The Touchstone Trilogy

by Andrea K Höst

  I spent the entire tour thinking in terms of Underground Science Complex = Evil Lair and trying to decide if it was more James Bond or Zombie Infestation. I did check out escape routes, but managed not to ask if the building had a self-destruct sequence, just as I manage (if only barely) not to say "You killed my father, prepare to die," on the rare occasions I get to introduce myself these days. It still bugs the hell out of me that all the jokes I'd worn thin with repetition back home are completely inexplicable here.

  Though I have a cunning plan about that, which I must put into operation sooner rather than later...

  Anyway, after a brief consultation over whether the greysuits had found anything poisonous about the flowers, I received permission to pick myself a glorious bunch of them (some of which I later gave to Mori, who looked like she wished she could be all non-professional on duty and pick some too).

  My visualisation test was located in the empty building the technicians are using for headquarters down near the platform junction. They wanted me to increase my connection to the Ena, and then try to visualise the room at the time of the March of Dawn – and absolutely not the time of the disaster.

  Having a bunch of people come and paw me while my mind is elsewhere isn't something I'm all that comfortable with, even with squads I don't dislike. I'd never discussed her with him, but Kaoren knows perfectly well that I could do without Forel, and that's probably why he told me beforehand that he'd be with me the whole time. And it looked to me like he sent the captain of Eighth (his friend Ro) to make sure all of Seventh stayed at a distance until my senses were fully expanded and I wasn't focused on how little I liked Forel around – and instead on the discovery that there's lots of little furry animals like lemmings or guinea pigs living in burrows on the island.

  After attempting a little furry animal count, I followed flocks of birds until I started to feel vague at my centre, and withdrew back to myself enough to notice that a greysuit, Maze, Inisar and Kaoren were sitting with me, which was the signal to switch to trying the visualisation. For a few moments it felt like I wouldn't be able to do anything – my mind was so hard to focus – then instead of dipping into Kalasa's past I ended up creating a projection of the weird squiggly power things I'd seen while I was sleeping. I did it across the entire city for quite a while until I noticed that I had developed three greysuits instead of one, and it occurred to me to stop. I felt fine, but my brain activity, breathing and heartbeat had really slowed again, which means I get to spend all afternoon having blood tests and scans.

  But the projected squiggles pleased the technicians, and overall it was considered a good result day. All of the Nurans passed Muina's judgment, which didn't surprise me at all. And Forel passed, which I guess is a good thing, since it was neither nice nor sensible of me to hope that she'd be the first Setari who failed.

  But, bored in medical, I played back what the interface had recorded while my mind wasn't paying attention, and got an earful.

  Kaoren had as promised stayed with me the entire time, and the Setari visited me in pairs to spend about a minute each touching my arm or hand and having the mechanism of the enhancement made very clear to them. Forel was the last to come, and shifted from a neutral, surprised comment about the mechanism to saying how much she admired Kaoren's ability to keep me calm, and that he was doing a fantastic job with me.

  All Kaoren said was: "Cassandra manages herself very well.”

  "I have to admit I was surprised you went into this," Forel added, being all confiding and secretive. "Though you always were one to put the mission above all else."

  I wish my eyes had been open so I could have recorded the expression on Kaoren's face. "If you've finished exhibiting your complete ignorance of who I am," he said, "it's time to move on to the next stage of this outing." Cold, irritated, bored. The very arrogant person he prefers not to be, goaded into making clear his disdain for Forel. She didn't say anything else, but laughed as she left, very smug and purry.

  I don't know if she hoped I'd hear, or if she really believes Kaoren has been ordered to sleep with me. It's made me think a lot – not about Kaoren being in love with me, because I have no doubt that he is – but about how he behaves with other people. How he used to behave with me, when he was trying to keep me out. I remember that I used to think he wasn't a very nice person – not nasty like Kajal, but hardly brimming with kindness and goodwill toward all. There are very few people he takes a personal interest in, and for the rest he is either very professional, or doesn't care about at all.

  I would be very much in the mood to do interesting things to Kaoren right now, except the medics bored with blood tests and started fooling around with the burns on my stomach again, and have given me a shot of something which makes me want to vomit.

  Thursday, September 4

  Into each other

  Kaoren can draw. Really well – quick, effortless lines which immediately capture what he's trying to portray. I should have expected it, given what he'd told me about his family, and what I'd seen of his brother's work. When he chose to put all his energy into becoming a Setari instead of following his family's lead, it wasn't out of lack of artistic ability.

  I was being very laid-back after dinner, thanks to floaty drugginess mixed with queasiness, and so reacted to Kaoren's skill only with a variety of pleased wonder, much as the kids did. Kaoren had had Ro Kanato create a random list of words which people from three different worlds and wildly different age groups would have a chance of drawing and guessing. It was a fun game, and Rye wasn't able to not laugh. Ys will be the hardest to crack, but she tried very hard with her drawings, and spoke when guessing Kaoren's, and when she and Kaoren won she went very pink (and extra-basilisky) when he told her well done.

  It was only later, when we were trialing stuffing a large number of pillows between us (which lasted about half an hour until Kaoren decided queasiness was not enough reason not to curl up with me), that I worked my way around to asking him not only about how he felt about drawing, but also about Forel's comments.

  "Do you think Forel really believes you've been ordered to sleep with me? Or was she hoping I'd hear and get upset?"

  He went still a moment – his usual reaction to me saying something he didn't expect – then leaned forward to look at my face. Then leaned back.

  "If I believed that comment was intended for you, she'd be on report right now, but it was very likely her attempt to rationalise a situation which unsettles her." He reached across the barrier of pillows to touch my hand. "You didn't feel a moment's uncertainty, did you?"

  Kaoren looked rather wry when I explained that the possibility had occurred to me our first night together, but agreed that it would have been a particularly stupid move on his part. He wanted to know why I'd been so thoughtful all evening, if Forel hadn't upset me, and I told him I'd been thinking about how he behaves with the kids, and whether I'd changed him, or just given him an opportunity to be more 'himself'.

  He wasn't really sure which better fit about how he felt with me, but he knows he is behaving in unexpected ways.

  "I haven't drawn for years," he said. "I stopped completely during a home visit when I was thirty. That was such – it caused the rift between Arden and I. But I needed to put it aside to follow this path, and I've not done more than take Siame to exhibitions since. Yet when you suggested that game, so sure that it was something I couldn't do–"

  "Had to prove me wrong?"

  "Anticipating your expression made producing a handful of sketches a strangely minor issue. I'm finding myself capable of more than a few things that I thought I could not devote time to, and I suspect what you've changed is my sense of proportion."

  That was about the point he decided there were too many cushions.

  Nothing much happening today – Fourth is out jogging again. But the medics tell me they'll leave my bandages off today. My stomach has this big silvery band of crinkling skin curling around my side. Tomorrow another trip to Kalasa.
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  Lessons

  When the kids came back from 'school' today Sen was a bit hyper and over-energetic, so I asked what she'd been doing and found that since all the other children were having classroom lessons, my three were doing interface lessons in a study room all day (except for lunch). Ys and Rye are fine with this, but Sen has the Sights to be completely aware she isn't playing with real people, and thus isn't as responsive to the interface teacher.

  I went and liberated a couple of balls from the Setari training rooms – a variety used for dodging practice – and though they were a little zingier than a tennis ball they were fine for handball. We played on the patio, marking a line with a scrape of mud. There was just enough room for a four-way battle, or two two-sided battles. I doubt I would have played there if Seventh were back from their Kalasa patrol, but it was just parts of First Squad in residence, and Sen really loved it when Maze played against her but down on his knees, especially since he always seemed to manage to hit balls she had a chance of returning. Lohn had a match with Rye and Zee played Ys. When the kids were tired out Zee, Maze, Lohn and Ketzaren had an amazing all-out battle. I've been playing handball since primary school, and they were all better than me in about five minutes.

  When Fourth returned from jogging (all sweaty and tired – Kaoren's pushing their fitness again), Sen insisted Kaoren and Maze match up, which is something Kaoren would normally refuse, but even Kaoren isn't immune to Sen.

  Maze and Kaoren were pretty evenly matched – both with similar speed and both with Combat Sight – and put on a spectacular display of blurring motion and long rallies. Maze had the advantage early on, but Kaoren eventually pulled even and probably would have taken the game if they hadn't decided to call it quits at ten points each. The extra anticipation Sight Sight gives him makes him very hard to fight.

  Though I guess Maze is still recovering from mass Cruzatch burning. I hadn't been planning on dinner downstairs because Seventh would be back, but Zee opened a channel to me and asked me to keep the kids down. I wasn't sure why till I saw her watching Maze with Ys and Rye. Maze has been under so much stress lately, and I realised then that I hardly ever see him smile at all these days. Some things are worth putting up with Forel.

  And it was hilarious watching Sen work the room as the Setari arrived back for the day. She thoroughly enjoys having lots of people around to charm – and she pleased me no end by seeming to avoid the people in Seventh who I'm wary of, but picking out the few who seem reasonable to introduce herself to. Her big thing at the moment is to go around introducing herself and trying to read the name display of the person she's talking to – she mangles their names pretty spectacularly, but almost deliberately I think.

  Maze was far more successful at chatting with Ys and Rye than I've yet been, for all they still act like they expect to be punished for speaking in public (I have a horrible feeling that's because they have been punished for speaking in public), but you could hear the sheer pleasure creeping into their voices as they told Maze all about dictionaries and how you can look up an explanation of every word you heard, and the interface would even read it out to you. That the interface would read out whole books to you and that there were so many books in there that they hadn't even been able to reach the bottom scrolling down the first letter when browsing the list of them.

  After dinner we played the spelling game again – and even in the past few days Ys and Rye have improved to the point where they know all the Taren alphabet and can manage most two and three letter words. After the game tonight Kaoren told them if next time they played they got a better score then they could ask for a treat of their choice, and they practically turned inside out trying not to look pleased. Though, given that the interface seems to be the greatest treat imaginable to them, I'm not sure what treat they might ask for.

  Since they're able to use the interface to read for them, I was half-expecting them to have finished off the book I'm reading Sen, but whether they have or not they still listened as keenly. Sen's gone very snuggly, seeming to know that my burns have ceased to require pain meds and care, and insisted on two bedtime hugs during her story, and more from Ys and Rye between bath and story time.

  I don't think they're ever likely to think of me as Mum, but they're starting to believe they're allowed to be here. I feel all over the place at times, jumping back and forth between world-saving and fumbling attempts at parenting, but in a way Mara was right – the kids are a great distraction for both of us – certainly for me, because not wanting to be all upset in front of them has lent me a certain amount of calm.

  Friday, September 5

  All Around

  Rotten dreams last night. Over and over being kidnapped by Cruzatch – not too-real dreams, just straightforward nightmares, which are a lot harder to force myself awake from. Kaoren had nightmares too – probably communicated by me – and we figured we were most likely having a delayed reaction to the ambush. At dawn we gave up on bed and walked down to the lake (which is not strictly permitted for me at the moment, and I suspect even such a short trip meant Kaoren had to tell whoever was on watch that we were going).

  It's not Kaoren's style to pretend that bad things won't happen, or that he has the power to make everything okay, and so we had a short discussion about wills and making arrangements for the kids in case something happens. He thinks it's important that they don't end up with his parents.

  KOTIS Command will probably stop quivering in a corner soon and go back to more dangerous experiments, but today's trip to Kalasa was another attempt at visualising the past in the same room. Exactly the same result as last time, but I had the distinct impression that the device technicians really wanted me to make all the light squiggles anyway, since they were all having excited discussions about it when I came back to myself. One of the things the technicians had particularly wanted to see was how the light squiggles reacted to the malachite marble, and they found that the marble has its own set of squiggles, and seems to 'eat' any Kalasan squiggles that come near it.

  It's pretty solidly accepted now that the malachite marbles were some secret construction related to the Cruzatch. Most of the technicians are of the opinion that the marbles interfered somehow with the platform and Pillar infrastructure set up by the main body of Lantarens and thus are the major cause of the tears between spaces. A smaller group argue that the platform and Pillars themselves would have still had the same effect on the Ena.

  Plenty of theories, but no-one's come up with any solutions.

  On the good news front, this afternoon Kaoren and I held a quiet celebration over the fact that he's started to be able to enhance himself. He can't do it as reliably as Par, yet, and has only told me. He says he suspects he's not the only one who's reached this stage, but because it's such a sensitive issue for the Setari, few are talking about their own efforts. He doubts all Setari will be able to achieve the enhancement – certainly not in the short term – but he thinks he knows why Par achieved it first. Just as my connection with the Ena grows stronger when I concentrate on everything surrounding me, it was the key Kaoren used to discovering how to focus his own connection. Path Sight and Combat Sight are a big aid.

  Tomorrow is a rest day, and Kaoren plans to spend the morning off on one of the islands working on enhancement. But he's going to come back at lunch and take me and the kids (and a suitable escort, I guess) off to visit Pandora's first ever café.

  Saturday, September 6

  Out and About

  I asked Raiten Shaf to be one of my escorts to the café, on the theory that the Kolaren family who runs it would be so distracted drooling over him that they'd not pay any attention to me. I don't think Raiten's very keen on being fawned over by fans, but he thought the idea of playing distraction was funny enough, and I ended up having an all-captain escort of Kaoren, Raiten, Maze and Ro. It still bugs me that I can't just go for a walk into town by myself, but it's getting better now that I'm on a first-name basis with almost everyone who gets assigned t
o guard me.

  Ys and Rye had been in an odd mood all morning – pleased not to have to go to the school, I think, but also having some sort of argument whenever I wasn't around. Sen obviously didn't know what Ys and Rye were discussing, which put her out of temper with them, and she insisted on playing a game alone with me. I cheered her up by braiding her hair with ribbons, which she adored (and finally gave me something to do with them – Nenna had given them to me and I'm not a ribbon person and had just stuffed them in a pocket of my backpack).

  It made Sen forget she was annoyed and she ran and fetched Ys and made her come and have her hair done the same way. Ys has quite short hair, a bit ragged and neglected, and I couldn't possibly do it in two long braids like Sen's, but I went and borrowed a pair of scissors and tidied it up a little and then did small, ribbon-bound braids holding back the sides. Ys endured this, and wouldn't even look at the result in the mirror.

  Rye's hair I just neatened a little, and I did my own in a French braid ('assisted' by Sen) and found a Summery dress and felt good about myself. I've ordered more clothes for the kids, but am still waiting on delivery – and even with my lush wage I had to wince at the shipping charges, which are deliberately discouraging.

  Still, we all looked very neat when Kaoren arrived back, and he obligingly changed to one of the few non-uniform outfits he brought with him. The other captains were also dressed not to stand out and I have to admit that I was almost as excited as Sen. Going out to the shops for lunch – something so normal and unremarkable for me on Earth – is more unusual for me now than flying, fighting monsters, or meeting world leaders.

  Moon Piazza is quite a long way away from the Setari building, which is the far-flung southern point of Pandora, and so we had a nice walk to work up our appetites and arrived after what would count as the 'lunch time rush'. We had the option of walking through the science buildings (the university, as I keep thinking of it), or looping through the old town, and decided to go through the old town to gawk at the changes which were slowly being made to it. A small team of archaeologists had never stopped working, even after much of the attention had been diverted to Arenrhon and Kalasa, and now that the snow was finally gone the botanical types were having a field day exploring the gardens, so we'd walk through patches that looked exactly as it had been when I first explored the place, and then a stretch of houses where all the gardens and buildings had been painstakingly restored and preserved.