The Touchstone Trilogy (46 page)

When I was first given access, I used to close my eyes when using the interface.  Now I'm more able to watch
and
see the world around me at the same time, but I by no means pay attention to my surroundings.  And thus I was very confused by sudden movement right next to me and the soft sound of an impact.  Suspending the news feed, I saw a couple of people standing over me, wearing a dark green and black uniform.  My brain sluggishly caught up to what my eyes had recorded, and I realised one of them had tried to kick me and another had stepped in the way, catching her foot.

"Don't start this, Katzyen," said the catcher, a guy who sounded more resigned than annoyed.  "It's not what we're here for."  I found it very hard to understand what he was saying, but didn't immediately realise they were talking in a different dialect.

"If they'd had their way we wouldn't be here at all."  The second speaker was a small woman with sparking-hot green eyes, whose temper seemed set to nuclear smoulder.  "Wouldn't you say it's only in the spirit of our alliance to test their level of combat training?"  She shot a disparaging glance at me.  "If you're an example of the standard we're constantly tested against, there's nothing to Taren Setari except their reputation.  Can you prove yourself the better?"

That was my introduction to Kolar's Setari.  Kolarens started out with the same language as Tarens, but it's become quite a distinct dialect.  They pronounced the words oddly enough that my translation suggestions weren't being very helpful.  Anyway, my response was to stare at her blankly, finally figure out that she wanted me to spar with her, and say: "Would be short fight."

This made her look even more annoyed, and some other Kolarens who'd been approaching stopped where they were.  I guess they thought I was saying I could take Katzyen with one hand tied behind my back.

Before I'd done more than realise I was about to get a fist in the face, rescue showed up in the form of Tsur Selkie, who did one of those suddenly-just-there-in-the-way appearances that people with Speed talent are so good at.  One of Ninth Squad – a guy called Thomasal – zipped up a moment later.  It's not as if my seat wasn't in the full sight of half the camp, after all, and Thomasal was camp guard of the moment.  I'd been expecting him to show up, but not Selkie.

The Kolarens had the same reaction to Selkie as the Taren Setari.  They went all upright and parade-ground.  He didn't act like he'd interrupted a scene, just glanced over them, then said: "This is Caszandra Devlin.  Your briefing material will include the requirements regarding interaction with her.  Remember two points.  First: Devlin's system cannot handle contact with multiple talent users.  The seizures such contact causes would be fatal without medical intervention.  Second: as part of this detachment your priority, above all else, is to keep her alive."  He looked at me, adding: "You have a security alert for a reason," then signalled for Thomasal to follow him and left.

The Kolarens had gone interesting colours.  They're a great deal more tanned than Tarens, and tend more to brown and blonde hair than black, though they still appear to have a combination of Asian and Caucasian ancestry.  They all looked to be around twenty.  The guy who'd stopped Katzyen from hitting me reminded me immensely of the movie version of Lawrence of Arabia, except younger and without the flowing robes and headgear.  I turned on my interface name display to see that he was called Arad Nalaz.

"I couldn't fight my way out of wet paper bag," I told Katzyen, feeling sorry for her now she'd stopped being aggressive and had gone dull red.  "Would be very short fight because I lose straight away.  Maybe we start this conversation over again?"

One of the Kolarens, golden-brown and medium-tall, began to laugh.  "We've certainly managed a strong first impression."  He came closer, and did a quick hand to chest bow.  "I'm Raiten Shaf and I think it's very unfortunate of you to be dressed as a Taren Setari if you're not."

"Assigned to Setari," I explained.  "Sometimes go into Ena with them so need uniform's protection."  The Kolaren Setari weren't wearing nanosuits, though, and have to carry actual weapons for close combat instead of growing them.

"You're the, ah, displaced person from the world called Earth?"  asked a very burnished woman named Laram Diav.

"Yes.  Is Kolaren Setari here to baby-sit archaeologist horde too?"

"That's – well, probably not an inaccurate description."  Shaf grinned.  "So you have seizures if people touch you?  That's quite an allergy."

"Only if too many people touch me at once," I said, then my face went hot.  "Pretend that didn't sound strange.  You think Taren Setari not want you here?"

Shaf gave Katzyen an exasperated glance.  "No.  But we have spent what felt a short eternity being told that technical details of our contribution needed to be finalised."

"Excuse after excuse, delaying any of us from coming to Muina," Katzyen said.  "We wouldn't even know that a settlement had been established, if they'd had their way."

"No-one on Tare would either, probably.  But Setari don't make that decision."  I shrugged.  "Give you unofficial welcome, anyway.  Is beautiful place."

That produced the classic exiled-Muinan expression, and the Kolaren Setari ended up spending the rest of the morning up on my rock shelf having a discussion about Earth and Muina and how I'd ended up at Pandora and then Tare.  They seemed like nice people.  Less formal than Taren Setari; or more like the older squads.  It was impossible to miss the deep resentment they hold toward Tarens.  Tare basically showed up fifty years ago and started messing with their world.  Kolar was in something like the Gaslight era while Tarens had had the interface for decades, and advanced nanotech for something like seventy years.  Other than the Kolaren Setari program and the whitestone building material, Tare hasn't yet allowed Kolar anything like the full extent of their technology – only their Setari program had been allowed use of the interface.  It sounds like their approach has been a little on the paternalist side, with a strong eye to profit.  Almost guaranteed to cause offence.

I'd love to know what Tsur Selkie's reasons were for leaving me to be the Kolaren Setari's introduction to this site.  It didn't last too long: the arrival of the
Litara
had been Fourth Squad's signal to head back and Ruuel sent me one of his characteristically word-stingy messages: "Testing before lunch."  He must have sent one to Shaf as well (he's the Kolaren squad's captain) since he reacted at the same time.  Hopefully he got a little more explanation, but he did look kind of quizzical when he said: "Time to move, it seems."

We went down to meet Fourth Squad, who were waiting near the finds tent, watching the construction of some really complicated machine around the door of South Mountain.  As usual, Ruuel brought everyone into mission channel as soon as we were in sight of each other, and began briefing and leading us all further south, to an area which was mainly low bushes.

"Contact with Devlin enhances and sometimes warps talents.  This session is to verify the effect of Devlin on your available talent sets, then to practice movement and multiple squad enhancement rotations in combat simulation.  We don't have adequate test shielding here, so push elementals to far range.  Sonn."

"Unenhanced," Sonn said, and shot a lightning bolt outward and upwards.  She touched the tips of her fingers to my arm.  "Enhanced."

I guess no-one had mentioned the enhancement effects to the Kolarens.  A few of them looked briefly incredulous as the ball of lightning arced and spat in the air, drifting slowly away.

"The distortion has been consistent, and observed effects on each talent are listed in the briefing material."  Ruuel gave Shaf one of his captain-nods and Fourth Squad stepped back, obviously handing over to him.

Fourth Squad was an interesting choice to end up first to work with a bunch of Kolarens with chips on their shoulders.  There's plenty of squads which might have soothed some of that resentment; certainly First Squad could put anyone at their ease.  And some who wouldn't want to: it was a damn good thing that it wasn't Fifth Squad, who would have guaranteed that interplanetary relations developed an Ice Age.  But Ruuel – Ruuel is always so focused on getting the job done, as quickly and painlessly as possible, and obviously doesn't see any point measuring himself or his squad against other people, or trying to prove anything at all.  He behaved exactly as if the Kolarens were any squad who hadn't worked with me before, with every expectation that they would just get on with it.

Shaf's obviously good at adapting to the unexpected, and had Nalaz start out with Wind, buying himself some time to review the briefing material they won't let me see.  They tested without anything odd happening, and then there was a precise, exacting session of enhancement, whizzing about with Telekinesis, and fake combat, and I was very amused to see Katzyen trying not to look pleased because she'd earned one of Ruuel's brief, approving nods.  He has that effect on people.

He was back to being his usual focused self today, but there were dark shadows under his eyes.  I don't think he slept much last night.  He's asleep two pods away from me right now, and I hope he has a better night.

The training session was winding down when I started hearing the Ddura.  It says something for my chances of hiding my feelings for Ruuel that he always seems to know when I'm debating telling him something.  He said, "Hold," to the squads, then looked at me.  "The Ddura?"

I nodded.  "Sounds anxious."

"Hunting?"

"No.  The confused noise."  I transmitted what I was hearing into the squad channel, and watched his eyes narrow.

He added Tsur Selkie to the channel, then said: "Either a reaction to the machine itself, or to a threat to the site's integrity."

"Continue the relay, Devlin," was all Selkie said to us, but he obviously said a whole lot on other channels since there was a sudden exodus of people out of the central circle toward the edge of the lake.

The tone of the Ddura's call changed almost immediately.  "Now partly question noise, but mainly unhappy noise," I said helpfully over the interface, then asked Shaf aloud: "Kolar has dogs, right?"

He wasn't surprised by my hearing the Ddura, so I guessed he'd gotten through my 'briefing material', and just nodded in answer to my question.

"Ddura acts like very big dog."  I looked back at Ruuel.  "This sounds like one not know Muinans back.  Ddura at Pandora stopped making this cry."

"Security identification has been reapplied," Tsur Selkie said.  "Stand by."

The Ddura paused mid-moan, making the confused sound again, then the question noise.  But then it switched back to being mournful.

"Security identification had been placed on the power unit," Selkie said, sounding satisfied.  "Evidently that isn't sufficient to cover a machine using that power unit.  The device looks as if it will be successful, however."

He left the channel, and Ruuel said: "Keep lunch brief.  If the site is opened, both squads will go in as point team."

I'm guessing he had a private channel open to Shaf, since they walked off together.  I dropped out of mission channel as well, and glanced at two squads of Setari who were going to go on being super-correct at each other, but at least didn't seem to be openly hostile.  I've no doubt Fourth Squad knew that Katzyen had started out spoiling for a fight, but they would follow Ruuel's lead.  Ruuel's lead wasn't exactly chatty, though, and everyone was silent as we started walking back to the mess tent.

"Are Kolaren squads numbered as well?" I asked Taranza, who looked to be around my age rather than the couple of years older the other Kolarens seemed to be.  She had short, streaky blonde hair and less of a tan than the others, and a way of looking around with wide-eyed appreciation which I liked.  "Like this is Fourth Squad, and the other squad here is Ninth Squad?"

"We're First Squad," Taranza said, with a faintly apologetic glance at the Taren Setari.  "That
is
going to cause some confusion."

Both squads ended up talking that over during lunch, even Sonn making one or two suggestions.  The Ninth Squad captain, whose watch was about to start and who was eating breakfast when we reached the mess tent, ended up deciding that we could use a variation which was the equivalent of 'Squad One' and it would still mean the same thing and the Kolarens seemed okay with that, though I expect they'll keeping calling themselves 'First Squad' in their own dialect.

Islen Tezart explained that the machine his team had been building created a counter field of aether to hold the site's own aether field back from the doorway around South Mountain.  Then they used the same sort of nanotech which they create their buildings with to eat the seal – and only the seal – away.  The counter field machine formed an ugly frame about the opening, but it was done.

Going in as 'point team' was delayed by what was on the far side of the seal.  Ruuel's initial reaction had prepared me a little and I'd expected there would be the skeletons of the people who'd been trapped inside, but no-one had guessed at the sheer number.  Dozens, maybe hundreds, packed into a short entry corridor and hexagonal room beyond.  How many were crushed by the panicked press trying to escape?  The seal had preserved them well, too: leathery skin stretched over grey bone, cloth still whole, although so fragile a touch would probably destroy it.  They were almost all lying facing outward, withered hands stretched forward or covering their heads.  I guess it was the Ddura which they were running from.  Something which caught and killed them all together.

Imaging from scans had already shown us the general outline of the underground rooms: five ring-like levels, each smaller than the previous one until finally there was what seemed to be a single room, sitting at the centre point between the three mountains.  Once I'd seen how huge the place was I wasn't surprised the Tarens had thrown a big portion of their resources at this place.  The site commander wanted the Setari to sweep the rooms of this part of this level for anything which sparked their Combat Sight – monsters, traps, invisible lurking death – and if possible locate the communication platform and maybe whatever was generating the aether field.  Islen Duffen wasn't very pleased with the Setari going in first, even though they were under orders to levitate as much as possible to avoid disturbing anything.  But since the massive battle she seems more inclined to listen to what the Setari have to say, at least where safety is concerned.  She wants me to tell her more about Earth history when she has time, but since we found this site she's worked non-stop and looks ready to drop, so I don't know when that will happen.