Andrea Höst - The Touchstone Trilogy

She talked a lot while she peered and prodded, and we did a little pantomime of her pointing to herself and saying "Ista Tremmar" and me going "Cassandra". Then the best part of the day beyond being rescued: a shower and a toilet (hilarious pantomime explanations). The toilet was weird – it was a form-fitted bench with a hole, which doesn’t flush or have any water in it – you close the lid after you use it and if you open it again it doesn’t smell like it’s been used. I couldn’t properly see the bottom, but it looked like an empty box. The toilet paper is thickish, pre-moistened squares like baby wipes. And the shower – warm water and soap!

I wanted to stay in there forever, but after Ista had gone through this pantomime of pointing to it and making totally incomprehensible gestures, I’d decided I was supposed to be quick. No towel: the ceiling blew a gale of hot air at me when I turned the water off.

There was a white shift to wear, and I had to put all my clothes in a plastic bag. I couldn’t find a comb or toothbrush, so finger-combed my hair into some sort of order before Ista led me off to a room full of chairs. In the medical room, everything was designed to be tucked away neatly and take up no more space than it had to, so I was almost expecting some kind of cattle class cramped airplane seating, but instead there were these long, padded and reclined chairs, like a cross between a dentist’s chair and a bed. There were three rows of four, each set up on its own platform. When I lay down the cushions squished themselves in around me like they were trying to hold on – the weirdest sensation ever – but it was absolutely comfortable.

Once I was settled in, Ista gave me another injection, a sedative this time. I was awake long enough to see a plastic/glass bubble thing come up around my seat, and then I was out until waking up where I am now, not on the ship, but on a bed-shelf made of whitestone with a mattress on top, in a small but not cramped room. There’s a window, plastic, unopenable and very thick, which looks out over the roof of what seems to be one huge mound of connected building: blockish and white and eerily reminiscent of the town I was in but all joined together and with only occasional windows and doors. The only other thing to be seen is clouds and a black and choppy ocean.

The door is locked, but I found a cupboard which had clean clothes in it (underpants, grey tights/pants and a loose white smock). Other than that, there was only a whitestone shelf before the window and a chair before it which makes me think it’s meant to be a narrow table. I tried knocking on the door, but not in a frantic I’m-panicky-and-bothersome way, and searched about, but there was nothing to do except stare out the window. At least my eyes have decided to stop being blurry.

No greenery visible. I can’t guess why these people all live mounded up here when there’s acre upon acre of lake and forest left to some cats. I keep trying to spot anything which will show me that it’s definitely the same planet. But there’s nothing but whitestone buildings and water, and it’s too cloudy to see sun or moon. Quite a lot of futuristic air traffic. I bounced up and down for a while, thinking that maybe the gravity was a fraction less, but if there’s a difference it’s subtle enough to be dismissed as imagination.

None of my belongings were with me, not even my watch, so I don’t know how long I sat around, but finally a man showed up with a tray of food. He was wearing the same sort of uniform as the rest, but in shades of purple and violet, and was the first person who acted like I was interesting rather than a little problem which had to be tidied away. He gawked at me, in other words, and asked a bunch of questions I had no way of understanding or answering, all in the time it took him to cross and put the tray on the table. One of the greensuits was waiting outside, or I expect he would have stayed and gawked some more. I felt like I was one of those kids found raised by wolves or something.

I dove on the food as soon as the door closed. There were two slices of warm yellow cakey stuff. Not sweet. Some kind of heavy bread? Fruit in jelly where all of the fruit pieces were like butterfly-shaped grapes. A stack of vegetables in sticks – green and white and yellow sticks, all apparently growing naturally to the thickness and length of my little finger. The yellow ones tasted like carrot trying to be celery, the white was zingy and the green very salty. I spent ages on the last of the grapes, trying to work out if grapes would really naturally grow to look so much like butterflies. They tasted like vanilla apples with grape texture.

The way I shovelled all this down my throat, you’d never guess I once wouldn’t eat anything other than chips and gravy for dinner. I didn’t grow out of that till I was in high school and still occasionally annoy Mum with things I’d refuse to even try. But when you’ve spent a good half hour pondering whether to eat the wormy bits of your red pears for the protein – and even tried a bite – then no-one gets to call you fussy any more.

After an age the pinksuited person came back and took the tray, and the greensuit gave me my backpack, so now I have this diary again and my watch and everything. Even my clothes, clean but very battered. And next?

Unobservant

After hours stuck in this room I finally realised that the cupboard wasn’t the only internal door. I probably wouldn’t have even worked out the cupboard if it hadn’t been left slightly open. When it’s shut, there’s just a bit of a dint and if you push the dint the door moves in then slides into the wall. So eventually I spotted another dint, over near the more obvious door to the hall. And it was a door and I have my own bathroom.

Then, after the world’s longest shower, I was sorting through my things and I found they’d somehow recharged my mobile. Even though I’d kept it off almost all the time, the battery had run down after a couple of weeks. I immediately played all my song ring tones, over and over. Five whole songs, and a few partial songs. That made me cry.

And now I have games! No mobile signal whatsoever, which isn’t a surprise, but trivial entertainment for the win!

You too can have an exciting career in medicine! Join our Test Subject Program today.

Two greensuits came and escorted me to two greysuits: the same woman and a younger man. I think I’m in some sort of security wing of a military hospital. Everyone’s in uniform.

The headache from that injection is worse, and wasn’t helped by more poking and prodding and taking blood samples and putting me in odd machines. It was very tedious, interesting only because I couldn’t see any way they were controlling all but a few obvious devices.

I tried pantomiming that my head hurt and that I would like some Aspro thank you very much, but though they seemed to understand, they just looked sorry and shook their heads. I’m guessing shaking your head means no here. It’s hard to describe how my head feels – like a blocked sinus, but above my left eye. It’s started to make my sight go all grey with wormy wiggles. I may be having a bad reaction to whatever they were immunising me against, but they didn’t seem at all surprised or worried during my exam.

I’m going to have to lie down.

Tuesday, December 18

Skullburster?

I spent the day curled in the bed, being a complete sook about this headache, and not at all friendly when the greysuits came to check on me. I totally feel like a lab rat. I’m sure they’ve got cameras in here. I can’t even turn out the lights. No switches.

It feels like the front-left of my head is pushing out from the inside. Having showers helps a little, or maybe I’m just feeling the need to make up for lost time. The soap is liquid and very spicy-scented. When I’m not showering I’m peering in the mirror in the bathroom. My left eye looks really bloodshot, but not swollen. And I look horrible. I always thought it would be nice to be really thin, but I’m haggard. I had no idea I looked this bad. It’s only been a month.