Touchstone 1 - Stray

was taking his turn chest-staring. “Earth contact after all yes?”
    “You’ve written ‘Experimental Animal’ on your shirt?” Maze asked, clearly upset.
    Zan answered my question: “See Rue-el’s primary talents are sight-based. He was reading the symbol, not the words.”
    Psychic psychic powers, in other words. And Zan was standing stiff and still, with her face so set that I couldn’t miss that she was mortified. Because she’d had no idea what my shirt said, and the Fourth Squad captain had dressed her down for that, even if it was just with a single sentence.
    There wasn’t much I could do to fix that, but I did try to explain. “In Australia – in my culture – important able laugh at self. I–” I tugged at my shirt, then read out the words in English and the closest Taren translation. “Lab Rat One. Is true, is what am me here. Pretend not, that stupid. This–” I shrugged. “Cope mechanism. Sarcasm. Make me feel better wear.”
    “But it’s not–” Maze wasn’t getting any less upset.
    “I kept in box. Take out for tests. What else call it?”
    Maze grimaced, but Lohn laughed. “You have to admit her point. So the people of your world think it’s important to laugh at themselves? That’s an idea I could get along with. But, Maze, no-one will be laughing if we miss that shuttle, so get a move on.”
    He dashed off with a wave, and since Maze obviously couldn’t think of an argument he sighed. “Let me know if you need anything, Caszandra. Although I suppose it must seem like it, your status is not that.” He shot the picture on my shirt a grumpy look, nodded at Zan, and strode off after Lohn.
    Zan just said: “I’ll escort you back” and took me to my room and left me here.
    Being able to record everything you see and hear certainly makes it easier to write down a conversation, though my translation of what they said – and what I was trying to say – is probably not that accurate. I hadn’t noticed before, but First Squad all call me ‘Caszandra’, not ‘Cassandra’. Taren is a very zeddy language.
    Writing this down took hours, but it’s given me plenty of translation practice and time to try and work out which of the three – Maze, Lohn or the Fourth Squad captain – that Zan likes enough to make her mind so much what happened today.
    Monday, January 28
    Roof
    This morning started as business as usual with training. Zan, rather than the greensuits, has been collecting me from my room. We get changed in a side room which has a stock of freshly laundered training outfits and then we do a lot of stepping backward and forward and now side-to-side. Zan had gone back to being imperturbable, and I wasn’t in the mood to push her, so I was really surprised when, after we’d changed back, she said: “I’ve been given leave to escort you around the facility, if there’s any parts you wish to see.”
    “Can go outside?” I asked immediately.
    I could see that surprised her. People really just don’t go outside much, on this planet. “It’s night phase at the moment.”
    “That bad thing?”
    “Well…” She shrugged, and led me to the elevator that led to the corridor that led to the walkway that led to the quickest elevator to the roof. It’s not nearly so huge as Unara, but the KOTIS building mound is still pretty damn big. It can’t all be Setari facilities, even with all the not-yet Setari who are being trained somewhere.
    It was very cold and windy on the bit of roof we ended up on. It feels even more like being on the side of a big mountain than going to Unara’s roof did. Unara’s more an endless blocky roundness, while the Institute is closer to the water and you can really see the down . But you could also see up since the sky was clear for once and so I found a convenient edge and sat down and stared up looking for any constellations I recognised. I would like to at least be able to stare in the direction of Earth.
    “This is similar to your world?” Zan asked after a while. Even she can’t just sit and not say anything forever.
    “Not my part.” I supposed Scotland might look like that, if you covered it with buildings. “Australia – big sky, red dirt, blue sea, lots beaches, huge empty inland. Deserts and tropical forests and…harsh, thirsty country. And then flood.” I shrugged. “Out here because never not gone outside ever. Walk to school. Go to beach. Garden. What you do when not being Setari?”
    I’d asked her before, but