Gratuitous Epilogue : Touchstone Extras (6 page)

When all the squads
which had been stationed on Muina before we were cut off went back
to Tare or Kolar, even the rest of Fourth Squad went, and Lohn,
Mara, Jeh, Grif and Ketzaren, who wanted to take their kids to meet
their families (and see if Deal and Enna's nightmares could be
addressed by a less traumatic journey through deep-space). When
KOTIS swaps in new squads there'll be times when I have bodyguards
not drawn from First, Second or Fourth, which is something to think
about. Of course First and Second, who have all served their
minimum time, have opted for 'Muina transfer' rather than
retirement, and so will be posted here pretty much permanently.
There's a possibility that Fourth will still occasionally work on
Tare, but not for a while, which is good because I don't
particularly want to planet-hop at the moment.

Lohn and Mara (and,
indeed, almost all of First and Second Squad) are expecting masses
of family soon – families of KOTIS staff get settlement preference,
and Lohn and Mara used a bit of Setari leverage to be able to
include a few friends as wedding guests as well. Their wedding is
only nine days away and is really turning into a bit of an event –
word of it inevitably leaked out and the Setari-Watch pages are
full of endless speculation and delight. Fortunately there's no
private airships yet, so they don't have to worry about people
flying over taking photos the way they do for outdoor celebrity
weddings on Earth. The park on First Squad Island has shaped up
nicely – the grass a bit patchy in spots and with lots of shrubs
and weeds, but it still looks very attractive, and Maze and Rye
have been having great fun with it (Maze really is really serious
about becoming a garden designer). The trees everywhere around
Pandora have started their shift into Autumn colours, and the
islands are all gold-tinged with hints of orange. Should be
spectacular.

We're facing our own
relative-influx. Kaoren (who wrote emails to Siame every week
during the cut-off so that she got a flood once channels were open)
decided to bite the bullet and invite his parents and his brother
to come visit. He's doing it because he wants Siame to come back
here because he thinks that's the best chance for her to work out
the issues she has about me saving her, or me taking Kaoren's
attention away from her. And, really, it would be strange to marry
Kaoren without meeting any of his family except Siame.

None of us are looking
forward to the visit. Kaoren's not actually on argumentative terms
with his parents, but he has as little to do with them as possible,
and since they're both Sight Sight talents they're perfectly aware
of his feelings. He's heading to Tare tomorrow to pack up all our
stuff at the Tare Setari headquarters, and will return with his
family in three days. [Kaoren really doesn't want anyone else
handling the objects which mean a lot to him because of how they
feel through Place Sight.] We considered making it another family
trip, but we think it best to not take Sen through deep-space at
the moment. We could sedate her for the trip, but that won't stop
her Place and Sight Sight from operating, and it might be painful
for her. We also – in theory anyway – want to see how we cope with
being away from each other for a few days.

We both know we're
going to have nightmares the entire time, and stress out about
being cut off from each other, but I guess I'll feel less of a wimp
if I prove to myself that I won't fall into a heap if Kaoren's not
within reach.

May

Autumn Bride

The wedding was so much
fun. I embarrassed myself by crying during the ceremony, but it was
an amazing day.

The week leading up to
it was remarkably hectic, starting with Kaoren returning from Tare
with his family. Meeting Kaoren's family went mostly well – Sen set
the tone by shrieking "Seemee!" and hurling herself on Siame, and
then going all shy (or pretending to) and hiding behind Siame's leg
to peek at Kaoren's parents and brother. Siame ended up performing
introductions, and then was dragged off by Sen who wanted to show
her her bedroom. Siame didn't stand a chance against a full-on
Sentarestel charm offensive.

Overall, I didn't
dislike Kaoren's parents, or his brother, but I'm still glad that
they've gone back to Tare. Kaoren's mother, Teor, is very grand and
witty, and didn't act at all hostile or nasty to me, Kaoren or any
of the kids. His father, Paran, is quiet and abstract, and
obviously adores his wife but is absorbed by his own work. But
they're both very definite people, with very strong views, and the
force of Teor's personality particularly is so strong. The first
day she was there, Teor told me she knew I'd be able to influence
Kaoren to not be so foolishly self-sacrificial and to stop feeling
obliged to be a Setari. She just doesn't believe Kaoren could
possibly like being a Setari, especially not more than drawing,
which he'd been devoted to before being drafted for the Setari
program. And she so firmly believed this, and was so convincing, I
almost found myself composing arguments to get Kaoren to retire.
Since she's a Sight Sight talent, it does tell me just how much
Kaoren's decision to devote himself to the Setari program cost him,
because Sight Sight talents are not certain about things without
reason. But obviously not always right, either.

They were very positive
and admiring about all the kids, particularly Rye, who has such a
passion for what he's doing. Loving what you're doing and doing it
well are the things they consider perhaps the most important. But
they also have firm opinions on how you should go about it.
Kaoren's mother's an
arranger
. I didn't mind too much that
she organised years of practical botany courses for Rye, since he
already wanted to do that and we can always rearrange it, but Ys
and Lira are both still discovering things they might possibly want
to do. Ys, I think, wants to study literally everything and refuses
to accept that she will never have enough time, while Lira is
simply enjoying being alive.

Lira came to me very
incensed on the day before the wedding and treated me to a barrage
about how we were all stupid and blind, and once I unravelled all
this I found that Teor had decided that Lira needed to learn music,
had chosen which instruments would best suit her, and added music
lessons to Tsana Dura's program schedule. With Ys she'd asked her
about her reading habits, and given her a reading list, and worked
out the ideal maths/science program. It's not that Ys doesn't like
maths and science – any more than Lira actually dislikes possibly
learning a musical instrument – but Ys also currently wants to
devour every book in this rather old Taren schoolgirl series
(something like
The Baby-Sitters Club
) but is pretending
that she doesn't have any interest in that sort of thing at all, so
got extremely grumpy at the idea of admitting that she didn't care
if they were frivolous. And they both loathe choices being made for
them.

I can see where Kaoren
inherited his love of being in charge.

Arden was less
forceful, but more disconcerting. He's very like Kaoren, but with
longer hair, and a tendency to mock and to ask uncomfortably
insightful questions. Not quite Kaoren's evil alternate universe
twin, but definitely Kaoren if he hadn't decided outright arrogance
wasn't useful. But he's as protective of Siame as Kaoren is, and
wants her to choose to do whatever she prefers to do, rather than
leave the Setari simply because their mother wants it, or stay in
the Setari because Kaoren wants it. His strategy for this was to
encourage her to paint while she was staying here – she immediately
produced this hugely embarrassing portrait of me with my face all
bruised, and my boot camp hair cut, talking to Nils lying smexily
in the grass – conveniently leaving out everyone else who was
sitting around that day. She's incredibly good, but not at all
satisfied with her work, and Arden (and Muina) filled her head with
possible painting subjects, until she was so deeply involved in
trying to paint our waterfall pool that she wasn't finished when
they were due to leave, so Siame's ended up staying with us to
explore her art rather than be a Kalrani. I don't think Kaoren's
mother's fooled by Arden's machinations in the slightest, but so
long as Siame's painting she's happy.

They haven't decided if
they'll actually move to Muina themselves, and I don't know how I
feel about the idea. It'll be months and months before I can even
tell my own Mum that it might be possible for her to come here.
[Now I'm picturing Teor trying to organise my Mum, which would so
not work. Mum goes her own way.]

The fortnight the
Ruuels were here was so filled with things happening that we
avoided anything more than the occasional frowning match. Lohn and
Mara's relatives arrived the same day as the Ruuels, and we'd
offered our two spare guest rooms (Kaoren's family were using the
"future kids" rooms) to handle some of their overflow. We ended up
with Lohn's sister Elha and her husband and three kids, just until
the temporary wedding guests went home. Two twin girls Sen's age
and a boy a year older, which was a most wonderful development in
Sen's view. And Mara's brother had two sons around Rye's age, and
Ketzaren had a much younger brother of around fifteen, and Jeh's
sister had three girls ranging from nine to fourteen. And then
there was Zee's brother's kids, and Maze's extended family
(including Helese's relatives), and Alay's younger brother, and
Kisikar, who had retired from First, and Grif's nephews and it was
just so amazingly many people, all eagerly setting up house and
then wanting to be taken on tour and have meet and greets and
pre-wedding events.

Everybody (including me
and Kaoren) had taken leave so we could play tour guide, and we
mostly travelled with Kaoren and Maze's families, and Kisikar, and
every day a different place – Pandora highlights and Kalasa and
Mesiath, and then the two newly seeded towns – Zurenath (the place
with all the whiteberry bushes in the southern hemisphere, which
they think will be very good for farming) and Liriath in the
northern hemisphere, which I think would match Spain in terms of
proximity to the equator. The trees there are low and dark, and
there were black hills looming at the edges of the huge flat valley
centred around the platform town.

Lohn and Mara's wedding
was super-traditional, apparently. Kaoren had brought back formal
clothes for all of us (girls dress pretty much like the boys when
they're ultra-traditional, in layered robes of neutral shades).
There are rituals for the two days beforehand – little formal
exchanges of gifts and items. Mara made this huge flat cake and her
father delivered it to Lohn's family's (brand-spanking new) house
where they practically pickled it in alcohol in readiness for the
wedding. Then the next day Lohn delivered Mara's wedding robes to
Mara's family's house (after spending weeks trying to get some kind
of symbolic piece of stitching on the back just right). Then on the
wedding day all the bride and groom's close friends showed up at
their respective houses and stole them off to do a preparation
ceremony. I'm not sure if the guys did exactly the same to Lohn,
but we pretty much gave Mara a bath – dressing her in this thin
shift and pouring warm scented water over her and drying her and
then painting all these purplish decorations all over her face and
throat and arms – curling tendrils. Everyone there does a tiny
piece of the decoration, and you're supposed to luck-wish the
marriage while you're doing it. Then (after blotting her dry) we
dressed her in the robes Lohn had brought and took turns combing
her hair and putting pieces of jewellery on her and then we
blindfolded her and delivered her up to the little whitestone
pavilion in their park for the ceremony.

Lohn was there, also
covered in decorations and dressed in robes and reeking of the
scented water, standing in a row with Maze and Grif and Nils and
her brother and a cousin, and Mara had to pick the right one just
by squeezing all their hands in turn. Nils told me Mara would have
to get married to whoever she picked, but I don't believe him, and
she knew which one was Lohn anyway – the citrusy scent of the
ritual water gives the groom away.

We all sat about on
cushions and rugs (or rocks and benches for grandparents) and
watched Mara offer Lohn her name, and Lohn accept it, and their
parents made little speeches and accepted their new son or
daughter, and so Lohn is now Lohn Senez. Then we all ate a piece of
the very alcoholic cake, and had a huge picnic which lasted till
the afternoon got too cold for us to be outside any longer. [Autumn
is now well advanced, and we get warm enough days, but cold
evenings.]

Lohn and Mara had
included their kids and ours in their getting-dressed ceremony, and
Sen naturally adored that, and Lira and Ys didn't nearly manage to
pretend they weren't touched and awed by the whole thing. Rye was
all pink and blushing. Fein and Shar have been wholly overwhelmed
by Mara and Lohn's families, who have embraced them in no uncertain
terms, and there were plenty of games for the kids as part of the
post-wedding picnic. I think having a lot of Taren kids (and even
some Kolaren ones thanks to a few of Squad One's families being
invited) introduced into the mix is benefiting Ys and Rye
immensely. The idea of being 'just a servant' is wholly against
Taren philosophies, simply not on the radar. Ys and Rye are
Caszandra and Kaoren's wards, brave and exotic and not for a moment
to be dismissed because of the length of their names.