The Touchstone Trilogy (118 page)

Ys and Rye seem less reluctant to go to the Kalrani school than they were attending the talent school at Pandora.  Not keenly eager, but treating it as a task like cleaning up after breakfast.  They're the neatest damn kids – except Sen, who is mess on legs and has provided me with the challenge of teaching Ys and Rye
not
to clean up after her.  Kaoren or I clean up Sen's mess, or Sen cleans up Sen's mess.  Theoretically.

I spent the day finishing off the Q&A.  There were tons of questions about me and Kaoren, all about when and where and why and how we felt about each other during every single event, and I'm sure that they'll be disappointed that I simply added dates for when I first felt for him, and when he first felt for me, and when we got together.

Most of the other questions I answered a little more helpfully, although there's quite a lot of things I would only go to the edge of (not describing the kids, or other Setari, or certain aspects of my talents).  I took considerable pleasure describing how upset and violated I'd felt about my file-napping.  Kaoren and Maze and probably a whole bunch of other people will review it before it goes to the show's producers, and I'm sure I'll regret some of the things I wrote down.  I thought for a long time, and then agreed to release the Kalasa log as well.  I’m not entirely comfortable with it, but I guess it will stop some of the more exaggerated stories about what I did there, and at least it won't be distorted by reinterpretation.  It saves Se-Ahn Surat from a complete water-logging.

Today's test was to simply have me expand my senses until my centre went vague, which I did without trouble or incident.  Now KOTIS Command is having fun arguments about what the next test should be, and whether they can risk taking me into the Ena, and whether they dare take me back to Muina to see if I can help unravel more of its mysteries.  So I'm back where I was before we last headed to Muina, frustrated at not being able to do anything useful, with the need to find a solution only growing more urgent.  If there is a solution to be found.  First and Fourth had a rough rotation today – a single six-person squad would have been overwhelmed.  I'm not very keen to go through all that vomiting again, but having everyone I know fight harder and harder battles until someone gets killed is even worse.  I keep checking the news for new discoveries coming out of Pandora, but the most I've heard is that the nanite factory is close to activation, and that more of the Nurans are accepting the interface.  There's not even news about the splinter group.

I'm shying away from reading other news at the moment, and have been ploughing through more schoolwork instead.  The rate that Ys and Rye are shaping up, they'll end up passing my Taren school level in a couple of years, which would be a little embarrassing.  I keep telling myself I've graduated from high school back home, and am about to be paid an enormous amount of money, and there's no need to study geometry during a galactic apocalypse.  And, yet, studying.

Friday, September 26

Ball

Weird dream last night.  Not the rush-to-medical type, and not a projection, but a bit like when I was dreaming of Kaoren at Kalasa.  I was dreaming of a bunch of children playing, kicking and tossing a ball made of cloth (a hacky sack?) to each other.  Dressed in 'non-tech' clothes, which could mean Nurans or old Muinans, and most of them the same gold-brown skin, black-eyed, black-haired type as Kaoren and Sen.  There was a girl watching them, standing at the top of some whitestone stairs leading to a walkway, and although physically she was far more like Sen, she reminded me so much of Ys – that fiercely shut down expression, the stubborn don't-need-these-people attitude.  She was dressed a good deal more formally and expensively than the other kids, and I could see her working herself up, until finally she strode down the stairs and into the courtyard area where the children were playing.

They ran.  Abandoned their ball and scurried like rabbits through archways and doors, looking genuinely frightened.  The girl pretended she hadn't noticed, and strode chin held high across to another stair, managing to kick the little ball into a muddy patch as she did so.  I had to wonder what she'd done to make them so scared of her.

I described the dream to Kaoren this morning, which mainly served to spark a discussion on whether I was supposed to wake myself up from all of my dreams, or just the ones we've established are a problem.  He wasn't even sure himself which was the better response to dreams about unhappy little girls, and uncertainty's a pretty rare thing for Kaoren.  Then he told me to write a report up describing in tedious detail everything I'd seen, including any decorations, and style of the buildings and types of plants and clothing.  I asked the kids whether Nurans ever played with balls made of cloth, and Rye shrugged and said balls were made of lots of things.

Training, training, training all day.  I'm far more toned than I ever imagined being.  Mara has recovered really well, although she still has a fair bit of cosmetic work to do to get rid of the scars.  The skin on my stomach has settled down, although there's a faint difference between the new and old skin.  Nothing so bad as to need another session.

Today's test was just another visualisation, with no ill effects, but tomorrow we're going to go into the Ena so I can attempt to visualise Pandora.  Four squads as guards, and they've had drones set up out there to scan for any sign of Cruzatch.

We had Siame over to our apartment for dinner.  Kaoren wants to have her more regularly involved in our lives to make her feel less excluded.  That went okay, I guess – she at least has decided to talk to me now, if only to ask questions about precisely how my talents work, and what exactly was the crisis which sent us back to Tare.  That was more detail than I'd given the kids, and I had to be careful not to show any hesitation in letting them know more about what was going on with me.  I think it would be harder on them to feel we were keeping the truth from them, than to know.

Sen insisted on showing Siame her spruced-up bedroom.  Rye was cautiously polite.  Ys was silent unless asked a direct question.  I'm hoping things will get more relaxed as these meetings go on.  Kaoren's looking worn again – he hates how unhappy Siame is.  I think I'll see how he feels about back rubs.

Saturday, September 27

Edge of Drama

I dreamed about that girl again.  At least this time I knew to try and spot identifying marks, for all that there was precious little to see.  I wanted to try doing a projection of it, which is so much simpler than trying to describe things, but when I suggested it later Kaoren and Maze said to not try that yet.  It was duller than the first dream – the girl was in a narrow corridor (possibly even a secret passage), apparently eavesdropping on conversations.

These were muffled – whitestone blocks sound pretty efficiently, and unlike the girl I couldn't press my ear to what I guess were purpose-built listening holes.  Besides, I think they might have been talking in old Muinan.  The tone of the voices was mostly casual, occasionally intimate.  Finally the girl stopped to listen at a room where I wasn't even sure what I was hearing.  A group of people, yes, male and female, angry and worried, not quite shouting, but the words sounded like bells and thunder; resonant, strange, inhuman.  Then the conversation abruptly faded, a deep voice said a couple of short words, and the girl took off at a run.

I woke up then, and snuggled into Kaoren's side, and tried to decide why I was dreaming these things.  The best I could come up with is that I'm dreaming about the last touchstone's life, before the disaster on Muina.  She looks about the right height for that small, shrouded figure.  That's nothing more than a guess, but Maze and Kaoren haven't been able to suggest any solid alternatives.  Of course, if it is the last touchstone's life, then anything or nothing could be important.  It's given the technicians something else to argue about, and during the debate about whether I should sleep in medical I considered just not mentioning any more dreams, but I've accepted that enduring medical is part of what I need to do.

The test in the Ena was uneventful.  I visualised the café at Pandora, and found it dark – night-time there.  It was tiring enough that I didn't mind a nap afterwards, in medical or not, and again had no dramas.

Tomorrow they're going to have me do another projection of the place where I was dream-trapped.  Kaoren's not keen on this, and nor am I really, but it is the logical next step.  They're bringing Inisar back from Muina to get the benefit of his Sight Sight as well.

Sunday, September 28

Stress

No dream of girl last night.  I didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed.  Today the visualisation of the room I'd been trapped in went smoothly, right up until they started talking about lifting the cloth covering the figure.  Maze moved toward it, and I said: "Don't!"

My heart rate spiked through the roof, and I lost the projection, and then couldn't explain why I'd felt so panicked.  Maybe it was just the idea that they might lift that cloth and the little girl I've been dreaming about would be lying there.  Or what's left of her.  I earned myself an extra-long time in medical as a result, and then while I was there news came in that there'd been a massive attack on Kolar South.

The Kolaren Setari and military had managed to kill it, but people had died, including two of the Setari.  The two who died weren't Setari I'd met, and I feel bad that this makes it easier for me.  Everyone's looking seriously stressed out – massive attacks have never been close to so frequent before this.  The kids picked up on it – or probably had been reading the news services again, which were full of doom-laden predictions.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to have nightmares tonight, no matter what visualisations I try.  I'm just too upset by the idea of more and more massive attacks.

Monday, September 29

Settled

Nice to be right.  I kept having projective nightmares, over and over – mostly the Velcro massive dream.  I've become very adept at recognising them and making myself wake up, fortunately.  I put into effect Kaoren's suggestion to try to wake myself up from anything even mildly disturbing, even when I'm not sure if it's a dream, and am feeling all the better for that working.  Otherwise, right now I wouldn't be able to risk sleeping anywhere near other people.  Poor Kaoren woke with me each time, and after the fourth dream we gave up and had hot drinks – and then I heard Sen murmuring and fretting, so I went and smoothed tangled threads of hair off her forehead until she settled down.  Since she was as usual in Ys' bed, I managed to wake Ys in the process, but I just gave her the same treatment, and she stood it for a full ten seconds before turning her head away.

I was less stressed out by the time we went back to bed, and had another dream about the unhappy girl.  She was sitting on a whitestone roof, looking very wan and confused and vague, like she'd been doped up on drugs.  I had a good view of the scenery, and divided my attention between the girl (who sat unmoving, even when it started to drizzle) and trying to memorise as much detail as possible of a busy Muinan-style city.  It looked like Nuriath must once have looked, although there was a single very tall statue off to my left.  It was facing away from me, and dominated the city.

After a good survey I tried to go kneel in front of the girl, but that made me aware that I didn't have a me to kneel with, and so I woke up.  All this waking up (and using my talents while sleeping) meant I spent the day feeling gluggy and tired.  Despite longing to get things done, I was glad that they decided to make the day a training day instead of another session in the Ena.  Not that I felt like exercising either.

Fortunately, Mara toned back her intensity, and we even had time to fit in another swimming session for the kids with Zan.  Rye's determination to do well in front of Kaoren at least sparks an equal determination in Ys to not lag behind, so they both made good progress.  Sen is growing more confident with the dog paddle, and thus less inclined to cling, and the three of them looked to be enjoying just paddling back and forth to each other (in that so-funny little-kid way which makes them look like frantic frogs).  Kaoren's been off in a Captain's meeting most of the evening, and it felt very strange to have dinner without him.   I've yet to understand the difference between the meetings he can attend over the interface and the ones he has to go to in person.

Ys is drawing ahead of Rye in terms of reading ability, judging from their attempts with the beginning of tonight's chapter.  Taren isn't nearly so inconsistent a language as English, and they're both able to consistently sound out words now, just with varying levels of speed and some distinctly odd syllable breaks.  I did notice that they're beginning to shift to a more Taren rather than Nuran accent, which I guess is what you get when you cram yourself full of Taren schooling for weeks on end.

And it has been weeks.  That really amazes me to think about.  We've had the kids with us for over a month now.  The idea of them belonging with us is beginning to solidify into a reality.  And Kaoren and I are more certain about each other every day.  I've been able to put aside my sense of impending doom to simply be thankful for all the good things which came with the bad.

Tuesday, September 30

Blocked

I dreamed of 'my' girl again.  She was sneaking through a series of rooms and corridors, dodging and hiding behind walls, dashing across open spaces.  There were a lot of guards about, dressed in cream tunics and carrying heavy, ornate spears.  No glowing eye flashes anywhere in this dream, but I did start wondering if I was watching an episode of
Junior-League Stargate
, which is why I'm so uncertain whether these dreams are important.