Four of the gates back toward the Pillar we found are stable, shifting only a little, and it’s become part of the regular rotation of the Setari teams to go and firm the locks up. The gate into the space with all the platforms is gone. There’s a different talent which allows you to read the gates, and tell how long they will last, but they can’t tell for certain if and when that gate will rotate back. They think (are hoping really hard) that the platform space is a rotational space, and that eventually the gate will realign again and they’ll be able to lock it for another few days. Until then they check every day and puzzle over the readings they took from the space with the Pillar.
I didn’t want to press too obviously about natural gates, how they’re different, and how hard it might be to find one.
After lunch we joined up with the rest of First Squad, and this time all of Second Squad joined us. After testing the effect of me on their talent range, they worked with First Squad on a really big game of tag-team combat. They’ve been set a minimum time they have to wait between each person touching me, and then they have to keep track of how long the enhancement will last, which is a little over five minutes, always. Nils made illusory monsters again, and the two squads worked through fighting and enhancing while keeping to their rules. Then we took a break while Maze and the Second Squad captain, Grif, talked through different ways of managing me, and which talents it was best to enhance.
I was sitting on a bench next to Lohn and Nils and asked: "Is worth it? Stronger, maybe, but so complicate."
"Definitely, absolutely," Lohn said. "When I think of some of the situations we’ve been in, when the problem was sheer lack of fire power! The effect on some of the more esoteric talents, like Combat Sight, is incredibly hard to quantify, but I wouldn’t give it up."
"Just the speed alone is worth it," Nils added. "It almost makes the thought of doing Columns Rotation bearable."
"Think how that last massive battle would have gone," Lohn said, and they glanced at each other and looked away.
"Massive?" I repeated. The word they used was kadara, but it seemed to have the same meaning as ddura. "Ddura?"
"Different sort," Nils said. He lifted his hand and conjured an illusion of a four-legged black thing as tall as the three-story room, with swarms of miniature Setari buzzing around its long, spindly ankles. Everyone else in First and Second Squad jumped and gave him a look, but he just waved at them. "They turn up very occasionally, crashing their way between the spaces rather than travelling through them, and end up in near-space. It took eight squads to take this one down."
"If we don’t spot them, they can reach real space. That was a bad year." Lohn scrubbed a hand across his face, then smiled at me. "It’s not so complicated, either – we’re just taking turns patting you on the shoulder on a timer. So what do you say, Maze?" he called. "We going to do this for real tomorrow?"
"Pending clearance by medical," Maze said, coming over. "And clearance by you, Caszandra. You’ve seen something of what we can run into out there, and that was neither the weakest nor the worst thing we might encounter. Are you ready to do this?"
I’d seen enough by now to know that none of the Setari were completely confident of returning when they went into the spaces. Maze was asking a really serious question. And the spaces I’d gone through with Ruuel had scared me, had made abundantly clear that there was danger and horror involved. I didn’t want any part of that.
"Long as don’t have ran up stair," I said after a moment. "That hardest bit."
Maze smiled, but gravely, and nodded at me. "It will be one of the more straightforward rotations," he said. "I’ll schedule it, dependant on the results of the medical."
After the medics cleared me, Alay and Ketzaren took me to dinner. Alay’s the most quiet and reserved of First Squad, but really lovely when she laughs. She’s what people call gamine, and wears her hair short, though little random curls sproing out. I think Ketzaren, who is very dry and sardonic, was deliberately setting out to cheer Alay up, and it was only after they’d delivered me back to my apartment that I thought about why, about the reasons First and Second Squad often look tired and sad.
I don’t want to go into the spaces hunting Ionoth. I’m scared about the trip tomorrow. And of all the trips after that which I’ll be in for if I let myself be conscripted by an alien military organisation to fight a problem which has been growing steadily worse. I fully intend to go home.
But then there’s First Squad. They’ve been doing this for years. Fighting nightmares. And getting hurt. I haven’t missed that there were originally three senior Setari squads, but now there only seems to be two. I can’t bring myself to ask what happened to the other one.
And I’ve been writhing silently at the thought of saying: "Thanks for saving my life, but not my problem. I’ll go home now and try not to think too hard about whether you’re dead yet".
But I want to go home.
Wearing the Setari uniform makes me feel so fake.
Friday, February 15
Rememories
I started out the day by spotting Zan in the canteen. She was eating dinner – Twelfth Squad is on a different shift than me at the moment – but after I picked out some breakfast I asked if I could join her and she of course was polite and said yes.
"You look tired," I said, since I refuse to be all stilted and formal with her. "Is rotation bad?"
"No injuries so far," Zan said, being her usual correct self. But then she actually asked me a question, which is progress. "You’re scheduled to start a rotation today?"
I nodded, wondering if for the rest of my life people would know more about what I’m doing than I do myself. "When Setari off-duty?" I asked. "Never know if what say go into mission reports."
"It would be truer to say we’re off-shift, not off-duty. All time in the Ena is fully logged, and most training sessions, but I would have no reason to report on this conversation, for instance. Besides, you’re on second level monitoring."
The way she paused made it clear that she wished she hadn’t said that, so naturally I asked what second level monitoring was, and appreciated that she didn’t avoid answering.
"It means your life signs monitor, along with everything you do, you’re recording internally – separately from any private recording you make. The record isn’t reviewed unless there’s an incident which needs verification or investigation, such as when you vanished into the Ena."
I suppose I wasn’t that surprised deep-down, but that didn’t stop me from feeling absolutely exposed. I must have gone brick red.
"Everyone can look at?"
"No." Zan made her voice as firm and clear as possible. "There are very strict rules about such reviews, and they can be performed only for a clear reason, by those with the very highest security clearance. No-one in the Setari has anywhere close to that level. But a selected extract of your record was appended to Tsee Ruuel’s report on your recovery, showing your attempt to open a gate into your world."