The Touchstone Trilogy (70 page)

I got a bit quiet after that, thinking things over.  On the trip back Ruuel told me that tomorrow we'd start attempting to find a way for me to separate the talents and gain some measure of conscious control of them.  If I had been feeling particularly daring I would have asked him if he had had a lot of difficulty untangling six different sights, but I was busy feeling headachy and worried.  I never did get around to telling him I thought I should swap teachers.  Even though I get all sad and repressed around him at times, I feel reassured knowing that he has no trouble seeing right through me.  Right now I need all those Sights to keep me going off the rails.  And I figure I can feel sad about him and Taarel, but see him every day, or feel sad about him and Taarel, and miserable because I don't get to see him at all.

Which is not what I'm worried about right now, but a useful distraction.  I wish I wasn't so tired, but don't think I can keep myself awake any longer.

Sunday, June 8

Overwrought

I was getting ready for bed after yesterday's session when Mori sent me a channel request.  "Feel like some company?" she asked, when I opened the channel.  "I've been given a firm suggestion that I might want to sleep on your couch tonight."

My first reaction was to resent the babysitting, to hate being thought of as this weak-ass neurotic liable to fall apart without hand-holding.  I almost told Mori that I was fine, but the problem was that I wasn't, so after an overlong silence I told her: "I think I'd be glad if you did."

"I'll be down in a moment, then." She sounded pleased, so at least I didn't have to feel she found being told to sleep on my couch annoying.  And she was smart enough not to pretend that the idea was anything but an order, which is one of the things I like about Mori.

She brought a big, cushiony eiderdown with her, and was wearing a singlet, short-shorts and slippers – I'd love to know if anyone saw her in the elevator.

"You had a bad day, huh?" she said, plunking the eider on one of my couches.  "I thought the testing was going well."

"I guess it is." I shifted from my window seat to the opposite couch, feeling embarrassed but stupidly relieved someone would be with me when I slept.  "I just started thinking things through properly.  The tests have been about places, rooms.  Even though there was that whole horrible dream about the massive, it hadn't occurred to me that I could make Ionoth that might attack Setari in near-space."

"Really?  It's the first thing I thought of.  So you're worried you'll summon up something nasty?"

"Earth has some pretty scary stories." I could tell she didn't understand, that she thought I was scared for myself.  "It's very annoying, because the more I tell myself not to worry, the more stressed I get about it.  I never used to be like this."

I dimmed the lights back down, and told Mori about slumber parties.  She told me about what it had been like for her when, at six, she was brought to Konna to be a Kalrani.  During the early days, they'd been allowed to talk to their families as much as they wanted over the interface, and the training had focused mainly on physical education.  Only the expansion of the interface network had been particularly distressing.  After that, interface rights had slowly been pared back, and the training focused more on their talents.

Mori is glad that she became a Setari.  She loves being in Fourth Squad, which is a very tight team, and really enjoys the exploration role, of being the first squad to go into a space.  She's excited by everything they've done on Muina, and is looking forward to getting into Kalasa.  She fell asleep trying to explain how she felt.

It took me a while longer, carefully doing my visualisations – sheep again, because I find that safest.  I don't think I dreamed of sheep at all, dreamed instead of sleeping on the couch, comfortably aware of Mori curled up across from me.  Right up until Mori suddenly leapt to her feet and sent a small bolt of lightning arcing across the room.  She's only a minor electricity talent, and while the thing she hit squealed and jerked, it didn't go down.  Lacking her nanosuit, she hoisted up my coffee table, swung it like an abortive hammer-toss, and threw it at the thing as it came at us.

Struggling out of my couch, I saw movement, started to yell a warning, but too late.  A cat-sized purple-black bug hit her in the chest and she staggered backward as it hooked spindly legs around her arms and shoulders and stung her over and over.  The first one hadn't been stopped by the table and came toward us as Mori went down.  I fixated on another bug climbing over the back of the couch I'd been sleeping on, but I knew that I was sleeping, that I'd made it happen, and reached frantically for the bit of my head I'd felt in the wind chime room.

And woke up, Mori standing over me, a hand on my shoulder.  "I'm not sure I want to know what you were dreaming," she said.

There were fading red welts on her chin and throat.  I stared at them, feeling sick, then said: "Let's go to medical."

Mori was willing to go along with that, waiting for me to dress, then taking me with her up to her rooms so she could put on something over her bed-clothes.  I could barely speak I was so upset, wanting to scream at her to hurry.  When we finally got to medical and I insisted that she get scanned, telling the greysuits to look for a parasite in her chest, she was watching me with open concern, but told the greysuits to do as I said.  And there was nothing, and I fainted.

I woke up in a scan-chair with three of the greysuits fussing over me trying to figure out why I'd passed out, and deciding eventually that it really was just relief.  I'd only been unconscious a few minutes, but that had been enough time for one of the Setari to duck out into near-space to download the data recorded by my drone.  After making certain I was no more than embarrassed, Mori brought me into a channel with Maze, Ruuel and Isten Notra.

"I'll share the visual on this if you don't mind, Caszandra," Isten Notra said, and linked the images recorded by the drone.  I didn't say anything, just watched it, flinching inside and feeling incredibly sick.  "These creatures exist on your world?"

"Only in story I was reading before went to Muina.  They lay eggs in people.  Is it possible to remove a talent from someone?  Do brain surgery?"

"It's been done," Isten Notra said.  "When the risk is judged great enough.  Since your talent is unique, we would be extremely reluctant to go so far, especially when as yet you have not come anywhere close to the kind of power level you would need to produce Ionoth that endure."

"What you're creating in real-space seems closer to a tangible illusion than actual substance," Maze added.  "There's no trace of it once you've stopped projecting."

"I don't want to wait until I kill someone to find out whether it's possible," I said, struggling not to sound as upset as I was.  But my voice had gone high, and I had to swallow to make myself not shout.

"You're overlooking the important point," Ruuel said, interface 'voice' clipped and sure.  "Unlike the dream of the Array massive, you were able to break out of this one.  That after only a few days of training.  You're now aware when your dreams have taken on a tangible aspect?"

"...yes."

"Then your current exercise, whenever you find yourself dreaming in this way, is to break out of it, no matter if the dream is threatening or not.  And in future remember that Eyse is a considerably better fighter than you give her credit for."

He dropped out of channel, leaving me feeling I'd been overreacting, which in retrospect was no doubt exactly what he'd intended.  Maze and Isten Notra spoke to me a little longer, just a few questions about the training of the last few days, then told Mori to take me back to my room.

Mori was trying unsuccessfully not to look hugely gratified – outright compliments from Ruuel are rare and preciously hoarded by his squad.  "Combat Sight would have told me if I'd had a thing like that in my chest," she told me as we rode the elevator.  "Do you think you'll be able to get back to sleep?"

"Maybe.  I'll have a shower and read for a while.  Fourth is on rotation tomorrow, yes?"

"Yes – but broken nights are half the reason rotations aren't scheduled for first thing."

Mori's a lot better at getting to sleep than me, out of it by the time I was finished in the shower.  Instead of reading, I reviewed various bits of my log, mainly time I'd spent alone at Pandora and Arenrhon.  Scenery.  I fell asleep and didn't dream, and woke mid-morning to find my shooting practice cancelled and one of the 'extra-long and thorough' medical checks put in its place.  I sensibly took my diary down.  I've arranged lunch with Zan, since I saw she was free, and then it's training when Ruuel's back from rotation.

Eggshells

After my meltdown yesterday, I wasn't surprised when Maze came along for my test session, even though it finished around midnight in his 'day'.  I can just picture all the discussions they're having on how to stop me going off the deep end.

Ruuel told me that today I had to try to use my talents separately – to see things without making them happen, to make things happen in the Ena and not in real-space, to make things happen in real-space but not in the Ena.  He also said I should expect to fail.  What I needed to focus on was becoming aware of the mechanism, concentrating on what I did.

He started out just describing an object, one which was found in many places, to see if I could consciously conjure something a little less over-the-top than an entire place.  That worked.  It took a lot longer to get an image of what he was describing, but wasn't as exhausting, so this session lasted a lot longer than previous ones.  I also ended up with less of a headache, which was nice, but the cumulative effect of several projections in a row left me semi-conscious.

"I'm pleased you haven't given in to the temptation to try to create visions of your own world," Maze said on the trip back.

"Too tired of headaches to give myself more," I said, struggling to stay awake.  "Besides, I think Tsur Selkie meant it about assigning a squad to me full-time.  Think he'd put interesting far-sight experiments in the same category as chatting with – as not using my alert."

I managed not to look across at Ista Chemie, sitting opposite with Ruuel.  It's very difficult to be all secretive about Nurans when you're sleepy.

"Range is part of the test outline," Ruuel said.  "Scheduled for when we're on Muina."

For some reason I'd assumed my training would be on hold while chasing Kalasa.  I wondered if I'd be sleeping two pods away from Ruuel again – and whether there'd be a drone recording my dreams.  And promptly fell asleep.  I think I slept on Maze, or dreamed I was sleeping on Maze, but it didn't feel the way it does when I'm projecting.  I didn't try and force myself awake, anyway, and was back in my window seat when I did wake up.

Not long now until we head to Kalasa.  I'd probably be worked up about that if the prospect of making monsters in my sleep wasn't sucking up all my Emo tendencies.

Monday, June 9

Moving Target

I dreamed of sheep last night, and managed to make myself wake up almost straight away.  Which gave me a headache, but was also immensely reassuring.  I don't know if I'll always be able to break out of them – or am always sufficiently aware of the dreams which I'm making 'real' as opposed to dreams which just seem real – but it did give me a faint sense that I might gain enough control to not be doing things accidentally all the time.

This morning brought a nice bunch of packages from a spending spree I'd indulged in when they scheduled my return to Muina.  Another diary, since I'm past two-thirds on this one, and a little cold environment gear because Pandora is hitting Winter now.  It took me forever to find a non-hideous beanie.  People on Tare don't have a lot of call for hats, particularly not for the purpose of keeping warm.  Most of what I could find was rainproof, heavy-duty, tied-down headgear for the poor bastards who have to venture outside for maintenance in all kinds of weather.  Chapstick was a little easier to find, and I managed to put together a couple of tolerable Winter outfits and something which could pass as daywear or nightwear to sleep in.  I was thoroughly sick of wearing my uniform all the time when we were at Nurioth and Arenrhon.

Lots of shooting practice.  Drake had me in a different training room, with a maze where half a dozen greensuits stalked me.  I had fake weapons which registered hits instead of actually working, and had to try and find my way through the maze without dying (having one of the greensuits grab me).  As a game it could have been kind of fun, but they were all super-serious which made me feel stressed out and stupid.  I died a lot.

After that Mara had me for some time in the gym.  She soon had me talking about how hopeless I felt about ever coming close to being able to do something like get through that maze without dying.

"No-one expects you to," she said.  "A couple of weeks of training isn't going to make you capable of picking off Cruzatch with a simple hand weapon.  The force vest is what we're counting on to give you a chance, should you be transported alone."  She made a face.  "The arguments all this is causing are overwhelming, especially since most of those pushing to return you to Muina are unaware of the latest developments in your talent set.  The Array massive has only exacerbated the debate, demonstrating to any who weren't already certain just how valuable your enhancement can be.  But there's a sense that matters are becoming urgent, that we don't have the luxury to explore Muina at our leisure, and need to access Kalasa as soon as possible.  Do you still feel that you'd rather get it over with?"

I shrugged.  "Been more worried about killing everyone with nightmares.  Do you – do you ever think you can't deal with being a Setari any more?"

Mara straightened on the knee-lift machine she'd been using, then unhooked her feet.  "In the early days, when everything was new, we thought we were invincible.  When Jorly – the first Setari to die on duty was Jorly Kennez, and if there had been some fault, some error of judgment which we could blame her death on, then perhaps it wouldn't have been so hard.  But it was a rotation we had cleared a dozen times, we were all performing well, and still she died.  A single lucky blow was all it took.  It was only then that I really understood that we were fighting a war of attrition.  And their numbers would never decrease.  'Lese – Helese Surion – helped me immensely with that, just by pointing out a few statistics on the number of lives
not
lost to Ionoth since we began."