I considered not doing as I was told, just to see how she’d go about getting me to be good, but instead replied over the channeclass="underline" "Can I ask you possibly impolite question?"
"Ask, always. My response will depend on the question."
"Why do you wear your hair in such difficult style? Doesn’t it take a lot effort to keep up, especially when spaces flooded or rain on you?"
Taarel laughed, not offended. On Tare, no-one finds it strange at all if you suddenly smile or laugh at nothing. The voices in your head are quite real here.
"It’s an exercise in Ena manipulation," she told me. My hair had been brushed out but not styled yet, and she reached over a finger and made a long strand of it curl just by touching it. "Ena manipulation is primarily used on the gates, but if we wanted to spend the time and effort we could effect the structure of the spaces themselves. More difficult is to alter that which is not of the Ena. It is possible, but takes a great deal of strength and control. Once it was beyond me to move a single strand, and to arrange my hair became not only something of a boast, but a daily practice." She looked amused, and added out loud: "Sometimes I don’t style it as I normally do, and my squad does not recognise me."
"I don’t recognise you now," Sefen said, and blushed bright red. He totally worships Taarel. "Nor myself," he added.
Formal clothing for guys on Tare doesn’t resemble Earth’s penguin suit at all. It’s mostly in pale natural colours, with long narrow-leg pants, soft shoes, and a shift and coat which goes down to about knee-length. Vaguely Middle-Eastern, but no turbans that I’ve seen yet. Female dresses are more what I’m used to, except with a tendency for multiple layers.
I returned to the private channel and asked: "Is there anything Unara Lahanti doesn’t know about, which I should not talk about?"
"The Lahanti will have been kept fully apprised," Taarel said, sounding thoughtful. "But as for other guests – it would be best to follow the Lahanti’s lead. Discuss any topic she raises. Remember, if anything happens that concerns or confuses you, open a channel to me."
I spent the rest of the time asking about table manners, just as I would if I were sent to have dinner with the Queen on half a day’s notice. A single-carriage train even plusher than my hotel room took us to the official residence’s own station, and the Kalrani and Setari, except for the unshakeably at-ease Taarel, went extremely po-faced and upright, like they were on parade, which looked very odd when they weren’t in uniform. The room we were taken to was already crowded with people, and I think I was introduced to all of them. Only my log is going to remember any of that.
The Lahanti of Unara is called Sebreth Tanay. She looked younger than I expected, in her forties, and had disconcertingly clear grey eyes, very unusual on Tare. She reminded me a little of Isten Notra, with the same incisive intelligence, though I didn’t feel nearly as drawn to her or comfortable with her.
Not that the Lahanti was nasty to me or anything, and I wasn’t sitting there thinking she was evil. But she wasn’t interested in me so much as my effect on her world and the problems and benefits I represented. I was placed next to her for dinner and after the usual questions about my first few weeks on Muina, she interrogated me about Earth. Population, form of government, weapons capability, complete lack of verifiable psychic talents, likely reaction to Tarens showing up. Most of her questions I’d been asked before, and my answers were probably in reports she’d read, but I speak Taren better than the first time I was asked, so I suppose it wasn’t a complete waste to grill me directly. The thing I had to keep emphasising was how disparate Earth was, that there would be no unified response to the Tarens, even from a single country, let alone the entire planet. I kept barely getting a chance to taste each of the courses they brought out because the Lahanti kept me struggling to answer the entire time.
The dinner seemed to be serving two purposes: to let the Lahanti and a couple of other government types get a better handle of what Earth was like, and to let the Lahanti’s children talk to real live Setari. I didn’t hear much of what they were chatting about, but the son was laying some full-on charm on Taarel and I think the two daughters were thinking of renaming Morel morsel and having him for dinner.
I’m glad I didn’t have to face today back when I could barely speak the language. I’m pretty sure most of my answers used the right words and only slightly idiotic grammar. I’m also glad that the Kalrani were so obviously tired, so we didn’t have to stick it out too long.
And we can keep the dresses! I am so tempted to draw my lab rat on mine, just to see people’s reactions, but my role has mutated enough that my lab rat doesn’t really fit anymore. I’m an enhancing dousing rod now – they poke me at alien ruins and see what happens. We’re flying back to KOTIS headquarters, and I’ll be glad to be in my apartment again. I hope Ghost’s waiting for me.
Tuesday, April 29
Here and There
My schedule for the next week has been set: I’m flying back to Muina tomorrow, as are Third Squad. Third Squad are going to Arenrhon to relieve Fourth, who’ve been on continuous duty for a very long time now. Third is dropping me off at Pandora on the way, to take part in an intensive investigation of the platform there and how it works as a communicator. Which means lots of headaches for me, which I can’t say I’m at all pleased about.
I spent a big chunk of my day curled up in bed, having Ghost purr for me and thinking about a life scheduled and arranged by committee. The only person who has offered me a choice since the Nuran is a reporter I ended up getting arrested. If I pushed, could I get more say in what I do and where I go?
Must keep in mind that obediently standing where I’m put is still far better than independent and starving on Muina.
Wednesday, April 30
Now and Then
Eeli is so funny. She’s been home visiting her family (Kalrani and Setari do get proper holidays and to visit their families and so forth – KOTIS is like a big strict military boarding school, not a prison) and was in a fever of joy about seeing her younger brother and sister. But she was so chagrined that she missed out on playing dress-ups, and seeing half her squad in fancy clothes, that she could barely manage two sentences without looking at the log images again and wishing she’d been there and saying how wonderful everyone looked.
I was given a little present before the Litara started out – Euka had finished my Earth clock and calendar program and it’s all installed. He told me that I should make comparisons with the clock on my phone to make sure he had everything right, and to let him know if there were any adjustments. He’d mimicked the look of my phone’s clock and calendar very exactly, although using Tare-characters instead of Earth-characters. Hard to believe it’s the end of April already. More than five months, now.
I’m a different person. Yet I’m still me. A lot of the things I used to think were interesting seem so stupid in retrospect. All that time wasted watching reality TV. I still miss Earth music, though I’m getting a little more into Taren songs now that the language isn’t such a chore. I miss my favourite books, and I wish I knew what happened next on a lot of TV shows and web comics, and there were a few movies coming up that I wanted to see. I’m feeling more and more disconnected from my own world, and yet still in no way Taren.