Read A Wizard of Mars, New Millennium Edition for Free Online

time, okay?” Nita said, increasingly distracted by the chartreuse-smoke creature, which was now pouring itself rapidly into what looked like the container of the food processor and pulling a lid down over it. A second later, a tentacle of green smoke came curling out of the container and punched one of the buttons on the processor’s front. The tendril was abruptly sucked back into the main mass of the creature as many peculiar things started happening inside the container at that point, including small lights flashing like sparks inside an outraged microwave.
    “So when’s Helena’s trip?”
    “August the first,” Carmela said, shaking her head.
    “Gonna be tough at home till then, Neets.” She raised her eyebrows, looking at Nita out of the corner of her eye. “ I know,” Carmela said. “Let’s do a road trip. Let’s go over to Ireland and see your buddy Ronan!”
    Nita rolled her eyes. “He is  not  my buddy!”
    “Yeah, and isn’t it wonderful,” Carmela said. Her real intentions, Nita thought, couldn’t possibly be as predatory as her smile made them appear.  I hope!  “But isn’t it August when everything gets crazy in Ireland? It did last time...”
    “Believe me,” Nita said, “what happened then is  not  a regularly scheduled event.” She sat there for a moment more watching the TV, where the “blender” seemed to have stopped— at least the flashing and smoking going on inside it had. The mist creature came out, not yellow-green now, but pink, and waved its tendrils around: a long line of number-characters in the Speech, probably the “food processor’s” details, started flashing on the screen. Nita shook her head. “I came in late,” she said. “What’s this about?”
    “It’s a portable wanjaxer,” Carmela said. “On sale, it looks like. Which is all right, except I don’t know if I really want to get into wanjaxing. I mean, I’m as broad-minded and tolerant as the next girl, but there are all these  hue  issues...”
    Nita rolled her eyes. Carmela had been spending a lot of time lately studying alien lifestyles, and her attempts to explain some of the finer points could take hours. “Forget it,” Nita said. “You see Kit before he left?”
    Carmela looked at Nita in shock. “ You  didn’t? You mean he just ditched you and ran off halfway around the world?” She paused. “ Is  it halfway?”
    Nita frowned, considering. “I’d have to look it up. How’d you know where he went?”
    “The remote told me,” Carmela said. “It loves Kit, but it’s no good at keeping a secret. Are you, cutie-bunny?” She reached down to the remote on the cushion beside her and tickled it under its infrared emitter. Nita was startled to see it arch its little “back” and emit a small electronic purr. She thought back to her conversation with Tom, and then put aside the thought that Kit’s original specialty had been getting inanimate objects and mechanical things to do what he wanted.
    And now Carmela... Naah, it’s probably still just something to do with Ponch. Everything here got really strange because  he  was getting really strange. It’ll take a while for things to calm down.
    “Anyway,” Carmela said, “he’s kinda forgetting his manners, if you ask me.” She leaned back among the cushions. “You two’ve been working on this Mars thing for months and months now.”
    “Well,” Nita said, “it’s really been more him. Not that I’m not interested. But I have stuff of my own to take care of.” She stretched her legs out.
    “Yeah,” Carmela said, “I’ve noticed. And not your water-based project that you’ve been so sneaky about, either. Oh, yeah, I noticed... don’t give me that look. All those magic conference calls all of a sudden with you and Miss Thunder-Fins the Humpback! But this is how many times now that you were ‘too busy’ to come shopping with me? Three? Four? And you looked cranky, not happy like when you’ve been working