Gratuitous Epilogue : Touchstone Extras

by Andrea Höst

  Wednesday, January 21

  We've been in our house three days now. It's a big adjustment not having so many people around me, not having the constant background awareness of support staff, and the greensuits and technicians on the floors below, and of squads in the surrounding rooms. Plenty of small animals on Arcadia to catch my attention, but I'm really liking the relative quiet.

  After approval, the seeding of the house was quick and easy – the only concern being whether we could avoid disturbing the spring which feeds the waterfall – but it took a fair chunk of time before all the support systems and fittings were installed in the excessively large chambers we'd grown underground.

  The house is on the west side of the hill, and Pandora is to the east, so our view is full of uninterrupted lake and will have magnificent sunsets. In Winter when the leaves have fallen we'll probably be able to see First Squad Island to the south and slightly west.

  Maze helped a lot with the landscaping – scooping away the part of the hill on the south-east side where we want a big, enclosed grassy backyard, and shaping the face of the hill which forms a rear wall to the roof garden. Both areas are mostly still raw dirt at the moment, though we have marked out garden beds and planted a lot of seeds which the botanists tell me might produce the kind of lawn I described. Maze and Rye spent hours together in earnest discussion about which trees to remove and which to transplant so that we have a lot of sunlight, and selecting just the right trees for the backyard, and finding the perfect rocks to split and turn into stepping stones for a path. Maze thoroughly enjoyed all that, and says he's going to study botany and design so he can build gardens. I think he's serious.

  Since most everything we had at the Setari building belongs to KOTIS, we had a lot of shopping to do. Linens and kitchen equipment and chairs and tables and curtains (which at least the Kolarens understand) and dozens of things which we kept realising we'd need. With the industrial sector expanding by the day, and the variations which nanotech allows, even the few production companies which have formed offer a surprising amount of variety. The interface made it easy to compare options, and we held family voting sessions to pick the designs.

  We also went on an actual shopping trip to the mall/subway station which you can enter through Moon Piazza, which is where most of the handcrafted items are displayed. Amazing stuff – many of the early approved settlers were arts and crafts type – and I bought some really nice glassware and plates, and this incredible woollen tapestry which is deep green with mostly white flowers arranged in intricate Art Nouveau-ish lines inspired by the Kalasa decorations. I had the greatest difficulty getting the man at the shop to accept payment for any of it. We had lunch at one of the new restaurants, and I wish I could figure a way to take the kids out without having people showing up where we're eating, to cheer when they catch glimpses of us. Even Sen went all shy at that one (or possibly was just overtired from all the excitements and the challenge of sampling everyone's desserts).

  Images of our house didn't show up on the news until after it was nearly complete, which makes me like our architect even more. It was inevitable that pictures would leak once it reached the construction phase. And then the technicians were gone, and it was suddenly our house, very white and sprawling and new, and all we had to do was put our clothes away, make the beds, and figure out a way to keep the mud off the floors because we forgot to get mats.

  Alone at last! Except for Ketzaren and Jeh, who were my minders for the day. KOTIS Command was willing to let us not live in the Setari building, but Lira and I are just too valuable, too potentially dangerous, for us not to have minders, particularly since Kaoren has more assignments away from Pandora than I do. When Lira goes to the talent school each day, a second pair will be on call for her. Babysitting is a permanent condition of our existence.

  Not that I mind when it's Ketzaren and Jeh, and now that months have passed with no sign of Cruzatch, babysitting duty is more a matter of being on the same island, rather than in my lap. And Setari are certainly useful to have around when you're trying to arrange a party.

  It was a housewarming and thank you rolled into one. Most of the food was pre-made by one of the restaurants, but I did a little cooking myself, even though many of the ingredients are still fairly unfamiliar to me. Lohn and Mara helped a lot, even when they weren't assigned babysitters. Their house is going to be seeded soon, the first on their island, and I'm going to enjoy returning the many favours I owe them.

  The party's guest list was a bit of a struggle, because I really owe all the squads, even Fifth, but though Fifth have been behaving well, I'm not suddenly going to start liking them. And much as he tries to hide it, I think Kaoren would prefer that I never spoke to Els again. There were also the huge number of medics who've spent a lot of time keeping me alive, and a few of the kitchen staff that I've been chatting with about food, and – well, eventually Kaoren told me I couldn't invite half of KOTIS, and no-one would expect me to. I ended up just inviting First, Second and Fourth and Squad One and Isten Notra and Shon, since these are the people I'm closest to. [And Shon's two sisters, partially because I wanted to see if the youngest would scream and point at everyone. She and Sen got along extra-well, despite the age difference.]

  The party was last night, and I think everyone enjoyed it. It was a fairly warm night, but there was a balmy breeze, and the terraced patios worked really well as I introduced everyone to the Aussie tradition of the barbie. [It was easier than I expected to have a barbeque made. Kolar has a lot more things like this than Tare, and so it wasn't like I was asking for something extraordinary.]

  By now it's not too hard to get meat and vegetables (instead of algae-blocks), and I managed a nice lamb steak with (somewhat purplish) fried onions with a salad of non-poisonous green leaves. All the squads pretended to be astonished to discover that I'm capable of cooking. I'm teaching Kaoren to cook as well, since it's something he's never had any need to do.

  The surprise of the night came from Kaoren, who produced two tiny black scraps after dinner. Kittens! He said he remembered me saying that kittens are supposed to come in pairs. I was just as excited by them as the kids, though I've had time since to realise that they'll represent a drastic change to the island's ecosystem once they're big enough to hunt. I'm trying to think of a solution to that which doesn't involve giving up the kittens.

  The cat colony of Pandora is still mostly feral, but some of the adults have been semi-tamed, and there's been a great deal of kitten-napping going on. Our pair (which we haven't named yet) weren't the least bit afraid, but did get stressed by there being so many people, and went and hid behind Nils, which everyone thought was hugely funny.

  Zee leaned down and said something to him which actually made him go pink, and Ketzaren and I exchanged amused glances. I'm not the only person pleased and fascinated by Nils and Zee. First and Second are full of plans for the future, of adjusting to being 'planetary' Setari instead of constantly working in the Ena. And of the details of Lohn and Mara's upcoming wedding, and First Squad Island, and the question of how they felt about some of the children at the talent school.

  I must admit I invited Squad One not only because they're fun to talk to, but because I suspect Sonn (I still haven't reached the point of calling her Fiar) of being more than a little interested in Arad Nalaz, and trying not to let herself be. Fourth, like most of the younger squads, haven't thrown themselves into a welter of romance and plans for houses, but they seemed to enjoy the party well enough. Mori's been down lately because she misses both her family and Ro Kanato from Eighth, but otherwise Fourth has been rather focused on not 'losing their edge'. They've been pathfinding through the Ena, charting courses from Pandora to places without working platforms, like Oriath and Arenrhon. This leaves Kaoren rather tired in the evenings, but I was fairly successful in keeping the bulk of my party-planning from landing on his head as soon as he dropped down onto the patio.

  I haven't just been playing house and planning parties
, but my day job has been relatively stress-free. KOTIS Command has kept me to light training, irregular visualisations, and enhancing the Setari assisting the Mesiath construction. The only thing which I'm currently annoyed about is my hair, which is growing out super-slow. At the moment I have all these feathery wanna-be curls and look like a fuzzy duckling.

  I'm up in my eyrie right now, with the wind blowing the super-sheer gauzy curtains about. Jeh and Grif are guarding me by sitting down on the patio chatting. Kaoren is at Kalasa, and the kids at school, so there's no-one else in range of my senses. The kittens are chasing the curtains, which I should probably teach them not to, but I think it's too cute to stop. The next important task on our schedule is voting on names for them.

  Guess I'll go make Jeh and Grif some lunch.

  Chapter 3

  February

  Friday, February 6

  Stood Over

  The kittens are getting leggier and more mobile, and I'll probably have to find some kind of bells to put on a collar, because they've definitely got strong hunting genes. They're called Mip and Tick-tock. Mip was Sen's suggestion. I suggested Tick and Tock for names for both of them, but Sen liked it better as a single name. For the moment family votes are mostly still boiling down to Sen's preferences, but I'm glad to see that Ys and Rye are being positively influenced by Lira. Lira likes Sen, but she doesn't put her whims above things she really wants, and just occasionally Ys and Rye at least consider doing the same.

  Lohn and Mara's house will soon be at the fit-out stage, and Jeh, Grif and Ketzaren's won't be too far behind them. The rest of the Setari aren't moving so quickly, though most of them have taken their land grants to ensure the islands stay Setari. But for the moment barracks are just easier, and houses are something that the senior squads want more for family than for privacy. Lohn's fretting about the question of adoption, and Mara says it's because he likes so many of the children he's been tutoring at the talent school. They've included a lot of extra rooms in their house design, but that's mainly because they have tons of relatives back on Tare, and want them to visit or stay. And they're going to try to have a baby fairly soon after their wedding.

  I had a fair bit of stress a week ago. I've been on-and-off discussing being a touchstone with Lira (who still won't admit to being able to do anything any more), and told her about how I'd once made Nils dream about things which had happened to him in the past, and hadn't been able to break out of the dream. She told me that people with Illusion talents are the ones best able to guide projections, and they were deeply involved in the construction of the 'machines' for the grand projects like the Ddura. Unfortunately, I was stupid enough to mention this, and of course the technicians were fascinated by the link and wanted to set up some experiments to see whether Nils could make me project stuff. It's one of the few things I've really, absolutely refused to do. Not with Nils, not with anyone – but especially not with Nils. I was pretty calm about it when they suggested it initially, but when they sent Maze back to have a deep and meaningful about it, I got all stressed and barely stopped myself from asking him if he'd appreciate being forced to relive Helese's death, and could only say: "I really mean it. I can't hurt people that way." And of course had nightmares, and I guess Kaoren and Maze between them told the technicians to back the hell off firmly enough that they decided to leave it be (for now – being able to create things like the Ddura is something they're very interested in).

  Fortunately Nils wasn't around for any of this. He and Zee are in charge of the Setari out at Oriath, assisting with the slow excavation of the massive pile of rubble and keeping the site clear of Ionoth, so I haven't had a chance to see much of them.

  It's my birthday tomorrow. I'll be nineteen, which feels really old and really young to me at the same time. I'm feeling very lucky that Kaoren changed his mind after only six months.

  Chapter 4

  March

  March 9

  Stepping Forward

  KOTIS Command still haven't managed to map a path through to Tare or Kolar, though according to Tsur Selkie's whiteboard Tare and Kolar have managed to reach each other. The route isn't really very different – it's just that it's now like working your way through an invisible maze which wiggles about, and if you touch the walls you might get swished through a rift into real-space. The trip will be very Indiana Jones in future – all a matter of timing, of pausing and dashing forward to roll under the swinging blades, and then stopping again at the next roiling obstacle, but not waiting too long in case a huge rock comes rumbling up behind you.

  It does wiggle in a predictable pattern, rather like a very complex tide, but I can see why the old Lantarens thought the Pillars worthwhile. I'm more than astonished that they ever managed to put them in place. It's not like they had scanners and computers which would remember the patterns of the changing landscape.

  The exploration group is nearly there, though, and expect to meet up with the Tare group in the next couple of weeks. It'll be weird when we start getting new settlers again. After months of being cut off, people really are beginning to consider themselves 'Muinan'. Even Pandoran and Mesian, now that both settlements are up and running. It's so extraordinarily strange watching the continual expansion – new buildings going up, old ones painstakingly restored, animals and plants discovered and half-remembered names given to them, or new ones made up.

  Rye's named several species. Kaoren and I are continually impressed by him, by his methodical cataloguing of the flora and fauna of the island. Shon helped him with understanding the initial requirements, and he's been producing reports on Arcadia ever since. He asks Kaoren to review them for word selection before he submits them, but while there are plenty of errors, his reading and writing skills have improved immensely and it's hard to believe they've been written by an eleven year-old who couldn't read at all six months ago. It does help that after basic lessons the interface allows you to do whole-word selection rather than spelling individual words.

  Shon tells me that, though they might review the islands properly at some future date, the work Rye's doing is genuinely valuable. There's these tiny, hand-sized brown and black possum-like things which haven't yet been located anywhere but Arcadia and Siriath (First Squad Island), and Rye named them Restels (for Sentarestel) and he's borrowed several scanners and is creating his own mini-documentary about them. Rye fills every moment of each day with the thousands of things he wants to do – taking care of his garden, cataloguing the island's animals (and finding an interesting 'sonic collar' solution which makes it hard for Mip and Tick-Tock to successfully hunt), school studies, and combat training. He's also very interested in the team sports which the schools have started organising, and has improved as a swimmer in leaps and bounds, and is just embracing his new life so wholeheartedly. Time spent with Kaoren is still his greatest joy, but last week I got this sudden violent hug in return for a whiteberry muffin, which I'm happy to take as proof that Rye is glad of me as well.

  Ys' twelfth birthday is coming up and I've been struggling to decide on the perfect present for her. Ys already has the two things she wants most: Sen and Rye safe and happy, and access to more information than even she can gulp down. Lira fills any need for social contact beyond Sen and Rye, and the only thing Ys would probably admit to wanting is to not have to go to school because it interrupts her reading. I have an idea about something she'd probably enjoy, and I'm going to ask Isten Notra about it, but I have to work myself up to that because it's a big favour. I'm also going to get Ys a microscope, which I think she'll find interesting – I've had that ordered for weeks.

  Ys and Lira grump at each other occasionally – Lira doesn't think studying every free moment you have is at all amusing – but fortunately their friendship is proving pretty solid, and Ys always makes time for family events. They're both still fairly reserved with me and Kaoren, but are growing more confident and less defensive. It helps, I think, that Kaoren and I are very careful to treat their rooms as theirs and ne
ver go into them without asking permission. That and the certainty of routine and consistency of rules seems to go a long way. Everyone has chores now, and an allowance if they do their chores, and I'm completely fascinated by the things they choose to buy. Lira seems to want to have her own statue collection, which is kind of awesome.

  There's also very good news about Lira – she's a tiny bit taller than she was when we recovered her, and the medics say she appears to be growing normally. So, whatever else she might be, she's not frozen in time. She's developed an interest in music now, puzzling her way through the massive amounts available through the interface, and I'm wondering whether to start her with learning an instrument, or encourage her into art – she still likes playing with Ys' modelling toy, but I'm not sure how passionate she is about any of it. She's more inclined to be social than Ys, but still hasn't adjusted to not being isolated and kept separate and so has a habit of reacting with suspicion to anyone trying to talk to her, and is very imperious with all but the close circle of people she trusts (she's imperious with us too, but not as consistently).

  Sen's not been having too good a time. She's transitioning into one of the tough periods for Sight Sight talents, where most of the certainty vanishes, and there's rarely a night when she's not punished with cruel and confusing dreams. And her Place Sight has begun to strengthen, which means touching certain objects or being in certain places can be very painful. We've been making up a bed for her in a little side-room off our bedroom (which I intended as the "baby's room", if and when we have any). It works very well for Sen, letting us get through most nights without having her in bed with us, but close enough to help her through the worst dreams. She finds having us within earshot very comforting. The change is sad, though, because she's no longer inclined to hug everyone and anyone, and will even flinch away from people at times. Kaoren's wealth of experience with controlling his Sights is exactly what she needs, but there's nothing anyone can do to stop this from being an awful patch for her.