The Texas Renegade Returns

Friday, March 7

tl;dr

I decided, before I started on my file review, to read more generally about Muina and Tare, now that I had access to more than the 'primary school' textbook version of the past. Establishing a timeline will help. I'll write it down in Earth years because Tare years are just too stupidly short.

@ 1500 years ago – The Lantaren caste on Muina screw up royally by creating Pillars which start tearing apart the fabric which divides real-space from the Ena. And then they're almost completely wiped out trying to fix their screw up. I missed this little detail before – the people who set up the Pillars died almost at the outset, leaving a serious information and leadership vacuum.

@ 1500 years ago – Entire towns and cities begin dropping dead, and Ionoth plague the rest. The remaining Lantaren caste frantically evacuates everyone they can to other planets by walking thousands of people through the Ena (some through the kind of spaces I've been to on rotation, and others through something called deep-space).

@ 1500 years ago – One group arrives on Tare, which is a wet rock constantly pounded by storms. They run for the nearest cave and struggle to survive underground. The Lantarens as a distinct caste disappear at this point, but the bloodline remains mixed into the general populace. Plenty of minor psychics about being useful, but they're treated as a necessary evil because for centuries it was considered a bad and tainted thing to be linked to the Lantarens, who are blamed and hated for what happened to Muina.

@ 1400 – Muinans finally start to get the upper hand on Tare, and their life becomes less of a desperate struggle for survival. The population starts to go up instead of down. Proper written records start being kept, or stop being lost. Even at this point the Tarens have a kind of nanotech – all those white buildings on Muina are basically grown, not built, from a kind of 'living mud' developed by the Lantarens. The Tarens managed to bring some with them and maintain a seed stock of this mud and have built structures with it ever since, even though they had no real understanding of how it worked until the last couple of centuries. House-building here is ultimately bizarre: they start with a big vat of white goop which they feed with raw material to make more white goop which they then 'instruct' using little models to create big versions of the same. So long as they kept some of the white goop 'unformed' they could always make more white goop. Since the white goop hasn't absorbed the whole planet yet, I guess it has a mechanism to stop it spreading everywhere.

@ 900 years ago – Tare has a strong and stable civilisation at this point, and is starting to branch out from the original island, Gorra, and establish on other islands. World exploration phase, somewhat hampered by extremely violent oceans.

@ 300 years ago – The attitude toward psychic ability finally shifts enough that it's considered a good rather than a bad thing, and the Tarens actively try breeding for it. Later, once they figure out how to boost it with machinery, they find that psychic talent of some sort is almost universal in the population, although they don't have anyone who can even come close to the level of the old Lantarens.

@ 200 years ago – Computer age begins.

@ 120 years ago – Advanced nanotech age begins. At this point they've passed Earth's current level of technology and are beginning the first roll-out of the bio-powered interface.

@ 100 years ago – Tarens build 'spaceships' which will allow them to travel through the interplanetary gate again. This gate (or rift) goes to deep-space and is thick with aether and doesn't seem to be like either the gates I've travelled with First, or the gate which took me from Earth to Muina. The Tarens start hunting for habitable planets/Muina, which is by no means easy. They send off and lose a lot of drones.

@ 90 years ago – A planet called Channa is located, which has an ex-Muinan population. It's a rocky, arid world and not very attractive as a colonisation prospect, so the Tarens set up some mines on an unsettled continent, and indulge in long ethical debates about what to do about the ex-Muinans who are living a harsh, nomadic hunter-gatherer life. Instead of stepping in and trying to take over, the Tarens disguised themselves, learned the dialect, and have been feeding them small technological advances, turning them into a more agrarian culture. Since Channa's Ionoth infestation was relatively minor, they've left it at that until recent years when, like all the other known planets, Channa started to suffer from much increased Ionoth numbers. Now there's a huge argument about whether Tare should lend more outright assistance or even try to remove several million Channans from the planet.

@ 80 years ago – Located Nuri, a moon-sized planet with a small but stable population (tech level probably equal to the Romans). The Nurans seem to consider Taren technology a contaminant, and though there's been some diplomatic exchanges, the Nurans really don't want to have anything to do with the Tarens, and won't share information. They also seem inclined to hold the Tarens at fault for the recent increase in Ionoth infestation. The Nurans have the strongest 'natural' psychic powers of the known planets, and have been able to handle Ionoth up till now, but are thought to be struggling with the increase.

@ 60 years ago – Located Dyess, which has the remains of Muinan-type habitation, but it seems Dyess was overwhelmed by Ionoth long ago. It's a watery world with a string of tropical islands crawling with things that consider humans tasty with ketchup. There's been quite a few expeditions there focused on collecting useful plant life, but the slivers of land mass are not considered worth colonisation.

@ 50 years ago – Located Kolar, which is a dry but reasonably habitable world where ex-Muinans have been busy having wars with Ionoth and occasionally themselves. It's the most advanced technologically of those Tare has encountered and though they would have been more primitive than Earth at time of contact, they're now a little more advanced thanks to Tare's help. The Tarens and the Kolarens don't have a very warm relationship. The Kolarens really want the Tarens to share more of their technological secrets, while Tare likes Kolaren resources but not the prospect of them standing on an equal footing. Kolar has an internet, but the Tarens won't give anyone except the Kolaren Setari the interface. Of course, large portions of Kolar don't want the interface, and loathe all the potential violations of privacy it would bring.

@ 30 years ago – Muina rediscovered. Much rejoicing till entire expeditionary force wiped out in an explosion. Repeated expeditionary attempts invariably wiped out, although in different ways.


@ 30 years ago – KOTIS formed: theoretically a joint venture between Tare and Kolar, but in truth mainly Tare. This was in response to a noticeable increase in Ionoth presence across the known worlds, and also wanting to 'fix' Muina. Both Tarens and Kolarens consider Muina 'home' and there's this grand ambition to move back there.

@ 18 years ago – Tare is suffering from more and more Ionoth coming through to real-space and has to devote a lot of time and manpower to fighting them. They begin a big push to increase the strength of psychic talents, formulating the Setari program in the hopes of moving the battle out of the cities. Which has been very effective, but in no way fixes the larger problem.

So that's the interplanetary situation. I can see why Ruuel doesn't think there's much chance of them finding Earth, since it took them so long to find their own home world. Thanks to the strays which have shown up on Tare and Kolar, they know there's at least three other inhabited planets of Muina-descendents, and they haven't even been able to find them.

Thirty years ago when they found Muina, the Tarens didn't know very much about why they'd had to leave Muina in the first place other than "everyone's dying, run away!". Why the Lantarens felt interplanetary travel was so important is a mystery, and so is how the Pillars were created. Not a single one of the 'core' group of people involved in setting any of this up on Muina made it to any of the known worlds.

There are endless stories about the Lantarens, most of which make them out to be arrogant mystic masters, but beyond being really great psychics, the true scope and nature of their powers isn't known.

So there's my context for starting Isten Notra's project, though I'm not sure how quickly I'll get that done when my mornings involve getting drunk and then sleeping it off. And still feeling tired in the evening.

Saturday, March 8

Early Muina Expeditions

Thirty years ago a drone returned through the rift gate having charted a path to a new habitable planet. The exploratory ship Lonara was despatched with a crew of twenty to survey the find. As planets go, Muina's a juicy one. Large polar caps and a few arid splotches, but the rest a very habitable green and blue gem. Lots of lakes. Massive cities of empty, white blockish buildings. The Lonara did a quick aerial survey of the first big city they found, and could see no sign of human life, though plenty of animals. They set down on what looked like a parade ground, left a few drones, and reported back that the home world had been located at last.

Both the Lonara and another ship, the Tsaszen, were sent to begin a more detailed exploration. Fifty crew altogether, a mixture of military and scientific specialists. The Tarens had known that Muina was dangerous – or had been when it was evacuated – so they'd expected to find it infested with Ionoth. But even before the Setari program began they'd developed plenty of effective anti-Ionoth weapons, and without their own cities and citizens in the way, that first expedition wasn't really expecting major problems.

They didn't report back.

A third ship, the Maszar, discovered only smoking rubble where the expedition was meant to be. The Maszar searched for survivors and found none, then returned to Tare. It was really sad reading the reports from that time. They had no idea what had happened. Had the ships been attacked by massives? Some kind of weapon? Sabotaged? There was a strong undertone in the reports that Kolar was suspected. The Maszar hadn't even been able to find the drones.

There was a lot of debate about going back in force or sending a small and very quiet mission. Small and quiet eventually won out. A ship called the Danna, carrying ten people. They tried to be sneaky, staying in the air a long time, landing well away from the city, scanning, scanning, scanning, and deploying a dozen drones. Half of them stayed with the ship and the other half went on a sled ('sled' is roughly what 'deeli', their name for their hovering transporters, translates to) to the site of the other crash to investigate. They arrived without incident and began sifting through the rubble, performing scans and searching for what seems to be the equivalent of a black box flight recorder. They were making good progress, not troubled at all by Ionoth or any other sign of attack, when they lost contact with their ship.

When yet another ship was despatched to investigate why the Danna hadn't returned, they found the five from the investigatory group camped beside the Danna's shattered hulk. They had no idea why it had exploded. There'd been no attacks in the two days since, and they'd continued to do their scans and investigatory work and were very glad to be rescued, thank you very much.

It took another exploding ship, the Netz, before KOTIS instituted a rule about ships only being able to remain on the planet for twelve hours. For their next attempt they established a camp of people on-planet and left them there, with regular two-day check-ins. That worked really well for about a week, and they made good progress on exploring the city, looking for records and important structures and anything to unravel the mysteries of the past and present. It seemed smaller machines didn't explode as quickly. Drones tended to not last more than a few days, but their sleds proved quite robust.

Then a massive attacked them. About half the thirty people there died – were eaten. They tried again, a different site with more people. Four days later they vanished entirely, not even the bodies remaining, and no signs of battle.

That all in the first year after Muina was re-discovered. And, twenty-nine years later, not much has changed. The Taren government reduced the permitted time on the planet to only three kasse. When they began to understand near-space a little better, they found that drones they set to power down instead of being constantly active usually didn't stop working. The drones trundle about, a bit like the Mars Explorer, recording everything they see for an hour or so, and then transmit their recordings to a collection drone and shut down for the day.

Satellites in orbit don't explode, at least, and they've one up making a complete aerial world map. GoogleMuina! I could even look up my village. I still haven't scratched the surface of the reports, just skipped through the main details. There's too many for me to ever hope to read everything. And I haven't found a single thing that seems worth telling Isten Notra. I guess I'll keep glancing at the files, but I've lost my initial enthusiasm.

On other fronts, more getting drunk in the morning to no visible benefit. They rather over-exposed me, and I passed out mid-session. There is a complete lack of fun in getting drunk while a bunch of serious people watch you and take notes.

I did better swimming today: I'm starting to feel that exercise isn't a thing of horror. I sent an email to Zan telling her that if she's ever bored, or not exhausted, and wants more swimming practice to come join me and she replied with "I'll do that." But since she's on a different shift, I guess the chances are pretty low.

Sunday, March 9

Not Clint Eastwood

This morning Tsur Selkie came to watch me be drunk. After observing through a viewing window, unenhanced and then enhanced, he had some poor junior greysuit stand next to me while they gassed us both. The greysuit was this short, very pretty guy who sweated and gritted his teeth even before the aether was piped in, and then shot me these outraged looks when I just lay there being bored while it was obviously hurting him plenty. He passed out fairly quickly.

Then Tsur Selkie had them pipe just a puff of aether over his own hand and my hand, watching with those flinty black eyes. He continues to remind me of Clint Eastwood, even though he doesn't look at all like him.


"Is same reaction, but reversed," I said helpfully, while Tsur Selkie was watching our hands. "Both lose fine motor control, reaction time slow, plus judgment, plus pass out. Is just way feel different. And healing or dying, guess. Are there any famous actor this world that people say you look like?"

That made him look up. I suppose it'll go in the mission log file. I can only be glad, since they'd decided to try out Sight Sight, that they hadn't used Ruuel for it. Who knows what I might have said to him?

"The difference is not in your reaction," Selkie said, after a moment. "But in the behaviour of the aether. It is attacking me."

That made me stare. "Is alive? Or more nanotech?"

"Possibly. The Nurans claim that we made Muina itself our enemy. The next question is why it recognises you as a friend."

"Everyone like Australians," I said, with a short laugh, but then sobered a little. "People from Earth, not good for own planet. Don't see why another would like."

He just turned away, signalling for them to open the doors.

"Wait." I reached out and grabbed his wrist, trying not to look too embarrassed about it. "Try test again."

Clint Eastwood's not the sort of guy you go about grabbing. And Tsur Selkie definitely isn't. But after a moment's thought he told them to try again, and stood there without changing expression as the jet of aether gusted out to cover his hand. Then he said: "Increase the amount."

I wasn't in the channel where most of the discussion was happening, so lay there working on the retention of minor shreds of dignity while watching Tsur Selkie get squiffy. He handled it well, but you could see the change, the gradual unfocusing of his eyes, the line of concentration appearing between the brows. Prime target for a random breath test.

By then I was finding most everything amusing, so I piped up with: "Drunk on duty. Ten demerit points." And laughed at the way he frowned at me, but sneakily went on: "Going pass out soon. Can stop?"

First he had to test what happens when he was no longer in contact with me: an instant return of all the negative effects. I didn't even trust myself to stand up, and let myself go to sleep again. Waste of half the day and now I'm too wired to sleep.

Monday, March 10

Sacrifice

The parents of Setari candidates give up their children to the government. There's lots of movies here about that. About families who are like soccer moms, who want the prestige of their kid being taken into the Setari program, no matter what. About others who try and hide that their kids have strong psychic abilities, who do everything they can to discourage them from excelling. I watched a sad story a few days ago, about the sister of a girl who was taken into the Setari program, who had to fight to have anyone acknowledge her as anything more than that girl's sister. She killed herself in the end.

I spent today thinking about Sixth Squad, about the guy called Ammas who died, and how his parents must have felt when they were told. Were they angry? Had they pushed him into the Setari program, or resisted his conscription? Had he been given leave to go see them recently? Did he have any sisters, or someone he was in love with? Were there things he wanted to do other than kill monsters?

The Setari aren't by any means without rights, and there's several oversight committees, but to develop their talents they're pushed in a way which hovers between strict and cruel. While they're not allowed to be sent into battle until they pass their adult competency exam, and they really are given chances to leave the Setari, there's no way they can gain truly strong talents without giving up most of their childhood. It's useful remembering that whenever I get into a grump and feel like complaining.

With the severe increase of incursions into real-space, and the repeated sightings of Setari on the main islands, there's a lot – seriously a lot – of speculation about what's been going on these last couple of weeks. That they've found a Pillar and shut it off is one of the many things rumoured, but nothing about so many teams coming so close to dying, and nothing about me. The Setari might have oversight committees, but KOTIS is by no means open to public curiosity. I wonder if there's an Unexpectedly Useful Strays oversight committee?

No getting drunk today, just a regular medical exam, so I swam in the morning and didn't manage too badly. I think the aether sessions might have helped my recovery along. I tried to be super-virtuous and go jogging after lunch, but there was a sports carnival on. Well, a competition with at least three hundred kids aged all the way from little six year-olds to people my own age. If I'd bothered to check the scheduling I would have seen that the 'park' was booked.

They had uniforms, too, though not black nanoliquid ones. Brown and cream, obviously designed for sports. I hastily sat down after walking in, glad that I was back from the action, but too embarrassed to walk straight back out again when all the people nearby had seen me. I always feel like such an impostor in my black uniform, because I've seen enough of the TV series about the girl trying to qualify as a Setari to know how much of a mark of achievement it is. Though I suppose it's possible most of them knew what I was anyway, and maybe that's half the reason they were looking at me. I'm not sure if the matter of useful strays has been allowed even outside the main body of the Setari.

They were so deadly serious about the competition. They did cheer, and barrack for their friends, but even the little ones scrambled over the obstacle course as if their lives depended on it. I guess it does. I wasn't in whatever channel they were using, and didn't try to find it, using the time for more flipping through Muina reports instead. I didn't turn the name display on, because some of these kids are probably going to end up like Ammas.

Tuesday, March 11

Little to contribute

I'm not getting anywhere with Isten Notra's assignment. After reading endlessly I can't think of a single thing to tell her which doesn't sound lame, so there goes my hidden ambition to point out that the dog didn't bark in the night, or the parsley hadn't sunk in the butter, or any other Sherlockian observation. I was sticking to it, though, paging through increasingly tedious reports, but more than a little relieved when Mara came and kidnapped me for dinner in the city with First Squad, who have finally been posted back to KOTIS headquarters.

It was a great outing. We went to a place which sold food pastes similar to hummus and refried beans, with different edible 'spoons' ranging from hard brown bread to the now-familiar vegetable sticks. I immediately thought of it as the "Hot and Cold Dip Shop". Lohn was being very funny, and kept saying: "Ten demerit points" whenever anyone accidentally knocked a glass. He says he's my eternal slave forever, just for the expression on Tsur Selkie's face.

"Is Setari allowed drink alcohol?" I asked, since I'd only ever seen First Squad drink water and juices.

"Not in any quantity," Alay said, tilting her glass. "Even if we weren't actively serving, the risk is too great. I've tried alcohol, but the rule against control-diminishing substances is only good sense."

"Tsur Selkie main guy in charge Setari training?"

"A dominant force in our development, say." Maze seemed even more tired and worn-down than usual, but he produced a wry smile at this. "I have to admit to re-watching that testing session more than a few times. So Selkie looks like a famous actor from your planet?"

I tried very unsuccessfully to explain Clint Eastwood, and then moved on to Johnny Depp, and now all of First Squad except Maze have sworn to find a path to Earth so they can watch Pirates of the Caribbean.


Afterwards, Zee took me to have my hair cut. There are apparently hairdressers available in KOTIS for the brownsuits, who are properly called Kalrani ('juniors'), but they're what you'd expect for school barbers, and so Zee took me to the place she uses. I had my hair neatened, without doing anything fancy to it, but I feel much less of a scruff now that the split ends have been cut out and the ends aren't so jagged. Not that it makes much of a difference, since I've taken to braiding it.

As we walked back I talked to Zee about my eye changing colour. I've moved past my first reaction to it, and was able to tell her that it makes me feel uncomfortable, without transforming into a rampaging drama llama. And I told her about my nightmares, which I felt safe to talk about now that I'd stopped having them every damn night.

Then I asked Zee about Nils in Second Squad chasing her, and she said: "In his dreams." And changed the subject.

Wednesday, March 12

Fun

More getting drunk on aether. Though I wonder if I should be writing 'high' instead of drunk, since I'm breathing not drinking. I guess I don't like the idea of 'high', which is very contradictory of me since alcohol is just another drug. 'Party oil', as Perry called it: no big deal, just something to make things go. Alyssa had made me promise never to drink without her, which I haven't technically, but even though I'm legally old enough now, I don't think Alyssa – let alone Mum – would be impressed with my current career. There's something less than special about having breakfast, then lying on a couch being all tingly until I pass out.

On the flip side, I have lots of medical supervision, and I'm even trying to be conscientious about exercise. This afternoon I went both swimming and jogging, though I'd have skipped the jogging except Zan came and joined me for the swimming (yay!) and I asked her if there was somewhere I could jog which wasn't quite so visible and well-populated as the obstacle-course park. She showed me a different training area, an endless maze of corridors and stairwells and the occasional ladder. This is probably a better thing for overall fitness than just jogging lightly in a circle, but gods I barely managed one circuit going at a pace which really wasn't more than a walk. Way too many stairs. My legs were jelly afterwards.

Zan kept pace with me, not looking like it was costing her the mildest effort, and told me afterwards that I shouldn't try and run the circuit at all, just walk it once a day, taking as much time as I needed. I can't say I'm eager, but at least I would be without an audience, barring other people doing the course overtaking me.

We ate together after, and talked over one of the books she'd recommended: a historical novel set in Tare's past, before they had the interface. Pre-Setari too, with an epic quest to uncover lost Muinan records in caves deep below Unara. She made me miss Alyssa so bad. I just can't bring myself to ask Zan to rate the smex level.

Instead I asked about the sports event I'd walked in on, and Zan explained that winning those things, while it gets you some nice privileges, doesn't count toward whether you qualify to become a full-fledged Setari. And that's what the Kalrani are very focused on at the moment: they're choosing Thirteenth and Fourteenth Squads from those who have reached the right age and passed the aptitude tests. There's about twenty-five of them who are of age, one of whom will have to be slotted into Sixth Squad. Fifteenth and Sixteenth Squad won't be formed for at least two Taren years.

"Does anyone not qualify ever? What happen them if that happen?"

Zan answered in the extra-neutral tone she uses whenever the internal politics of the Setari are involved. "While there are some still Kalrani who are more senior than the members of Eleventh and Twelfth Squad, if it was felt that it was not possible for them to qualify, they wouldn't have reached this stage of the program. But forming a balanced and effective Squad is more complex than matters of age and qualifications. They'll be brought into active service when there is the right team for them."

I wondered if this touched on the reasons some Setari were so nasty to Zan, but kept my mouth shut about that and instead thanked her for showing me all the torturous stairs. She said she'd come swim with me if our schedules matched up again. Definite progress on the Zan front.

And now, while I was writing this, I've been scheduled to test with Fourth Squad tomorrow. I think I'm looking forward to it, but I have to wonder if Ruuel's too-many Sights mean that he'll look at me and see right through to all the shivery anticipation the thought of him creates. Alyssa used to say that time spent with impossible-to-achieve guys is time well spent because it gives you a chance to find reasons not to like them. But I don't feel equal to dealing with Ruuel right now.

Ah well – the worst that can happen is that I can make a total idiot of myself, and have that immortalised in mission reports forever. Such a lot to look forward to.