The Touchstone Trilogy (90 page)

The structure is the easy part, and they've had people installing fittings and big pumps and generators (I don't in the slightest understand the technology behind Taren power generators, except that it's not fossil fuel based) and the like so that there's power and water and lights and heating.  It's still missing windows and equipment in a lot of places.  The
Litara
brought a massive amount of cargo with us, including the first shipment of furniture for the Setari quarters, and when we arrived late afternoon Pandora-time the Telekinetics helped unload the ship and then everyone carried furniture and stores and supplies about, and moved in.

The pinksuit in charge of the fit-out really annoyed me by being shocked because I picked up a box.  She really expected me to sit there and watch everyone else lugging stuff around.  I told her that it was a requirement of my culture to help, heh.

The main common room is fantastic, with the most incredible view west out over the lake, and glimpses north and south thanks to this huge curving patio and floor to ceiling window/doors (though doubled-glass 'airlocks' and way too cold to want to have open at the moment).  Once we'd unpacked the furniture and had something to sit on, we all (First, Fourth, Twelfth, Fourteenth, and Squad Three from Kolar, who have been traded in for Squad One) sat about having an informal meal and chatting, catching up on the latest developments of three planets, all the while watching a gorgeous wrap-around sunset.

Squad Three has one guy (Noran) and five girls (Brez, Olan, Mittaha, Tuse, and Turian).  Turian's their captain, and comes across as amiable and polite, but not quite ready to be friends with a bunch of Tarens.  But it wasn't a bad atmosphere.  Compared to the recently-promoted Kalrani, and Squad Three, Zan was relaxed and talkative.  Of course, Twelfth and Fourteenth weren't exactly casual, except for Lara, who is always chilled out.  Even Fourth, working with First so closely lately, is still a bit 'on duty' when sitting about chatting with them.  I've come to realise Maze and Zee are basically the junior Setari's peer supervisors, and First sets the standard for the other squads, so they're really caught up in not making a fool of themselves in front of them.

And Kaoren, for all he accepted a further round of congratulations, is never going to be casually social with vast hordes of people.  He just isn't interested, I think.  But, still, it was a nice meal (a sampling of local plants mixed in with the standard fare, product of the greenhouse) and everyone ended up looking pleased and upbeat, the shadow of developments on Tare finally lifting.  Like me they're eager to get back to hunting solutions.

Picking out rooms came next, and was fun.  There's several circular floors' worth of quarters around a central atrium arrangement – accessible by both stairs and elevators.  Those with Levitation or Telekinesis really like this because they just fly up to the floor they want to get to.

Not all of the rooms have balconies – those poke out of the lakeward face of the hill, but the hill itself rises a little higher than the building and joins up with other hills to the east, and on each floor there's a couple of rooms with no windows at all, for those Tarens who just aren't comfortable with having so much outside in their living area.  These went pretty quickly, after the squad captains chose floors.  Fourth ended up second floor from the top, mainly because I liked the trees which flanked the balconies up there.  Kaoren and I have just the one room, since we're now officially cohabiting.

Like on Tare, a good deal of the furniture – kitchen benches, wardrobes, the baths and showers – is formed directly out of the whitestone, and just need doors and things added.  The beds are indents in the whitestone walls – huge nooks – and the mattresses are nanotech responsive ones which try to mould themselves around you.  Building the beds into the walls apparently makes it easier to accommodate additional shielding, on top of that already on the living areas.

I'm propped up in the corner of mine, waiting for Kaoren to come back from all the captains being summoned to a meeting by the bluesuit in charge of Muina, Tsaile Staben.  I think I was introduced to Tsaile Staben when Pandora was first established, but I can't for the life of me remember anything about her, and I'm too lazy to go searching through my log.  It must be quite something to be put in charge of an entire planet.

The meeting is about what the Setari will be deployed to do over the next few months, and I was surprised to hear that a lot of that will involve settlement work rather than exploration.  There's a huge demand for the Setari here, even with the standing about guarding duties mostly being performed by greensuits now.  Tsaile Staben isn't shy about using them for anything which will make the job quicker or easier.  I know Kaoren wants First and Fourth to go hunting Pillars, but it sounds like the Setari are mostly going to be working in real-space.

Research-wise, KOTIS is gradually making progress, though very slowly because the paper records found in Kalasa are so incredibly fragile, and turning a page without destroying it is a real challenge.  Zan told me that Twelfth has been spending a lot of time going room to room locating anything and everything that looks like writing and doing all these complicated preservation procedures to try and stop the documents from crumbling on sight (or breath, usually).  Still no handily-complete explanation of how the Pillars were built or the best way to get rid of them, just tangential mentions.

But tons of books about being psychic. 
Telekinesis 101.  Reading Minds for Dummies.  The Psychic's Guide to Finding Your Inner Self.

The Lantarens seem to have had a very spiritual approach to their powers, and as Kalasa was a teaching city for the talented most of the books there seem to relate to philosophy and techniques for psychics.  Kaoren is understandably fascinated by this, and has been devouring the translations which have yet to be released even to KOTIS on Tare.  The translations I've read have all sounded a bit Zen, and it looks to me rather as if the psychic is supposedly drawing power from nature, not simply generating it themselves.  'Embraced' by Muina.  That's totally not how the Tarens approach their talents.

There's more than two thousand people living on Muina now, a number which does my head in.  And they're planning a big expansion as soon as they've finished some of the larger infrastructure projects around Pandora, like the major recycling and waste facilities going up in the hills to the east.  Tarens are seriously into recycling and have the nanites to really make it work.  I can't get over the astonishing pace of it all.

The Setari squads will likely stay the same for a month or so.  Twelfth is one floor up and First one floor below.  I can pretty much tell where everyone in the building is now, if I push myself, despite all the shielding.

Before their meeting, Kaoren and Maze double-teamed me for a Serious Discussion (having both of them tell me was deliberate to push home that they were
really
serious) about my security arrangements.  Given that I'm now being guarded from random monsters, random people, Cruzatch, Kolarens
and
the Nurans, there's not a lot of scope for me wandering around freely.  Kaoren's my main security detail, of course, but there will be two other Setari assigned as backup at all times.  When Kaoren's not with me, and I'm not in the Setari building, they'll go into full babysitter mode.  In the Setari building, though, they'll simply be available nearby rather than sitting on top of me, so long as I have no hesitation using my alert.

The challenge with that, of course, is the Kolarens, who I don't officially need protection from.  Being engaged to a Taren does make it unlikely that the Kolarens will think they can buy me, and Maze doesn't think it very probable that they'd try and force me to work for them, but of course we can't be absolutely sure.  At least the Ionoth situation on Kolar seems to have improved, and the Ddura means that the Cruzatch and the Nurans aren't a threat so long as I'm in Pandora.  But they'd rather be safe than sorry, so I have to make sure I have a Taren with me, or stay in my room.

Pandora's day ends later than the sleep cycle I was on, so it's not even sunset and I'm already beyond tired, but no sign of Kaoren.  I haven't actually been asleep when he's not there since we got together, and I'm starting to get all fretty about it – and annoyed at myself for needing him there to be comfortable going to sleep.  I think I'll go bug someone rather than get all worked up.

Saturday, July 26

Southern Expedition

Long day today, but a good one, and I feel far more settled than I ended up yesterday, when the evening turned into a severe downer.  I hadn't wanted to bug anyone from First and Fourth, since I knew they'd be as tired as me, so went down to the main common room and was chatting with Dess Charn from Twelfth and Pen Alaz from Fourteenth when I fell asleep and had my first projective dream for ages.

The problem is I'm aware of people around me when I'm asleep, so falling asleep while talking to people meant I wasn't immediately aware that I was asleep.  And I dreamed that I was in the common room talking to Dess and Pen when Dess' Combat Sight alerted her to a threat, and Pen stared upward.

Strands of black were descending through the whitestone ceiling, growing longer and longer while Pen stared up at them, and it was only when the forehead emerged that it was clear that it was hair.  Then the face came through, a woman, upside-down.  Eyes closed, she looked calm, beautiful, but then she opened them, black pits, and smirked.

I think it was from a scary movie I saw once.  Or manga.  I half-recognised the scene anyway, and that made me realise I was dreaming, and I woke myself up.  And Dess and Pen were both on their feet, combat-ready and staring at the exact spot on the ceiling, and then everyone nearby with Combat Sight swarmed to the room, and even though I explained, they still immediately informed their captains.  Unlike the Cruzatch, this projection was completely visible in real-space, and registered very strongly as a threat, and I really hate the amount of fuss I can cause just by falling asleep.

Plus I felt that everyone was looking at me differently, some understanding for the first time what a problem I might be.

Maze and Kaoren both spoke to me to make sure I was okay, and Zee took me back to her room until Kaoren returned.  I put a good face on it all, apologising and being wry and annoyed with myself, which Zee didn't challenge, opting instead to give me a shoulder rub for the short time until the strategy meeting finished.  Kaoren took very much the same approach, distracting me with a hot shower and then stroking my back after we curled up together.

I understand more and more why Kaoren would avoid a committed relationship with anyone, let alone an enhancement talent.  When he's holding me he can't completely block what I'm feeling, but he wanted to comfort me, so last night became a demonstration of the price he's going to pay for being with me.  It didn't help that I kept trying to force myself to not be upset because I knew it was keeping him awake, and failing only made me more upset.

I felt like it was my fault for letting my guard down, and I hate
having
to be on guard about something as straightforward as sleeping.  And I hate being the cause of fusses, and especially making Kaoren feel he can't go anywhere without me immediately having a drama.  But, most importantly, it meant the bluesuits would think I hadn't gained enough control, and make them more doubtful about using me in missions.

After way too long of neither of us getting any sleep Kaoren gave up, obviously deciding it was better to talk it out with me: "You're upset because you didn't immediately recognise it as a dream?"

"Thought I was past this," I said, trying not to sound whiny and failing.  "All this training, all the time everyone's spent helping me avoid this, and I had half the building running the first time I stopped paying attention."

He raised the lights a little, enough to see my expression, then touched my cheek.  "Cassandra, I have been trained to prevent my nightmares since I was fifteen.  Yet I still have them."

"That's–"

"Different?"  He leaned forward to kiss my forehead.  "I don't see how.  While your nightmares have the potential to do considerably more damage, they are a product of talents you are still discovering."  He paused, then added: "You're now capable of waking at will, so the issue is those times you don't recognise that you're dreaming.  The simplest solution would be to attempt to wake yourself whenever there is an attack, or unusual phenomena.  To assume, at least momentarily, that anything could be one of your projections."

I liked that idea, and he could tell, and smiled.  [I'm collecting his smiles.  I've built a little image gallery out of my log.  A very small gallery.]  Then he took me through a visualisation exercise, which was effective in sending me off to sleep once I stopped feeling guilty at the touch of croakiness in his voice which underlined how much he needed to sleep.

Kaoren and I talked it over when we woke this morning, while we were waiting for it to be dawn.  Whether it would be better to have separate beds, or for one of us to sleep on the couch sometimes.  Neither of us are keen on that option, but given how dangerous it is for him to be tired, we're going to have to consider it.  That discussion somehow segued into whether he would change his name to mine, or I would change my name to his, given the conflicting customs of our planets.  We're probably just going to leave our names alone.  And we talked about children, and how we aren't opposed to the idea, but aren't in a hurry to have them, especially not while we're so very much under the control of KOTIS – and not when I'm potentially facing situations like enhancing large groups during massive attacks, where my system gets so stressed out.

I'm really engaged to be married.  It feels very odd to have discussions about when to have children, and to watch Kaoren's reaction.  He said he finds the idea "interesting in theory".

Today's assignment was exploration and greysuit escort duty, and while the expeditioners were assembling I had the opportunity to drop in to see Isten Notra and say hi to Shon.  Isten Notra's looking very well, eyes sparkling and full of life.  And whether or not she really had thought about setting me up with Shon, she seemed genuinely pleased for me and Kaoren – and said one or two things to him that I couldn't hear which made him develop a faintly wry expression.