Deeply impressed, I spent a long time finding other tiny details, then moved on to the rest of the main room. Very tidy, which didn’t surprise me at all, with white and blue colours for the furniture, including long, dark blue shelves on the wall without pictures, full of evenly spaced objects. A specked-green stone statue which looked vaguely Mayan. A small, palm-sized curved bowl. A set of thick shiny metal links all joined together like an oversized puzzle ring. A really smooth pebble which looked like it had come from Pandora. An origami crane, the one I’d handed to him in my dream. It was a disjointed collection.
The bedroom and bathroom were very bare and clear by comparison, and I wandered around briefly, then curled up in one of the surprisingly comfortable chairs (they looked very firm, but were wide and deep) and immediately dozed off, and then Kaoren was there looking down at me with his eyes half-closed, as if trying to decide whether to wake me. I held out a hand and he slid into the chair beside me, which just snugly held us both.
I enjoyed the way his expression lightened, as if just sitting down with me lifted his mood, though he went on to say, "You have a slight temperature. A side-effect of the reconstructive work."
"Don’t feel that bad," I said. "Bit groggy." I curled my hand around the back of his head and kissed him slowly because I could, because I was allowed to, then said: "I like this room. First time I’ve seen real pictures on walls since came to Tare. Get lost looking at them."
"My brother creates them for me."
"Good illustration of how little I know about you," I said, sleepily accepting the idea of Kaoren having a brother, though I’ve had a chance since then to get a bit nervous about meeting any of the Ruuels. "Will you tell me about your family?"
He didn’t reply immediately, and I wondered if he didn’t want to, but then he started off, voice detached:
"My mother is Teor Ruuel. A sculptor. My father, Paran, a mathematician. I was five and Arden – my brother – six when the Setari program shifted to phase two, and both of us tested as strong talents. Sight is very much a part of the Ruuel bloodline. Our parents did not try to prevent our removal by KOTIS – they would have had little chance of succeeding any legal challenge – but they are very opposed to the concept of Setari. Of squandering gifted on futile violence, best left to the untalented. When we were permitted home visits, we were forbidden to speak of our training."
I was staring up at him, but his eyes were focused on someone not there so I didn’t say anything.
"Arden has my Sights, not Speed, and is vastly my superior in Light element. He loathed the program, rebelled in every way. Many Kalrani do, and KOTIS is generally successful in directing that energy more usefully, but Arden’s resolution was beyond them and he was allowed to withdraw at eleven. He is becoming increasingly known for his creations."
"He couldn’t accept learning to kill?"
Kaoren turned his head to look at the pictures on the walls. "That didn’t matter to Arden. He simply considers his time better spent."
"Do you enjoy visit home?" It seemed to me that Kaoren’s family was a bad fit for someone who is so very serious about being a Setari.
"No. I only return now to escort my sister, Siame. She is in her forties, a Kalrani. I want you to meet her, on the free day we have scheduled. She will be painfully jealous of what you are to me, but will try not to show it."
First a brother, and then a sister, one who was going to be jealous. "I’ll try not to be–" I paused, thinking about it – and reminding myself that the forties are the mid-teens. "Try not to be threatening."
He let out his breath, a short tuh of amusement, but then kissed me and had an interesting time stopping kissing me, particularly since I don’t take a slight temperature nearly as seriously as he did. He’d ordered in food (a selection of spicy goop, hot and cold, with something which could have been naan bread) and after we ate he told me the origins of the seemingly random items on the shelves in the room. Some of them were very unremarkable to look at, but were all about his Sights and the way they felt to him in Place. The way he spoke made me wonder if he’d ever talked about them before.
My blue bandages meant no indulgently long showers, but even a short one was sufficient to convince Kaoren that my temperature was probably not really a concern. I experimented with how he reacted when I tried to take the lead, and found that he’d let me do anything I cared to, but that not being in charge drove him completely insane. It was very fun for me to let him stop passively taking it.
I wonder if Kaoren’s parents still think the Setari are a futile waste, now that they’ve recovered a world.
Wednesday, July 16
Home sweet
First and Fourth were away for a really long time on today’s rotation. It’s so frustrating to be too valuable to go with them. Instead of finding a way to save the universe, I feel like I’m being packed in cotton wool, just spinning my wheels instead of making any progress. But I guess there’s not much I can do about that except work hard during my exercise sessions so they think I’m recovered enough to contribute. No more medical dramas or fainting fits or conjuring things up to hurt me.
As it is, I’m going to have to make sure to start doing something which takes all my attention – like playing my historical mystery games – around the time First and Fourth are due back because I was climbing the walls by the time they finally returned. Zee cancelled my Sights training because she was so tired and had missed when it was supposed to start.
She told me it had been a great success, though, since they’d finally tracked down the home space of those hairy roamers which have been causing all the squads grief since the spaces realigned. One thing I hadn’t realised about roamers which originate in spaces, rather than in deep-space, is that if the roamers leave their home space long enough, the space remembers them again. So the numbers can really build up.
Kaoren came and found me almost straight away, which surprised me since he likes to get his report writing out of the way before coming near me and my tendency to kiss him. We found something to eat, and then he began to talk about the roamers' home space, voice his usual detached tone, but his hands moving restlessly, which is very unusual for him.
"They’re one of the most unpleasant Ionoth we’ve encountered. They kill for trophies, and torment and torture the occupants of the spaces they invade. Trap paths. And engage in ritualistic ceremonies which make uncomfortable imprints in Place. Their home space was large and beautiful – orchards, a village apparently woven from thin branches – but so ugly in Place that it was almost impossible to view that way. And it is also like the Castle space – the space is a memory of the occupants of the village being invaded, overwhelmed, driven into the surrounding orchards by a different type of Ionoth. We arrived in the portion of the cycle where the roamers are being pushed out, and instead of engaging with them, we removed the conquerors. There is a strong chance that if we continue to do this during the critical period, they will not roam. It is a rotation which will take at least two squads to achieve, if only to discourage them by force of numbers from attacking us."