Stray (30 page)

When they were back, Ruuel checked the status of the gate once again, then said: "We'll retrace now.  A good result."  I swear, he talks like he's being charged a dollar a word.  But that judicious dollop of approval succeeded in making his whole squad, even me, stand a little straighter.

At least, with Fourth Squad being dauntingly competent, I didn't have a lot of time to fret about crushes.  Other than sending me off to medical afterwards, Ruuel failed to do anything to either make me dislike him or fall at his feet, and I ended up focused on business.  I really did like when he said it was a good result, though. 

Friday, March 14

Planning an outing

Today while I was swimming I was brought into a meeting channel by Isten Notra.  "Just listen," said her invitation text, so that's what I did, floating slowly about the pool.

There were about twenty people in the channel, most of them people I'd never even seen their names before.  But also Maze, Ruuel, Taarel and Selkie.

Someone had been speaking when I joined, but stopped abruptly and said: "Notra–"  in a protesting tone.

"Since our young ally's contribution will be central to this venture, it's best to keep her abreast of the issues, don't you agree, Minera?" Isten Notra said, sounding like she was having fun.  "Do you wish to speak further, or shall we move on to the question of numbers?"

"Sentimentality mixes badly with survival, Notra," said the one called Minera, but then shut up.

"It can only be a large force," someone else said.  "When small forces have been attacked, they've been destroyed completely.  Larger contingents are rarely without survivors."

The meeting went on for ages, and I'm too tired to write even a tenth of it.  They were planning an expedition to Muina to investigate the aether-making, and were trying to work out a way to do it without everyone, particularly me, dying.  Especially since one of the things they wanted to investigate was why the aether/Muina/whatever doesn't 'hate' me.  Eventually they decided on four squads – risking both of the exploration squads, which was another argument in itself – with only a small contingent of greensuits.  From a few of Selkie's comments, he thought it likely the Setari would end up protecting the greensuits rather than the other way around.

After I'd told them about the aether they had sent a lightning-quick expedition of greysuits and greensuits to set out a few scanning drones at my village, very carefully timed to try and avoid them all being destroyed, and won themselves lots of nice footage and readings of a moonfall, which were transmitted through today.  Now that the Setari have nearly stabilised the situation with Tare's neighbouring spaces, KOTIS is planning the first extended expedition to Muina in years, with a day-trip excursion in three days, and then another two days before the next moonfall.  They're also searching their satellite scans for any other settlements which have the same circle patterns on the roofs, and have found one already.

When they were done, Isten Notra asked me on a private channel why I hadn't provided her with any comments on the reports and when I explained that I hadn't found anything to say told me to always keep the question in mind, and to not be backward in passing on observations during the upcoming expedition.

Afterwards I talked to Maze, but didn't ask directly about what they'd been discussing before I'd been brought into the meeting.  Isten Notra had shown me that they definitely were arguing about my irreplaceability, which I guess also means there's not yet little copies of me growing in a vat somewhere.  She was underlining a point, calling me an ally.  I'm lucky she seems to have decided to defend me.

Or maybe Isten Notra just understands that I really would try to leave, no matter how dangerous my jaunts are, if I believed that's what they were doing.  Making Muina safe is a far bigger thing than me being able to increase the strength of a handful of Setari, and I'm willing to help however I can, but just me.  Letting them make copies of me, or try to breed little amplifying tools, that would be a moral failure on my part.

That sounds ridiculous and weird.  But I know it's something I couldn't put up with. 

Saturday, March 15

Rain thoughts

The weather outside was finally calm enough that I could go up to the roof today after another morning of being zonked out with aether testing.  Tare really is prone to horrible weather so it's no wonder the Muinans arriving here had such a struggle: constant cyclone-level storms made surface-dwelling almost impossible.  It was still windy and spattering occasional raindrops when I went up, but nothing so bad I couldn't enjoy it.

I'd managed not to think particularly of Ruuel for the whole of yesterday, but I dreamed about him last night, and the rain reminded me of the dream, which had been of a moment during that session with Fourth.  So easy to look up my log, to go back to a brief glance I'd taken of him while Sonn was working on the phasic gate.  He was in profile to me, gazing out into the greyness – looking at one of the Ionoth horses – with the rain pouring down his face and his hands loose at his sides.  Ungodly beautiful.

As crushes go, this one's starting to verge on girly-obsession.

It's really interesting comparing how I write about Ruuel now to the first few times I saw him.  I didn't mention his looks at all, except in passing, but it's not like I didn't notice what he looked like.  Well, maybe back on Muina I didn't, since the light wasn't good and I was just so overwhelmed by the sheer fact that there were people.  When I saw him and Taarel together, I thought them both very good-looking, but only really focused on her.  He surely can't be steadily getting prettier.  Is it just that I like him more each time I see him, or wasn't I paying proper attention before?

His eyes are his most dominant feature, dark and clearly drawn.  His face is delicate around the temples, and he has a clean, not very heavy jaw line.  Arched brows, better shaped than mine, which is unfair.  He keeps his hair clipped short, shaped to his skull.  A swimmer's build, lean and not heavily muscled, with wide shoulders.  I think I like his hands best.  Last night was the second time I've dreamed about him, and both times have been about his hands in some way, about how careful he is not to touch things, and how precisely and sparingly he moves.

I think maybe I understand a little more why I'm stuck on someone who is really not my type, and who has barely spoken to me.  Not just that he's good-looking and dangerous, though I expect that helps.  Not that he was professional during the testing session, or even that he crossed thirteen spaces to save my life.  I think it's because of the way he behaved when he caught up with me.  He didn't treat me as stupid, just told me what would happen if I tore a hole into Earth's real-space, and let me make my choices about it.  Nor did he tell me to hurry up, giving me the time to say goodbye.  I don't know if he was being considerate, or thought that the best way to handle my 'psychological aspects', but I appreciated it.

Once I'd had my fill of gazing at Ruuel-in-the-rain, I reviewed his report from that session.  I quite like reading reports for the missions I've been on, though I avoid viewing the log extracts overmuch.  It still seems too invasive to peer through someone else's eyes, for all that it's a fact of life for everyone here.  After a lot of debate, I did play the hypocrite and access Ruuel's attached log, skipping to that same scene and looking through his eyes at the Ionoth horses, trailing streams of invisible light which curled and plumed like an impossible mane behind them.  All those Sights.  Then I went back to the very beginning of the testing session, and saw that he'd started the mission log from just before I walked in the room.  I watched for a few minutes, up until Nils arrived, and gave up at a point where Ruuel was looking at me.  Nils was talking, bending toward me, and I was obviously squirming, giving him an irritated, amused glance, face red.

I looked very human.  Not too bad, I guess, but...mortal.  And writing that pisses me off.  These people aren't gods.  Heroes, maybe.  Asses, quite a few of them.  Soldiers.  Killers.  Specialists.

And I'm a very useful stray.  I have to remember that Ruuel was just as ready to call me 'stray' as those idiots from Fifth and Seventh.  I don't even use his first name in a diary written in a language that only I understand because, well, he hasn't given it to me to use.  Even with First Squad – gods, Maze was in a meeting where they were discussing
breeding
me or something.  So was Ruuel.  Even if I can manage to learn this language enough to stop sounding ridiculous and they can better understand the kind of person I am, they have no choice but to always treat me as 'the useful stray' above everything else, because that's their job.  On this planet I will always be more tool than person.

I've put off any attempt to cut and run until after they've had a chance to poke me at Muina and see what happens.  It just wouldn't be fair of me to go before that.  But it's Dad's birthday soon.  Easter's coming up.  Mother's Day.  I've been gone about four months.  I think that meeting yesterday upset me more than I realised.  I didn't do anything at all today except sit on the roof.  And this diary entry sounds like I'm bipolar.

I don't know.  I probably should have exercised, so I was too tired to think.  It's a pity First Squad is being kept so busy trying to get things back to normal.  I miss the training schedule I had with Mara.  I need the structure. 

Sunday, March 16

Night Visitor

I woke up in the middle of the 'night' because my chest was purring again.  I was so glad.  Even though it's occurred to me that Ghost might be interested in me for exactly the same reason that the Tarens are, that for all I know I'm enhancing her the same way I do the Setari, I don't care.  She doesn't mind if
I talk to her in English.  And I can hold her and play with her without feeling that she's been assigned to me, or that she's going to write a report about it after.  She acts
exactly
like every other cat I've known, digging claws in inconveniently, chasing bits of paper and all.  After a while she bored of me and went away, but I'm pretty sure she'll be back.

Ghost made the rest of the day bearable.  Hour upon hour of tests and scans, and the worst medical exams yet.  Half-dressed and trying not to cry while a fresh set of greysuits took bone marrow and spinal fluid samples.  They mightn't have cloned me yet, but it won't be for lack of material.  The greysuits are still trying to figure out what made my interface start growing again, and searching for differences between me and Tarens.  Pretty soon they'll have a complete genetic map of me, but they still don't understand why Muina likes me.

I spent the time between whimpering reading up on the cloning debate on Tare.  They are really against it, because the clones invariably have shorter life-spans and are prone to sickness.  And there's a measurable downgrade of intelligence, too.  After a day researching Taren morals and laws, I still can't decide what they might do if the situation grows worse.  Tarens don't have any strong belief in a Creator-God, and are split between the idea of planet reverence, or pure scientific evolutionary theory.  So they don't have things like the Ten Commandments, of laws which have been handed down from God.  Laws are either based on an idea that you must be grateful your planet makes it possible for you to exist, or on a fairly clinical construct of ethics in a functioning society.  Funnily enough, most of the laws are very much the same as Earth's, though there's a real emphasis on personal responsibility.  'Social contracts'.  Doing what's right for both yourself and for others.

I'm feeling all social contracted out at the moment.  My arm and back won't stop aching. 

Monday, March 17

Too much aether

Aether sessions in the morning and then late in the afternoon, which meant I didn't really have a day today and now don't feel remotely tired.  Which is great given that I'm supposed to go to Muina tomorrow.  I'm going to go and swim a thousand laps in the hopes that I can get a few hours sleep afterwards.

Stupid greysuits.

Wednesday, March 19

Loud

We weren't scheduled to leave for Muina until nearly (my) midday.  I'd not been sure if I could get any rest before we went, but had abruptly fallen asleep a little before I would usually have had breakfast.  I'd set my alarm for a half hour before I was supposed to meet up, but it was maybe an hour before that when Zee sent me an 'override' channel request.  The interface tells people if you're asleep, and so when you send them an override, you're deliberately waking them up.  I don't remember this conversation at all, but reviewed it later from my ever-present internal log to confirm just how embarrassing it was.

I answered with "Nnngh?"

There was this long pause, then Zee said: "Caszandra?  Are you ill?"

"Tired," I said.  "Your medics are all sadists."  Since I was speaking in English, that was meaningless to her, but I helpfully added in Taren: "Too much profanity aether."  Using the Taren word for 'profanity' – I still don't know suitable Taren swear words.

The even longer pause after this gave me an opportunity to fall most of the ways back to sleep, and when she did speak, asking if I thought I needed to go to medical I didn't respond until she repeated herself.  And then with more unhelpful English: "No more fucking tests."  But then I woke up a bit more and managed to stick to Taren to say: "Sorry, tired.  Is leaving earlier or something?"