First Squad was working with survey and geology – soaring up for aerial views. Every so often the fauna group would get a Setari to come capture an animal for them – Telekinesis and Levitation make that ridiculously easy. A complete lack of drama day, and since Mesiath is in a time zone a couple of hours behind Pandora, when we headed back in late afternoon we arrived just as sunset was fading.
The structure of the new Setari building really makes for a very social set-up, especially when everyone gets back from missions at roughly the same time and sits around the big common room to chat and eat and watch the lake. I belatedly gave Zan the bit of music I'd recorded for her, and quite a few of us watched the latest documentary about the Muina settlement ('latest' as delivered that afternoon by the several ships which are basically on daily shuttle duty between the Muina, Tare and Kolar).
I think I might avoid the news for a while again. My engagement is still all screaming headlines, and there was some annoying talk about undue influence and whether Kaoren was really who I would have chosen if I wasn't kept on such a tight leash by KOTIS. And some irritating 'expert' saying getting engaged was a symptom of my isolation and loss, and that I'd no doubt fixated on Kaoren as a saviour. That was rather balanced by a lot of people thinking it terribly romantic, and there's an increasing number of Kaoren Ruuel lust-sites. I learned a good deal more about the Ruuel family, and saw pictures of his parents and brother.
There was also a lot of discussion about what I could do, and what I should be allowed to do. The Kalasa projection was interesting to a lot more people than historians, and plenty of people were pointing out my potential as an industrial spy.
Devlin. Cassandra Devlin. Shaken, not stirred.
Kaoren fell asleep while I was reading him my diary, thanks to all the exploring after a not particularly good night with me. I've got to figure out a way to not work myself up over things.
Sunday, July 27
Nature documentary
Another day in the forest. Gloriously sunny – which in a forest that tall means incredible columns of light beaming down. Mesiath is a very peaceful place. There's apparently some cat-type predators busily hiding from us, but nothing else anyone's spotted which might think of actively hunting humans.
The city edges on a lake (it's pretty hard to find a city which doesn't edge on a lake on this planet), and I stayed with First and Twelfth Squad today while they did a little landscaping in preparation for 'seeding' a settlement, since even with Zan's level of Telekinesis, enhancement really helped deal with trees that tall. Meanwhile Fourth hunted down gates and explored in near-space.
It was not at all what I'd been picturing that we'd be doing, but managed to combine practical work with a balm of wonder. Everyone was enjoying themselves, glad to be away from the snow, and to see more of their home planet, and Alay disturbed this cluster of butterflies (rather like Monarchs, but with more red and gold) which spiralled up around her into one of the columns of light and she stood in the centre of them, lips parted and eyes bright. I felt like I'd never seen her happy before, and the Unara crack felt like centuries ago, lost to sunlight and iridescent wings.
And then the butterflies settled down over everyone and that was a different kind of fun. Tarens and bugs don't mix, and it was hard not to laugh at the greysuits ducking and scattering.
On a less entertaining note, much of what we were doing was being recorded for another documentary, part of the increased 'openness' demanded. I avoided the scanners as much as possible, especially when anywhere near Kaoren. I don't know if documentaries will lower the number of people sneakily capturing images of us, though.
Monday, July 28
Prescribed privilege
I met two other strays today, people from a planet called Solaria. Despite the name, Solaria's apparently an icy world, snowy everywhere except at the equator, and the two Solarians – who've both been on Tare for over twenty years – had been brought in to give advice and feedback on cold climate living. Very sensible of the Tarens, since my dim memories of a skiing holiday really haven't been very useful.
Solaria's another planet without a marked 'seasonal tilt'. Can seasons really be that unusual among habitable planets? The Solarians were called Denasan (a really wrinkled, white-haired man) and Purda (a woman in her thirties). I spent quite a while chatting to them, learning about their planet, which was in the throes of industrialisation when they were displaced, and asking about their experiences after turning up on Tare. The technological differences were of course the biggest adjustment –more so for Denasan than for Purda, since Purda was only fourteen at the time. Interestingly, the Solarians' Muinan origin has been overtaken by a creation myth involving an ice-god. Stories of Muina are still told, but 'Homeworlders' are persecuted by the priesthood of the ice god, and a lot of Solarians don't believe Muina exists.
Denasan really misses his home planet, and loves being on Muina because it reminds him of the region south of his home on Solaria (at least currently, while Pandora's still having buckets of snow dumped on it – Spring never comes on Solaria), and he's really struggled with living on Tare and pretty much hates it, so far as I could tell. Purda's much more 'typical Taren' and adjusted. She worked on the Solarian version of a farm and even though she was only a teenager when she found herself on Tare, she remembers a whole heap of agricultural information the technicians seem to be interested in.
Although Earth is a good deal closer to Tare technologically, it was pretty clear that without being a touchstone I would have faced a lot of the same issues the Solarians have struggled with, trying to make a 'normal' life as a stray on Tare. The average Taren really does think everyone not from Tare (including, quite possibly, Kolarens) is just a bit slow. Adjusting to a different dialect, and all that advanced technology, makes it very hard to get out of 'Base Level' (which is a Taren term for subsistence living via social security).
There's also a 'stray network' called Tare Displaced Channel which get together for mutual support and complaining about Tarens. Denasan and Purda gave me a formal invite to one of the get-togethers. The Channel apparently has tried to invite me before, and Denasan was rather huffy about it. I explained about me not getting mail from people outside KOTIS, and not being allowed to go out on my own, which I think may have changed Denasan's attitude toward me a little. To the 'average' stray I must seem hugely pampered.
I hadn't really thought about the impact of the opening of Muina on other strays. Suddenly skills which were completely irrelevant on Tare are becoming valuable, and Denasan and Purda aren't the only strays being recruited.
Tuesday, July 29
Urban Design
KOTIS is seriously gearing up settlement preparation. Today we skipped Mesiath and instead all five Setari squads spent the day assisting in the seeding of entire suburbs for Pandora, deep into the hills east of the old city and then along the lake to the north. Five squads of highly-trained killers clearing snow and lugging vats of whitestone 'seed' and computer-constructed models and bits of equipment and chasing off hungry native wildlife.
I was along for enhancement, and learned all these details of urban planning and design which I'd never really thought about. It's not just a matter of plonking houses and streets down. For the past five months, ever since they worked out that people could survive here, a fleet of technicians back on Tare and Kolar have been designing the city layout in terms of water and power and food production and drainage and waste and hospital services and fires and police and schools and transport and industry and shops and entertainment and defence and – my head just starts reeling when I try and think through the whole process. They're preparing initial infrastructure for fifty thousand people, and have expansion plans for long into the future. I just can't get over the idea of fifty thousand people living here.
Before the snows came the survey and geologist types had had a pretty thorough go at mapping the topography of Pandora's surroundings. They selected sites for factories (an industrial h
ub inland along a river which lets out north of here) and the residential sections will checkerboard with farmland, which in the very long run will probably become parkland. The bit north where all the sheep live is going to be a particularly farmy area since it also brushes along the northern river – the sheep are being 'redomesticated' and already have their personal set of highly technological shepherds – lots of Kolarens involved there, since Kolar deals with animals far more than Tare does. The old city (Aversan) is going to be part historical site and part working gardens. They don't want to pull it down or alter it greatly, but it is a biggish chunk of land, so they're going to use all the gardens either for produce, botanical research, or as a wildlife habitat for animals that they want to study. The plaza/piazza areas will be used as exactly that by the inhabitants of the wider area, and certain selected buildings will be converted to functioning use, particularly around the amphitheatre.
I'm very impressed by their plans. I would never have expected the Tarens, with their closed-off and blockish cities, to switch so immediately to creating a sprawling park with balconies. Given the pictures I've seen of Kolar, the Kolarens have definitely been a big influence – because of the heat, Kolarens sink their buildings, and only have parts of them out in the sun. Like the Tarens, Kolarens lived in caves when they first evacuated from Muina, at least in part because water on Kolar either drains underground or evaporates very quickly.
The Setari building is a prototype of what the buildings of this phase will be like, though most of them will be larger, built to accommodate dozens of families. No individual houses at this stage, just half-buried apartment blocks. The Kolarens and the Tarens have had to work together a great deal on this, both to avoid the Kolarens feeling excluded again, and because neither of their planets really fit the Muinan environment.
Back on Tare and Kolar they're having huge arguments ('discussions') about who gets to move in to all these buildings we've just planted – they've been having them for months, struggling over the big questions raised by two distinct cultures trying to settle the same home world. Is Tare or Kolar in control? Is KOTIS the right group to be leading the settlement? Will there be separate Taren and Kolaren settlements? A unified planetary government? Whose laws will be used? Which dialect? Whose technology? Do they build for complete interface integration, or actually step back in terms of technology? If all settlers have to have the interface, will it be the interface on Tare's terms?
There are plenty of people on Kolar not keen to have the 'internal policeman' which the Taren interface represents, and they find many of their laws horrifying. Of course, Tarens don't think much of some of Kolar's laws either.
Tare is winning a lot of the arguments, though. Nanotechnology is a difficult advance for Kolar to turn down, and it at least sounds like the Tarens are getting rather less anal about sharing their technology now that Muina can offer them the resources they're currently dependant on Kolar to provide. Part of what they're deciding will be temporary, just an initial structure so that they can get moving.
I just realised that all this rush and hurry mightn't be down to population pressures or being so keen to embrace their home world. Tare and Kolar might be thinking of Muina as an ark. Because the Ddura will protect the platform towns even from massives, and a gate in the wrong place on Muina won't bring a city tumbling down.
At least, not unless the gates get bigger than cities.
If that is the reason, they're not saying it out loud. All the news stories about Muina are extremely cheerful and upbeat, and so are the KOTIS staff concentrating on getting whitestone seeded and design models placed. Over the next few weeks, with only a bit of monitoring from the technicians (who need to be sure the growing buildings don't run out of readily-available 'food'), a small city will quietly be reproduced. Lacking all the glass and fittings and furniture and energy generators, but with the bulk of the work done. Whitestone even extrudes certain metals and minerals, rather than absorb them. They don't even have to dig to lay the connecting pipes. They're going to grow a subway system.
I definitely chose the right name for the settlement. This isn't a box I can close. I think all the Setari assisting were overwhelmed as well. Happy, though. Maze, particularly, really loves doing positive things rather than endlessly killing Ionoth, and it showed in everything he did.
Kaoren's getting his way about returning to our main mission though. Tomorrow First and Fourth will take me into the Ena for a combination of me doing more testing and them trying to find Pillars. The fact that we can settle this world, that the Ddura will protect the sites, hasn't removed the need to fix the tearing of the spaces, or found the reason why the Ddura started killing Muinans, and what exactly the Cruzatch have to do with it all.
The fact that they're intending to go ahead with the settlement without answering the question about the Ddura scares the hell out of me.
Wednesday, July 30
Back on Track
Kaoren's very pleased. First and Fourth took me on the Ena mission he wanted (having stolen Fourteenth's strongest path finder, Sanya, as well) and they all enhanced and immediately detected a Pillar.
Since they were under strict orders not to take me into combat, but also had the advantage of the immediate near-space and connecting spaces being wiped clear by the Ddura, they could take me along partway, tracking through two gates before they encountered a space which was populated. They then sent me back to wait by the gate with Zee, Halla and Mori as escort, and I got to do tests while the squads pushed on.
A very simple test today – Zee told me to project remembered music or television until I could project no more, and they would measure how much that cost me. I recorded another piece of classical music for Zan (this rather pretty thing done with recorders, slow and spiralling, no idea who it's by), and then a song for me, and then I did an episode and a half of Planet Earth which I now get to subtitle. I couldn't do all that in one go – I have to rest every few minutes – but it's nothing like so difficult a task as doing it in real-space. I stopped when I was totally wiped, and spent much of the afternoon asleep, carefully doing a visualisation exercise before going to bed. Zee stayed in the living room of my apartment, but I managed to not have a nightmare.
When I woke up it was late afternoon, and Kaoren still wasn't back, but I was determined to stay drama-free and asked Zan and Dess if we could go for a walk along the lake. That wasn't bad: we chatted about parts of Muina we've visited, and then built snow sculptures on the very top of the Setari building/hill until, finally, First and Fourth came back, exhausted but whole.
They'd had to travel ten spaces to get to the Pillar, and had run up against a few tough battles which made them glad they were dual-squadding, especially since the Ena manipulation talents had had to stabilise an awful lot of gates. Par was levitating Sonn, who'd passed out. They sent Squad Three and Fourteenth out to place a couple of drones, and put some extra stabilisation on the gates, and they made it there and back in about an hour and a half. Kaoren and Maze both waited until the other squads were safely back before getting some rest themselves – working their way through dinner and getting a start on their reports. Kaoren pretty much fell into bed once we got back to our room.
I like these bed nooks. The beds themselves are ever so slightly cup-shaped and the nanomaterial mattress makes sleeping on rock a lot more comfortable than you'd expect. Need more pillows, but the walls are great for propping yourself against.
Kaoren gets restless if I'm not in contact with him. I probably shouldn't be pleased about that. I probably shouldn't keep experimenting to see how he reacts when I move my leg away.
We've only been together two and a bit weeks. It was a shock to flip back through my diary and realise that. I've stopped being so wary of doing or saying the wrong thing.
Thursday, July 31
At the movies
All of the Muina-stationed Setari, except for Kiste and Halla who are babysitting me, are back in the Ena today trying to do th
e tests which had been planned for the last Pillar. The mood was mixed when everyone left: they've been wanting to properly study a Pillar for so long, but given what happened last time, no-one was exactly cheerful. And, even though the aether isn't fatal to them any more, it does make them drunk, which is not a good state to be in any part of the Ena, let alone areas frequented by far too many deep-space roamers. So today's a serious day.
It's the Cruzatch which are the biggest concern. It's all too possible they might try to sabotage the mission again, so the squads plan to use a drone to lock the outlet levers before they venture close to the Pillar themselves.
At least Kiste and Halla are in the exact same boat as me, worrying about their squads. Though interestingly calling each other Tahl and Charan when they think I'm not listening. Kiste's elbow is almost fully healed now, but he says he's facing a lot of training to get it back to former strength.
It was a nice day outside, so I decided to see how tolerant they'd be of me wandering about. There'd been a big dump of snow the previous night, but the skies had cleared, and there was no wind. Snow drifts did make it a little hard-going in spots, but I figured this could count as me getting some exercise, and tramped my way all the way in to the old town, up to my old tower, only to find I couldn't get in. They really have preserved it as a historical site, fitting shields over the windows and doorways.
Annoyed by this, I headed back to Setari quarters and told Kiste and Halla that I was going to spend the rest of the day working on subtitling. So I'm in my bedroom being sore from forging through snowdrifts, and taking a break from translating David Attenborough.
Hm, the Litara just arrived with another massive supplies delivery, and also Third, Eleventh and Thirteenth. More squads here than on Tare at the moment. I guess this is because of the Pillar.
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The Touchstone Trilogy Page 69