update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/toledot/launch/launch/Codrin-pollux/007.md

@@ -49,3 +49,45 @@ Codrin nodded. "Dear's very...well. It's very itself. Not sure how else to put i
 They were interrupted by the rising whine of the kettle, which Ne quickly pulled off the burner. He turned off the stove and filled two mugs, which he brought to the table before grabbing a carton of milk from the fridge.
 
 The tea was a perfectly acceptable Earl Grey. The milk was unremarkable. The mugs were mismatched and patinad from decades of use. It was comfortable and charming in all its imperfections.
+
+"So, what is it that you're doing now that you feel better doing in this form?" ey asked, nodding to Ne.
+
+"I'm a little like you, I guess. I'm the one who takes all of the history and draws it together into a big picture. From there, I ensure that the rest of the clade --- at least, the rest of the clade that's working on this project --- remains on the same page and doesn't diverge too far."
+
+"Is that why you look like a cross between a professor and an author?"
+
+Ne grinned between puffs of breath over his steaming mug. "Yes. It's hard to reconcile that job description with looking like some high-powered attorney or movie star or whatever they're looking like these days."
+
+"You don't see them much?"
+
+He shook his head. "We mostly correspond through writing and media messages."
+
+Codrin nodded. "The best form of communication, if you ask me."
+
+"You would think so, wouldn't you?" Ne Jonas laughed, sipped at his tea, winced, and set the mug down again. "But here, look at me, I've gone and steered the conversation to other topics. I want to make sure that I get to your questions. What do you have for me?"
+
+It almost felt a shame to move on to what Codrin knew were some topics that might be difficult or tense, but ey supposed it was as good a time as any. "Well, first of all, has your clade been keeping you up to date on the status of this project? I don't want to make you feel like you're repeating yourself."
+
+Ne nodded and leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. "You've interviewed No Jonas and Jonas Prime from our clade, and from the Ode clade, you've interviewed Dear, Why Ask Questions, True Name, End Waking, and May Then My Name. You've also interviewed Ezekiel, Debarre, user11824, Yared Zerezghi, Sabeena, Brahe, and a handful of others who fall below the relevance threshold. Have I missed anyone worth talking about?"
+
+Codrin had paused, mug of tea halfway between the table and eir lips, and stared at Ne throughout the litany.
+
+"I don't imagine I have," he continued, smiling kindly. "You've talked about the influence of the Jonas and Ode clades in Secession and Launch, the ways in which we have interacted with phys-side both financially and politically in the last two hundred years, the work we did around Launch, our reasons for enforcing stability and divesting our resources to maintain continuity, and the concerns we hold around the Dreamer Modules. Correct? You may sip your tea first, though, if you'd like! Don't let me stop you."
+
+Ey set the mug carefully back onto the table, startled to realize that eir hand was shaking and eir breath coming shallow. Suddenly, ey saw the sim for what it was. It was a carefully prepared presentation, something constructed from top to bottom to appeal specifically to Codrin and those like em. The same, too, applied to Ne Jonas, whose entire personality was built around engendering feelings of camaraderie in those interested in history and stories.
+
+"That...that's about the whole of it, yeah," ey said hoarsely. "How did you know all of that?"
+
+Ne laughed, stealing another sip of his tea before responding. "Oh, I've told you that already, Codrin! It's my job to draw together all of the threads and pull together the big picture. I don't know how the specifics get to me, that's not my job, I just piece them all together. The big picture here is that you and yours are building the history of the System from start to launch, and you're finding out just how much story there is. You, like so many others, were comfortable in that boring stasis, as well you should have been, and now you're coming to terms with something new, something actually exciting, and you're waking up to it. This goes way beyond Qoheleth's discovery about memory; this is about the very foundations of your life."
+
+Codrin forced emself to take a sip of the tea. It was thin, with the skim milk in it, and ey couldn't actually taste it for the pounding of eir heart. "Well," ey said, struggling to maintain calm. "That actually crosses several of the questions I had prepared off my list as either answered or irrelevant."
+
+"Have you come up with any new ones?"
+
+"I guess. The first is why are you letting us even continue with the history project if you're aiming to keep stability within the system? Won't all of this coming to light impact that at all?"
+
+Ne brightened. "Oh, that's a good one! The answer is twofold. Part one relates to something the other Jonases said to the other Balans: stability is a thing that needs to be gardened and maintained, that there is no true stasis, but stability approaches that point asymptotically. This is a form of that gardening. When you have a rose garden or topiary, you know, you must cut away bits of it, but when you do, the whole becomes all the healthier and can last for years and years in the state you like it best. It may seem like a traumatic event to trim back roses. After all, you are cutting away good growth, aren't you? But that's how you get beautiful roses, year after year.
+
+"That's what we're doing with this project. We're introducing a slightly traumatic event to make the stability of the system --- that's lower-case s, there, I'm talking of the sociopolitical system of those on the three capital-S Systems --- stronger. Does that make sense."
+
+"I suppose," Codrin said, then