by Andrea Höst
And she also hasn't been adopted. Alay told me that at the end of the school day when all the adopted children are collected or head off home Kara very clearly demonstrates how little not being collected bothers her. Indifference underlined and oh, so painful. The fewer unadopted kids remain, the more the fact begins to sting, and there are very few unadopted kids at the talent school now – mainly older ones who are nearly adults. Karasayen and Lianzrenar are both thirteen, and I suspect Maze and Alay will be good for them in a lot of ways.
I am always very careful to keep an eye on any Nurans who come to Arcadia, to make sure that Ys and Rye don't feel that their territory is being invaded, and to ensure that no-one even momentarily considers looking down on them. I'm not very fierce about many things, but no matter what cultural expectations anyone might have, or how traumatised they've been, I won't tolerate people treating my kids as some kind of underclass.
No dramas, though. Rye (who is just the sweetest kid) decided to take Lianz under his wing, and Lianz revealed an interest in Rye's gardens (possibly why Maze was so taken with him). They weren't exactly comfortable with each other, but by the end of the party Lianz didn't seem quite so stressed. Kara was a bit like Shar had been – and spent a fair amount of time talking to him – staying in 'visiting dignitary' mode except when startled. She does seem to be quite close to Alay, though, and went rather pink during a private conversation, and looked at least briefly happy. Sen didn't act overly concerned by her – no hugs, but no flinching – so I decided to relax.
Sen's nightmares have cooled down a bit, and her main preoccupation at the moment is being a witch. I've subtitled a few Miyasakis for the kids, and Ys repeatedly watches Spirited Away, while Sen is devoted to Kiki's Delivery Service, has decided she's a witch, insists on being called Kiki, and keeps trying to ride about on a broom she had Ys make for her. With requisite cat stuffed in a basket and tied on the end. Tick-tock and Mip won't go near her any more, and she likes nothing more than getting anyone with Levitation or Telekinesis to fly her about on her broom 'delivering' things from one end of the house to the other. It's hugely funny, and makes me miss Ghost rather. Ghost probably would have ridden about on the broom.
Twelfth and Third have only been here a few days, and I asked Maze directly to assign Zan plenty of bodyguard duty so I could see more of her. It's also a good idea because it cuts down the way KOTIS Command likes to overwork strong Telekinesis talents. I had a heap of fun showing her around the island when she and Kiste arrived for their first turn preventing me from Doing Evil.
I've spent a solid chunk of time carefully watching Zan for any hint of how she was feeling, but as usual Zan was not giving any of her inner life away. Kiste was cheerful, and the rest of Twelfth seem to be in a good place. I really like how they've changed toward Zan, how the squad atmosphere is positive and comfortable. And Sen showed no inclination to bring Zan cushions, which was good to see.
I almost sound disappointed that she's not miserable. Must stop myself from fumbling attempts to set her up with someone.
I've seen less of Third in the short time they've been here, but I think they're okay. There's a streak of sadness, and of course without Eeli the dynamic of the squad has changed significantly. I think both squads enjoyed Rye's party a lot.
Chapter 13
Another December
December 25
Merry Christmas
I got to do a projection of my family this morning, and catch up on what's happening back home. Thankfully some behind-the-scenes manoeuvring has made the Crummies' Inquiry less invasive now that it's coming to its end, so the question of bringing my family here hasn't been publically debated, and a special (and very closed-mouthed) committee can approve my projections without any suggestion that everyone on three planets needs to know what I've been doing. The Inquiry's recommendations won't be made public for a while, and then the laws will be formalised.
Jules is getting so tall – it's really disconcerting. He makes me feel like I'm a stranger. I've been gone more than two years now, and I'm very different inside my head, and home has become the place I used to live. Kaoren knows enough English now to catch a little bit of my conversation with my Mum, but not to have more than a disjointed idea what we talked about. If the gate aligns according to schedule, I'll be able to send a letter to Mum in February trying to arrange Operation Move-to-Muina, and I wanted to discuss with fake-Mum things I should tell real-Mum about in the letter. Whether it needed to be a complete secret, how extensive the Move-to-Muina invitation was, whether it was possible for anyone to 'just visit'. Whether it was okay to bring our cat.
Then Mum floored me by telling me Dad had gotten married! And I'm going to have a new brother or sister in a few months. I am so not dealing with that. I have a step-mother named Sharon. Mum didn't properly answer when I asked what she's like, but, argh, I guess it means Dad's happy, which is a good thing. I suppose I might meet her in a year and bit.
Kaoren and I have been starting to put together proper ideas for our wedding. Neither of us are particularly traditional, or devoted to a particular image of what the wedding should be like. I want to wear something resembling one of the less over-the-top Earth wedding dresses, and Kaoren is going to wear formal robes in colours complementing the girls' dresses. He's very against me being blindfolded and picking him out from a bunch of other guys, but does want to do the exchange of patterned cakes. We both very strongly want to make our wedding day 'adoption day' as well, though we haven't discussed this with the kids yet. Basically, we want to have an additional stage of the ceremony where we'll formally adopt them. And, after much pressure from Sen, we're going to see about producing one of these babies she's so keen on.
The idea having a baby myself is pretty scary. Alay let me feel her daughter kicking, and I had to restrain myself from making Chestburster comments, because it just weirded me out having something which wasn't Alay moving beneath her skin. Very normal and all that, I know, but just...weird. Kaoren told me on his birthday that he's a little nervous about having babies too, but more because even with all Tare's technology, it's still one of the most dangerous things women do.
My big amusement of the moment is a new program from the same producers who are behind The Hidden War. The Hidden War will wind up after this season – and all the kids except perhaps Sen are extremely pleased about that because they despise the way they're being depicted (they opted to not communicate more than their ages and the scriptwriters – perhaps trying not to offend – came up with these tremendously brave and noble children who are a little too good to be real). But just as we're coming into the final throes of The Hidden War (next episode is the one where I get sucked into the Cruzatch's trap), this new show has started called Muina Ez (Into Muina) which follows two settler families (one from Tare and one from Kolar) from the acceptance of their settlement applications onwards, showing all the minutiae of what 'average' people are encountering when moving to Muina.
It's interesting and well-produced, and really gets the feel of the process right, I think. But it's truly funny to me because of the way my family is depicted. They don't get actors to portray us – or show images or anything – just long-distance shots of Arcadia and the other islands as this near-mythic goal on the horizon. Both sets of settler kids are shown as completely fascinated by me and Lira and Kaoren (and Setari in general), except for the primary heroine of the story, who is fixated on Ys. Ys, Rye, Sen and Lira's personalities and traits are better known now, and the primary heroine of Muina Ez is this smart, slightly socially awkward Kolaren girl whose head is stuffed full of stories of epic derring-do, and Ys has been her hero since saving me after I projected the dragon. She has a counterpart (and obvious future love interest) in a brainy Taren boy and it looks like they're going to play up Kolaren-Taren-Nuran culture clashes for all it's worth. It's a fun show, and very informative about the settler process.
Ys' reaction to the first couple of episodes has been priceless. She's used
to the focus being on Lira or Sen, but Ys is definitely the mythic heroine of this plot so far and she's trying to be infuriated but it's hard for her to withstand such a high compliment. Lira teases her a little about it, but not too much (most of the other kids on the show are severely Lira-worshipful, which she's loving).
I probably shouldn't be enjoying it so much. Being such public figures is a whole extra strain on them, but so far the kids are handling it better than I expected. The last episode had a long discussion about House Renar and just what was going on inside it, and the whole issue with Sen's parents – and even just who Ys and Rye's parents are too (a subject too touchy for them to discuss even with me). All pure speculation – according to Maze they're not going to present anything as fact about us which isn't known as fact, but they're certainly willing to argue through all the rumours. Both families are based in Pandora (with parents with exotic jobs which mean they get to visit other settlements) and the characters' absolute aim is to get canoes and paddle to Arcadia – exactly as two Kolaren teenagers attempted to just recently, except they don't want to be intercepted by greensuits as the teenagers were. The show's entirely produced and created here and Lira's very curious to try and spot the actors whenever we go into town. Muina's gradually accruing more and more personalities and celebrities, and famous people from Tare and Kolar seem to be constantly migrating here. It fortunately takes some of the focus off me and the Setari (although a lot of the famous people are just as much Setari-fans as the next person).
There's whole heaps of rumours going around about my wedding plans now. All wildly wrong except for the obvious guess about it being held on Arcadia. Kaoren's parents will be coming back to Muina a little beforehand – they've decided to emigrate, but to my relief don't want to be based in Pandora. Arden's going to visit, but not emigrate as yet.
Chapter 14
Another January
January 15
Close Call
Sight Sight talents are tremendously useful.
Since Maze and Alay adopted, Alay hasn't been scheduled to be one of my minders, but we do see her quite regularly. She'll drop in to chat (to me or to my minders), or we'll see her when we go visit to view the latest things Maze, Rye and Lianz have done to Maze's garden, or during one of the school runs or at someone else's house. Still, it had been a few weeks since I'd seen her – she's been travelling about a bit less now that she's getting toward the awkward end of her pregnancy. The weather's been tremendously hot and sunny lately, and our shady pool is excellent for swimming on these really sunny days, and the waterfall is always a favourite, so I invited Mara, Alay, Ketz and Jeh to bring their kids over for a small swimming party while Fourth and the combined non-pregnant bits of First/Second were due to be off an on Ena mission. Sen of course leapt on Mara and Alay to say hello to their babies. Babies are definitely her favourite thing in the whole world (and she's literally counting the days till our wedding and is expecting Kaoren and I to produce one immediately).
Kaoren has been giving Sen a lot of Sights training the past couple of months while she struggles with Place, and also teaching her the ethics and social conventions which have grown up around talents who can see things people might wish to keep private. Sen, while a very joyful little girl, is well-versed in harsh realities. I'm willing to bet she was in no doubt about the enjoyment Kimirenar got from his treatment of Ys and Rye, and Sight Sight can reveal all sorts of infections and fatal diseases and cancers and things. Kaoren says he's seen pregnant women and known that the child wasn't viable and there would be a miscarriage, and it was obvious that Sen had seen much the same thing. We've been giving her lots of tips about what she should do when she sees personal information about someone – particularly how to keep calm about exciting pregnancies, or what to do if someone's sick or ill. Dragging someone into your bathroom to ask if their secret is a secret is not the best way to go about it. In the end, since anything Sen could see would probably be obvious to Kaoren or Siame as well, we told her if her Sight showed her something she wanted to talk about, she should check with one of them before doing or saying anything.
Sen still isn't much of an actress yet, though, so when Lohn, Mara and Alay arrived with their horde, I knew that something was up by the way she behaved after her usual greeting-the-babies hugs. She wasn't totally obvious about it, just getting rather subdued, but it was enough to have Ys and Rye, who know Sen backward and forward, trying to work out why she was hiding being upset. I simply opened a channel to all my kids, and asked Sen if this was one of those Sight issues we'd been talking about, then was all approving about the fact that Sen had sent for Siame. I could see Mara had picked up on the atmosphere too, and after a sharp glance at Sen and then me, she tidied everyone down to the pool, making sure Lohn was along as supervisor, then came back. I did my part by keeping Alay distracted, and giving Sen a hug to make her feel better.
Siame was in her studio, which we'd built her on the sunniest side of the hill – south, and kind of 'around the corner of the hill' from the house on the way to The Wedding Garden. [We've also planned the 'guest house' for our Setari minders, but it's only just been seeded.] Rye (with Maze and Kaoren's help) worked out the course of pathways between our house and the two new buildings, and laid stone paving and even steps in a few places, so they're both connected but quite separate from our house. That Siame, still mildly paint-daubed, suddenly dropped out of the air on our patio rather than walking told me that Sen must have sounded quite urgent in her summons.
This was one time I really appreciated how in-command and self-assured Siame is. Completely unfussed, she sat down beside Alay, asked if she minded her checking something, and then when Alay shook her head, bent down and rested her cheek against Alay's stomach. Then she said in exactly the same unhurried tone: "No immediate danger, but the umbilical cord is wrapped around her throat. You'd best visit the medics."
Alay had gone completely white, of course, but Siame being so calm and businesslike helped and Mara very practically said that she'd borrow our sled and take her straight away. Jeh, Ketz and Lohn could stay to watch the kids, and of course I would be there and so were my guards for the day (two from Twelfth Squad) so there were no problems leaving them. Siame enhanced and levitated herself and Alay down to our boathouse, and Mara turned and gave Sen a sudden, fierce hug, squeezing her tightly, then trotted off after them. Sen waited till we were safely alone and then burst into tears and told me that the baby was unhappy, as I suppose an unborn baby might be if something was twisting around her throat.
It hadn't pulled too tight, thankfully, but was apparently on the more dangerous end of occurrences. I'm not sure what the solution would have been on Earth – an emergency Caesarean? – but Taren technology plus psychics meant that a telekinetic medical technician was able to carefully untangle everything within a short time and, though they kept Alay in medical overnight just to be sure, she and the baby seem to be fine. Not fun for Maze to come back from an Ena mission to find Alay under observation in medical, and no more fun for Mara or Ketz or Jeh, all of whom are just starting to show, and all of whom really really don't want to think about all the things which can go wrong with babies. Lianz and Kara had spent a pretty terrible afternoon as well, since they'd immediately noticed that Alay had left, and no matter how reassuring you try to be, you can't make kids not worry when you explain things like that.
It was really good to see how supportive all the kids were of each other. Of course, they all really like and care about Maze and Alay, but when the day stopped being a swimming frolic and became a long and tense wait around the pool, I could see that a lot of the divisions which had originally existed had at least relaxed a little, and that Ys and Rye treated two children which they'd had such huge walls erected against with a good deal of sympathy and compassion. And no suggestion from Lianz or Kara that mere servants didn't know their place or anything like that. Ys and Kara actually had a little private conversation together, and I suspect that Kara has come
to value Ys' ability to get information out of the interface.
By mostly living on the same island, the senior Setari have made sure that they have a convenient support network set up for themselves – just as the junior Setari who have reserved all the land on the other islands will if and when they can take up a permanent Muina residency. Once we'd had the good news about the detangling, Lohn took Lianz and Kara over to his and Mara's house for a sleep-over, and Maze's parents brought them a change of clothes and so forth. It's a very large extended family.
Maze dropped over, after he'd reassured himself that Alay was all right, and swept Sen up in the hugest hug and thanked her and ended up taking her on a quick visit to Alay so that Sen could be sure that the baby wasn't unhappy any more. And her cheerfulness after seeing that was so in turn reassured Maze and Alay a great deal. She still had tremendous nightmares for the next couple of days, but Kaoren said to expect this because of the amount of fear of 'could have been' everyone was dealing with. He had a nightmare too, and wouldn't talk about it, but it's pretty easy to guess what it was about.
After all that, the announcement of the laws the various governments had decided upon to deal with touchstones was a bit of a non-event. Especially since, other than having an oversight committee and being stricter and more transparent about what mission assignments I (and eventually perhaps Lira) am given, they aren't really changing a great deal from the way I'm treated now. They've made "touchstones screwing with people with their powers" illegal in a vague kind of way, but haven't made it illegal for me to conjure up hot chocolate or videos. When it boils down to it, they want to leave flexibility, and don't want to risk ending up being forced to prosecute me for doing something like conjuring a dragon to fight off a Cruzatch attack. It's all pretty much what Kaoren and Maze said we'd probably end up with, back when the whole issue was raised, but it's nice to have it over.