Gratuitous Epilogue

10 - September

September 20

Super-Grumpy Month

A stupid action group decided to put forward a stupid motion in the parliaments of Tare, Kolar and Muina demanding changes to the proposed laws written up regarding the use and control of touchstones. They want an oversight committee, complete disclosure of all mission tapes, committee approval for all tasks performed, and permanent second level monitoring of both Lira and myself to ensure that nothing is ever done without permission. We’ve fought so hard to keep Lira off second level monitoring, and were making progress toward getting me off it, and it’s sounding less likely by the day.

I caught the initial announcement and warned Kaoren while the kids were in the middle of breakfast. The action group (translates as Citizens for Responsible Management of Touchstones, more or less – I call them the Crummies) tried as much as possible to make their motions simultaneously on all three worlds, so there was no forward notice from KOTIS.

Kaoren’s eyes went to slits while he was reading the detail – just because we half-expected something like this eventually doesn’t mean any of us liked it – and then he called a family meeting and explained what it was the action group was trying to do, and what was likely to happen in the short and long term.

Fortunately the talent school was in school holiday mode – no formal lessons, just supervision for those who needed it since quite a few of the kids still don’t have homes to go to. They’re well past the halfway point of adoptions, and quite a few of the Setari extended family have chosen to add another child to the mix, but KOTIS Command has been careful to settle the kids into families which are ready to look after them, which isn’t necessarily everyone as soon as they arrive on Muina. Many Tarens, particularly, have to go through a psychological adjustment to all that sky, and lack of ceiling, and things flitting and jumping and creeping and crawling everywhere. More than a few Taren immigrants have gone back to their nice enclosed cities.

School holidays were good timing for this stressful patch because I wanted the kids sheltered until the petition was settled one way or another, and so I kept them home even when the rest of the students started managed lessons again. The interface does most of the schooling anyway – attendance is really babysitting, sport and socialisation, and the classes themselves very rarely require the kids to be there or even interact.

This whole thing with the Crummies also shifted the feel of having Setari guards, because of the demand that touchstones be monitored to prevent inappropriate use of powers. KOTIS Command was ordered to at least temporarily put this into effect. Even though there was no actual change to what was happening – I’m already on second level monitoring, and two Setari are assigned to be my guards every day, swapping over mid-afternoon, spending the night, and leaving the following afternoon – the simple fact that they were not simply there to protect me, but also to stop me from Doing Evil, was just so annoying. They were all aware of the shift, of course, and embarrassed by it. Maze has been careful to only schedule people I’m close to for the entire time, because that made it less uncomfortable.

We’re thinking of building a second, smaller house a little around the side of the hill for our daily bodyguard detail. Even though most of the Setari assigned to look after us are friends, we’re not going to be close to everyone who gets scheduled over the years, and it’s just very weird to have a permanent rotation of houseguests. They only need to be within quick reach of me, not actually in my presence, and if Lira and I really are going to have to have mandatory for life guards (as now seems impossible to escape) then we may as well accommodate them properly.

The first couple of days after the motion was made were pretty quiet for us. We just stayed on Arcadia and read the frenzy of response on the interface and tried to distract the kids. There was an enormous backlash against the Crummies, up to and including death threats, and a couple of huge public demonstrations on Tare. Lots of petitions and rabid message sites. But also excitement at the hope of having all the mission logs released (and, indeed, some people were keen on the Caszandra version of The Truman Show and making every single thing I do public knowledge). And between it all, growing conversation regarding the extent of a touchstone’s powers, and what exactly it was KOTIS was getting me to do, and what it might get me to do, and what Lira and I might choose to do on our own account, and after all, wasn’t Lira the reason the spaces had been broken in the first place?

Since the governments of three different planets were involved (which basically means four governments, since Kolar is firmly differentiated between North Continent and South Continent), there was a bit of a delay while they decided how to handle a response. It didn’t suit anyone’s purposes for four sets of laws to evolve. Since I was a stray from Earth living on Muina, and Lira was Muinan, and we had made a permanent home of Arcadia, Pandora was the obvious place for an Inquiry Into Touchstones to be conducted. Each planet got to have two members on the board of inquiry, and they would hear evidence from KOTIS, and submissions from the petitioners and any other interested parties, and then redraft the laws. And then I imagine there would be some inter-government negotiation.

They’ve only just managed to get set up, and start to hear initial evidence (they want complete details of all my assignments and training and test results, and the medical information about Lira). Then they plan to question the people who control me, and then me, and then take submissions from anyone who cares to make one. It’s going to drag on for months and I can already see that it’s going to be even worse than I feared. Anyone who had a plan or opinion about touchstones will have their little say, and some of the proposals which have already come up don’t exactly acknowledge that Lira and I are people.

It was tough keeping Lira’s spirits up. One of the news articles was about a person questioning why I’d been given control of Lira and whether I was the right person to be in charge of her care and development (being, after all, a traumatised stray prone to nearly dying). This sparked the only uncontrolled projective-dream Lira’s had since she’s been with us: she dreamed that she’d never escaped, that she was back in a world controlled by people who were using her, and would poke her with spears when they saw her. She made our house look very like a Lantaren house, and conjured a bunch of people with spears who promptly chased her out into the back garden to flounder through the snow. Siame, whose window overlooks the back garden, got it open and zapped the spear-carriers before they’d managed to catch Lira, and Nils and Zee came boiling out via the kitchen, closely followed by Kaoren.

Lira was absolutely terrified, shaking and sobbing, and half-frozen after ploughing through drifts of snow in her pyjamas. I took her into the shower with me and calmed her down, and we had a touchstones-only conversation in there that I’m hoping doesn’t get reviewed since Lira was being very wild and angry in response to having been afraid. We’d already had several conversations with the kids about the gap between what people propose and what’s likely to happen, and been all very calm and reassuring, but of course we couldn’t say absolutely 100% that Lira wouldn’t be taken away from us, or that neither of us would ever be plugged into another machine like the one which had destroyed her life. I did tell her that I wouldn’t accept such a thing, though, any more than Kaoren would, and I think my tone made her believe me. Of course, she’s also aware that her claim of no longer being able to project is pretty much busted, and we had to take her for a medical, but she’s valiantly pretending she hasn’t given herself away.

Sen had been woken by the fuss, and I settled Lira in the baby’s room for the night and took Sen in with us because she was upset by Lira being upset. Since then Ys has been sleeping in with Lira, though not advertising the fact. Nils once said that Ys' character could be judged by Sen’s, and I think that’s really true. For a really sensitive Sight Sight talent like Sen to be so full of love says a lot about who raised her. The care and protection Ys and Rye lavished on her were enough to overcome even the truly negative environment she was raised in.

We’d all calmed down more by the time it was Lira’s birthday, in part because the days had ground on without anything happening. I’d eventually decided on jewellery for Lira’s main present – good, expensive stuff that would keep and look nice at any age. That went down well – much like Sen, she likes pretty things, and dressing up, and jewellery is something she recognises as a sign we consider her important. And we all had a fun discussion about getting ears pierced, since my ears are pierced, even if I don’t wear anything in them[14].

Maze and Alay’s wedding is in two days – it’s going to be at Keer’s house at Mesiath (Keer really likes the tall trees and is the only one of the Senior Taren Setari who took his land grant somewhere other than the islands). Alay’s just starting to show, and she and Maze are so funny together right now. She’s been rostered on light duties, and drops to only training at the talent school after the wedding. Maze wants to wrap her in cotton wool, and you can see him making himself not do that, and you can see Alay trying not to enjoy too much how he’s fretting over her. They’ve fallen so hard. I always enjoy when they’re rostered to guard us – Sen insists on saying hello to the baby by wrapping her arms around Alay’s waist and kissing her stomach. Alay goes all pink when she does this, but says that there’s no need to tell Sen not to. I’ve been seeing quite a lot of them both because Maze and Rye, having finished preparing the place for Maze and Alay’s wedding, have started working on "The Wedding Garden" for Kaoren and me, and have been pulling out trees and scooping out dirt and experimenting with water features on the south side of the island. Alay comes and watches and is highly amused and happy about how much Maze enjoys it all.

I feel very protective of them, which is silly of me, but I don’t want their wedding spoiled by the brewing shitstorm about touchstones. Between the kids and the Setari I’ve been busy playing down any upset I might be feeling myself. Kaoren’s not fooled of course, and knows that I’ve had to wake myself up out of a few projective dreams as well. I make sure I don’t dump all my stress on him, and after over a year together I’m better at spotting when he’s stressed or worn, and knowing ways to make it better. His meditation garden is really important to him that way: a space even I don’t go into unless he asks me. His sights are so overwhelming sometimes, and one of the things we designed the entire house around was this quiet and peaceful place. He’ll go out there even when it’s snowing when he needs to de-stress.

But he smiles more easily these days, and that makes me very happy indeed.