Gratuitous Epilogue : Touchstone Extras (18 page)

They're even talking
about it being a 'world school' if the experiments in recreating
the aether-making buildings and the transport network work, and
thus kids from every settlement might be attending. I'm pleased
about the expanded campus because there'll be sporting facilities,
and Rye is so looking forward to more options for team sports. I'm
also pleased that the draft plans I've seen leave lots of the trees
intact.

Other than once or
twice being glimpsed at the school's dock, I hadn't made a public
appearance since the wedding pictures were released – I refuse all
the invitations to events which are now forwarded to me – so me
wandering about was considered likely to cause a high amount of
fuss. We decided to go in two groups for shopping, with the boys
hoping to stay low-key, and meeting up with Siame for lunch at the
fancy café at the Pandora Museum before taking a tour of the
exhibits and checking out the Gallery.

We went first to the
big underground shopping complex below Moon Piazza (after a brief
stop to look at the statue, on the insistence of Sen). It was
reasonably non-busy once we were in the main mall, and we were
wearing sunhats and were shielded by our escort (Alay and Maze,
Nils, Mori, Zee and Glade) and strolled along window shopping.
Alay, Maze and Zee are technically on leave at the moment, but
volunteered to be part of the escort (so me, Zee and Alay could
talk baby stuff, really).

While handily blocking
casual view of us, Nils, Zee and Maze got recognised themselves
(the senior Setari are all fairly well-known by now), and it's
really kind of fun to watch the ripple impact of an interface
connected world. First a few people paused for double-takes, and
then stopped altogether and watched outright while we were peering
in a jewellery store window (Lira is very keen to get her earrings)
and then a couple of reports appeared on the Setari-watch and
Caszandra-watch pages and then there was this snowball effect as
more and more people in the shopping complex spotted us, or were
contacted by other people. We'd gone into a "young girl's clothes"
store and the lone assistant didn't even look up as we came in and
then suddenly spun around because someone had obviously told her we
were in her store.

It's pretty hard to
shop normally when people start hanging about, watching everything
you do. Ys – whose interest in shopping is minimal – put up with it
because she could see how much fun Sen found the experience. The
crowds disconcert Sen a little, but she's decided it's amusing to
peep out from behind our legs and wave at people. And she and Lira
love shopping, especially trying on clothes in a way which is just
that bit more satisfying than virtual clothing. Fortunately one of
the things which had been decided upon was to ask the stores to set
their display windows to opaque while we were inside, which saved
us from having too many prying eyes hoping to catch glimpses of
anyone modelling new outfits. I had to prod Ys to try on anything,
of course, but managed to get a good set of clothing choices for
all three, and then we passed through a food court and indulged in
unhealthy but gaudily coloured snacks before moving on to shoes and
then a baby and maternity store before heading off to meet Kaoren
and Rye.

By that time I was
feeling pretty tired and was glad we'd booked ahead for one of the
café's private rooms. Particularly since it was rather a fancy
café, and the privacy gave Kaoren a chance to remind the kids (and,
well, me) of some of the niceties of Taren table
manners.

I really have to wonder
what my Mum will make of all this, if I manage to get her here. And
Jules. I don't think either of them will like this part of living
on Muina at all.

Another August

Games

Siame submitted one of
her paintings to an anonymous art competition and won second prize,
which has annoyed her extremely so far as I can tell. She's also
slowly been resuming her Setari training, attending the talent
school at Pandora. Officially she was never dropped from the Setari
program, since while Kalrani usually don't get to take a year off
to paint, Sight Sight talents are rare enough and touchy enough
that the bluesuits decided that she'd be permitted extended
recovery time from being half-gutted by the Cruzatch. Kaoren says
she's returned because she wants to be in the exploration teams
working through the ruins outside the Ddura-protected
areas.

That includes Kalasa,
which is slowly being cleaned as well as studied. They're learning
a lot, having translated the intact books, and those I visualised
for them before I went on leave. They're still having big arguments
about whether to completely restore it, or preserve it in its
damaged condition. People want to go be tourists there, but it's
still too important. One day, probably, and till then they have
incredible virtual tours.

There's a new interface
game starting – being released on Tare and Muina at the same time –
and maybe Kolar as well, since the interface is slowly spreading
there now Tare has relaxed its restrictions on trade. It's called
Home
and it's based on what is now known of the fall of
Muina and the exodus of whole villages through deep-space to find
other worlds to live on. Players will take on the roles of junior
Lantarens and warriors and have to find a route to a habitable
planet and escort hundreds of NPC villagers and explore and settle
the planets. Lots of weird deep-space stuff, battles with massives,
'resting' in various spaces accessed on the way, searching for food
and supplies, locating planets and checking to see how habitable
they are, getting trapped in sprawling zones and having to puzzle a
way out.

Battlestar
Galactica
without the spaceships, basically, but it sounds
really different and fun and event-based and I'm definitely going
to play a lot. Unlike the online games I've played, everyone gets
to go through the zones, no matter what level they are, and they
just get assigned different tasks according to the skills they've
built up as the game progresses. I was a bit worried that people
would recognise me from my accent, but Nils (who plays lots of
online games because he likes battles which don’t have any lives in
the balance) told me not to worry, that there's always plenty of
people in games pretending to be Setari, or me, or my kids. He said
he sometimes pretends to be someone pretending to be a
Setari.

Kaoren says he will
play
Home
with me, and smiled even before I laughed. This is
home, and nothing virtual about it.

Another September

Echoes

This has been a month
where the Ena reminded us that it might have faded as a threat, but
it's far from gone.

First came a stickie
outbreak on Kolar, one which was unfortunately discovered because a
few of the infected reached the 'psychotic break' stage of the
stickie lifecycle. It was in what the Kolarens call The Grey – the
permanently twilight area close to the northern pole. The Grey is a
highly desirable place to live on Kolar, with just enough light to
navigate by thanks to the sun dancing around the horizon, and with
a comfortable temperature range, edging toward chilly as you
approach The Black. [South of The Grey is The Gold and then The
Sere. Then it reverses to the southern pole. Kolar is a planet of
latitudes.]

They have more
above-ground buildings in The Grey than anywhere else on Kolar, and
rather lovely street lighting powered by a kind of fungus which
produces a soft radiance it evolved to lure insects. As you head
toward The Black it must be like living in glow-worm land. The
stickie-infected people apparently ran around smashing all the
lights in their building, then spread out into The Grey snuffing
the glow-worm fungus leading into The Black and getting luminous
gunk on them and leaping out at unsuspecting passers-by. It sounds
like it would be funny, but they hurt quite a few people, and
mostly died themselves, so definitely not funny.

The stickie infection
was very widespread and Kolar was still mopping up when a batch of
new settlers on their way from Tare nearly collided with a massive
– a particularly difficult one to avoid, too, like a hungry sea
urchin-octopus, all spines and tentacles. The ship – the
Isadore
, the largest of the passenger transports – took a
bad knock, gouged all along its underside and nearly tossed off
course when it powered free of the tentacles. Nor could they just
race off and escape the massive, needing to keep to the delicate
timing through the ebbs and flows of deep-space. It was a
slow-moving tentacle monster, but fast enough to follow them
through their stop-start journey to Muina.

When the
Isadore
came lumbering through the rift gate, too damaged to do more than
avoid setting down directly on top of Atanra, I was on my balcony
enjoying the Autumn view and the fact that Twelfth has finally had
another posting to Muina. I hadn't seen Zan since my wedding,
though we've kept up an exchange of emails, and we were bonding
over stepping exercises (which the medics recommended I keep up
through the pregnancy).

I was just working my
way up to asking Zan her opinion of Shon, who I thought might make
a nice match for her, when KOTIS went to full alert. Roake
(Lenton), Dess and Sora Nels had been over at Arcadia's Setari
house, and came whizzing up to stand protectively around
me.

When the "Massive at
Atanra" message came, Zan exchanged a glance with her squad, then
they all looked at me, not impossibly large but well past the point
where I have to think before bending down or standing up. I'd been
dreading a massive attack, since many of the Setari still can't
reliably enhance themselves, but there's no way I can risk the
strain on my system.

"Atanra has plenty of
weapons, right?" I said to Zan.

She nodded, attention
elsewhere. Because I'm on leave, I hadn't been brought into the
forming mission channel, but just then Kaoren opened a private link
to me, because he knew I'd need to know what was going
on.

Muina's Setari,
scattered all over the planet, were already heading to Mesiath,
because there's a reliable and short route from Mesiath to Atanra
via the Ena. Eighth Squad was out of the loop, busy on Arenrhon
rotation. That left us with all nine Nuran Setari, First-Second,
Fourth, Twelfth, Fourteenth and Sixteenth. No Kolarens – they'd
been recalled because of the stickie mess.

First and Fourth had
taken down the Umbrella massive, but it had needed so many more
squads for the Dohl Array massive. And as information flooded in
from Atanra, and Kaoren and Tsur Selkie made their initial
evaluations, it was clear that Atanra's defences were not
sufficient – particularly when using most of them would destroy the
Isadore
more quickly than the massive. Mara, Jeh, Ketz and
Alay all hurriedly made arrangements with their handily-close
relatives, while Zee (frowning rather) came across to take over
being my guard.

Zan spared me a glance
and told me to go sit down, then she flew her squad off to
Pandora's platform. I went inside obediently enough, sending an
email to the kids explaining briefly what was going on so they
wouldn't have to wonder why some of their teachers had dashed
off.

"It's bad, isn't it?" I
said to Zee when she followed me in. A pointless thing to say,
really – I could see it was bad, as Kaoren was watching vision from
Atanra of the massive slowly shuffling across grassy meadows
towards the downed ship. [If I were the goats that live by the
rift, I would definitely consider permanent relocation.]

Zee only gave me a
brief nod, and then Ys sent me a channel request. She, Lira and Rye
were all in-channel when I joined.

"Will people die?" Ys
asked, with typical bluntness.

"I don't know, Ys." The
passengers of the
Isadore
were in a state of complete panic,
rushing the exits so that the ship's captain had had to open them
just to prevent people dying in the crush. "I think it will depend
how long it takes the squads to get there." And how much firepower
it would take to bring the thing down.

"Lira wants to
help."

I paused. The question
of Lira working as a touchstone has been raised over and over, and
particularly after it was known I was pregnant. But Lira has so
firmly refused to admit that she can still project, and has so
consistently responded with anger and then panic to any discussion
of her working as a touchstone, that KOTIS decided to back away
from the discussion until she's older.

Suspecting that this
was perhaps more Ys thinking Lira should help, I said: "Are you
sure you're ready for that, Lira?"

"No," Lira said,
sounding angry. "I don't want to do it. But I don't want people to
die. And I want that more."

"I'm glad," I said, and
then opened a channel to Tsur Selkie, Zan, and Kaoren (a second
link), telling them: "Lira wants to help. I think she's ready for
it."

Zan, just short of the
Pandora platform, held her squad, waiting, and it was only a few
moments before Tsur Selkie gave her the go-ahead. I asked Zee if it
was possible for Ys, Rye and Sen to be brought home from school
early, and then sat on the couch to stress while she arranged that.
My main goal from that point onward was to not distract Kaoren,
which meant I did breathing exercises and tried to keep my heart
rate at relatively normal levels. When the kids arrived, I had to
really work at it because Sen was extremely distressed – partly
because Sight Sight was working overtime on her 'need to know'. I
ended up describing parts of what was happening to her, which made
it easier for both of us.