just make work, like trying to figure out the LAMP. There is no place for me here. Everyone else is moving forward, and I’m stuck.” Her voice broke as she continued, “If you can’t change me, then you can’t change that.”
* * *
Lane finished his coffee. Ariadne had fallen silent, turning the LAMP ove
r from one hand to the other.
The shop was filling up, and now that Ariadne had pointed it out, Lane saw she was right. No one else was anywhere near their age. Except a couple of people in coveralls with a delivery firm’s logo on their backs.
Ariadne watched the waitress drop off another table’s order. “Maybe all I needed was someone to talk to. Maybe that will be enough.”
Lane was uncomfortable with the dull resignation in her voice. She couldn’t be giving up, not when they were this close to a Wish that actually mattered. He was beginning to get a feel for how much she had done to get this far. Maybe her willpower and determination could get them close to her Wish. But, to be sure, he asked, “How could you open the LAMP if you weren’t told how to by the previous Wisher?”
“I found a little information, as you said, in stories. Everyone was clear that there were limits. I got into the records from the black box of the ship the LAMP was recovered from too, which had some logs from the person who had the LAMP before.” She grimaced. “It took a while to break the encryption and piece the information back together, but I had time on my hands. It took three years before I found a way.”
Obviously, she had, but Lane was beginning to suspect that it wasn’t the usual way.
“What did you do to open the LAMP?”
“I pictured a pair of giant doors, like in some old movie on Earth, as completely as I could—visualized it—and then pushed them open. Why?”
Lane laughed. “Most people just say it out loud.”
“Oh. It didn’t say in the instructions, and I’d said ‘open’ near it several times without anything happening.”
“How badly do you want this?” Lane asked.
“With all I am,” Ariadne said, then shook her head. “But it won’t be enough.”
“I can’t break the rules of the universe. But I can probably bend them.” Lane met her eyes. “I’m not sure that we can do it, but I’m willing to try if you are.”
A Universe of Wishes Page 17
