"Enter a parasite system," she said, sounding exactly like Agowla High's headmistress that time half of Year 11 held a panty-shot scavenger hunt. "When the platform and Pillar network was activated, the wall between real-space and the Ena began to tear like a cloth under strain, despite all the calculations of its creators. This secondary system is most likely the cause."
She changed the display again, this time to a schematic of the site at Oriath – the outline of the underground rooms revealed by the scanners – and highlighted one in particular, at the very centre of facility.
"This room is the exact proportions of the aether-filled chamber Caszandra was trapped within, and projected for us." She zoomed in to the room, and though the scan was a little blurry, it was clear that the central pedestal was there. She replaced the image with a scan of the room I'd projected. "The diagrams covering the walls and ceiling appear to be symbolic references to the aether inflows – the platforms – and you will see from this projection that the aether is not simply contained in the room, but is slowly moving through it on spiralling paths from ceiling to floor. Scanner readings taken from the projection are not to be relied upon, but their measurement would suggest that the visible aether is merely leakage, and that a vast amount of aether is being channelled by this structure. It is probable that half, or even a majority of all the aether collected on Muina is being consumed by this room."
The image shifted to a close-up of the pedestal and the shrouded figure weighed down by tiny malachite marbles. I flinched a little inside, having no way of knowing whether Lira was watching, hating the thought of what was beneath that shroud.
"We believe these orbs represent the power stones placed across Muina," Isten Notra was saying. "You will note that if that correlation is true, we have three still to uncover. Those diagrams on the walls which do not relate to the platforms are considered likely to represent the large power stones. While the platforms are the power inlet, it appears that these power stones – large and small – are an outlet channel, drawing away and also consuming part of the aether output. Using the placement of the smaller stones in this projection, we have identified areas recommended for scouting."
Then she held up a small audio player and I winced, recognising the creepy whisper from my dream.
"We have spent considerable time attempting to enhance and separate the auditory component of Caszandra's projection. Multiple voices are speaking at once, and we are working with the theory that each voice is transmitted by one of the stones. We have separated the clearest."
She played one of the whispers, almost incomprehensible to me still since it was old Muinan and mostly names. Isten Notra had a translation which basically said "In [place], the immutable [person] has dominion over [this particular area]. The immutable [person] and [person] are as his left and right hands. No power is greater than the immutable [person] in [place], and nothing has strength to wound or weary or naysay his will. Beneath his power will dwell the immutable [person]..." And so on and on and on. I hadn't projected long enough for them to capture the full length of it, but it was all about the immutable this and that and how they lived at the pleasure of the person in charge of that area. Some of the whispers are male and some are female, and so far as they've been able to tell all the whispers are along the same lines, but with different areas and different people.
Isten Notra continued to speak aloud, even when directly addressing our interface audience: "It is believed that the shrouded figure in this room is the previously known touchstone, a child at the time of the disaster. Those of you who have observed the logs of Caszandra's testing sessions will be aware that a touchstone is able to create a projection of any object or place described to her, including fictional places." She let out a faint sigh. "The Ena is not a realm governed by simple physics. Our histories and our investigations suggest it is an expression of the minds of – not necessarily sentients – but of the living. It is the memory of hunters and hunted, of places etched strongly in thought and hopes and fears. In each of these power stone installations, barring the lack of sarcophagi at Kalasa, we have found a combination apparently of the willing and the unwilling, all of whom may have been consumed. We believe they were using both the touchstone, the aether, and the lives of those within the installations to attempt an act of creation."
"Something more than becoming Cruzatch?" asked one of the bluesuits. "Surely they could not have done all this for such an existence?"
"No. A grander ambition altogether. These are the projections of the location Caszandra has repeatedly visited in a dream state, where it appears some remnant of the previous touchstone's consciousness has been trapped. Our initial belief was that this was Muina's past, but I am now inclined to believe that what Caszandra has glimpsed is instead the end product of these machinations. A space perhaps in the Ena or possibly even separate to it – sealed and unreachable, maintained by the power system of the platforms. Created by their will, and by fixing their description of this place in the mind of a child whose connection with the Ena is profound. They tailored themselves a world."
"Then what are the Cruzatch?" I asked.
Isten Notra brought up the image of the weird balloon-tent room from my dream. "This has been interpreted by Sight Sight talents as a gate. It is obviously not a physical throughway. Still, to those who created a world which depends on this one for survival, there is an obvious need to access real-space. For decades we have been confused by a number of spaces where Cruzatch have appeared to belong to those spaces, generating regularly, but with the advice of our Nuran partners we have concluded that those spaces were a consequence of living creatures reacting to incursions of Cruzatch into their worlds – a secondary instance of them. The true Cruzatch are outside our experience of traditional Ionoth, and we believe they are either aether 'devices' controlled by those living on the parasite world, or even projections of their minds."
She displayed an image of the impossibly tall and golden people. "These are almost certainly the rulers of that world, and perhaps even the originals of the conspiracy on Muina, remade and sustained by the power stone system. To them, our activities must pose a direct and absolute threat. As we have grown more active in the Ena, so have they become more active in attempting to prevent our expansion.
"The fact that they are so eager to gain control of Caszandra suggests that just as we are experiencing increasing problems with the tearing of the spaces, the world they have created is not stable. Clearly they were unable, with a single touchstone, to create a world which existed independently of Muina. Now, the instability their system created in real-space is threatening their parasite world. It is probable that their activities on Nuri were an attempt to bolster their world's existence, spending lives to create stability. It is possible that Nuri is not the first world the Cruzatch have used so."
There was a little silence.
"And does this solve our problem?" asked Tsaile Staben, voice brisk and tight. "What impact if the power stone system is removed?"
"Unknowable." Isten Notra's mouth disappeared into wrinkles for a moment. "Suddenly removing the destabilising force is unlikely to be achieved without consequences. We will be forced to take an immense risk, and it would most certainly be disastrous to remove them sectionally. It is critical that we locate all of the power stones before tampering with them."
She turned to me. "Now – before we shift to the question of action. Caszandra, during your projection of this space, you objected with some considerable distress to the idea of moving the covering from the shrouded figure. Did you have any impression of consequences to that action?"
I hadn't been expecting to have to contribute, but at least have grown less easy to fluster, and so I thought before I answered.
"Something was going to change," I said. " I felt that looking would..."
I broke off, because my voice trembled, and Isten Notra smiled at me comprehendingly.
"The act of observation makes real? With the Ena, that
is a factor which we will need to keep in mind when dealing with the question of what is beneath that shroud after thousands of years." She moved on to technical details about the stresses on the walls between real space and the Ena, and the increasing rate of growth of the tears, and what we could expect to happen if we didn't do something soon. And that we had to prepare the three planets for the high probability that interplanetary travel would be cut off at least temporarily if the platform/Pillar structure is damaged by the removal of the power stones.
The chickens have decided which way to run. It's just a matter of managing it before the sky falls. My job in all this is to recover, keep in hiding, and maybe do some visualisations. Most importantly, no dates with Cruzatch.
After the meeting ended, I took Isten Notra to visit our quarters and see the kids. She called Ys 'valiant', which made Ys go all pink instead of glaring like a basilisk. Ys has a lot of respect for Isten Notra.
Kaoren sat through a second meeting about the spread of resources for searching for the other malachite marbles. They've decided to import some of the older Kalrani for these theoretically 'easy' missions and will be splitting off the spares from Fourth to captain these junior squads as provisional Fifteenth and Sixteenth squads. Toren and Dae don't know that yet.
It's Siame's forty-fifth birthday soon (fifteen). I asked Kaoren what the Taren custom is for birthdays (they usually only celebrate every fifth, with fifty being the really major one). In Earth-years Kaoren will be twenty-one soon, and me nineteen, and we need to set birthdays for the kids. Rye will be first, since we think he's about to turn eleven, and then Sen and Ys a long while from now. Sen's the only one who any of the Nuran Setari could give even an approximate age for, and we probably won't ever have their real birthdays. The greysuits had entered a 'presumed birth date' when they'd given them their thorough medical, and we spent some time working them all out in the new Muinan calendar (or the old Lantaren one, since the technicians found what the Lantarens used to call months and days, and have adopted that). We're in "year one" of the New Muinan calendar – it dates from when I unlocked security access – and since the kids will be Muinan citizens we may as well stick with the Muinan calendar for these things. The year, like the day, is slightly longer than Earth's, but at least in Muinan-years Kaoren isn't sixty.
Kaoren grew rather distracted and then quietly annoyed in the middle of the afternoon, and when I asked him why he told me that since my dragon, he and Siame had been getting a lot of email from their parents, who are not unnaturally upset that Siame has been so severely injured. They still don't approve of the Setari program enough to want Siame to stay in it beyond the absolute minimum, and they want her to come back home to live with them until she's recovered. Which will take months – having your abdomen sliced into by red-hot claws is not something which can be fixed in a week.
Having to be rescued by me has not helped Siame's attitude toward being a Setari, for all that she'd been injured rescuing me first, and she's considering returning home. The thing which tied her most strongly to the Setari was Kaoren, and now that his attention has shifted to me, she feels crowded out, and less inclined to want to be part of KOTIS.
Kaoren is philosophical about this to a degree – he does mainly want Siame to be happy – but he thinks this was a bad time for his parents to start pressing her because she's still very ill. I gave him a long shoulder rub after this conversation and he fell asleep, leaving me to chew over everything Isten Notra had said.
The Photoshop Gods of the Parasite Planet. It sounds like a B movie. And that world is obviously a bad wrong thing which has to be stopped because it's tearing the universe apart. But I can't help thinking about a bunch of kids playing with a little cloth ball. They're just kids. They're plainly some kind of lower strata beneath the Photoshop crowd. If we destroy the power stones, then we're killing them.
And Lira.
Saturday, October 25
A Thousand Cats
I spent the morning in medical feebly trying to project. I can do a little – just enough to get a few good dragon pictures for the kids – but it gave me a headache and made me feel mopey about Lira. She's been trapped for so long, used and then ignored, and I know that almost certainly there's no living flesh under the shroud in that room. She was trapped there like I briefly was, but had no way out, and all that's alive of her now is a projection.
And I want to help her because I'm 'soft like that', but I don't think there is any way to help her. Part of fixing this problem means dismantling whatever is sustaining Lira's consciousness. She mightn't be properly alive, but we're going to finish her off, and I feel wretched about that, maybe even worse than I do about the kids on the parasite world, who presumably are just living their lives, maybe not even aware that their world is some kind of interplanetary vampire.
Sen could tell I was feeling down and, though it took a while for me to figure out what she was doing, kept fetching things to me in an attempt to distract me. Odd bits of equipment, cushions, clothing, and food from the kitchens. Once I realised what she was trying, I had her sit on the side of my med-chair and played interface games with her until they let me go.
My current role is to stay tucked away so the Cruzatch don't get me, and to work on my health in the hopes that I can be a spy satellite again. Kaoren had warned me that he's going to step up my physical training regime, so I wasn't looking forward to the afternoon, but was entertained at lunch because the ship carrying the Kalrani arrived and I got to watch Toren and Dae's faces when everyone was brought into a single channel and the provisional squads were announced. The Kalrani – ranging in age from fifteen to seventeen – were all being incredibly correct and yet so very excited. Even the girl I first encountered drooling over Kaoren outside the Sights training area was there, and studiously avoiding catching my eye.
Most everyone went out to the patch of ground the Setari use for training, and the squads did some practice training. I'm still not allowed outside, so Kaoren left me with Halla and Sonn, who proceeded to torture me all afternoon. They're not bad to me, but I prefer being tortured by Mara. I was particularly pathetic in my dodging and rolling because Something Had Occurred To Me which was well worth capital letters, and I didn't know what to do about it. Eventually Sonn and Halla just stopped and Sonn said: "What is it?"
I blushed, because she was being patient, and I didn't think I could answer her. "I think I need to ask Isten Notra something," I said.
"We'll take a rest then," Sonn said, then surprised me by giving me an almost warm look. "You're learning," she added.
I puzzled over what she meant as I went and grabbed a towel, and decided that it was a reference to my old issue of not speaking up. Then I sent a channel request to Isten Notra.
"What can I do for you, Caszandra?"
"Isten Notra, who is it who decides whether I'm on second level monitoring or not?"
"A large and squabblesome group of people," she said, then added firmly: "Who are not likely to consider altering that arrangement until this crisis is over."
"I guessed. But – do you have the power to suspend it, just for a few minutes? I want to ask you and Kaoren something, but it's...I think it would be a bad idea to log it."
Isten Notra took a moment before responding, then said she would make some arrangements, and be over to see me before dinner. After that I was better able to concentrate on not being beaten up by Sonn and Halla, and only told Kaoren that Isten Notra was coming to chat with me. He could tell, I think, that there was more to it, but didn't ask questions until we three were alone in one of the unused apartments.
Isten Notra settled herself on one of the couches, then nodded to me. "Very well, Caszandra – I've suspended your log. You've certainly made me curious."
I squeezed Kaoren's hand first, explaining: "I asked if I could ask you both something off-log." Then I looked at Isten Notra. "This parasite world – would you describe it as an idealised version of Muina, one where the rulers have been mad
e more powerful, given abilities that the ordinary people do not have?"
"A fair enough description," Isten Notra said.
"But, you see, to me that's – that's a description of Muina."
I was watching Kaoren, saw his chin lift a fraction as he processed the idea, and his eyes narrowed.
I don't think it's often that Isten Notra is surprised, but she paused a long time before saying anything. "You're suggesting that Muina itself is a projection created by the people of your world?"
Her voice was calm, kind, but the way she said it make it sound like an awful insult. I flushed hard, but stumbled on. "Muina is so like Earth, just better put together. A little larger, with far fewer hot dry areas, a better mix of land and water – and all the water fresh, except for one shallow sea which conveniently happens to provide salt! The trees, the crops, the animals – so many are almost exactly the same, or variations of the kinds found on Earth. The one major difference is that the group of people in charge had psychic abilities which made them more powerful than those they ruled."
"Earth has no tears into the Ena," Kaoren said, his mouth a flat line, his eyes still narrowed. "Nothing you have described about it suggests that it's sustaining a parasite world."
"But the parasite world is a parasite because they didn't have enough power to make it permanent, to fix it in place. Something which endured, like my origami cranes. What if Muina was created by a more powerful system, one which wasn't latching on to something meant for other things. Or if they had two – a dozen – enough touchstones?"
My voice had gone a bit loud, so I stopped, and took a breath and told myself not to be upset.
"And so you take the question to Science and Sight," Isten Notra said, the smile returning to her eyes. "What does Sight say?"
Kaoren shook his head. "Sight Sight is rarely helpful with broad questions. I feel no immediate rejection, but nothing to suggest it's true, either."
The Touchstone Trilogy Page 95
