"We'll see about that," Nita's mother said. "You go ahead now, and do what you have to do." "Oh, no!" Kit said. "This is dire."They were sitting on the Moon, on a peak of the Carpathian Mountains, about twenty miles south of the crater Copernicus. The view of Earth from there this time of month was good; she was waxing towards the full, while on the Moon there was nothing but a sun very low on the horizon. Long, long shadows stretched across the breadth of the Carpathians, so that the illuminated crests of the jagged peaks stood up from great pools of darkness, like rough-hewn pyramids floating on nothing. It was cold there; the wizardly force-field that surrounded them snowed flakes of frozen air gently on to the powdery white rock around them when they moved and changed the field's inner volume. But cold as it was, it was private."We were just getting somewhere with the trees," Nita muttered. "I can't believe this." "Do they really think it's going to make a difference?""Oh, I don't know. Who knows what they think, half the time? And the worst of it is, they won't let me come back." Nita picked up a small piece of pumice and chucked it away, watching as it sailed about a hundred meters away in the light gravity and bounced a couple of meters high when it first hit the ground again. It continued bouncing down the mountain, and she watched it idly. "We had three other projects waiting to be started. They're all shot now: there won't be any time to do anything about them before I have to go."Kit stretched and looked unhappy. "We can still talk mind to mind; you can coach me at a distance when I need help. Or I can help you. . .""It's not the same." She had often enough tried explaining to her parents the 'high' you got from working closely with another wizard: the feeling that magic made in your mind while working with another, the texture, was utterly unlike that of a wizardry worked alone – more dangerous, more difficult, ultimately more satisfying.
