Arad Nalaz from Squad One was on guard duty, and chose to do his guarding from the rock next to my seat. He really helped a lot. If the interrogation squad got too over the top he’d just turn his head and fix them with this thousand-mile stare with those Lawrence of Arabia eyes and even though it hadn’t seemed like they were paying attention to him at all, they’d abruptly quiet down and remember to be polite to me and at least civil with each other. I made sure to thank him afterwards, and he looked briefly amused but pretended he hadn’t been doing anything at all.
I don’t think my ramblings about Earth myths really helped very much, anyway. I mean, though there’s some similarities, what happened at this site is obviously far different from pyramids with mummified pharaohs sealed inside.
After spending all of yesterday and the whole morning scanning, they decided to leave the fifth level alone until they had analysed the readings which were coming from the central stone, and concentrate on the fourth level. They had Fourth Squad and me play observer while they opened some of the sarcophagi. From which we learned that some had nothing in them, and some had bodies in them which the greysuits think were perhaps burned before being placed in the sarcophagus. The odd thing was that the sarcophagi which weren’t blurry were the ones which had bodies in them.
I still haven’t the faintest idea what the blurriness means. Ruuel told me that I needed to learn how not to use the Sight, and so I had to spend my time trying to get the blurriness to go away. I ended up tired and frustrated. All my so-called talents – of which I seem to have accrued a large and indefinable number – don’t seem to be at all interested in doing anything on my say-so. They just happen.
So do headaches.
Saturday, April 19
Malachite Marbles
Beaten up by Sonn all morning. My bruise collection is growing nicely.
While we trained, Squad One kept on eye on the archaeologists. The sarcophagi on the fifth level were empty as well, and in the afternoon they decided they were going to look closer at the malachite marble, as I think of it. The greysuits call it the power stone.
They couldn’t decide what it did, other than maintain the seal. Because they were very dubious about what would happen if someone touched or tried to manipulate the malachite marble, they had everyone evacuate the whole of the installation, all the way down to the shore. Fortunately the weather was much better today. Then they sent Sonn (for Ena manipulation) and Mori (for teleportation) down to the fifth level alone, carrying an emergency supply of food and water. The idea was that Sonn would use Ena manipulation to try and get the marble to stop maintaining the shield. If the shield responded by overloading the entrances the greysuits had made – or by causing the facility to explode amusingly – Mori would try to teleport them out.
Ruuel hated this plan. He didn’t openly object to it, or look annoyed or anything. But he kept his eyes almost closed the entire time, and what few orders he gave were even more clear and precise than usual. I don’t think Kanato of Eighth liked it either, maybe because he and Mori spent a lot of time yesterday evening talking quietly to each other. I didn’t enjoy the idea of Mori being trapped among the sarcophagi any more than they did – nor Sonn. Sonn doesn’t make it easy for me to like her, but I appreciate the way she approaches my combat training. Well, I wouldn’t like for anyone to be trapped under a mountain, even Fifth Squad.
But nothing bad happened. Whatever else the malachite marble might or might not do, it was obedient enough about removing the seal. Ruuel opened his eyes to half-mast again and nearly caught me watching him (who am I kidding – I’ve really got to stop watching him because I already know how effortlessly he spots such things).
After the seal was gone they did another round of readings and had the various Sight talents touch the marble to try and figure out what it’s for. They all seemed unsettled by it, particularly Halla, and all said pretty much the same thing: dominance. Somehow the marble would give power. Halla said over others, Selkie said over the world around us, and Ruuel wouldn’t say more than just power.
Then, of course, they had me touch it and it gave me a headache. And made everything go blurry. I felt like my bones were vibrating, and had a hard time not vomiting all over the mysterious mystic stone. This was one of the days when I had to struggle to not have a tantrum. Obviously they wanted lots of readings – and because of the Nuran calling me a touchstone and this being a big stone (which makes me feel sick) they spent ages (well, it wasn’t that long, but it felt like forever) until finally Tsur Selkie said I could go back to the ship and have my brain scanned for the ten-hundred-millionth time.
When the medics let me go I still felt sick so I went back to my pod and sulked until I fell asleep and now, of course, I’ve woken up just after everyone’s gone to bed. Must try to get back to sleep so I don’t konk out halfway through tomorrow.
Sunday, April 20
Belonging
So I’m back on Tare.
This whole day has done my head in, starting out with another of the Ruuel-dreams. I was half-awake and knew he was there, but I didn’t have that proper dream-logic which lets you just accept everything no matter how unlikely. I really thought he’d for some reason gotten into my pod with me, and was lying curled against my back. My thoughts were this escalating stream of wtfwtfwtfwtfWTF! and then he leaned forward and I thought he was going to kiss the back of my neck, and I took a great gasping breath, and woke up. I was lying in the same position as I’d been in the dream, just with no Ruuel. And my nanosuit was completely withdrawn into a pad onto my back, so I was wearing only underwear and the uniform harness. The interface isn’t supposed to respond to your commands when you’re asleep, but I guess I must have been just awake enough. I’m so glad I didn’t make the lid of my pod transparent as well.
I went and hid in the shower, thinking about all the ways I could humiliate myself half-asleep, and horrified by the idea of going anywhere near Ruuel. I don’t really know why. Sight Sight is a difficult talent to define, but nothing I’ve seen or read suggests he’d be able to know what I was dreaming when I was inside a shielded pod. It almost certainly shows him that I’m highly embarrassed when I’m around him, but it’s not "Omniscience Sight" or anything close to it.
And it didn’t matter. After half my shower I managed to spare a glance out of Angst Central at the day’s schedule and saw that Fourth had just headed off on another attempt to find a good route through the spaces to Pandora. And then the Litara arrived and Tsur Selkie sent me a message that I was being assigned back to Tare. The wrong dream had come true, in reverse.
I had hardly any time, since the Litara was leaving after a quick drop-off of equipment, and could only numbly dry my hair and grab my bag and something to eat. I did send an email to Fourth saying not much more than goodbye and good luck, which they would have received as soon as they were back in real-space. I’m so glad I’ve been preparing myself and not letting myself think of Fourth as my team again. If nothing else, I can pretend to be pleased to be proven right. But I felt very alone and disconnected on the trip back to Tare, with a whole pod room to myself.