That became complicated, because the kids would rush through the rift gate, blink at all the sunlight and sky and grass and goats, and promptly sit down. After the first few mass tangles, all the Telekinetics and Levitation talents began picking up batches and flying them a short way across the meadow. The other Setari set up a loose perimeter, while the goats sensibly ran away. Then we waited.
Tare sent every available ship as soon as the Chune brought word, but even though some of these were larger than the Litara, it was hours later, approaching sunset at the rift and well into evening at Pandora, before the last ship was loaded. Most of the Setari remained until the final flight so that, if a Ddura showed up, they had the option of taking everyone still there back through the Rift.
During the long wait the Captains had plenty of opportunity to work down the list of Things We Wanted To Ask Nurans. As soon as everyone was safely through, and the guards sent out, we all gathered around a trio of the Nuran Setari (for they are, apparently, Nuri’s version of Setari) on a high pile of rocks with a good view of the meadow. The Captains were streaming the conversation back to Pandora, and to their squads, while clumps of Nurans – mostly teens – gathered in a circle below us to listen, even though we were speaking in Taren. The one called Korinal, my watcher from back on Tare, was designated spokeswoman since she could speak the Taren dialect, though with a very strong accent.
"We have not been unaware of developments on your world," Korinal began, and didn’t sound like she was going to go into just how they knew. "As you ventured into the Ena, we saw an increase in the number of Ionoth, and there was much debate as to whether the change was linked, and what damage you might cause. This anxiety only increased when it was reported that you had gained access to Muina, and the reports made it clear that you had done so through a touchstone."
"What does Nuri know of touchstones?" Maze asked. "And of Gaia, for that matter. Tare and Kolar retained no information of either."
"Of Gaia we know only that the path to it had been lost, but that it was once deeply tied to Muina. Of touchstones…" Korinal turned her head and gave me a long look. A really strange look, as if I was something wondrous but deadly, which fascinated and repelled.
Okay, yeah, that’s probably reading a little too much into it, but she did stare at me for an uncomfortably long time, and made me glad that Kaoren was at my side.
"It is rare for a touchstone to exist," Korinal went on. "One born with a profound link to the Ena, a focus connecting all that is to all that once was and all that could be."
"That is–" Maze began, and stopped. Which was his polite Maze-ish way of going: "Wut?"
"You have been experimenting with the abilities of the child of Gaia, have seen that this connection can, in a limited way, be used to create objects, even small spaces. And you have seen that the great devices on Muina draw upon the aether. You have not understood the potential of a device powered by aether, and a touchstone."
Machine component. As job descriptions go, that one is probably the worst so far.
"In truth, we barely understand it ourselves," Korinal went on. "The device makers died with the Shattering, and we retained little of their craft. But it is known that a touchstone existed at the time of the Shattering, and we believe that touchstone was used to create the Ddura." Korinal glanced back at me, expression closed, evaluating. "Among my people, there are those who believe that that touchstone was responsible for the Shattering."
Kaoren slid his hand into mine, though my reaction was delayed trying to unravel her accent. Once I understood, I immediately wanted to change the subject, so I said: "What are the Cruzatch?"
"That we do not know," Korinal said. "We have encountered the Ionoth known to you as Cruzatch in two separate spaces, and also as travellers. The behaviour of those generated by spaces is distinctly different to those which travel through the Ena. We suspect that the Cruzatch linked to spaces are memory-imprints of the travellers, while the travellers–" She paused. "There are a number of theories, but it appears that the traveller Cruzatch are active in real-space, possibly on multiple worlds."
"Active how?" asked Raiten Shaf, moving a little closer. The Kolaren squads had followed the Taren squads' lead during the battle, but as Senior Captain of the Kolaren Setari, Shaf had been biting his lip holding back questions. "Were they active on Nuri?"
"That – my senior, Inisar, spoke of them when he released us, but there was no time, and I could not–" Korinal paused, and I could almost see her push back what had to be overwhelming horror and shock, struggling to regain the detached tone she’d been using. "If they were, we did not suspect it until this day," she went on. "But for some time Inisar and others among us have been trying to unravel strange dealings on Nuri. Our people have been fractured by differing opinions about the strain within the Ena, and underlying that has been a strong sense of deceit. We thought it political, a struggle between the two with the greatest chance of succeeding to the leading House of Nuri, and when word of the touchstone on Tare arrived that impression strengthened. The urgency of the command to retrieve the touchstone, and Inisar’s return empty-handed, brought many arguments. Inisar was sent again, this time only to observe, and did not return."
"So you were sent," Kaoren said. "And yet, there was some aspect of constraint."
Korinal nodded. "A Command. Created by a device of the Lantar brought from Muina during the evacuation and formerly rarely used. To place one under Command indicates a lack of faith, a cause for distrust. We were told that the divisions of opinion made it necessary, but it was a grave insult."
She stopped speaking, looking past Maze at the field of Nurans: those watching and listening, and those clumped in sleeping piles, curled on grassy tufts, tucked against tumbled stone.
"We did not look hard enough, allowed ourselves to be distracted by immediate concerns, even when among our own ranks there were those whose behaviour would have required investigation in less difficult times. Constraint. Yes, that is a word for it. Perhaps they, too, were under a Command. I returned to Nuri when it became obvious the child of Gaia had been removed to Muina, and found my people hard-pressed by Ionoth. And then the Dazenti – a type of Ionoth which has periodically plagued us in recent years: small, swift-moving, attacking in swarms, and capable of phasing so that even walls could not keep them out. The swarms have been growing more frequent, of ever-greater numbers, and though we were equal to tracking and dealing with them, the number of deaths among those we protect had become so excessive that it was necessary to create shelters. When the alert was given, all not capable of defending themselves evacuated to the shelters, and the walls charged with a shielding we had only recently discovered–"
She broke off, because half her Setari audience had reacted: a scatter of quickly-controlled movement and murmurs.
Maze, a muscle jumping in his cheek, said: "What you describe seems to resemble a place we found on Muina: an underground installation, the walls shielded, and many people trapped within, who died suddenly."
Nuri’s spy system plainly hadn’t passed on details about Arenrhon to Korinal. Her head went up and back, confusion plain, and she looked away from Maze, staring again at the clumps of children all around us.