"But right now, the only thing you're sure you shield against is Chelsa," Kers observes.

"Ye-e-es. But she didn't notice me not paying attention to the morning announcements, right?"

"Right. But how are you going to experiment on people down there, without anybody noticing, when you're up here?"

"Would she notice if you didn't like the morning announcements anymore?" inquires Mehitabel.

"As a matter of fact, she didn't."

"Oh - do you already not watch them?"

"I don't get them up here. Chelsa thinks I'm on the planet."

"Oh. Well, then I guess I can't test on you, huh."

"Guess not."

Mehitabel contemplates this problem, stumped. "Maybe if I could shield you I could just tell somehow. I don't know."

"Maybe you could. You've got time to think about it, anyway."

Mehitabel nods. "And if I do manage to do it for you nobody else will see. Because we're secret."

"Exactly."

"What would happen if Chelsa knew you were not on the planet listening to her say good morning every day?"

"I believe the phrase is 'very upset'."

"I don't like her one bit," Mehitabel announces. "In fact I think I hate her."

"Good thing you're living in the only place where you can safely say that, huh?"

"Yes, but there should be more places like that." Mehitabel ponders. "What do you keep people safe from?"

"Just about everything. Except Chelsa. It's possible I could keep people safe from Chelsa too, but I can't experiment with that, because when I make a change to what my Gift covers it's the same change for everyone I'm covering. And most of those right now are Chelsa's very special friends."

Mehitabel makes a face.

"Yeah, pretty much."

"How did you find out what you could do?"

"My kid sister used to run into things a lot."

Mehitabel giggles. "What about the rest of it - that you could cover more people, and that you could change what from but not per person, and stuff?"

"I couldn't always cover more than one person, actually."