Touchstone 1 - Stray

tore wider, are the most dangerous points in the spaces, because the threat on the far side cannot be clearly gauged. If this side is clear, I will go through and you will wait without moving until I signal you to come through. Do not come through without my signal unless you are in immediate danger of attack on this side. Should we need to run, above all things stay close to me, no matter where I run. Do you understand?”
    “I tore gate?” I asked, staring down at all the monsters he’d had to kill, just at this one spot.
    “You don’t remember?” He looked at me, perhaps gauging whether I was lying. His eyes never seemed to show surprise; never annoyed or angry or really interested. “You tore a new rift in Tare’s wall, and either struck or widened thirteen gates between here and there.”
    I stared. “Hole in medical facility?” I could feel my face heat, but rather than go into it further just said: “I wake here.”
    He’d gone back to scanning the area, then studied the gate for a very fixed and intent moment before stepping through it. Even though I’d been wandering about Earth’s near-space by myself, the instant the Fourth Squad captain was on the far side of the gate I felt horribly vulnerable. A half-dozen examples of why I was vulnerable were scattered around my feet, and the edge of the pool was at eye-level so I could have a nice close look at anything scuttling up. That really destroyed any sense of pleasure I could gain from my last few moments in Earth’s near-space.
    Fortunately he signalled almost immediately, and I stepped out onto a red, flat plain where the sky was the biggest thing ever and there was plenty of distance between me and anything. The space was the memory of heat, and a ribbon in the sky that seemed to twist and shift, but was way too far away to be scary.
    In all that space, I could only see two other gates. One was very distant, a glimmering on the horizon, and the other up a slope of rock that was no harder to climb than a flight of stairs.
    “The next space is very populated,” the Fourth Squad captain said as we approached the top of the rock slope. “They are tola type, not dangerous unless you remain among them, but both gates are thick with them and if enough gather it could be difficult to pass them. They are attracted to sound, so walk quietly and only communicate through the interface. Don’t stop at the following gate; we’re going to walk straight through.”
    Tola meant ‘thin’. I stared through the gate at what looked to me like vertically striped shadows and couldn’t see anything at all that looked like monsters. I remembered in time not to walk through the first gate until he signalled, but he did so almost immediately anyway. It felt like I stumbled into cold cobweb. The space was, I think, a shadow of a forest, so faded that there wasn’t really even trees there, just darker stripes. The Fourth Squad captain moved forward, holding one arm before his face and I followed as best I could, though it was a little like when I’d been trying to push my way out of Earth’s near-space, just that the resistance didn’t get any harder. And it was damn dark. The gate we were heading for wasn’t even visible to me, and I immediately lost sight of him. The only reason I didn’t freak out completely was because my interface knew where he was and I realised if I turned on names I could follow him far more easily. So I followed a floating ‘Kaoren Ruuel’ sign through the forest of creepiness, and almost felt like laughing.
    [Taren spelling continues to confuse – Maze pronounced ‘Ruuel’ as ‘Rue-el’.]
    The next space was totally black, so I was lucky it had already occurred to me to track him using the interface. Zan had said the Fourth Squad captain’s talents were Sight-based, which explained how he was able to walk so confidently into pitch dark. I think the space was some sort of cave or tunnel. The ground was fortunately smooth, though, and it was short. The next gate was only ten or fifteen metres away, and I saw silvery grey water and stopped while he passed through.
    But again he signalled straight away and I walked out onto a beach at night. That was a strange one – beautiful and eerie, all silver and black, but no moon in the sky to explain where the light was coming from. There was a single line of footprints along the beach, with sand kicked up behind them to show how fast he’d been going. The Fourth Squad captain’s,