In Arcadia (Touchstone Book 5)

by Andrea K Höst

  "Does the possibility bother you?" she asked. "I know that Cass was originally very worried how people would react, but she seems to have been far from the only person to think of that explanation, and I've seen some heated debates on the newsnets."

  "I would like to know, but it is more an abstract question for me. Rather than clinging to a preferred truth, I will accept whatever is proven—in the unlikely event that a definitive judgment is ever made. Fortunately Sight Sight is not inflicting a strong need to have an answer."

  "Do you —" Laura began, but then spotted the lone, overhanging tree that had been her second symbol. "Here's my demanding pool."

  No ripples disturbed the water when they reached the rock-lined rim. It was an eerie spot, tucked away in a little hollow, and very still.

  "I tried to ask it for more information, but it didn't react any further. Admittedly, I didn't try for very long, since, well…" She paused, turned, and met his eyes. "I stopped for a nightcap."

  Even through an avatar, the doubled-intensity effect hit her. He reached for her hands, and squeezed them tightly.

  "Your assignment is still due to finish in two days, right?

  "Yes." One word that said a great deal, and most of it involved being naked. "After that, I will have a month primarily working with Kaoren at Kalasa, and can travel from Pandora via the teleport platforms."

  "Does touching things in this game really give you vertigo?"

  A small grimace. "Yes, unfortunately." But it was a moment more before he let go of her hands. Then he asked: "Would you like me to tell you the probable solution for the teszen?"

  She blinked at him, saw that he was—of course—perfectly serious, and let out her breath in laughing exasperation. "Now was it your Sights that gave you the answer, or simple observation?"

  "At times it is difficult to separate the two. But in this case, a thing you will be able to see."

  "Well, that's something at least. If I can't figure it out, I'll ask for a hint, but it's heartening that there's something apparently so completely obvious you spotted it straight away."

  Making an effort to avoid preconceptions, Laura looked carefully around, not initially seeing anything different than before. Tree. Rocks. A few little ferns. Water that was clear, though in the shade, so it looked quite black.

  A tracery of silver.

  "There's a lesson in this about looking beyond the surface," Laura said, kneeling so she could better peer into the water. The silver was not a fish, but a line, a slender chain dropping deep into the centre of the pool. Its end was fastened to a spur of rock almost at her feet.

  Laura lifted the fine, chilly links. The chain was thin, but not so fragile she couldn't begin drawing it from the water, handful after careful handful. Ten feet. Twenty. A little pile of silver began to mound beside her.

  "How deep can this pool be?" she asked, leaning forward. "I think I can see something coming up."

  Gidds had knelt beside her, steadying her against the possibility of impromptu baths, but there was no difficulty pulling the last of the chain from the pool, and with it a small metal cage. Inside, was a sodden ball that, as she set the cage down, partially unwound into something scrawny and distinctly feline, grey hair clumped into wet spikes.

  "Now this is just cruel," Laura said. "What a place to keep a cat."

  Cat? Cat? The voice was just as crotchety as the first time she'd heard it, though rather less wet. Woman is blind.

  "I certainly haven't been winning any points for observation," she agreed, examining the fastening of the small, square cage, and then trying to get a grip on the pin that was holding it in place. "What should I call you, if 'cat' is so very wrong?"

  Kirr-tut! Woman knows nothing.

  "Well, I'm new around here. But learning fast."

  Gidds offered Laura a small stone, and she used it to knock the pin free, then watched with fascination as the kirr-tut slithered out the moment the door opened. It was as much marten or weasel as cat—a long and snaky furred animal—but with very cat-like high pointed ears and a wedge-shaped skull. It stretched, and shook itself, and made a sound like an exasperated sneeze.

  What woman want?

  "Your strength," Laura said, with a quick smile across at Gidds. "To prevent all the world from following Ramara beneath the waves. In return, I offer you blood."

  Ramara drowned. Disdain shot through the kirr-tut's annoyance. Yes. Will help.

  Before Laura could respond, it nipped her—the pain sharp and unexpected enough that she jerked and briefly opened her eyes onto the view from her window seat.

  The brand that sealed her first contract was a paw print on the inside of her wrist. Laura regarded it with disproportionate pride for how little effort it had cost her.

  "Not that I'm altogether sure what I've gained, unless it's a grumpiness mode. Somehow cross, damp not-a-cat will help me heal holes in the world."

  They walked back to the city, discussing the similarities in the game to the crisis that had nearly seen the destruction of Muina, Tare and Kolar.

  "And yet with no Ionoth," Laura said. "Forming contracts and healing damage, and so far as I can tell any combat is with nodes of 'corruption'."

  "I like it," Gidds said, definitely. "I will have a second evaluation made by another instructor, and if they pass it, approve it for the Kalrani."

  And then perhaps they would take another considered step toward each other. Dating, and thinking of introducing family.

  Laura felt ready for it.

  Chapter Eleven

  Gidds' return from Arenrhon coincided with Laura's weekly family meal with Sue and the kids. Laura was not given to making announcements about her sleeping arrangements, but thought the meal a good opportunity to shift to semi-publicly dating, and so warned Julian there'd be an extra guest. She was fairly sure her son would be a little surprised but not especially upset when he saw who it was: it had to have been a good ten years since he and Cass had given up hoping Laura and Mike would get back together.

  The plan had been for Gidds to arrive early to help with preparation, and this time he arrived at her door exactly on time, with a small overnight case in one hand, and a box of a Kolaren treat called keffet balanced on the other.

  Laura took him to bed.

  Not at all sensible, but very satisfying, and, after all, it had been the better part of a week since they'd seen each other. Besides, she only had him for the night: he would be leaving again almost immediately, to take his daughters away for the weekend. She only wished she'd thought to have him arrive even earlier.

  "Fortunately I'd done most of the dinner prep already," she said, not inclined to get up immediately. "I think we can spare a few more minutes and still be able to safely pretend that we've just been exchanging mild pleasantries and asking how our days have gone."

  "The truth would perhaps suggest that I've lost any ability to focus on the task at hand," Gidds said, though with an entirely pleased note to his voice.

  Laura smiled, tracing a finger along his collarbone. "You're very distracting." Then, carefully, because she was still disinclined to rush anything, she added: "Though that distraction makes it hard to see you, sometimes. And I'm trying very hard to see you clearly, Gidds."

  He understood her. The sheer natural intensity of the man increased to the point where she felt dizzy, and he responded with a bruising kiss, although did not follow up with declarations. He knew—had no doubt in his Sighted way known from the night of the hailstorm—that a part of her kept pulling away from him. He was not going to push the pace beyond what she found comfortable, although she had a strong suspicion he wanted to. Sight Sight talents were given to certainties.

  Since dinner guests were imminent, they managed to postpone further indulgence in favour of a quick shower. Here Gidds paused to examine a large yellow-green blotch down her left thigh.

  "You've had it treated."

  "Yes. Being related to a clutch of Sight talents does cut down on the space for qu
iet stoicism." She smiled ruefully at the memory. "Kaoren was frowning at me the moment he walked into the room, and Sen was almost distressed, insisting I sit down. Cass sent Ys for a very useful salve, and extracted a promise to come with them on the school shuttle the next morning so I could visit a KOTIS medic. Then she took over cooking."

  "I see where Cassandra learned her habit of not informing anyone when she is upset or hurt. What is 'stoicism'?"

  Laura explained as they dressed, and they returned to the kitchen well before anyone arrived to wonder at the abandoned crepe batter.

  "Did you have to report yourself for spending the night with me, as Kaoren was obliged to with Cass?" she asked, taking bowls of fillings out of the refrigerator, and giving Gidds those that didn't need to be heated.

  "I had myself taken out of your family's supervision chain," he said. "And made a private report that would not have been necessary if I were not a KOTIS officer. While there is not quite the same strict management around Cassandra now that the crisis has passed, there will always be a level of control regarding interaction with both her and Liranadestar, and that washes over to you."

  Too dangerous. Too valuable. Laura didn't particularly like that KOTIS literally had a committee monitoring developments with her family, but she understood it. Her daughter and granddaughter could be used to reshape reality.

  "What happens when Lira, almost inevitably, pushes back on that?"

  "Isten Notra has recommended continuing to give her as much freedom as possible without sacrificing security concerns," Gidds said. "Fortunately the decision to allow her to remain with the Ruuel Devlins has proven to be a good one, since they are a steadying influence on a personality which is considerably more volatile than Cassandra's. But she has been testing her limits—most recently by attempting to stymie the Kalrani set to be her security detail."

  "Does she try to leave school grounds?"

  "No. She doesn't wish to put herself in danger, only demonstrate her opinion of KOTIS."

  Lira, in the days of old Muina, had been kidnapped and used to power a machine that had almost destroyed her world, and left her in a state that was not quite dead or alive. Even though Muina's current inhabitants did not fully understand the machinery involved, it was not in the least surprising that Lira wanted to avoid any possibility of the same thing happening.

  "Mum! Guess what, I—" Julian, galloping at his usual pace down the stair, checked at the sight of Gidds, who was wearing his uniform minus the jacket, and in the process of putting bowls of filling on the table. But Julian simply switched to Muinan to say: "Hi Tsur Selkie. Hey, are we having crepes? How much grated cheese is there?"

  "Feel free to top it up," Laura said, pushing a covered bowl toward him. "What am I guessing?"

  "Wouldn't be guessing if I told you, would it? What have we got to drink? Can I put some spider milk on?"

  "If you can manage to heat it without spreading it over everything this time," Laura said, smiling at him.

  "Spider milk?" Gidds repeated, carefully sounding out the English phrase Julian had dropped into his question.

  "It's just what we call the juice of those Taren dozai fruit," Laura explained. "Once we saw what it came from."

  Dozai juice, when heated, tasted like syrupy coconut milk, and the fruit resembled coconuts—if you replaced thick brown coconut husk with fragile white filaments.

  "They just say it's a fruit," Julian said, opening and closing cupboard doors with as much noise as anti-slam hinges would allow. "Nothing's going to convince me there's not something with too many legs laying those things."

  "These spiders are large?" Gidds asked.

  "Only in nightmares," Laura said, and waved a spatula at Nick and Alyssa, as they arrived. "There's plenty of them about on Muina, though on Tare the closest seems to be what are called ferat. Although ferat are much larger than Earth spiders." Ferat were eight-legged things twice the size of human hands, and a powerful reason never to venture into the few 'natural' caves remaining on Tare.

  "Are we having spider milk?" Sue asked, following Alyssa. "Do you have any of the flavouring that tastes like pistachio left?"

  "Maybe," Julian said, emptying the carton of dozai juice into a saucepan and remembering—this time—to put the lid on before setting it to heat. "The zingy flavours are way better."

  "Where’s Maddy?" Laura said, watching Alyssa and Nick exchange a quick glance before murmuring their hellos to Gidds.

  "Taking off her skates," Sue said, giving Gidds a wide, highly entertained grin. "No interplanetary crisis this time?"

  "I usually avoid them," Gidds replied, with his usual equanimity.

  Sue: I can never decide if he's the most literal man in the universe, or secretly funny.

  Laura did not have a response for this, and instead said: "So the copies have arrived?" as Maddy belatedly trotted through the patio doors.

  "Yes, and they even managed to get the size right," Maddy said, energetically depositing herself wrong-way around on one of the dining chairs. "My feet have gotten bigger, but they made a couple of different pairs around my size. Now all we need is the ice." She glanced at Gidds, plainly not altogether sure who he was, but switching to Muinan to say, with the long halts that showed she was repeating phrases sounded out to her by the interface: "Do you have an Ice talent, mister? We could freeze Aunt Laura's pond and I could try out my skates."

  "Too small," Alyssa said, even as Gidds shook his head. "You'd run right into the edges, Maddy. Wait until tomorrow afternoon."

  "You're the one who wants to make sure you're not totally out of condition when bunches of people aren't around."

  "Tomorrow afternoon?" Gidds said in Muinan, his expression suggesting a mild revelation. "For a half-kasse after the end of the school day?"

  "We're using the school swimming pool," Alyssa said, eyeing him cautiously. "It's still too small, but it'll do to show Maddy's friends she really can skate. Though the whole thing's turning into a total circus, with half the school and every second Setari squad inviting themselves along."

  "Including at least one of the Kalrani, I suspect," Gidds said. "It's rare Haelin postpones one of our outings."

  "You're Haelin's dad?" Maddy asked, brightening. "We started at Pandora Shore on the same day. We're only in a couple of the same classes, though, because mostly she has Kalrani lessons. Our feet are the same size, so she's going to try out my skates when I get tired."

  Gidds seemed to follow the tangle of English and Muinan easily enough, and said simply: "Thank you for allowing that."

  Laura paused in turning out crepes to rescue a near overflow of spider milk, then listened in mild appreciation as Gidds began to ask about skating, and Alyssa opened up over the technicalities of producing a rink on Earth, and how much or little the double edges of the blades needed sharpening. Gidds maintained his usual relaxed but upright posture, listening far more than he spoke.

  It wasn't until the crepes were near-demolished, and the spider milk all gone, that Julian moved from casting Gidds brief sidelong glances onto a small experiment.

  "Hey, Tsur Selkie," he said. "What would you do if I went to the moonfall tomorrow night?"

  Pandora's moonfall was a weekly event centred on the ruins of the old Muinan town that had been the settlement's starting point. It was actually a process to draw the teleport system's energy source, 'aether', from the Ena, and was spectacular to look at, with glowing mist seeming to rise toward the moon. But aether—although it had something of a healing effect on Muinan citizens—also acted very much like alcohol. The planetary government had quickly had to set access regulations in place.

  Gidds response to Julian's question was a straightforward: "Nothing."

  "I can at least tell you what I'd do," Laura said, annoyed. "Which would start with reminding you that you need to be legally an adult."

  "Yeah, but that was a hint, Mum," Julian said, with a suggestion of a shrug.

  "Did you pass the technically-grown-up exam,
brat?" Sue asked. "No fair beating me there."

  Laura joined the spate of congratulations that followed Julian's nod, although it was very odd to now have both her children possessing a wider range of rights than she had. Especially since there was more than an Earth year to go before Julian turned eighteen. But she wasn't going to let him off trying to draw Gidds into this particular boundary test, looking at her son steadily until he ducked his head.

  "Some of my guild from Red Exchange live in Pandora, and they finally got to the head of the queue to go to the moonfall," Julian explained. “Corezzy said if I passed I could go as his guest, and since most people wear masks to control the aether intake a bit, I thought it would be fun to go and not have people know who I was."

  Laura's immediate reaction involved a firm decision to spend some time with Julian in-game in order to do some initial vetting of this 'Corezzy'—or anyone else inviting her teenaged son to go get drunk. Moonfall attendance might be thoroughly monitored, and the interface something of an in-built policeman, but it was not as if the Triplanetary was without crime or bad intentions.

  Gidds, meanwhile, responded informatively: "Tsien Faluden, who is currently managing Arcadia's security arrangements, would likely assign two Setari to accompany you. They would, of course, need to wear Exclusion Suits, to prevent the aether from affecting them."

  Julian's response to this prospect was as enthusiastic as could be expected. "Hard pass."

  "Which is your primary objective?" Gidds asked. "To experience moonfall, or to meet your friends without the burden of identity?"

  Julian blinked at Gidds' phrasing, and Sue—watching with an amused smile—said: "A bit of both, I'd bet."

  "Moonfall is easier," Gidds told them. "Since you could ask to visit one of the undeveloped platform towns. They are all monitored, but many have no settlements, and it would be easy to arrange a visit with less intrusive security." He looked across at Laura. "Or a family outing."

  Laura glanced at Sue—and carefully only at Sue—then said: "I admit I'm curious. I don't think I'd care to copy Cass' experience of passing out in the centre of town, but the images look amazing. A walk through one of the towns before the aether concentration rose too high might work."