The Touchstone Trilogy

by Andrea K Höst

  As I was finishing breakfast, a vibration ran through the ship and on cue Mori reappeared, hair damp. "That's the Litara. Initial scans have shown there's an extensive underground complex here. Between that, the presence of a communication platform, and the fact that the doors appear to be charged with aether, this is going to be a major site, perhaps even our second settlement. Let's go look before we're overwhelmed by reinforcements."

  "Why expedition in Nurioth so relatively few people?" I asked. "Such a large city; barely chipped the edges."

  "Well, our primary purpose there was to find something like this place," Mori said. "The archaeological survey and analysis of the city – all the cities – will take decades. What work was done in Nurioth will be useful, of course, but this whole expedition was focused toward finding active Lantaren technology, particularly more platform towns. Not only because we want to analyse such technology, but because we want to concentrate the archaeological analysis on these sites in the hopes that the builders left records of the Pillar construction."

  We'd reached the port lock, where the rest of Fourth Squad was waiting on a sled. I really don't know why they get themselves ferried to shore instead of flying: some kind of protocol? Or just careful conservation of energy when on duty. I've come to realise how prone to exhaustion the Setari are.

  "I don't care to guess how long it would have taken us to uncover this, though," Mori continued, as we started across. "It's not something aerial surveys would easily detect, and far out of our Sight range."

  "Seems different style of decorative tradition, too," I said, staring ahead to what I could see of the carved face of one of the mountains. Everyone was quiet and tense as the sled left the lake and slid smoothly between the curving base of the steep-sided mountains.

  It reminded me vaguely of – I've forgotten the name – that building which is carved into the face of a gorge. It's not only the size of the thing which makes an impression, it's the frame of natural rock, in this case not of sheer, baked yellow stone, but of grey and black rocks, worn into rounded piles and heavily decorated with lichen, ferns, shrubs and small trees sprawling down and sideways. A big contrast to the clean, curving lines of pointed arches, maybe twelve or fifteen metres up to the tip. Between a simple inner and outer border were carvings with a faint resemblance to Mayan decorations or even Celtic knot work. The doors were rectangular, not pointed, and the space above their lintel and the point of the arch was full of figurative carvings.

  The three mountainettes were close, like a circle of people holding hands. The gap in the centre wasn't more than a couple of hundred metres across, a lop-sided circle which the greysuits had been busy sectioning with stakes exactly as you'd see at a dig on Earth, except they projected an electronic grid in the interface rather than using string. A few areas had been cleared, exposing circular paths and a tumble of whitestone in the centre which looked like something had fallen on it. They'd made a lot of progress in the last few hours, obviously intent on ensuring nothing was trampled underfoot when people tried to examine and access the doorways.

  Kaeline from Ninth met us at a small tent which had been set up just outside this central area, and there was a lot of talk of readings and measurements and where we were allowed to walk. I stood staring at the triangle of carving above each of the doors. Each had a central figure of the head and shoulders of a person – the face was androgynous, idealised, and the arms outstretched, something trickling from cupped hands down on little people below. God-kings. The Egyptians had them and I'm willing to bet that's what the Lantarens who built this place considered themselves.

  Things started getting crowded then, as the reinforcements from the Litara began arriving. I was surprised to see Tsur Selkie among them, though he seemed to be playing observer rather than person in charge. As soon as he showed up all the Setari forgot how to talk and focused on standing very straight, while Islen Duffen called a halt to her team's work and we all gathered near the tent to discuss what would happen next.

  The person in charge was a woman called Tsen Helada (so many Ts titles), a whip-thin, narrow-eyed lady with streaks of grey in frizzy black hair, and an air of barely suppressed energy. She reeled off lists of detail, about how the greensuits would examine the nearby area and decide the site of the settlement while Islen Duffen would continue to coordinate the archaeological side, and a man called Islen Tezart would manage investigation into what amounted to 'psychic technology'. We were to consider the site dangerous, not only because of Ionoth and aether, but because we had no idea what the potential dangers of active Lantaren technology might be. And we were to above all else be thorough, to miss nothing.

  Islen Tezart had a very different attitude toward Sight talents compared to Islen Duffen. He wanted the Place Sight talents to assist in the investigation of the doors, which didn't seem to have any moving parts. He was hoping they might be able to see a way to unlock it without damaging it, or discover if it was something which could be commanded using Ena manipulation, like the communication platforms.

  More dullness after this, with everyone standing around talking and waiting while different machines took readings. Ninth Squad was off being guard-like, and Tsur Selkie was with Fourth, watching silently. I kept staring up at the image of the person above the door and thinking of that Shelley poem, Ozymandias.

  "Is there something familiar about the carving?" Tsur Selkie asked me while they were performing the last of the machine scans. "Does this have a correlation to structures on your world?"

  I shook my head. "Doesn't really match anything. If wasn't for communication device inside, would think this was tomb though."

  "Tomb?"

  I'd had to use the English word. Tarens cremate their dead and toss the ashes into the ocean. Necessary given their space issues, and better than the soylent green option. They have a word for grave, but not for a building for dead bodies, which I guess means that the Muinans didn't use tombs either. "Cross between monument to the dead and a grave," I said. "There was Earth people called Egyptians, built huge pyramids and sealed bodies of their god-kings inside."

  "God-kings." Tsur Selkie glanced up at the carving, at the sightless face gazing at us from the past. Not even Tsur Selkie could win a staring competition with a statue, though, so he looked away.

  They finished the last of the machine-based tests then, and moved on to trying Place Sight. Place Sight hasn't really been very helpful in the explorations so far, because the events the Tarens are interested in happened so long ago that the 'impressions' have faded. But Place Sight is a really broad and adaptable Sight, and there was a chance they'd be able to understand the mechanism of the doors.

  Ruuel, Halla and Tsur Selkie enhanced. I'm not sure if Tsur Selkie has Place Sight, but Sight Sight is no doubt just as useful here. They told Halla to go first, and remembering what had happened with the platforms the first time someone touched them, I was a bit nervous, but there was no reaction and no Ddura or anything else turning up. Halla closed her eyes, pressing her hand flat against the smooth stone and, I think, holding her breath.

  "It only has the appearance of doors," she said, after a long pause. "As the scans suggested, the stone has been fashioned as a solid panel. The aether–" She paused. "It appears to be maintaining the structure. If we damaged it, it is very likely it would reform."

  Dropping her hand, she stepped away, being all super-professional. But when Ruuel nodded she relaxed a little, relieved and pleased. It's so interesting how the squads react to their captains. These are people that they've grown up with, known almost all their lives, and probably competed with for the captaincy. But Fourth Squad, even Glade, who really doesn't seem the type, act like Ruuel's approval is tremendously important to them. Third Squad's the same with Taarel. It's a combination of respect and trust, I guess. I found out today that Fourth also treat Ruuel much as First Squad does Maze.

  Once Halla had stepped back, Ruuel moved forward, making his gloves go away. It made me think of what
he looked like this morning – such a long time ago now – and I had to work to not be too distracted by the memory of bare shoulders and neck. I really don't ever see most of the Setari in anything but all-covering uniforms, so it seems like a lot more than I guess it really was: nothing compared to Lohn walking in on me. Like Halla, Ruuel closed his eyes, then carefully touched the tips of his fingers to the stone and I was looking at the length of his lashes and wondering if he plucked his eyebrows when I realised that he was slowly going white.

  I looked from his face to his squad's, and found them all with variations of the same worried expression. Tsur Selkie was more evaluating, but he was also watching Ruuel's face with a hint of tension, as if he was ready to step forward and catch someone about to faint. Which Ruuel didn't do, just opening his eyes again. But there were beads of sweat on his forehead, and he looked like he'd taken a fist to the stomach and refused to admit it.

  "They were trying to escape," he said, voice steady in a way which took effort. "It sealed, and they could not open it."

  He stepped away, recovering enough to shut down into a professional mask, and Tsur Selkie moved forward without comment, doing little more than to confirm Halla's evaluation of the door with an addendum that he suspected the 'seal' extended at least to the corridor beyond and possibly through the entire complex.

  First Squad is quietly protective of Maze. And Fourth Squad's the same about Ruuel. They spent the rest of the day pretending they weren't keeping a watchful eye on him. And Ruuel spent the day looking distracted, still caught up in whatever he'd seen or felt about the last moments of the people sealed inside. Not so bad that Selkie took him off duty, but a visible difference to his usual observant and distant air.

  The whole thing made me think a lot of Zan, too. Does anyone in her squad respect her? Want to protect her? That prompted me to write a long email to her talking about the things we'd been doing on the mission. The satellite isn't positioned to directly connect us to Pandora, but she'll have it already if she's still there, or will with the next ship if she's back on Tare. I hope she's okay.

  The rest of the day was filled with even longer doses of dull. The Setari tried to open the seal using Ena manipulation, without any effect, and even had me try. Glade whispered to me afterwards that it was very tactless of me to look so glad I failed. And now they're bringing some equipment in to try and set up a field to interrupt the flow of aether, or drain it off. They really don't want to smash their way in, or do anything by force.

  Still, the horde of archaeologists are cleaning up the central area very nicely.

  Thursday, April 10

  Kolarens and crypts

  I do wonder where the Tarens get all these tents. Their own planet is totally unsuited to tents as a form of accommodation: too incredibly windy. I suppose they might use tents inside the few caves they haven't filled with whitestone. Whatever they usually use them for, they certainly have a lot of them. By sunset yesterday, the greensuits had constructed a little canvas city around the outer slope of the northern mountain. Currently the mountains are being referred to (in Taren) as North, South and East, even though I think they've been given more official names. North is the mountain on the Nurioth side, and East is the one furthest from the lake. The south mountain has the equipment and 'finds' tents at its base, though the main finds so far have been the fragmentary remains of two skeletons which turned up under the tumble of whitestone in the centre of the circular paths.

  Because of the wait for the Litara to return with the equipment to try on the seals, the central circle's been getting a lot of attention and is looking increasingly bare – great patches of raw earth and freshly cleaned pathway. It's not a bulls-eye pattern, but a more complex set of part-circles and radial lines, and I think it would make a nice garden. The greysuits are talking about trying to reconstruct the central structure.

  I spent the morning doing school work, since Fourth Squad had left right after breakfast to map out all the nearby gates. They found some buildings, too, off under the trees a ways down south, which the greysuits are hoping are related to this site. Ninth Squad is stuck with the more boring guard duty, broken into pairs assigned to different shifts, since the Ddura seems to have taken care of any active threats in the area. With so many people here, I decided to stay out of the way and found myself a natural seat on a big stony shelf overlooking the mess tent. It was an unusually warm day compared to recent temperatures, nice and sunny.

  Having grown a little more used to how long it takes the greysuits to do anything, my only reaction to the Litara arriving with the new equipment was to access the latest news feeds: little parcels of the latest public infocasts collected each time one of the ships returns to Tare. There's a ton in them about Muina, of course, but very little of depth, and I was more interested in whether the Ionoth incursions back on Tare had gone back to normal levels. The Setari have re-established most of their rotations, and the only story I could find was about long-term upward trends.

  When I was first given access, I used to close my eyes when using the interface. Now I'm more able to watch and see the world around me at the same time, but I by no means pay attention to my surroundings. And thus I was very confused by sudden movement right next to me and the soft sound of an impact. Suspending the news feed, I saw a couple of people standing over me, wearing a dark green and black uniform. My brain sluggishly caught up to what my eyes had recorded, and I realised one of them had tried to kick me and another had stepped in the way, catching her foot.

  "Don't start this, Katzyen," said the catcher, a guy who sounded more resigned than annoyed. "It's not what we're here for." I found it very hard to understand what he was saying, but didn't immediately realise they were talking in a different dialect.

  "If they'd had their way we wouldn't be here at all." The second speaker was a small woman with sparking-hot green eyes, whose temper seemed set to nuclear smoulder. "Wouldn't you say it's only in the spirit of our alliance to test their level of combat training?" She shot a disparaging glance at me. "If you're an example of the standard we're constantly tested against, there's nothing to Taren Setari except their reputation. Can you prove yourself the better?"

  That was my introduction to Kolar's Setari. Kolarens started out with the same language as Tarens, but it's become quite a distinct dialect. They pronounced the words oddly enough that my translation suggestions weren't being very helpful. Anyway, my response was to stare at her blankly, finally figure out that she wanted me to spar with her, and say: "Would be short fight."

  This made her look even more annoyed, and some other Kolarens who'd been approaching stopped where they were. I guess they thought I was saying I could take Katzyen with one hand tied behind my back.

  Before I'd done more than realise I was about to get a fist in the face, rescue showed up in the form of Tsur Selkie, who did one of those suddenly-just-there-in-the-way appearances that people with Speed talent are so good at. One of Ninth Squad – a guy called Thomasal – zipped up a moment later. It's not as if my seat wasn't in the full sight of half the camp, after all, and Thomasal was camp guard of the moment. I'd been expecting him to show up, but not Selkie.

  The Kolarens had the same reaction to Selkie as the Taren Setari. They went all upright and parade-ground. He didn't act like he'd interrupted a scene, just glanced over them, then said: "This is Caszandra Devlin. Your briefing material will include the requirements regarding interaction with her. Remember two points. First: Devlin's system cannot handle contact with multiple talent users. The seizures such contact causes would be fatal without medical intervention. Second: as part of this detachment your priority, above all else, is to keep her alive." He looked at me, adding: "You have a security alert for a reason," then signalled for Thomasal to follow him and left.

  The Kolarens had gone interesting colours. They're a great deal more tanned than Tarens, and tend more to brown and blonde hair than black, though they still appear to have a combination of Asian and Caucas
ian ancestry. They all looked to be around twenty. The guy who'd stopped Katzyen from hitting me reminded me immensely of the movie version of Lawrence of Arabia, except younger and without the flowing robes and headgear. I turned on my interface name display to see that he was called Arad Nalaz.

  "I couldn't fight my way out of wet paper bag," I told Katzyen, feeling sorry for her now she'd stopped being aggressive and had gone dull red. "Would be very short fight because I lose straight away. Maybe we start this conversation over again?"

  One of the Kolarens, golden-brown and medium-tall, began to laugh. "We've certainly managed a strong first impression." He came closer, and did a quick hand to chest bow. "I'm Raiten Shaf and I think it's very unfortunate of you to be dressed as a Taren Setari if you're not."

  "Assigned to Setari," I explained. "Sometimes go into Ena with them so need uniform's protection." The Kolaren Setari weren't wearing nanosuits, though, and have to carry actual weapons for close combat instead of growing them.

  "You're the, ah, displaced person from the world called Earth?" asked a very burnished woman named Laram Diav.

  "Yes. Is Kolaren Setari here to baby-sit archaeologist horde too?"

  "That's – well, probably not an inaccurate description." Shaf grinned. "So you have seizures if people touch you? That's quite an allergy."

  "Only if too many people touch me at once," I said, then my face went hot. "Pretend that didn't sound strange. You think Taren Setari not want you here?"

  Shaf gave Katzyen an exasperated glance. "No. But we have spent what felt a short eternity being told that technical details of our contribution needed to be finalised."

  "Excuse after excuse, delaying any of us from coming to Muina," Katzyen said. "We wouldn't even know that a settlement had been established, if they'd had their way."

  "No-one on Tare would either, probably. But Setari don't make that decision." I shrugged. "Give you unofficial welcome, anyway. Is beautiful place."