We haven't pushed each other yet, haven't had an argument or done anything guaranteed to irritate the other, but this – he and I – has been working better than I could have hoped given that he's a driven perfectionist and I'm, well, a stop and smell the roses type. I'm finding myself unexpectedly settled rather than plagued with doubts.
We didn't make love last night, though; the first time in the eight whole days since we got together. Kaoren could tell my legs had left me very queasy this time round, and I think his Sights mean that unless I'm truly into it, it's not going to happen. No faking allowed. Instead we watched one of Kaoren's favourite movies (this incredibly sad and smart and beautiful story about a woman outwitting a mad AI), and then I read more diary and we talked about the schoolies week and going to high school in Australia, and then experimentally eating things to see whether they kill you.
My first four days on Muina. I was so alone.
I had a nightmare later: not one of the Sight ones, just dreaming of walking along that river and never being found. I cried a little, when Kaoren woke me up, because I really don't care that much about not being allowed out into the city, or the size of my pay packet, or anything but not being so scared and isolated. And this growing confidence I have about Kaoren just underlines to me that, despite how nice people were to me, I stayed being scared and isolated long after I was rescued.
Nearly time to go into the Ena.
Under Observation
Maze introduced me to the new squad members (both First's and Fourth's) before we went into the Ena. They were all around my age and being extremely correct and proper, as you'd expect for Kalrani who'd suddenly found themselves joining senior squads.
Kian Farn, joining First, was too guarded for me to get any real impression of him. He's around average height (given that most people here are tall), he said practically nothing, and he was very watchful and expressionless, measuring everything that was happening around him. Az Norivan has a wonderful curling smile, and although not nearly at Eeli-level seems to be a fairly 'up' type of person.
Rada Dae, Fourth's new Fire (plus Telekinesis) talent, and Sael Toren with a primary of Ice, are absolute stereotypical fire and ice personalities, except Dae has dyed his hair dark blue with frosted white tips, which is a complete failure to conform to the 'Fire' colour scheme. But Dae is all energetic and enthusiastic, outgoing and chatty, while Toren is coldly reserved and very down-to-business, so otherwise they slot right into their pigeonholes. Toren will probably appreciate being in Fourth because Kaoren's so very focused and efficient. Oddly, he doesn't remind me of Kaoren at all – Kaoren is more detached than cold, while Toren was definitely of the 'coolly superior and does not think much of you' cold.
Though none of the new squad members were being nasty or grouchy, I didn't get the impression any of them were at all pleased to be placed in First and Fourth, which confused the hell out of me for a while. I don't usually ask Kaoren about 'staffing', since gossiping about the people he supervises isn't something he's likely to do, but interrupted his report writing just now to say: "New people all captain candidates? Appointments to First and Fourth only temporary?"
"It will be interesting to see how long it takes them to reach the same conclusion," Kaoren said. "We're not ready to form additional squads, let alone send them out raw to face the increasing numbers we're having to deal with. After a year working actively in the Ena, most of the additional squad members will be considered for reformation into Fifteenth and Sixteenth. Some will remain, and perhaps become part of Seventeenth and Eighteenth in turn. Eight-strength squads give us an opportunity for advanced training."
"Why not tell them that beforehand?"
"Nothing has been firmly decided. And all captains must learn to follow the lead of their seniors." He shifted me a little closer to his side before going back to his report writing. He isn't at all keen on me being out of reach just now, and that's the Nurans' fault. If I end up having a permanent guard assigned to me even while I'm in KOTIS, I'm going to be severely annoyed.
The testing session itself was very interesting. Maze brought a drone and a scan-chair along, and both squads went up to the roof to a spot where they'd apparently stuck a drone in real-space as well. Zee, Alay and Halla stayed with me while First and Fourth separated and went hunting over the massive-pile-of-blocks expanse of Konna. They rarely have to hunt out over the water, since the Ionoth tend to drown if they come through out there. Even the flying Ionoth gravitate toward the land masses, which only makes sense because Tare's storms helpfully rip them apart if they don't find some level of shelter.
Zee had me start out making projections from memory. And that was so much easier than it is in real-space I could scarcely believe it. I did a few minutes of the first episode of a favourite of Mum's, a BBC documentary called Planet Earth, and then took a break, but was nowhere near to passing out as I would have been in real-space. A quick sprint, stop for a rest, then fine to go on.
"Try an object now," Zee said, putting her breather down in front of me.
This was harder to achieve. Projecting images takes a bit of mental effort to start off, but it does work a lot like pressing 'play'. Making the breather is different in ways it's really hard to put into words – kind of like those magic eye puzzles where you have to sort of unfocus your eyes, but I needed to unfocus my mind. I find it easier when I close my eyes and someone starts reading out a long description, guiding what I'll project.
Still, after a bit of frowning – and nearly making a mug of hot chocolate – I produced a breather which Zee could pick up, but which went away as soon as I stopped concentrating on it. And yet my origami cranes are still going strong. My talents seem to me very contradictory.
Since I was still feeling fine – no headache, just a bit of an elevated heartbeat which went away after a rest – Zee had me go on to visualising a room she described. This was a restaurant, a fancy one which seemed to be at 'shift change' – closed for a half-kasse for a thorough clean and refresh. Five people were moving about, whisking fresh cloths over tables, setting out table spices and long blue heated centrepieces where platters of food would be set to keep warm. Two of them were chatting about whether one of the girls should go out with someone, briskly continuing their work all the time. They didn't seem able to see us, but when Halla picked up a glass they noticed that immediately, and pointed, then asked each other which of them was the Telekinetic. But they could more or less see Halla's shadow, now they were looking directly at her, and came and crowded around her, talking excitedly.
I let the projection lapse then (to Halla's relief, I suspect), and shrugged when Zee asked me how I was feeling. "Could do with a bit of a rest," I said, then opened a private channel to her, and Maze and Kaoren, who were distant but within range thanks to the drone's relay.
"There's someone watching us," I said. "On the roof just above. They came during the last projection."
"The Nuran?" Maze asked, while Zee looked down to stop herself from looking up.
"Not Inisar," I said. "It's no-one I know. I looked right at where they're standing but I couldn't see them."
"Does not register with Combat Sight," Zee said, moving so she was standing within touching distance of me. I took out my water flask, though I could tell by the way Alay was frowning at me that I wasn't acting particularly naturally.
"Warn Annan the moment you detect any movement," Maze said crisply. "Ruuel, your squad is closer. We'll hang back in case this is an opening of communication." He brought us all into the one channel, saying: "There's an unknown at the test site. We're returning, but do not attack unless signalled."
"Halla, enhance and scan the roof above with Place," Kaoren said, voice as calmly even as if we were all in one of the training rooms preparing for a test session.
Halla, with just the faintest hint of confusion, moved close enough to brush my arm with her fingertips, then stood gazing upward. I was watching her face, and saw her lips part slightly, then she said
, "Streaming," over the interface, and we all got to look at the barest blurry echo of a shape of a shape standing gazing down at us.
It was pretty hard to tell, but I thought it was a woman. There was a bump by one leg which could have been the hilts of two swords worn in the same way as Inisar's.
"Is invisibility a talent all on its own?" I asked Zee, since everyone staring upward made pretending we didn't know the woman was there pretty pointless.
"It's Illusion-casting," Zee replied, not shifting her attention away from the place the watcher occupied. "Very few Illusionists can manage it."
I was briefly distracted wondering if Nils could, and if he crept about being invisible, but found I was annoyed and said flatly: "Nurans don't have very good manners."
Zee put an admonitory hand on my shoulder, and I sighed, then tried to remember what it had felt like when Inisar had spoken in my head. The figure above us shifted as Fourth Squad rose up through the gaps in the half-formed buildings below us, and I tried mentally saying: "Not allowed to talk?"
There was no reaction. I decided not to push it, since for all I knew I could be revealing things which would endanger Inisar. And then Fourth was there, spreading in a semi-circle behind me, Kaoren at my other shoulder.
Zee dropped her hand so Kaoren could enhance, and then she said: "Caszandra has a point. To watch, hidden, is hardly courteous."
All this achieved, though, was to make the Nuran leave.
"Teleported," Kaoren said, and Halla and I both nodded.
That killed the testing session. Maze took me back inside with First as an escort while Fourth tried to track the Nuran. Zee and Alay stayed with me until Kaoren returned, and I suspect if I wasn't handily sleeping with Captain All-the-Sights, I'd have Halla on my couch. According to Maze, it'll be a while before a decision is made about whether to go ahead with these sessions. That the Nurans can shield themselves from Combat Sight is something none of the Setari like.
KOTIS sent a ship to Nuri after Inisar first showed up, and were basically "escorted off the premises" by a couple of very uncommunicative Nurans. I can just picture tiny flying samurai staring down the Diodel or even the Litara. I bet Inisar could pull that off.
Whatever the Nurans want with me, they plainly don't intend to start cooperating with Tare, which no-one thinks is a good sign. Kaoren's really bothered by today's (non-)appearance.
Tuesday, July 22
Crack
A day which started mildly, with nothing but training with Fourth scheduled. Martial arts in the morning – everyone pairing off and trying to hit each other. I was paired with Sonn, and Kaoren left me to her while critically watching everyone else. Toren and Dae were paired to start with, and Kaoren didn't seem to pay any particular attention to them, just swapped them out after a while to fight Glade and Mori.
I still can't tell how good people are at fighting – certainly not when they're practicing rather than quickly taking their opponents down. Toren and Dae didn't seem to me to be obviously better or worse than Glade or Mori, but the way their expressions changed – Dae acting intense and determined and Toren going all grimly quiet – I guess there must have been some kind of difference. Kaoren spoke to them briefly – five terse words – during a rest break and both of them looked like they wished they were anywhere else.
Most of Fourth Squad are twenty (I refuse to think of Kaoren as sixty), while Toren and Dae are a couple of years younger. You can't actively serve as a Setari until you've hit fifty – nearly seventeen – which is the 'qualifying age' on Tare for trying to pass the adulthood exams. Most Kalrani aren't promoted until they're closer to eighteen. Toren and Dae no doubt knew Kaoren's reputation, and Fourth's generally as a squad which focuses on close combat, but I think they were expecting less of a gap.
Still, with me around they never had to worry about being the worst in the room. I was genuinely trying, and I am a little better than before, but I always seem to make absolutely the wrong choice in response to an attack, and I think Sonn was having to spend a lot of effort to not wipe the floor with me.
The best part of martial arts training for me is seeing everyone in the martial arts training outfits. They apparently wear these because the nanosuits give too much cushioning, and can sprout weapons. They do training using the nanoliquid blades as well, of course, but work on the basic combat moves separately. Mori seems to be the best fighter in the squad beside Kaoren – or at least he sparred with her seriously toward the end of the session.
After that we changed and jogged over the stairs. I dropped far behind, unsurprisingly, but Kaoren stayed with me while the rest of the squad went ahead, and fortunately he didn't turn into a drill-sergeant, letting me rest halfway up the longer flights of stairs. I told him it would be a great workout for him if he carried me, but he just asked me deadpan if I thought he wasn't getting enough exercise.
"Am I going to be babysat for long?" I asked. "Haven't failed to notice that Halla keeping close to me even when getting changed."
"That will depend on the Nuran," Kaoren said, not bothering to pretend I'm not under full-time guard. It was pretty obvious I'd been switched to training with Fourth because it has two Place Sight talents.
"Would Nuran really have any chance of wandering about undetected inside? Doors wouldn't open, elevators wouldn't work."
"And scanners are harder to guise against. But shielded rooms won't necessarily keep a teleporter out, though it increases the risk." He tucked a straying strand of hair behind my ear, adding: "Very likely we will be relocated to Muina ahead of schedule, since even Nurans would find the Ddura an insurmountable obstacle. And, yes, that won't change the fact that you are going to be constantly guarded for the foreseeable future."
"I don't like that it was a different Nuran than Inisar," I said, sighing at the thought of constant guarding – for all that a large part of that constant guarding is going to involve just me and Kaoren and probably not a lot of clothing. "Do you think they found out he gave me that book?"
"It's a possibility." He asked whether my legs hurt, and we had a brief, serious discussion about the conflicts between supervising me and sleeping with me. Kaoren prefers my training to be with First, but that I be assigned to Fourth whenever I go anywhere risky. I'm fine with either, just so long as no-one decides to station us on different planets again.
The afternoon was mixed combat training with Fourth and First, with Nils from Second along to make illusions for everyone to attack. He was being oddly quiet again, and didn't even tease me about Kaoren, though I could tell he knew by the way he watched when Kaoren was talking to me. Surprisingly, I don't think the gossip has spread very far. Other than Kaoren and I having lunch together one day, we haven't been seen out publicly, and I guess those who know haven't been telling.
Even Toren and Dae aren't in that loop. Fourth Squad have been politely welcoming toward their two new members, but weren't being relaxed and 'themselves' during break times with them. They were well aware that Toren and Dae didn't like that they'd been assigned to Fourth, and naturally they weren't pleased with that. Or it could be they were still being quiet and non-chatty on account of me sleeping with Kaoren, but I don't think it's quite the case. Sonn seemed a little more like I was an accepted part of the team than she usually is, and I even had a bit of a conversation with Halla about Nurans and what they thought they were achieving by not joining forces with the other ex-Muinan civilisations.
And then, halfway through the two squad training session, the swoops Nils had been projecting abruptly disappeared. The look on his face, when we turned to find out why, was such straightforward shock that First and Fourth reacted by gathering as if to fight off an attack, but then Ketzaren said: "Unara."
I was a beat behind everyone else checking the news feeds, and the first channel I went to only seemed to be showing me a waterfall. A waterfall and a chair. That was from a scanner, but the feed switched almost right away to someone's personal vision. They were in a triple-tiered atriu
m full of plants and there was water pouring down from a gash, a long, wide crack, in the whitestone ceiling. And there was a woman hanging down, tangled in, I don't know, some kind of cable, with the water pouring past her.
It had only just happened, too recent even for the bluesuits to have worked out any orders, but First and Nils ran anyway, so they'd be ready at the nearest lock. Kaoren said: "Take lead," to Mori and she, Par, Glade and our two Kalrani went, while Kaoren, Halla and Sonn stayed to protect me from Invisible Nurans. I had a couple of moments' angst about that, then realised that they probably wouldn't have been sent anyway. Sight talents and Lightning wouldn't be very useful when what you were fighting was Tare's weather.
It's only now, hours later, that any sort of clear exterior view of the damage has been available. It doesn't even look like that much, just a tiny crack in the endless blocky meringue of Unara. Other than some falling injuries, it's likely that it wouldn't have been anything like so bad, except this is Tare, and the daily mega-storm was dumping half an ocean on Unara's roof.
I called the crack tiny, but it exposed over two thousand Unaran apartments to one of Tare's full-scale storms. Bad enough, but add to that the countless gallons of water draining over the vast expanse of the roof, some diverted into water collection channels, but most following whatever was the easiest course down to the ocean.
In the first few minutes after the crack opened, a lot of people evacuated, thankfully. But others moved to inner rooms, or were stopped by exit corridors split in two or elevators not functioning. The Unaran authorities, finding corridors and atriums suddenly awash, had little choice but to seal the area as best they could. And the person who was transmitting on the news channel I'd linked to – it was a teenaged kid named Konstan Trabel – drowned.
The Touchstone Trilogy Page 66