Touchstone 1 - Stray

and worn-down than usual, but he produced a wry smile at this. “I have to admit to re-watching that testing session more than a few times. So Selkie looks like a famous actor from your planet?”
    I tried very unsuccessfully to explain Clint Eastwood, and then moved on to Johnny Depp, and now all of First Squad except Maze have sworn to find a path to Earth so they can watch Pirates of the Caribbean .
    Afterwards, Zee took me to have my hair cut. There are apparently hairdressers available in KOTIS for the brownsuits, who are properly called Kalrani (‘juniors’), but they’re what you’d expect for school barbers, and so Zee took me to the place she uses. I had my hair neatened, without doing anything fancy to it, but I feel much less of a scruff now that the split ends have been cut out and the ends aren’t so jagged. Not that it makes much of a difference, since I’ve taken to braiding it.
    As we walked back I talked to Zee about my eye changing colour. I’ve moved past my first reaction to it, and was able to tell her that it makes me feel uncomfortable, without transforming into a rampaging drama llama. And I told her about my nightmares, which I felt safe to talk about now that I’d stopped having them every damn night.
    Then I asked Zee about Nils in Second Squad chasing her, and she said: “In his dreams.” And changed the subject.
    Wednesday, March 12
    Fun
    More getting drunk on aether. Though I wonder if I should be writing ‘high’ instead of drunk, since I’m breathing not drinking. I guess I don’t like the idea of ‘high’, which is very contradictory of me since alcohol is just another drug. ‘Party oil’, as Perry called it: no big deal, just something to make things go. Alyssa had made me promise never to drink without her, which I haven’t technically, but even though I’m legally old enough now, I don’t think Alyssa – let alone Mum – would be impressed with my current career. There’s something less than special about having breakfast, then lying on a couch being all tingly until I pass out.
    On the flip side, I have lots of medical supervision, and I’m even trying to be conscientious about exercise. This afternoon I went both swimming and jogging, though I’d have skipped the jogging except Zan came and joined me for the swimming (yay!) and I asked her if there was somewhere I could jog which wasn’t quite so visible and well-populated as the obstacle-course park. She showed me a different training area, an endless maze of corridors and stairwells and the occasional ladder. This is probably a better thing for overall fitness than just jogging lightly in a circle, but gods I barely managed one circuit going at a pace which really wasn’t more than a walk. Way too many stairs. My legs were jelly afterwards.
    Zan kept pace with me, not looking like it was costing her the mildest effort, and told me afterwards that I shouldn’t try and run the circuit at all, just walk it once a day, taking as much time as I needed. I can’t say I’m eager, but at least I would be without an audience, barring other people doing the course overtaking me.
    We ate together after, and talked over one of the books she’d recommended: a historical novel set in Tare’s past, before they had the interface. Pre-Setari too, with an epic quest to uncover lost Muinan records in caves deep below Unara. She made me miss Alyssa so bad. I just can’t bring myself to ask Zan to rate the smex level.
    Instead I asked about the sports event I’d walked in on, and Zan explained that winning those things, while it gets you some nice privileges, doesn’t count toward whether you qualify to become a full-fledged Setari. And that’s what the Kalrani are very focused on at the moment: they’re choosing Thirteenth and Fourteenth Squads from those who have reached the right age and passed the aptitude tests. There’s about twenty-five of them who are of age, one of whom will have to be slotted into Sixth Squad. Fifteenth and Sixteenth Squad won’t be formed for at least two Taren years.
    “Does anyone not qualify ever? What happen them if that happen?”
    Zan answered in the extra-neutral tone she uses whenever the internal politics of the Setari are involved. “While there are some still Kalrani who are more senior than the members of Eleventh and Twelfth Squad, if it was felt that it was not possible for them to qualify, they wouldn’t have reached this stage of the program. But forming a