The Touchstone Trilogy

by Andrea K Höst

  I busied myself telling Maze that Ghost was safely in a box, expecting Ruuel to go away again, except he didn't.

  "I had a question for you," he said, when I looked at him. "You referred to the aether as 'moonlight'. Was that simply your ineptitude with our language?"

  I could have lived without 'ineptitude'. Ruuel doesn't dance around shortcomings.

  "Is because aether look feel like moonlight Muina when building make liquid," I said, as clearly as I could manage, and had the satisfaction of making his eyes open to more than halfway.

  "Building make liquid?" he repeated.

  "When moon rise Muina building light..." I had to search around for a word which fit. "Draw? Focus? Become? Thicken? Look feel same aether."

  "The buildings on Muina turn moonlight into aether?" I nodded and was given a full-on 'captain look' in return. "It didn't occur to you to tell anyone this?"

  "Is your planet," I said, struggling to keep annoyance out of my voice. "How know what you not know?"

  "Wait," was all he said back, developing that gaze-into-nothing look people get when they're talking over the interface. I took the time to remind myself that these were life-and-death issues, and that there was no point glowering at him just because he'd made me feel in the wrong. I did wish that I hadn't given him a starring role in so many daydreams, or at least wasn't sitting in bed dressed in a flimsy patient gown, looking so damn ugly.

  Then I was added to a channel with about ten people already in it, a bunch of names I didn't know, as well as Ruuel, Maze, the Third Squad captain Taarel, and the bluesuit, Selkie.

  "Devlin, please explain your experiences with aether on Muina in more detail," Selkie said, all brisk and businesslike.

  "Is...moment." I hadn't expected to be dumped into some high level meeting, and reached for my diary as the simplest way to handle it without sounding defensive. Flipping through a few pages, I said: "First time saw moon, Muina, seven night there. Was still walking river then, no buildings. Just seem like moon to me, bit bigger bluer Earth moon, three quarter full." I paused. "You know has hole in yes?"

  "Yes. Go on."

  I flipped a few more pages. "Reach village thirteenth day. Moon come out every eight day, so came out after been there couple day, was full. Was sitting on roof tower when rose. Buildings began glow. Faint first, then too strong normal. In centre all roof there circle – rosette? Pattern. All building there have. It glow much strong than rest building. Light – aether – start flow out from circle. I right next circle, touch flow light. Was cold, but made feel warm. Effect like alcohol. After while saw that bigger light centre village. Followed aether there. Think it was flow up hill. In centre village there amphitheatre. Very big circle there. And cats. Cats not there that night, just huge lot liquid moonlight. Centre circle make column light. Very drunk by then. Went stood in column. Passed out. Woke there next day. Felt good."

  I sighed, flipping more pages. My moonlight adventures made me sound like a total idiot. "Few days later, sick. Cold all time. Liquid in chest. Fever." I paused, thinking back over the few confused fragments I could call to mind. "Was maybe die. Not conscious most time, several days. Then again moonfall. Too sick move, don't remember much that. Could see aether fall past window. Made feel warm. Easier breathe. Much better next day. Able move."

  The next entry made me frown, and I said doubtfully. "Not sure this. Eyesight strange after. Some things blurry, some not. Thought had damaged. Next day, thought being watch. Feel something behind, see movement corner eye. Thought go insane, imagine monsters. Next day, lots noise, like hills wailing. Ddura, guess. Couldn't see where come from. Sounds go away, so did feeling watch everywhere. Eyes still blurry. Two day later, Setari show up." I glanced at Ruuel, who had gone back to being impassive, but was watching me very closely. "Don't remember eyes blurry since ten thousand injections. Is all."

  "You could hear the Ddura from real-space?" Selkie asked, with a queer note to his voice.

  "Loud. Loudest thing ever heard. Like unhappy mountain."

  "I cannot–" someone began, sounding hugely pissed off, but stopped, then said in a sharp but less obviously hostile tone: "Have you observed any other relevant phenomena?"

  The 'speaking' indicator told me the person's name was Lakrin, but I don't have the access to look up more details about people.

  I was wary of just saying 'no'. "Not obvious," I said eventually. "Ddura. On Earth have polar aurora, look like Ddura, but lot bigger. But not make noises. Nothing about Ionoth. Is just, uh, something do radiation from sun? How know whether relevant? Is relevant every place go have cats? Nothing obvious relevant."

  "And two worlds' worth of observations an expansive topic," said another voice, a woman called Notra. "The youngster is still in the medical facility, is she not? I will revisit the question of other detail with her separately."

  "Very well," Selkie said, and then I was cut from the channel. Military people are like that.

  I started to close my diary, but Ruuel slid it out of my hands. Military people are like that, too.

  "Symbol Sight can let read?" I asked, sounding nearly as unenthused about that idea as I actually was.

  "Not usefully."

  He turned several pages back, then pressed two fingertips to one of the pages and closed his eyes. Whatever he was doing – presumably using one of the 'Sights' – didn't seem to be easy, and little lines of effort or pain appeared around his mouth. But he didn't do anything more dramatic than that, and after a while opened his eyes and handed my diary back.

  "Since Tare found a way to travel through the spaces, we have not encountered our equal in technology," he said, voice measured. "It leads to an assumption that there is little we can learn from those who have not the same achievements. Base stupidity not to debrief you fully about your experiences on Muina. But no sense on your part to assume in return that we know everything about a planet that we are only permitted to visit under exceptional circumstances for a few short hours."

  It was hard to argue the point, so I said: "Fair enough," and he nodded and left me to feel annoyed at him for producing even-handedness. I'll bet he's considered a strict but impartial sort of squad captain.

  Not that 'strict but impartial' is something I ever thought I'd find attractive. And not having a sense of humour should make him totally not worth it. Though I suppose that comment about my lab rat not being inapposite might have been a very dry humour, and I could appreciate that.

  He has really nice hands.

  When he was gone I went to check myself out in the mirror of the tiny en suite, and confirmed that I was the worst I've ever looked. After a while Maze came to visit and told me that Ghost was still in the containment field but not yet scannable. The information I'd given them about Muina is pretty major, apparently, though he doubted they were going to be able to decide exactly what to do about it any time soon.

  A weird day, altogether. I'm sick of the medical section.

  Tuesday, March 4

  Muina Debriefing

  I spent a lot of today with Isten Sel Notra, who is some kind of senior scientist. I think she'd be a variety of physicist, if physicists believed in psychic talents, spaces as well as space, and moonlight which could be converted into mist. The main thing I could tell about her is that she's really smart, a Taren Einstein-type, and she's kind of a cross between everyone's favourite grandmother and the strictest headmistress in the universe. She has minions, too, who came along to fuss about her until she sent them away, and she told the medical staff to bring me some better clothes and took me to a kind of 'meeting lounge' so that we could both sit comfortably.

  Old age is a little hard to judge on Tare. They're quite happy to use their nanotechnology for cosmetic purposes, and it's really rare to see anyone with any kind of blemish or birthmark or more than fine wrinkles, though they don't seem to have figured out how to stop their hair going white. They can get rid of, or at least reduce, most cancers, but they still get old and frail. Best I can tel
l, 'retirement age' would be between eighty and ninety, and a good lifespan would be a hundred and twenty. Their oldest person (I just looked this up) lived to be a hundred and forty seven (well, four hundred and forty-two). Isten Notra is old. Frail-old, though still able to get about, and still sharper than I'll ever dream of being.

  Isten Notra is also interested in absolutely everything. She asked a lot about the moonfalls, of course, wanting to know what happened to the aether once it reached the amphitheatre (I think it drained away underneath – not sure) and whether it felt exactly like alcohol or just similar (kind of) and whether the aether in the Pillar space felt different from the aether on Muina (no) and whether I thought I was sick because of the first exposure to aether (no) and if I really thought the second moonfall had helped me recover from being sick (yes). Whether I ever saw the buildings glowing at other times (no). Whether the roof decorations had felt unusual or different to me other than during moonfall (um). Whether there was any unusual noise during moonfall (I think mainly I remember an absence of noise – all the animals had gone very quiet).

  Then we moved on to what I'd eaten on Muina and what I'd eaten on Earth. Things I'd seen in the village. Animals I'd seen. Animals that appeared to belong to both planets. What level of psychic talent there was on Earth, if at all. Whether there was anything resembling Muina structures on Earth, or legends about Muinan culture. The only thing I could come close to thinking of in terms of psychic legends was Atlantis, and I'm sure Mum told me once that the original stories didn't have anything about magic or strange powers in it, that they were added later.

  Isten Notra is also the only person on this entire planet who has ever corrected my grammar and pronunciation, or made me repeat sentences until I get them right. She started our talk by giving me handy tips about ways to better manage verb-forms and sentence structure. And then went off on a huge tangent about language, and Earth's languages and development of communication and what I would have been doing on Earth if I hadn't ended up on Muina, and she pried out of me that I thought studying the origin of myths would be an interesting thing to do but didn't think it would be very likely to get me a job. And all the while turning the whole discussion into examples of how to handle trying to talk in a language I don't really know, not letting me be sloppy, and insisting I work the sentences out properly before trying to say them, no matter how long that took. Isten Notra's minions kept popping in with snacks and lunch and to ask her if there was anything she needed and to give me scandalised looks because they heard me talking about vampires and zombies to someone Lohn later confirmed was one of the most respected scientists on the planet.

  It was a great day. Isten Notra's a really special sort of person, with not a lot of time to spare, and she gave a whole heap of it to me.

  And I was outside of my medroom box, which was also a bonus.

  Wednesday, March 5

  Someone call the wahmbulance

  Ista Tremmar took off my eye-patch today. They've been changing the big adhesive covering daily, but my eye was taped shut underneath. Today they lowered the lights, pulled off the tape, and shone little torches at me. Then, after another tedious medical exam, they released me. I have check-ups and tests scheduled, and nothing else whatsoever, not even training.

  I should have been happy. Not so much at the nothing scheduled, but being let out of my latest box. Glorious illusion of freedom. But, you see, my eye is wrong.

  I have hazel eyes. Brown and green with some flecks of blue. I still have hazel eyes, but flecks of purple and violet have been added to the left one, and combined with the blue it drowns out the brown and green. It looks pretty cool, but I hate it. Because it's not my eye any more and every time I look in the mirror it's telling me I don't exist any more. I'm not a girl from Sydney who loves reading and games and was about to start uni and hadn't quite decided what she was going to do in the long run. I'm not Cass here. Devlin most of the time, and Caszandra occasionally. I'm a stray, and it's not just what people call me, it's what I am inside: something out of place. My main goals are to learn a tiresome language, and to avoid getting anyone killed until I can figure out a way to get home. Not dying is also a goal. I don't like to count up the number of times I've nearly died since I was rescued. At least this last time I achieved something before falling apart.

  So now that I've finally been released and can wander about, I've spent the day moping on my couch. I should be grateful for having an eye at all, but instead I'm busy trying not to let myself get too upset, because I might take another sleep-walking excursion to Earth and I'd hate to have to be rescued again, but at the same time I can't help but acknowledge that I haven't done anything at all to try and work out how I reached Earth's near-space, and how I can get home safely.

  Hiding how unhappy I am right now is important to stop them from monitoring me more and more, especially since my immunity to the aether makes me an even more interesting lab rat. I have no wish to confide in the greysuit who has had a session with me every day since I woke, 'chatting' with me in a way which screams 'psych evaluation'. Or perhaps they're a trauma counsellor, but in that case I can't like them for not coming out and saying so.

  I wish I could stop having nightmares. I guess I really was in a blind panic back in the Pillar since my dreams are filled with scary things snatching at me, and I wake sweating and panting, with a hand clutched over my eye. I don't think I'd make the grade as a Setari, even if I had psychic powers, and it's a good thing that they have no plans to put me back on active duty any time soon.

  First Squad is off on some island called Gorra. I really appreciate that Zee emails me every so often and lets me know what's going on with them, and with the shifting about caused by the Pillar shutting off. They're slowly checking which of the known routes still exist, and trying to work out ways through the spaces which allow them to easily get to the same locations in near-space that they could previously access. Everyone's scheduling has been thrown madly off, and they're all working double-time trying to make up the ground they've lost.

  Bleh – this is not a fun day. It needs to hurry up and be over.

  Thursday, March 6

  Professionally sozzled

  This morning I had aether tests. Now that I'm no longer in danger, merely covered in yellow bruises, tender and stiff and occasionally shaky, they've decided to try and find out why I react so differently to aether from everyone else. Which means I spent this morning getting drunk.

  Since they're wary of setting off my interface, and are trying to work out why it started growing again, they only gave me enough aether for a minor buzz. So I was bored but cheerful. I swear I must have had more brain scans than anyone on any planet. At least I had the warning signs in the containment room to entertain me. "Danger – toxic substances!" plastered everywhere, in and out of the interface.

  They released me around lunch time, but I was in no mood for school work. Mildly defiant, or perhaps still a little drunk, I went swimming. Nothing too strenuous, just to get the kinks out, and I think I'll keep going unless someone remembers I'm supposed to have an escort.

  While I was floating about pretending that was exercise, I abruptly gained a brand new level of access, accompanied by an email from Isten Notra directing me to a huge collection of files. "Your assignment while you're in testing and recovery is to review the information we've collected on Muina and to notify me of any possible relevant parallel with your world."

  Homework! I haven't the foggiest idea if I'll find anything useful, but it's definitely something new and tangible for me to do.

  The Muina collection, however, was not nearly so interesting to me at first glance as everything else this access level let me look at. They've reclassified me as a Setari, and now I can see things like everyone's calendar, the space, rotation and Ionoth libraries, squad profiles and a general noticeboard. After months of being a mushroom, this is a serious adjustment.

  I have to admit the first thing I wanted to do was indulge my incr
easing curiosity about Ruuel. It was only the recollection of playing "Browser History of Shame" over at friends' houses which held me back. Instead I checked out First Squad's profile, opening Zee's details first. Talent set and ratings, mission history. No doubt plenty of stuff I couldn't see. Next I methodically opened and read the details of each squad captain in order, and if I lingered a little longer over Ruuel then that might be excused by the fact that he has eleven talents. All the Sights and Speed rated high, then low ratings in Ena Manipulation, Telekinesis, Levitation and Light.

  That pointless piece of self-indulgence over with, I turned to the Ionoth library (the Bestiary!) to look up cats. And found out that Ghost has escaped. Yay Ghost! I hope she comes to visit me again, but I expect that she won't be trusting me any more.

  After browsing randomly for a while, quite overwhelmed by how much information there was, I glanced over the Muina collection. And pounced on a report from a few months ago. An expedition to Muina to investigate a Ddura detected in the planet's near-space.

  I was in 'Additional Notes'. "Displaced person, young female, recovered from secondary site. Uninjured, condition poor. Stickie scan negative. Not from known language group. Submitted for processing."

  My so momentous rescue. The attached log was fascinating though, giving me some idea of how the Sight talents operate. After arriving at the town, Fourth Squad started out near my wool-boiling operation, which made it obvious straight away that someone was there. Those with Place Sight could see glowing footprints everywhere: mine and those of different animals, and even my handprints all over the bowls. The squad split into pairs, apparently confident there was no major danger nearby.

  Watching my Muinan town through Ruuel's eyes made me feel both stalker-ish and hypocritical, and really brought home to me why the Setari are so damn proper most of the time. I expect it's a rare thing for anyone to review entire mission logs, but you sure as hell wouldn't want to spend your time checking out a squad member's butt while out on mission, or gossiping about other teams.