INTERLUDE

Professor Ptica drew herself to her full height, "Well, I suppose I should answer your question now rather than later. Yes, I know I told you not to ask any, but I'm volunteering to answer the question you didn't ask, so it's OK. Which question? Please, it's written all over your faces. I'm of course referring to the one about how Lady Blue had been working with so many people over so many hundreds of years. I'll spare you the details of the alternate means she didn't use, seeing as they're all inefficient and extremely dangerous.

"What she did was use No-Time. It's highly useful. Normally it's used by beings who are in a crisis situation and need some extra time to work out what to do. Step into No-Time and you're free to take all the time you need, within reason, while time appears to be frozen wherever it was you came from.

"The only limitation is that it's not safe to be there for more than a few days, maybe a week at most, before your body begins to break down. I recommend avoiding that.

"However, there is another use. It's one which it won't hurt you to know and you're free to tell anyone you're authorized to speak to about these matters, because neither you nor they will be able to use it. No-Time is exactly that. Time doesn't affect anything there. People with the right skills can step into No-Time and step out at any time in the past or future that they choose. That's what Lady Blue did/does/will do whenever she needs to be in some when that she isn't in at the moment.

"The reason that you're allowed to know about it this early in your training is that it takes about four thousand years of practice to come out within a million or so kilometers of where you intended to. Why you ask? I'll tell you. I'm nice that way.

"Most beings who write about or think about time travel think only about the time. They ALL forget that things move. There's the orbit of planets around their suns, the movement of suns about the centers of their galaxies, and the movements of the galaxies too. Then you also have to factor in the expansion of the universe.

"The math involved is several orders of magnitude beyond what even the most complex supercomputer can normally handle. If you're off even in the 20th decimal place, you'll probably end up somewhere in outer space, and, depending on which you find worse, frying or freezing, you could instead end up inside a star.

"Lady Blue is the only hypothetical being I'm personally aware of who can do it regularly and survive the experience. However I'm a mere university professor, so I have no idea how many real beings in the multiverses, if any, can accomplish it.

"I see puzzled faces. Yes, I called her a 'hypothetical being'. This entire story is, after all, a fiction put together to teach you about intersecting cultures. Don't confuse it with reality.

"Well, that's enough of a digression from the main story. Let's get back to the lesson, shall we?"

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They all had an enjoyable meal. The younger sibs, especially Eugenia, were thrilled to have their new "sister" for dinner. Paolo's parents had another preliminary discussion concerning the wedding plans while the children nattered to Sara and Paolo about this and that. Afterwards it was a typical evening for Paolo as it was back to his mother's study for more training, although this time Sara was also "invited."

Once they were settled, Miranda began, "Well, I see that the other player in our project has introduced herself, also without preamble, but, she did the same with my own first meeting with her, and your father's. It seems to be the way she operates, and nobody would dare to tell her to do it differently...or rather we all know how futile doing so would be. Besides, she doesn't terrify people when she first meets them. Startles, surprises, blows the mind, or some such, but never terrifies."

She eyed Paolo closely. "At least she doesn't seem to have nearly destroyed you like those idiots from the future did. Did she?"

Paolo hastened to reassure his mother that, while he had been startled, she was a lot easier to deal with than disembodied writing addressed to him appearing in what had seemed at first to be an ordinary book.

Miranda nodded. "Good. I'd hate to have to give her a piece of my mind. She can bite back, and, frankly, she's one being that I wouldn't care to cross."

Sara and Paolo glanced at each other and shared an expression comprised of surprise and some degree of disbelief. Though Miranda rarely showed it, they were both aware that she was a mage of more than average ability. How much they weren't sure, but they had both observed over the years that everyone they'd ever seen interact with her went out of their way to avoid irritating her.

It wasn't that she demanded or, for that matter, indicated in any way that she wanted special treatment. Somehow it always happened. Here Paolo was at a disadvantage. She was his mother, and one rarely looks at one's parent as anything other than "just" mom or dad.

Sara, on the other hand, was still something of an outsider, no matter that she'd been around Paolo's family since she was an infant. Perhaps it was also, at least in part, because she was also a woman and saw things that men tended to miss. Regardless of the cause, even though she had come to love Miranda dearly, she was well aware of the leashed power within her.

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Consequently, while she was thrilled at the prospect of becoming her daughter-in-law, she was also somewhat afraid of her. Also, unlike Paolo, she had known from childhood that it was useless to try to hid anything from his mother. She looked at Miranda, smiled warmly at her, shrugged her shoulders, and made a "there's nothing I can do about it" gesture with her hands.

Fortunately, Miranda knew well that there was something that she could do about it, so she did. "I see that we'd better take care of this matter before we do anything else. Come here Sara."

For a change, Paolo didn't wonder what was going on. He'd heard that tone of voice before. He'd seen his mother act in a similar way a number of times over the years, though always with younger children. To be frank, he was looking forward to seeing how embarrassed Sara became before it was all over.

For her part, Miranda looked at Paolo then rolled her eyes to look at the heavens, doing a credible "Why me?" with that simple movement. Then taking hold of Sara's hand, she pulled her into her lap and wrapped her arms around her.

An almost soundless crooning filled the room, and Miranda began to rock back and forth as if Sara were a young child being comforted by her mother. At first Sara looked both extremely embarrassed and frightened, but within moments she'd collapsed bonelessly into Miranda's arms, closed her eyes, and fallen deeply asleep.

Paolo stood and silently crossed the room. He knelt by his mother's left side and took her free hand in his. Next he took the back of her hand and held it to his cheek. "I studied my heart out for the exams, but even after learning all those new things, I don't have the words to say what I want to right now. Thank you Mother. From the bottom of my heart, thank you."

Miranda unwrapped her right arm from around Sara and, for the next little while, held her in place with a minor binding while she stroked Paolo's cheek. "You're welcome Paulito. I'm doing this as much for you as for her. She was afraid of my power, and afraid of what I might do should I become angry with her when she makes mistakes. She was also afraid of not being able to live up to my expectations -- as well as those of her family. That's far too heavy a burden for a child to have to bear.

"As we grow we encounter enough real problems that it's best not to have to deal with imaginary ones as well. Be assured that I didn't change her memories or anything horrid like that. What I did was help her to push those particular worries to a part of her mind where she'll probably look at them now and then and then laugh at how silly they were.

"Frankly it was rather easy. Knowing how dearly loved she is by all of us would eventually have accomplished the same thing."

She grinned mischievously at Paolo. "But that would have taken a year or two, and it would have slowed your training."

Paolo smiled back at her, putting all his gratitude into it, then ghosted back across the room and sat down.

Eventually Sara awoke and blinked her eyes. She looked at where she was and said, "Oh." This time there was only the faintest blush on her cheeks.

She lifted her left hand and stroked Miranda's right cheek, very gently. "Thank you. My mind was running around and around in circles, and I didn't know how to make it stop."

Then she gave Miranda a big hug, kissed her on the cheek, and hopped off her lap. She crossed the room and, to his surprise, kissed Paolo on the cheek as well before she sat next to him and gave Miranda her full attention.

"Well children, we don't have a great deal to do today. From what she told me, I can see that you've already been through almost more than you should have. Therefore I'll limit myself to giving you a bit of homework. Ask yourselves this: 'In what ways can I best gather information without seeming to do so?' I expect your answers to reflect an examination of how both men and women of varying ages will treat you when you're with them and how you can alter your behavior in whatever way will work best to encourage them to talk to you...or to completely ignore you while they talk to someone else.

"We'll put off dealing with extracting information from children to another time. The techniques for that are substantially different, and exploring those for adults and children simultaneously could be too much for you to remember."

She stood and Sara and Paolo quickly followed suit. She walked over and hugged Sara gently then kissed the top of her head. "Give my regards to Blair. Your father will still be at a meeting when you get home."

Turning to Paolo she added, "You will walk her home of course." Then she arched an eyebrow. "Detours and delays will not be appropriate, at least not today. Besides the two of you have been busy enough already. I expect that you're nearly exhausted."

The children bowed then turned and left the room.

As they were walking hand-in-hand on the way to Sara's, Paolo turned to her and asked, "When my mother said that we'd been 'busy enough' today, was she referring to what Lady Blue did with us, or do you think she was talking about, well, you know...."

Sara punched him, hard, in the arm with her free hand and hissed at him, "Idiot, what if there's someone nearby who can hear you." She gestured to the darkening street. "It's dark enough that there could be someone in any of those shadows."

Then she leaned close to his ear and whispered, "I don't know which she was referring to. Or maybe it was both. Either way I'm not ever going to ask her. Would you?"

Paolo considered, then shook his "no" several times. "Never, as long as I live."

From that point on they shared an amicable silence.

On his way back home, Paolo sauntered along while his mind was randomly reviewing the events of the day. He stopped suddenly as a particular memory rose to the surface of his mind. Before he and Sara had left, his mother had glanced at the clock above the fireplace.

She couldn't be, could she?

Realizing that it was entirely possible that she was, Paolo hurried his steps. If his mother was tracking how long it took him to get home, he didn't want to be late. The last thing he needed was having to deal with a mother who suspected that he done something with Sara other than escort her to her house and then return directly home.

On the way up the stairs to his room another memory surfaced. His mother had said that "detours and delays will not be appropriate today." That implied that on other days....

Smiling the entire time, he got ready for bed, blew out the lamp at his bedside, crawled in, and was still smiling when he fell asleep.