The school grounds were surrounded by a high, patterned wall, and it was necessary to pass through a checkpoint to enter, which at least rid them of their travelling audience.
"Nicely timed," Inika commented, as they strolled between playing fields and an auditorium. "The shoreline is lovely and peaceful here when the children are still in class."
These were words to inevitably summon trouble, and were rewarded so splendidly that, as their route took them to an unbroken view of the lake, Laura could barely take in what was happening.
Rocks. Boulders. Perhaps a dozen of them, ranging from the size of a suitcase to a small car. They spun in a wobbling double circle around the crouching figure of a young teenaged boy, and seemed to be picking up speed. A group of children on the far side of the scene broke and ran, but one boy—Laura recognised him as Shar, the older of Mara’s two adopted sons—stepped neatly between the circling rocks and knelt beside the central figure, even as one of the larger stones spun out of formation and tumbled toward the scattering children.
Knowing who stood a foot to her right, Laura only half-choked, and then let out a relieved sigh as the stone lifted directly up, and then planted itself gently away from anything. In rapid order, the other rocks were similarly dealt with, four at a time. Zee was an extremely strong Telekinetic.
As soon as all the floating stone had been dealt with, Mara strode forward, not looking particularly surprised by the incident, and knelt beside her son, who was still talking gently to the apparent cause of the scene.
"I don’t understand why, if he lost control, the rocks didn’t just all fall down," Laura said to Zee, before realising that the second member of their Setari escort had moved a few feet away, and was gazing into the distance with the abstract expression Muinans adopted when talking over the interface.
"Because the stones were held up by Levitation, not Telekinesis," said a young, female voice helpfully. "Levitation is a manipulation of mass and gravity, and if that mass returns unevenly the result can be dangerous."
Laura turned to find at least two dozen children in the brown and black uniforms of Kalrani—trainee Setari—crowding out of the door of the auditorium to stare interestedly at the scene…and Sue and Laura.
"Thank you," Laura said, not sure which of the Kalrani had spoken. But then, meeting a pair of steady eyes, she was quite certain.
It was the modelling of the skull around the temples that gave it away. That very morning she’d traced a mirror of those delicate hollows. The girl was regarding her with complete calm, and offered her the faintest of nods in apparent acknowledgement of Laura’s recognition. Then she turned away in response to a teacher’s summons, and Laura was left blinking after her.
Since she had learned by this stage that Allidi was nearly thirteen, while Haelin had just turned nine, it was easy to guess identity, but Laura still confirmed by activating the interface function that allowed her to see people’s names. Allidi Selkie.
Sight Sight talents. That added a daunting layer of complexity to the whole he has kids situation. Laura doubted Gidds had told them that he’d embarked upon an affair, but that brief nod of Allidi’s had been an outright signal of awareness. And children, no matter how self-assured, or psychically talented, or how much of the year they spent in military boarding schools, deserved care and consideration. Even if what Laura and Gidds had started faded away after a few more weeks, the relationship could be confronting or upsetting for Allidi and Haelin—and Julian and Cass, Laura supposed, though being older she expected them to be more sanguine.
Wondering if the girls' mother had also moved to Pandora, Laura trailed Inika and Sue down to where a small crowd of adults had descended from the air to take charge of the still-trembling Levitation talent—and a rather grey-in-the-aftermath Shar Annan.
"I know well enough that you won’t have been encouraging that scene, Shar," Mara was saying. "But what possessed you to do anything but evacuate those nearby?"
"I was hoping I could keep him calm until there was a response to my alert," Shar said, rubbing his forehead. He was a deeply reserved boy, nearly sixteen by Earth metrics, and a rare survivor of Nuri’s ruling class: a fact that—much to Mara’s dismay—led many Nurans to treat him as an authority.
"Do you mind if I stay with Dezar a while longer?" he asked Mara now. "I can catch the next shuttle."
"So long as you’re back in time for dinner," Mara told him, and watched with an expression caught between pride and exasperation as her son returned to the younger boy.
"Send him to Tare," Inika said, unexpectedly.
"What?"
"You’re never going to get them to stop turning to him to settle disputes, and he’s the kind of boy that will step forward if he sees someone in need. Bringing him out to the islands means he has some time away from it, but he’s still too in reach of the Nuran community. Send him to Tare."
"I want him to have some peace, not exile him," Mara said, frowning after her son.
"There’s that seniority gap on Tare," Zee said, coming up for the last of the conversation. "They were looking for some of us to rotate back there. If you and Lohn transferred for every second Taren year, Shar would have a few months at a time free to be himself, instead of the heir-presumptive of a destroyed world. And if he follows the science stream, well Tare’s an excellent place for higher studies."
Mara looked irresolute, and further discussion was forestalled by the end of lessons for the day, and streams of students emerging—most heading past the auditorium to the security gates, but several handfuls drifting down to the waiting island shuttles.
"Unna!"
Sen, head of a small crowd of her age group, raced down for a hug, and then caught sight of Sue’s hair and squeaked with delight.
"Looks awesome," Nick said, following in Sen’s wake. "Like the ocean."
Sue beamed approvingly at him, and then lifted her eyebrows as Maddy came up, looking a little drawn, and obviously engaged in some sort of argument with Alyssa.
"Mrs Devlin," Maddy said to Laura, "Cass could make me a pair of skates, couldn’t she? She can make anything."
"And everything she makes like that goes poof," Alyssa said, firmly. "Not to mention there’s no rink."
"Ice is easy," Maddy said definitely. "Half the people I’ve met here can make ice. And Cass' projections don’t vanish right away. I only need ten minutes to show them all I really can skate."
"If Cassandra creates a projection of one of those bladed boots, we can scan it and have a stable copy manufactured," Zee pointed out helpfully. "So you can dance on blades, Maddy?"
"It’s easy."
"You haven’t recovered enough," Alyssa said.
This, naturally, descended into a mild squabble. Maddy when healthy was headstrong and adventurous, and not at all inclined to treat her older sister as an authority. Sue did not technically have any more standing, but as head of household stepped in…and came down firmly on Maddy’s side.
"With the proviso that there’s no attempts at any jumps," Sue said. "Spinning in a circle, and zooming backward with your leg stuck out is surely impressive enough for any disbelieving crowd. Though where this little demonstration is going to take place, who is going to produce the ice and manufacture your boots, I leave to wiser heads." She sent a conspiratorial glance in Zee’s direction. "You’d like to try it yourself, I suspect."