But KOTIS—recruiting a massive team of archaeologists—had moved in and, after years of cataloguing, were now cleaning and patching, decently dealing with the bodies of the long-ago fallen, and cautiously making the place habitable, because Kalasa was the place all the teleport platforms linked up: a planetary Grand Central Station.
Since Laura’s last visit, the technicians had finished restoring the arching fountain that soared above the teleportation platforms. A curving and elegant tripod structure, it would produce a vertical drop into a blue-tiled pool at the very centre of the city, though no water fell as yet.
"The devices team refuses to allow installation of a conventional pump," Alay informed Laura. "As much as possible they’re aiming to restore the original systems, which is quite a challenge when we barely understand them."
Laura was looking about for Gidds, surprised to not find him waiting at the fountain as planned. While last-minute demands on his time were something she now expected, he was punctilious in keeping her informed of delays, and she’d expect him to be even more particular for their first almost-public date. Had something happened that–?
But no, there he was, walking with Allidi and Haelin from the direction of the city gate.
Sue: Ooh, civvies. Fit snug, don’t they?
Laura: Indeed.
Sue: Do you think he’d do a few push-ups if I asked nicely?
Laura: I think he would smile at you if you asked him that.
Sue: You mean "Ah yes, humour"? Pfui.
Laura: After a couple of decades of students, I suspect that’s a built-in response.
"A side-trip to view the tedan," Gidds explained, when the three Selkies reached the main group.
"Tedan?" Sue echoed.
"Freshwater version of seals," Laura explained, and then introduced Allidi and Haelin.
The two girls responded with calm self-possession. It was one of those times when Laura felt challenged when faced with Sight Sight, knowing that chances were high that they would see she felt a little anxious, fretting over nothing. Perhaps she should ask Gidds to teach her a few Sights exercises as well.
"Laura’s been giving you selkie stories, has she?" Sue asked.
"Just one. About a girl who met a man who was really a tedan," Haelin said, then glanced at Laura and added: "Are they all sad stories?"
"Mostly. If you could dance in the sea, it seems almost inevitable to miss it when clumping about on land."
"Hm," Haelin said, and then crossed to Alyssa and began to ply her with questions about the planned skating rink, Allidi following along behind.
In their position, Laura would also have found ice skating infinitely more interesting than parental partners, and so she suppressed an impulse to push for their attention, instead taking the opportunity to briefly brush her fingers against Gidds'. Still, it was difficult not to think about the distance between indulgent grandma and wicked stepmother. She had been quickly accepted by Cass' children, but the situation she was facing with these two girls was one that left her full of questions about belonging.
Getting way ahead of yourself, Laura.
As they started into the building housing the Areziath platform, she put complexities aside and smiled at Gidds. "I feel like I’ve accidentally changed your relationship to your own name."
"I have been thinking about that story a great deal," he admitted. "And contrasting the tedan’s movements with my swimming ability. Swimming is not common on Tare, and I only learned relatively recently."
Picturing him learning gave her one of those flashes of hilarity that she knew by now he would see, so she smiled apologetically and said: "It’s a useful skill to have when moving to a planet covered with lakes."
They reached the platform, and stepped from one hemisphere to the other with no effort at all, and Laura gave herself up to a burble of anticipation. Going to a beautiful place she’d never seen. Of course, all that met her eyes was a round white room, blandly identical except for the location sign, and perhaps the faintest shift of temperature. And when they headed up, it was to yet another amphitheatre, this one beneath a pale, thin sky.
"Why is it you’ve only settled five out of the fourteen pattern-roof towns?" Sue asked Gidds.
"We were in danger of tripping over our feet," he told her. "There needs to be a period of consolidation and balancing before any further expansion. Nor do we necessarily want to build cities at every one of the platform locations."
"Definitely not Areziath," Zee said, shifting briefly from her ultra-professional guard stance. "Or, at least, it would have to be managed sensitively."
"Nothing here until we understand its purpose," Gidds said, deliberately mysterious, and took Laura’s hand firmly as they climbed the stair.
She regarded him with faint amusement, knowing that he was anticipating the moment she saw the town. But she was glad she’d resisted the temptation to look the place up beforehand. What could be so special? Yet another whitestone town, but presumably in a particularly dramatic setting?
"What’s that weird sound?" Maddy asked. "Is that rain?"
"What?" Alyssa asked, then lifted her head. "Oh, I hear it."
"Kind of…whirry," Maddy said.
"Maybe it’s robots," Julian said, on an eager note, but then almost fell over backward as a formless amoeba blotted the pale sky above. Constantly changing shape, it crossed over the amphitheatre, abruptly reversed direction, and was lost to sight.
Sue had gripped Laura’s arm, but now raced up the stair, only to stop dead as she reached the top.
"A murmuration!" Laura said, thoroughly delighted, and added to Gidds: "Sue’s always wanted to see one."
"It is a behaviour seen on Earth, then?"
"Oh, yes, although I’ve never seen it in Australia. I wonder if it’s the same species of bird?"
The top of the stair had become crowded with people standing staring, but Gidds deftly manoeuvred Laura sideways, and then she, too, stopped in her tracks and gaped.
The amphitheatre sat on the crown of a lone hill in the centre of large plain. There was, as anticipated, a collection of pattern-roof buildings, but these were confined to the slopes of the hill. Beyond was pearl and silver and milky blues in a mist-shrouded dawn.
"River City," Laura said, with a full appreciation of a very literal name.
The region was all river. Not a driving torrent or lazy rills, but…fretwork. Artificial channels—they had to be—had been cut into the entire sweep of land around the amphitheatre hill, to form a kind of Art Nouveau Norfolk Broads, with shades of a Japanese hanabi, for it was spring in Areziath, and a millennia ago someone had carefully chosen the trees.
Sue: When Howl took Sophie to the garden in the Waste.
Impossible not to agree. This was the stuff of purest fantasy. Magic.
Laura: I would definitely not be surprised to encounter moving castles, talking fire, or a door that leads four ways.
Sue: I’m going to spend the rest of the day picturing Serious Soldier moaning about his hair.
"Teleport platform or door into Faerie?" Alyssa asked, with a catch in her throat that spoke for all of them.
"Can we see it from above, Dzo?" Allidi asked, lifting bright eyes to her father.
He nodded, and Zee said: "Groups of four, please."