It was a great day. Isten Notra’s a really special sort of person, with not a lot of time to spare, and she gave a whole heap of it to me.
And I was outside of my medroom box, which was also a bonus.
Wednesday, March 5
Someone call the wahmbulance
Ista Tremmar took off my eye-patch today. They’ve been changing the big adhesive covering daily, but my eye was taped shut underneath. Today they lowered the lights, pulled off the tape, and shone little torches at me. Then, after another tedious medical exam, they released me. I have check-ups and tests scheduled, and nothing else whatsoever, not even training.
I should have been happy. Not so much at the nothing scheduled, but being let out of my latest box. Glorious illusion of freedom. But, you see, my eye is wrong.
I have hazel eyes. Brown and green with some flecks of blue. I still have hazel eyes, but flecks of purple and violet have been added to the left one, and combined with the blue it drowns out the brown and green. It looks pretty cool, but I hate it. Because it’s not my eye any more and every time I look in the mirror it’s telling me I don’t exist any more. I’m not a girl from Sydney who loves reading and games and was about to start uni and hadn’t quite decided what she was going to do in the long run. I’m not Cass here. Devlin most of the time, and Caszandra occasionally. I’m a stray, and it’s not just what people call me, it’s what I am inside: something out of place. My main goals are to learn a tiresome language, and to avoid getting anyone killed until I can figure out a way to get home. Not dying is also a goal. I don’t like to count up the number of times I’ve nearly died since I was rescued. At least this last time I achieved something before falling apart.
So now that I’ve finally been released and can wander about, I’ve spent the day moping on my couch. I should be grateful for having an eye at all, but instead I’m busy trying not to let myself get too upset, because I might take another sleep-walking excursion to Earth and I’d hate to have to be rescued again, but at the same time I can’t help but acknowledge that I haven’t done anything at all to try and work out how I reached Earth’s near-space, and how I can get home safely.
Hiding how unhappy I am right now is important to stop them from monitoring me more and more, especially since my immunity to the aether makes me an even more interesting lab rat. I have no wish to confide in the greysuit who has had a session with me every day since I woke, chatting with me in a way which screams psych evaluation. Or perhaps they’re a trauma counsellor, but in that case I can’t like them for not coming out and saying so.
I wish I could stop having nightmares. I guess I really was in a blind panic back in the Pillar since my dreams are filled with scary things snatching at me, and I wake sweating and panting, with a hand clutched over my eye. I don’t think I’d make the grade as a Setari, even if I had psychic powers, and it’s a good thing that they have no plans to put me back on active duty any time soon.
First Squad is off on some island called Gorra. I really appreciate that Zee emails me every so often and lets me know what’s going on with them, and with the shifting about caused by the Pillar shutting off. They’re slowly checking which of the known routes still exist, and trying to work out ways through the spaces which allow them to easily get to the same locations in near-space that they could previously access. Everyone’s scheduling has been thrown madly off, and they’re all working double-time trying to make up the ground they’ve lost.
Bleh – this is not a fun day. It needs to hurry up and be over.
Thursday, March 6
Professionally sozzled
This morning I had aether tests. Now that I’m no longer in danger, merely covered in yellow bruises, tender and stiff and occasionally shaky, they’ve decided to try and find out why I react so differently to aether from everyone else. Which means I spent this morning getting drunk.
Since they’re wary of setting off my interface, and are trying to work out why it started growing again, they only gave me enough aether for a minor buzz. So I was bored but cheerful. I swear I must have had more brain scans than anyone on any planet. At least I had the warning signs in the containment room to entertain me. "Danger – toxic substances!" plastered everywhere, in and out of the interface.
They released me around lunch time, but I was in no mood for school work. Mildly defiant, or perhaps still a little drunk, I went swimming. Nothing too strenuous, just to get the kinks out, and I think I’ll keep going unless someone remembers I’m supposed to have an escort.
While I was floating about pretending that was exercise, I abruptly gained a brand new level of access, accompanied by an email from Isten Notra directing me to a huge collection of files. "Your assignment while you’re in testing and recovery is to review the information we’ve collected on Muina and to notify me of any possible relevant parallel with your world."
Homework! I haven’t the foggiest idea if I’ll find anything useful, but it’s definitely something new and tangible for me to do.
The Muina collection, however, was not nearly so interesting to me at first glance as everything else this access level let me look at. They’ve reclassified me as a Setari, and now I can see things like everyone’s calendar, the space, rotation and Ionoth libraries, squad profiles and a general noticeboard. After months of being a mushroom, this is a serious adjustment.
I have to admit the first thing I wanted to do was indulge my increasing curiosity about Ruuel. It was only the recollection of playing "Browser History of Shame" over at friends' houses which held me back. Instead I checked out First Squad’s profile, opening Zee’s details first. Talent set and ratings, mission history. No doubt plenty of stuff I couldn’t see. Next I methodically opened and read the details of each squad captain in order, and if I lingered a little longer over Ruuel then that might be excused by the fact that he has eleven talents. All the Sights and Speed rated high, then low ratings in Ena Manipulation, Telekinesis, Levitation and Light.
That pointless piece of self-indulgence over with, I turned to the Ionoth library (the Bestiary!) to look up cats. And found out that Ghost has escaped. Yay Ghost! I hope she comes to visit me again, but I expect that she won’t be trusting me any more.
After browsing randomly for a while, quite overwhelmed by how much information there was, I glanced over the Muina collection. And pounced on a report from a few months ago. An expedition to Muina to investigate a Ddura detected in the planet’s near-space.
I was in Additional Notes. "Displaced person, young female, recovered from secondary site. Uninjured, condition poor. Stickie scan negative. Not from known language group. Submitted for processing."
My so momentous rescue. The attached log was fascinating though, giving me some idea of how the Sight talents operate. After arriving at the town, Fourth Squad started out near my wool-boiling operation, which made it obvious straight away that someone was there. Those with Place Sight could see glowing footprints everywhere: mine and those of different animals, and even my handprints all over the bowls. The squad split into pairs, apparently confident there was no major danger nearby.