Kaoren told me before he left that he’d already reported what we were doing to Selkie, and that Maze would know. That makes me feel more than odd, for all I should be used to my complete lack of privacy. I expect I’ll get some very surprised people staring at me by the time the week is done. I have to adjust first, to how quickly and totally things changed.
Rolling around in bed with Kaoren Ruuel isn’t going to fix the universe. I’m still this weird thing called a touchstone, who might kill people in my dreams. Monsters and politicians both still want to get their hands on me. And even though Tare and Kolar are taking back Muina, I can’t say for sure we’re even one step closer to stopping the spaces from tearing apart.
It took all of thirty seconds after First and Fourth went into the Ena for my mood to switch from "unspeakably happy" to "fretting". Every rotation is a chance for something to go wrong. Every day the situation gets worse. I think the biggest thing last night changed is me, my attitude toward being this touchstone. Because if I can figure out what the hell it is I can do, if I can get that under control, maybe I really can do something to fix all this. Maybe I can keep him safe.
Somehow.
Caszandra
Description
mid-July to November
Cassandra Devlin doesn’t know what she’s for. But she knows she’s running out of time.
Since Cass was rescued from the abandoned world of Muina, the Aussie teen has proven more than useful to the people of Tare. Expeditions to their home world no longer end in slaughter. The teaching city of Kalasa has been unlocked. After years of searching for answers, they are starting to make progress.
But space is tearing itself apart. Ionoth attack in ever-greater numbers. And "the useful stray" has been injured so many times that the Tarens hesitate to use her for fear of losing her.
With one particular Taren now her most important person, Cass is determined to contribute everything she can, and hopes to find some answers of her own. What is the link between Muina and Earth? Why are the reclusive Nurans so interested in rescuing her? And what role in the crisis do the inhuman Cruzatch play?
Can Cass keep herself together long enough to find out?
July
Sunday, July 13
Hero 101
It’s one thing to decide to save the universe, another altogether to find a way to go about it. Today I catalogued my various abilities to try and work out how they could be used to fix fracturing spaces. Enhancement, hearing Ddura, sleep-walking to Earth, making soap bubble copies of real and fictional places, and seeing blurry. Somehow, surely, it must all fit together in a way where I can do something tangible to help.
Mostly, though, I thought about sex.
I doubt I’m going to make much progress toward saving the universe by constantly replaying images of naked Kaoren Ruuel, but, damn. Naked Kaoren Ruuel.
The subject of all my steamed-up imagining opened a channel to me when First and Fourth returned from rotation to say he’d be busy for a while, and knew that I’d very likely fall asleep after my Sights training, but that he’d bring me dinner when I woke. I managed an okay which sounded completely shy and though he just said: "I’ll see you then," before breaking contact, I could hear the smile in his voice. Or think I could.
This is going to be a continual mental adjustment. Not just for us, either, as I found out when Zee came to see me before we were supposed to start off for my Sights training.
"Maze says he’s not quite equal to having this conversation with you," she said, wry and amused. "I expect you know what about."
"Everyone in First Squad know?" I asked, thoroughly daunted. I’m not really at the stage where I want to talk about this with anyone but Kaoren.
"Not as yet. Although this does have some impact on our roster for waking you if you can’t escape one of your dreams. Is it something you wanted to keep secret?"
I was kind of yes and no about that, and she laughed at my confused mumble, then gave me a warm smile.
"I don’t really need to know more than that you’re comfortable, and remind you that we’re here if there’s anything you want to discuss."
There was something she was the right person to ask. "Is Kaoren somewhere right now get huge lecture because of me?"
"Not quite," Zee said, after a moment’s pause. "Though it’s good that you’re conscious of the potential complications. He must, let us say, justify his actions, but he won’t be collecting more demerits on your account, at least not simply for this."
"More?" Any demerits were news to me, but I hit on an obvious reason right away. "That Sights training session?"
"Indeed. You don’t often see below the surface decisions to the cross-factional aspects of KOTIS Command, but that session, which Tsee Ruuel initially refused to carry out, led to a minor drama. The previous occasion was when he retrieved you from your home world’s near-space."
"Demerits for rescue me?" I asked, startled.
"For far exceeding the number of spaces he was permitted to trail you. Sight Sight talents are tremendously rare – too valuable really to be risked even within the limits he was allowed on that foray – but very difficult to argue out of decisions made based on that Sight."
She was giving me fair warning, and I could hardly deny her point. "He sort of apologised for being sort of wrong, once. Plus couldn’t keep to his own decision to stay away from me." And had, at least, shown no more sign of being angry because he was unable to stick to that choice. "Don’t think he’ll manage to convince me he’s right all the time, anyway," I added, and figured it was well past time to change the subject. "How did two squad rotation go?"
"Very well. One stilt, but not the crowds of deep-space roamers we’d feared. It works especially well with an exploration squad, of course, since they must remain in a newly-cleared space much longer than a combat-oriented squad. We only fought together on the stilt and on one particularly populated space – one which Fourth would have been very unlikely to have been able to clear on their own. We’ll also be trialing eight-member squads, and the next few weeks will involve a great deal of data collection to gauge which approach results in fewer injuries. Possibly it will be a question of using both options, depending on the spaces involved."
We went down to Keszen Point a little early, and put in a really solid session of testing – again repeating earlier tests, but with manifestation as well as Sights. I guess seeing things is where I might most logically contribute, and we’re making progress on finding out my limits. Zee didn’t question me any more about Kaoren, which I thought nice of her, but the test session left me so exhausted I fell asleep on the train back and woke on my couch.
Kaoren’s in another meeting, but it shouldn’t be much longer. He told me to eat without him. Squad captains are kept very busy, even when they’re not getting hauled over the coals for smexing strays, and I bet I’m going to have fun dealing with how little time Kaoren has for anything but being captain.
Though right now I’m still pretty much champagne bubbles and incredulous gloatation.
Monday, July 14
More than a rumour