That also got a look from Maze, but then he nodded and said over the interface: "This is sufficient clearance. Meet back at the centre point."
We turned and walked back, Maze, Zee and Ferus occasionally filling in the larger holes left behind, or tossing boulders over at the stacked rows of trees. They looked extremely tired, and I was starting to feel that way myself. Enhancing people never feels like effort, until I abruptly fall asleep afterwards. We sat down on the rim of the central circle and waited for the
Diodel
to show up and kick up a lot of dirt and fallen leaves in our faces and make us really want the shower we were all looking forward to anyway. There's six to share between the Setari and the greysuits, and I wasn't at all inclined to object when Zee took me along for first shot at them, and then to eat and straight to bed. Even though it wasn't yet sunset, it had still been a long day for everyone, and I felt sorry for whichever of the Setari had to sit up during the sleep shift, since someone with Combat Sight has to be on watch at all times.
It's still night out. I woke ridiculously early, well before everyone except the people who were on duty, but that's given me a chance to catch up writing this. I think it will be dawn soon. I'm sitting in the common room area, which has a window giving me a lovely view of darkness. It was a little eerie walking past everyone's pods, the covers all closed and opaque. They have good sound-proofing and I couldn't hear breathing, though there was a hint of someone snoring.
Setari Summer Camp, day one.
Very expensive guards
It was starting to grow brighter outside when I finished writing about yesterday, so I turned out the lights in the common room (faintly chuffed that I could do something like turn the lights out – I still haven't fully recovered from my early days in medical purgatory when I didn't have access rights to do anything). The window wasn't facing fully in the direction of the rising sun, but I still had a great view down a slight slope to a flat area with a large number of buildings, and then a steep rise up a hill and some very impressive buildings on top of it. It's all very overgrown, but beautiful in the dawn, the whitestone gradually picked out in pink light. It must have been a very grand city once.
It was still only half-light outside when I had an uneasy sense of being watched and turned my head to find Ruuel standing looking at me. I've no idea how long he'd been there.
"Is watching the dawn a custom of your home?" he asked, coming over to where I was sitting on a window seat arrangement before one of the long viewing windows: my favourite spot on the ship.
"Think I've seen more Muinan dawns than Earth's." I turned back to the window, since that was the easiest way to deal with how good he was looking just then. "Generally stay up a lot later on Earth, so don't get up as early. Is better when you can hear the birds."
He didn't say anything, so I risked a quick glance at him. Ruuel has a way of gazing off at things – maybe using Sights, maybe just thinking – wearing this distant, contemplative expression which makes me want to stare at him in turn. I hastily looked back outside, and said: "More sensible roofs here."
"Sensible?"
"The trees are what Earth calls deciduous – they're losing their leaves in Autumn – so chances good it snows in this area. Flat roofs like those at Pandora must have needed a lot of clearing in Winter. These almost all seem to be sloped." Though I guess, since they were built out of whitestone, the weight of snow on the roof mightn't be a big problem. "Couldn't work out what they did for heating and cooking, either. Nothing that looked like a chimney or smoke vent in those houses. Only found a couple of kilns or ovens and those were separate from the other buildings. Could find very little information on Tare about what daily life was like on Muina."
"We have lost almost all that we were." He didn't sound particularly upset, but it made me wonder just how much the Nuran had gotten under his skin, saying that Tarens don't even know what Setari means. And almost as if he knew what I was thinking, he added: "If we are to believe the one calling himself Inisar, we are not to be trusted with the past."
"Nurans as human as Tarens or people from Earth. Chances are just as fallible and ready do stupid things."
"An observation almost equal to Tare mostly treating you as civilised people should."
That made me turn around, but he was already walking away. And of course after that I spent the
entire
day thinking about him and being stupidly aware of everything he did, which was annoying. Being assigned to Fourth Squad is giving me way too many opportunities to look at Kaoren Ruuel, and my resolution to just sit back and enjoy the scenery isn't all that easy to keep.
Otherwise it was an uneventful day for me. First Squad, minus Alay, roamed about killing Ionoth and mapping the immediate area, while Fourth Squad escorted the greysuits about as they uncovered and looked over a small pavilion in the park, and then moved on to the buildings nearest to the ship. The greysuits switch constantly between eager excitement, nervous glances at all that sky without ceiling, and avoiding creepy-crawlies. All of us were slathered in a very effective insect repellant, but every so often someone would turn over a rock and try not to shriek.
I stayed with Fourth Squad, watching Ruuel not reacting to the way the leader of the greysuits, Islen Duffen, made it clear she wasn't interested in hearing the observations of Setari Sight talents. I guess it's true they don't have any formal archaeological or historical training, but Place Sight is a powerful tool, even factoring in the amount of time it's been since anything except animals and Ionoth were here to leave traces of self behind.
If Ruuel cared, he didn't show it. Ferus thought it was funny, and Auron doesn't seem to let much get under his skin. Halla and Eyse were briefly annoyed, then decided to look on the light side. Sonn was fuming, but Ruuel sent her to do a patrol of the outside of the building with Halla, and she'd cooled off by the time she came back. I did school work, and read books, and thought about the enormity of cataloguing an entire city. Even the initial recording of sites, while looking for any kind of writing, will take months. The entire planet will take centuries. Archaeologist is definitely going to be a booming career choice – KOTIS didn't have any on staff until Pandora was founded and Islen Duffen is a brand new recruit, who will ultimately be coordinating an ever-increasing horde of minions if the reclamation of Muina goes to plan.
Fortunately, once the immediate area is a little clearer, fewer Setari will be devoted to babysitting. And, no matter what Islen Duffen's opinion of the value of their observations, Fourth Squad's more likely to be able to detect and analyse strange Muinan installations than any of the greysuits.
And Ruuel has some vestige of a sense of humour and I'm liking him more than ever. Damn.
Friday, April 4
Chipping away at the whitestone mountain
Today was First Squad's turn to baby-sit greysuits, while Fourth Squad continued the wider area patrol. Our survey site was chosen because the buildings in this part of the city are large and suggest importance, and the Setari are systematically going to each one, doing a circuit of the exterior, and then looking inside. The greysuits aren't very keen on the Setari going inside, so they're only allowed to do more than look from the door if they're dealing with Ionoth.
I guess there were bones everywhere, but it was only when we went into some rooms which had been partially closed off that it was really brought home to me that this must have been one of the places where everyone abruptly dropped dead. Where, most likely, the Ddura had killed everyone. It was a lot harder to think of it as a big, lonely energy-dog after seeing so many grey and dusty skeletons lying where the people who lived here had fallen.
Yesterday First Squad were thoroughly tired by afternoon, and this time Fourth Squad were starting to look worn by lunchtime. They didn't do that much fighting compared to clearing the spaces, but wandering around constantly combat alert, and using Place Sight when they thought it appropriate, gets pretty draining after hour upon hour. Setari missions are usually two to three Earth hours, not all-day assignments. They stayed typical Fourth Squad, practically talking in abbreviations while on duty, but I think part of the strain was the place itself, by the history and the deaths of more than memory monsters. When we finished our second patrol loop they were more subdued than businesslike.
Fortunately they're growing a little less formal back on ship, and I ended up sharing a dinner table with Lohn and Mara, Mori Eyse, and the two junior-most greysuits, Katha and Dase, who were very interested in Earth's early civilisations. We moved to the common room afterwards and I tried not to feel too pressured when my attempts to dredge up memories of archaeological expeditions and discoveries on Earth attracted a larger and larger audience. I talked about Macchu Piccu and the discovery of Tutankamen's tomb and even Islen Duffen was interested, though she acted tremendously disapproving and asked lots of Devil's Advocate-type questions. It's so strange to be the only person who knows any of this stuff, and to have my rambling memories treated as important. I wish I'd paid a lot more attention in all my classes.
No-one stayed up too late, though, which was good for me since I had been walking all over the city as well. It's a little hard to tell how much I'm effected by enhancing, but I know I am now, though I wasn't dropping with exhaustion today the way I had been after all that tree-uprooting. Time to go to sleep now, and to try not to think too much about Ruuel asleep two pods over.
Saturday, April 5
Dase
It took me half the day to figure out that Dase (Dase Canlan, one of the junior archaeologists) was trying to flirt with me. Flirt seriously, I mean, not the teasing-flirting that Nils from Second Squad seems to do almost unconsciously. Dase and Katha had asked Islen Duffen if they could explain to me some of what they were doing and rather to my surprise she agreed, so I had some lessons on 'field archaeology'. I do wonder where Taren archaeologists usually do their archaeology – there can't be that much left of the early days of Tare's settlement that doesn't have mega-buildings sitting on it.
Before I twigged, I was just enjoying having some people to chat to who were willing to be not 'on duty' every second of the day. It was only when we went in for lunch that Dase switched more to asking about my family and how I felt about the things I was doing on Tare that it filtered through to me that he was smiling at me a lot. He wasn't pushy or sitting too close or anything; it was just that kind of vibe.
Looking back, it's funny how disconcerted I felt. It's not as if I've never dated. And Dase isn't some damp mouth-breather. Not so fantastically fit as any of the Setari, unsurprisingly, but with this cute, flopping-into-his-eyes fringe. Twenty-two or three, possibly, which still seems too adult to me, but I guess isn't so much older than me. He'd probably score a 7 on the Orlando Bloom-meter, and is a pretty nice guy. A bit earnest.
It's not easy to decide how to react to a guy when you know people are watching. But the main hurdle was that Orlando Bloom would score about a 7 on my Kaoren Ruuel-meter. And Ruuel was sitting at the next table. Fortunately facing the opposite direction, though I held no hope that he wasn't sparing a fraction of his attention to the "psychological aspects". I am part of the Setari's duties.
I dealt with Dase by asking Katha a lot of questions, always keeping the conversation group-focused, acting completely oblivious to any kind of undertone. Hell, for all I know he was just being friendly and I was reading way too much into everything. But I did spend the rest of the day trying to work out how I would feel if I wasn't so fixated on Ruuel.
That wasn't easy, and I had an annoying internal argument about whether or not I should try and get to know Dase better, because it was silly to push a perfectly nice guy away in favour of a one-sided crush. But that's how it is. The thing with Ruuel will either fade or it won't, but right now there's only one person I want flirting with me.
For all that the mind boggles at the idea of Ruuel flirting.
Sunday, April 6
Umbrella of the Apocalypse
Ruuel woke me up just on dawn with an override and a typically curt text message: "Aft lock."
Not sure if it was an emergency, I released my pod's lid, making my nanosuit grow back its feet and gloves as quickly as I could manage. I did bring a bag of normal clothes along, but it's simpler to wear the suit to bed precisely because of mornings like this one, though I guess I mainly wear it because I would have felt embarrassed slopping around in pyjamas while everyone else was in uniform.
Mara was with Ruuel and one of the greensuits, standing on the small ramp down to the trampled dirt outside. Ruuel touched my arm and then turned to gaze into the half-light.
"Possibly just a false alarm," Mara said, squeezing my shoulder in apologetic greeting. "Combat Sight is giving me nothing specific, but I can't escape the sense that something's there."
Mara's turn for the late watch. She'd woken Ruuel, who in turn had woken me because he was no more certain. I looked out at the hazy shapes of the stacked trees and the endless stretch of whitestone buildings. The air was sharply crisp, with a fragment of breeze rattling leaves. Otherwise, nothing.
"No birds," I noted. That early, bird-calls should have been just starting up, but it was like the city was holding its breath.
Ruuel glanced back at me, then nodded at Mara. "Something is coming. It's still in near-space." He set off a full alert alarm and headed back into the ship.
"Go quickly and grab something to eat," Mara told me, after a rather wry look at Ruuel's back. "There's only one thing any of us are likely to be able to sense while it's still in near-space. This isn't going to be easy."