"I guess. I get caught up in worry sometimes—I need to stop that." Cass rapped lightly on her own helmet. "We totally look like we’re wearing spacesuits."
"We do! I feel very classic sci-fi in this."
"I wonder if they’d work in vacuum?"
"Doesn’t seem likely they’d be designed for the pressure difference," Laura said, admiring herself in the mirror. Streamlined, but undeniably spacesuit-like, the Exclusion Suit would generate a shield field to prevent the moonfall aether from reaching them.
She started to go on, but noticed Cass was looking down and to her left, which Laura had learned many people did when they were talking over the interface, so she waited until Cass looked back at her with an apologetic grimace.
"Sorry, Kaoren’s Mum wanted to make a change to our schedule. Visiting the Ruuels always ends up being hectic."
"Do the kids get along with Teor?"
"Most of the time. She and Paran are really pretty cool—super-smart and creative. Sen likes them a lot, which is always a good sign, and they’re fantastic with Rye. I was worried about Ys for a while, but I eventually figured that she and Teor positively enjoy trying to get the best of each other. Teor’s still trying to convince Kaoren to stop being a Setari, though, and she finds the way Lira chops and changes hobbies frustrating. She doesn’t push, but she wants to, and Lira picks up on that. It’s not really a problem except when Lira’s stressed out like she has been lately."
Laura, testing out the impact of the suit’s weight on her walking, paused.
"Why not let her come with me and Sue this weekend?"
"On this exploration trip you’ve wangled? Mum, they wouldn’t let her go without extra guards."
"We get security either way, don’t we? Shall I ask if it’s possible, and see what they say?"
"Mm. Well, it’s worth thinking about—Rye has managed to make Lira appreciate country walks more than she used to, and Areziath in spring would definitely be worth it. We’ve only been once, and that was in summer. I wonder if I can manage to rearrange things without offending Teor?"
They headed out to check the kids' progress, and found a fully-suited Ruuel Devlin complement, with Kaoren checking that everyone’s helmets were fully locked and active.
"Is this the line for the auditions for Lost in Space?" Sue asked, joining them with Julian, Alyssa, Nick and Maddy in tow.
"That would imply we don’t know the way home," Laura said. "How about The Jetsons?"
"Mm, possible I suppose, though a bit iffy on the gender roles. There’s not too many family-in-space stories are there?"
"The Jetsons weren’t in space, were they?" Cass asked, then added to Kaoren: "We’re talking about Earth vid-shows."
Descriptions of Lost in Space and The Jetsons kept everyone occupied as they trooped out of the building, meeting up with their security escort, and a trio of KOTIS scientists who were researching various aspects of moonfall. The lead scientist, Isten Sydel, introduced his team, and then led the way from the KOTIS building back into the small town due to witness moonfall.
Called Dulesza, the town sat on an isthmus in Muina’s tropical zone. It had been designated for research rather than housing, and so the single KOTIS building, along with occasional scanners and excavation sites, were the only visible impact of Muina’s resettlement. The rest was vines and vivid flowery bushes and stone buildings with empty doors and windows.
"The platform towns were almost certainly constructed within a short period of time, and occupied for a bare few years before the disaster," Isten Sydel said, as they climbed a steep road between near-identical white, blockish buildings. "Their locations do not appear linked to any pre-existing sites, and—while there are some adaptations for terrain—they all share the same square, patterned-roofed houses, a minimum of four watch towers at the outer boundaries, and a centrally located amphitheatre." He paused at the entrance of Dulesza’s amphitheatre, looking not down into it, but back the way they had come: "This is undoubtedly one of the most spectacular locations."
True. Dulesza rose in tiers above a broad lake, the water currently transitioning through vivid shades of blue as the afternoon progressed toward evening. Above, a handful of enormous gulls drifted almost motionless, while a cloud of smaller seabirds dipped and swooped among the rocks scattered just beyond the shore.
"Give it a few blue domes and it could be Santorini," Sue said, lifting her favourite scanner to a better angle.
"Santorini with sea monsters," Laura said, for she had glimpsed something scaly and looping and large moving where the birds dived and darted.
She and Sue shared a glance, bright and marvelling, for the sheer wonder of being on a whole new planet. A comfortable paradise with constant reminders that this was not Earth: from the strange creatures mixed among familiar animals, to the moon slowly cresting the horizon.
Named Esune, it appeared a touch larger, and had a bluer tint compared to Earth’s Luna, but these faint differences receded behind a dark bullet hole with a trailing tear that made the moon look like it had been shot with a comma.
Laura couldn’t look at Muina’s moon without being overwhelmed by enormities. Not merely by the loud statement that this was Definitely Not Earth, but because part of that comma in the sky was due to Cass. The hole had appeared at the same time as the disaster that had made Muina uninhabitable. The trailing tear during the close call that Cass had barely escaped two years ago.
Noting another of the scientists darting a fascinated glance at her granddaughter, Laura moved so she could drop comforting hands on Cass and Lira’s shoulders. Two girls, very different, but both Touchstones who had been fulcrums for the events that had left those lunar scars. The sheer scope of their potential occasionally left Laura gasping, but also wishing there was more she could do to protect them.
The vigilant attendance of an entire squad of highly trained psychic space ninjas—Sixth Squad today—were a reminder that there was plenty of protection about. But physical safety was only one layer, and Laura was entirely determined to be someone who would spoil and hug and be glad of all her family, not for the things they could do, but for their own selves.
"The amphitheatre arrangement speaks to a design philosophy prioritising efficiency and multipurpose function," Isten Sydel continued, as they at last turned away from the view. "The primary purpose of these towns is undoubtedly the refinement of aether. But that single process channels that aether to the Ena stabilisation pillars, the teleportation platforms, and, we are coming to surmise, to heating and lighting the towns themselves, although that system appears inactive. Since aether has restorative aspects, even the use of an amphitheatre as the power collection point suggests that this is, in fact, a kind of hospital or wellness centre."
He paused as one of his team, almost bouncing, said: "Given how very beneficial aether is on a cellular level—to the point where we’re seeing rejuvenation in older subjects—these settlements may have been intended for privileged residents. Or perhaps simply health retreats. The population of the planet certainly exceeded the capacity of the platform towns."
There was an enormous amount of Not Looking at Lira going on. Too much to hope that Lira hadn’t noticed, wasn’t aware of the mute pressure for her to dredge her memory and speak up about past visits to similar villages, and any dropped titbits of overheard conversation. But Lira, mouth compressed, only stared at the ground, and it was surely no coincidence that Kaoren now stood between his daughter and the hopeful scientists.