The Touchstone Trilogy (97 page)

She also made morning smex a little impossible, so we went down and had an extra-early breakfast with Nils and went out into the chill to look at the patches of grass and plants poking through the snow.  No flowers yet.  Since the guests for the ridiculous party were due to start arriving from tomorrow, everyone else got up early too.  Not all the prep work was finished today, either – they'll be completing the last few buildings even as people start using the first ones.

Kaoren's very good at making beds.  He has a bright career in hotel service.  It was really funny watching Sonn watch Kaoren make beds.  Like she thought it would be beneath his dignity or something.  Not that I didn't get a big kick out of it myself, especially because he can't help but figure out the most efficient way to distribute boxes of mattresses, pillows and linen from the entrance of the building so that we could make them with the least amount of tromping back and forth.

Next we went out to Moon Piazza to meet Maze and Ketzaren.  Even though the day was turning out nice and warm, they had decided to clear the thicker drifts of snow off.  The signing ceremony is going to be there, and they'll be setting up the day after tomorrow.

Ketzaren enhanced and created this massive howling windstorm to push the loose snow together (using Telekinesis over such a vast space would be way too exhausting).  Maze, Sonn, Kaoren and I sat with her on one of the curving tiers of the vertical garden walls and watched (well, I was theoretically assisting by enhancing).  It's really rare that Ketzaren uses her wind powers, because there's only a few spaces where it's useful and she produced a truly spectacular gale (which caught a few greensuits unawares) sending all the snow flurrying upward.  We were out of the main force of the wind, but Ghost still hated it and hid inside my coat.

Maze went and melted the big piles Ketzaren had made, and did a tour about finding pockets which had been blown under benches while the rest of us wandered about looking at the fully revealed design.  Lohn and Nils showed up (they're really good friends and I can tell Lohn's sorry that Second won't be staying long), and they both teased me mercilessly about the sections of pavement which show my arrival at Pandora, and then the Setari around the platform and its unlocking.  And also the massive battle, which surprised me.  Then it moved to settlement and discovery images.  I didn't mind these images, because they're pretty stylised and abstract, and could be any random girl really, but Lohn kept insisting that he really meant it that there was going to be a statue of me, and Maze finally confirmed that there was going to be some kind of group statue which would include me.  He didn't know the precise details – there's supposed to be a grand unveiling on the day of the signing.  It's by one of Kolar's most famous sculptors.  I can live with it if it's a group statue, I guess, but I'm still not very keen on the idea.

Looking like he found my reaction very funny, Maze suggested we break for lunch, but then another ship came in and he had to go help with the unloading first.  Kaoren went to fetch lunch, while Sonn, Ketzaren, Lohn, Nils and I climbed back up onto the tiered garden and watched the greensuits, who had arrived to plant up the garden beds out on the piazza with alternating white and pink and blue flowers.  Lohn said that they were the same plants which were coming up everywhere at Pandora, but from further south, where it was a little warmer.

Ghost got busy seducing Sonn, who couldn't quite manage to not pet her, despite really wanting to be all proper about Ionoth.  It occurred to her that the Ddura might hunt Ghost, and I explained what had happened that morning and how Nils was going to take her back to Tare.  Kaoren came back with the food and we were unpacking it and having a really serious discussion about how strange it was to be protective of an Ionoth, when I felt some people take the elevator down from the top of the hill and follow the wall of the piazza.

Two girls, three guys, the black Setari uniform making them stand out against the whitestone paving.  One of the guys was saying how big a waste of time it was to go running around blindly.

"I want to talk to her," said the girl who was tromping along out in front.  Se-Ahn Surat, the actress who plays me in
The Hidden War
, trailed by the show's lead actress, Lanset Kameer (Nori), and then the actors who play Faer, Lastier and Nori's best friend (and the guy she should be in love with) Searns.  All of us on the garden wall froze in a kind of amazed disbelief.

"So talk to her tomorrow, when you're scheduled to meet her," said Eyle Sured (Faer).  "You'll delay the shoot running off."

"You and Lanset have all the first scenes," Se-Ahn replied.  "And being at the same dinner with Caszandra and a hundred other people including the Rukmar of Performance Arts is
not
a conversation.  The only way I'm ever going to get any idea what the wretched creature is like is to corner her somewhere."

"And how will you convince her to talk?" asked Teral Saith (Lastier).  He, like Roak Larion (Searns), was lagging behind, distracted by the patterns in the paving.  "She's refused every interview request so far."

"I'll think about that when I find her," Se-Ahn said, pausing to survey the long curve of buildings.  "And given how painfully wrong your portrayal has been, I don't see why you don't want to do a little research yourself."

"A little late for me to strive for accuracy.  I'd rather keep the character as consistent as I can after all the script-butchery." Teral (who fortunately looks less like Kaoren in real life) shrugged.  "Besides, it's perfectly possible for him to be an arrogant bastard and get the girl.  She might suit him perfectly – I find it hard to believe Caszandra can be as improbably sweet and heroic as you're playing her, at least."

"Either way you're going to have to follow the script," Lanset Kameer pointed out, sounding annoyed and a little upset.  "You think we're not curious as well?  Fifteen years we've been asking to meet the Setari, or at least tour the KOTIS facilities.  Tomorrow we'll finally be able to talk to some of them.  Unless you get us banned from the site trailing aimlessly about.  You don't even know which direction to go."

Maze and Par chose this moment to fly past in the distance toting a couple of big cargo containers.  All five actors fell silent to watch them drop down out of sight well to the south-east.

"You'd never get there and back in time," Roak Larion said.  "Not walking."

Lohn, by this point, was close to swallowing his own hand trying to restrain himself.  Sonn had gone all tight-lipped and was looking daggers at Teral.  Nils and Ketzaren were leaning against each other shaking with silent laughter.  Kaoren had almost shut his eyes, which he does when he's angry, or when he's very pleased with something.

Since it takes a hell of a lot more than comments from actors to get him angry, and because I was feeling a bit sorry for Lanset Kameer, I called down: "They won't stay very long at the warehouse.  They'd be gone before you got there."

The frozen disbelief this produced was enough to send Lohn rolling.  Kaoren brushed his fingers against mine, then lifted all five of them up to the metre-thick wall.  That was a bit of a challenge for him – he can use Levitation and Telekinesis at the same time, and enhanced can lift up to four hundred kilos with each, but five separate objects at the same time is difficult for his strength level.

"Not improbably sweet," Kaoren said.  "I won't try to gauge the level of bastardry.  Sit down."

Instant obedience.  Kaoren's such a captain, even when he's indulging his sense of humour.  But these were very famous actors, and recovered quickly enough, and there were introductions and questions, some of which we answered.  Maze came back, and was rather resigned about it all, but very nice as he always is.  Lohn and Nils were extra-charming and held off on the teasing, and even Sonn unbent a little.  Ketzaren took them away after lunch, and Kaoren, Sonn and I went back to making beds and, as Kaoren pointed out, would now hopefully not have to worry about avoiding being cornered anywhere.  Except for the several thousand other people who might try the same thing.

Avoiding Fifth Squad is another issue.  It's not that they're being rude or hostile or sneering or anything – not with Maze around and Tsur Selkie prone to turning up unexpectedly – but I don't feel like sitting around the common room chatting when any of them are there.  Not that that's really a problem, since Kaoren and I enjoy a lot of private time.

The actors were okay people, but I'm really not looking forward to the next couple of days.

Tuesday, August 19

All Eyes

Finally over with.

It's been three days of breakfast with group one, tour with group two, lunch with group three, meeting with group four, dinner with group five.  Too many names and faces and endless questions to politely squirm out of answering fully.  Two mini-concerts and some talks given by the scholarly types on the discoveries which had been made.  The concerts and talks were a bit of a relief, because no-one was asking me questions during them.  And yesterday afternoon the signing ceremony, and the unveiling of the statue, and endless speeches and announcements about Muina's future, and then an afternoon banquet (they couldn't have it at night because there's no prepared rooms big enough for that many people, and the temperature is still dropping too drastically at sunset for an outdoor meal).  Then, I'm told, there were bunches of alcohol-fuelled after-parties and a hell of a lot of networking and deal-making and discussion because after all how often do so many important people get together?

Kaoren was with me almost all the time, with Maze, Zee or Zan providing secondary back-up.  I'd been wondering if someone would show up with a dress and tell me to wear it, but fortunately we didn't have to fuss about clothing and could just wear our uniforms, even for the party.  Black goes with everything, after all.  I would have liked to have seen Kaoren in those strange Taren formal outfits though.

I hardly remember most of what was said to me, and have been reviewing a few of my answers in my log.  Scads of VIPs who wanted to know how much of
The Hidden War
was true (my stock answer was that the events were for the most part correct if a little out of order, but the people were very different), and who wanted more details about this or that or the other part of my 'adventures'.  Bunches of VIPs who had questions about Earth.  More than a few VIPs who wanted to know very personal things.  Three or four VIPs (or, mostly, their adult children) who made almost openly suggestive comments even with Kaoren there and looking at them in his most unimpressed way.

Only a few parts stand out for me.  The Rukmar of Performing Arts was this very funny little man, all mischief and delight, and totally wanted to know everything about Earth musical instruments.  I hadn't paid a lot of attention, but of course the episodes of
Planet Earth
which I've been subtitling have been transmitted back to Tare and Kolar – I'm practically a cottage film industry.  The Rukmar didn't care so much about all the animals, as the music played in the background, and wanted to know the names of all the instruments and styles of music used.  He adores the violins – the Tarens and Kolarens do have an instrument which involves strings and a bow, but it's this tall, kind of wibbly-sounding instrument which sounds totally different.

Since that was at dinner, and I could go to bed after, I made a projection of an orchestra for him, showing people using the usual sorts of instruments, and then did a projection of the instrumental version of
Eleanor Rigby
for him.  He was just skipping with delight, and was a lot of fun to talk to.

Ghost caused a bit of a fuss, since so many people arriving meant the Ddura kept turning up and so she wouldn't let me out of her sight.  Lots of strong reactions from people, but mostly positive, even though she's an Ionoth.  She is terribly cute.  One of the Rukmars had brought her kids along (a pair of twins around ten years old), and they positively stalked me because not only was Ghost a very appealing cat, she was one which kept turning invisible.

I sat between Isten Notra and Kaoren for all the formal speech-making and watching of the signing, and Isten Notra told me on a private channel how they'd decided on a paper signing for the Kolarens' benefit, even though many of the Tarens had had to then learn how to physically sign something.  Isten Notra made the whole ceremony easier to get through.

There was one speech – one of the elected leaders of Kolar's southern pole talking about how she'd grown up believing that the people who had fled Muina had a shameful past, that there was little to gain in constantly looking back.  It was only when she'd seen the projection of the ritual at Kalasa that she'd felt that there was more to the story than overweening pride and death, that there was something to be embraced.  She had tears in her eyes.  So did Isten Notra, who patted my hand.  A lot of the speeches were pretty mortifying for me, but at least they let me stay sitting down.

The statue, which arrived the day before yesterday, wasn't as bad as it could have been.  It was basically a huge white column with a slanted top (more moonbeam imagery) made out of some kind of quartzy rock growing out of a base of dusty-looking grey stone which kind of made you want to stroke it.  There was a hazy outline of a figure inside the column, tall and androgynous and meant to be Muina.  Sitting at the base of the column was me, in slightly darker dusty grey.  Someone had obviously given the sculptor an extract of the mission report from my retrieval, because it was the exact image of me from Sonn's log – sitting wide-eyed, ill and alone on a rock, my school bag held against my legs, my uniform looking worn and tattered.  Standing to my right, though, were Kaoren and Sonn, again in darker stone: incredibly cold and professional and upright.  And to my left were Shaf and Nalaz from Kolar's first squad – Nalaz was gazing all far-eyed into the distance, but Shaf was looking down at me with the faintest hint of a smile.  Bit of a Kolaren bias there.  Still, not being the only one represented makes the statue relatively tolerable for me.  Especially because Kaoren looks particularly gorgeous.