The Touchstone Trilogy (71 page)

"And then she died," I said, in a small voice.  I hadn't expected Mara to really answer my question.

"Yes.  Of the original First Squad, only Alay and I were left.  Second, Third, Fourth and Seventh – as they were numbered then – had all lost someone.  Lohn was injured, but not badly, and he gave me...more than I'd ever thought to have from him, an anchor that I needed.  If I'd been in Maze or Alay's situation, losing the one who mattered most, I doubt I could have continued in the Setari.  As it is, they're neither of them the people they once were.  Though–"  She paused, and made a wry face.  "Maze was convinced, immediately convinced, that the Cruzatch were involved, were more than just escort Ionoth in that massive's wake.  I thought his focus on them, his determination to prove that they had a level of agency above other Ionoth, was simply something he clung to after losing 'Lese.  A way of dealing with his grief.  Even after the Pillar – it wasn't until seeing them in Kalasa that I could let myself believe that we really have an enemy to blame.  The impact of that is something I can't describe.  And, of course, you had already given us the shift of air when you opened Muina."

She said then that I should go eat before my Sights training, but I stopped and hugged her and whispered, "Thanks," before I went, because she'd told me things that were personal to her, despite my second level monitoring, and that meant a lot to me.  I had to look up what "shift of air" meant – it's a phrase a bit like "the light at the end of the tunnel", except it grew out of a past living deep underground and was all about being trapped in the crushing dark, suffocating, and then feeling a breeze, a hint of fresh air which told you there was a way out.  And that's how Mara felt about being a Setari.

I liked the idea of an anchor.  And I'd like to think First Squad is mine: the people I can turn to for comfort and support, who can help me keep it together.  But I know it's Ruuel.  Even the comfort, when I'm seriously on the edge.  Well, sort of.  Hand clutching counts.

Sight Sight talents apparently have an overwhelming need to understand.  The Sight is always trying to puzzle out the world, and they see a lot of people's secrets, and I guess that's part of why Ruuel works for me – I always feel he sees me very clearly, that I haven't succeeded in hiding anything from him, and so he knows just what to do or say when I need it most.  Of course, he's also doing his level best to keep me at a distance, but I'm okay with that at the moment.  Right now I'm more interested in not Killing People With My Mind.

Tuesday, June 10

So over testing

Today I spent my Sights training session wondering if Ruuel was having nightmares too, since he looks like he's hardly been sleeping.  He'd probably be amused if he knew I was worried about him.  The session went well, though, and I'm feeling more confident that I'm not on the verge of self-destructing.

Tomorrow we go to Muina and now that I've stopped having dramatic daily nightmares, I'm having to work at not thinking about standing back on that platform.

Wednesday, June 11

Heading Out

Excellent surprise when I arrived with Lohn and Mara at the hanger to board the
Litara
.  Isten Notra is coming with us.  She told me that she'd been longing to go since Pandora was established.  Shon is coming along to be her minion – nepotism at its finest, she said – and one of her bossy secretaries as well.  She'll be living at Pandora for a while.

I worried about her, though I tried not to be all obvious about it.  Isten Notra is what Tarens consider past retirement age and though she's incredibly sharp and not as wrinkled as your average ninety year-old from Earth, there's a fine fragility about her which I don't think really needs to be introduced to her first Winter.

I had fun exposing Shon to Eeli while the
Litara
hauled itself through a full-on storm to the rift.  The atmosphere on this trip is difficult to define.  The four most senior squads, all of them tight and professional, and 'friends' between the respective age groups, and I'm pretty sure they're all absolutely keen to see inside Kalasa.  But Maze is tight-lipped and unusually terse, and I've caught people from every squad looking at me strangely.  After having a primary assignment of keeping me alive, I think they're all trying to think up some last-minute way to avoid me standing on any platforms.  I guess I am too, but I've been preparing myself for weeks because it always seemed inevitable, and the more they watch me for signs of imminent breakdown, the calmer I get.  I just want to get it done, and then I can relax.

Nearly through the rift now.  Today we're going to try me giving people security clearance.  If that doesn't work, tomorrow I try to take Maze to Kalasa.

Big Boxes

The information being shown on the public channels on Tare is well behind the reality of Muina's settlement.  They started building Pandora just three months ago and already it's become a living town, with external lighting and sidewalks and bits which will be gardens when it's not Winter.  Of course, having buildings which just grow themselves in a few days, so long as they have enough raw material available, really makes it a lot easier, but they still would have had to do a huge amount of designing and planning and working out power and water and connecting up the toilet recycling system and air-conditioning and outfitting the interiors.

Over fifteen hundred people are living and working here.

There's only one or two 'small' individual buildings.  The rest are 'blocks' three stories high and something like six suburban houses square.  Quite huge, in other words.  It reminds me a bit of the university campuses I toured (via website) halfway through last year, when trying to decide where to apply.  Each of the blocks is devoted to a particular area of exploration and science – so far they've built blocks for animals, plants, geography, geology, weather, archaeology, devices and Ena research – along with a bigger central command thing, which combines coordination with greensuit barracks and supplies.  There's a combination of both dorms and permanent accommodation in the science blocks, along with a few outer blocks which are primarily residential and something called 'services' which appears to be where everyone's food is cooked and laundry is done and stuff like that (though I don't think they have one centralised mess hall any more).  And attached to that is the 'greenhouse' – just as much a big white block as all the rest, but devoted to ensuring that the settlement can survive even if the
Litara
stops showing up.  I'm told they're already busily producing crops of Muinan plants identified as edible.  And a lot of Taren algae which is processed into food.

To my surprise, although there's some similarities to the severely plain central command block, someone has actually put some thought into appearance when designing the rest of them.  There's all kinds of etched patterns and designs breaking up the severity of the whitestone, and lots of windows (almost all opaquely shuttered to keep out the cold or the view).  And sloping roofs!  Just a mild tilt – you could probably walk around on them quite safely, but definitely sloping, with some gorgeous patterns cut into them which also serve to direct drainage.  Even the central block had been retrofitted so that its roof slopes.

"I'm impressed," I told Isten Notra, peering out the window of the ten-person shuttle taking us from the
Litara
directly to the central amphitheatre of the old town.  "Tarens remembered that buildings have outsides."

"The cities we will one day build on this world..." Isten Notra began, then stopped and hugged me.  "We will make it our home again.  Thank you for that, Caszandra."

This embarrassed me incredibly, of course, though I am getting more used to people thanking me emotionally for something I did by accident.  I distracted myself by digging into my backpack and pulling out the two beanies I'd bought.  I gave Isten Notra the blue and purple one and talked about things I'd learned on my two whole trips skiing at Thredbo, particularly that you lose a surprising amount of heat through the top of your head.  Isten Notra was very sensibly dressed, but like everyone else who'd been travelling on the
Litara
, had nothing resembling headgear.  She thanked me and plonked it on right away, making her secretary act like he'd just eaten a lemon.  I think beanies might count as 'little kid hats' on Tare or something.  Lohn certainly looked like he was trying not to laugh.

I didn't particularly care, though.  My beanie was two shades of green and when they opened the shuttle door I was damn glad I'd brought it.  It was cold enough to make my nose hurt, and everyone's breath steamed out in clouds.  It hasn't snowed at Pandora yet, but they think it will very soon, and you can see a dusting of white on the higher hills in the distance.

New arrivals to Muina are always taken first thing to a platform to be cleared, and whenever possible are all done at once to avoid making the Ddura anxious.  There were about twenty newcomers on this trip, easily handled.  I stayed on one side of the arena with First Squad as Shon and Isten Notra became official Muinans.  The Ddura showed up midway through the process, and made happy noises, but was far less wildly exuberant than those first days.  The question of whether I could give people access to Kalasa was settled as soon as the shuttle took the new arrivals off to the warmth of the buildings.  No.

I tried thinking all sorts of commands at the platform, but it didn't react at all as it does when it gets told people are Muinans.  And no-one was teleported anywhere standing on it.  Maze didn't push against the inevitable once we'd run through the test options, having Mara take me off to the medical section in the main block for the headache the Ddura had given me.  It's not as excited as it was, and shuts up more on command, but it does still hang about letting off occasional moans if people play with the platform.  He's scheduled the mission for quite early the next day since by then it was evening for me and very late in First Squad's 'day', though only just sunset at Pandora.

After my headache had lifted, Maze sat with me to explain exactly what we'll be trying tomorrow, and was being very calm and reassuring, but with his eyes so unhappy.  I wish I could make him feel better about this.  They want me bunk down here in medical tonight, thoroughly monitored.  I can see they're worried I'll have nightmares about Kalasa, and I can't tell them what's distracted me from tomorrow.  You see, it's occurred to me that there's a faint possibility that Ruuel was at least partially aware of the 'good dreams'.  If I could make Mori feel she was being stung by giant insects, could Ruuel have spent night after night on the
Diodel
wondering why it felt like there was a girl snuggling up against him?

It's an awful thought.  I'm hoping it's just me being paranoid, since I suspect that if he'd been aware of the strangeness of my dreams at Arenrhon he'd have sent me straight for testing.  But now that he does know, and now that I definitely am strong enough to make people feel things, I get to be all worried about having a good dream, instead of looking forward to it.

Ruuel has been tied up with something.  I glimpsed him once on the
Litara
, but it was only during the platform experiments that I was close enough to see he still looks tired, and I haven't seen him since then.  I don't know if the Setari are even in the same building – except for Jeh from Second, who seems to have drawn first babysitting shift, and is in the next room.  It's probably best if Ruuel's far away, preferably somewhere shielded.

Unfair.  Good dreams about Ruuel had almost made me look forward to this mission.  But while I have no problems with me privately having all sorts of fantasies about him, it's totally another ball game making him have dreams about me.

I'll try for otters.

Thursday, June 12

Into Kalasa

I dreamed I was sitting on the side of Ruuel's bed, watching him sleep.  My subconscious making a compromise, I guess.  It was a little cell of a room, just a single bed and a rack for luggage and a door.  There wasn't any light, so I'm not altogether sure how I could see, but it was all very clear.

He wasn't wearing his uniform, the first time I've seen him in anything else.  A dark boxer-brief and singlet arrangement.  And he was having a nightmare, was shifting fretfully under a half kicked-off blanket.  Fully living up to the Place Sight reputation for being 'haunted'.  He looked like he was in pain, and I longed to touch him, but instead I made myself wake up.  I knew it wasn't fair of me to watch.  I don't think I was projecting, just looking, which is a big leap forward in control.  Not that I'll mention it to anyone.

Taarel wasn't with him.  Stupid thing to be happy about, and I suppose it's terribly unlikely they'd be together during a mission anyway.  I didn't dream again after that, and was woken up by Maze, who took me off to an early breakfast with a bunch of greysuit section heads who wanted to ask me about Winter.  Being a Sydney girl, I thought this was tremendously funny, but neither Tare nor Kolar have much experience with snow.  Tare has a semi-frozen polar region with scarcely any solid ground, while the Kolarens actually live at their poles because the equator area is too hot.  So even Australians know things they don't about seasons, and I yabbered on about hibernation and igloos and tree branches breaking off from the weight of snow, and seasonal migration of animals, and then wandered into a tangent about Ice Ages and dinosaurs.  I now have an assignment to review all the information being collated about Muina's plants and animals, mark any that seem familiar, like the hairy sheep, and write little essays on everything I know about the Earth equivalent.

After that, Maze took me to be outfitted in my chest armour of ultimate doom, and all the gear I'm expected to carry.  A breather, of course, and a good wad of rations and thin water bottles and a firelighter because I'd specifically requested one (I'm so over making fires by rubbing two sticks together).  The gun, and a spare charge pack for it.  A small
and
a large relay beacon – one I can wear and one I'll be holding which is very powerful but they were worried it wouldn't come through with me.  Maze carted that about for me – it must have weighed twenty kilos.