Touchstone 1 - Stray

be. When I stepped through myself there was a soap-bubble sensation, and the air changed again, bringing an over-emphasised sense of grassiness. There were a lot fewer of the pieces of broken mirror here, which might be why they chose it.
    “Spaces what exactly?” I asked, realising how limited the horizon was. This wasn’t what I’d pictured at all.
    “One day perhaps we’ll have a definitive answer on that,” Zee said, while Maze and Mara had a scan-the-area-for-enemies moment. “For now, my favourite definition of it is that they’re the sloughed-off memories of living worlds, crystallised and decaying fragments of the past tumbling and interconnecting.”
    I suppose if someone had taken a billion jigsaws and mixed all the pieces together and then had them connect up randomly so you could move from piece to piece you’d get the same effect, but Zee’s explanation was much more poetic.
    “Ionoth memories inhabitants of worlds?” I asked, and saw I’d managed to surprise them.
    “That’s one of the possibilities,” Lohn said. “Maybe part of Muina’s histories survived on your world after all.”
    “We lots entertaining fantasy,” I said. No-one seems to b elieve me when I say Earth wasn’t settled by Muinans.
    “Looks clear,” Maze said, coming back to us. “Let’s get started.”
    The testing was much the same as all the testing we’ve been doing, with me contributing a lot of standing about. I wish I could at least figure out how to make these illusions. Still, it was entertaining watching Maze throw the stone blocks at one another, creating fantastic explosions of rock and dust. Most of the skills First Squad hadn’t already tried seemed to work, and they were pleased about one which involved the gates, but I was more than glad when they decided it was time to head back.
    And then, as we were walking back to the gate we’d entered by, there was a small gate, twice the size of my head. And through it, something so familiar my heart almost stopped. I certainly stopped, and my internal recording shows me how quickly Zee and Alay reacted, shifting around in my peripheral vision, flanking me. At the time, all I could see was It.
    “That’s what your world looks like?” Maze asked, eventually.
    I shrugged, feeling so betrayed I wanted to scream. “Some parts. Australia lots red dirt. Sky – that quality light – I forgotten how big sky is. That right sort tree.” Then I scrubbed at my face and added in English: “Crying over a fricking gum tree. How pathetic can I get?”
    I made myself stop. Made myself say something that would get them moving. Made myself hold it in, at least until we were back on Tare and I could say I was tired and wanted a shower. None of First Squad were under any illusion about how I was feeling, but they had sense enough to know they couldn’t fix it, and were kind enough to leave me with a short stop at medical and then to my room.
    I thought it was real. Just for that second, before I saw the fraying edges, I thought that was Earth. I can still feel the way my stomach twisted, the way every part of me leapt through stillness into roaring joy, and then crashed.
    All the feelings I’ve been trying to hold back, all my struggles to resign myself to being this stray, this person out of place and never really belonging, they’ve risen up to drown me. And tomorrow’s my birthday. For a brief second I thought I had a chance, that I could go home and be there for my birthday and I just don’t know if I can stand this awful pit that’s opened up in me after that moment of belief.
    I want to go home.
    Monday, February 11
    Happy Birthday
    I was sitting on my bed when I woke up. MY bed. My bed, my room, my world.
    Just, not quite.
    Somehow I’d ended up in Earth’s near-space. The cold tipped me off immediately, even before I saw the great big sections of wall lacking any substance. I was horribly chilled, cold with a deep ache in my bones, like I’d been sitting outside in Winter. Sydney’s Winters aren’t exactly sub-zero, but you don’t feel happy about life if you sit out in them wearing a pair of underpants and a thigh-length t-shirt.
    But, oh gods, cold was the last thing I cared about right then. I had no idea how I’d managed it, but somehow I’d ended up THIS far away from exactly where I wanted to be. I jumped up, and staggered a bit since I was very stiff, like I’d been there a while, then pulled open the door. Touching and moving things in