Gratuitous Epilogue : Touchstone Extras (17 page)

Ys on the other hand
would barely speak if she could help it. Even in the mandated
school and family group activities, I've noticed that she has that
faint air of abstraction, and her usage logs show that she's
reading. This isn't something I'll criticise specifically, since I
certainly read a book or two sneakily under the desk in
particularly boring classes, and she seems quite good at
dual-tasking. Importantly, she's not withdrawn or stressed by
social situations – she's just so engrossed in reading that she
doesn't want to waste time with people. I've told her the occasions
where she has to give her full attention, but otherwise more power
to her. She has, I think, finally gained a strong enough sense of
security to truly relax, and simply being able to learn and learn
and learn makes her deeply happy.

She's quickly improving
her English. Not enough to read most novels by herself, but we can
hold limited conversations now. Dinner is an English-only meal,
which annoyed Lira very much until she decided it constituted a
secret language which only a privileged few were capable of
speaking. She's quite good at learning when she sets her mind to
it, and she and Rye are settling onto a similar level, which is
good because Lira's most inclined to refuse to do things she's the
worst at. Kaoren really enjoys being able to speak English. He
wants to be able to read more of the books I grew up reading, and
to better understand my culture, and understanding the language
will make a huge difference to that, though he had to shake his
head when I started explaining how English was like the Borg,
assimilating all these others languages, and that Earth was
hundreds of languages washing up against each other. Since I have
only the vaguest knowledge of anything but English, Earth's other
languages aren't a primary focus for him.

I'm just glad that, if
I ever get to introduce my family to Mum, that they'll be able to
understand each other.

Kaoren and I have been
very desperately in love with each other for the past couple of
months, and finding it difficult to get enough time alone with each
other, now that he's returned to duty. He says me being pregnant is
making it difficult for him to not be excessively protective and
possessive. I can't say I'm not enjoying that.

A little over six weeks
along. I still don't
feel
pregnant, though the medics have
confirmed it. No morning sickness, no sudden enlargement of
breasts, nothing but not having a period, which I'd grown used to
anyway. Mara, Ketz and Jeh are all looking thoroughly pregnant now
(Mara looks very thoroughly pregnant). A little under three months
to go for them.

Zee told me she and
Nils are going back to Tare to get married in a tiny ceremony,
because Nils wants his only living relative, his extremely fragile
great-great-grandmother, to be able to be there. That's a bit of a
secret.

Another June

Baby overload

Bad morning sickness
every time I wake up. Plus I successfully made Kaoren sick too,
when he touched me just before I was about to vomit everywhere. He
was very annoyed with himself. Fortunately we can still sleep
together, but after our vomit morning he makes sure not to be too
close when I wake up.

I'm just ever so
slightly showing. No wriggly sensations as yet. Zee has joined in –
she and Nils are having a daughter. Nils is impossibly happy, has
been ever since Zee finally agreed to marry him. This,
unfortunately, increases the Nils Effect – even Ys and Lira go pink
when he visits, despite Nils being well above the age range they
are starting to be confused about.

Mara has had her babies
early. Kyo and Jerl are very identical, and Sera, who will have
four brothers, is extra-small and tiny. I'd say she was doomed to
be spoiled and overprotected, but given that she's Mara's daughter
I expect her to be kicking their asses in no time. They all had to
stay in hospital for a couple of days, due to being early, but they
seem to be healthy despite being so tiny, and Lohn and Mara have
been able to bring them home. I took just Sen to visit so as not to
be overwhelming, and Sen was very good, staying extra-quiet and
treating them like snowflakes – not even letting herself breathe
too hard near them. Mara is pretty exhausted – her pregnancy really
started to wear on her the last few weeks – and poor Lohn was
totally exhausted as well – he worried himself to the bone, and
still hasn't gotten any sleep, I think. Shar has taken over the
household during their distraction. He's very low-key, but somehow
the things they need all just happen to be right at hand. And he
changes nappies.

He's still a very
close-mouthed boy. I sometimes wonder what Shar thinks about being
placed in with the sacrifices, since he is one of two of the
absolute highest rank who survived. Very few of the Nuran children
at the talent school will ever talk about the families they lost.
Partly because they miss them, but also because there is a good
deal of quiet speculation as to whether any of their immediate
family were part of the conspiracy, since it's believed to have
been almost entirely confined to the noble caste. The question of
whether your parents decided to sacrifice not only your world, but
also you, as part of a bid for immortality is hardly a thing you
want to poke at too deeply.

I don't think he's
unhappy – he seems to enjoy various sporty things, and training his
talents, and reading – but Mara worries about the distance he keeps
between himself and most everyone else, and the fact that he
doesn't have any close friends. Though she did say he seems to like
bringing Fein over to Arcadia, and she thinks that's because he
likes talking to Kaoren. If Shar was ten years older, he's the type
of person I guess Kaoren would socialise with, and Kaoren has also
been helping him with Sights training. Maybe, when the age gap
isn't so big a part of the whole, they'll end up
friends.

Muina is preparing for
elections in a few months – it's taken ages for a method of
government to be agreed upon, and it's basically a watered-down
version of the Taren system, with a combination of merit and
election for whole heaps of very important positions, including
each city's governor, but also a straight-out popularity contest
for world governor – which is a more practical role than you'd
expect given that anyone can nominate – and is not even required to
pass a basic civics exam. It's going to be very interesting (and a
bit worrying) to see what the policy decisions will be once KOTIS
is no longer in primary control. Now that they've finally agreed on
that, the news has been full of discussion about who is going to
nominate for what, and of course Kolar v Tare issues, not to
mention what little Nuran representation there'll be.

They've slowed down
settlement the last few months, wanting to get the four main cities
better established, and the first few of the 'big farms' producing.
The big farms are mainly around Zurenath and Liriath. Zurenath was
the site of a lot of farms before the disaster, and Liriath is
handily flat and fertile and far enough south to not be snowy. In a
way it's kind of awful – vast areas being cleared for farming – but
they are at least making a strong effort not to completely destroy
habitat, and keeping what Earth would call wildlife corridors
in.

They decided that it
was really important to do that. Muina's ecology is a bit all over
the place because outside the circles of coverage around the
platform towns, Ionoth have been pretty rampant – cleared by the
Ddura on a far more sporadic basis. Native species have survived
out there – just dealing with a lot more predators and competitors
– and there are some adapted Ionoth too, which the Ddura no longer
seem to recognise as foreign to the planet. Settling outside the
protected areas is still a big risk at the moment.

The tears into the Ena
are
healing – painfully slowly. Since they no longer gape,
there's no longer nearly so many Ionoth finding their way into real
space, but Ena missions are still necessary on Tare and Kolar – and
scheduled on Muina for research and to clear the few
non-Ddura-protected settlements like Kaszandra. Fourth and
First-Second (currently captained by Grif) have been very busy the
past month. Maze and Lohn have both taken long leave (and Regan
will take leave once his two sons are born). Kaoren's continued to
exhaust himself with Ena missions, and will be up to when our
baby's born, which has annoyed his mother a great deal.

Teor just won't let
herself believe that Kaoren really enjoys being a Setari. Partly,
I'd say, just because of his own sheer excellence at it. He likes
the challenge, he likes doing well, and he likes being in charge.
The exploration tasks are his favourites – he usually talks about
those missions with me afterwards, describing what he's seen and
talking about all the worlds which must be out there in fact or
fiction to produce those spaces. It's dangerous, and the longer
missions exhaust him, but if he didn't take it so seriously it
would be fun for him.

I get stressed about it
when they're on long missions, but I'm managing fairly well. It's
very much a part of who Kaoren is, and I don't feel a need to press
him to change direction any time soon. He'll have a long break when
the baby is born (sleepless nights don't make for combat
efficiency) and Fourth will probably be split among other teams or
be assigned a new captain. He says he'll have to evaluate after
that whether to make a more permanent change to primarily
real-space work. I've asked him if he's ever considered swapping to
focus on art, but he doesn't want to make such a complete shift any
time soon, and isn't really sure it's something he could ever
do.

Talking about drawing
always leaves him quiet and withdrawn. His perfectionism, his
all-or-nothing approach, is very different from my casual attitude
to life, but I have no urge to push him to do any particular thing.
Drawing or fighting, he's still Kaoren.

Another July

Names

Muina Year 3. The
biggest downside of my pregnancy is that I don't want to risk
projecting, and so I can't check in on Mum, and can't ask her
questions.

Back when we got
engaged, and briefly talked about having babies, I told Kaoren he
could name any boys, and I'd name any girls (mainly because I had a
girl's name I'd always liked, but not really a boy's one). He's
been thinking about it very seriously ever since. Names matter to
Kaoren.

Earth's languages added
a new level of complexity to his choice, since he's seen me trying
not to giggle at more than a few Kolaren and Taren names which are
considered quite ordinary, but are very silly to me (like one of
the technicians whose name is Fearme). Kaoren's never volunteered
any suggestions until today, when he asked what I thought about the
name "Tyrian". It's a little unusual – sounds like a name for a
style of architecture – but I kind of like it. I expect it would be
'Tyr' for short most of the time, and I don't mind that either.
We're provisionally settled on that unless we change our mind,
though we're not sharing it as yet (Sen is very annoyed with me for
saying we haven't decided whenever she asks what the baby's name
will be).

But I really really
wish I could check with Mum, in case Tyrian means something which
would make
her
giggle.

I had an excursion
earlier this week because I decided to go on one of my very rare
non-interface shopping trips – Rye's starting to shoot up a bit in
size and all the kids could do with new clothes and I had maternity
and baby stuff to buy. Virtual reality shopping is far beyond
grainy photos on E-Bay, and I'm usually happy enough to make my
purchases online because public appearances are a pain in the neck.
I like my island, and I visit the other islands a lot, and we
frequently go on little nature exploration trips to places that
don't have a lot of people. I can go to the cities so long as I'm
not seen much in public areas. But occasionally I feel a strong
need to just wander around in an actual shop.

No-one argued the point
when I asked to be allowed to go shopping with the kids some day in
the near future, though I was uncomfortable because I knew that
there'd be at least two security meetings about me going shopping
before the city police even get told about it. I sometimes wonder
if it would be better if I just went out every day until everyone
was bored of looking at me. I also keep picturing Lira hitting her
really rebellious mid-teen phase and deciding she wants to go
nightclubbing alone.

It took five days
before everything was settled, and it was agreed we would go (with
an escort of six Setari) during the after-lunch lull. While KOTIS
would really rather I sat somewhere quietly and just let them guard
me, they've never argued with my requests, or suggested that it's
inconvenient for the kids to attend the talent school. Even
dropping them off has been a bit difficult at times, because people
will come to the edge of the school grounds (now with ornamental
fences and gardens) and watch the island skimmers arrive and try
and take pictures.

The talent school has
become, not too surprisingly, the school every child wants to
attend, and there's some wonderfully distorted stories about combat
training, and stumbling across Setari everywhere. They've set aside
a great swathe of the land to the south and east of it, and are in
the process of laying out a large campus for what will eventually
be a weird hybrid selective school to deal with kids with strong
talents, and also kids who are attending for other reasons
(primarily relatives of other students, and the children of VIPs
who need guarding). KOTIS Command is slowly shifting operations on
Tare and Kolar to make their Kalrani facilities into one of the new
style talent schools, and Pandora is expecting an influx of Kolaren
and then Taren Kalrani in the next few weeks.