The Touchstone Trilogy (117 page)

I'm not entirely certain I would have won the battle of wills, but Sen gave Ys no chance of victory, grabbing her hand and almost catapulting her down an escalator to an endless display of dolls.  It was a great store.  I found a few toys for myself, and wasn't the least surprised when Sen collected a thousand choices.  I made her pick just two, but would buy them the entire store if I had somewhere to put it.  She spent a lot of time with these horribly lifelike dolls (and androids!) taller than herself, but abruptly settled on a simple cloth one with a cheerful drawn-on face, and a poseable rainbow coloured thing with long arms and legs and googly eyes.

Rye found a kind of meccano construction kit, which Nils offered to carry (and then sneakily swapped to this humungous ultra-deluxe everything but the kitchen sink version).  Ys was very reluctant, fingering a few things when prodded, but still without a choice by the time Sen had finally settled on her two.  Kaoren solved this by picking something for her, this ultra-cool crystal statue – about two feet tall – which is made of nanobots and can take on any form you like – either a pre-programmed shape or one you make by treating it as modelling clay.  There are hundreds of pre-programmed shapes, some of which sneakily change position when you're not quite paying attention.  Ys adores it.  And Ghost spent half the evening stalking it.

We made it through the toy store without attracting attention, at least until we actually purchased the treats and found this girl who was on packaging and delivery service (they don't really have checkouts at most stores since you can purchase through the interface at any point in the shop).  Nils took them up for delivery, and The Nils Effect thoroughly distracted the girl wrapping the items, but when she saw the address he wanted her to deliver the packages to, she went all extra-awed and looked interestedly at the rest of us – and then stared at me and burst into tears.

It is severely embarrassing to have people cry at the sight of you.  Sen didn't like it at all, and attached herself to my leg, and I said some awkward words to the girl, who was apparently just glad I really wasn't dead.  Word spread after that, as we headed to a bed-ware store and successfully had even Ys select a quilt cover that she liked.  You could see people gathering in little groups to stare at us and, since we'd deliberately left the image-shield inactive on everyone except the kids, our shopping trip was soon a live-streaming event.

We'd chosen the place we were going to have lunch with care – it had a rear exit which was close to the elevator down to the lower levels – and we had booked a nice big table to fit us all and arrangements had been made to let us escape out the back.  The place filled up spectacularly quickly, and it was funny to watch us having lunch from a dozen different perspectives.  Fortunately we were able to tuck the kids far enough back that they could barely be seen, and of course not recorded.  And the city authorities had arranged for security outside, which was a good thing, since an impressive crowd gathered.  I felt sorry for disappointing them by sneaking out the back, but not even slightly tempted to go out there.

Sen likes her quilt cover (a seascape) enough to release her hostage cushions, and with the addition of two dolls and the latest in her ever-changing array of colourful public space designs, her room is beginning to look definitively hers.  Ys and Rye both set their 'treats' out in their small lounge/play area, and have been sharing between the three of them.  Nils told me later that there'd been a lot of private channel discussion over whether the kids would be too overwhelmed if everyone bought them gifts, as our escort had been sorely tempted to do.  He said I was entirely to blame for First and Second Squads' sudden excess of parental yearnings, since they'd had all this practice babying me, but he still seemed to really enjoy showing Sen how to 'finger paint' her room's public space and then levitating her all over the ceiling so that she could leave virtual handprints up there.  I set our main lounge ceiling to look like stars in response (I need to be careful about what appears in public space in our main living quarters, because it has a big impact on Kaoren's Sights).

Endless amounts of news stories and forum discussions about my brief appearance – including exact details of what I'd bought for the kids.  That caused me some angst, thinking that it might cause trouble when we go back to the talent school, but I don't think never buying Ys, Rye and Sen any presents is the solution to the talent school situation.  And, although I really enjoy going out and seeing more of Tare – and just being able to do some hands-on shopping – I don't think I'll push for a trip like that again in the near future.  People crying at me is dreadfully uncomfortable, and the bigger the crowd outside grew the more I wanted to leave.  Today demonstrated the impossibilities of ever giving the kids a 'normal' Taren life, which is especially an issue because right now we don't know if I can go back to Muina.

The theory they're evolving about what happened to me is guesswork held together by bubblegum and sticky tape.  On the near-certainty side is that these malachite marbles, most likely built secretly by House Zolen, first unbalanced the newly built Pillar network – causing the barrier between real-space and near-space to start tearing – and then triggered the disaster on Muina.  On the mostly-guesswork side, they think that House Zolen was either, incomprehensibly, aiming to turn themselves into Cruzatch, or ended up like that accidentally.  And that they used the touchstone who existed at that time, the one who created the Ddura, as part of their malachite marble network.  Since the malachite marbles are designed to use a touchstone, bringing me repeatedly near to them attuned me to what would count as the control room of the malachite marble machine.  Whether that machine still exists, or I was linking all the way back to a thousand years ago, is still up to debate, as is what will happen if I go back to Muina.  I might be fine so long as I don't go into one of the malachite marble rooms.  I might be in danger if I go through Kalasa.  Or I might drop into another death-spiral of energy expenditure as soon as I'm through the deep-space rift.

Tomorrow I'm scheduled for some very wary projection tests so that they can begin to try and find out whether projection of any sort will give me a medical crisis.  They're not going to decide anything more till after that.

Tuesday, September 23

Disclosure

Nothing dramatic happened during my testing session (which was scheduled in the afternoon after First and Fourth were back from another Ena rotation).  It was held in the medical section, rather than out at Keszen Point, and I couldn't help remembering my nightmares about the Velcro massive, as well as all the lusting I did after Kaoren.

Kaoren ran the session (with Maze and Zee in the next room), and kept me to a brief song projection.  They fed me a mild sedative to get me to nap straight away, but I just slept, and fortunately they decided that I was safe to sleep in quarters (though I have a distinct feeling Kaoren's going to stay up watching me for a while).

He's reviewing the questions
The Hidden War
producers have sent back (which are long and extensive and far more than I want to discuss – revolving mainly around how I felt at every moment, and especially when and why I fell in love with Kaoren).  Neither of us like the situation with
The Hidden War
, funny as Kaoren finds the Lastier persona, and we're well aware that by trying to control it we're only giving it added legitimacy.

We're going to fill the questions out together, but we need to decide whether we prefer to tell things which are private, or keep it minimal and have them concoct a romance half the planet will believe is the way things really happened.  I still can't decide about releasing the log of my time in Kalasa, either.

Wednesday, September 24

Privacy/Disclosure

No dramas for me overnight, although Sen did wake up from a nightmare and come climb in bed with us.  She was shaky and very upset and I think that's the first time I've seen her really cry.  I couldn't make much out about what she'd dreamed, but it seemed to be about Nuri's loss, and trapped people.  Once she'd calmed down a little, I lay holding her while Kaoren talked to her about controlling the things Sight made you see, and stepped her through one of the visualisation exercises until she fell asleep.  She has Sight Sight, Place Sight, Path Sight and Symbol Sight, and an Ice talent, and Kaoren says that unlike Ys and Rye she's more than strong enough to qualify for Setari training, but that the whole Kalrani program is going to need to be reviewed, both in regard to teaching the awareness of a connection with the Ena, and for the program's intensity and volume.  We don't know if we can fix the tears, or if everything's only going to get worse, and thus whether the program needs to be expanded or contracted.

Kaoren also gave Ys and Rye a small visualisation lesson over breakfast, explaining to all three of the kids (and me) how Sight Sight and Place Sight tends to develop at Sen's age, and how to help Sen through learning to control her visions.  Nightmares upon nightmares.  We're going to add the visualisations to story time as a final step, since she's started staying awake until I've finished reading the chapter.  Ys and Rye are always very serious about Sen's welfare, enough so that Ys briefly dropped her non-talkativeness to pepper Kaoren with questions.  Kaoren also talked to them about learning how to focus their own connection to the Ena, since being able to do that will immensely strengthen their abilities, and had them try picking things up using Levitation/Telekinesis and then try to sense their connection with the Ena.  He explained that it was something most Taren Setari couldn't do and he was only just learning, but that he wanted them all to try and sense it whenever they were using their talents.

Another training day, with projection work in the afternoon.  We went out to Keszen Point this time, and I recreated the first visualisation I'd done, of the museum Kaoren had described, this time with my senses expanded.  Then the requisite nap in medical.  Going to sleep in the afternoon and then waking up and being groggy till evening is annoying, but it's preferable to the maybe dying thing.  Preferable to the look I've seen in Kaoren's eyes when he's contemplating what they can and can't do if this goes wrong.

I had a swimming lesson to wake me up today, at least.  I'd arranged with Zan (who is on a completely opposite shift and so had only just got out of bed) to meet me and Kaoren at the pool to give the kids another lesson.  We needed three because that pool has no shallow areas, and I knew the sheer formidable depth of it would make it more than daunting for the kids.  Their eyes turned to absolute saucers when they looked down into it, and down, and down.  But Sen was okay so long as she could cling to me, while Rye's desire to win Kaoren's approval only grows, and I don't think Ys can stand to show she's afraid of things.

Zan was fantastic with Ys.  She's so calm and non-threatening and small, yet very sure and commanding when she wants to be.  And, I think, Ys doesn't have such a big emotional barrier built up against anyone but me and Kaoren, so was able to concentrate more on the swimming part and less on not giving an inch to me.

The main thing I wanted to teach them was how to get out of a pool, and then kicking and turning their heads to breathe while we held them.  Sen was totally unkeen on being face-down in water, and I didn't push her since she's only young, just had her practice dog paddle again.  Rye's gained a lot of confidence in the water, and I think he's enjoying swimming more for its own sake now, and not merely because it's time spent with Kaoren and earns him approving nods.

After the kids tired, we had them sit on the side of the pool and had a race across and back, which Kaoren won easily.  Zan pwned me as well – she's obviously been practicing hard.  Still, I kept up, and it was fun, especially because I briefly had the lead because I dive and do the turn better than them both (though, knowing Kaoren, he'll have perfected that before our next swim).

Good timing reading my diary tonight, since we'd reached the point where Zan was doing lessons with me in the pool.  Kaoren was both very amused at the way I described Kajal and Forel, and hugely unimpressed with their behaviour.  If Zan had been too severely impacted by their bullying, it was perfectly possible her distraction could have gotten her squad killed.  We had another of our almost-arguments, since Kaoren thought Selkie needed to know, and I was pretty firmly of the opinion that Selkie already knows what both of them are like and that my world would be even more circumscribed if people felt they couldn't trust me not to replay everything they did in front of me.  We're doing okay with our occasional disagreements – probably because we haven't yet hit anything where neither of us will give ground.  Kaoren had to cede this one – my diary reading is something utterly private between us, and he won't act on anything I tell him unless I agree to it.

Explaining the Orlando Bloom Meter to Kaoren was about a 7 on the Excruciating Scale, and I was glad to stop reading so Kaoren could catch up on the mass of reports he's supposed to review.  I'm going to work some more on the Q&A thing for
The Hidden War
, which I've decided to answer fairly detailed in some things and not at all in others (particularly questions about the kids).  But I think I'll make it a condition that they have to release the Q&A to the public after they've made their episodes.  And I'm going to have fun writing up how upset I got because someone stole my personal file and turned it into TV.

Thursday, September 25

Gravity

Again no drama overnight, and fortunately no nightmares for Sen.  Breakfast was all about Tare's endless sunset, and another discussion of planetary rotation.  I find it very weird how the day-night cycle on Tare is so long, yet the year so quick.  We ended up deep in explanations of gravity and centrifugal forces and the fact that the entire universe is moving.