In Arcadia (Touchstone Book 5)

by Andrea K Höst

  But Cass wasn't smiling as she went back inside, and would no doubt keep fretting about something she couldn't change. She seemed to feel personally responsible for the happiness of the little collection of Australians she'd imported.

  It would probably help if Maddy could mix with a few friends her own age. Maze and Alay, like Cass and Kaoren, had brought their children over to watch the arrival of the trees, but ten year-old Maddy sat in between the collection of early teens and the two infants—and Sen was a couple of years too young to really be a peer. It was too soon by far for Maddy to begin attending school, but Laura thought she would suggest a few age-selected play groups. The neighbouring islands had been heavily settled by the families of the senior Setari—many of whom had also adopted Nurans—and Cass and Kaoren would know who to invite.

  Trees in place, and any fallen dirt swept out of the bottom of the deep pit, everyone gathered to watch as underground pumps were switched on, and the artificial pond began to fill. Maze, after a brief consultation with one of his business partners—an ex-Kolaren installations expert—dropped down to join Laura on the rim, his eyes almost as bright as the gathered children's.

  "No hiccups so far. Once it's reached the outfall we'll leave the circulation pump running, and the main pump will only be needed if you drain it."

  "It's incredible, Maze," Laura said, sounding the Muinan words out carefully. "I can't thank you enough."

  He smiled—a smile Cass had mentioned frequently in her diaries, and fully as heart-stopping as described. "For a day spent playing at something I love? Not necessary."

  "Just agree to be mutually appreciative," Sue said, angling her 'scanner'—a very high-tech camera—to capture the sunken stair slowly being swallowed by the flow of lake water. "What happens in winter, by the way? A skating rink, or an ice-crusted death trap?"

  "If the water flow is shut off, we expect the ice will be thick enough to walk on. What is 'skating rink'?"

  As Sue explained the English term, the water reached the rim of the pool's primary edge, welled, and then flowed over the outfall. That took all the children with it, running down the hill along the snaking course Maze had designed, all the way to the lake shore. As 'drainage channels' went, this was a helix punctuated by sheets of falling water, and interlaced with two criss-crossing paths that allowed a walker to admire—or stroll through—endless cascades.

  "Put in a nice water feature," Cass said, propping Tyrian against one of her shoulders.

  That produced a doubly-brilliant smile from Maze, with an added glow for Alay, coming up behind Cass with their toddler, Katen. Kaoren, carrying a couple of towels in anticipation, made the last of the group and they walked down to catch the kids and admire the 'water feature'.

  It would certainly not be out of place in Versailles, and gave Laura plenty to think about as everyone managed to get more than a little wet, and then trailed back to her house to enjoy the meal Cass and Kaoren had waiting. Factoring in nanotech formwork that could 'grow' itself even underground, and drones that could be set to weed and dig and water, it really wasn't such a great extravagance to expand down the hill.

  Mindful that she had a meeting in an hour, Laura detoured first to change into something dry, and to have a good long gawk out of her bedroom window. Anything she did to the hillside would be visible here, for her room was semi-circular and strongly resembled a conservatory, with its curving outer wall and a third of its ceiling made of one-way glass. It gave her an unparalleled view of the eastern reach of the island, with the south-east aspect now dominated by 'the Braid', as everyone had immediately begun to call the ridiculously long water channel.

  Feeling a little overwhelmed, Laura returned to the lounge and talked with Maze about monitoring the trees for transplant shock, and then took a glass of juice out to marvel once again at the now-tranquil pool. A single leaf of classic maple shape spun languorously in the centre of the broadest section of water, before unhurriedly finding its way to the drainage channel, and slipping away.

  "Is it what you would have chosen?" asked a quiet, beautifully modulated voice.

  "I doubt I would have been so ambitious," Laura said, turning. "But it has certainly started me thinking about other possibilities."

  She found herself facing a man an inch or so shorter than her own five-seven, his colouring similar to Kaoren, Lira and Sen's—a type Cass called 'old Lantaren', with light brown-gold skin, and epicanthic folds to very dark eyes. There was no doubt to his identity, since he wore the dark blue uniform of KOTIS command personnel, but Laura managed not to say: 'the infamous Tsur Selkie' aloud. She very much hoped she was also succeeding in not gaping. In part it was because he was so suddenly there, like a magician who had conjured himself, but it was more that he...

  "I wished to see the Gainers before their trip to Tare," he explained. "So came a little early."

  "I think you've timed it exactly," Laura replied, struggling to pronounce the Muinan words clearly. There was no mystery or reason to be flustered: he'd obviously come up the path beside the house instead of through it. Or flown. She had no idea whether he could fly. "Everyone's just packing up."

  She led him inside, and then retreated to one side to watch. Force. That was the word. Sheer force. She had never before met anyone whose simple presence added such weight to a room.

  Sue: I was expecting someone shorter. And less...less...

  Laura: Indeed.

  Sue: Everyone's standing up straighter.

  Laura: Perhaps that's why Cass thinks he's short.

  Sue shot a brief, appreciative glance at Laura before turning her attention to her scanner. Laura just watched.

  Cass' diary had described Tsur Selkie as a short, eternally abrupt man who reminded her of Clint Eastwood. Compared to many of the Setari, who averaged around six foot, Laura supposed he was technically short. Also slender, with the controlled grace of a dancer. It was difficult to gauge abruptness when he was specifically there to have a conversation, but he spoke with precision and certainly didn't run on. He maintained an air of formality, asked brief questions, and listened.

  Nothing about him reminded Laura of Clint Eastwood.

  Instead, he projected effortless authority. Almost everyone in the room really was standing taller, and the three Setari gave the impression of being liable to salute at any moment. Both Katen and Tyrian watched him with fixed fascination, while the older children became markedly more efficient in helping to tidy up lunch and find discarded items of clothing, even though they were eavesdropping shamelessly on a relatively unremarkable conversation.

  The other thing that stood out to Laura was Tsur Selkie's separateness. He was careful in his movements, rarely coming physically close to anyone, and in response the people around him kept their distance. That was a trait he shared with Kaoren, for they were both primarily Sight talent psychics. Kaoren had all the identified Sights while Tsur Selkie had, at the least, both Sight Sight—knowing—and a particularly challenging one called Place Sight. Place Sight talents could see and feel 'the impressions living creatures leave on the world': ghostly auras, the memory of rage, the shape of a dream. Most particularly, Place Sight talents could sense people's emotions when they touched them, which explained why Tsur Selkie was wearing gloves on a warm day: the left fingerless and the right giving complete coverage.

  Rather than stand staring, Laura put together a tray with some water and red pear juice, and took it out to the table on the north patio. This was a good spot for summer conversations: the high trees dappled the table with shadows, and the breeze from the north made them dance.

  "Want me to stay and translate, Mum?" Cass asked, as departure moves began.

  "I think we'll manage. Besides, I need more practice talking Muinan."

  "Okay. Just open a channel to me if there's anything you want cleared up."

  Cass and Kaoren departed with their brood down the path to their house, while Maze and his family rose into the air, waved cheerfully, and zoomed away,
and really it was impossible to watch that without an urge to pinch oneself to make sure the world was real.

  Curious about the practicalities of flying, Laura asked Tsur Selkie: "Can Telekinetic talents, when it's raining, use their talent to keep dry?"

  "That would be exceptionally difficult. Tsee Namara might briefly succeed, with interface assistance to track the path of the rain, but it would involve catching each individual drop. Telekinesis works on objects: it cannot form a shield."

  A 'Tsee' was a Setari squad captain—the same rank as Kaoren—and Zan Namara the strongest Telekinetic talent. She was stationed on the planet Tare, and Laura hadn't yet met her, though she had figured large in Cass' diaries.

  "I will not take much of your time today," Tsur Selkie said, as Sue led him to the table. "In truth, my primary aim in this session is to gauge your ability with our language, so that I can schedule a longer debriefing. You do not have difficulty understanding me?"

  "No, it's speaking that's the challenge," Laura noted, sounding the words out with only occasional long pauses. "We're working on improving our pronunciation and grammar."

  He nodded, and Laura noticed how very upright he was sitting, his hands resting neatly on his knees. Relaxed, but with an innate good posture. As soon as Laura saw this she realised she and Sue had unconsciously imitated him, and she immediately leaned her arms on the table.

  "The long-term aim is to decide what to do about Earth?"

  "To assist the Triplanetary Council's decision regarding diplomatic contact with your world, given the limitations of access. The current position is that it would be unwise to commence overtures via an unstable gate that opens only once a year, and that formal contact should be postponed until an Ena ship course can be established. That, however, is the equivalent of 'possibly never', given the difficulties of locating a world and charting a course to it through the Ena."

  The 'Ena' was a complex set of dimensions that sat outside 'real space'. The Muinans used it as a shortcut between planets, but it was both infested by monsters and as navigable as an Escher drawing.

  "Today, we shall cover the dissemination of information about Muina on Earth. Clearly it was not known only to your family. How widely have the details spread?"

  Laura, who had failed to keep matters as secret as she would have liked, searched his face for any hint of condemnation, but found only focused attention.

  "It's very difficult to say how far the story's gone," she admitted. "At least now that a gate genuinely did open and more than one person went through and back. When Cass first disappeared, the police—Sydney law enforcement—were involved, of course, and it was a news item. Old news by the time of her birthday, when she managed to nearly reach us."

  Her chest tightened with the doubled memory of watching Cass becoming a 'cold case' and then, when the family had gathered on Cass' birthday, looking up and seeing a ghostly outline of her daughter. Not dead. Cass, stuck in the Ena behind an intangible window, had used sign language to reassure them. Not dead.

  "Sue..." Laura began, mouth dry, but Sue picked up the story, giving Laura a chance to take a drink and try to wash away a few memories.

  "When Cass appeared before us, I recorded the scene, but though we could see her clearly enough, the recording only showed a grey blur."

  Tsur Selkie didn't look surprised. "Scanners and other machines have considerable difficulty detecting Ena manifestations."

  "What we were left with was a half-dozen of us sure that we had seen Cass, but with no real proof that she was alive," Sue went on. "We had an argument over what to do, because telling the truth seemed like a terrible idea, and spending years pretending to be looking for her even worse. Eventually we decided to say she'd called home for her birthday to tell us she'd run off with a boy. Pure slander, and totally out of character for Cass, and we're lucky Nick had a friend in a country called Thailand who could make a relatively untraceable call to Laura's house, because the police did check that. But it gave us a reason to no longer look for her."

  "And brought me three years of people telling me Cass was a horrendous brat," Laura said, with a faint grimace.

  "Over and over," Sue said, with remembered annoyance. "Outside those who saw Cass in the Ena, we only told Alyssa, as per Cass' instructions, and our sister Bet told her husband, but otherwise we stuck firmly to the 'Cass is in Thailand' story until her diaries showed up."

  All of them in a thick parcel plastered in stamps, with Cass' so-familiar tiny writing sending a jolt of lightning through Laura, so that she'd sat right down on the front steps of the house and torn it open. Everything Cass had lived through for an entire year, three books worth of it, and photographs.

  Even though Sue was still talking, describing how Laura had given photocopied extracts of the diaries to close family, Laura realised Tsur Selkie was watching her, quite as if he could see straight through her to the bittersweet joy that still welled up whenever she saw those photographs. Oddly, the sense of transparency didn't bother her. There was no sense of judgment from the man, only observation.

  "Still not proof," she said. "Other than showing that she was still alive, and looked well. The diaries could have been fiction, and so we kept them in the family still...except for Julian excitedly showing a few school friends, who promptly started bullying him. It had all quieted down when the second letter came, and Cass told us when and where the gate would open, and asked if we wanted to come here."

  She stopped talking to look down over the slope of trees to the lake, and then across the deep blue water to the far northern shore.

  "That was an easy decision for me, Laura and Jules," Sue said. "Not for our sister, Bet, who is very involved in a community organisation, and who is married to a man with a large extended family that he couldn't imagine leaving behind. And Mike—Cass' father—was in a similar position, except his wife didn't believe anything we said." She paused, then added grudgingly. "Which I suppose wasn't that unreasonable a position to take. On Earth...you have to understand that on Earth there has never been any verified occurrences of dimensional gates, or psychics, or aliens, but there are countless stories about them. Stories that are complete fiction. If I hadn't seen the ghost version of Cass on her birthday, I'm not sure I'd have believed either."

  Laura took up the thread. "Most people, being told this story, or even getting their hands on a copy of the extracts from Cass' diary, wouldn't for a moment believe it. Since we were sure, we pooled our resources and gave all our money to Bet. She bought the nearest house she could manage to the gate, while we put it about that we were going to 'move to Thailand'. The gate is on a suburban street, and was going to open around midday, so it would inevitably be a relatively public departure, but of the people who knew and were going to watch us go, I think most of them would have kept quiet. But then there were the Caldwells."

  "More to the point, there was Maddy's doctor," Sue said. "The Caldwells arranged..." She stopped, then said: "Cass doesn't have a translation for this word...just looking it up...ah, palliative care. They arranged for palliative care at home, and then brought her to Bet's new house on the day we were due to depart. But they couldn't just claim Maddy 'got better', let alone that she had moved to Thailand, and so they arranged for the doctor to witness her going."

  "And Doctor Jamandre is a person whose entire career revolves around trying to stop children from dying," Laura said. "She'll probably do what the Caldwells planned to ask: 'check up on' Maddy occasionally, and report some improvement. But I have no doubt whatsoever she will be waiting the next time the gate is open, to see what's on the other side, confirm that Maddy is still alive, and then to make firm representations on behalf of all her other patients."

  Laura paused, trying to gauge some measure of response from this man who listened with so much attention and so little reaction.

  "I do, very much, want to encourage the Council to open some kind of diplomatic exchange," she told him. "Even if it is sporadic, and complicated, it will m
ean a great deal to Earth."

  "That is understood," was all Tsur Selkie said, exceptionally unhelpfully. "It is not clear to me for what reason the child's parents did not join her here."

  Not quite able to bring herself to push him about contact with Earth, Laura let the moment go, and explained.

  "Their two other children, mainly. They're both rather high-achieving, and Caitlyn in particular has a national profile—she's an Olympic hopeful in figure-skating—while Rory had just landed a small ongoing role in a drama series. Neither of them could up and vanish without causing comment, even if their parents wanted them to abandon everything they'd worked for."

  While Sue explained ice skating for the second time that day, and then the Olympics, Laura reflected that at least she hadn't had to face such a terrible choice as Eric and Nina Caldwell's. Julian had been as enthusiastic about the move to Muina as Laura, and it was only Bet Laura would really miss.

  "Do you have any imagery with you of this skating?" Tsur Selkie asked. When they both blinked at him, he lifted his hands and became briefly less formal, producing a faint, momentary smile and saying: "That is Sight Sight. It creates a need to know, to understand, far more often than it provides explanations. It is not important."

  "Alyssa might have one of Caitlyn's competitions," Sue said. "Just a moment."

  She gazed off at nothing for a minute, then said: "She'll convert and send you a recording of a world championship—the pinnacle of the sport."

  He thanked her, then said: "With Cassandra's help we will be able to confirm whether conditions around the gate on your world alter. During our next meeting I would like to model probable responses from the people—the peoples—of your world. Would the next twelfth suit you?"

  Laura double-checked her calendar and agreed, wryly reflecting that setting the next meeting a full Muinan month away revealed his opinion of their halting and inexact speech. She would have to make sure to spend more time in the virtual school.

  Meeting done, Tsur Selkie rose, thanked them for their time, and departed down the path to the dock. Laura and Sue looked at each other.