Andrea Höst: In Arcadia [Touchstone: Extras]

"Both results to appreciate."

"Didi is going to something she calls skin treatment next week, and says we should book in with her. It’s more cosmetically-focused—wrinkles, jawlines—but much the same process. They squirt nanites into you and then direct them to specific issues. Scar removal, moles, cellulite—all the little lumps and bumps. Growing hair where you want it and not where you don’t."

Laura thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Well, if it doesn’t involve surgery, why not, after all? I’ll think of it as a very intensive facial. Will it delay the trip to Telezon?"

"Not unless their nanites eat our noses off, or something. I swear, every second movie I’ve watched here involves nanites eating you."

"And the rest are about the Setari." The elite psychic soldiers Cass worked with were an interplanetary preoccupation.

"Hardly ever happens, though," Sue went on. "Being eaten by nanites. I looked it up."

" Hardly ever makes me suddenly far less inclined to see what skin treatment is like."

"I expect they could grow our noses back if they’re eaten off. Speaking of which, don’t wait for the kids. They’re cleaning up after painting Maddy’s room."

"How did it work out?" One of Sue’s three house guests, Maddy Caldwell, had wanted real decoration in her room, not the projected images common on Muina, and her sister Alyssa had designed an Australian-themed mural for her.

"Not bad. I took a couple of very nice shots of them in-progress, too."

They chatted idly about the complications of Cass' fame, which spilled over on to the handful of Earth immigrants who had joined her on Arcadia. Not only did it mean Sue felt she couldn’t publicly display her photographs, but jaunts like the planned trip to the region called Telezon inevitably required a security detail. Even a shopping trip required security.

Thinking this over, Laura began poking around the various options of the Muinan internet, and was deep in sub-menus when Sue said:

"Well, well. The infamous Tsur Selkie."

Laura looked out the door to the patio, but there was no sign of a visitor on the path leading down to the dock.

"Check your email," Sue murmured, and added: "I do hope he’s as flinty as advertised."

"I don’t think Cass meant that description as a positive," Laura said, checking her email. Tsur Selkie was a KOTIS officer Cass had described a number of times in her diaries. According to Cass he was short, abrupt, and like Clint Eastwood .

The email was certainly short, simply requesting a preliminary meeting in a Muinan fortnight—the first of a series to gather background in relation to Earth.

"I’m almost disappointed he didn’t just plonk an appointment in our calendars and expect us to show up."

Sue giggled. "If he’s half as humourless as Cass made out, I’m positively going to have to be restrained from spreading some high grade nonsense."

"Psychic psychic, remember?" Tsur Selkie was another Sight Sight talent. "Chances are high he’ll be able to tell when you’re lying."

"Yes, but what will he do about it? Will he just write it all down, and thank me? Will he look cross? Call me out? This," Sue said, definitely, "is going to be fun."

Laura shook her head in resigned amusement. "Try not to annoy him too much. We specifically want to prod the Muinans toward opening a trade relationship with Earth. I don’t really know how much influence Tsur Selkie will have over that, but alienating him hardly seems like a good idea."

"What is a Tsur anyway? Starting all the military ranks with Ts seems unnecessarily confusing, especially when Muinan uses Tsa for a general civilian honorific, and…" There was a short pause as Sue researched her question, then she snorted and said: "It just means Sight Sight Advisor. Doesn’t show where he is in the KOTIS hierarchy at all."

Shrugging, Laura sent an acceptance, made a note in her calendar, and turned back to her new project. "Check this out," she said, sending a link.

Munching on seaweed snacks, Sue reviewed Laura’s work, then said: "Is Tiamat supposed to be you?"

"Everyone needs an artistic alias."

"Because it makes so much sense to sell the things you create entirely anonymously, rather than cash in on Cass' ridiculous fame."

"Exactly."

"I was being sarcastic."

"Yes, I’m aware of your default state."

"I can understand not wanting to be dependent on Cass, but…well, no I do see where you’re going. I suppose I could do something similar with my pictures, at least those that don’t depict people. Unless I want to devolve into a paparazzi stalker of my own family, there doesn’t seem to be a huge amount of money in photography, but there is a market for image sets for room décor. Screensavers for walls. Going to tell Cass?"

"I might have to, to be able to arrange anonymous postage. I’ll worry about that if I sell anything at the exorbitant prices I intend to charge."

They discussed possibilities until Sue’s three house guests arrived. Unlike Julian, these were new Muinan residents that did cause Laura concern. Maddy, Alyssa and Nick had not been part of the original move to Muina plan. Nick, who was Sue’s technically-ex stepson, and Alyssa, Cass' best friend from high school, had known the true explanation behind her disappearance, and of Laura and Sue’s plan to join Cass on her new world, but there’d been no suggestion of them coming along until Maddy, Alyssa’s younger sister, had relapsed, and her parents had gambled desperately on stories of nanite technology and cures for cancer.

That had worked. Maddy had been released from medical care a week ago, and—while not yet robust—was no longer in danger. But she and Alyssa were both desperately homesick. Nick was more difficult to read. He clearly embraced all the wonders of Muina, but he had spent such a large part of his life keeping an eye on his alcoholic father that Laura very much doubted that it was simple for him to walk away from that tie.

Since the dimensional gate to Earth only opened once in a Muinan year, the three could not even send letters to ease the homesickness, not even a message to let Maddy’s parents know that she had recovered.

Laura, who knew the struggle of waiting, simply said good morning, and suggested that they might like to join the wreath-making expedition that afternoon. Shadows inevitably crept into every paradise, and she would do her small best to lighten those touching these children, since it was not possible to just wave a wand and make them think of Arcadia as home .

When psychic space ninjas retire from combat service, their formidable paranormal abilities can be turned to other pursuits. In the case of Maze Gainer—formerly Maze Surion—Telekinesis made him a landscape gardener who could rearrange your trees.

A weeping maple wafted overhead. It passed over the deep, whitestone-lined pit that had replaced Laura’s back yard, and settled onto the middle level of the series of steep whitestone terraces that had been built up to provide a back wall for a curving pool.

The drastic alterations were the result of a casual conversation on the day Laura had had breakfast pancakes with Cass. Although Maze had retired from Setari squad duty in order to concentrate on his family and his burgeoning business, he still participated in training and administration tasks, and occasionally rostered himself on for Arcadian bodyguard duty. Laura had been enjoying another visit to her favourite seat when he had jogged up on a training run and stopped to chat about the approaching autumn, and gardens in snowy climates. She had ended up giving him all her scans of Earth gardening books since, while the text was unreadable for him, there were countless pictures.