So today I met a psychic space samurai called Inisar, who did me no favours by making it clear to the Tarens that I’m even more interesting than they suspected, and who may or may not be sent back to kill me. As a result I decided to not be just Cass any more, and I know there’ll be times I’m going to regret that so hard, just as I know that the people who are important to me here will have spent some of today discussing strategies for making sure I don’t have reason or opportunity to leave, and finding a balance between me wanting some privacy and their wanting to keep watch on me at all times.
And after ninja and samurai, I’m wondering if next up will be psychic space pirates.
Lab Rat One
Description
April to mid-July
In the months since Cassandra Devlin walked off Earth onto another planet, she has grappled with everything from making blankets to helping psychics battle the memories of monsters. Not able to find a way home, she has instead gained friends and a purpose. Unfortunately, that purpose brings with it the pressure of being more than a little valuable, and those she has befriended are also her guards, ordered to explore and control her abilities to find out just what it is a touchstone can do.
Test subject was not the career path Cass had been planning.
With no privacy, too-frequent injuries, and the painful knowledge that she must always be an assignment to her Setari companions, Cass can only wish for some semblance of normality and control.
And as her abilities become more and more dangerous, tests and training may be the only thing capable of protecting Cass from herself.
April
Tuesday, April 1
Fool
April Fool’s Day. Totally appropriate for the idiot who turned down a chance to go home to Earth because she thinks she should play hero. Fortunately, all my contribution to the hero-ing business involves is standing where I’m put, ready to be hauled about by the people whose job it is to save the planet, or the galaxy, or however much of the universe is supposedly at risk. And what I’ve really signed up for is more labrattery, to figure out what touchstone means.
I missed having a diary yesterday, and considered switching to an electronic version, but I’d have to use Taren script. Being able to write in English, to have a book filled with the things no-one here can understand: I think I need it even more now I’ve decided to stay. This new diary comes all the way from Kolar, and has thick, white-brown paper, and a picture of endless waving grassland on the cover.
Starting fresh like this made me feel like I should write down some missed-it-by-a-few-months New Year’s Resolutions, but everything I’ve thought up so far is something I don’t really have any choice about. I can’t choose not to be on second level monitoring, and I don’t want to resolve to not get injured, or save the universe, or anything completely out of my control. But the least I can do is try to is:
- Make more than a half-assed effort at training.
- Find a way to be Cass instead of Caszandra.
- Remember that even kittens might be evil.
Some of those will probably fall into the too-hard basket as well, but it’s something to go on with.
After my meeting with the Nuran, I emailed Mara and asked if I should send her dress to laundry, but she said to just bring it down to her rooms the next morning and we could go on into the city. I was pleased, because I’d been expecting my security to be tightened, not relaxed. The invitation did make me remember "psychological aspects", but I think I’ll go nuts if I don’t take most things at face value, if I waste my time trying to decide if people like me or have been ordered to entertain me. I have to accept that it’s probably both, and move on. Part of my strategy for coping with staying.
Besides, I was very interested in seeing Mara’s apartment, which turned out to have the same layout as mine, just with a mildly cluttered and lived-in air. I liked the public space decoration: all the walls looked like gauzy curtains that shifted as if the wind was blowing them. Not what I was expecting for a world where hardly anyone has or wants windows.
"Lohn’s just getting ready," Mara said, when I handed over the bag and dress. "Maze’s description of your expression when he gave this to you has made me regret not going along to watch."
"Was wondering just exactly what wanted me to do with Nuran," I admitted.
"We’re going to have to get you some clothes without unfortunate messages written on them. Sit down."
She took the dress off into her bedroom, and I sat down and was gazing about interestedly when the bathroom door opened and Lohn came out.
"Mar, did I leave my–" He stopped and we looked at each other for what couldn’t have been more than a couple of seconds, but felt a good deal longer, and then he turned and went into the bedroom and I thought about how fit and good-looking the Setari are. Lohn’s got an incredible body, and has the added advantage of being fun and easy to get along with. Of course, he and Mara are so obviously a couple that I’ve never spent much time thinking about him in terms of being an attractive male creature, but I gave the question some serious consideration just then.
"Sorry about that," he said, coming out a minute later with Mara, this time with clothes on. Very pink in the face.
"Now you don’t get to tease me about dress," I said, trying not to laugh or display any recollection of thoughts about attractive male creatures.
Mara, once she saw that I wasn’t going to act like a twelve year-old about seeing a hot naked guy, smiled and said: "I don’t think he’s capable of that. He’s been thinking up silly questions to ask you all morning."
"Is going to be very disappointed then." But I knew he’d ask anyway. I don’t mind Lohn’s teasing. He’s never mean. "Can we really go out into city? Was worried I end up confined to quarters."
"For the moment the rule is that anywhere outside of the core Setari areas you must have at least two people escorting you, and one of them must have Combat Sight." Mara led the way out of her apartment. "If we take seriously the idea of the Nurans having a reason to kill you, then you’re a good deal safer anywhere with us than alone in your rooms. Fortunately you were already in a suppression room, but we don’t have any real idea of the limits of the Nurans' abilities or whether they’d be able to locate you through the suppression."
"Maze said he didn’t have any threat sense from your Nuran," Lohn added. "But called him beyond formidable, which is Maze-speak for I don’t think I could take him. Still, this idea that they might decide to eliminate you rather than, ah, rescue you is just speculation. For one thing, it doesn’t match what little we know of the Nurans' philosophies. And if your talent set really is that rare, it doesn’t seem likely that they’ll give up on the rescuing option."