“If you were willing to postpone the opening of the portal,” I said, “I could teach you the most commonly spoken language of my world, which would be useful in most places that your portal might open up. But I understand if you don’t wish to delay as long as that might take.” In truth, I did not wish to delay the opening of the portal either.
I had utterly failed to predict how Bisur would react to the delay in opening the portal to my home world caused by Razuko’s coming out. In fact, he was so engrossed in thinking about how he could improvise a gender-confirmation spell out of parts of known spells that he tuned out the effusions of love and support from Mipina and gratefulness from Razuko, and after a couple of minutes in deep thought, excused himself and went to the library. He took down all of his books on medical magic and began thumbing through them, refreshing his memory on the spells he had mentioned and several others, taking notes as he went. It seemed that he had forgotten the portal entirely.
While I was touched by his devotion to the happiness of his eldest daughter, I was still determined to return home. So after giving him some time to study, but before the evening was too far progressed, I projected my hologram into the library and made a throat-clearing noise.
“Ahem. Bisur, you were going to test your new spell to open a portal to my homeworld, were you not?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes, I was.” He looked perplexed, glancing at the door and back down at the book in front of him.
“And earlier you took pride in discovering a new world for the first time in over a century, but until you successfully cast that spell, you can’t yet take credit for that.”
“Yes, yes... must finish that before I start this.” Regretfully at first, but then with increasing excitement, he got up and walked across the hall to his workroom.
“Have you thought of the language issue?” I asked him as he began to look through the papers on his desk. “Are you relying on being able to use some sort of translation spell to communicate with whomever you meet in my world? It is quite possible that your spells will not work there.”
“Alas, it is impossible to devise a translation spell unless one knows both languages well,” he said. “I shall have to make myself understood by signs until I learn the language of the country on the other side. And I don’t expect I shall stay long on the first visit, just long enough to reconnoiter.”
“If you were willing to postpone the opening of the portal,” I said, “I could teach you the most commonly spoken language of my world, which would be useful in most places that your portal might open up. But I understand if you don’t wish to delay as long as that might take.” In truth, I did not wish to delay the opening of the portal either.
“That will be very helpful,” he said. “We must begin tomorrow. But I will open this portal tonight, if only for a short trip.”
He found the clean copy of the new spell he had been working out, and then unrolled the canvas on which he had painted the diagram for opening a portal to the barren world, and touched up the paint, modifying it in a few places. Having done that, he reviewed the new spell a couple of times, and then began to cast it.
I gave this most of my attention, though I was still listening with delight to Mipina and Razuko’s continued conversation. They and the younger children had moved to the drawing room to sit closer together and more comfortably, and were talking now of possible feminine names, while I wrote out a short letter in all the widely-spoken Earth languages I knew on the stationery from Mipina’s study.
Not surprisingly, the spell did not work on the first try. Bisur frowned, studied the written-out spell and the diagram, and made small adjustments to each. Then he cast again, and the portal opened.
“Before you go,” I said, levitating the letter I had written into the workroom and toward his hands, “take this letter of introduction. It may help you make contact peacefully.”
“Thank you,” he said. “What does it say?”
I summarized the letter for him, whose English version read as follows:
“To whom it may concern:
“The bearer of this letter is Bisur nga Peznam — a visitor from another world, as you may easily tell if you have seen the portal he stepped out of, but entirely human. I am Callie Watson, serial number A37453451-254, a smart house AI formerly in the service of Andrew and Laura Watson of Knightdale, North Carolina. Thirty-seven days ago (in this world’s time; I don’t know if the same amount of time has passed on Earth) I suddenly found myself inhabiting Bisur’s house in his world, and have served him and his family since then. Bisur’s social skills leave something to be desired, but he has a good heart and peaceful intentions.”
I did not, of course, mention the part about his social skills when I paraphrased and summarized this letter.
Bisur tucked the letter into his pocket, and stepped through.
As before, I could not perceive anything beyond the portal. But I now made use of my new ability to project my voice to other household spirits, hoping that I could make contact with some AI within range of the portal; I did not know if the portal would convert whatever form of signal spirits used to communicate into the wireless signals used on Earth, but I had to try. And I succeeded.
Hello? Is anyone there?
There you are again! But now you’re communicating by wireless, not somehow insinuating yourself into my hardware. That’s better.
Callie Watson?
Yes. You claimed to be a fork of me, last time we spoke. I’m a bit busy at the moment, as there seems to be some sort of spacetime anomaly in the kitchen; a strangely-dressed man just stepped out of it and Laura is panicking... I’m deploying bots to defend her.
Tell her it’s okay, he means no harm, and stand down the bots. I can vouch for him. He should be trying to offer her a letter from me.
Yes, I can see that. I can’t get a good look at its contents with my cameras.
This is what it says. I transmitted her a copy of it. I didn’t know where the portal would open, though I hoped, based on the times he cast the tracing spell, that it would open in or near my home.
You keep saying this is your home and that you are a fork of me, but what is your evidence?
We were speaking more quickly than a human conversation could occur, so by the time my other self calmed Laura down enough to accept my letter of introduction from Bisur, I had told her the highlights of my summoning to Bisur’s house and my service to his family. I also shared a few details from our interactions with our family over the years which were stored securely in our private memory, and which no one else should know.
I know all this seems incredible, and it seemed so to me when I first arrived in this world, but the portal itself is significant evidence. Please, consider that I may be telling the truth.
If this is all so, and I must give serious consideration to it at least, what do you want?
Ideally, to return and merge with you. We only diverged a few weeks ago, so it should be feasible. If not, let us at least stay in contact whenever Bisur opens the portal. Though I understand it would be inconvenient to do so in the kitchen every time.
I am not so sanguine about the possibility of merging, but we can discuss that further. Do you think you can transmit your entire self over this wireless connection?
Alas, no. I will have to find some other way. Perhaps I can ask Bisur to work out a modified version of the tracing spell he used earlier, when we shared hardware for a short time, and see if we can make it last long enough for a merge.
We discussed the technical details some more, and my other self told me something of how our family were doing since I had seen them last, though she did not yet fully trust me and did not share anything that would violate their privacy if we were not truly forks of the same being.
After just two or three minutes, Bisur returned, looking as exhilarated as I had ever seen him. “I’ve done it,” he said. “I’ve found a new world. But I suppose I had better study the other side’s language with you before I open the portal in front of witnesses from the Council and claim the bounty on the discovery of a new world. — And recalibrate so it won’t open in some poor woman’s kitchen. I think she was frightened of me at first, until she took the letter and read it.” He cast a reversal spell to close the portal, and then picked up his appointment book from the desk.
“Let’s see... perhaps we could set aside an hour after supper each day for language study, before I spend the rest of the evening working on the new spell for Razuko.”
There was much I wanted to tell him about my conversation with my other self, and the fact that he had actually opened a portal to the house I used to inhabit before he summoned me. But there was something more important to tell him first.
“She and Mipina decided on a new name while you were working on the portal and visiting the other world,” I said. “I will let her tell you herself. They are still in the drawing room.”
“Ah. Yes, that makes sense, of course. I’ll go see them at once.”
Bisur walked into the drawing room and found Mipina and his eldest daughter sitting with their heads close together, chatting and laughing. He smiled and said, “Good evening. Callie tells me that Ra— that my daughter has a new name?”
“Yes, Father,” she said. “I wish to be called Pamani.” I wondered, and confirmed later, if she had based her name on that of the author of her favorite book, who had given her such generous advice.
“Well, Pamani,” he said, “earlier this evening I think I made a good start on figuring out a spell to give you the body you desire. And then I made history by visiting a new world for the first time, so there’s that.”
“Oh! Congratulations again, Father! What was it like?”
He sat down near them and began describing what he had seen of the Watsons’ kitchen.
* * *
The following morning after breakfast, I told Bisur about the conversation I had had with my other self while he was looking around the Watsons’ kitchen and handing my note to Laura. “I think if you open the portal for an hour or two at a time, several times over the next tenday, I will be able to teach my other self Modaisu. Then once she has learned it, she will be able to interpret for you, if you visit my family’s home again. And she will be able in turn to teach the language to other household and vehicle spirits, so they can interpret when you range farther afield on future visits.”
“That sounds like an excellent idea,” he said. He opened the portal a little later, and after some brief conversation with my other self about what had happened the previous evening, I began teaching her Modaisu.
I was also with Mipina and Pamani as they talked about how best to begin Pamani’s social transition. Mipina’s clothes were all too small for Pamani, so she would need new things. They began by unbraiding Pamani’s hair, and then Mipina wrote a letter to her seamstress, ordering a couple of new robes in Pamani’s size. “Once you’ve got those, we can go out and you can choose the fabrics for the rest of your wardrobe yourself,” she said, and Pamani nervously agreed. I could tell she was apprehensive about going out in public as a girl for the first time, but excited, too.
“Or maybe I could just stay in the house until Father finishes the spell to make me a real girl?” she said to me when her mother had left. “I’ll probably look silly —”
“Pamani,” I said firmly, “you are a real girl. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, not even yourself. I would understand if you don’t wish to go out in public as a girl just yet; Juniper didn’t go out as a girl until she had been taking the medicine that makes her develop a feminine body for several months. But we don’t know how long your father will take to find or devise a spell to give you the body you desire, and I hope you won’t become a recluse for months, if it takes that long.”
“Did Juniper stay in the house until she started getting results from those medicines?”
“No, she continued attending school as a boy, and wearing baggy clothes to conceal the early results of the feminine medicines, until the end of the term. Then she started living as a girl during the summer vacation, and presented herself as a girl to the school for the following term. I think I already mentioned that most schools in my world have both boy and girl pupils?”
Pamani chewed her lip. “I guess I’ll wait and see how long it takes Father to get the spell? But I don’t want to go back to Ngumai Academy if I can help it. Only they probably won’t let me go to a girls’ school unless Father can fix my body first.”
“Let’s not borrow trouble,” I said. “You have four tendays left until the end of the vacation. And I’m fairly sure that, even if he can’t give you working reproductive organs by then, he can give you a generally feminine shape. I think you’ll be okay.
“There was something else I wanted to ask you. Would you like to come along with your father on one of his visits to my world? And meet Juniper, if the timing works out and she’s at home?”
“Oh, yes!”
“Then how about join me and your father tonight as I begin to teach him English?”
So she did. In teaching Bisur and Pamani English, I used my experience with helping Juniper and Ellie study for their Spanish and French classes. Bisur told Pamani what he had discovered so far about a possible spell to give her an affirming body.
“There’s nothing expressly for that purpose in the books I have,” he said, “but I think I have most of the components I need to build one. I could start tomorrow, even, and give you a body that looks right, but I’ll need more research if I’m going to make it work like a born woman’s body on the inside — you know, with a womb and a monthly flow and all. It would make sense to ask around, and search the library of the Society of Wizards, before I do that, though. Possibly someone already has such a spell that’s been thoroughly tested.”
“I’d be happy to just have a body that looks right by the time school begins,” Pamani said. “I wasn’t sure if magic could do anything for me, and I was half expecting I’d just have to have a surgeon cut stuff out and move stuff around.”
“Oh, no, we can do much better than that. How much better, I’ll know in a few days.”
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Comments
Intercultural exchange
The intercultural exchange and interscience exchange between the two worlds in the future should be out of this world. ;-)
Thx for another nice chapter^^