Of course anything, even sitting in a room reliving kindergarten, is better than starving and alone. Annoying as this place can be, I’m still glad to have been rescued.
The other Setari in the room weren’t anyone I particularly recognised, though I guess they’d all been there for the demonstrate-what-the-stray-can-do session. They pretended not to look at me, and didn’t bother us. It’s hard to know what they’d think of me – a walking instant power-up that they’ve been told to stay away from.
After lunch, I was expecting more martial arts practice, but instead we went down to a different changing room and Zan sent me into one of the shower rooms and told me to braid my hair up and strip and get into the shower. And when I did, wondering what was going on, black goop sprayed out of the walls at me and that was enough to make me jump back and want out. And then it started wriggling. I sometimes forget that these people use nanotechnology. I ended up with a light swimsuit, sturdier than those I’m used to, and going all the way to the knees and elbows. Thinner than the Setari uniform, but I’m starting to understand how Zan gets changed so quickly.
After I’d recovered from my minor heart attack, we went into the next room and it was this HUGE pool. A big square, maybe forty by forty metres, but incredibly deep, with this underwater obstacle course, all tunnels and circles and things. I couldn’t even see the bottom.
"This is something I need practice in, as well," Zan said, watching my disbelieving expression. "The requirement for water manoeuvres only came in two years ago, when some of the nearest spaces became flooded. The medics recommended this to increase your overall fitness, and it will prepare you in case they do decide to use you in the Ena."
"Not that good at holding breath," I said, extremely dubiously. I figured I could make the top couple of tunnels and tubes, and that would be it.
"There’s breathers for the deep work. First will be surface swimming. Are you taught swimming at all on your world?"
I gave her a funny look, then dived in and swam across the pool and back. I was a little more out of breath than I expected when I reached her, due to my various medical dramas. But I love swimming. I’m not Ian Thorpe, but water sports are one of the things I’ve always been reasonably good at.
"If ever go my world," I told her, treading water. "Teach you how to surf."
I’m a better swimmer than Zan is. And they don’t use the freestyle stroke, just breaststroke, so she asked me to teach her. And we’re doing swimming practice every afternoon until further notice. Today was a great day.
Saturday, February 2
Ructions
Zan is now teaching me how to fall. Or how to throw myself on padded mats without too much bruising or unnecessary giggling. I find it hard to take seriously, and no matter what else I think or feel about Zan, I have to admire her patience. I think that it’s causing her a lot of trouble to babysit me, too, unless the Setari are just plain nasty to each other out of habit.
The nastiness came out during this afternoon’s swimming session. Zan’s picking up freestyle quickly (Australian crawl, really, but everyone I know calls it freestyle), but it’ll take her a bit to really get into it, so we were having a race with breaststroke. I’m okay with short races, but if I try and do more than a couple of laps I run out of pep.
But I can beat her in a short dash, and was terribly pleased about it. Problem was, so were the people watching us. Three Setari, two guys and a girl, and one of the guys was standing right on the edge of the pool where we touched. Gave me quite a fright, looking up and finding all this blacksuited leg and chest. I pushed back from the edge, just as Zan reached it, but they were more interested in her than me anyway.
I don’t know if Zan had managed to figure out they were there before she looked up, but from what I could see of her face, she didn’t act surprised.
"Truly, Namara, I’m starting to feel embarrassed for you," said the guy. He had an amazing voice, really beautiful, and so wasted on such a putz. "Bad enough your squad’s been pulled off rotation so you can demonstrate infant-level combat skills, but now you’re actually being outdone by a stray."
Zan reminds me of a drowned kitten when she’s wet. Her hair sleeks down and makes her eyes look really big. The guy was so tall, and Zan being down in the water must have felt at a real disadvantage. But all she did was move to one side, haul herself easily out, and go pick up one of the towels.
"Can I help you with something, Kajal?" she asked, once she’d dried her face.
"Not swimming, obviously." The guy was irritated that he’d not managed to get a reaction out of Zan, but made out he wasn’t bothered, laughing. "Lenton’s chances are looking better each day."
The Setari girl standing behind him touched his arm. "It’s an unfortunate situation," she said, in a much more reasonable tone. "Twelfth Squad may have lost out on this rotation altogether, and Lenton does need to be taught to keep his temper. Worse still, I doubt the stray will be assigned to Twelfth Squad, if they do use it in the Ena. It’s very unfair on you."
I was glad I’d kept moving away, was at least ten metres from the edge. Not only was the girl enjoying a few sly digs at Zan while pretending to be nice, but she’d called me it! I’m not totally incapable of understanding the nuances of spoken Taren. Stupid idiots were acting like I was a performing animal, not a person.
It occurred to me then that I no longer had the function which displays all the names of people over their heads. A full month after Sa Lents showed me how to use it, and I’d forgotten all about it since the accident. I don’t see what they achieved by making it so I couldn’t use it, but it was probably related to me losing almost all the other public functions. I was able to call up the recorded memory of the Setari briefing, though, and work out that the Kajal guy was captain of the Fifth Squad, and the girl was captain of the Seventh. The other guy was also from the Seventh Squad. What they were trying to achieve with all the dick waving I couldn’t guess.
At least they left after that, though another person showed up as Zan was turning back toward me. I was too far away to hear what she said, since her voice was soft, but Zan smiled at her, and then shrugged. So she’s not totally without friends. I practiced swimming underwater for a couple of minutes, till Zan told me that was enough for the day. It’s going to take a while to get used to people being able to talk in my head when I’m upside-down in a swimming pool.
I didn’t bug her with questions while she escorted me back, didn’t really feel equal to it. Was even glad to be back in my room so I could get in the shower and cry myself sick.
I do almost all my crying in the shower. I’m still not sure how much they monitor me while I’m in my room, and I’m really hoping that I get at least a little privacy. The shower lets me pretend I’m hiding the bad days. This was worse than usual. It’s going to be my birthday soon, and Mum had promised to organise a family and friends party at our house, and then Nick, Alyssa and I had permission to go out to actual nightclubs afterwards, so long as we stayed together and friends who hadn’t turned eighteen yet didn’t come with us. Nick was coming along to protect us, which I of course thought was a fantastic idea for all the wrong reasons. Alyssa and I put so much effort into setting that up, all for nothing.