In Arcadia (Touchstone Book 5)

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Description

  Acknowledgements

  Author's Note

  Map of Arcadia

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  In

  Arcadia

  Andrea K Höst

  All characters in this publication

  are fictitious and any resemblance

  to real persons, living or dead,

  is purely coincidental.

  In Arcadia

  © 2017 Andrea K Höst. All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-1-925188-16-5

  Published by Andrea K Hosth at Amazon

  www.andreakhost.com

  Cover art and map: Andrea Hösth

  Description

  One does not simply walk onto another planet. At least not without the help of a daughter who has developed unlikely powers, fought an intra-dimensional war, and then arranged for a family relocation to a futuristic clone of Earth. Laura Devlin would gladly have paid any price to have her daughter back, so living in a techno-paradise with spaceship views is merely an added bonus. And a dream come true.

  But Arcadian paradises do not come without complications. Laura's include a plethora of psychic grandchildren. Interplanetary diplomacy. Her daughter's immense fame. And KOTIS, the military watchdog that seems to consider Laura's entire family government property.

  Forewarned by her daughter's experiences, Laura had anticipated as many problems as she could, and didn't doubt her ability to cope with the rest. But she had not planned on Gidds Selkie, a military officer 'chipped from flint' and not at all the sort of man lifelong geek Laura had ever imagined would find her interesting.

  Burned in the past, Laura is surprised to find herself tempted. Is this a new start to go with a new world? Or a mismatch doomed to failure?

  Acknowledgements

  With thanks to all the fans of the Touchstone Trilogy. Your love of these books made it impossible for me to not want to revisit Muina.

  Author's Note

  This book is in Australian English. It can be read as a backstory-heavy stand-alone, but with inevitable spoilers for the Touchstone Trilogy.

  When expanding a couple of paragraphs from a novel into a story of its own, errors come to light. In writing In Arcadia, I had to correct a season and a date in Gratuitous Epilogue, but any other variations are simply the filter of Cass vs Laura.

  Map of Arcadia

  Chapter One

  Laura Devlin's first two months on her new world were full and hectic. There were a great many people to meet, particularly a son-in-law and five grandchildren. There were inoculations, medical examinations, and the injection of a nanotech computer interface that was followed by a dictionary download into her brain. After that came tours to view the grand wreck of the planet's original civilisation: ruins that were quickly being overshadowed by technically advanced cities supporting the more than two million people who had migrated to the planet of Muina in a scarce few years.

  In between, Laura fit in some infant-level virtual schooling, a generous dose of gaming, and a good dollop of time prodding at the empty garden beds that came with her brand new house. Most of all, she reaffirmed, over and over, the fact of Cassandra. Cass. Never Cassie. Her daughter, alive, safe, and happy.

  None of this had eased Laura's nightmares. Far too often she would wake from endless scenes of all the worst that could have happened to her funny, sweet, uncertain child after she had vanished on her way home from high school. It had been three months before Cass had been able to reach her family with a partial explanation of her disappearance, and that strange apparition had been in a large amount of danger, so Laura hadn't truly deep down relaxed until a surprise package of detailed diaries allowed her to finally accept that Cass was alive, safe, but never coming home.

  Thankfully, after three and a half long years, Laura had had the chance to make Cass' new world her own home, and finally been reunited with her daughter. But messages and reunions and many hugs could not erase the indelible mark left by those first months of despair.

  Rising in the pre-dawn, Laura left the latest nightmare tangled in her sheets and pulled on a light dress and sandals before venturing outside.

  To a lifelong Sydney resident, the Muinan summer around the city of Pandora was mild and pleasant, but Laura had maintained her habit of walking in the cool of early morning, tracing the paths of the island that was now her home.

  An island! With all her daughter's strange powers, large new family, and uncomfortable level of fame, for some reason Laura kept stumbling over the fact that Cass owned an island.

  This was something less of an enormity than it would be on Earth, since the planet of Muina was going through a resettlement rush, and large plots of land were being portioned out to all manner of people. Cass had gained hers because she'd been key to unlocking the planet to habitation—along with some incidental saving of the galaxy. She'd named the island Arcadia, and built a secluded house that allowed her some privacy from several planets'-worth of crowds fascinated with her every move.

  Then she had built a place for her mandatory guard detail to stay.

  When Cass had learned that she would finally, after more than three years gone, be able to bring her family to her new planet, she'd added houses for Laura and Laura's sister, Sue. They were rather impractically large, and felt empty and strange to Laura, lacking the crammed bookshelves that she had left behind. But the island itself was magnificent.

  This morning was particularly still, and Laura paused on the north patio to drink in the hush, then started along the whitestone path that led past her sister's matching mini-mansion, down the slope to the main path that circled the entire island. Left would take her to Cassandra's house, with a stop on the way for the guard house where a pair of Setari—'psychic space ninjas'—would be stationed to watch over the island's valuable inhabitants. To the right, the path traced the island's eastern and southern shore: a part of Arcadia still completely free of buildings.

  Laura inhaled deeply, the stillness entering into her. The lake was rarely so glass-flat: a mirror to drink the sky. She followed the path to the north-eastern point of the island, where a stone bench was set on a small spit, commanding an unimpeded view east over the vast freshwater lake to the city of Pandora. The new capital of Muina, a barely visible whiteness on the horizon, picked out in the rosy tints of dawn.

  A bird sang sweet, fluting welcome, and Laura sat and listened, absently turning over the question that had been growing over the last few weeks.

  What was she going to do with the rest of her life?

  Part of the answer was obvious. Her son, Julian, was still only sixteen, and not quite ready to set up house on his own. And Cass, all of twenty-one years old, had become mother to five children: a little found family of four she had adopted, with an addition born seven months ago. There was a lot of grandmothering in Laura's future.

  As rewarding as this had already been, Laura felt the need for something more. She had gone from school to a career in IT support. When her marriage had fallen apart ten years in, she'd supplemented
her income by selling handmade dolls and jewellery, and she'd worked hard to make time for the people she loved and the things she enjoyed. Now, there was no mortgage, no debts. Instead there was a strings-free house that generated its own electricity, and a formidable chunk of money gifted to her by Cass to cover any other bills, leaving Laura free to enjoy Paradise.

  Was it taking too much for granted to do nothing but game, garden, and play with the grandkids? Or did she need to earn this futuristic happily ever after?

  A ship lifted above the distant city. A sleek wedge of a thing rising on blue impellers. Laura watched with awe and appreciation. Inter-dimensional spaceships. Teleportation platforms, psychics, and cities that grew themselves. A computer in her head. An expected lifespan of a hundred and thirty years. And Cass.

  No, she wasn't taking any of that for granted. She was grateful every day.

  It was such a lovely morning that she decided to do a full circuit of the island: a trek that took just under an hour and a half at Laura's standard walking pace, but stretched to more than two hours because she kept stopping to collect unusual leaves and the occasional flower. And to take photographs using the 'interface' installation in her head, which did everything a smartphone could offer, and a great deal more.

  The most marvellous thing, though, was that her knees didn't hurt going up and down the occasional steps. She felt like she could walk forever, with the easy energy of her early twenties. That was Muinan medical science.

  "Unna Laura!"

  Circuit almost complete, Laura was not surprised to be spotted as she paused on the bridge that crossed the natural pool below her daughter's house. She waved up at Sen, who was hanging rather far over the railing of the main patio balcony. But only briefly, before the girl was hauled unceremoniously back. Then Cass was looking down.

  "Hey, Mum! Come up, we're having breakfast."

  The sight of Cass, smiling and relaxed, still hit Laura like a blow to the chest. Not a bad sensation, but dizzying, and Laura took a deep breath as she circled the pool and climbed the broad, flat stairs to the partially covered patio Cass used as a breakfast area in summer. She was greeted with a warm clasp around the thighs from Sen.

  "Unna Laura!" the girl repeated. Unna was a word she used only for Laura, even though it didn't mean 'grandmother' in any of her languages. "We're making pancakes."

  "Lira is, anyway," Cass said, heading indoors in response to a thin wail. "You're setting the table, Sen."

  "Then I can help with that," Laura said.

  "It's my job!" Sen said seriously, and tugged her toward a seat at the head of the table. "Unna Laura can be Guest of Honour."

  That was another reflection of the strangeness of Cass' life: a great many people wanted to meet her, and she could not always wriggle out of the flood of official engagements. Sen, only six, had not been obliged to attend many of these, but they'd obviously still left an impression.

  Sitting obediently, Laura absently twined her collection of leaves and flowers into a wreath as she watched Sen set the table with more enthusiasm than neatness. Once the last utensil was more-or-less in place, she dropped the wreath on the girl's head.

  "There. A reward for being so diligent."

  Sen crowed, and spun in a little circle of delight. She was a pretty child, with masses of thick black hair, very dark eyes, and a warm gold-brown skin that was set off nicely by the green, bronze and white tones of the impromptu crown. But it was this joy, a radiant happiness that rarely faltered, that made her so engaging.

  "What is diligent?"

  "Diligent means hard-working," Laura explained. "You had a job and you made sure it was done."

  "You should do today's words, Mum," Cass said, returning with an armful of crotchety baby. She was dressed in the figure-hugging black nanosuit of the Setari, and frowning down at her youngest worriedly. "I think I might skip work and take Tyrian for a check-up. He won't settle at all."

  "His mouth hurts," Sen informed her helpfully, and Cass brightened.

  "Must be another tooth. I've got some gel for that somewhere."

  She headed back inside, and Laura wryly reflected on the usefulness of psychics when baby-wrangling. Sen—like Cass' husband and their son—was a 'Tenlan Kigh' talent, which meant she had an ability to 'know'. 'Psychic psychics', as Cass put it. Tenlan Kigh—which translated confusingly as Sight Sight—was the rarest of the sight-related psychic talents, and tremendously convenient.

  The oldest of the children, Ys, demonstrated a different ability as she drifted slowly down from the upper patio. Telekinesis, one of the movement category of talents, allowed users to fly, although Ys' talent was only strong enough to let her take short hops.

  "Good morning, Unna Laura," she said formally, before briskly tidying Sen's table-setting efforts. She was a tall girl for nearly-fourteen, thin and bony, with short, somewhat wayward hair.

  "So diligent," Sen said.

  "What's that?" Ys asked, pausing.

  "A new word. Ys is diligent. Rye is diligent. Lira is sometimes diligent. And I..." Sen skipped around the table and grinned cheekily. "I am a sweetheart!"

  "Tokki," Lira commented, arriving with a plate of thick, American-style pancakes.

  'Brat', the dictionary in Laura's head whispered.

  "How long did it take you to do the work for the translation app?" Laura asked Cass, who returned as Lira began unceremoniously portioning out pancakes.

  "It felt like centuries," Cass said, grimacing. "I started trying to get through it in a big lump, which was stupid. I should have just done a few words a day, like I do now, but I was worried it wouldn't be ready before you got here. I'm glad it makes a difference, though."

  "Oh, absolutely—the auto-translate makes picking the language up quicker than I thought possible. Pronunciation is difficult, but I can make myself understood well enough, and don't have any problem listening to people. It's only when I hear a word where you haven't entered a translation, and this vague multiplicity of possible meanings washes over me, that I have trouble. In some ways the 'conceptual translator' is more confusing than simply not knowing what the word means."

  "I keep finding words I didn't get quite right the first time around," Cass sighed, rearranging her nanosuit to incorporate a harness for the still-restless Tyrian. "There's a lot that I don't completely understand, even after three years. And 'Muinan' itself is changing: three planets' worth of language mixing together, with a bit of Earth's as well."

  "Not to mention neologisms like 'Unna'," Laura said, and then had to explain what a neologism was to the three girls. "So when Sen decided to call her new grandmother 'Unna' she created a neologism. You copied her, and if other people hear it and use it, it might even end up in a dictionary itself one day."

  "There's two words for today's lesson," Cass said, for learning three new English words was part of the family's daily routine. "Once you've got a better handle on Muinan, you and Aunt Sue and everybody can start adding words to the app as well."

  "The pancakes will get cold," Lira said, grumpily. She spoke in Muinan, for she was the least enthused about the breakfast English lessons, though she seemed to follow the conversations well enough.

  "They're nearly at the dock," Cass said, and explained to Laura: "Kaoren and Rye went out in the canoes. Kaoren says not to wait."

  "I'm not sure I could, it smells so delicious. What kind of berry have you put in them, Lira?"

  "It is one from Kolar: hithal, it is called," Lira replied, this time in English, adding: "Something to try," with an affectation of indifference even as she closely watched for reactions to first bites.

  Laura was suitably complimentary, for Lira was showing considerable promise in the kitchen—anything that involved building or creating interested her. "I'm so looking forward to some of the spice plants I brought with me becoming available, just to see what you'll make of them," she told the girl. "Vanilla and cinnamon particularly, though it takes at least two years for cinnamon to grow into a useable
tree. You'll have fun experimenting when the biotechs send back samples."

  "For all we know, a version of them might be growing somewhere on Muina anyway," Cass said. "But, yes, the techs can hurry up and produce vanilla, cinnamon, and especially chocolate."

  "Have there been any new theories about why Earth and Muina are so similar?"

  "There's always theories," Cass said. "The official one is still that there was clearly a lot of back and forth travel and trade between Earth and Muina a really long time ago. After you six arrived they had some more Earth humans to do genetic comparisons with, and they still say we're all genetically from the same stock. I try not to get drawn into talking about whether people started on Earth and came here or vice versa: it's a bit of a touchy subject."

  A step from below heralded the arrival of the last of Cass' new family: her husband Kaoren and older son Rye.

  One did not perv on one's son-in-law, of course, so Laura merely made her regular intellectual footnote that Cass had married a very tall, very handsome and very fit young man. Rye, only recently turned thirteen, idolised him, and when they were both dressed in knee-length swimming costumes and loose tank tops, with their hair cropped in the same short style, they displayed a bond that did not require a strict blood tie.

  Kaoren, Laura reflected, straightforwardly enjoyed being a father.

  "I am sorry we were slow," he said to Lira. "We'll be ready as soon as we can."

  Lira shrugged with exaggerated unconcern as the pair went to clean up, but then took the remaining pancakes inside to reheat.

  "Diligent!" Sen proclaimed when the older girl returned, and stood on her seat so she could crown Lira with the wreath.

  "Tokki," Lira repeated, but this time with a hint of warmth to the word. She touched the wreath lightly and then sat down, obviously pleased.

  Cass and Ys had watched the exchange, but settled back to their breakfasts—and, in Ys' case, likely reading a dozen info-streams via the interface—without comment. There was undoubtedly a level of rivalry between Sen and Lira. Both of them possessed rare talents, had been much-cossetted in earlier years, and were consequently inclined to display temperament when denied coveted treats. The large difference between the two girls was Ys and Rye, who had always been there for Sen. Those three were all from a moon called Nuri, and had been bound together even before their world's destruction.