She collected Jason and they raced belowdecks to the crew compartment, otherwise deserted right now as the rest of the crew worked moving cargo into the boat. Once again turning away from each other, they quickly shed the coarse sailor clothing and donned the tough land clothing that felt absurdly fine by comparison.

Kira was dressed and hurriedly strapping on her shoulder holster when Jason spoke.

"This is the first time we've been alone for a while. What was that foresight stuff just before the storm hit?"

She paused before turning to look at him, trying to think of a way to avoid discussing it. Jason was mostly dressed, tugging on his boots as he gazed back at her. "Can we just pretend nothing was ever said about that?" Kira asked.

"But…if you have foresight…that's a Mage thing, right?"

Kira sighed. "Yes, it's a Mage thing, and yes, I have a little of it, I guess."

Jason stood up, eyeing her curiously as he pulled on his coat. "But everything your world has told Earth about Mages has said that any Mage talents are incompatible with being able to do technical work."

"If by technical work you mean Mechanic work, that's true," Kira said. "There's something about the way the mind has been trained to view everything. My father has been with my mother for about twenty years, and he's seen her use her pistol I don't know how many times, and he is smart, but he still can't use it. Oh, if you gave it to him he might accidentally pull the trigger, but he couldn't load it or operate it. I've talked to my father a lot about it, and I think what's going on is that Mages see a pistol, or any other device, and they see a single object. They don't see all of the parts, so asking them to, oh, push a button on something makes no sense to them any more than my telling you to push a button on a rock would make sense to you."

"But you can use your pistol," Jason said.

"Yes."

"Which means people can have both sets of viewpoints-"

"Jason, I'm the only one," Kira interrupted. "The only person my parents know of who can do it." She thought she saw it in his eyes then, and her voice grew angrier. "Don't look at me like that! I'm not a freak!"

He took a step back from her wrath. "I don't think you're a freak. You're unique, maybe—"

"That's another word for freak, Jason! Isn't it enough that I'm her daughter? That my mother died years before I was born?"

Jason shook his head. "That's just wrong. Even if your mother's metabolic functions ceased for a short while, she was revived in time, and she was obviously alive when you were born."