We heard the news before we even left, since Ninth has been working through the time zones in the opposite direction and thus started out around midnight. The terrain at Pelamath makes it rather more challenging than Arenrhon to set up a base of operations to begin investigating and so far Ninth has only placed some drones there. But the idea is to first locate as many of the things as possible, and then start delving into them in the hopes of finding more information – preferably that elusive book Our Secret Plan and How to Foil It.
First and Fourth were assigned to a slightly later time zone to yesterday’s, but southern hemisphere and closer to the pole so we had a short, chilly outing. Mostly fir trees with a few massive yellow-leafed nut trees completely infested by squirrel-types with black fur, tufty white-tipped ears, and long curling tails. Packs of dogs, too, though not border collies, and various deer along with my old acquaintance the Mondo Elk. Not quite halfway through Autumn (we think) and already it felt like snow wasn’t too far off there.
I made a point of calling the kids when we stopped at lunch, and showed them the different animals we’d seen, and some of the prettier streams and waterfalls. Rye definitely has a Shon-level interest in the natural world, and wanted to know what all the animals would be called – which is really anyone’s guess at this stage, although a lot of animals are being casually named for their resemblance to the animals of old Muinan stories. And the border collies are being called border collies, which amuses me greatly.
A channel request to Shon was all it took to arrange a tour of the flora and fauna buildings and a personal explanation of naming conventions. The three of them (and Mara) ended up having dinner with Isten Notra after their tour – and meeting the rest of her family, all of whom arrived just two days ago as new Muinan settlers. I found out about that when Isten Notra sent me an email, warmly amused as usual, but ending up with: "Don’t overlook the brittle fragility of the older girl. Even metal of her quality can shatter after years of strain."
Ys is tying herself into knots, used to being the one who protects the others and makes the decisions, so tempted and distrustful of the life we’re offering her. She hates that Sen lavishes affection on me, and Rye’s deepening fascination with Kaoren must feel like a second betrayal. I spend all my time wanting to hug her and being careful to pretend not to notice when she’s excited and enjoying herself.
I’m glad she met Isten Notra.
I’ll make sure to contact them during our next mission day after tomorrow. Of the fourteen platform towns, First and Fourth are exploring four, while most of the single squads are doing three, so two more for us – and again the next time zone over, which means sleeping in, leaving in late afternoon and not getting back till after Sen, at least, should be asleep.
It’s raining at Pandora again. Inisar says the Nuran splinter group has shelter now, but I bet they’re not enjoying themselves.
Sunday, September 14
Day-Tripping
Pandora’s day started out hot and sticky again – another storm on the way – and since everyone at the talent school is spending their energy trying to deal with dozens of kids with severe headaches, we took the kids off to our island after what was breakfast for us and taught them to float on their backs, and kicking. Rye did very well at this, Ys less so – she wasn’t comfortable with me holding her up while she was floating, but we took a break and tried again and though she was far from relaxed, she did better the second time.
We had Fourth with us instead of First, and Kaoren turned it into a mini training session, leaving Par and Glade (our toter-abouters who he didn’t want to tire out) to sit with me on the bank while he took the rest for a short practice swim.
All three kids are highly curious about Kaoren’s squad, and Fourth are eternally entertained by the idea of him in a dad role. Glade had a huge amount of fun pretending Kaoren worked them to death and was a heartless taskmaster. Sen was outraged and kept saying "No-o!!" in highly doubtful tones at Glade’s increasingly unlikely claims, until she was sure that he was teasing her and then she started giggling madly. Rye, who I think was for a while really furious, finally appealed to me.
"Tough but fair," I said, since my opinion of him as a captain hasn’t really changed. "Kaoren expects people to do their best, but he doesn’t push them just for fun of it." I had to grin and add. "Admittedly, I train with First instead of Fourth."
"You – is it you are to be a Setari?" Rye asked.
"It would take years – decades – to turn me into any sort of fighter. But the basic training comes in handy because using talents strains the user’s system. And, well, you never know when you need some urgent running or swimming. It was definitely embarrassing when Zan – the leader of Twelfth Squad – had to levitate me because I couldn’t keep up with her squad during an emergency."
Before we left I told Sen that she should choose a short story for Mara to read, if she wanted to save the current one for me, and Mara tells me that she was happy with this new arrangement. I’m getting better at this.
Our platform town today was the border collie one, which on the old Muinan map is called Falazen. I asked Maze if I could bring a snack along for the dogs (partially to tease him) and ended up having a rather serious conversation with one of the fauna technicians, who wanted to know more about how dogs are used on Earth. Teasing Maze is not nearly so much fun if the end result is a meeting.
The Kolaren farmer who is in charge of the hairy sheep was also there, allowing me to demonstrate my ignorance of sheepdogs AND sheep. To cover the gaps, I did a short projection of some collies herding as a farmer controlled them with whistles. The technician has been conducting a study of the dogs, observing them through drones, and was full of talk about their intelligence and social set-up, and wasn’t very keen on the Kolaren’s suggestion that we do a bit of puppy-napping. But they agreed that regularly bringing food gifts to the dogs was a usefully non-confrontational step toward redomestication.
So we took doggy snacks with us (well, a bag of dried chips of vat-grown protein) and laid them out on one side of the amphitheatre under the watchful eye of the two collies which were guarding the place (the technician told me that there’s always at least one collie keeping an eye on the place). The chips were gone when we returned at the end of the day, so I guess it was a suitable offering to Falazen’s current owners.
It was an uneventful day in terms of exploration. The land around Falazen is very like Pandora, although with a somewhat different selection of animals, and dominated by a pale-barked tree just setting out leaf-tips. Lovely displays of spring flowers below them, too. Other than the mild disorientation of getting up mid-morning and travelling about until late evening, and the fact that the Telekinetics find days like this a strain, I’m still really enjoying this stretch of missions. It was late afternoon for the kids when we stopped for lunch, and I showed them where we were, and pictures of the flowers, and the dogs.
Flying and walking about half the day isn’t doing my sex life any good, though. Kaoren usually flies himself, and the effort of that means he’s very tired by the time we’re ready for bed.
Monday, September 15
Where Now?
Raining a lot at Pandora today, so I spent my late morning playing games with the kids while Kaoren was off at a Captains' meeting. There’s an endless array of games available for them to play – some free, but a lot with a tiny purchase fee which either Kaoren or I have to approve – and we played through a heap of trials to decide which ones they wanted. I won some Mum-cred by being better at random games than I am at spelling in Taren, and I made sure Ys and Rye picked at least one game each which catered more toward their own age group, rather than entirely to Sen’s tastes. Ys picked what amounted to a junior adventure game, like the historical games I’ve been playing, so I showed them those games, and warned them they might be a little complicated but that I thought they were tremendously interesting because I’d learned so much about Taren history from them.