"Yeah, Kaoren said Tsur Selkie had agreed to line up Exclusion Suits for you. They didn’t even have those a couple of years ago, but they had to figure out a way to deal with looking after people who kept heading into the platform towns during moonfall and passing out."
There was no hesitation at the mention of Gidds. It seemed either word hadn’t reached Cass, or she was going to follow Julian’s lead and not ask questions. Which, frankly, suited Laura, who didn’t have all her answers yet.
"I want to go," Lira said, from where the kids sat in a line on the lower tier of the bleacher.
"Can we?" Rye asked, looking from Cass to Kaoren and back again.
"They wouldn’t have told us about it if we couldn’t," Ys commented, but then seemed to recall herself and added: "But I would like to too, please."
As they discussed technicalities—and a timeframe that now did not depend on passing adulthood exams—Laura reached back and touched Julian’s foot. He had gone quiet as soon as they’d reached Pandora Shore, and Laura could not help but contrast his silence with the chatty boy who had interrogated Gidds a short week ago. Was it just his bashfulness around pretty girls, or had Gidds' presence last night been more of a shock than Laura had expected?
Laura: Muina has enhanced reality gaming locations—and a few nightclubs—that disguise identity. You could be thoroughly anonymous if you still wanted to meet your guild friends—and any minders would be a lot more inconspicuous.
Julian: Knowing my luck, they’d assign Siame to me.
Siame, Kaoren’s delicately pretty and highly disconcerting sister, had recently been made captain of her own Setari squad—for all she was only a few months older than Julian. With the Ruuel plethora of Sights, she was one of the people Julian avoided most assiduously.
Laura: I think her squad’s going to be assigned to Tare soon. Maybe wait until after she’s left?
Julian: You’d let me go?
Laura: I don’t technically get a say in it any more. Now that you’ve passed that exam I can’t even monitor your school work or do half the parental rights related things the interface used to let me do. I’d prefer it if you didn’t try to ditch your minder, but I don’t expect you to give up every freedom just because it’s easier on KOTIS. Though if you do go to a nightclub, think about inviting Nick and Alyssa along.
Laughter drew her attention back to the ice. There she saw Zee and Mara holding hands for balance, while Nils spiralled gracefully around them, as adeptly as a lifelong skater. He sped to the far end of the pool and turned into a jump, twisting five-six-seven times before landing feather-soft and coming to a halt in the very centre of the pool. Here he bowed to the jeers and applause, then finally set himself down on the surface of the ice, and promptly fell over.
"He has superb control," Kaoren remarked. "That level of fine, complex movement is far harder with Levitation than Telekinesis."
"What happened with the boy who was trying to juggle rocks the other day?" Sue asked, as Alyssa skated over and showed Nils how to stand up without the assistance of any psychic talents.
Shar, who had been watching the skating intently, glanced first at his father, Lohn, who didn’t seem to have heard the question, then answered himself: "He has promised not to use his talents unsupervised, and might keep his word if he can resist being goaded."
Lohn heard that, and responded with a puzzled frown. "Why did Sema feel he had to prove he could enhance his connection to the Ena? It wasn’t common on Nuri, was it?"
"No, but Nurans—possibly because we travelled unprotected through deep-space—have shown a greater capacity for increasing our talent strength that way," Shar replied. "There’s…" He hesitated.
"There is a belief that true high Nurans are naturally adept at focusing their connection to the Ena," Kaoren finished for him.
Shar nodded, and rubbed the back of his neck. "On average Nurans are stronger than either Tarens or Kolarens, and we have usually trained our talents, though not as intensely as the Setari. When we can also achieve the enhanced power that comes from focusing the link to the Ena…it is something to hold on to, that strength."
Pandora Shore was a complicated school. It had been built to accommodate the strongest psychic children who had survived the destruction of Nuri, and then had added the relatives of the senior Taren Setari who had taken land grants in the islands to the west of Pandora. The next wave to be included were the children of wealthy citizens and officials immigrating from Tare and Kolar, most of whom had only minor, untrained talents, but who required a school with extra security. And now Kalrani, whose natural strengths had been honed to their highest pitch, outmatching the original students.
A wide mix of cultures and social backgrounds, in other words, and the Nurans one of the largest groups in the school, and yet—with less than ten thousand survivors on all of Muina—also the most negligible politically, and furthest behind in the Taren-based education system. Understandable that there would be a push among the Nurans to prove their worth in other ways.
"Stupid," Ys said, not turning around.
Shar glanced at her back, then smiled wryly and said to Lohn: "I don’t think the idea of true high Nurans will come to anything—there’s too many inconsistencies over who actually manages to focus their connection to the Ena. Those who were members of the Great Houses are being pushed to prove themselves, but I think—hope—they’ll all get tired of it soon. He paused again, then said: "Perhaps this will distract everyone. Do you think they made any of the knife-boots in my size?"
Not making several dozen pairs of skates had definitely been an oversight, judging from the fascinated attention of Maddy’s class. Since she still tired quite quickly, it was not long before Maddy called down Haelin and another girl, and took a break while they tried on the two pairs that had been made for her.
Laura checked Gidds' schedule and saw that while he was still working, he was using the colour code that indicated interruptions permitted, so she sent him a text.
Laura: I’m not sure I have the rights to record this, but can you see what I’m looking at?
The complex rules for what could or could not be recorded or transmitted over the interface meant that Haelin would very likely appear as an outline, but Laura still included a link to her visual input in hopes Gidds would be able to watch Haelin take her first steps onto the ice.
Gidds: You’re in an image-restricted area, but I can by-pass.
Laura kept her attention on Haelin as the girl glided along beside the outer wall, one hand on the translucent surface for balance. She was an athletic child—no surprise if she’d been learning Setari combat techniques—who looked like she’d grow up quite tall. After only a little time clutching the wall, she allowed her forward momentum to take her toward the middle of the pool, arms held out from her sides.
Gidds switched to voice communication, asking questions about learning to skate. It was truly fantastical to share a companionable chat with a man while allowing him see through her eyes. That was the world Laura now lived in. She would never stop appreciating the wonders every new day brought her.
"I have a feeling Alyssa’s plans to join KOTIS are about to be thoroughly derailed," Laura sub-vocalised.
"There will certainly be others wishing for lessons," Gidds replied. "Although it’s difficult to predict how long the enthusiasm will last. On that point, Allidi and Haelin are interested in sampling Red Exchange. If they enjoy it, would you be comfortable with them joining our next session?"