"Yeah!" He gave her a surprised look at her knowledge, which shaded to discomfort as Kira gave him a glare for being surprised that she knew it. "Uh, we also use that term now to talk about what can be done with an existing level of technology," Jason explained. "Sometimes you get big breakthroughs and the ground state jumps to another level and everybody pumps out all kinds of new stuff for a while. But other times you go a long period stuck at a certain level, pushing it as far as it can go, but not able to get past that until there are some more breakthroughs. We've made some real progress since the colony ships went out, but nothing like people once predicted. There are some people arguing that we've pushed technology as far as it can go, and the next step would have to be something totally different. Something like the Mage stuff you have here, but nobody has managed to crack that." He looked down at where the drive lay concealed under his shirt. "Not before now."

"You've got an entire society built on Mechanic arts," Kira said. "Mage arts require you to see the universe in a totally different way."

"I guess they figured out how to mimic it using tech," Jason said. "We can do that, but it's not as good as the real thing. Like, um, artificial intelligence? It's real good at doing a lot of tasks that a person could do, a lot better at some stuff, but it's not really intelligent or self-aware. It's still pretending to be that. I thought maybe someday I could-" He stopped talking, watching as the train began moving, the buildings of Sima's Crossroads quickly giving way to the open country of northern Tiae.

"You could what?" Kira asked.

He shrugged. "Work on that stuff. But it's really advanced."

"So?"

"So aside from being a jerk, I'm really not all that smart." Jason balled his fist. "It's okay. I'm okay at it."

"Don't say okay," Kira reminded him.

"Uh, yeah. I could make a guaranteed living at it. I don't love it. I can't imagine getting up every morning for who knows how many years and doing it. Not because there's anything wrong with it but just because I don't think I love it."

Kira let out an exasperated sigh. "Why don't you study something you do love?"