The Texas Renegade Returns

I nodded. "Sounds anxious."

"Hunting?"

"No. The confused noise." I transmitted what I was hearing into the squad channel, and watched his eyes narrow.

He added Tsur Selkie to the channel, then said: "Either a reaction to the machine itself, or to a threat to the site's integrity."

"Continue the relay, Devlin," was all Selkie said to us, but he obviously said a whole lot on other channels since there was a sudden exodus of people out of the central circle toward the edge of the lake.

The tone of the Ddura's call changed almost immediately. "Now partly question noise, but mainly unhappy noise," I said helpfully over the interface, then asked Shaf aloud: "Kolar has dogs, right?"

He wasn't surprised by my hearing the Ddura, so I guessed he'd gotten through my 'briefing material', and just nodded in answer to my question.

"Ddura acts like very big dog." I looked back at Ruuel. "This sounds like one not know Muinans back. Ddura at Pandora stopped making this cry."

"Security identification has been reapplied," Tsur Selkie said. "Stand by."

The Ddura paused mid-moan, making the confused sound again, then the question noise. But then it switched back to being mournful.

"Security identification had been placed on the power unit," Selkie said, sounding satisfied. "Evidently that isn't sufficient to cover a machine using that power unit. The device looks as if it will be successful, however."

He left the channel, and Ruuel said: "Keep lunch brief. If the site is opened, both squads will go in as point team."

I'm guessing he had a private channel open to Shaf, since they walked off together. I dropped out of mission channel as well, and glanced at two squads of Setari who were going to go on being super-correct at each other, but at least didn't seem to be openly hostile. I've no doubt Fourth Squad knew that Katzyen had started out spoiling for a fight, but they would follow Ruuel's lead. Ruuel's lead wasn't exactly chatty, though, and everyone was silent as we started walking back to the mess tent.

"Are Kolaren squads numbered as well?" I asked Taranza, who looked to be around my age rather than the couple of years older the other Kolarens seemed to be. She had short, streaky blonde hair and less of a tan than the others, and a way of looking around with wide-eyed appreciation which I liked. "Like this is Fourth Squad, and the other squad here is Ninth Squad?"

"We're First Squad," Taranza said, with a faintly apologetic glance at the Taren Setari. "That is going to cause some confusion."

Both squads ended up talking that over during lunch, even Sonn making one or two suggestions. The Ninth Squad captain, whose watch was about to start and who was eating breakfast when we reached the mess tent, ended up deciding that we could use a variation which was the equivalent of 'Squad One' and it would still mean the same thing and the Kolarens seemed okay with that, though I expect they'll keeping calling themselves 'First Squad' in their own dialect.

Islen Tezart explained that the machine his team had been building created a counter field of aether to hold the site's own aether field back from the doorway around South Mountain. Then they used the same sort of nanotech which they create their buildings with to eat the seal – and only the seal – away. The counter field machine formed an ugly frame about the opening, but it was done.

Going in as 'point team' was delayed by what was on the far side of the seal. Ruuel's initial reaction had prepared me a little and I'd expected there would be the skeletons of the people who'd been trapped inside, but no-one had guessed at the sheer number. Dozens, maybe hundreds, packed into a short entry corridor and hexagonal room beyond. How many were crushed by the panicked press trying to escape? The seal had preserved them well, too: leathery skin stretched over grey bone, cloth still whole, although so fragile a touch would probably destroy it. They were almost all lying facing outward, withered hands stretched forward or covering their heads. I guess it was the Ddura which they were running from. Something which caught and killed them all together.

Imaging from scans had already shown us the general outline of the underground rooms: five ring-like levels, each smaller than the previous one until finally there was what seemed to be a single room, sitting at the centre point between the three mountains. Once I'd seen how huge the place was I wasn't surprised the Tarens had thrown a big portion of their resources at this place. The site commander wanted the Setari to sweep the rooms of this part of this level for anything which sparked their Combat Sight – monsters, traps, invisible lurking death – and if possible locate the communication platform and maybe whatever was generating the aether field. Islen Duffen wasn't very pleased with the Setari going in first, even though they were under orders to levitate as much as possible to avoid disturbing anything. But since the massive battle she seems more inclined to listen to what the Setari have to say, at least where safety is concerned. She wants me to tell her more about Earth history when she has time, but since we found this site she's worked non-stop and looks ready to drop, so I don't know when that will happen.

The walls inside the site glowed: the same sort of glow made in Pandora during moonfall, but with no free-flowing aether. It meant we didn't have to worry about lights, at least. Fourth and 'Squad One' split into their respective teams, and worked their way along a main central passage, moving apart to follow side-corridors and enter rooms, and then joining up again. One thing they found out almost immediately was that the ramps down were sealed like the entrances, and when we met a longer connecting passageway on this level, it was also sealed. So we've only gained access to one third of the top level.

It was a town, not a tomb. I've no idea why any of the old Muinans would want to live underground – the issue of ventilation alone would be enough to make it less than ideal – but every room we looked in seemed to be living quarters, except for occasional ones which were water sources or gathering areas. Nothing leapt out at us and there were no traps. The communication platform was in the room at the end of the long 'spoke' passage and after a tedious amount of back and forth discussion they had Sonn try to use the platform to deactivate the seals. Didn't work, did produce an ecstatic Ddura, but fortunately going back outside was next on our schedule.

The technology group spent the afternoon constructing another machine around the entrance to North Mountain, while the archaeologists broke into two teams: one painstakingly untangling the human wreckage just within the entrance, and the other working on the nearest of the rooms. The archaeologists are so tremendously excited. It's not that everything was perfectly preserved or anything, but there had been very few places at Pandora and Nurioth which hadn't been exposed to wind and rain and been pulled about by animals. And, of course, it's working old Lantaren technology. I don't know if this is the big break we need to fix the spaces, but it's the first major find since Tare gained 'security clearance'.

My Ddura-headache wasn't too bad, but I was feeling tired as well, so I was glad when Ruuel sent us back to the Diodel. Squad One is sleeping on the Litara, which is staying for the night. Most of the expedition is sleeping in the tent city, but while the Taren Setari are more accustomed to being outside because they're trained to go into the spaces, the Sight talents especially find it difficult to sleep without the shielding on our pods or their rooms back on Tare. Combat Sight reacts to people coming near them, for a start.


Ruuel was absent, as he often is during meals, and I had a feeling Fourth Squad would probably talk about Squad One if I wasn't there, so I headed for a shower and bed straight after dinner.

I was sitting sideways on my pod seat braiding my hair when Ruuel showed up from wherever he'd been. "Devlin. Have you seen the cat Ionoth since the infirmary?"

This wasn't a question I wanted to answer. But it also seemed weird for him to suddenly bring it up. I blinked, then guessed why he was asking. "You've been warning Kolaren captain about silly things I might do that he has to watch out for?"

"Yes." Very straightforward, very typical. "You've sighted it, I take it? Report it next time."

If there's ever a time I really do need to lie to Ruuel, I'm going to have no chance at all. And I didn't think I could just pretend I was going to do what he said, either. "I do most things told to because either make sense to me, or don't see any choice. Ghost I handed over once, so tests could be run, but not going to do again."

Other than a couple of fits of temper I've had with the medics, I think that was the first time I've refused to do what I was told since I was rescued – and Ruuel is really the last person I want to say no to. I felt pretty nervous about his reaction, but he just looked steadily at me a moment, then said: "And if it proves less innocuous than you believe? You will not be able to undo any damage it causes."

"Just because she not turn into evil, people-eating kitten in the past not mean she won't one day? May as well lock me back up in case I decide run around stab people."

"The cat has a better chance of landing a blow," he said, totally straight-faced, and shook his head, apparently deciding it wasn't worth pressing the point. "Get some rest."

I felt like telling him to practice what he preached, since the shadows under his eyes were worse than ever, but I was too disconcerted by more evidence of a sense of humour (or, just possibly, proof that he is totally bereft of one and is saying these things without a shred of irony). Besides, he was already walking away.

I'm finding I like waking up a lot earlier than everyone else, not least because it gives me a chance to write up the day in this diary without anyone looking at me curiously, but today I wish I'd stayed in the dream I was having. I was lying curled up with Ruuel, not talking or doing anything, just curled up in a dark, quiet place listening to him breathe, to his heart beating. It was an uneventful but intense dream, and incredibly real. When I woke up I felt so content, so happy, I wanted to go straight back to sleep.

Must find cure for besotted goopiness.

Sweat

Each of the main entrances are open now, and each third was very much the same inside. Corpses just inside the seal, and then living quarters beyond. We haven't found anything which was obviously controlling the seal, and won't be opening any more levels until more machine parts arrive. The technicians weren't expecting to have to build dozens of the things. The Litara's gone off to fetch that and other construction-related items, as they've begun the first stages of building the settlement, which is going to be called Arenrhon after some Taren historical figure.

Ruuel decided his squad was getting out of shape and started them on an evil training regimen. Being in good physical condition lessens the strain of using their talents, and these constantly 'on-mission' days without their usual training facilities means Fourth haven't had much opportunity for strength training. So they did lots of jogging and chin lifts and things like that. And since I'm assigned to Fourth, I got to do it as well, except – thankfully – only about a quarter of what Ruuel put everyone else through. That still nearly killed me.

It was bearable, though. Things I could obviously not do – like chin lifts – he didn't make me stick at, and had me do milder versions instead. I didn't enjoy the day, but I got through it, and Fourth Squad were good at not making me feel embarrassed about being comparatively pathetic.

Friday, April 11

It's all a question of angles

Today I taught a handful of greensuits and greysuits and three Setari squads how to skip stones. I was waiting around for Fourth to come back from their longer-than-mine training run, and since it was a very still day and this lakeshore is even pebblier than Pandora's, I entertained myself by collecting a bunch of stones and seeing if I could best my record (seven skips).

My arms were tired from push-ups, though, and the best I could manage was four skips, and was looking around for more stones when I realised I had a small audience: two greensuits and a greysuit looking immensely puzzled. Their question – "But, how?" – says something about how different their planets are from Earth. Kolar isn't entirely desert, but it's a dry world and most of its water is in underground Springs, while Tare is all massively violent oceans. By the time Fourth got back I had most of Squad One and two from Ninth lined up in a row.

Ruuel let Fourth have a break to play around, but didn't try himself, going off to be captainly. Glade easily beat my own record, and asked what the maximum was people could do on Earth, but I didn't know. I think when he taught me Dad said something about people doing over thirty skips, but that always seemed a bit much to be right. Par Auron took the record today – eight skips. At least half the Setari could skip better than me on their second or third try. They're just good at physical tasks, not to mention strong.

Then it was more exercise: stretches and lifting big water containers Ruuel had borrowed from the greensuits. Fortunately we're doing all this training in a clearing a little north of the tents, so I didn't have to deal with an audience. I think every muscle I have is sore.

Saturday, April 12

Museum exhibit

Uneventful day. You'd think exploring lost alien underground cities would be more dramatic, but going through the second level of the installation, which required another three machines to hold open the entrances, was very much a repetition of the first level. More living quarters, larger ones. Fewer bodies. Wood well-preserved, metal tarnished, cloth fragile. Not much writing. The Lantaren caste of the Muinans did use a written language, but non-Lantarens apparently weren't literate. Other than a couple of inscriptions on pots and statues (possibly the names of people – the alphabet has mutated a fair deal and I can only half read it), I didn't spot anything written down. Definitely no library, or manual of instructions, or super-secret plans. No field projector we could turn off, either.

One thing all this has made clear to me is I would not have made a good archaeologist. I don't have nearly the patience for it. I concentrated on my school work during the waiting about, and watched a handful of greensuits who seem to have fallen in love with stone skipping. And tried not to look at the smooth white scar of the new settlement. I don't like to think too much about the impact I've had on this world.

Sunday, April 13

Large and loud

This morning Fourth Squad and I went into near-space, trying to work our way down to the lowest levels of the installation through the gaps in the walls that only exist in near-space. But the aether shield exists there as well, and though we did go down to the second level through the holes the machines were maintaining, we couldn't find any way through to the lower levels.

And the Ddura came and looked at us while we were there, which was really disconcerting. It's just like a humungous cloud of coloured light, and felt like tingly ice crystals on my face. And was tremendously happy about the Setari, who all could hear it in near-space. It Hhhaaaa'd enough that even Ruuel couldn't hide how much he wished it would shut up. The greysuits were tremendously interested in the data we brought back about the Ddura, and Fourth Squad all went and lay down for a while. The technology group is growing concerned about having so many of the field-disrupting machines operating together and is going to undo a few of them and open a single path downward in only the first of the thirds. Lots of standing about guarding them while they do that for the Setari.


I stuck with the lying down.

Monday, April 14

Worship

The third level of the installation seems to be some kind of church. Maybe. It was empty of anything resembling furniture, just had carved images of the same woman all over the walls, and mosaics all over the floors. Everywhere the same beautiful, idealised woman, with rivers flowing from her tears, and animals (pippins!) hiding in the folds of her skirts, and forests unwinding from her long flowing hair.

Fourth Squad went very expressionless when looking through this area, and no-one is entirely certain if this is meant to represent their world mother-goddess. There are three entrances to the facility, and the faces above each entrance look different. This woman matches the face above the door for this third, so everyone is wondering, if this is Muina, who are the other two faces meant to be?

Since the levels have been decreasing in size, they'd been expecting to clear down to the lowest level today, but they don't seem to be able to get their machine to work on the next shield. After spending the entire afternoon standing around watching them not be able to figure out how to get through, Ruuel decided his squad could do with some close-combat training to get the kinks out. This unfortunately included me, with Sonn as my partner. But though she gave me a heck of a bruise on my leg because she expected me to have some faint ability to dodge, Sonn was otherwise a methodical and practical teacher.

Squad One joined in after a while. They haven't all magically stopped resenting Tarens, but they've decided Fourth Squad are decent enough at their jobs and not to blame for a few decades of interplanetary politics. Or, more importantly, Fourth Squad don't act like they think Kolaren Setari aren't as good as Taren Setari, and so Squad One don't constantly have their hackles up.

That didn't mean both squads weren't interested in how they measured up to each other at close combat. Particularly Katzyen (her first name is Meral). And Fourth Squad is after all still human and took the matches seriously. Neither squad seemed definitively better. As he usually does, Ruuel was instructing rather than participating – I think he avoids competitive situations – but I wasn't at all surprised when Katzyen asked him to spar with her.

He agreed matter-of-factly, since it was one thing to avoid competition and another to put her back up by treating her as no competition at all. I doubt he wants too many Kajals obsessing over him. In a way he got that anyway, though not in a hostile way. After countering and avoiding Katzyen's attacks for a while, as she pushed to even come near him, he ended the fight with what looked like tidy and untroubled efficiency. And told her to work on attacks from the left, since she was weaker with those.

She's barely taken her eyes off him since. Being comprehensively bettered at hand-to-hand combat isn't my idea of a turn-on, but it obviously worked for Katzyen. I think it might have worked for Diav as well, and a couple of the greensuits who'd been watching from a distance. Unsurprisingly, Ruuel failed to show any awareness of newly-earned admiration. His squad all noticed: Glade highly amused, Mori tolerant, Sonn dismissive, Halla distant, and Par just a little pink.

I'm getting to know them, settling into a new 'my' squad. Four months since I was rescued. Five months since I was walking home from my last exam and took a wrong turning. I'd be well into my first year of university by now – presuming I did well enough to get in. Jules' birthday soon, and then Mother's Day. The days add up.

Tuesday, April 15

Uncomfortable belief

Lately I've been dreaming consistently of Ruuel: vaguer versions of the dream I had of being curled up with him asleep, which has made me look forward to heading off to bed. Last night, though, I dreamed that Fourth Squad had been transferred out overnight, and I was now assigned to Seventh Squad. No-one even told me they were gone: I just found Forel and her cronies having breakfast. And then...it was all a confused jumble, but involved more of the training I've been doing the last couple of days, except with Seventh Squad making smart-ass comments at my expense. And I was all crushed and humiliated and hurt because Fourth had gone without saying goodbye. Not Ruuel so much, since he's always so captain with me, but Mori and Glade and Par – even Halla's chatting with me a little now, and Sonn doesn't disapprove of me quite so much. And they were just gone without a word, on to their next assignment.

I guess the dream is a reaction to working so much with Fourth these last weeks, to starting to feel like I belong with them. My subconscious was reminding me I'm not part of any squad, that I will always be a temporary assignment. That Mori and Glade probably chat to me because Ruuel told them to.

Fortunately I'm still waking up long before most everyone else. After a shower and a morning spent writing email to Zee and Mara and Zan, I'd gained enough perspective to not look obviously depressed. And it's not as if I think they're planning to change my assignment in the near future, since Fourth is the only squad with a Sight Sight talent. It's funny how the Nuran's attempt to warn me off prompted the Tarens to drag me around Muina's ruins on the off-chance that they can figure out what he meant.

No progress on breaking through to the next level today, so they opened up the other parts of the third level instead. It was all more murals and carvings and mosaics, but with two different people playing the role of god-like being: a man and a different woman. All a little confronting for ex-Muinans. So far as they know, the Lantarens enjoyed an unquestioned right to rule, but were not considered gods, and the Tarens are very uncomfortable with imagery which so obviously treats them as gods. Well, presuming these were meant to be Lantarens and not some gods that the Tarens don't remember anyone believing in. Maybe this is the not-very-secret base of a cult or something.

Muinan culture must have been very unified before they had to leave. Given the similarity of Kolar, Nuri and Tare's languages, they must have all started out speaking the same way. But I guess the similarity was partly a result of having a single ruling class which could teleport and travel through wormholes and, according to Katha, were all raised and taught to control their powers at some kind of central imperial training city. Not Nurioth – a place called Kalasa, though the Tarens don't know much more than the name. Figuring out which of the ruined cities is Kalasa is another expedition priority.

The greysuits had some heartfelt discussions about the murals. Dase and Katha, who I only occasionally get a chance to talk to now that they've been moved out of the Diodel to the tent city, were divided on the question. Dase thinks the murals must be representations of Muina and two unknown gods, or possibly even aspects of Muina. Katha thinks it's three Lantarens. Since the Lantarens aren't held in great esteem on Tare, I'm not precisely sure why it's so upsetting for her to see images showing they were incredibly narcissistic. But then, Tare and Kolar both have a fairly unified view of what a god is (or rather they don't believe in gods, they believe planets have spirits).

Anya from Ninth, who has been stuck on night watch since Ninth Squad was rotated here, unfortunately has been moved to day watch. Urg. She and Katzyen really aren't benefiting by being on the same schedule, and though they're not openly glaring at each other, there's a distinct frost which seems to be extending to all the Taren Setari.

Which is the main reason I was eating dinner with Dase and Katha.

Wednesday, April 16

Killing time

Fourth Squad's gone off gate-mapping again today, since there's been no progress in getting to the next level of Creepy Undercity. I had one of my regularly scheduled medical exams in the morning, during which the medic noted I had a big bruise on my leg from training and a few random minor bruises and sore bits, but otherwise was the healthiest I'd been since the last time I nearly died. The amount of sitting-about I get through continues to benefit my school work, and I've moved on to marginally more interesting classes. Even though my spelling is pathetic, my comprehension has increased enough that I can push through most lessons super-quick. But it's still frustrating, rather like this site, which everyone thought was such a big discovery, but which hasn't given us any explanations at all.


The day's growing cloudy and win–

–

Okay, pissed off now. I was sitting at the outside tables in the mess area writing when I heard someone gasp and stumble next to me, nearly dropping the drinks they were carrying. I didn't hear the crunch, but I glanced up to see a couple of greysuits looking guiltily at the ground at my thoroughly trodden-on watch.

My face must have shown exactly what I felt – kicked in the guts – because they went from sorry to stricken, the one not holding the drinks rushing to pick up my watch and turn it over hopefully, only to have the back fall off. It was just an el cheapo digital, $20. The face was cracked and dead and I totally felt like crying.

But I didn't. I'm proud of that in retrospect, of holding it together enough to look around me, just a log-capture in every direction. I told the greysuits that it was okay – not that they believed me for a second – and took the bits of my watch and went back to the Diodel. I had my schoolbag with me, tucked into the end of my pod, and grabbed out my long-neglected mobile. The battery had run down ages ago, and I hadn't chased up finding out how it had been charged since I'd copied the music into my interface already. Then I found one of the science greysuits and asked if she had any idea how it had been recharged.

Her name was Elless Royara and she took my phone like it was a brand new toy, but all she had to do was look up the records of whatever they'd done before, then put it in a thing which looked like a microwave, but recharged instead of frying my mobile. It seems it wasn't really a difficult thing to do: the Tarens have gone through a few centuries of equipment becoming obsolete, and have plenty of practice working out ways to recharge older, 'museum' pieces.

After thanking Elless I went back to the Diodel and turned on my phone. It had been so long the date and time needed to be reset, but I could at least make a rough guesstimate of what proper Sydney time would be, and of course the date hadn't changed from when I'd started writing in my diary.

Only then did I let myself relax, and review my log.

I almost always wear my watch underneath my uniform, unless it's a mission or some other situation where I think I might get soaked. But I often take it off when I'm writing, because the buckle presses into my wrist. I'd set it on the corner of the table, near my elbow. It wasn't in my peripheral vision, and I suppose it's within the bounds of possibility that I'd knocked it off and it had bounced onto the rocky ground next to me and got itself crushed.

But I didn't really believe that, and a careful review of my log showed me Terel Revv from Ninth watching. Revv's one of Anya's cronies, and a telekinetic. Not proof, of course, and he was actually looking pretty unhappy.

They probably didn't realise how important it is to me, to know what date it is on Earth. To know when I should be wishing my family happy birthday, to mark the dates of the year back home. To be able to keep track of my own age.

I don't see that there's anything to gain from making a fuss. I'll be more careful not to give people opportunities, and certainly won't sit out in public writing my diary again, or leave my mobile exposed. I need to remember that I'm someone who total strangers will feel strongly about: whether to be grateful I unlocked their world, or to hate me for threatening their ideas of Muina's past, or whatever Anya has against me.

The Setari needs fewer a*sholes.

Pass/Fail

Fuss happens, whether I want it to or not.

After venting in my diary, I hung about the deserted 'passenger lounge' of the Diodel fooling with my newly revived mobile, listening to proper played-out-loud songs while it grew darker and windier outside. Then Tsur Selkie showed up with Ruuel in tow. Time for a pause in the music.

"Do you have your damaged wrist-piece with you?" Tsur Selkie asked, without preliminaries. He and Ruuel are alike in more than looks; since he considered it obvious why he was there, he didn't think it necessary to explain.

I was momentarily tempted to pretend I'd thrown it away, but even in the unlikely event they believed me, they could have just used Path Sight. I expect I didn't look very keen as I pulled it out of the little pocket I'd made for it, though.

"How did you know?" I asked, dropping it into his outstretched hand.

"The technician who crushed it was concerned about the strength of your reaction, and reported to his senior. One of the site guards on duty had you on log, including your survey of the area." Selkie wore gloves on both hands, one of them fingerless, and looked down as he touched a bare fingertip to the cracked face of my watch. He didn't take more than a moment or two, and his face didn't give anything away as he handed the watch to Ruuel, but I knew he must have seen something to confirm my suspicions because he went on to ask: "Have there been other incidents?"

I shook my head. "It was just I didn't think I knocked it on ground." Then, because neither of them looked like he believed me, I shrugged and added: "There's squads I rather not be assigned to, but no-one tried to break my things or hurt me or anything before."

"Which squads?" Selkie asked immediately.

"Expect you have good idea," I said, annoyed.

"Indulge me."

I thought about it, then decided it was nothing I wasn't prepared to say if I were assigned to them. "Fifth and Seventh so far. Wouldn't feel safe going into Ena with either captain, so would rather not. Ninth, I didn't feel that way about." Ruuel handed back my watch and I looked down at it, remembering the sick stabbing feeling in my stomach. "They probably not realise what it mean to me."

"Not the object but the function, yes?" Selkie said, reaching to pick up my mobile. "This device can replace it?"

"Both have the date on Earth. That needs recharging every five or six days."

Selkie gave it back to me, added a little nod and left.

"What will happen now?" I asked, since Ruuel hadn't gone immediately after him.

"Reprimand for any involved. The squad will return to Tare for review, then likely be stood down and reformed with personnel changes."

All for knocking my watch onto the ground. I felt ill.

Ruuel gave me an impatient look. "Don't overreact. Ninth has needed to be rebalanced since it was formed. Failing this assignment is only the trigger."

I was confused what assignment he was talking about, until I realised he meant me. Protecting me is the Setari's primary assignment here. I expect that emotionally screwing over someone you're supposed to be looking after would count as failing.

"They forgot the psychological aspects," I said, letting myself find it funny.

I've no doubt Ruuel knew I was quoting him, but he didn't break out of serious captain mode. "Concentrating on a practical solution was a good response," he said. "But you continue to hesitate to communicate when you most need to. It's not only your own welfare you put at risk."

"Today more choosing not to speak," I pointed out. "But generally don't see how to decide what's important."

"Don't try. If anything prompts you to wonder if you should inform us, or ask for help, then always assume the answer is yes. The same rule should serve for speculation about these sites. Parallels with Earth's cultures could be misleading, but we cannot judge their worth if we do not hear them."

I looked out the long view port, to the triangle of mountain and camp which I could see from that part of the ship. It wasn't raining yet, but people were getting under cover, the greensuits making sure all the tents were secure. It was true I'd been stopping myself from sharing any more guesses about the installation, not wanting to waste the historians' time.


"What did you feel when you touched that door?" I asked. Ruuel didn't answer, and I turned back to find him even more than usually shuttered. Rather than make a point about people communicating, I continued: "Could you tell if it was Ddura which kill them?"

"No." He paused. "Fear, panic, anger, overwhelming betrayal. A sense of something approaching, but no tangible impression of its form."

"Was talking to Dase and Katha yesterday about how whole thing doesn't make sense to the historians," I said. "Accepted Taren history says Lantarens decided to make space travel easier, built Pillars. Pillars tore gates everywhere including between real-space and near-space, and Ionoth started killing people on Muina. Lantarens built Ddura to kill Ionoth and to try and make it easier to get to the Pillars. Something happened that made them lose control of the Ddura, and lots people start dropping dead. Before finding Arenrhon installation, technicians had decided that it was combination of aether and Ddura killing people because their 'security clearance' revoked. All historians here having big argument about how long did that all take? They all thought it was quick – was maybe around a Taren year from turning on Pillars to running away from Muina. This place fits that timeline wrong.

"When saw there was a town inside, historians thought maybe must be intended to be a kind of bunker, a place intended to keep the Ionoth out, but that didn't work on Ddura and Ddura killed them. But whole place built in less than one Taren year, everyone moved in? Could Lantarens do that as quickly as Tarens can? If emergency shelter built quick, why spend time covering walls with pictures? And Ddura – whenever we touch the platforms, the Ddura have responded so quick. Don't get impression it takes them long to kill things. Whole town would have died in moments if it was Ddura. And only me can hear anyway. Would not have had time to try and run away and get packed into exits and crushed. But if it was big wave of aether, then would have just collapsed in piles like Setari did. If was slow drift of aether, wouldn't they all barricaded themselves in rooms with doors shut? And the air shafts they've uncovered are sealed by the aether stone too – so doesn't seem like people meant to survive in this place once aether shield up."

I don't usually try speaking Taren in such big blocks, and was a little tangled by this point. I'm pretty sure Ruuel had heard most of those theories already anyway; the Taren historians had been arguing about it for the past few days. He listened without impatience, though, and said: "We can't overlook the possibility of there being another source of danger here, something the Lantarens could not defend against."

I shook my head. "You said it before. Betrayal. I think maybe the Lantarens killed the people here."

He didn't give away what he thought of the idea, just said: "Why?"

"Being underground with a seal covering even air vents. And especially all the worshipful imagery. The Egyptians did this with their God-kings: preserved their bodies, built massive monuments to put them in, surrounded them with their treasures, covered the walls with images of the stories of their lives. And provided them with a household to serve them in afterlife."

That made his eyes narrow. "A household?"

"Servants. They would kill them, or just seal in tomb alive." I sighed. "It doesn't quite fit, because if that was what was happening here, it would be well-known culturally. And not normal to build houses for the servants in the tomb. But if they were told it was a shelter beforehand, and then sealed inside and killed by whatever the Lantarens were doing, it does seem to match more than anything else I can guess."

"We may learn more tomorrow. They've been making progress on the fourth level seal." Ruuel had the distracted look of interface-conversation, so I wasn't surprised when he only added: "Go get some lunch," and left.

I blatantly disobeyed orders. The idea of meeting any of Ninth Squad made me feel too ill to eat. But there's never any escape, and Kaeline brought Anya and Revv in to apologise to me. Anya did so with a complete lack of grace or sincerity, but I think Revv meant it. I'd been wondering if only Revv would take the blame, but it seems everyone else has as much trouble lying to Tsur Selkie as I do, and it was obvious to anyone who'd seen anything of Ninth Squad that Anya would be behind a game of tease the stray. Kaeline sent them off, then apologised to me on her own behalf.

"Would rather no-one had noticed," I told her. "Caused all these problems for rest of Ninth Squad."

"We brought our problem with us," she said. "I hope to work with you again one day."

She left, and I felt slightly better because I noticed as she went that for once she looked as if she didn't have a headache. I wasn't surprised when Mori turned up and made me go have lunch. Ruuel doesn't forget the psychological aspects.

We spent the afternoon in near-space trying to map a path to Pandora, but though the path Par was following did seem to lead there, one of the gates was a rotational which seemed likely to shift soon, so Ruuel decided we'd look for a better route another day. By the time we returned, Ninth Squad had left with the Litara, and I was no longer feeling too embarrassed to talk even to Fourth Squad.

I'd rather the whole day hadn't happened, though.

Friday, April 18

Creepy

It took the greysuits well into mid-morning to finally solve what they decided was a deliberate layer of extra security around the lower levels. I went in with only Fourth Squad, since Squad One's now stuck with covering watches. The good news was that there were no more shield walls, so we were able to travel freely through the three rooms of the fourth level, and down to the fifth level. The bad news was there was still no handy library, or big wall of explanation in stone, or any writing.

Except the names carved on all the sarcophagi.

I might have felt tempted to be smug if the place hadn't freaked me out so much. I wasn't too bad on the fourth floor, just felt kind of squashed when we went in, but I thought that was because we were deeper underground and the place was creepy. The fourth level rooms were wedge-shaped, taking up a third of a circle each with the outer wall arranged in a tier. It reminded me of the audience of an auditorium except instead of seats there were all these not-quite-upright sarcophagi. Smaller, and far less stylistically rendered than Egyptian ones, so that it was like there was a room full of tilted, metallic people looking down at us.

When we've been doing these initial searches, Sonn's log has been 'streamed' back to the ever-growing audience of greysuits, but only the people in charge (in this case Tsen Helada, Islen Duffen, Islen Tezart and Tsur Selkie) have been in channel and able to make comments. Islen Duffen, sounding considerably startled, wanted a closer examination of the sarcophagi, and I had my first opportunity to obediently err on the side of interrupting.

"Are they blurry to anyone else?" I asked, sounding fantastically apologetic – I've grown far too used to making sure to keep my mouth shut when we're on-mission to feel at all comfortable piping up whenever the notion strikes me.

"Show us," was all Ruuel said, signalling for Fourth Squad to hold.

I streamed my log to the mission channel. It's pretty hard to describe the blurriness. It was like each sarcophagus was layered over the top of itself over and over again, except not quite lined up. Not all of them were blurry, and some were far blurrier than others.

"Scan the whole room," Tsur Selkie said, and I looked slowly around, finding a few other blurry things, though nothing nearly so bad as the sarcophagi. There were lots of carvings on the walls, of upright, stiffly posed people gazing up proudly at the three familiar god wanna-be's, and that bit was particularly blurry. Even Halla went blurry a couple of times.


"Vitals are raised," Ruuel said. "Return?"

"Not yet. Keep that stream open, Devlin, and report any further developments."

We wandered around the fourth level, finding it all much the same: spectacular and spooky and in my case blurry. Since I hadn't shown any negative reaction other than signs of mild effort, we went down to the final room.

I was by no means surprised to see three final sarcophagi, facing what looked like the top third of a car-sized malachite marble rising out of the floor in the very centre of the room. By see, I mean peer through a blur of white and grey and gold, trying to make out the shapes. I went over the mission log later to see what it looked like to everyone else. Ruuel's and Halla's view of it was almost as confusing as they switched through their Sights, but very different to mine, involving dark mists and shadowy human figures. The sarcophagi were very beautiful renditions of the three who were featured so gloriously on the third level, slightly stylised, with lots of gold and silver and black metal.

"Impressions?" Selkie asked.

"The central stone is the power source of the shield," Ruuel said. "Beyond that...there is a great deal beyond that, but I cannot interpret it."

"Danger," Halla added. "Almost – almost, I would call it active menace."

Ruuel turned his head to me to remind me to speak and also, I think, to check how I was holding up. The interface would be showing how hard my heart was thumping. I felt like I was jogging slowly uphill.

"It's heavy," I said, and hated how stupid that sounded, but went on confusedly: "Like gravity is heavy. Like it's pulling everything around it down. Warping it."

"Return Devlin to the surface," Selkie ordered crisply. "And then act as escort to the technicians. Nothing is to be approached until we have every scan imaginable."

I was sent straight to medical, where I was told that I'd been using some sort of Sight talent, probably, maybe. I'd developed a ripping headache by the time we were back on the surface, which is apparently a common symptom of people learning how to use their talents, and made me feel even sorrier for kids inducted into the Setari program. I was stuck with having brain scans for much of the day, but it's not as if anything much else happened. The technicians were escorted very cautiously down and spent the rest of the day running scans and trying to work out what the heck the room was doing.

And now it's morning again. I stayed in the Diodel's medical section under close monitoring overnight, but they've let me go. They haven't the foggiest idea what blurry overlays mean.

Reinforcements

The Litara arrived just after breakfast with what seemed like ten thousand people, including Eighth Squad. I'd had no problems with Eighth when I tested with them or when they were on the Pandora mission, and was glad it was at least a squad I'd worked with. Still, I felt stupidly embarrassed saying hello to them, because I knew that before coming to this assignment they'd have heard all about how someone from Ninth had teased the stray too much and were reprimanded for it. I know that everyone in the Setari must have heard some variation of the story, since the entirety of First Squad sent me worried emails telling me to always let them know if I needed anything, and even Zan sent me a long email updating me on what's been happening with her, which is Zan's way of being supportive without poking at my psychological aspects. Zee is much better, and both First and Twelfth Squad are back on Tare doing rotations. They're no longer posting Setari to guard Pandora because the Ddura does such a good job keeping it safe.

The Litara also brought more Kolarens: mainly archaeologists. There'd been a Kolaren who arrived with Squad One whose job appears to be to watch and report back to Kolar's government, but before today there wasn't a significant percentage of Kolarens on site. I'm not certain how this will impact on the balance of the expedition, but it complicated my morning. Islen Duffen had 'booked me' for the morning to tell one of her senior minions everything I knew about tombs, Egyptian burial practices, sarcophagi, and from the sounds of it the complete mythical beliefs of the whole of the Earth. I was already too aware of how little I knew, and particularly worried about mixing up what was history, what was mythology, and what were things I'd seen on Stargate. It did not make it any easier to find myself being interrogated by half a dozen people (four Kolarens, two Tarens) who kept breaking off to argue with each other, and also occasionally disputing the things I was saying, or being impatient and critical because I couldn't answer all their questions, and still speak relatively slowly and disjointedly.

Arad Nalaz from Squad One was on guard duty, and chose to do his guarding from the rock next to my seat. He really helped a lot. If the interrogation squad got too over the top he'd just turn his head and fix them with this thousand-mile stare with those Lawrence of Arabia eyes and even though it hadn't seemed like they were paying attention to him at all, they'd abruptly quiet down and remember to be polite to me and at least civil with each other. I made sure to thank him afterwards, and he looked briefly amused but pretended he hadn't been doing anything at all.

I don't think my ramblings about Earth myths really helped very much, anyway. I mean, though there's some similarities, what happened at this site is obviously far different from pyramids with mummified pharaohs sealed inside.

After spending all of yesterday and the whole morning scanning, they decided to leave the fifth level alone until they had analysed the readings which were coming from the central stone, and concentrate on the fourth level. They had Fourth Squad and me play observer while they opened some of the sarcophagi. From which we learned that some had nothing in them, and some had bodies in them which the greysuits think were perhaps burned before being placed in the sarcophagus. The odd thing was that the sarcophagi which weren't blurry were the ones which had bodies in them.

I still haven't the faintest idea what the blurriness means. Ruuel told me that I needed to learn how not to use the Sight, and so I had to spend my time trying to get the blurriness to go away. I ended up tired and frustrated. All my so-called talents – of which I seem to have accrued a large and indefinable number – don't seem to be at all interested in doing anything on my say-so. They just happen.

So do headaches.

Saturday, April 19

Malachite Marbles

Beaten up by Sonn all morning. My bruise collection is growing nicely.

While we trained, Squad One kept on eye on the archaeologists. The sarcophagi on the fifth level were empty as well, and in the afternoon they decided they were going to look closer at the 'malachite marble', as I think of it. The greysuits call it the power stone.

They couldn't decide what it did, other than maintain the seal. Because they were very dubious about what would happen if someone touched or tried to manipulate the malachite marble, they had everyone evacuate the whole of the installation, all the way down to the shore. Fortunately the weather was much better today. Then they sent Sonn (for Ena manipulation) and Mori (for teleportation) down to the fifth level alone, carrying an emergency supply of food and water. The idea was that Sonn would use Ena manipulation to try and get the marble to stop maintaining the shield. If the shield responded by overloading the entrances the greysuits had made – or by causing the facility to explode amusingly – Mori would try to teleport them out.

Ruuel hated this plan. He didn't openly object to it, or look annoyed or anything. But he kept his eyes almost closed the entire time, and what few orders he gave were even more clear and precise than usual. I don't think Kanato of Eighth liked it either, maybe because he and Mori spent a lot of time yesterday evening talking quietly to each other. I didn't enjoy the idea of Mori being trapped among the sarcophagi any more than they did – nor Sonn. Sonn doesn't make it easy for me to like her, but I appreciate the way she approaches my combat training. Well, I wouldn't like for anyone to be trapped under a mountain, even Fifth Squad.


But nothing bad happened. Whatever else the malachite marble might or might not do, it was obedient enough about removing the seal. Ruuel opened his eyes to half-mast again and nearly caught me watching him (who am I kidding – I've really got to stop watching him because I already know how effortlessly he spots such things).

After the seal was gone they did another round of readings and had the various Sight talents touch the marble to try and figure out what it's for. They all seemed unsettled by it, particularly Halla, and all said pretty much the same thing: dominance. Somehow the marble would give power. Halla said over others, Selkie said over the world around us, and Ruuel wouldn't say more than just power.

Then, of course, they had me touch it and it gave me a headache. And made everything go blurry. I felt like my bones were vibrating, and had a hard time not vomiting all over the mysterious mystic stone. This was one of the days when I had to struggle to not have a tantrum. Obviously they wanted lots of readings – and because of the Nuran calling me a touchstone and this being a big stone (which makes me feel sick) they spent ages (well, it wasn't that long, but it felt like forever) until finally Tsur Selkie said I could go back to the ship and have my brain scanned for the ten-hundred-millionth time.

When the medics let me go I still felt sick so I went back to my pod and sulked until I fell asleep and now, of course, I've woken up just after everyone's gone to bed. Must try to get back to sleep so I don't konk out halfway through tomorrow.

Sunday, April 20

Belonging

So I'm back on Tare.

This whole day has done my head in, starting out with another of the Ruuel-dreams. I was half-awake and knew he was there, but I didn't have that proper dream-logic which lets you just accept everything no matter how unlikely. I really thought he'd for some reason gotten into my pod with me, and was lying curled against my back. My thoughts were this escalating stream of wtfwtfwtfwtfWTF! and then he leaned forward and I thought he was going to kiss the back of my neck, and I took a great gasping breath, and woke up. I was lying in the same position as I'd been in the dream, just with no Ruuel. And my nanosuit was completely withdrawn into a pad onto my back, so I was wearing only underwear and the uniform harness. The interface isn't supposed to respond to your commands when you're asleep, but I guess I must have been just awake enough. I'm so glad I didn't make the lid of my pod transparent as well.

I went and hid in the shower, thinking about all the ways I could humiliate myself half-asleep, and horrified by the idea of going anywhere near Ruuel. I don't really know why. Sight Sight is a difficult talent to define, but nothing I've seen or read suggests he'd be able to know what I was dreaming when I was inside a shielded pod. It almost certainly shows him that I'm highly embarrassed when I'm around him, but it's not "Omniscience Sight" or anything close to it.

And it didn't matter. After half my shower I managed to spare a glance out of Angst Central at the day's schedule and saw that Fourth had just headed off on another attempt to find a good route through the spaces to Pandora. And then the Litara arrived and Tsur Selkie sent me a message that I was being assigned back to Tare. The wrong dream had come true, in reverse.

I had hardly any time, since the Litara was leaving after a quick drop-off of equipment, and could only numbly dry my hair and grab my bag and something to eat. I did send an email to Fourth saying not much more than goodbye and good luck, which they would have received as soon as they were back in real-space. I'm so glad I've been preparing myself and not letting myself think of Fourth as 'my' team again. If nothing else, I can pretend to be pleased to be proven right. But I felt very alone and disconnected on the trip back to Tare, with a whole 'pod room' to myself.

Not quite left to my own devices however, since a greysuit had obviously been assigned to make sure I didn't go off the rails during the trip. There always seems to be someone now: usually one of the squads, or a greensuit or a greysuit who will pop by and pretend they're not checking me over for signs of imminent meltdown. It's hugely annoying, but I guess they felt they'd been forgetting my psychological aspects too much lately. Why they think reassigning the useful stray without warning is a good way of dealing with me is another question.

Not just a useful stray: I'm a multi-purpose stray. I enhance, hear LOUD noises, act as a key to lost civilisations, and see blurry! From the looks of my calendar, I'm going to be Third Squad's babysitting problem now. Pass the bloody parcel.

There was one good point to counter my gloomy morning. Tsur Selkie had organised a techie guy called Voiz Euka to recreate Earth's calendar, and I spent an hour with him after my inevitable medical exam, explaining the way Earth measures time, letting him measure the time units from my phone, and working through all the variations of the calendar. He seemed to think it not too difficult an exercise, once we'd properly compared my phone's seconds and minutes to Tare's time units, and so now I won't have to fret about losing my phone. A whole clock and calendar program, written specifically to keep me happy. I even remembered leap years.

And as soon as First Squad heard I was back, they arranged to meet up. They were heading out on rotation soon after I arrived, and I was on a slightly earlier shift to them, but we met at Mara's quarters when they finished their rotation and had nuna (crepes) for dinner.

It was great to be off-duty and off-record. As off-record as second level monitoring lets me be, anyway. Also fun to not have to wear my uniform, and to eat food which involved a lot of sweetness and not a lot of attention to nutritional value. To be teased by Lohn and hugged by Mara and have Maze be kind and a little worried.

I wasn't even close to surprised when Zee took me back to my room and interrogated me mercilessly about the whole thing with Ninth Squad. And, to my dismay, about what exactly Fifth and Seventh Squad had done to make me not want to work with them. But she said that my squad preferences weren't general knowledge, that Maze gets told stuff like that because he's senior captain, and that she was asking on his behalf.

I really didn't want to bring Zan into it – I don't think she'd be at all happy about me talking about the way they bully her – so I just said I'd seen how nasty Kajal and Forel were toward other Setari, and explained about the testing session I'd had with Fifth Squad.

"It's not that I think they do anything to me," I said. "Just that I think they find it funny if I scared or embarrassed. Going into spaces, need to trust squad more than that."

Zee was more than a little annoyed after reviewing my testing session with Fifth, and said I should have told someone, at least about the part where they went ahead of me in the Ena. And then she asked me if anyone or anything else had made me uncomfortable or unhappy. I gave her an entertaining description of my meeting of Squad One, and she seemed satisfied that I was getting along with most of the Setari.

I'm so glad Zee's okay. They all looked tired, but I couldn't spot any new injuries. It's so messed up that when I meet up with my closest friends here, I check them for damage.

Oh, and it's Jules' birthday. Happy birthday, brat. Hope you scored lots of loot.

Monday, April 21

Something a little different

Taarel from Third had me meet her for breakfast, and explained what we'd be doing for the next few days. One of the gates from near-space to real-space is in a tremendously inconvenient spot on Unara: a major travel junction. Over the past few decades it's slowly been growing, and they've continually had to increase the size of the lock around it. It's nearing the point that they're going to have to do some major infrastructure rejigging if it grows any further, and it already causes a huge amount of blockage and trouble.


Ever since they figured out that with my enhancement there was a possibility of actually closing gates, there's been an increasing amount of pressure to assign Taarel and me to "closing really annoying gates" duty. The 'mayor' (Lahanti) of Unara, one of the most powerful people on Tare, finally ordered KOTIS to give this particular gate highest priority and get it done. Guess that explains my abrupt reassignment.

The problem was that even with my enhancement, it's exhausting work and they estimated it would take just Taarel and me weeks to get this Rana Junction gate closed. They decided multiple talents assisting would speed it up, if Taarel initiated a closure, but they couldn't take off rotation every strong Ena manipulation talent, particularly now KOTIS is posting squads to Muina as well, so they're using the strongest of the Kalrani Ena manipulation talents instead.

Today was a test day, to see whether a mass effort would work, so after breakfast we met up with the Kalrani who had been selected for the experiment. There were ten, all very correct in their brown and cream uniforms. The youngest looked about twelve and the oldest the same age as me: probably one of the candidates for Fourteenth Squad. Thirteenth Squad has already been chosen and is on 'pre-rotation training' and has moved into the rooms on the same floor as me, though I haven't seen any of them about yet.

They all seemed to know Taarel, at least to say 'good day Tsee Taarel' to. I hadn't thought about it, but the 'graduated' Setari would be the logical candidates to give the Kalrani some expert tutoring. And of course before the Setari had qualified for their squads, they'd been Kalrani as well. Since it was Taarel, I wasn't surprised that most of them couldn't quite hide being awestruck by her presence, and were more than a little nervous and determined to be excellent for her.

They didn't know how to treat me. I'm a curiosity and the prospect of a massive increase of power. I wondered if they'd heard about Ninth Squad, and politely said hello back when they greeted me, and otherwise kept my mouth shut, even when I saw that the test session was in my old room in the medical facility, and the gate they were testing closure techniques on was the one I'd torn into near-space. It was very strange seeing my old room-with-a-view with a thick metal gate-lock built around where my bed had been. They'd removed one of the walls, but there still wasn't much room for the twelve of us, and I had to be careful about where I was standing.

Taarel took them through the touching-the-stray rules, then enhanced herself and started the closing process. Once she'd demonstrated, she had each of the Kalrani enhance and try in turn to close the gate just by themselves. I found this very dull, even with a projection of the gate for me to look at, and so it was simply a procession of serious kids frowning at the air. One of the Kalrani, a boy about fourteen called Dayn, managed to start it closing. It meant so much to him, and he was trying so hard not to show it that he went white and then red when Taarel gave him one of those brief, approving nods which Ruuel does so well, except Taarel adds a warm smile. Taarel is definitely charisma-plus.

After that, she enhanced again and started working on closing the gate properly, telling each of the Kalrani to enhance and join in one by one. They can't work on it continuously, needing to rest sooner than the five minutes my enhancement lasts, with long recovery times. But still, in less than a kasse they'd completely closed the thing, and were all looking tremendously exhausted. But very pleased.

After that were medical tests for all, heh, and Taarel told me that we were likely to be cleared to head to Unara tomorrow. Then I slept all afternoon and for the second time since I came back to Tare I dreamed of wandering around KOTIS, through endless empty corridors, looking for Ruuel.

Back in Year 10, Alyssa fell for a guy named Kyle Marcus. He was the sort who ends up Dux of the school, playing violin recitals, and winning debating prizes, but fun enough that hardly anyone hated him for it. Alyssa and Kyle were both on the student group helping organise the joint Year 10 Formal with Agowla and the Boy's Tech, and she spent the entire term being her brightest, funniest self: chatting with him, putting up all the signals. But when the term was over, and he'd passed up going to the after-party she'd arranged, she gave up. She said it would be embarrassing for them both if she ran after him like a dog in heat.

I don't want to run after someone who doesn't want me. And I've been trying very hard not to think about Ruuel, or write about him, and I try to avoid sitting around looking at log images of him because I'm sure what files I access is part of second level monitoring as well. But I keep having these dreams and when I wake up all I can think about is that he's not there. That he's not just one pod over. That he's not even on the same planet as me, and if I cried out for him he wouldn't come. It's so pathetic.

Ruuel has never encouraged me in the remotest way, never shown any interest in me beyond carrying out his captain-duties. Unfortunately, I can't simply make a sane, logical decision to not want him, and so I've spent the past couple of days feeling miserable and being frustrated with myself. Because Ruuel, who has never sat down to chat with me or spent any effort trying to socialise with me, isn't here. I miss just being near him.

Taarel is too good a captain not to notice I'm down, but she's also smart enough not to push. She keeps an eye on me, treats me with consideration, but otherwise just gives me opportunities to talk to her. Of course, Taarel's the last person I'd tell about my feelings for Ruuel. Too humiliating if she had to gently break it to me that she's engaged to him. If Taarel and Ruuel are a couple, right now I just don't want to know.

Ghost was with me when I woke, which helped considerably. I have as much hope of smuggling her with me to Unara as I did to Muina, but I wish I could. Even though she's only the echo of a memory, she's such a normal cat: smart and mischievous, loves being scratched behind her ears, purrs and acts like she missed me. And she's mine, in a way very little is here. Petting her was the best stupid thing I ever did.

Tuesday, April 22

What would Wikipedia say?

In among the make-believe there seems to now be a handful of truth about me in the public domain. I read all about myself this morning, finding dozens of interface 'spaces' devoted to me, just like the Setari watch sites. And I have an encyclopaedia entry. No 'real' pictures of me at all, thankfully, although there's some quite accurate drawings. I wasn't surprised to see that some of Nenna's friends had recorded meeting Nenna's guest stray, but it seems that you can't record images of strays any more than you can images of Setari. Strays count as 'protected incompetents' until they've passed various tests. But they could record my voice, and the 'outline' of me, and it was squirmy awful hearing me trying to speak in Taren back then. I was so slow, and my pronunciation was dreadful and I kept using the wrong words and totally wrong grammar. It's a wonder anyone could understand me at all. I'm still not close to fluent, and wouldn't be able to speak it properly without the interface, but I'm clear enough now.

My encyclopaedia entry says:

"Kaszandra Devlin. Born approximately 15 Denn 3732, city of Oztralya, planet Urth. Passed through natural gate to Muina approximately 40 Ord 3785. Located by Setari exploratory team on 2 Arn 3785, at ruins site Goralath, and processed as displaced person. Identified as enhancement talent and assigned to assist Setari. On 32 Nayz 3786 provided identification clearance to Setari squad under attack by Ddura at Goralath, effectively unlocking the planet of Muina for resettlement."


I had a good laugh at the 'city of Oztralya' and read through the entries for 'Urth' and Pandora, which sadly did not include anything about releasing all the evils of the world. There was tons more on the less official sites. A good deal of the initial hostility toward me seems to have died down after the 'sister planet' explanation, but it's a thousand percent obvious I'm never going to have anything remotely resembling a normal life on this planet. If I were at all unclear on that point.

KOTIS has released a handful of statements about my discovery on Muina, and how I'd been working with the Setari, but what I'd been doing recently was definitely not public knowledge. In fact, there was nothing on the public networks about the Arenrhon installation at all, let alone the Nuran. I'm betting they'll keep it quiet as long as they can.

Tons on Pandora, though. The settlement has grown enormously: multiple buildings up and running, and more under construction. Even some that aren't blocky squares. Pandora's focus has become more about learning to live on the planet, rather than unlocking the secrets of its past, and they're cataloguing the plants and the animals and testing out crops. It looks utterly gorgeous, with the leaves vivid reds and golds and the lake a slate-blue colour. Everyone not too freaked out by the thought of being outside really wants to go there. There's even a competition, where the prize is getting to visit.

We're starting for Unara late this afternoon. I've been in a very non-talky mood. I need to deliver Pollyanna instead of Gloomzilla.

Into the breach

We didn't start out for Unara until quite late in my day, and it felt very much like a school outing with the Kalrani in their cream and brown uniforms lined up before the entrance of a small arrowhead-shaped tanz. Space-aged school bus. The Kalrani were, if anything, even more stiff and upright than yesterday, making Rite Orla and Tol Sefen from Third look positively laidback as they strolled up just before me. The half of Third without Combat Sight gets to go on leave, but Orla and Sefen are stuck with helping baby-sit – guarding against any Ionoth which have been missed by the sweeps and come lurching out of the gate at us. There were also a handful of greysuits and greensuits, but Taarel was most definitely in charge, and started us out with a crisp briefing about the arrangements for getting us to and from the gate-lock, and what we should do if anyone somehow gets separated. She thinks the job will take one to two weeks (twelve days).

One of the oldest Kalrani, a girl named Pen Alaz, piped up at the end of the briefing and asked Taarel if it was true gate closure would become a regular task. I could see from the way a few of the Kalrani leaned forward that this was an important question to them. I expect, given how long they've trained to go into the Ena and fight Ionoth, the idea of a career in world-wall repairs was as dull as it sounded to me.

"It won't happen," Taarel replied, clear, crisp and serious. "Rana Junction is a useful exercise for us, but those who propose more have not fully appreciated the current situation. New gates are tearing at increased rates. Ionoth numbers are multiplying. On some rotations we're facing doubled, even tripled populations. That is a situation which is only going to get worse, and we need to throw everything we have into a solution, because if the current rate is maintained, in a five-year KOTIS will be building locks not around gates, but around the few places without gates."

"Is the increase because of the shutdown of the Pillar?" Alaz asked.

"No," Taarel said, before I could do more than mentally flinch. "If anything, turning off that Pillar appears to have bought us a minor reprieve, as well as giving us the first real evidence that the Pillars are connected to the continuing fragmentation of the wall between near-space and real-space. In all the time we've kept exact records of them, there has been a slight yearly increase in the number of new gates formed, and the widening of existing gates. Fractional amounts, but undeniable. This past five-year there's been a marked rise, accompanied by a surge in Ionoth population. Inconveniently located gates are nothing to the need to arrest this deterioration, so don't concern yourself with talk of gate-closing assignments. There isn't time for that."

Taarel doesn't p-ssyfoot around. Though the increase in gate and Ionoth numbers isn't a secret, and has been reported in the news outside KOTIS, this was the first time I'd heard anyone be quite so blunt in their assessment of what it meant. No wonder they're throwing everything at Muina, pouring people and resources onto a planet they wouldn't even set foot on a few months ago. KOTIS is racing disaster.

Wednesday, April 23

A bit of an audience

Taarel's talk yesterday put my he-doesn't-like-me whine into perspective, and I at least partially succeeded in throwing off my gloom. It helped that Orla and Sefen from Third are willing to chat to me while they sit around being vaguely alert for attack. The Kalrani all listened intently to our rambling conversation, but for whatever reason they haven't said a word to me other than when we were introduced.

Rana Junction went way beyond my expectations of busy. Located in the very centre of Unara, it's a mega-city's worth of Grand Central Station. If you want to get from one major segment of the city to another you travel in to Rana Junction and then out to wherever. All roads lead to Rana Junction, basically. So having a metal box the size of a two-story suburban house crowding out one of the main concourses in the Junction – where people travel from one line to another – is a complete pain in the ass for everyone involved. While their nanotech allows the Tarens to reshape sections of their city comparatively easily, changing Rana Junction would make for major headaches.

There's little private transport in Unara: it's all 'trains' and elevators and travelator walkways. Emergency and military services and a few very rich people have these zippy individual carriages which can whiz around on any of the lines in between the normal services, and shunt off into special short slots to get them out of the way. We travelled from the place we're staying – a weird 'government' hotel – in one of these solo carriages and walked fifty or so metres under an escort of Unara's police force to where the lock around the gate was waiting for us, the entrance under a little tent. They hadn't officially announced anything about Setari trying to close gates, but we were all in uniform and the reaction from the crowd was intense. Unlike the Setari's home island, most people on Unara have never had a chance to glimpse a flesh-and-blood Setari, and even on Konna it's rare to see them in uniform. Usually the only time the Setari go out in Tare's cities in uniform is when they're killing Ionoth which have reached real-space, and that involves a lot of alerts and evacuations.

Having hundreds of people double-take, walk slower, or just plain stop and stare made for some serious congestion. The person in charge of the set-up – a fussy, bearded guy called Marda who worked for the transport department – ushered us hurriedly into the big tent and spent a lot of time quacking to the long-suffering woman in charge of the police detachment about making sure the foot traffic kept flowing. I'm pretty sure Marda didn't believe the Setari would be able to close the gate, and thought the entire exercise just an unnecessary complication of his already complicated job.

The gate-lock was a larger version of the usual metal box with bonus scanning equipment and what I presume is weaponry, but they'd prepared for the several days we'd have to spend in it by decking it out with low, soft chairs, and tables with food and hot drinks, and even a porta-potty in one corner. It looked truly odd, arranged around the big empty patch left by the gate.


One of the first things Taarel did was have Anasi – a delicate-looking boy of fifteen – use Illusion to show the current outline of the gate. She could have just used the interface to show everyone what she was seeing with Gate Sight, but I think this may have been more effective for our observers. The gate was enormous, much larger than the one they'd closed yesterday, and was starting to break through the floor of the gate-lock, like an invisible tree root.

The fuss outside grew the entire time we were there. I kept an eye on the gossip channels and Setari-devotee channels, and almost immediately had outside views of the tent entrance and its guards. We hadn't been there more than ten minutes before the transit authority switched the entire concourse to a no loitering zone, which meant that if you stayed in the area they wanted kept clear for more than five minutes without special clearance, or kept coming back to the area, a deterrent noise would start playing through your interface, growing in volume the longer you hung about. The rare few who could stand that were flagged personal escort out of the area.

There were a couple of cafés on the far side of the concourse which didn't fall into the keep-clear area and they abruptly became the busiest cafés on the planet, eventually needing police assistance to control their customer volume. The news channels began reporting the story within five minutes of our arrival, and managed to wring an official statement from the transit authority about the gate-closing (which didn't mention me, but speculation about me being here immediately reached the point of unofficially confirmed – people have a very good idea of the limits of the Setari's strength, and obviously they've never been known to close gates before). Some people were excited by the idea of seeing me, but most were far more interested in the Setari. And I think the Kalrani were considered even more exciting. There's no recorded sightings of them outside KOTIS in uniform.

Taarel, totally unconcerned by the fuss outside, kept today's session to one and a half kasse, dropping out the younger Kalrani after the first kasse. When she called a stop, and had Anasi display the current size of the gate, it was maybe a little more than a fifth gone.

"Another four sessions," she said to Marda, who was staring up at the revised gate outline as if he'd only just decided that this might work.

There was a delay while they made arrangements for us to leave: moving our carriage so that it could zip out and slot behind whatever train was arriving at the nearby platform, and having the police set up this very handy containment wall involving a double row of seven-foot sticks on stands which produced a blurring shield. This, of course, totally gave away our imminent departure and abruptly absolute thousands of people started to flood onto the concourse. The news channels later said that they'd been waiting in surrounding 'streets'. The noise was incredible, this echoing excited chatter. The police had been given plenty of opportunity to assess the potential fuss, and we were in no danger of being overrun, but I feel sorry for them handling the security headache this is causing.

The crowd roared and cheered when we emerged. Taarel responded with a brief smile and nod in the general direction of the masses, but then kept us moving the short distance to the platform and through the door to the private section. She kept her attention on the Kalrani, making sure they weren't too overwhelmed and didn't lag, while Orla and Sefen bracketed me. It seemed a much longer walk than it had on the way in.

Everyone except Orla and Sefen was exhausted. I managed not to fall asleep on the train back, but as soon as I reached my hotel room I dropped and slept for four hours – as I expect all the Ena manipulation talents did, except Taarel, who paid the price of being captain and had to talk to people first. Fortunately, it's not just us along: with a half-dozen KOTIS support staff we've plenty of people to keep things running through the frequent napping. There's an evening meal scheduled half an hour from now, and then medical exams, bleh.

I was vaguely hoping that maybe I could go shopping while we were here – buying things over the interface just doesn't compare – but I don't see how it'll be possible.

Thursday, April 24

Zzz

Today was a repeat of yesterday, except that the crowds were expecting us back. We went several hours earlier in an attempt to avoid the worst and tomorrow we're going during a later shift to give the Ena manipulation talents more rest. They're even considering skipping a day if necessary. I do wonder why they didn't try and disguise everyone, rather than cause such a circus, but I guess the interface makes that kind of difficult, and certainly the location of the gate and the fact that Tare doesn't have a 'night' when most everyone goes home means that not wearing our uniforms wouldn't have hidden very much at all after the first day.

I spent a large part of today feeling very self-conscious. Yesterday gave a huge number of people a chance to look at the stray who unlocked Muina. And air their opinions about her. They couldn't get too close, and don't seem to have spotted that my eyes are different colours, but there was a lot of talk about me being so 'suyul', and it was amazing how uncomfortable that made me.

A suyul is a droopy, pale pink flower, and by calling me that they were saying I acted shy. Just as on Earth there's a stereotype of people who are red-headed being temperamental, on Tare people who are white-skinned are stereotyped as shy and bashful and a bit wimpy. It didn't help that after the first appalled glance yesterday I kept my eyes down and blushed madly. It was just too many people, too loud, and too overwhelming.

I couldn't make myself not read all these comments about me. And it left me weirdly conscious not of how I looked, but of how everyone else does. Practically everyone I know here looks Asian. Of the people I'm close to, only Lohn and Zan look primarily Caucasian, with maybe a hint of mix around their eyes. It wasn't something I'd given more than an occasional thought to until all these comments about my skin colour.

I've spent way too much of today trying to work out if I'm racist, or just annoyed because I am a bit shy and not good at fighting.

Friday, April 25

Something to Say

At the end of today's shift I walked into my hotel room wanting only a shower and then to curl up for a thousand hours, and there was a man waiting for me.

That startled the hell out of me, more because I was tired and wasn't expecting it than anything he did, which was smile and start talking. I froze for a moment, then stepped backward out of my room, for once remembering to set off my alert. Only after I did that did his words filter through to me: he was introducing himself and saying he wanted to interview me, to give me an opportunity to speak outside the control of KOTIS. And seconds later Sefen and Taarel were there, suit weapons out and looking extremely dangerous. Orla arrived a few moments after that, then one of our greensuit escort, and then a half dozen more people: a hotel security woman and more of our escort and most of the Kalrani.

I ended up feeling sorry for the reporter guy. The Setari didn't attack him, being more intent on making sure they were between me and him. Combat Sight obviously didn't classify him as a threat. He put his hands out palm up to show he wasn't planning anything, but the greensuit wrestled him to the ground anyway, and put a knee in his back. Then hotel security and one of the pinksuits helpfully piled into the room and I think he was stood on a bit.

Taarel began to usher me away, but I said: "Wait," to her and stood my ground until there was a lull in the noise, then said: "Am not under duress. But thanks for the offer." I'm not entirely sure he heard me.


Taarel gathered all of the Kalrani up as she went, some of them looking painfully tired, and stowed us in a big lounge. She disappeared for a few minutes, leaving Sefen and Orla still alertly on guard in case any more attack reporters showed up, then came back and said we were going to be moved to another floor. She gave the Kalrani a thorough survey – they were being all wide-eyed and battle-ready, which was more than disconcerting from the younger ones – then corralled me off to a couch to one side and asked me if he'd touched me, if I was hurt. Since we'd gone 'off-mission' I didn't have a log Taarel could access with her security level.

"He just want to talk, I think," I said, helpfully sending her the segment of my non-mission log which showed me walking in and back out of my room. "Sorry about alert. I was surprised and didn't realise he was just reporter."

"The alert was exactly the right reaction," Taarel said, eyes abstract as she reviewed my log. "Reporter or not: to get into your room he has to have by-passed security in ways that are by no definition legal."

"Moving so that rooms can be scanned?"

"And also because our location isn't supposed to be known. They will make it appear that we have relocated to another building entirely, but it will only be to a different floor."

The adrenaline surge wore off very rapidly, and I fell asleep on the couch, waking up hours later in a different room. I don't like being shifted about while I'm asleep. Or people touching my bag. I don't know if the reporter pawed through my stuff, but nothing was missing, and my diary and phone seemed fine. I presume it had all been scanned as well. Fortunately there were no delays or extra security before eating, because I was absolutely starving. And the day's drama even prompted a couple of the Kalrani to talk to me, started off by one of the oldest two, a girl my age named Pen Alaz, asking: "Why did you thank him?"

Alaz isn't exactly friendly and cheery, but she doesn't give off a malicious vibe either. She's a bit like Jenny from my maths class – super-smart, but not quite socialised, with a tendency to ask abrupt questions without any thought to whether they're rude or not, but just because it's occurred to her to want to know.

I swallowed my mouthful (really weird brown sticky bread that tasted like congealed vegemite). "Because he was offering to help me if I needed it. Mostly wanted good story, I expect, but I appreciated the gesture."

"A would-be rescuer, in fact," said the other of the oldest Kalrani, a guy called Tahan Morel. He's tall with sharp brown eyes under straight dark brows, and a very expressive wide mouth. Not hostile, but with an edge of sarcastic challenge which is pretty refreshing compared to the way most people treat me. "You didn't have anything you wanted to tell the world?"

I thought about it. "Only that that official encyclopaedia spells Australia really badly."

He laughed. "That's not the story that reporter was looking for, I'd bet."

"You really have nothing to complain of?" Alaz asked, sounding disbelieving.

"Sure. Complain lots about combat training. Hate that can't go anywhere by myself. Loathe second level monitoring. Don't see what good would do telling any of that to reporter."

"I don't recall anyone noting complaints about your combat training," Taarel said, looking amused.

"Mara said pulling faces counted as complaining."

Unfortunately that made Taarel schedule some combat training for us tomorrow morning, though she has to find a suitable room for it. It was good to have more people willing to talk to me. I wonder whether it will be Alaz or Morel who ends up in Fourteenth Squad.

The whole thing with the reporter made me realise that hordes of them have probably asked to interview me. That random people were surely trying to contact me, for whatever reason, and that KOTIS just doesn't pass any of that on to me. I'm not sure if that bothers me or not.