She was teasing me, and I laughed, and thanked her for letting me vent. Kaoren’s family is one subject he and I don’t seem able to discuss freely. I tried to talk to Zee about Eeli, but had to stop. It’s too hard to talk about Eeli.
On the good news front, Dae’s brand new Fifteenth Squad located one of the remaining malachite marble installations today. Two more to go, and then we…do something.
In the midst of Cruzatch raids and planet-wide marble hunts, KOTIS continues to push ahead with making Pandora a fully-functional colony as quickly as possible. Parts of the manufacturing outer suburb is now operational, more and more apartment buildings have been completed, and including the Nurans we’re coming up on the big twenty thousand residents mark, a number which amazes me.
Once the on-planet manufacturing process was functional, KOTIS Command was able to really move ahead, since they’re now capable of producing the various components for fitting-out the apartments, from power units to waste systems to snotty goop that lives in your ducts and gives you nightmares. Mesiath was due to be made an active settlement this month, but because of the Cruzatch risk and the upcoming "doing something" they’ve postponed putting large numbers of people anywhere but Pandora, where the Ddura is now a near-constant background noise (for me).
All the incoming settlers are warned of the dangers, and are told firmly that they’re taking a big risk coming here. It doesn’t seem to have impacted application numbers greatly. Muina’s so important to so many people, and also represents a big change in quality of life for many. And a big chance to become a land owner for others, judging from some of the discussions broadcast as part of the "forming Muina’s laws" process. Everyone with any kind of interest is putting in their two cents about the next stage of the settlement. Once Pandora’s not only self-sufficient, but able to provide for other colonies, people can start to expand out to the protected areas around other platform towns, and even further out, in individual houses rather than apartment block structures. An awful lot of people seem to have "lord of all they survey" ambitions, and I guess quite a few of them will get that to some extent or another. The designs for farming estates are fascinating, and there’s massive arguments about the process of giving grants for possession.
There were red pears on the table for lunch today and I just stared at them for a long time, and couldn’t bring myself to eat one.
In the afternoon, I asked Maze if I could try to project something rather than do lots of exercise, and when they said okay (because they need to test how my ability to project has recovered) I said I’d need several scanners and all of First Squad’s help, which made them very curious, but they obligingly didn’t press me when I wouldn’t say exactly what I wanted to create. I love that I can tell Maze "nothing anyone will object to" and he can give the go-ahead.
The thing I made was a bookshelf. The double-deep bookshelf where Mum keeps her favourites, and the classic children’s books she used to read me as a kid. Everything from old-fashioned books like Pride and Prejudice, and the picture books which don’t fit on the other bookcases. I had two main aims here – all the things I’ve been longing to read to the kids, and this really massive coffee-table book of Mum’s which was basically "lush and glossy shots of really nice paintings throughout history".
While I did everything I could to maintain the projection, First Squad obliged me by rapidly flipping through for the scanners the particular books I pointed out. I especially wanted the art history book, and explained that I wanted to see if I can get it reproduced physically as a present for Siame’s birthday (so a lot of care was needed in scanning it), and this naturally was a secret. Fortunately, I put so much focus on that one that even when I passed out it endured for about half an hour and they were able to get every page properly scanned.
Having it turned into a book (with suitable translation of the titles) isn’t necessarily difficult, but having it done without everyone on three planets knowing about it and Siame reading it as an interface release before I’d even given it to her is the hard part. Maze is going to try and wangle something. I didn’t even read the kids any of the stories First had scanned for me because I want to wait until after Siame’s birthday, and instead picked a smallish Kolaren book to read to them.
It’s the first time I’ve had a secret from Kaoren, for all it’s a really mild one, but I felt very strange not telling him about it. I think I have enough of an understanding of his Sights to at least not be carrying a big "keeping a secret" flag when he talks to me, though that’s probably working because he’s not here right now. He’s not even sure he’ll be able to make it back for Siame’s birthday.
And no Lira today, which worries me.
Wednesday, October 29
A Heavy Place
I dreamed of the Oriath expedition last night, of Kaoren and Halla and Tsur Selkie comparing their impressions of what was happening to little balls which a technician was tossing down the gravity ramp. They were bouncy rubbery balls which the technician sent ricocheting up and down at the beginning of the ramp, but which then on the next bounce up barely hopped an inch and then squashed flat to the stone, then crumbled.
I watched the next attempt, trying to work out a weirdness which I realised felt like Lira – it felt like Lira was there beside me, though I couldn’t see her. And I realised I could, just barely, hear whispering.
That totally spooked me and I made myself wake up. Ketzaren was sitting on the side of my bed, waiting to see whether I was going to have a crisis, and let me squeeze her hand for a bit before having me explain what I’d been visualising. That, of course, created more than a bit of a problem, because they don’t want to risk me getting mentally trapped again, and don’t want me to be in Pandora if that’s about to happen. Fortunately it was nearly morning and I’d had a reasonable rest, so I wasn’t in immediate danger of passing out or anything, and after some back and forth discussion they decided that a few days back on Tare were in order, just to make sure, but that they could use the opportunity to poke me at the Oriath site first, to see if I could tell them anything useful.
This was a plan which didn’t exactly please anyone, but beyond taking the "nuke the site from orbit" option, the technicians are starting to doubt they can get at the power stone for the Oriath site. Not anywhere near as quickly as we want. So after breakfast Mara stayed at Pandora with the kids, and the rest of First Squad took me to the nearest platform town to Oriath, where we were collected by a ship which took us the rest of the way. It was southern hemisphere, and quite cold, but not far enough south to be snowy. The palace itself was covered in climbing vines which had dropped their leaves, so that it looked like it had been tied down with woody ropes.
They didn’t want to risk me being there too long, so I arrived, glanced about, and then First and Fourth joined up to take me down along the main corridor only partially cleared of ancient corpses to look at the ramp.
Kaoren was being particularly upright and silent, with his eyes half-lidded. He loathes the poke Devlin at it method. And it didn’t help that this was one of those times where I wasn’t feeling comfortable at all, having to force myself go through with it.