Mara just gestured around her and of course the answer was completely obvious. And the way she smiled as she looked out over the lake was a proper Mara smile – warm and thoughtful and sure.
Monday, September 8
Secession
Last night (or just before dawn, rather) about a hundred of the older Nuran kids and a couple of the adults decided to leave Pandora. They took a bunch of tools from the old town gardens, and also a bucket of unformed whitestone, and went off north along the lake.
KOTIS Command knew straight away, of course – even before their ID tags flagged that they’d gone out of the town zone. But they simply informed the Nuran Setari, and Korinal and Inisar went for a talk.
Except for a lone ten year-old who they considered too young to make this choice, and who is now ensconced in the talent school to make it easier to keep an eye on her, the two Nuran Setari made no attempt to bring the group back. Instead they pointed out the Ddura’s usual range (which is about four days' walk if you could keep to a straight line, and means I either was walking in circles or was very very lucky) and gave them an emergency beacon which they could use if they wanted help returning to Pandora. Not for if they just wanted to call for help, mind you – only if they wanted to return. It was how the Nurans decided to handle it, and nobody is sure if it’s the right thing to do or not.
KOTIS held off making an announcement about it until mid-afternoon, saying its position was simply that it wasn’t in the business of holding people against their will.
There was a lot of back-and-forth discussion in the Setari common room about whether the splinter settlement would make a success of it, and why they went (not liking to be told to go to class and learn Taren reading and writing seems to have been a major factor, though it sounds like a few of them would have left no matter what). Muina’s a lot easier to live on than Tare or Kolar, but it’ll be a huge challenge compared to being looked after in Pandora.
Lohn asked me what I thought, being the resident expert in wilderness survival on Muina.
"Huge disaster," I said.
Inisar (who, like all the Nuran Setari, tends to keep his opinions to himself and just listen to these conversations) asked me why.
"Because you had to tell them how far Ddura’s protection extended. Whoever is leading them is idiot if he didn’t find that out before they left. And if idiot’s making decisions, they’ll keep doing silly things. I don’t understand point of building settlement a short flight from Pandora anyway. Wouldn’t it have been more sensible to demand be taken to one of the other platform villages, and re-establish it? It’s like they don’t really mean it."
"Their intention was for us to force them back," Inisar said, with the faintest nod. "There are two who wish to have a stronger voice in our decisions. A subsistence existence is not what they desire, nor would it preserve our culture and values as they claim to want. The young among them who are angriest at the new conditions of their lives would have been infuriated if they were brought back against their will, increasing support for those who drove them to this move. We will post one to observe them secretly, although it is not a good use of our resources, and protect them if absolutely necessary. Any return which is not entirely of their own choosing would create a true fracture."
I could see that Maze and Raiten had already known this, and Kaoren as usual looked wholly unsurprised. But even Ys and Rye didn’t so much as blink, so I asked them about it later after I’d finished the first chapter of the (long and dramatic) story Rye chose to have read next.
"Some at the school were talking about it today," Rye said, after a glance at Ys. "They said the same thing."
I didn’t ask any more, but it’s silly how pleased I was that he answered me.
Otherwise, a fairly uneventful day. Rather than go to Kalasa, they had me expand my senses and attempt my visualisation in a test building they’ve created for me here (a bit inland from the Setari building and well away from any other building). Sixth (the squad who lost one of their members during the Pillar retrieval) and Ninth (all happy and relaxed now Anya’s just a bad memory), filed through and then I brought my senses back and tried to visualise malachite marbles. I did that fine, but only the two that we already knew about – easily distinguishable from the KOTIS monitoring equipment.
Since that didn’t work they’re going to fall back on aerial surveys looking for more installations like Arenrhon, since the book Inisar gave me talked about a number of underground dwellings. The Setari squads and the Nurans are going to scout using Path Sight. Inisar says that his Telepathy doesn’t allow him to hear the Ddura from real-space, so I’ll probably get to go on these missions to see if I can reproduce my tracking of Arenrhon.
I’m looking forward to the missions – my two fave squads and lots of touring and exploration.
Tuesday, September 9
Wounds
Training with Mara today involved handball in the morning (on a newly-created patch of whitestone specifically marked out for handball games). Mara says she sees no reason why I shouldn’t be able to dodge balls if I can hit them, and even though one of her arms is still strapped and healing, she practically had me dodging the balls playing with her – hard, fast games which left me panting.
After another rooftop lunch, and a quick tour of the nearby trees to look at the flush of opening blossoms (mostly white tipped with pink, like the first flowers, but a variety of others, including purple and a vivid orange), all of First worked out in the gym. A really hard session for me – lots of repetitions and different machines to use, but enjoyable in a way because I haven’t completely lost what little condition I’ve gained and so didn’t die from it immediately.
Mara and I both had a session in medical after that – me for the first cosmetic work on my stomach (which means I spent the rest of the day queasy and dozy) and Mara to gauge the recovery of the muscles in her arm and side. The tooth mark scars are seriously spectacular, and I could hear the medics giving her a lecture about stressing the recently-healed wounds too much.
Sen, trailed by Ys and Rye, showed up while I was getting new bandages applied, anxious to tell me that all sorts of boxes were sitting on the floor in our quarters. I told them they were for them, just some clothes and supplies, and did my best to act like it was nothing special. Of course, that didn’t stop Sen from being giggly with delight, nor Ys and Rye from being extremely withdrawn and doubtful. It was mostly clothes, and a selection of shoes, and some hair things and bubble bath.
I was so out of it from the medicking session that I just lay on the couch drowsily smiling as they unwrapped it all and worked out what was meant for whom. Fortunately Mara had come with me, since I fell asleep until Kaoren woke me.
We ate in our rooms, and then played the spelling game, and since Rye beat his previous score (Ys technically won the game, but came even with her previous score, and Sen was wildly silly), Kaoren told him he could choose a treat and Rye asked if we could go visit the island again, so that’s what we’re going to do the day after tomorrow and if it’s a warm day we’ll give the kids their first swimming lesson since while Nuri might have had rivers and streams, swimming apparently wasn’t common. Talking about swimming prompted one of my rare recommendations to KOTIS Command, namely that eight thousand children and a lake was going to be trouble in Summer. The bluesuit I spoke to told me they’d look into it.