The Touchstone Trilogy

by Andrea K Höst

  Never one to delay, Kaoren arranged for us to meet with Siame today, cleverly combining it with a trip to the roof to relieve my already-increasing feeling of being locked up. Ys and Rye particularly seemed to find the idea of meeting Kaoren's sister the most daunting thing about Tare so far. Ys dealt with it by spending a great deal of time making sure Sen was dressed beautifully, her hair carefully braided. She spent a lot less effort on herself, though I'm glad to see she's willing to wear the clothes I'd bought now that there was no risk of the other Nuran children seeing her. Rye just looked like he had a stomach cramp all morning.

  We lucked out on the weather, which was the second sort – about to storm. The sky was clear above, with a huge black bank of clouds off in the distance, flickering with lightning. Siame met us outside the elevator entrance, wearing her Kalrani uniform. She's nearly forty-five now (fifteen) and looked totally in control and correct, every inch a Setari in the making.

  Standing on top of the massive pile of blocks which is a Taren city is enough to take anyone's mind off social awkwardness. So was the full-on wind. I said it was kite-flying weather, and explained what kites were (though Kaoren wouldn't let me create a projection of one – I'm not supposed to use my powers for a while). Rye wanted to know whether there was any 'proper outside' on Tare and was I think less than impressed with a complete absence of visible plants and animals. Since the storm started rolling in in earnest we went back down to my apartment for hot drinks.

  Siame's attitude toward the kids was neutral, unconcerned, as she asked them questions about their experiences with the interface, and about living at Pandora. But she didn't say one single word to me. Since she's such a powerfully self-confident person, the impression she gave was of forbearance rather than any upset, and I was surprised when Sen abruptly reached out and patted Siame's hand. It was a clear gesture of sympathy, and Siame broke off in the middle of a question, her face losing all expression.

  "Why don't you show Siame your room, Sen?" I asked.

  Sen jumped up eagerly – she's very proud of her room and particularly the mound of cushions she's collected from all over the apartment to bury her bed in. Ys and Rye followed, and I kissed Kaoren because he was looking worn.

  Kaoren is as protective of Siame as Ys is of Sen, and his long absence on a different planet right on top of him making a major change of his life has shifted her from having a very close relationship to him to being on the fringes. Beneath all that composure she was miserable. He's spending the afternoon with her – giving her some combat training because he's now too well known for a casual trip into the city.

  The kids and I watched the storm, which hit very spectacularly, with a lead-up of lightning followed by horizontal rain pounding at my window. That was a lot of fun, with all of us in my window-seat and the lights turned down and Sen pretending to be frightened, Ys forgetting not to speak to me because she wanted to know how lightning works, and Rye wondering how any animals on Tare manage to stay alive. I turned it into a research exercise, with all of us looking up information on lightning, and the small number of hardy surface-dwelling animals of Tare's islands (think armadillos), and the vast variety of cave-dwelling ones, and the efforts the Tarens have gone to to preserve Tare's land-dwelling wildlife once they realised they were in danger of wiping most of it out.

  I love it when the kids get distracted and stop being defensive with me. Tonight, Kaoren and I are going to work through the legal documents for making them (and Siame) our heirs and naming Mara and Lohn guardians in the event of our deaths. Not that we're officially their guardians, or are likely to be able to qualify for adopting them on Tare, but it's a step we can make quickly, and next we'll start investigating the process under the provisional Muinan laws – which are having to deal with the issue of adoptions as a matter of priority.

  Maze just emailed me an expanded summary of everything that's happened to me, and told me to edit in anything I'd like to include. KOTIS is going to add it to my official biography as well as providing it to the producers of The Hidden War.

  First and Fourth are back on duty tomorrow (they've theoretically been on holiday these last two days), but it's a training day. It looks like I'll be training with them, but need to check the arrangements for the kids. Not that Ys and Rye aren't perfectly capable of looking after Sen and self-studying, but I want them to be children, not babysitters.

  Sunday, September 21

  Back and Forward

  During my days the kids will be attending the Kalrani training school, which didn't sound like a good plan to me, but Kaoren tells me the school is more than flexible enough to handle them carefully. They'll spend some time in classes with Kalrani, but won't have the pressures or intense training intended to turn children into Setari. They didn't seem upset when they returned today, anyway – Sen is always happy to meet children her own age (or a couple of years older, in the case of the youngest Kalrani) and one of the older Kalrani appears to have been assigned to give Ys and Rye very basic combat training (those stepping exercises), which has delighted Rye to no end. He was so happy when Kaoren told him to show what he'd learned and then spent some time correcting his stance. Ys isn't nearly so interested in combat, but Kaoren put her through her paces as well, and she went a little pink when he gave her one of his tiny approving nods.

  I was floatingly tired from the full-on training Mara put me through and declined the opportunity to have my ability to step back and forward corrected. We played the spelling game again, and all the kids are continuing to improve in leaps and bounds, but when we asked them what treat they would like they couldn't (or wouldn't) settle on anything. When it was time for me to read the next chapter of our story I had Ys and Rye each read a couple of paragraphs to start out with, helping them spell out the more complex words, and then finished off the rest myself.

  I had to laugh at Kaoren, since I next went and read to him. His response was to have me write him out the English alphabet and start teaching him English as I read. We're reading through more of my period of being Zan's trainee, revisiting my struggles to understand the concept of the Ena and what the hell was going on. And just desperately wanting Zan to like me, since she was the only person I knew. It immediately made me email Zan and ask her if she was interested in going swimming together some time (possibly with the kids).

  Today I have medical appointments again, while First and Fourth are on Ena assignment and I'm trying not to worry about Mara's first day back on serious active duty. I finished off reviewing the little history of me which is going to be made public. It's pretty dry, so there wasn't anything to object to.

  Monday, September 22

  Day Trip

  Score! The bluesuits decided that some kind of public display of me was going to be necessary to quash the conspiracy theories, and so agreed to me going shopping. Probably the oddest assignment I'll ever have – a mall visit to foster public calm.

  Maze, Kaoren and I had a sit-down after First and Fourth were back from mission yesterday and talked through the technicalities. It's one thing, after all, to take the kids shopping, but another thing altogether to expose them to the kind of crowds which turned up at Rana Junction. And a large, obvious number of guards would draw attention like a magnet, whether or not they were in uniform.

  Eventually they decided on an escort of ten Setari, including Kaoren. We would take a roundabout way getting out of the KOTIS facility, dropping down to the 'basement levels' to a freight shuttle and then coming up straight into the middle of the prime shopping district on the island. Kaoren, Zee and Nils would stay with me and the kids, and the rest of the escort would shadow us in two groups while we shopped, joining up only when travelling between floors and then stopping for lunch. We rather suspected that after lunch too many people would have recognised me for the excursion to continue. The police would be given an hour or so's warning, but not too much because that would lessen the amount of time for word to leak.

  I was all for wearing a blon
de wig and dark glasses, except of course that would defeat the purpose and sunglasses are not exactly common on Tare. I settled for plaiting my hair in Sen's favourite twin-braid style, since it was a way I don't usually wear it. Mine isn't long enough to be half so impressive as hers, and I skipped the ribbons, but I still quite liked it and Nils said it was different enough that people would need to take a closer look to be sure.

  Nils was part of my 'near' escort because he's such a good Illusion caster, and Zee because she's managed to be one of the least-photographed of First Squad. I longed to tease them about it, but since Nils seems to be pretending that he's never been one to flirt with Zee, or indeed with anyone much, I figured it was best to leave it alone. They're driving me batty showing no sign of particular interest in each other – I so want to pry and don't quite dare.

  Sen was tremendously excited, of course, and I think Ys and Rye were at least curious. I'd prepared them with a few select kids' shows featuring Taren daily life so they had some idea what it was like. They're used to Taren-style buildings by now, but one of the big multi-level atriums is something else altogether.

  I'd told them we were going to pick out some quilt covers for their beds (they all had standard-issue plain blue), and Kaoren had laid out the rules they had to follow in his usual clear and concise way. He offered up a few rules for me as well, and tweaked one of my braids when I suggested a couple for him in return.

  With Nils and Zee taking lead, our trip up from the train was uneventful, with no-one spotting me at all – The Nils Effect means that most people don't at first glance notice anyone but Nils, and then they're often busy walking into light poles or rubbish bins. All the double-takes I saw were focused conveniently on him and Zee as we made our way to our first stop, an overwhelming multi-level toy store which stunned even Sen into silence.

  "Since you couldn't think of a treat yesterday," I said, "I figured this would give you some idea. Pick something you like." Ys developed a stubborn look, and I gave her a stern one in return. "We can't leave till you do, so best get started."

  I'm not entirely certain I would have won the battle of wills, but Sen gave Ys no chance of victory, grabbing her hand and almost catapulting her down an escalator to an endless display of dolls. It was a great store. I found a few toys for myself, and wasn't the least surprised when Sen collected a thousand choices. I made her pick just two, but would buy them the entire store if I had somewhere to put it. She spent a lot of time with these horribly lifelike dolls (and androids!) taller than herself, but abruptly settled on a simple cloth one with a cheerful drawn-on face, and a poseable rainbow coloured thing with long arms and legs and googly eyes.

  Rye found a kind of meccano construction kit, which Nils offered to carry (and then sneakily swapped to this humungous ultra-deluxe everything but the kitchen sink version). Ys was very reluctant, fingering a few things when prodded, but still without a choice by the time Sen had finally settled on her two. Kaoren solved this by picking something for her, this ultra-cool crystal statue – about two feet tall – which is made of nanobots and can take on any form you like – either a pre-programmed shape or one you make by treating it as modelling clay. There are hundreds of pre-programmed shapes, some of which sneakily change position when you're not quite paying attention. Ys adores it. And Ghost spent half the evening stalking it.

  We made it through the toy store without attracting attention, at least until we actually purchased the treats and found this girl who was on packaging and delivery service (they don't really have checkouts at most stores since you can purchase through the interface at any point in the shop). Nils took them up for delivery, and The Nils Effect thoroughly distracted the girl wrapping the items, but when she saw the address he wanted her to deliver the packages to, she went all extra-awed and looked interestedly at the rest of us – and then stared at me and burst into tears.

  It is severely embarrassing to have people cry at the sight of you. Sen didn't like it at all, and attached herself to my leg, and I said some awkward words to the girl, who was apparently just glad I really wasn't dead. Word spread after that, as we headed to a bed-ware store and successfully had even Ys select a quilt cover that she liked. You could see people gathering in little groups to stare at us and, since we'd deliberately left the image-shield inactive on everyone except the kids, our shopping trip was soon a live-streaming event.

  We'd chosen the place we were going to have lunch with care – it had a rear exit which was close to the elevator down to the lower levels – and we had booked a nice big table to fit us all and arrangements had been made to let us escape out the back. The place filled up spectacularly quickly, and it was funny to watch us having lunch from a dozen different perspectives. Fortunately we were able to tuck the kids far enough back that they could barely be seen, and of course not recorded. And the city authorities had arranged for security outside, which was a good thing, since an impressive crowd gathered. I felt sorry for disappointing them by sneaking out the back, but not even slightly tempted to go out there.

  Sen likes her quilt cover (a seascape) enough to release her hostage cushions, and with the addition of two dolls and the latest in her ever-changing array of colourful public space designs, her room is beginning to look definitively hers. Ys and Rye both set their 'treats' out in their small lounge/play area, and have been sharing between the three of them. Nils told me later that there'd been a lot of private channel discussion over whether the kids would be too overwhelmed if everyone bought them gifts, as our escort had been sorely tempted to do. He said I was entirely to blame for First and Second Squads' sudden excess of parental yearnings, since they'd had all this practice babying me, but he still seemed to really enjoy showing Sen how to 'finger paint' her room's public space and then levitating her all over the ceiling so that she could leave virtual handprints up there. I set our main lounge ceiling to look like stars in response (I need to be careful about what appears in public space in our main living quarters, because it has a big impact on Kaoren's Sights).

  Endless amounts of news stories and forum discussions about my brief appearance – including exact details of what I'd bought for the kids. That caused me some angst, thinking that it might cause trouble when we go back to the talent school, but I don't think never buying Ys, Rye and Sen any presents is the solution to the talent school situation. And, although I really enjoy going out and seeing more of Tare – and just being able to do some hands-on shopping – I don't think I'll push for a trip like that again in the near future. People crying at me is dreadfully uncomfortable, and the bigger the crowd outside grew the more I wanted to leave. Today demonstrated the impossibilities of ever giving the kids a 'normal' Taren life, which is especially an issue because right now we don't know if I can go back to Muina.

  The theory they're evolving about what happened to me is guesswork held together by bubblegum and sticky tape. On the near-certainty side is that these malachite marbles, most likely built secretly by House Zolen, first unbalanced the newly built Pillar network – causing the barrier between real-space and near-space to start tearing – and then triggered the disaster on Muina. On the mostly-guesswork side, they think that House Zolen was either, incomprehensibly, aiming to turn themselves into Cruzatch, or ended up like that accidentally. And that they used the touchstone who existed at that time, the one who created the Ddura, as part of their malachite marble network. Since the malachite marbles are designed to use a touchstone, bringing me repeatedly near to them attuned me to what would count as the control room of the malachite marble machine. Whether that machine still exists, or I was linking all the way back to a thousand years ago, is still up to debate, as is what will happen if I go back to Muina. I might be fine so long as I don't go into one of the malachite marble rooms. I might be in danger if I go through Kalasa. Or I might drop into another death-spiral of energy expenditure as soon as I'm through the deep-space rift.

  Tomorrow I'm scheduled for some very wary projection tests so that they
can begin to try and find out whether projection of any sort will give me a medical crisis. They're not going to decide anything more till after that.

  Tuesday, September 23

  Disclosure

  Nothing dramatic happened during my testing session (which was scheduled in the afternoon after First and Fourth were back from another Ena rotation). It was held in the medical section, rather than out at Keszen Point, and I couldn't help remembering my nightmares about the Velcro massive, as well as all the lusting I did after Kaoren.

  Kaoren ran the session (with Maze and Zee in the next room), and kept me to a brief song projection. They fed me a mild sedative to get me to nap straight away, but I just slept, and fortunately they decided that I was safe to sleep in quarters (though I have a distinct feeling Kaoren's going to stay up watching me for a while).

  He's reviewing the questions The Hidden War producers have sent back (which are long and extensive and far more than I want to discuss – revolving mainly around how I felt at every moment, and especially when and why I fell in love with Kaoren). Neither of us like the situation with The Hidden War, funny as Kaoren finds the Lastier persona, and we're well aware that by trying to control it we're only giving it added legitimacy.

  We're going to fill the questions out together, but we need to decide whether we prefer to tell things which are private, or keep it minimal and have them concoct a romance half the planet will believe is the way things really happened. I still can't decide about releasing the log of my time in Kalasa, either.