MISC: The Girl Who Saved the World Part 71

[George Phillies]

Spindrift smiled. “Thank you,” she choked. “I really didn’t expect it.”

You are a persona, Dorothy told herself.You beat the giant lizard, even 
if you can’t remember your boyfriend who helped.You did stop the League 
terrorist by yourself, when you were not at all sure your force field 
was bulletproof. You are not afraid because you are listening to a girl 
barely two-thirds your age, even if she does speak an extinct language, 
so far as you can tell flawlessly, telling you that she is about to die. 
“So when is Joe showing up?” Dorothy asked. “Have you ever dated him 
before?” And how will you two each get to school? she wondered, though 
it was really clear that Joe could teleport.

“No,” Spindrift answered. “The first time together is yet to come.”

“And he’s late?” Teranike said.“These things happen.Don’t be too mad at 
him.”

“I knew he would not be here before I depart,” Spindrift answered, her 
breakfast rapidly disappearing. “Do not blame him, either.He is a 
wonderful person, kind and thoughtful and self-sacrificing and 
absolutely gifttrue.And cute.”

“How did you meet?” Dorothy asked. “Do you go to the same school? Maybe 
I should ask, since I am supposed to be studying Atlanticean, how to 
dissect the kennings in your sigils.” Formal written Atlanticeanwas 
based in infolding puns, so that wheatfield started as waves of gold, 
except waves were shore’s call and gold was banker’s blood, so 
wheatfield became shores calling for banker’s blood, and matters became 
more complicated from there, even before references to Atlanticean 
mythology were inserted.She passed Spindrift a notebook and pen, on 
which Spindrift rapidly sketched symbols and translations, finally 
infolding to The Dagger of Time.

“I’m sorry,” Dorothy said to Teranike, “we must be boring you to tears.”

“Not at all.It’s an interesting bit of your world’s history,” Teranike 
answered“Besides, the Avatar’s Elder Tongue uses different symbols, but 
the same general riddle and reduction schema. But what is Time’s Dagger?”

“I can’t tell you,” Spindrift said, rapidly finishing the last bit of 
her breakfast.“Not ‘may’, ‘can’t’ It’s like the Dark Lights of the 
Starry Void, the /Chelesh N’drageu /and the time before the infinite 
past. Can’t tell. And now I must go.” She slipped coins under her plate 
and dissolved into points of light that swiftly blinked out.

“Teleport,” Dorothy said. “But ‘Dark Lights of the Starry Void’? And 
what was the last thing she said?”

“She slipped into my language./Chelesh N’drageu/is Polarian.With no 
accent,” Teranike said. “No accent at all. I have never met a foreigner, 
and I am a High Officer of the Lake of Silver Fire, who did not have an 
accent. The Dark Lights? In both our universes, though in ours the 
Northern Barbarians want it to be a military secret, there are cosmic 
dust clouds that have evolved intelligence. In your universe, they stay 
well away from Earth. In ours, one visited twice, once 60 years ago, 
almost causing an ice age by accident, and again recently, staying on 
the far side of the sun but neglecting to mention that it had sent 
androids to Earth, to speak with a few people still alive that it had 
met on its prior visit. They, the /Chelesh N’drageu,/ live in 
interstellar space, passing by stars to feed on the sunlight.They have 
questions --how the universe that has lasted forever came to be -- whose 
answers cannot be spoken, because the act of speaking the answers causes 
the universe to delete the speaker. And its answer. That was why I was 
here, to see if anything is known of the deletion.An effect that causes 
the mass of a large planet to vanish, in a single instant, with 
absolutely no trace left behind, might possibly have a few weapons 
applications.”

“Boys and their toys,” Dorothy said.

“Daughters and their spears,” Teranike said, “is our version. Mentioning 
boys, here comes Joe, just too late.”

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