I was very good about Ruuel, not self-indulgent or annoying in any way. I only properly looked at him when he spoke, which was exactly twice, and so long as he’s not the person whose job it is to haul me about, I should be fine.
Thursday, June 26
Pieces of Sphinx
I did have nightmares last night, but they were nightmare nightmares – no projection involved in real-space or the Ena, and none of the certainty of awareness which is my completely unpredictable Sight talent. I dreamed I was lost in a dark maze, and the only door I could find was being held shut from the other side. Taarel woke me up, her hand on my forehead, but didn’t push me to tell her what I’d been dreaming.
It snowed like crazy overnight, and Pandora looked spectacular in the morning, mounded with fluffy brand-new snow. Eeli loved it, even though she’d already been dealing with the snow out at Kalasa. I swear if Maze hadn’t come down to collect us she would have romped through it like a puppy. It snowed all day, so that when we came back it was piled up against the door of my building. Everyone in Pandora is learning things about snow and the one we learned today was that we really need something to wipe or scrape the snow off in the airlock part of the door rather than track it into the corridor or the inner rooms, where it promptly melts into chilly puddles.
The last few platforms brought no surprises – just pattern-roof towns. And no Arenrhon, even though there’s a platform there. They’re not sure if the non-working platform is meant to link there, or if it’s possible that Arenrhon is on a different network. All but one of the Ddura recognised us, which suggests that there’s maybe five Ddura altogether, each patrolling three platforms. That’s the current theory, anyway.
We had lunch at Kalasa, along with Squad One and Second Squad – a great big group of us sitting in the central circle using some of the rubble as chairs. The captains went off with the senior bluesuit, Tsen Sloe, and Islen Duffen and Islen Tezart, who have been transferred to Kalasa from Arenrhon. Everyone else talked shop about the Ionoth they’d been encountering on the island, and also back on their respective planets. This thrilled me so much I fell asleep and dreamed of interesting lights again. Everywhere. I was trying to work out if there was any rhyme or reason when Nalaz pointed out to everyone that I was asleep and Mara reached to wake me up.
"No, wait," I said, which didn’t work, but I tried again and got the "Wait" to be audible and Mara stopped with her hand on my shoulder. I knew they’d consult the captains, so busily kept looking about and was ready for them when all four captains set down in front of me.
I considered staying asleep and projecting again, but it felt like using a pulled muscle, so I woke myself up instead, blinked, and said: "Sorry, really hard to stay awake after drinking those fortifier things. Was seeing those lights again. It’s–" I paused, struggling with the magnitude of what I wanted to describe. "Don’t think I can describe that properly, but did see that circular building sends out pulses occasionally and everything seems to answer it." I pointed toward a building halfway up the opposite slope, then rubbed my temple irritably. "Think I haven’t been projecting in my sleep lately because I can’t. It’s like that bit of me is too tired."
Maze shifted from a faint frown to the abstract expression of someone looking things up over the interface. "Only a preliminary view there," he said, and glanced at Ruuel, who immediately signalled his squad and went for a look. Maze, Grif and Shaf sat down and Maze said: "Even a bad description is a start." He brought all the squads into a mission channel, along with the three senior officers the captains had been talking to.
I wrinkled my nose – it really wasn’t something which is easy to put into words – then said: "All of the whitestone has lights in it. Bands of squiggles which branch out – a bit like veins. Dim and really indistinct most of the time, but when anyone goes near it, it reacts and gets brighter. Even these fallen bits." I glanced at the chunks of broken bridge and fountain I’d been resting against. "It reacts with a different colour to me. Twice a pulse of light went out from the circular building, washing over whole city, and everywhere where there are people, it sends a little pulse back. Even these broken bits, for all they don’t seem connected."
Islen Tezart, sounding wholly delighted, asked: "Do you mean these lights are made up of symbols? Writing?"
"Not really. Will try and draw." Which I did, using one of the interface drawing applications, which I’m even worse at using than a mouse-operated thing. It looked like a four year-old had tried to draw a flock of boomerangs and pieces of string flying south for the winter. "Not even close," I said apologetically.
"Visual," said Ruuel, streaming what he was seeing to us. The building was one big empty room with a domed ceiling, an empty walkway/border around the edges, and a huge and utterly gorgeous mosaic covering the rest of the floor. Similar imagery to the entrance to Kalasa, it was all flowers and flowing branches, stylised animals and lakes and streams. A picture of the world.
Ruuel began switching through Sights. First the room went all shadowy, and I thought I saw a hint of movement, and then it was like the mosaic became three-dimensional, lifting into a hemisphere of floral shapes and slinking, flitting, drowsing animals. And then flattened down again, and became very like what I’d been seeing: streaming particles of light, particularly centring on two circular areas in the mosaic, one faded yellow and one greyish.
"Considerably more than decorative," Ruuel said. "Function–" He paused, and I suspected he and Halla were talking over their impressions out of channel. Even though he has more Sights than Halla, Ruuel always consults with her on her impressions for things like this. I’m not sure if it’s because she’s stronger with Place Sight, or if the talent is just so variable that it’s like fitting together fragmentary puzzle pieces in hopes of making a picture. "The most distinct impression is one of a place of annunciation, of being judged."
There was a exceptionally boring period following this where bunches of the Setari and greysuits yakked at each other and installed machines and made cautious attempts to work out what the mosaic was for and how to make it react. I stayed where I was, with Lohn and Mara for company, and worked on my Muinan animals project, which was something I could chat to them about. But eventually everyone gave in and decided to poke Devlin at the mosaic to see what happened. They’re much less keen to use me for testing since my first excursion to Kalasa, but it’s easy to spot the situations where it’s going to happen.
The mosaic did seem to react to me, when they plunked me on the yellow circle. The machines picked up a surge in power. But then there was another short age of faffing around, trying to get me to make something, anything, happen. Lots of bright ideas from the greysuits, mostly based around doing the same thing I’d done with the platforms – except theoretically to a higher security level. None of that seemed even remotely inclined to work.
"You don’t have any suggestions of your own, Caszandra?" Isten Notra, observing over the interface, asked.
"Trial by combat?" I asked, looking very doubtfully at Ruuel, who had been patiently standing on the other circle for what seemed an eternity. He looked down, which I suspect was to hide how ludicrous he found that idea. I sighed. "Don’t see why trying to start with me. If judging, shouldn’t other person be proving themselves worthy? Kalasa already seems to know what is my place in this world."