Andrea Höst: In Arcadia [Touchstone: Extras]

She found herself facing a man an inch or so shorter than her own five-seven, his colouring similar to Kaoren, Lira and Sen’s—a type Cass called old Lantaren , with light brown-gold skin, and epicanthic folds to very dark eyes. There was no doubt to his identity, since he wore the dark blue uniform of KOTIS command personnel, but Laura managed not to say: the infamous Tsur Selkie aloud. She very much hoped she was also succeeding in not gaping. In part it was because he was so suddenly there, like a magician who had conjured himself, but it was more that he…

"I wished to see the Gainers before their trip to Tare," he explained. "So came a little early."

"I think you’ve timed it exactly," Laura replied, struggling to pronounce the Muinan words clearly. There was no mystery or reason to be flustered: he’d obviously come up the path beside the house instead of through it. Or flown. She had no idea whether he could fly. "Everyone’s just packing up."

She led him inside, and then retreated to one side to watch. Force. That was the word. Sheer force. She had never before met anyone whose simple presence added such weight to a room.

Sue: I was expecting someone shorter. And less…less…

Laura: Indeed.

Sue: Everyone’s standing up straighter.

Laura: Perhaps that’s why Cass thinks he’s short.

Sue shot a brief, appreciative glance at Laura before turning her attention to her scanner. Laura just watched.

Cass' diary had described Tsur Selkie as a short, eternally abrupt man who reminded her of Clint Eastwood. Compared to many of the Setari, who averaged around six foot, Laura supposed he was technically short. Also slender, with the controlled grace of a dancer. It was difficult to gauge abruptness when he was specifically there to have a conversation, but he spoke with precision and certainly didn’t run on. He maintained an air of formality, asked brief questions, and listened.

Nothing about him reminded Laura of Clint Eastwood.

Instead, he projected effortless authority. Almost everyone in the room really was standing taller, and the three Setari gave the impression of being liable to salute at any moment. Both Katen and Tyrian watched him with fixed fascination, while the older children became markedly more efficient in helping to tidy up lunch and find discarded items of clothing, even though they were eavesdropping shamelessly on a relatively unremarkable conversation.

The other thing that stood out to Laura was Tsur Selkie’s separateness. He was careful in his movements, rarely coming physically close to anyone, and in response the people around him kept their distance. That was a trait he shared with Kaoren, for they were both primarily Sight talent psychics. Kaoren had all the identified Sights while Tsur Selkie had, at the least, both Sight Sight—knowing—and a particularly challenging one called Place Sight. Place Sight talents could see and feel the impressions living creatures leave on the world : ghostly auras, the memory of rage, the shape of a dream. Most particularly, Place Sight talents could sense people’s emotions when they touched them, which explained why Tsur Selkie was wearing gloves on a warm day: the left fingerless and the right giving complete coverage.

Rather than stand staring, Laura put together a tray with some water and red pear juice, and took it out to the table on the north patio. This was a good spot for summer conversations: the high trees dappled the table with shadows, and the breeze from the north made them dance.

"Want me to stay and translate, Mum?" Cass asked, as departure moves began.

"I think we’ll manage. Besides, I need more practice talking Muinan."

"Okay. Just open a channel to me if there’s anything you want cleared up."

Cass and Kaoren departed with their brood down the path to their house, while Maze and his family rose into the air, waved cheerfully, and zoomed away, and really it was impossible to watch that without an urge to pinch oneself to make sure the world was real.

Curious about the practicalities of flying, Laura asked Tsur Selkie: "Can Telekinetic talents, when it’s raining, use their talent to keep dry?"

"That would be exceptionally difficult. Tsee Namara might briefly succeed, with interface assistance to track the path of the rain, but it would involve catching each individual drop. Telekinesis works on objects: it cannot form a shield."

A Tsee was a Setari squad captain—the same rank as Kaoren—and Zan Namara the strongest Telekinetic talent. She was stationed on the planet Tare, and Laura hadn’t yet met her, though she had figured large in Cass' diaries.

"I will not take much of your time today," Tsur Selkie said, as Sue led him to the table. "In truth, my primary aim in this session is to gauge your ability with our language, so that I can schedule a longer debriefing. You do not have difficulty understanding me?"

"No, it’s speaking that’s the challenge," Laura noted, sounding the words out with only occasional long pauses. "We’re working on improving our pronunciation and grammar."

He nodded, and Laura noticed how very upright he was sitting, his hands resting neatly on his knees. Relaxed, but with an innate good posture. As soon as Laura saw this she realised she and Sue had unconsciously imitated him, and she immediately leaned her arms on the table.

"The long-term aim is to decide what to do about Earth?"

"To assist the Triplanetary Council’s decision regarding diplomatic contact with your world, given the limitations of access. The current position is that it would be unwise to commence overtures via an unstable gate that opens only once a year, and that formal contact should be postponed until an Ena ship course can be established. That, however, is the equivalent of possibly never , given the difficulties of locating a world and charting a course to it through the Ena."

The Ena was a complex set of dimensions that sat outside real space . The Muinans used it as a shortcut between planets, but it was both infested by monsters and as navigable as an Escher drawing.

"Today, we shall cover the dissemination of information about Muina on Earth. Clearly it was not known only to your family. How widely have the details spread?"

Laura, who had failed to keep matters as secret as she would have liked, searched his face for any hint of condemnation, but found only focused attention.

"It’s very difficult to say how far the story’s gone," she admitted. "At least now that a gate genuinely did open and more than one person went through and back. When Cass first disappeared, the police—Sydney law enforcement—were involved, of course, and it was a news item. Old news by the time of her birthday, when she managed to nearly reach us."

Her chest tightened with the doubled memory of watching Cass becoming a cold case and then, when the family had gathered on Cass' birthday, looking up and seeing a ghostly outline of her daughter. Not dead. Cass, stuck in the Ena behind an intangible window, had used sign language to reassure them. Not dead.

"Sue…" Laura began, mouth dry, but Sue picked up the story, giving Laura a chance to take a drink and try to wash away a few memories.

"When Cass appeared before us, I recorded the scene, but though we could see her clearly enough, the recording only showed a grey blur."

Tsur Selkie didn’t look surprised. "Scanners and other machines have considerable difficulty detecting Ena manifestations."

"What we were left with was a half-dozen of us sure that we had seen Cass, but with no real proof that she was alive," Sue went on. "We had an argument over what to do, because telling the truth seemed like a terrible idea, and spending years pretending to be looking for her even worse. Eventually we decided to say she’d called home for her birthday to tell us she’d run off with a boy. Pure slander, and totally out of character for Cass, and we’re lucky Nick had a friend in a country called Thailand who could make a relatively untraceable call to Laura’s house, because the police did check that. But it gave us a reason to no longer look for her."