Andrea Höst - In Arcadia [Touchstone - Extras]

"The language barrier is another factor. You speak one of the most widely-spread languages, but not the most spoken?"

"English is, ah, second or third," Sue said. "Mandarin is the most-spoken, but we don’t speak it. Laura could teach you Japanese, thanks to far too many years of anime, but I only have bits of French and German."

"I brought along a few English-other language dictionary apps," Laura said. "They’re very basic things compared to the one Cass has been working on, though."

She stopped as Mimmit, the cat she’d brought with her from Earth, leapt onto the table. Tsur Selkie, like more than half of Muina’s population, was originally from Tare. Taren visitors, raised on an island world of densely populated, hive-like cities with little open land and few animals, often flinched from sudden contact with small creatures, so Laura shifted in readiness for whisking Mimmit away. But Tsur Selkie merely looked down at the striking tortoiseshell, with her harlequin mask of black and orange, then lifted his partially gloved hand from his knee and rested it on the table.

"Perhaps you can set out for me the divisions of Earth by primary language," he said, as Mimmit briefly scented his fingers, then strolled down the table to Laura.

That task more than filled the remainder of their session, with Tsur Selkie concluding the discussion by setting their third appointment for a mere week away.

"Well, you have your answer," Laura said, after Tsur Selkie had once again politely taken his leave and departed. "Positively unflappable."

"I didn’t try anything really silly on him," Sue said. "But, yes, I don’t think even cinnamon rolls would have gotten more than that brief ah yes, humour smile. Sad."

Sue didn’t look sad. She looked smug, which always meant trouble. Laura eyed her sister thoughtfully, but was distracted by a vehicle strongly resembling a flying car zipping across her line of view and dropping toward the dock area. She sighed with unabashed envy, for personal vehicles were strictly controlled in an attempt to prevent citizens from joy-riding right out of the safe zones around the settlements, and into Muina’s still very dangerous wilds.

"Tsur Selkie travels in style. If they ever open those things up for civilian use I am absolutely going to get one, and I will refer to it constantly as my flitter , and pretend that I’m in an Andre Norton novel."

"Norton novels always seem to involve arduous journeys through abandoned alien ruins," Sue said. "Cass has done enough of that for all of us."

That was entirely true. And Laura thoroughly hoped that no-one she knew would ever endure such a thing again. Firmly putting Cass' trials aside, she continued to poke at the large and unwieldy prospect of Muinan-Terran trade.

"I wonder how much of their technology they’ll be willing to bring to the table? The Tarens are the ones who had all the advanced tech, and when they started trade with Kolar they deliberately kept them several steps behind so as not to lose an advantage. It might have become more relaxed now that they’ve settled Muina, and allowed nanotech on Kolar, but what if they take the same we’ll only give you so much approach to Earth?"

Sue, while continuing to smirk obnoxiously, said: "Just confirming the existence of non-terrestrial life is huge."

"So daunting to consider all the ways this could play out. Even if this doesn’t start any wars, think of the impact on the world economy. The interface would devastate mobile phone providers. Medicine— old age —would never be the same. Factor those vat-food factories into food production for drought-afflicted regions. And infrastructure that grows itself will alter so many things. Even gardening robots. All these wonderful things that will either lift Earth to a post-scarcity state or…" She shook her head and looked at her sister. "The Luddite rebellion multiplied by…everything."

Sue was now attempting to channel Spock, one eyebrow scrunched down and the other canted to her hairline.

"Are you going to sit there pulling faces? Because if there’s a shoe waiting to drop, you’ll need to untie the laces."

"You didn’t even notice, did you?"

"Notice what?"

"That he’s dying to get into your pants."

This was so completely outside Laura’s line of thought that she said blankly: "Who?" Then: "Tsur Selkie ?"

"You are so oblivious where men are concerned."

Laura stared at her sister, then shook her head. "No. I was paying attention. He was entirely professional. You’re imagining things."

"I’ll give you the entirely professional. He was on duty, after all. But only you would fail to notice that you had ninety percent of his attention, and he only looked at me when I was speaking."

"I did talk more, didn’t I?" Laura said, dry now. "Really, Sue, are you ever going to stop trying to set me up with people?"

"Next week when he comes back, dress up a little."

" Sue ."

"That whole most intense person in the universe thing he’s got going doubles when he’s looking at you. What’s a good name to call him? Is there a non-negative word for a black hole?"

"…gravitational mass?"

" The Pocket Event Horizon is a bit long—but it kind of works. It certainly feels like an event when he shows up, and you can see the whole room being reshaped around him. And he is too so totally hot for you, Laura."

"Now you’re just making things up."

"Okay, tell me this. How long had he been here before I showed up?"

"I don’t know. Maybe half an hour."

"And it’s not as if I was late back. This guy, by all accounts, is incredibly busy. Military big brass who gets chauffeured around to the point where his ride arrived to collect him the very moment he walked down to the dock. And yet he’s shown up early twice now so he could sit around waiting to start. With you."

"He hadn’t even met me last time. He wanted to talk to Maze and Alay. And today…maybe he wanted to look Tyrian over?" Laura thought back over the afternoon, and saw only a reserved but comfortable-with-himself man helpfully making sure she understood the complications of her grandson’s talents. She had enjoyed the talk, but had noticed none of the pressure she usually felt when someone was trying to chat her up.

Admittedly, she had occasionally felt breathless, but that was only to be expected talking to a man of such concentrated presence. A Pocket Event Horizon.

"Well, well. Who would have thought a serious soldier was your type? Always something new to learn."

Laura was not blushing. She was just annoyed. "The conclusion you’re jumping to is a mirage."

"Yeah, yeah. Stop playing oh no, not me . Let’s look at some pros and cons instead. First pro, he’s a total hottie. On the negative side, military man, might make you wake up at dawn and do push-ups."

"I already wake up at dawn."

"Pro: gainfully employed, and the job comes with a flitter . Con: minimal evidence of a sense of humour. But I suppose that might go with your tendency to be painfully deadpan."

"Isn’t playing straight man of one comedy duo enough?" Laura said. "This is silly, Sue. Let it drop."

"But you’re thinking about it! You’re picturing him naked. You’re remembering all those stories you’ve heard about Sight Sight talents and Place Sight talents and just what that means for sexytimes."

"Well, you’ve certainly now succeeded in making me self-conscious about talking to him again," Laura said, collecting their glasses and taking them back inside.

"This is awesome," Sue said, following her with the half-eaten snacks. "You hardly ever bite when I dangle man-bait. I’m going to have so much fun."