It sounds like a minor thing, but he carried me as Par and Glade did, which was mildly embarrassing when it was them, and with Ruuel sufficient to throw me into mute confusion. It’s never a small thing for me when Ruuel touches me. Even a finger-brush of enhancement can send a tingle through me, and I’m always aware that Place Sight will tell him way too much about my reactions. It’s very rare that he carries me – Par is my Fourth Squad toter. Even the standard carrying position is something I usually have to prepare myself for, so that my heartbeat doesn’t skyrocket too obviously. All I could think of when he lifted me today was how close his face was to mine.
They’ve been carrying me about like that because my legs hurt more if they’re not elevated, as well as the need for contact for the platforms. Floating above them won’t trigger it, but someone standing on them holding me does.
I could feel every breath. And fell asleep while he was waiting for them to load the platform for the second trip. Kind of contradictory. It was like those dreams on the Diodel. Very peaceful, and yet sharply defined. I could hear his heartbeat, since my head was resting on his shoulder, and was almost glad when the Ddura showed up, noisy as it is, since the platform room is chock-full of drones no doubt busily recording a projection of me gazing up at Ruuel in the Ena. The Ddura could certainly see us, and was being all chirpily pleased until I told it to shut up – and was pleased in turn, because it seems more obedient when I’m dreaming.
The platform room in Kalasa looked different, too, quite distractingly so, pulling my attention away from Ruuel until he was flying me back, when I indulged in gazing up at him, enjoying all the tiny fine detail of a close-up view which wouldn’t be recorded by drones or second level monitoring. He is so worth looking at.
When we returned to my little building, Ruuel put me carefully on my bed, then said: "Your instructions were to wake yourself whenever you began dreaming lucidly."
No surprise that he’d known. I made myself wake up, winced, then said: "Didn’t need the headache."
I drew a breath to tell him about how different Kalasa had been while I was asleep, but he said in a distinctly cooler tone: "Keep to the training plan. You can’t have forgotten the consequences of letting your guard down."
"No." My face burned and I looked away. "Sorry."
I pretended to still be very tired while Ista Temen checked me over, and after a while they all went into the next room and I worked on keeping perspective, but still cried just a little, and then did visualisation exercises until I dozed off. Lohn and Mara are babysitting me now, sitting out the evening shift.
I should have accepted Ruuel’s offer to change trainers. He’s definitely the best person for keeping me calm, but I don’t seem able to stop wanting more than that, or ping ponging all over the place after the tiniest, mildest of reprimands.
An anchor doesn’t work if it’s trying to pull away from you.
Monday, June 16
Day Off
Fretted myself into a fever, having spent the night compulsively forcing myself to wake up, and racking my brains for some way to not ever have to see Ruuel again, yet somehow not let anyone know that’s what I wanted. The dreams were all about trying to kill sheep, which I was very glad to stop as soon as I was aware of them.
When Ista Temen decided I should stay safely in bed and not do anything today I relaxed and slept for most of the day. I imagine there were a few frustrated greysuits, but it’s not as if they can’t get in without me now. I’m sure they’re having fun over in those snowstorms. With any luck tomorrow my legs will be improved enough that I can stand and no-one will need to carry me.
I’m tired of all this.
Tuesday, June 17
Say Nothing
Maze and Zee were my dawn shift babysitters – Third Squad and Squad One went to Kalasa via the Litara yesterday, so we’re down to two squads at Pandora. After Ista Temen had decided I was fit enough, Maze took me over to the amphitheatre for taxi duty. I asked Maze if I could stay upright today, but Ista Temen lowered my pain medication and let me try out standing, and I couldn’t cope with it. She says I’m making good progress, but it feels like I’ve been like this forever.
"We’re pushing to be sufficiently set up here to support the investigation without continuing to use you like this," Zee told me, after I’d shuffled everyone through to Kalasa and we’d gone out into the central square for another look.
"How’s the exploration going?"
"Still going."
Maze laughed at her tone of voice, and gave me a wry smile. "It’s an enormous place, and there’s simply so much. We’ve a site map now, but actually cataloguing and making sense of what we’ve found could take years. The Sight talents have marked places for early investigation, but the Lantarens recorded on paper, and it’s so fragile. We’ve wanted records so badly, and can hardly complain about having a library to sift through, but the need to do it slowly is remarkably frustrating." He paused. "Everywhere there are reminders that this was a school."
I hadn’t failed to notice the skeletons scattered about, nor the small size of many of them, but I had something else on my mind. "Have you been in near-space here?" I asked carefully.
"Can’t get to it. Even after you opened the door, the shielding keeps us out. And there’s a reason you’re asking that, isn’t there?" Maze isn’t slow.
"Fell asleep last time here. I can’t be sure, but…just had a vague impression that Kalasa looked different in near-space. Though I didn’t see much more than platform room."
"Different how?"
"Lights," I said vaguely. "Wasn’t here long enough good look. Also, I guess the Ddura can’t come here, because I haven’t heard any when in Kalasa, no matter how much fooling around on platform."
Maze thought this well worth looking into, but since I wasn’t the least bit tired right then he took me back to Pandora and told me not to have any midday naps so that they could try and recreate the experience this afternoon. He and Zee went to get some rest and Alay and Ketzaren took over babysitting, so I asked if they could help me have a shower. I’ve really lost all tolerance for being grubby, and the greysuits had told me that my nanotech bandages breathe and thus shouldn’t have scads of hot water run over them. Not until the burns are in better condition.
Coping with that took up a lot of the morning, and made all three of us rather giggly, but I felt a lot better afterwards. It was nice to see Alay laugh. She seems to open up a little on Muina, to talk more and hold her head higher. She loves watching the lake, but the daytime temperature’s dropping here again, so they decided not to let me sit outside, and instead we watched the latest aerial survey information together and then the latest episode of The Hidden War, which had aired right after we came to Muina. It focused on the main character training fake-me and barely being able to understand the garbled Taren, and not being able to talk about her assignment with the rest of her squad. We were having lunch when I had a channel request from Ruuel, something now possible even though he’s in Kalasa because the door’s been opened and more satellites are in place.
The request had a text opener of "Kalasa near-space," and when I accepted he said without preamble: "Should I interpret just a vague impression as very certain but you were cut short last time you tried to tell someone and now need a reason for the delay in mentioning it?"