I wondered if the Setari would be sent to try and rescue me back, but didn’t ask, only hoped it didn’t come to that. I sure as hell don’t want to play Helen in a space-aged Trojan War.
It was a great day out. We went to a Tairo match, had lunch, shopped a little, and toured some of the more scenic bits of the city. There was a wonderful flower garden, and we spent some time on this amazing game, where the aim is to get from one side of a room to the other, except the room is full of constantly moving platforms going in every direction, and a Levitation field slows your fall if you miss jumping from one to the next. That impressed me immensely, for all that I spend my days with flying psychic space ninjas. I let myself enjoy it all. Lohn and Mara are great together, and they treat me like a younger sister. It was easy to forget they’d probably been assigned to me for the day.
I kept thinking about my decision to stay, about how immediate my refusal to go with the Nuran was. It wasn’t just a fit of heroic self-sacrifice. I mean, I’m miserable a lot of the time, and I’ll never stop missing my family, or real music, or all the things I liked to read and do which just aren’t here. But now that I’m getting better at speaking the language I’m having fun more often, even when First Squad aren’t going out of their way to entertain me. Enough to make me wonder if going home to be just another noob at university would be a little bland.
I think in part I’ve caught Mum’s I-want-to-know-what-happens-next disease. And, seriously, visiting other planets, cruising around exploring lost alien civilisations. Working with psychic space ninjas. It’s far from dull. I want to help the Setari win. To fix the problem, and stop monsters getting out and killing people. And play more amazing games, and see more planets. I guess, in a stressed, periodically lonely and uncertain of the future way, I’m happy here.
At the least I was in quite a cheerful mood when Zan came swimming with me today, and only briefly wondered if it was her turn on the Baby-sit Devlin Roster. She seemed tired and less Zen than usual. And I think she was curious about the Nuran, since she made a few oblique references to him without outright asking questions. I’m not sure how secret he’s supposed to be, but since Zan’s one of my captains, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to explain what had happened.
We had lunch afterwards, and I told her about April Fool’s Day and hoaxes I’d thought funny, and then about that War of the Worlds radio play, where all these people thought Martians really were invading. Then our schedules for the next month were updated, and I’m being posted back to Muina, along with Twelfth, Fourth and First Squad.
When I asked, Zan said she didn’t know how she felt about the trip; Muina was a nearly mythical thing in a way and the idea of being able to go there, to touch the past which was so central to her present, was something she wasn’t sure she was equal to. That’s the most open speech she’s ever given me, and it left me pleased but also worried about her.
Twelfth are going to be boring themselves with guard duty at Pandora, and First and Fourth are forming an expeditionary squad with a small team of greysuits to start investigating the biggest of the big cities. This is a lot more dangerous than guarding Pandora, since the Ddura don’t seem to sweep places without patterned roofs nearly as frequently. And I’m assigned to Fourth Squad, so a lot of enjoying looking at Ruuel in my future – not sure whether that’s a good or bad thing. And Zan might get in a bit of enjoying looking at Maze, heh.
Zan is still the only person here who pronounces my name the right way. Of course, I’ve never tried to correct the initial misspelling, but I like Zan for paying attention when I first talked to her.
Wednesday, April 2
Moving base
The Nuran is the main reason I’m being sent back to Muina. Not only in the hopes it will make it harder for him to find me, but because KOTIS figures Fourth Squad dragging me around interesting Muinan buildings is the best way to go about finding out what a touchstone is. They’re hoping for more security clearance, and I naturally want nothing to happen. Still, on the scale of things I’ve had to do as part of my career as an experimental animal, exploring lost civilisations rates far higher than blood tests and brain scans.
I’m already itching to be outside, out of Tare’s endless box cities, though I’m going to miss Ghost. I did think semi-seriously about smuggling her along in my backpack, but, meh, I don’t need another lecture and they might want to capture her again. So far as I can tell, after she escaped she hasn’t been sighted by anyone but me. I’m happy to keep it that way.
I’m in my pod again, comfortably surrounded by First Squad. Alay’s on the mission, although she’s still walking with a pretty pronounced limp. She’ll be on limited duty until she can move about properly.
Ruuel is in the opposite corner from me, in the pod Taarel used last time. The pods all face forward, so all I can really see is a bit of arm and a leg right now, but that’s probably all to the good. I’m currently in one of my wish-I-didn’t-like-him moods. Mainly because of a dream I had last night, where I kept following him around until he gave me this irritated, long-suffering glance and I woke up feeling absolutely mortified.
I guess that counts more as a nightmare than a dream, and I can put it down to a pre-Setari era show I started watching in preparation for working with Fourth Squad called Super Sight Six. Psychic detectives! The main character is a nightmare-ridden Place Sight talent, who is recruited by this hilariously New Age Guru Sight Sight talent. There’s a good-looking but temperamental Combat Sight talent, who I bet is going to turn out to be the love interest; a Gate Sight talent constantly distracted by distant, undiscovered gates into near-space; a Symbol Sight talent who loves puzzles; and a Path Sight talent who prowls about restlessly, then bounds off on the track of something. These are the Taren stereotypes of what the various Sights are like, but I’m particularly finding the Place Sight talent’s story useful, because it helps me understand both Ruuel and Halla far better. The feelings, even the thoughts of living creatures leave the strongest impressions for Place Sight, and that can be as wonderful as seeing patterns of joy as a musician plays, or as horrible as a brush against someone’s arm bringing a flood of hidden hate or lust or resentment. It’s considered rude to touch Place Sight talents, and if you do, whatever you’re feeling strongly at that point is likely to be very clear to them. Fortunately the visual component isn’t as clear-cut, and the touch component usually needs direct contact, meaning the gloves shield most of it. And back when Ruuel and I had our handholding marathon, it hadn’t occurred to me to lust after him.
Unfortunately Sight Sight is very visual, and whether through Place or Sight, he is no doubt completely clear on the fact that the enhancing stray thinks he’s hot. And who knows what Tsur Selkie has seen watching mission reports?
Cringe factor 9.
Architectural Fail
The Setari squads on this mission are all very upbeat. They like this assignment. Even those who simply consider Muina a part of the past hope that by being able to properly explore it they might find records and explanations and solutions. They so rarely get to do anything except fight an unwinnable war.