Andrea Höst: In Arcadia [Touchstone: Extras]

Laura had pointed out a few of the gardens she thought particularly lovely, and woken the next day to an email attaching a complete design for a Japanese-inspired water garden to be installed at her back door. Barely a week later a large chunk of the hill had been carved away, and whitestone nanotech formwork had been set to grow, while Maze sourced plants to match his vision. Eager to get the major work done before his small family went on a trip to their home world, Tare, he had taken only another Muinan eight-day week before he was setting in place fully grown trees.

"I always say there’s nothing like watching other people work," Sue said. "That goes for double when they look like young gods and bring their own shower of leaves."

"He would make a good Apollo, wouldn’t he? Now I wonder how I can go about getting him to let me pay him."

"Won’t work," Cass said, from inside the house. She wandered out onto the long back porch and gave the settling tree—and the man floating above it—a wry look. "Not if he’s told you it’s a gift. Besides, he’s really in love with all the scanned books you gave him. Tare and Kolar’s climates are completely different from Muina’s, so he hasn’t really had a good range of examples of all the things that can be done with gardens. Alay told me he stayed up all night, first trying to look at everything, and then excitedly plotting out things he wants to try."

"Well, if I do expand the gardens I’ll make sure to hire him properly. You’re sure you don’t mind me working on the whole hillside?"

"Why would I? I didn’t put anything out here because I figured you’d like playing around with it. Besides…" Cass nodded to the line of children sitting in a row further down the curving back patio. "Lots of free entertainment. Hell, this even got Jules to make an appearance. And Rye’s not the only one excitedly planning other gardens for you. They’ve all been looking through those books too, and have mapped out something modest and easy to look after that’s only twice as large as the gardens at Versailles."

"I might need more gardening drones for that. And the whole island. This will be more than enough for now: I think it’s going to be beautiful."

Cass looked pleased, and then paused, studying Laura’s face. "I can’t get over how different you look. Do you see yourself in the mirror and not recognise yourself?"

Laura gave her a dry glance. "I just look more like the me in my head. Not quite the me in my early twenties, but closer than I have been for a while. You’ll probably always think of yourself as how you look now." She paused. "And on this planet, I suppose, that will be mostly right for a long time. I get startled when I see Sue, though. She looks fabulous."

Skin treatment had not been entirely painless, but no noses had been lost, and the results had been well worth the long, moderately embarrassing session. It was no wonder Laura had so much trouble guessing the ages of people on Muina.

"Maddy’s looking happier too," Cass said, watching the children cheer on the arrival of another tree.

"She’s feeling better physically. It makes a big difference." Laura touched Cass' arm lightly. "You can’t cure her homesickness. We all knew this was a more-or-less one-way trip. And she’s alive."

"I guess so."

But Cass wasn’t smiling as she went back inside, and would no doubt keep fretting about something she couldn’t change. She seemed to feel personally responsible for the happiness of the little collection of Australians she’d imported.

It would probably help if Maddy could mix with a few friends her own age. Maze and Alay, like Cass and Kaoren, had brought their children over to watch the arrival of the trees, but ten year-old Maddy sat in between the collection of early teens and the two infants—and Sen was a couple of years too young to really be a peer. It was too soon by far for Maddy to begin attending school, but Laura thought she would suggest a few age-selected play groups. The neighbouring islands had been heavily settled by the families of the senior Setari—many of whom had also adopted Nurans—and Cass and Kaoren would know who to invite.

Trees in place, and any fallen dirt swept out of the bottom of the deep pit, everyone gathered to watch as underground pumps were switched on, and the artificial pond began to fill. Maze, after a brief consultation with one of his business partners—an ex-Kolaren installations expert—dropped down to join Laura on the rim, his eyes almost as bright as the gathered children’s.

"No hiccups so far. Once it’s reached the outfall we’ll leave the circulation pump running, and the main pump will only be needed if you drain it."

"It’s incredible, Maze," Laura said, sounding the Muinan words out carefully. "I can’t thank you enough."

He smiled—a smile Cass had mentioned frequently in her diaries, and fully as heart-stopping as described. "For a day spent playing at something I love? Not necessary."

"Just agree to be mutually appreciative," Sue said, angling her 'scanner'—a very high-tech camera—to capture the sunken stair slowly being swallowed by the flow of lake water. "What happens in winter, by the way? A skating rink, or an ice-crusted death trap?"

"If the water flow is shut off, we expect the ice will be thick enough to walk on. What is skating rink ?"

As Sue explained the English term, the water reached the rim of the pool’s primary edge, welled, and then flowed over the outfall. That took all the children with it, running down the hill along the snaking course Maze had designed, all the way to the lake shore. As drainage channels went, this was a helix punctuated by sheets of falling water, and interlaced with two criss-crossing paths that allowed a walker to admire—or stroll through—endless cascades.

"Put in a nice water feature," Cass said, propping Tyrian against one of her shoulders.

That produced a doubly-brilliant smile from Maze, with an added glow for Alay, coming up behind Cass with their toddler, Katen. Kaoren, carrying a couple of towels in anticipation, made the last of the group and they walked down to catch the kids and admire the water feature .

It would certainly not be out of place in Versailles, and gave Laura plenty to think about as everyone managed to get more than a little wet, and then trailed back to her house to enjoy the meal Cass and Kaoren had waiting. Factoring in nanotech formwork that could grow itself even underground, and drones that could be set to weed and dig and water, it really wasn’t such a great extravagance to expand down the hill.

Mindful that she had a meeting in an hour, Laura detoured first to change into something dry, and to have a good long gawk out of her bedroom window. Anything she did to the hillside would be visible here, for her room was semi-circular and strongly resembled a conservatory, with its curving outer wall and a third of its ceiling made of one-way glass. It gave her an unparalleled view of the eastern reach of the island, with the south-east aspect now dominated by the Braid , as everyone had immediately begun to call the ridiculously long water channel.

Feeling a little overwhelmed, Laura returned to the lounge and talked with Maze about monitoring the trees for transplant shock, and then took a glass of juice out to marvel once again at the now-tranquil pool. A single leaf of classic maple shape spun languorously in the centre of the broadest section of water, before unhurriedly finding its way to the drainage channel, and slipping away.

"Is it what you would have chosen?" asked a quiet, beautifully modulated voice.

"I doubt I would have been so ambitious," Laura said, turning. "But it has certainly started me thinking about other possibilities."