Touchstone 1 - Stray

found some nice bruises where he’d grabbed me – so I took his wrist and pressed his hand to the platform, keeping hold the same way I had Selkie during my aether testing. “Friend,” I thought, then carefully let go of Ruuel, watching him wince as the aether in the platform immediately began reacting to him.
    “Friend,” I thought, but was getting the hhhiiii noise again. “Friend,” I repeated, putting a lot of command into it. “This is a Muinan. He belongs here. This is his home. He belongs.”
    I felt something, not from the Ddura, but the platform itself seemed to go icy and slick beneath my hand and then settle down. Ruuel straightened, eyes opening very wide, and he said: “It’s not reject–” but then the Ddura started going “Hhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!! Hhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!! Hhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!” so loudly I swear every blood vessel in my head considered popping. Ruuel didn’t act like he could hear it, but he had both hands pressed to the platform and was talking, eyes still all wide and surprised.
    “Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up!” I thought over and over at the Ddura and it quieted down a little, but kept going hhhhhaaaaaaa! in this mountainous burble. A lot happier about Ruuel than it had been me.
    “Everyone put hand,” I said out loud, not even able to hear myself speak. One thing about Setari discipline is they’re quick to obey a command. According to the logs, Maze said: “Do it,” and everyone did, despite the pain it caused.
    “These are Muinans,” I thought, to the Ddura or the platform or both. “They belong here. This is their home. They belong.”
    The Ddura exploded into hysteria – it really did behave a lot like an abandoned dog – and I had to resort to this kind of mental shriek in return: “SHUT UP!!!!” which startled it into pausing. “Bad Ddura. Be quiet. Be quiet. Good Ddura. Yes. Quiet. Okay. Good Ddura, you can protect the Muinans, can’t you? That’s a good Ddura. Protect the Muinans.” I paused, then looked over at the drone on the far side of the room. “These drones belong to the Muinans. Protect the drones. Good Ddura.” I tried mentally picturing the Litara as well, but my head was pounding like anything, so have no idea if it was any use going on about: “This is a Muinan ship. Protect the ships. Good Ddura.”
    It started doing the hhhhhaaaaaaa thing again, far more interested in the Setari it could sense touching the platform than anything I was saying to it, so I sighed and gave up, rubbing my temples instead.
    Ketzaren took my arm. “Do you need to sit down?”
    “Need Ddura shut up. So loud.”
    It seemed that I was still the only one who could hear it, which I considered very unfair. A lot of the Setari were looking shell-shocked, fingering the platform cautiously. Eeli was crying in a happy, overwhelmed kind of way.
    “First, return Devlin to the Litara ,” said Hara. “Third, Fourth, Seventh, finish your contact readings and then return.”
    I didn’t need any encouragement, coming close to dragging Ketzaren out of the room. Back in the amphitheatre, the only thing I noticed was that the cats had all gone. First moved into formation around me, though Ketzaren stayed letting me lean on her. I wasn’t in a falling-down state, but my head was pounding so incredibly that it was hard to concentrate on where I was walking. I ignored everything they said to me, since the Ddura was still enormously loud all the way through the town, calming down only a little. The greensuits were waiting for us and of course I was taken straight back to medical, but for once I didn’t care because I really wanted some painkillers. I’d dropped out of the mission channel as soon as I was on the sled, and really wanted quiet and dark.
    “I’m accessing your log, Caszandra,” Maze said, while Ista Tremmar unkindly made me sit through a scan before even thinking about giving me drugs. I watched his face, and was meanly pleased to see him start and grimace.
    “Loud,” I said. I could still hear the damn thing, all the way out on the lake, but fortunately fairly dimmed by then. He nodded but didn’t respond, watching the log presumably with the sound lowered while Ista Tremmar finished her scan and finally consented to fill me up to the eyeballs with painkillers. She said I could go so long as I drank a lot of liquid and lay down, which was exactly what I wanted to do. Maze, face all abstract, led me back to the canteen, and I