The Touchstone Trilogy

by Andrea K Höst

  Nanotechnology makes building so ridiculously easy for the Tarens. Ninety percent of the work is in the planning, and once they've done all the designing, they use nanotech to produce the model and then nanotech to transform the model to life-size. Whitestone is very strong and adaptable to almost every design, and if they make a mistake they can turn a section back into goo and adjust it. Most of the construction effort and expense then comes with the fittings.

  Before heading to Mesiath, Lohn, Mara and I met up with the rest of First Squad to explore an area which will be called Desza Tohl (Moon Piazza). This is an open area designed to be the city centre, north of the science buildings, forming a crescent shape at the eastern base of the amphitheatre hill. The whitestone paving of the piazza is patterned – someone apparently spent months designing the model segments, which represent the light of the moon streaming down from the old city. Each radiating segment shows scenes of Muina's past and present and hoped-for future, and has incorporated the swirly floral designs which decorate Kalasa. It's really, really huge, and the pattern is interrupted by space for banks of grass and raised gardens, and these great whitestone benches which scoop up under your legs. There'll even be a couple of pool/fountains and a sunken performance area. I could have spent all morning wandering about looking at the design if it wasn't still mostly covered by snow, and Maze told me that if it hasn't melted by the time of the big party, he and the other Fire talents get to hurry things along.

  Two sweeping balustraded ramps have grown up the side of the hill to the amphitheatre and they dance across each other to continue the theme of the piazza. They're going to put a 'vertical garden' and a statue in the gap in the centre (Lohn was teasing me saying it was going to be a statue of me), and there's some small buildings which will sell food and so forth tucked against the hill. And some elevators off to one side, which go up to the top of the hill, or down into a currently extremely empty underground whitestone cavern which is going to be a hub of the subway system when it's installed.

  It took me a while to work out what the buildings on the inner rim of the piazza reminded me of – this place in England called Bath. A solid row of buildings stretching along the massive outer curve of the crescent. The Earth version has more vertical and horizontal lines, if I remember properly, while this swirled and flowed with the stylised outlines of trees (even etched onto the glass which had just been installed on the hotel parts). These buildings are going to be museum, hotels, some kind of theatre, galleries, shops and restaurants. It also extends underground, and most of it is empty whitestone shell without windows, except for the hotel, which is getting close to furniture and fittings stage.

  Maze sat on one of the benches looking very at peace and using Telekinesis to brush away the snow so I could see more of the piazza's pattern.

  "You really like all this, don't you?" I said, sitting down with him after I'd peered at everything in range. "Putting up a city."

  "There's a great deal of satisfaction in making things, even if all I'm contributing is the heavy lifting. I'll miss the sense of accomplishment once this stage is over. Are you ready to go to Mesiath?" He smiled when I nodded. "You've overcome your issues with swimming."

  "I guess." I'd forgotten I had them. "Everyone's there, so it doesn't feel the same at all. Do you really think it's useful? That there's something to talent training which has been missing?"

  "The training I can't be sure about. Clearing the mind, getting some physical exercise – both are worthwhile, quite aside from whether we achieve further results." He looked wry. "At least that's what I told our training coordinators, who consider this whole approach unscientific."

  "Did you feel at all connected to anything yesterday?"

  "That's hard to say. I found myself very aware of the larger world, of the forest. Particularly when we all quieted down. Whether having an appreciation of my surroundings can make the slightest difference to my use of talent I don't know."

  We gathered together and headed back to Mesiath – which was having a minor drama because one of the technicians had been bitten by a spider and his hand had swelled up very painfully, but Auron took him off to Pandora and everything soon calmed down. Another nice swimming trip. Kaoren was glad to see me, but most of his attention was caught up by puzzling out possible approaches to being 'connected', and I told him I was going to paddle about in a particular spot where everyone could see me and left to avoid distracting him. There were these fantastic miniature weasel creatures lurking about the roots of the trees along the bank and I had a great time with Zan just watching them. I think Earth has something like them, but I can't remember what they're called.

  Tsur Selkie arrived back on Muina while we were doing this, and came and looked at all his highly-trained killers lolling about in the sun. He doesn't seem to have objected to the experiment, though, and Kaoren is definitely planning to continue. He says that he's having trouble compartmentalising the challenge though, and is struggling to keep focus outside the swimming trips.

  All the captains are at a meeting with Selkie and some other bluesuits at the moment, and I am at least going to make sure that I don't cause any dramas.

  Monday, August 11

  Hunter

  Ghost is here!

  I was snoozing in my room after a morning testing session in the Ena (under the watchful eye of Tsur Selkie), and she woke me up with her purring and walking all over me and seems pretty damn happy to have found me. I could hardly believe it, and was so glad to see her, and petted and played with her while I decided what to do.

  Not that I really had any choice. Kaoren would be hurt if I tried to keep her secret from him, and I had a snowflake's chance in hell of actually doing so. Not to mention that she was sure to materialise abruptly in front of someone. Kaoren is at Mesiath today (I slept through lunch-time swimming), while Maze is playing construction crew, but the new satellites mean I could send a channel request to both of them which said: "What's the Taren word for déjà vu – the feeling you get when you feel like you've done this before?" and streamed visual of Ghost sitting in my lap.

  I think I managed to render Maze speechless. Kaoren laughed, and told me a phrase which means the same as déjà vu. After a bit of speculation on how she managed to get here, and double-checking that I was sure that it really is Ghost, they decided there really wasn't a great deal they could do since I wasn't willing to hand her over for experimentation ('testing'). Not that they're exactly keen, even when I pointed out that she was a great stickie detector.

  Second Squad seems to be here, so I think I'll go down and introduce Ghost to them.

  Filling up

  After a bit of wide-eyed surprise, Second Squad (and Zee, Sefen and Eeli) proved to be a good start for Ghost. They were careful not to be too loud (even Eeli), and followed my instructions for introducing yourself to cats, and soon she was winding her way between their legs and allowing them to gingerly pet her. It's very weird for them, though, since she is an Ionoth and even the ones they don't kill they take good care to avoid. Eeli was in ecstasy, of course, but I noticed that not wanting to scare Ghost meant she was well able to stop herself from being noisy. Ghost, in turn, decided to adore Nils. She purred herself silly and ended up sitting on his shoulder poking her nose in his ear.

  Second Squad found this hilarious, and teased him about being irresistible, but he just smiled and set Ghost on his lap and played with her until the other squads started drifting back and she went off and hid in one of the unoccupied bedrooms. Nils is still being unusually serious and subdued, but doesn't seem unhappy or anything. Totally non-flirty, though, which is probably a good thing given that the two Kalrani assigned to Second, Nala and Joen, are taking turns going bright red or drooling whenever he's anywhere near them. They seem like okay people despite that – even when Nils is being mild and polite he just oozes smex in a way which is hard to ignore, so I can hardly blame them for being flustered.

  I wonder if Nils and Zee have had some kind of h
uge argument? They weren't ignoring each other or anything, but just didn't have much to do with each other. I'm very curious, but don't dare ask anyone. Zee's made it clear that I should stay out of her private life.

  I did an entire episode of Planet Earth during testing – Tsur Selkie ran me through a simple visualisation and then had me tire myself out making TV – but because I spent so long sleeping and chatting and playing with Ghost I didn't get any subtitling done. I also did some random requests – dinosaurs (excerpts from Jurassic Park, mainly) and more populous bits of Earth (I did that ad for Qantas where all these kids are singing I Still Call Australia Home in different places, and then just random fragments of bits of movies which show famous buildings).

  We sat around in the evening talking about the signing ceremony. Just one week away, with people starting to arrive from two days before. It's an insane timetable, even with Setari doing the heavy lifting and a thousand or so people (greensuits, pinksuits, greysuits) working on the actual fitting out of the buildings. All the main Telekinetic and Levitation talents are going to be devoted to construction and construction alone from now until then, although they're still allowed to go swimming at Mesiath or back to their rooms to rest at lunch, since a long day of heavy talent-based lifting is really bad for their health. Their bodies can't keep up with the energy output. The rest of the Setari will be doing what I was doing – helping out with whatever.

  They're planning to cycle all the active squads through Pandora again to make sure all the extra members have their security clearance. Eleventh will head back in a couple of days, and then they'll have three staggered cycles of squads coming through, each staying a week. [Which means Fifth will be here soon, but I guess I'll survive. Twelfth will go just after the signing ceremony and be replaced by Sixth, and then Third will be replaced by Seventh, Second by Eighth and so on. First and Fourth are the long-term Muinan assignment for the moment, mainly for the cause of keeping me somewhere it seems the Nurans can't go.]

  I asked what would happen to the agreement if the Nurans changed their minds about wanting to have nothing to do with us, or some other Muina-descended group showed up and wanted to live on Muina. Which of course is something no-one can answer, since it all depends on circumstances. The Nurans still have knowledge KOTIS wants and although Inisar's history book showed they don't have any more idea than we do on what went wrong, they might be useful with suggestions on how to fix it. But nothing Tare's done has convinced them to even talk about it. Tare made another attempt to send a diplomatic vessel through the rift to Nuri, and again some of Nuri's strong psychic talents showed up almost immediately and made them turn around, and wouldn't say anything to them except variations on "Leave now or be destroyed".

  People from other Muinan-descended planets are something no-one really wants to see right now. Of course, the Ddura would try and kill them all, so the Tare-Kolar alliance is pretty safe in that regard. But saying "No, we were here first, go away" is an attitude which opens up an ethical minefield. Muina itself is so enormous and fertile and welcoming that they can't really argue that there's no room for other groups of descendants. Hell, if you transplanted the entire population of Tare, Kolar, Channa and Nuri to Muina, it would still be mostly empty. Channa only has about one million people (drifting about in nomadic tribes, suffering more and more from Ionoth attacks) while Nuri's this tiny moon with maybe between two and four hundred thousand people. You could move all of Earth here and there'd still be room.

  But it sure would get complicated.

  Tuesday, August 12

  Open your mind

  I liked this morning a lot more than this afternoon.

  This morning was more 'instant town' work, with Lohn and Mara as my guards. Lohn and Mara are always worth spending time with, full of energy hauling mounds of mattresses and sheets and pillows everywhere (up all the stairs, since the elevators weren't operational yet) and making beds. I lost count of how many beds we did, and it was amazing how tiring something so simple can be, but it was fun too. KOTIS personnel everywhere, really busy, but cheerful with it, and they get a real kick out of seeing Setari carrying about mounds of pillows. And I seem to have turned into the village mascot (which I don't particularly like, but it's hard to resist how pleased most people seem to be to see me).

  That was this morning. This afternoon has been brain scans and people being all 'you did it once, try harder to do it again'. And blood tests, because I needed more needles. So not in a good mood right now.

  For all that, I guess it's worth it, since Kaoren is very happy. Not understanding what the Lantarens meant about connecting with Muina was really getting to him, to the point that when we all went to go swimming today, he came along since I wanted to go, but decided he was going to take a break from attempting to puzzle out the meaning. Which was very fine with me. We went swimming about together, exploring the tumbled and drowned city. I don't know what happened to make the lake rise to cover that part of Mesiath, but it's a really neat place to swim through – especially when you know that there's nothing lurking in the shadows of the buildings which registers as a threat.

  We found an excellent ruin which was sheltered on all sides, and where the stone was just the right level to sit half underwater while still enjoying the streaming sunlight. We dozed in the sun for a while, until I got curious about – well, mainly I was curious as to whether Nils was anywhere near Zee – so I pushed out with my knowing where people are sense to find them. But Nils was with Lohn, Mara and Ketzaren, while Zee and Alay and Jeh seemed to be chatting. I amused myself tracking where everyone was, and then finding the little weasel things, and then all different sorts of animals, and the fish in the river – some right underneath where we were lying – and then there were birds and snakes and bugs and these large windy spaces which I eventually realised were the trees and it was really very enjoyable and relaxing doing that. I felt incredibly calm, and very pleased with myself, but then I noticed that more and more of the bright, sharp presences which were the Setari had gathered around Kaoren and me, and so I sort of drew back to myself and looked up at them.

  "Can't be that interesting to watch me daydreaming," I said, annoyed. Finding a dozen people staring at me isn't my idea of fun.

  "What were you doing?" Kaoren asked. He was sitting cross-legged just out of reach of me, and his eyes were open very wide. It was a bit disconcerting seeing him with that expression, because it's what he looks like when he's trying to contain himself, which he usually doesn't need to do. Most everyone was wide-eyed.

  "Just seeing how many things I could sense, and how far. If I push out really far even the trees start to be there for me." I wrinkled my nose. "And, yeah, I guess that does sound like this connecting to Muina thing that everyone has been trying to do, but it doesn't explain why you're all here staring at me. I don't feel like I was pouring out a lot of energy or anything."

  "It's the mechanics of your enhancement." Kaoren made a brief, meaningless gesture with his hand – a sign that he was almost beside himself with excitement, since he rarely moves without purpose. "The technicians have yet to find any physiological explanation for how it operates. What you were doing then – deepening your connection to your surroundings – resulted in a considerable increase in the strength of your enhancement. I called Surion and Namara so that I could study how the increase was effecting them."

  While he was enhanced himself, of course, and the rest of First Squad had come along to watch, along with Taarel, Regan, Endaran and the Squad Three captain, Turian.

  "I could clearly feel the shift," Maze put in. "The best I can describe it is that you don't feel the air around you unless there's a wind." He held out a hand to me and when I moved in response, brushed the tips of his fingers against mine. "Even when your enhancement is at ordinary levels, there's a sense now of the shift."

  "Why is being able to feel when I'm enhancing you so amazing?"

  "Because it's still there when the enhancement wears," Zee said. S
he smiled, with just a hint of wonder edging into her eyes, which is not what I'm used to from Zee. "What you're doing is increasing something already present. We are – we think that we have all already been connected to the Ena, all along, but our awareness – it's like when you have worn a scent every day. You cease to be able to smell it, unless it grows stronger."

  "When you enhance us, you are not channelling power to us," Kaoren continued, with the certainty which told me that this was something which had come from his Sights. "It is more that because you have such a strong connection with the Ena, contact with you causes our own connection to come more into focus, to align correctly. You aren't increasing our powers, you're triggering a state which we should be able to achieve on our own."

  The upshot of which is that I got to spend the afternoon in the medical building, trying to reproduce my expanded state under clinical conditions for the benefit of the technicians. Only Kaoren, Maze, Zan, Zee and Taarel had touched me while my head was off among the trees, and they all continue to be aware of this 'scent' or 'breeze' or whatever, even if they haven't figured out how to focus it. Naturally I haven't been able to come anywhere close to doing it again, have just been giving myself a headache pushing myself to be able to detect everyone in Pandora and getting increasingly irritated at the group of people in the next room having a meeting about me. I can't hear what they're saying, I just know that they're there. Kaoren and the other people I extra-enhanced at least were stuck having lots of tests too.

  He's so tremendously happy just being able to understand what he was missing, even if he can't reproduce the effect (yet). We've been having a sporadic discussion over the interface about the implications, which are good for me in the long run, but suck in the short term, because every Setari on two planets would naturally appreciate having their connection to the Ena pointed out to them in the same way. Lots of pressure for me to get into whatever you'd call today – a trance state, maybe? Broadening of the mind? They've decided the best thing to do is to have me repeat as much as possible of today at Mesiath to try and trigger the expansion.