"I'm afraid you will have to find out for yourself. This is all I could
uncover now. Plus the fact that Special Corps thinks that Gar Goyle can be
trusted. If I find out anything else I'll let you know. How are your magical
studies going?"
"We will know as soon as I get answers to some inquiries. I feel that I am
on the cusp of an entirely new career."
"Best of luck." She looked at her watch, touched the napkin to her lips.
"Bolivar's meeting should be done by now. I must fly. Bye."
Then she was away in a burst of enthusiasm. We finished our luncheon and
returned, sated, to our rooms. Eager to find the response to my queries.
Which was exactly nothing. Nor was it any better a day later. My letters had
vanished into the interstellar void. Like magic. Then the message-received
bell pinged and, with sudden joy, I lifted the sheet from the tray.
Glanced at it and cursed fluently in Esperanto as I crumpled it and hurled
it to the floor.
"Fiegulo! Bastardego! Ekskrementkapo! "
"I gather you are not too happy at the result?" Angelina said.
When I answered her I had to speak through grated teeth. "I have never been
so insulted in my life. Not only rejected but sneered at, put down, derided,
despised. . ."
"And all of the rest. Well the study of magic is obviously a very secretive
thing. So what do you do next?"
"Find another answer," I said as I paced gloomily about the room. Which is
not an easy thing to do. Nor is pacing angrily. Nor raging fatuously. "Not a
single famous magician will take me."
"Then why don't you try the not-so-famous?"
"Not so good. I need only the best."
"Maybe the best are dead. If they were really good they should be able to
speak to you from beyond the grave."
"No jokes! This is a serious matter. . ."
Then I stopped in my tracks as the idea popped to the surface. "Not alive,
not dead . . . but . . . retired!"
My faithful suitcase had but to be commanded. There were only two names on
the new list, the first one lightyears away right across the galaxy. But
