In Arcadia (Touchstone Book 5)

by Andrea K Höst

  Laura had known all along that was true, but it helped to be told. She was so lucky to have Sue with her.

  "Is there anything you regret, coming here?" she asked, impulsively. "You had a reputation, on Earth. A professional network, and so many friends,

  Sue shrugged. "I don't miss my hearing aids. I miss Bet. I would have missed Nick, but since he ended up coming along, I get to enjoy being semi-parental with him again. He's such a good kid and, worrying about his father aside, this is the happiest I've seen him. As for my reputation, I'm building a new one, and have even sold some photo compilations."

  "Really? I haven't sold a thing."

  "I've made almost enough to buy a cup of coffee, if there was coffee to be had. Coffee, now, that I'm going to miss. I'm down to hold-out rations of what I brought with me already. But watching you tie yourself in knots over Serious Soldier almost makes up for that."

  "It is my honour to serve."

  "And I thank you for sacrificing yourself on the altar of hot sex and quality cuddles. So try not to go overthinking things."

  Laura saluted, and then they paused appreciatively to watch another flight lift over the distant city of Pandora, and waft past for their consideration.

  It was unlikely that Laura could put doubts aside entirely, no matter how often she told herself it was all really quite simple. She didn't think Gidds was a simple man, even if his approach had been very straightforward. The break before seeing him again would probably be a good thing, so long as she followed Sue's advice and didn't work herself up into knots. Five days until the Thanksgiving Ceremony, and ten until...until another night of Gidds.

  Chapter Seven

  "Mum, are you two ready—oh, hey, Princess Leia!"

  "Who?" Lira asked, suspiciously.

  "The person I'm modelling your hairstyle after," Laura told the girl, then paused, frowning over at Cass standing in the doorway. "Wait. You haven't shown them Star Wars? Are you sure you're my daughter?"

  "I haven't subtitled anything since Tyrian was born," Cass said. "Between him and working again, I hardly ever find any spare time, and KOTIS is always pushing me to do more BBC nature documentaries anyway. You should do it for language practice."

  "I will," Laura said, and then shared with Lira a still of the Cloud City escape, so she understood who they were talking about. "It's a style that only works for people with such long, thick hair as yours, Lira."

  "Why does she have a weapon?" Lira asked, interestedly.

  "Her group was betrayed, and she's fighting her way free." Laura made certain the looped braids were even and added: "There, you're done. Do you like it?"

  Lira considered her image in the mirror. She was a beautiful girl, and normally confident in her appearance, but the Ruuel Devlin family had a rare public engagement that day, and everything they did, said, and wore would be minutely discussed by their millions of fans and critics. Nearly-fourteen—in Muinan or Earth years—was a difficult enough time for any child, without the added pressure of such intense scrutiny.

  "It is...yes, I like it," Lira said. "Thank you, Unna Laura."

  "You're welcome," Laura said, giving the girl a tiny hug. "Is it time to hurry, Cass, or is it more of a leisurely stroll?"

  "Stroll," Cass said. "When Kaoren's involved, we hardly ever get to the hurry stage." As Lira headed out of Laura's bathroom, Cass lingered for her own hug. "Thanks Mum. She really needed something extra today."

  "All the time I put into helping your aunts cosplay certainly is coming in handy. Does Lira find public appearances harder than the rest of the children?"

  "There's a lot more focus on her. I think she could handle that well enough, but there's always discussion about whether she's visibly aged, and…and how long she'll last. Not being 'real' is a genuine nightmare of Lira's, and they practically have betting pools about it."

  "That talk isn't dying down, now that it's been a couple of years?"

  "Oh, a bit," Cass said, switching to interface conversation as they headed out to the patio. "And she is at least an inch taller than she used to be—but I think it's going to be with her her whole life. The Ionoth girl."

  Lira—unlike Ys, Rye and Sen—was not a survivor of the moon world of Nuri. Instead, she had been born on Muina, centuries ago. The last recorded Touchstone before Cass, she had been kidnapped and used as a power source for a giant, reality-distorting machine—and had not, technically, survived the experience.

  Exactly how Lira came to regain a physical form, and how long it would last, was a subject of much debate and scientific study. To all tests and scans she was as human as Cass, but there was no way to prove that she was not a creation of the Ena, just a different sort of Ionoth monster.

  Lira had paused with Rye to examine the strawberries, and Laura promised them that tomorrow they could harvest the ripest. Then Julian, neatly dressed, with his hair combed flat, arrived with only mildly dragging feet, and they headed down the hill.

  "Cass," Laura continued, over their private interface channel, "when you say Lira is nearly fourteen, do you mean fourteen in Earth years or Muinan years?"

  Cass produced an expressive grimace.

  "Both, sort of. They told me the kids' estimated ages in Taren years, at first, and I converted that to Earth years, and we picked rough birthdays for them. But I should have converted them to Muinan years, and when Ys realised and pointed out that most of them were really a year younger in Muinan years, none of them—not even Ys—were willing to actually change their supposed ages. Since we don't have official birthdates for any of them, we let them have their way."

  "I, on the other hand, have embraced being thirty-nine instead of forty-four," Laura said. "Don't the school officials and so forth object to incorrect ages?"

  "They're letting it slide. A lot of the things you can and can't do under the laws here are based on passing tests rather than a strict age cut-off anyway."

  To Laura's delight, there was a large version of a flitter waiting for them at the docks, hovering patiently beside the bank. Only Tyrian, and Kaoren's sister Siame—who was visiting to play babysitter—were skipping the Thanksgiving ceremony, and Arcadia's residents had six additional Setari along to play bodyguard. Mostly for Cass and Lira, who weren't actually allowed to travel without at least two guards each.

  "Does it still bother you?" Laura asked Cass through the link, after they had boarded. "That you can't go anywhere alone?"

  "It's bothering me more for the kids, now. Lira's the only one that has a mandatory guard, but there's no way any of them could go wandering about Pandora on their own. We're lucky that guard duty is usually rostered to Setari we consider friends." Cass glanced pensively at the rest of the occupants of the flitter. "A lot of them have much the same problem, anyway—they're heroes, and plenty of people will always be completely obsessed with the Setari. I'm sorry you all get stuck with it, though."

  Laura had tried to avoid becoming too caught up in the notoriety of being "Kaszandra's Mother", but she had certainly been left disinclined to wander about the city after reading a few of the interface sites frankly discussing everything from her appearance to her known purchasing choices. All the Terran transplants were the focus of great interest, and not even Sue particularly enjoyed it.

  Today, that interest was at highest intensity. First a Thanksgiving Ceremony held in the vast Moon Piazza, where an audience of thousands—not even counting those watching over the interface—cheered constantly, either at Cass or the Setari. Next came a family-oriented, VIP-only picnic lunch in a park area, where a truly formidable number of people asked Laura what she thought of Muina, and told her how proud she must be of her daughter.

  Cass herself was a small revelation. She had not become a chatty social schmoozer, but the day was clearly within her coping abilities. She gave a short speech, politely if briefly responded to the questions of various dignitaries, and constantly tag-teamed with Kaoren and their Setari escort to keep an eye out for her family and guests. Laura h
ad never expected to be rescued by her daughter during social situations, but Cass very neatly extricated Laura from an extremely intrusive man, and deposited her with Alyssa, Nick and Sue instead.

  "We're clustering for protection while we wait for the signal to leave," Sue said, cheerfully. "If we all stand frowning seriously at each other I figure it'll be at least five minutes before someone butts in to ask what Cass was like as a child."

  Since she'd been asked exactly that at least two dozen times, Laura could only smile thinly, before saying to Alyssa: "I wasn't sure how Maddy would cope with the crowds, but she seems to be enjoying herself."

  "That's Sen. She always works Maddy into a silly mood. Does it deliberately too. For a six year-old, Sen's an uber-manipulator."

  "So long as she never turns her powers to evil…" Nick murmured.

  "Have you decided whether to go ahead and send Maddy to school?"

  Alyssa nodded. "I was against it a few weeks ago, since she's well behind the rest of us in language because of the delay in installing her interface. But the other kids do seem to distract her from missing home. Once she's there, we'll move on to what the heck now for us."

  "I'm concentrating on passing the adulthood exams," Sue said. "I find it oddly disturbing not to be legally classed as an adult. My first few attempts were shambolic, but I'm determined."

  "It's not that they're difficult—it's that you can't use the translation program in the exam environment," Nick agreed. "We have to push our comprehension skills. After that…" He and Alyssa exchanged glances. "We're going to join KOTIS."

  "For serious?" Sue said, surprised. "This is the first I've heard of this."

  Alyssa nodded. "When Nick says 'join', he means 'do a lot of work so that we can qualify to apply', but yeah, I'm sold on the idea. I'm not sure we would have thought of it ourselves—we started out asking Kaoren whether anyone would object if we went and got jobs in a store or restaurant or something. We can't just sit around on Arcadia living off Cass' money, after all. And even though they have this 'base level' concept here, where everyone gets necessities for free, it's always going to be more fun to have more of an income."

  "You can live reasonably comfortably on base level," Nick said. "Free housing, food, clothes, toiletries, interface access and the equivalent of free-to-air TV—but I want to travel."

  "Not to mention watch that hilarious show about those kids trying to get into the Setari-linked school here in Pandora," Alyssa added. "Anyway, Kaoren's…interestingly honest when you ask him important questions. And he told us we'd be giving KOTIS a massive headache if we worked somewhere KOTIS couldn't easily control access to. That we're too close to Cass not to be a potential security risk for her."

  "I get that whenever I try to take off alone," Sue commented. "Someone might kidnap me and try to use me for leverage, blah, blah, blah."

  "Kaoren actually suggested setting up a smallholding," Alyssa went on. "Farming, with a couple of KOTIS greensuits to guard us. Which...no. I've never met a plant I couldn’t shrivel within a month, and I get too anxious about sick animals to want to be looking after a few thousand of them. We also wanted something where we're in easy reach of the Setari islands—Maddy's only just started making friends here. I'm not going to move her."

  "When Kaoren suggested KOTIS next, it didn't seem like any better of an idea," Nick said, with a faint sigh. "Guns, saluting, even killing monsters—that's not my kind of thing. But Kaoren pointed out that now that they've figured out a better way of exploring the deep space of the Ena, KOTIS is transitioning from 'Organisation for saving us from dimensional destruction' into 'planetary exploration, security, and settlement'. NASA on steroids. They've only just started using drone shoals in the Ena, and have already catalogued five hundred planets. It can't be long before they stumble across more habitable ones."

  "Suddenly this becomes understandable," Sue said. "So KOTIS is going to transmogrify into a combo of Space Patrol and Galactic Survey? That sounds so completely awesome I'm almost tempted to sign up myself. Do you think they need official photographers?"

  "Do you think dawn push-ups would be involved?" Laura put in.

  Sue grimaced. "You're right. I wouldn't last a week. But I can live in hope of forming my own rag-tag band of misfits. You up for 'acquiring' a ship and skirting the near side of the law with me Laura?"

  "Running risky trade deals in the face of KOTIS disapproval?" Laura suggested agreeably. "Having tense confrontations over the rights to alien ruins, but helping our antagonists out occasionally with pesky space pirates and first contact situations?"

  "We can be the thorn in KOTIS' side," Sue said, with enthusiasm.

  Almost on cue, Laura received a channel request over the interface. Her heart thumped, hard, and she felt just a little ridiculous as she silently answered.

  "Gidds."

  "Laura." The interface-transmitted voice—a combination of mental projection and sub-vocalisation—struck her every bit as deeply as it did in person. "I hope you're well?"

  "A little overwhelmed," Laura said, only a touch ironically.

  "The session I'll be attending next is one of the first public discussions of the Triplanetary's approach regarding Earth. It can be viewed on this channel." He sent her a link, paused a moment, then added: "These are preliminary sessions, to allow those who wish to contribute to air their views. They are not those who will make the decisions."

  "I—thank you for letting me know."

  "I'll see you next week."

  "Turns out there's plenty of jobs in KOTIS that are a lot more interesting than guarding and/or shooting things," Alyssa was saying as Gidds cut the link—reminding Laura that he was famously abrupt. "Some we don't have a chance in hell of getting—we're way behind on the science track—but even with all their tech, they still need administrators, quartermasters, cooks, that kind of thing. On ships. That'll be going to brand new planets."

  "Qualifying for which is going to take us long enough, from the sounds of it, that we'll be able to stick around Pandora to be with Maddy at least until she starts university or something," Nick added.

  "First stop adulthood exams, next the final frontier!" Sue said, lifting an imaginary glass in a toast. But with her usual flawless instinct, she was studying Laura keenly. "What's so distracting?"

  Laura sent them all the link, and that killed amusing side discussions and turned the trip back to Arcadia into an uncomfortable shared viewing session. The people of Muina had found quite a lot of reasons not to open any kind of relationship with Earth, even if a way to it was found through the Ena. Earth was violent. Earth was complicated. Earth had more than twice the population of the entire Triplanetary.

  "Nothing particularly unexpected," Sue commented late that night, over a glass of their latest random sample of Muinan alcohol.

  "Gidds said this was a public opportunity to participate—the decision-makers would come much later."

  "That did have an air of angry windbags about it, didn't it? Not that a lot of them don't have a point. So Serious Soldier has been in touch?"

  "Just to point out the session."

  "He looked tired."

  "Yes." Gidds had been sitting next to the session convener, but if he'd contributed, it had only been on private interface channels. His posture had been as perfectly upright as ever, but there'd been shadows sketched beneath his eyes.

  "If anything, it made him even more fanciable."

  "Yes," Laura agreed, and wondered if she could survive another week of only thinking about Gidds Selkie.

  Chapter Eight

  Laura had not slaved over a hot stove for hours, but she'd taken more care than usual with the evening meal, and was just heading for a quick shower when she received a channel request from Gidds—and had her mood killed by a last-minute cancellation. After a fortnight of anticipation, Laura could not quite avoid a noticeable pause before she managed a light: "Another time then."

  "I am very sorry, Laura," Gidds said. "I know this m
ust mean wasted time and effort for you."

  Laura glanced back at the kitchen, mentally shrugged, and said: "Julian will enjoy it. Can we reschedule?"

  "I'm assigned to Arenrhon for the rest of the week—a location outside the teleportation network."

  Of course he was. "Tell me, do you have the concept here of a 'nightcap'?" She'd used the English word, and so added: "That is a late evening drink, before retiring."

  "Duzig," Gidds said, and then took one of the Sight Sight tangents she was coming to recognise: "What is the relevance of headgear?"

  Laura laughed. "We're going to go down a lot of side roads if you want to get into English etymology."

  "I would enjoy that," Gidds said, perfectly seriously.

  "I expect I would too," Laura said. "As for 'nightcap'..." She paused, checking her e-dictionary for confirmation, and then said: "Nightcaps were worn in cold places when going to bed—it seems the name transferred to a warming drink taken before bed."

  "I see."

  "Anyway," Laura said, brisk now. "I usually go to sleep around an hour—around a half-kasse before midnight. If you finish your meeting in time, come by for a nightcap. Otherwise, another day."

  "I'll do that," he said, and she could hear the warmth in his mental voice. "Thank you, Laura."

  He cut the channel, and Laura sighed, because it was clear the man's life was not his own. Then she shook herself, and called Julian down for dinner.

  "So what have you been playing today, kiddo?" she asked, as he obligingly demolished a large portion of a carefully prepared meal. "Anything you'd recommend?"

  "Red Exchange. I wanted something that doesn't revolve around Setari and psychics, something more fantasy based. Since everyone here is at least a tiny bit psychic, it's pretty rare for a game to have no people with talents. But in Exchange, the people in the game go around collecting contracts with nature spirit things. They get powers in exchange for blood, but the spirits aren't, like, demons, or anything considered bad. It's pretty cool—as much puzzle as combat based—and it's only just released, so everyone's not a million times stronger. Here."