Touchstone 1 - Stray

he’d completely forgotten I was there.
    “Not yet,” was all he said, and climbed a little stiffly to his feet, keeping hold of my hand so I couldn’t stay lying down. “We’re going up.”
    I can’t tell you how unenthusiastic that made me. The Ddura had been a long long way away. I’m not sure what the Fourth Squad captain would have done if I’d kicked up a fuss – carried me up, maybe. He hadn’t let go of my hand, and started walking without waiting to see what my response was, so I trailed along behind him wondering when the day would end.
    But we only went up about three staircases worth of platforms, and stopped before a tall but narrow rift to a white place splashed with washes of colour, with a tall white tower in the middle, big and solid with very familiar arch-shaped doors. The Fourth Squad captain indulged in another staring session, but didn’t try to go through the gate, just stood studying everything he could see.
    Since the building had some similarities to those on Muina I immediately guessed it was either a space belonging to Muina or one of these extremely dangerous supports that the Muinans had built in the Ena which had caused everything to fracture. The Fourth Squad captain was being intense enough about it to make me think it was something that important, and since the supports were supposed to be incredibly dangerous I’m glad he didn’t decide to go any closer.
    After he was done looking he held out his free hand, which glowed faintly, and made the gate glow faintly in return. And made him go interestingly pale and squish my hand a bit.
    There were five gates between the platform space and Tare’s near-space. He did the same thing at every single one of them after we’d passed through, and if there’d been the slightest need for running or killing Ionoth we would have been screwed because whatever making the gates glow was about, it took as much out of him as running up those stairs had me. By the time we’d reached a familiar-looking metal box, I was beginning to wonder if I’d have to carry him , which wasn’t going to happen since he’s six foot two at least. As soon as we stepped through the last gate into the proper world he let go of me, leaned his back against a wall, and closed his eyes, looking so grey I thought he was going to faint.
    The shielding door opened almost immediately, after the briefest time for scans. I was swooped on by greensuits and greysuits, while Fourth Squad and a couple of other Setari rushed my rescuer. One of them, obviously a friend since he called him by his first name, said, “Ends, Kaoren, how far did you have to go? I’ve never seen you like this.”
    “Never mind that.” The Fourth Squad captain was recovering, and had straightened up. “Get Third mobilised. I stumbled across one of the Pillars out there, and even with the stray’s enhancement I don’t have the strength to truly lock every gate for five spaces.”
    He could have announced the sky was falling, the way everyone jumped and stared. Me, I was glad I was so tired, because I knew I was headed straight for endless medical tests and I planned to sleep through them. Which I did, except for blearily answering a few questions about no I really don’t know how I almost got to Earth. The room I’m in now is even more of a box than before, with scanners constantly pointed at me because they’re trying to work out what I did and whether they can stop me from doing it again. They gave me my diary after a day, and it’s taken me forever to write this all down, but that’s okay because my interface has been shut off almost completely while they run tests and there’s nothing else to do.
    Lab Rat again. Stray, always. It really hurt to hear that.
    But I guess I’ll cope. It makes so much difference that Mum and Dad know I’m not dead. That I got to say goodbye. I don’t know if I will ever be treated as a person here, but I can follow Nick’s lead and look on the bright side of things until I can make them better. I’m not starving. Nothing has eaten me. And somehow, in a way I don’t understand, I have the ability to go to Earth. I don’t want to kill myself doing it, and I won’t ever risk drawing Ionoth there, but now I have a goal beyond being a useful stray. If I can gain control, perhaps I can figure out a way to find a natural gate, and be able to go back to my real life, to being Cass again.
    As birthdays go, it could have been worse.
    Tuesday, February