When not changing nappies, Kaoren has organised all the kids into doing a little project, creating The Book of Arcadia, which was meant to be a surprise for me until Sen told me all about it. Ys has done the maps, Lira and Sen have been pressing flowers and leaves, Rye has been contributing information about all the animals, and Kaoren has been doing illustrations. Once he realised that I knew, Kaoren roped me into the process, and I’ve added an ongoing history. After I’d kissed him rather a lot.
24 - January
January 1
This is the year
In just over two months, my two families will meet properly for the first time. I hope. Five minutes seemed like a long time when I learned how long the gate stayed open, but now I’m convinced that our calculations will be off, that we’ll be a day late, that the way Earth’s years work, the way leap years work, means that I’ve told Mum the wrong day.
I’ve been stressing over it, enough that I went through a patch of not being able to eat well, and had Ista Tremmar giving me stern lectures and threatening to medicate me. Kaoren went over the comparative calendars with me, and then we had a visit to near-space to visualise Mum to do the same thing, and check that everything was going to plan on her end.
Aunt Sue is planning to come, but not Aunt Bet and Uncle Steve (Uncle Steve has a huge extended family and isn’t keen on leaving them for another planet). And Dad.
I have a sister called Teresa, and a Step-Mum who thinks my entire family is insane and who wouldn’t want to go to some alien planet even if she thought it was real. Apparently. Fake-Mum kind of avoided giving me any opinions about this, as she does whenever she has to talk about Dad, but she did point out that if the gate really does open once every year-and-a-bit, this won’t be Dad’s only opportunity.
I didn’t tell fake-Mum about Tyrian. I want to see her real reaction.
After that, Kaoren turned what little energy Tyrian leaves me to planning a place for Mum and Aunt Sue to live. A pair of houses around past the guard quarters, with lots of room, and beds for gardens, though I decided not to have them planted out so Mum could pick what she wanted to grow. I got the kids involved in that, and we had a lot of fun designing it.
There’s been a fair amount of adjustment adding Tyrian to the family. Sen wants to be with him all the time, and we ended up making up a little bed for her again in the baby’s room. She’s at least been relatively nightmare-free. Lira finds Tyrian a little annoying – babies are definitely an attention-suck, and she’s a fairly finicky, cleanly creature, not accustomed to milky spew or drool. Rye, in the first few days, was painful to watch: some of the old uncertainty came back, the sense that now Kaoren had a real son, he wouldn’t be necessary any more. Fortunately the time off from active duty has given Kaoren the chance to spend more time with Rye, and along with the book project, he’s been giving him plenty of one-on-one combat training, and is pleased with his progress. Ys showed no hint of being threatened. She’s taken our measure now, and was simply pleased that Tyrian was healthy, and that I seemed to be coping. Tyrian always seems to quiet down when she holds him, too.
Have told Sen firmly that, no, no more babies just now.
25 - June
June 10
Everyone
I was an absolute stress-bunny in the week leading up to Operation Move-to-Muina. I got so bad that I needed to prepare myself before picking up Tyrian, or I’d set him bawling. All the practice I’ve had with visualisation exercises came in handy, though Kaoren eventually had to resort to the pillow barrier in bed to allow one of us to get some sleep.
We’d decided, after much debate, not to take the kids with us, but to stream what we were seeing to them. This would satisfy Sen’s overwhelming need to know, and also KOTIS' extreme reluctance to stand both of their precious touchstones in front of a gate to another planet. Siame, who finds Tyrian a strange and fascinating creature, agreed to be official adult-in-charge, with Jeh and Ketz as back-up. The rest of the First and Second, both those on active duty and those taking breaks, came along to watch me fret.
KOTIS has built a little observation station out near the Earth gate. It’s usually unmanned, but the technicians go on day-trips out there to take readings from the gate, and it proved a good place for us to sit while waiting in the chill of late Winter. The gate was due to align about an hour after dawn Pandora-time, and in the late afternoon in Sydney. My Mum-projection had assured me that they’d arrive early and stay well past the time we’d predicted – and she promised to check the day before and the day after, but I was still this white knot of nerves.
KOTIS has decided not to send anyone through the gate to Earth – at least not until they’ve found a way there via deep-space – which I think may be due to my guesses as to how alien emissaries (without spacecraft) would likely be treated by the authorities. Two greensuits were standing at ready by the gate, and when it aligned they held long, thin poles with little triangles of cloth on the end through the gate to form a makeshift corridor since, while natural gates don’t have the same issues about attracting Ionoth, it still isn’t a good idea to run into the edges of them.
I was struggling not to dig my fingers into Kaoren’s arm, holding on to him hard and occasionally remembering to breathe. Because for an achingly long time – at least THIRTY SECONDS – there was nothing, just some poles vanishing.
And then, Jules.
He was running, mad grin on his face, light brown hair sticking up in a Tintin crest, arms and legs everywhere. He almost crashed into one of the greensuits, spun to a halt and then bounced around in a circle so he could see acres of snow-dusted forest, observation post, and the numerous spaceshippy looking fliers we’d used to get there.
"It’s real!" he said – shouted – as he bounced. "Take that, you fuckers! It’s real! It’s real!"
Jules hadn’t been able to keep his mouth shut about his sister off touring alien planets. That went as well as could be expected, but I guess he’s getting the last laugh now. Other than wishing he’d been able to bring a few of his (few remaining) friends, he’s been in a ferment of joy ever since.
While Jules was still sproinging in a circle, I let go of Kaoren and ran forward, because Dad was there, and I hadn’t known how much I’d missed him until I saw him blinking and giving the greensuits his bemused "I-come-in-peace" smile.
"I thought you weren’t coming," I said, as he swept me up in a bear hug, and made me feel all of five again.
"You think I’d pass up a chance to make sure you’re happy, kiddo?" His voice was all choked, and he squeezed me tight, lifting my feet off the ground.
"This is Kaoren," I said, and they had a moment of awkward Dad-meets-Husband, but I’d taught Kaoren the shaking-hands custom and so he was prepared for it.
I’d been distracted by new arrivals: not Mum and Aunt Sue, but a vaguely familiar woman, and a man carrying a girl tucked into a blanket, her head covered by a fluffy pink beanie. It was only when I saw Alyssa that I recognised them as her parents.
"Alyssa!" I said, surprised and pleased but inwardly shocked because Alyssa should be a lazily smiling blonde girl with a perpetual air of amusement, not strained and grim with red-rimmed eyes.