I was totally drained, and just lay for a while letting them give me injections and take brain scans, but then asked if I could have a shower (I stank of vomit and was mortifyingly sure I’d wet myself as well, which thankfully my nanosuit was containing). Nanosuits are tremendously useful for having medical emergencies in, since the technicians can make bits of it go away and come back so easily. Kaoren came and had a shower with me, which got around the technicians worrying I would collapse and gave us the opportunity to be all scared and upset with each other for a while. He’d had to spend the entire time not showing how frightened he was, and we ended up sitting on the cramped floor of the shower cubicle, squeezing each other and shuddering. We were still in the shower when we went through into Taren real-space, and I decided that, however exhausted I was, I’d rather try and stay awake until we were back at base because I really didn’t want to face the possibility of more vomiting.
Ista Mezan (by then looking almost as exhausted as I felt) told me to finish the rest of my fortifier, but I bargained him into fetching me some real food, and Kaoren went to get my hairbrush, so I was (if you ignored the two other technicians in the side-room) alone when Ys found me.
She marched straight up to where I was sitting sideways on the sick-pod (the unsick pod, in this case, since I’d swapped to the one they hadn’t had to clean vomit off) and said in this angry whisper: "You have to stop."
"Stop which?" I asked muzzily.
I could see she was shaking with anger, and my mild question was apparently the last straw because she had her own little volcanic eruption, all in the same stifled and furious whisper.
"How can you be so selfish? If you’re in danger all the time, why do you keep pulling them closer to you? Don’t keep hurting them just to make yourself feel better. You can’t just decide to be their family and make them love you, and then take it all away. If you’re going to die, then die!"
The enormity of the last one seemed to hit her – she’d gone further than she wanted to say – and she stopped short, gasping for breath. Kaoren, Mara and Maze were standing in the doorway behind her, being very still so she wouldn’t notice them. I really wished I could ask Mum for advice, and touched Ys' cheek, but she jerked her face away.
"Every time Kaoren goes on mission in the Ena, I spend entire time convinced he’s not coming back. But does that mean I shouldn’t love him because he has dangerous job? Would it be better to find someone who lived safer life, even though I like them less? I know that I’m in lot of danger, but if I spend all my time not doing things, not caring about people, because I’m caught up in knowing that I’m in danger, then I’m wasting chance I’ve been given to live. I want to live while I can, even if it’s just for few weeks, or day, or hour."
"Selfish," Ys repeated, voice strangled, and I worked not to look like I agreed.
"I know tonight has been scary. But I don’t think I’d be doing right thing by not hugging Sen, just because might be for the last time, any more than I think would be the right thing to not make sure that you and Rye have never-ending supply of books. Do you know, one of the things I’ve enjoyed most this past week is watching expression on your face when you get explanation for something? It’s like the universe is one massive puzzle to you and thing you like above all else is to fit another piece in place."
That made her stare at me, as if she thought I could somehow have missed something so obvious about her. I added carefully: "And I’m very proud of you for always trying to protect Sen and Rye. You’ll have to forgive me for being just little selfish about wanting to see you smile. I am trying very hard to avoid dying, but if I can’t then I hope all three of you will be able to remember the fun things we did together, rather than just the fact that am gone."
I slid off the over-tall med-pod so I could hug her – which made her go rigid and she beat her fists against my ribs (really hard too) and then briefly clutched at the front of my nanosuit and gulped because she was absolutely determined not to cry. Kaoren came in and put a hand on her head, and told her Sen was looking for her, and knowing him he said just the right things to calm her down a little as he took her off. Mara and then Maze came in and hugged me very painfully (I refrained from hitting them) and I could see that by making speeches about dying I’d succeeded in upsetting both of them rather a lot. Too many of the people they grew up with and cared about have been killed.
Mara made me sit back down and tidied my hair while Maze filled me in on the things I’d missed while I’d been busy vomiting. Isten Notra had begun analysing the images from my projection straight away, and said the patterns on the ceiling were almost certainly related to the patterns we’d seen on the diagram of the Pillar placement. It didn’t seem to be, as I had half hoped, a map to the location of all the malachite marbles, but she said it was important anyway.
Ista Mezan came back with a cup of hot green soup at the same time as Kaoren, Inisar and Zee, and I sipped it cautiously as they tried to coax more information about the not-my-dream out of me. I hadn’t mentioned the whispering before that, and they’re going to try and enhance the drone’s audio pick up enough to maybe make out what the stones were saying.
"That another touchstone, yes?" I asked Inisar. "The one think was involved in disaster."
"Most likely. You said you didn’t think that was your dream. Could it have been hers?"
I didn’t know the answer to that. "It felt like trap," I said. "But she’s the one caught in it." Thinking about it, remembering what it was like, started to upset me a lot and I nearly dropped my soup down my front until Kaoren steadied the cup. "She can’t be any older than Ys," I said, and was glad when they decided that it wasn’t a good time to push me any more.
Left for the moment alone, Kaoren and I sat together on my med-pod, hands locked together, and I opened a channel to him.
"Sen’s Sights led her to the wrong person."
"No." Kaoren frowned at me. "For what she wants, you and I are exactly right. It becomes, now, a matter for us to protect you. And for you not to fail her. Promise me that, Cassandra. That you will think, and take care, and not surrender to this."
"Live up to her?" I said, and thought he might as well be asking for himself. And probably was.
"Promise me," he repeated, and I did. And I’ll try. But this thing, that room, it scares me. I don’t know if it’s something I can just push on through.
Kaoren carried me out to the common room, where more hugging was had, and Sen planted herself in my lap and fell straight to sleep. I spent a little while telling Rye (and a highly subdued and stubbornly silent Ys) about how great the storms on Tare were to watch and how the planet only had two types of weather: storming and about to storm. Then I fell asleep, of course, but no dreams or heaviness and Kaoren must have pushed them to not keep me too long in medical because I woke in my apartment – with this heavy weight on my chest, which panicked me a moment until I realised it was Ghost. Kaoren was very deeply asleep beside me, and Mara was watching over the kids and pretty much treated me like one when I stumbled out needing breakfast.
My apartment now has four bedrooms and is even roomier than the Muina version. It’s obviously been set up this way for a while: KOTIS thinking ahead. Having a big, strict military organisation trying to anticipate my every need is a very surreal sensation. Sen was loving it, as usual, especially Ghost reappearing, while Ys and Rye have been discovering that the interface is a lot larger on Tare than it is on Muina. It was very funny listening to Rye asking Mara questions about the Song Star Setari program.