They’re planning to cycle all the active squads through Pandora again to make sure all the extra members have their security clearance. Eleventh will head back in a couple of days, and then they’ll have three staggered cycles of squads coming through, each staying a week[6].
I asked what would happen to the agreement if the Nurans changed their minds about wanting to have nothing to do with us, or some other Muina-descended group showed up and wanted to live on Muina. Which of course is something no-one can answer, since it all depends on circumstances. The Nurans still have knowledge KOTIS wants and although Inisar’s history book showed they don’t have any more idea than we do on what went wrong, they might be useful with suggestions on how to fix it. But nothing Tare’s done has convinced them to even talk about it. Tare made another attempt to send a diplomatic vessel through the rift to Nuri, and again some of Nuri’s strong psychic talents showed up almost immediately and made them turn around, and wouldn’t say anything to them except variations on "Leave now or be destroyed".
People from other Muinan-descended planets are something no-one really wants to see right now. Of course, the Ddura would try and kill them all, so the Tare-Kolar alliance is pretty safe in that regard. But saying "No, we were here first, go away" is an attitude which opens up an ethical minefield. Muina itself is so enormous and fertile and welcoming that they can’t really argue that there’s no room for other groups of descendants. Hell, if you transplanted the entire population of Tare, Kolar, Channa and Nuri to Muina, it would still be mostly empty. Channa only has about one million people (drifting about in nomadic tribes, suffering more and more from Ionoth attacks) while Nuri’s this tiny moon with maybe between two and four hundred thousand people. You could move all of Earth here and there’d still be room.
But it sure would get complicated.
Tuesday, August 12
Open your mind
I liked this morning a lot more than this afternoon.
This morning was more instant town work, with Lohn and Mara as my guards. Lohn and Mara are always worth spending time with, full of energy hauling mounds of mattresses and sheets and pillows everywhere (up all the stairs, since the elevators weren’t operational yet) and making beds. I lost count of how many beds we did, and it was amazing how tiring something so simple can be, but it was fun too. KOTIS personnel everywhere, really busy, but cheerful with it, and they get a real kick out of seeing Setari carrying about mounds of pillows. And I seem to have turned into the village mascot (which I don’t particularly like, but it’s hard to resist how pleased most people seem to be to see me).
That was this morning. This afternoon has been brain scans and people being all you did it once, try harder to do it again. And blood tests, because I needed more needles. So not in a good mood right now.
For all that, I guess it’s worth it, since Kaoren is very happy. Not understanding what the Lantarens meant about connecting with Muina was really getting to him, to the point that when we all went to go swimming today, he came along since I wanted to go, but decided he was going to take a break from attempting to puzzle out the meaning. Which was very fine with me. We went swimming about together, exploring the tumbled and drowned city. I don’t know what happened to make the lake rise to cover that part of Mesiath, but it’s a really neat place to swim through – especially when you know that there’s nothing lurking in the shadows of the buildings which registers as a threat.
We found an excellent ruin which was sheltered on all sides, and where the stone was just the right level to sit half underwater while still enjoying the streaming sunlight. We dozed in the sun for a while, until I got curious about – well, mainly I was curious as to whether Nils was anywhere near Zee – so I pushed out with my knowing where people are sense to find them. But Nils was with Lohn, Mara and Ketzaren, while Zee and Alay and Jeh seemed to be chatting. I amused myself tracking where everyone was, and then finding the little weasel things, and then all different sorts of animals, and the fish in the river – some right underneath where we were lying – and then there were birds and snakes and bugs and these large windy spaces which I eventually realised were the trees and it was really very enjoyable and relaxing doing that. I felt incredibly calm, and very pleased with myself, but then I noticed that more and more of the bright, sharp presences which were the Setari had gathered around Kaoren and me, and so I sort of drew back to myself and looked up at them.
"Can’t be that interesting to watch me daydreaming," I said, annoyed. Finding a dozen people staring at me isn’t my idea of fun.
"What were you doing?" Kaoren asked. He was sitting cross-legged just out of reach of me, and his eyes were open very wide. It was a bit disconcerting seeing him with that expression, because it’s what he looks like when he’s trying to contain himself, which he usually doesn’t need to do. Most everyone was wide-eyed.
"Just seeing how many things I could sense, and how far. If I push out really far even the trees start to be there for me." I wrinkled my nose. "And, yeah, I guess that does sound like this connecting to Muina thing that everyone has been trying to do, but it doesn’t explain why you’re all here staring at me. I don’t feel like I was pouring out a lot of energy or anything."
"It’s the mechanics of your enhancement." Kaoren made a brief, meaningless gesture with his hand – a sign that he was almost beside himself with excitement, since he rarely moves without purpose. "The technicians have yet to find any physiological explanation for how it operates. What you were doing then – deepening your connection to your surroundings – resulted in a considerable increase in the strength of your enhancement. I called Surion and Namara so that I could study how the increase was effecting them."
While he was enhanced himself, of course, and the rest of First Squad had come along to watch, along with Taarel, Regan, Endaran and the Squad Three captain, Turian.
"I could clearly feel the shift," Maze put in. "The best I can describe it is that you don’t feel the air around you unless there’s a wind." He held out a hand to me and when I moved in response, brushed the tips of his fingers against mine. "Even when your enhancement is at ordinary levels, there’s a sense now of the shift."
"Why is being able to feel when I’m enhancing you so amazing?"
"Because it’s still there when the enhancement wears," Zee said. She smiled, with just a hint of wonder edging into her eyes, which is not what I’m used to from Zee. "What you’re doing is increasing something already present. We are – we think that we have all already been connected to the Ena, all along, but our awareness – it’s like when you have worn a scent every day. You cease to be able to smell it, unless it grows stronger."
"When you enhance us, you are not channelling power to us," Kaoren continued, with the certainty which told me that this was something which had come from his Sights. "It is more that because you have such a strong connection with the Ena, contact with you causes our own connection to come more into focus, to align correctly. You aren’t increasing our powers, you’re triggering a state which we should be able to achieve on our own."
6
Which means Fifth will be here soon, but I guess I’ll survive. Twelfth will go just after the signing ceremony and be replaced by Sixth, and then Third will be replaced by Seventh, Second by Eighth and so on. First and Fourth are the long-term Muinan assignment for the moment, mainly for the cause of keeping me somewhere it seems the Nurans can’t go.