The Touchstone Trilogy (112 page)

We moved back into the shallower water to give them a rest, and I told them about how Australia is the largest island on my planet and that most of the people live around the edges of it, and almost everyone learns how to swim there because there's so much coast and it gets very hot.  And then I told them about the people who go swimming across the English Channel, all covered in Vaseline, and about scuba diving and krakens and mermaids.  Just like when I was explaining volcanos, the difference between what's real and not-real about Earth exists in a strange land of could-be because I'm the only person who's been there.  I was highly tempted to try and convince them mermaids were real – would it really be so different from telling little kids Santa Claus is coming?  Or tourists to watch out for Drop Bears?

I think Sen would know, though.

That thought made me open a channel to Kaoren to ask how to lie to a Sight Sight talent – or, more to the point, how the people behind the conspiracy on Nuri ever managed to hide what they were doing from their Setari.

"Embed the lie behind a lie," Kaoren said.  "While it's not unusual for Sight to reveal that a person is lying, it is rare that Sight can convey the truth behind the lie.  The Nurans saw deception aimed at political gain, and very likely were rarely given a chance to closely question the conspirators.  Half-truths can also work – the power stones
are
shield generators.  That is true enough to hide whatever else they can be used for."

Ys and Rye were the most relaxed with us they've been so far – not totally without their guard up, but Rye is more and more willing to ask questions and Ys at least spends less of her energy glowering.  During their second session, paddling about became less of an ordeal and more of an adventure and they had a little dog-paddle race over to the scary deepest part of the pool by the hill, and then back to us.  And their eyes went huge when Kaoren said that next training session that fell on a hot day, he'd see if Fourth Squad could swim from the Setari building to the nearest water landmark, Tupal Rock, which is much closer than 'our' barely visible island.

The pool is cool and shady, all dappled light and the occasional drifting leaf or flower petal, so when the kids started to get tired we went out to the sunnier lakeshore to join First Squad.  They'd also been swimming – and were talking about bringing breathers and goggles another time so that they could look to see what the lake was like under water – and our arrival was the signal for lunch, which was tasty and sumptuous, and we all lay about basking on big black rocks to digest and chat and watch the truly spectacular number of birds wheeling over the distant northern bank of the lake.  A couple of thin spirals of smoke were visible, further west than our island, and Maze confirmed that the breakaway group had stopped walking on the second day and set up camp near the ducks nesting on the north shore.  When storm clouds started to roll in we all felt thoroughly sorry for the Nurans, but of course there wasn't much we could do but collect up all our scraps and head back to Pandora.

It was a serious storm, breaking in late afternoon – it's been a while since we've had any really rainy weather – and we watched the lightning and the sheets of rain with wincing sympathy from the safety of our snug apartment.  We've had no specific news on how the Nurans are doing, though one of the Nuran Setari is always off watching them.

Another platform town exploration tomorrow.  We'll resume training every second day once the initial survey has been done on all of them, but all-day flying is too energy-intensive to not schedule in lots of rest days.

Friday, September 12

Nursery rhymes and fairy tales

Kaoren woke me earlier than usual this morning, and held a hand to my mouth so I wouldn't say anything, murmuring: "Listen."

So I listened, and heard singing: "Thiz li'l piggy had roass biff.  An thiz li'l piggy had non.  An thiz li'l piggy wen wee wee wee all the way hom!"

Ys.  And then Sen, giggling with hysterical delight, just as she'd done last night before story time when I'd been playing silly games with her.  I'd sung it in English first, then translated the words, but Sen had vastly preferred the English version.

"Did she log it?" I asked Kaoren.

He shook his head.  "They don't have that function yet.  This is from memory."

Ys moved on to 'Inzy Winzy spida', and then 'Rown an rown the gar den', her pronunciation off, but word perfect each time, for all that I'd only repeated each rhyme a couple of times the night before.

"They were beaten for eavesdropping on the lessons of the household's heir," Kaoren told me, and when I glanced sharply at him, added: "A Sight dream.  There was no reason for the ban, no law among Nurans that servants should not learn more than how to serve, though it is unusual for them to aspire.  The master of the house was cruel, and saw how much they wanted, and so took pleasure in denial.  That was my dream – from the master's point of view, enjoying giving the order."

He had to squeeze me for a while, caught between revulsion and fury.  It's rare that Kaoren has Sight dreams now, but when he does they're particularly strong, and all day today I could see the shadow of it on him.  And he's furious, because the two of them are so very smart, and someone thought it fun to hurt them.

When we made a noise, Ys immediately stopped singing, so we went out and pretended it was just another morning.  Over breakfast our explanation for why we'd be later back today led to a discussion of time zones and planetary rotation and we spent a lot of time in a shared space showing them my log of golden plains, and looking at a gorgeous room-sized image of Muina, pointing out the locations of where we were now, where Kalasa was, where we'd been the day before yesterday and where we were going tomorrow.  Kaoren showed them how to zoom in to locations, and different interactions they could do with the globe – and then gave them an exercise to locate and view the two other towns we were scheduled to visit, which made  me laugh at him and call him such a captain.  But the kids loved being able to make the connection between our calendars and the planet, and just looking at different places in the world – particularly the immensely detailed aerial view of Pandora and the live views from numerous scanners which have been placed around the lake and town.

The storm had died away to another muggy morning, but our mission location was Firiana, a town on the largest of a series of small islands in the next big lake to the east.  It was cold and raining there, a constant heavy downpour which didn't let up for the entire long day.  It wasn't all bad – our hoods were happy to be waterproof and we adapted our uniforms to be partially Taren Setari and partially Muinan Setari and so were quite snug.  Just constantly a bit damp.

The islands were home to a lot of long, slender furry seal-things with an odd resemblance to Afghan Hounds.  And bigger 'lake serpents' which appear to be the sharks of this world (and fortunately don't live in the waters Pandora borders upon).  They're about ten metres long, furry, and have a touch of Luck Dragon about them.  Possibly they're relatives of the seal-dogs, but much larger and toothier.  All the Setari developed rather odd expressions when we found the seal-dogs, and when we stopped for lunch Glade told me old Taren-Muinan stories about benevolent creatures called 'surri' which would rescue people who'd fallen in the water, and which they'd thought were mythical.  Today would be like me finding a flock of griffins roosting at Bondi.

After a long, wet day we reached Pandora a little behind schedule – past sunset – to find Sen fretful and worked up.  She'd refused to let Mara read the next chapter of the current story, though she'd been happy and cheerful up to that point.  Ys was watchful and withdrawn, and Rye seemed simply relieved that we were both in one piece.  Teaching the kids the clock and calendar means they know when we're late.

My solution was to show them how to send us emails and voicemail, explaining that at least when we're on Muina, if they need to ask us a question then sending an email is a good way to ask without worrying about interrupting us with a channel request.  But I should have thought to send them one, before 'late' became an issue.  This Mum thing has a huge learning curve.

After story time was over, Kaoren and I had dinner with Lohn and Mara and discussed our mutual interest in the kids.  I squirmed a little because it was so clear that they'd both been aching to have children for I don't know how long, and it wasn't till Mara had spoken to me that I'd even thought about their feelings.  Lohn is already completely wrapped around Sen's little finger, and proud as any Dad about how quickly Ys and Rye are progressing with their lessons.  And relieved, I think, that the kids are distracting Mara from her frustration at being on sick leave.

Despite bedtime fretting, Mara said it had been a good day.  "When I checked on them at lunch it looked to be a drama because they'd been playing with the Muina map, only to be discovered by the other students.  Since to those without the interface it looked like three children standing in an empty room pointing at nothing, that not surprisingly produced a little spate of mockery."  She caught my eye.  "And Ys and Rye reacted as you described, that self-erasing pose, not even trying to explain.  Sentarestel's attempts to defend them were not entirely intelligible – she has something of a temper, you've noticed?  Fortunately Squad One hadn't left yet, so I called down Diav and had her use Illusion to show the rest of the students what Ys, Rye and Sen had been seeing."

Mara's smile took on a wicked edge.  "I probably shouldn't have enjoyed their reaction so much, but one of the more opinionated students has been arguing against any suggestion that they consider the interface.  What point tainting yourself, she's been saying, when the handhelds will do the same thing?  That map is a wonderful counter-argument.  The girl did, rather feebly, try to suggest that a bigger screen would produce much the same result.  Here."

She gave me a log of the scene, and I can't stop grinning at the image of Rye, pink-faced but determined, lifting his head to say: "It's nothing alike.  It's a narf to a tarena.  Using those little boxes is like crawling in the mud."

A narf and a tarena are – were – apparently two Nuran animals, the equivalent of comparing a slug to an eagle.

"He sounded sorry for them," Mara added.  "I think that's what clinched it.  We've abruptly gone from only your three here with the interface installed, to a mere six holdouts in all of the talent school – and by the afternoon the other four schools were logging a handful of requests as well.  It's not so big a shift there, but it's the most progress we've had since the initial processing.  Those in leadership roles recommending the change didn't have nearly as much effect as pity from what these children consider their social inferiors."

I bet it was that Karasayen girl arguing against the interface.

"Any overtures?" I asked, not very hopefully, and Mara shook her head.  I've been bugging the people in charge of the talent school probably a little too much about the behaviour of the other children to the 'servants' in their midst.  Other than to try and pry information about me out of them, they're usually leaving Ys and Rye alone.  Not unexpected but the main reason why I'm not sure if the talent school is the right place for them.

Sen they treat very differently, and she's cheerfully social in her age group for the sport sessions.  Of course, Ys and Rye hardly encourage anyone to talk with them either and at this stage aren't the least bit interested in friends and to tell the truth that's probably the best thing for the moment.  Eventually I'd like to see them with friends, but I want them feeling safe and secure with us first.

Another late day tomorrow.

Saturday, September 13

Tiny steps forward

Finally a new marble.  Ninth found it, at the very edge of their range out from the equatorial platform town called Pelamath (the old Muinans were very fond of putting 'ath' in their town names).  The area is a bit like those plateaus in South America, though not quite as high I think.  Very rainy.  Up on top of the plateau it's scrubby, all bushes and spindly trees, while down below is jungle.  The platform town is up top, and they found the marble (or, rather, another set of boastful doors) buried in a notch at the base of one of the sheer sides of a different plateau.

We heard the news before we even left, since Ninth has been working through the time zones in the opposite direction and thus started out around midnight.  The terrain at Pelamath makes it rather more challenging than Arenrhon to set up a base of operations to begin investigating and so far Ninth has only placed some drones there.  But the idea is to first locate as many of the things as possible, and then start delving into them in the hopes of finding more information – preferably that elusive book
Our Secret Plan and How to Foil It
.

First and Fourth were assigned to a slightly later time zone to yesterday's, but southern hemisphere and closer to the pole so we had a short, chilly outing.  Mostly fir trees with a few massive yellow-leafed nut trees completely infested by squirrel-types with black fur, tufty white-tipped ears, and long curling tails.  Packs of dogs, too, though not border collies, and various deer along with my old acquaintance the Mondo Elk.  Not quite halfway through Autumn (we think) and already it felt like snow wasn't too far off there.

I made a point of calling the kids when we stopped at lunch, and showed them the different animals we'd seen, and some of the prettier streams and waterfalls.  Rye definitely has a Shon-level interest in the natural world, and wanted to know what all the animals would be called – which is really anyone's guess at this stage, although a lot of animals are being casually named for their resemblance to the animals of old Muinan stories.  And the border collies are being called border collies, which amuses me greatly.

A channel request to Shon was all it took to arrange a tour of the flora and fauna buildings and a personal explanation of naming conventions.  The three of them (and Mara) ended up having dinner with Isten Notra after their tour – and meeting the rest of her family, all of whom arrived just two days ago as new Muinan settlers.  I found out about that when Isten Notra sent me an email, warmly amused as usual, but ending up with: "Don't overlook the brittle fragility of the older girl.  Even metal of her quality can shatter after years of strain."