update from sparkleup
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<p>“She does that? What are they? Orders or something?”</p>
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<p>It shook its head, ears flapping slightly at the movement. <em>“No. Or, well, not exactly. They are simply updates, or replies to other, ongoing conversations. Some of us still communicate with each other on a somewhat regular basis, and I have been looped into several of those conversations over the years.”</em></p>
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<p>“Wait, “not exactly”?”</p>
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<p><em>“You have met her. She does not need to order, oftentimes. She simply suggests.”</em></p>
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<p><em>“You have met her. She does not need to order. Oftentimes, she simply suggests.”</em></p>
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<p>Ey frowned. “I sometimes worry that we’ve been attributing almost magical manipulative abilities to her, honestly.”</p>
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<p>Dear shrugged. <em>“Perhaps, but she also has had more than two hundred years of study under her belt to find all of the best ways to interact with people. May Then My Name was something of a let-down for her, I think, even from the very beginning, so she had to learn to take on that mantle herself.”</em></p>
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<p>“Especially over the last few years, you mean? With Ioan?”</p>
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<p>Ey shook eir head. “Did she say she would?”</p>
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<p>Tycho sipped at the coffee, winced, and set the mug aside to cool. “No, she just talked as though she had, or at least that she knew you’d be working with me.”</p>
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<p>“Of course she did,” ey murmured. “She knows me too well.”</p>
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<p>The astronomer ground the heels of his palms against his eyes. “I feel like she knew me too well, too. We had what felt like a wonderful conversation where she offered me a job, asked me to fork to send an instance with her to keep working with her, but then quoted some bit of poetry at me and I couldn’t tell if it was a death threat or a warning or whatever. I’m still trying to recover from that.”</p>
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<p>The astronomer ground the heels of his palms against his eyes. “I feel like she knew me too well, too. We had what felt like a wonderful conversation where she offered me a job, asked me to fork to send an instance with her to keep working with her, but then quoted some bit of poetry at me and I couldn’t tell if it was a threat or a warning or whatever. I’m still trying to recover from that.”</p>
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<p>“I’m guessing you said yes to both the job offer and the fork?”</p>
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<p>He nodded. “It all just sounded so normal. There didn’t seem like anything else to do.”</p>
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<p>“Can you tell me more about both?”</p>
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<p>“Well, she said that she a knew good deal about the communications and that she’d like me to come help her with the mechanics of that. She’d help me out with resources and I’d teach her what I learn about Artemis as I learned it.”</p>
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<p>“Artemis? Is that what they’re calling the remote…ship? Vehicle?”</p>
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<p>He nodded. “Vehicle. She said they’re calling it Artemis, that I should tag my fork #Artemis, and that those on the ship were either Artemisians or Sea People, which I didn’t get.”</p>
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<p>Codrin leaned back in the seat, thinking. “Sea People might be a reference to something from the <em>Mythology,</em> or it could be a reference to a theory about a marauding group of seafarers during the Bronze Age collapse. One that had sacked much of the ancient near east and northern Africa, leading to the prolongation of the collapse.”</p>
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<p>“Sea People might be a reference to something from the <em>Mythology,</em>” Codrin leaned back in the seat, thinking. “Or it could be a reference to a theory about a marauding group of seafarers during the Bronze Age collapse. One that had sacked much of the ancient near east and northern Africa, leading to the prolongation of the collapse.”</p>
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<p>Tycho’s eyes grew wide. “Do you think that’s what she’s getting at with the reference? That these are going to be some marauders coming to mess with the LV?”</p>
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<p>Ey shrugged. “Who knows. Probably both, honestly. Maybe there’s even some reference that we’re missing. She’s True Name, there really is no way of telling.”</p>
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<p>Nodding, Tycho scooted back on the bed until his back was to the wall, then brought his knees up to his chest. He looked small to Codrin, somehow diminished after the events of the last…goodness, had it only been a day? Diminished, yes, and younger, though he’d always looked as though he was not yet out of his forties in his well-groomed salt-and-pepper hair and well-kept beard.</p>
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<p>Nodding, Tycho scooted back on the bed until his back was to the wall, then brought his knees up to his chest. Despite his height, he looked small to Codrin, somehow diminished after the events of the last…goodness, had it only been a day? Diminished, yes, and younger, though he’d always looked as though he was not yet out of his forties in his well-groomed salt-and-pepper hair and well-kept beard.</p>
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<p>They sat in silence for a while. Codrin could not guess what the astronomer was thinking about, though ey could see his eyes occasionally darting this way and that, as though connecting one idea to another in the air as well as in his head.</p>
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<p>On eir part, ey began structuring the project. There would have to be the journalistic aspect of it, much closer to that of <em>On the Perils of Memory</em> than <em>An Expanded History of Our World,</em> but if the conservative Odists were also involved, there’d likely also be far more observing than researching.</p>
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<p>“Tycho,” ey said, startling him out of a reverie. “Do you know what an amanuensis is?”</p>
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@ -105,7 +105,7 @@
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<p>Conversely, would ey be able to argue one way or the other, to convince them to come with em or not?</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-02-13</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-03-14</p>
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</footer>
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@ -37,7 +37,7 @@
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<p>“Beautiful.”</p>
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<p>They sat in silence for a while, simply looking up at the stars, both with their red lights pointed toward them to light themselves up. Because it <em>was</em> beautiful, he knew. The night sky, one as pure as this, demanded a reverence, an acknowledgement.</p>
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<p>“Which ones do you suppose they came from?” the skunk asked.</p>
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<p>“It could be any, at this point,” he said. “We have no idea how old their vehicle is. We know their speed and position with some accuracy, but who knows how much that has changed since they launched.”</p>
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<p>“It could be any, at this point,” he said. “We have no idea how old their vehicle is. We can know their speed and position with some accuracy, but who knows how much that has changed since they launched.”</p>
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<p>“Do you mean they might have, ah…attitude jets, I believe they are called?”</p>
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<p>“Almost certainly, but more than that, any time they get too close to any system with any appreciable gravity, it’ll influence their course.”</p>
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<p>She nodded in the dim, red light. “Much as they are doing now, perhaps.”</p>
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<p>“You took the words from my mouth,” she said with a chuckle. “It makes one wonder, perhaps this is the Great Filter. Perhaps Kardashev was wrong all along, and we should not be looking at the energy usage of a civilization but on the scale from Earthbound, spaceflight, and then uploading, and it is only civilizations that reach that third state that might pass through that filter.”</p>
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<p>“I’d not thought of it that way.”</p>
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<p>“There was, of course, no need for you to rush back, but that is what I have been thinking about while waiting for you. Thank you for the light, by the way.”</p>
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<p>The sudden departure from the topic of the sky above to the here and now shocked Tycho out of the realization that he’d fallen in such easy conversation with the skunk. They’d talked like friends, like those who had known each other well but perhaps had just met for the first time.</p>
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<p>The sudden departure from the topic of the sky above to the here and now shocked Tycho out of the realization that he’d fallen in such easy conversation with the skunk. They’d talked like friends, like those who had known each other well but perhaps had just met in person for the first time.</p>
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<p>He saw now what Dear had meant, and he was helpless before it.</p>
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<p>“Well, thank you for stopping by,” he said, keeping this new anxiety out of his voice as best he could. “I’m assuming you wanted to talk about the message and response?”</p>
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<p>True Name sat up, dusted her paws off on her thighs, and then turned to face him, switching to a kneeling position. The friendliness was still there in her face, but was now tempered by a down-to-business professionalism “Of course. Can you tell me more about the ramifications of this? I can understand the mechanics of it well enough, but I want to hear from you what the next steps are.”</p>
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<p>This had not been the question he was expecting, so he took the act of sitting to face True Name, cross-legged, to think about his response. “Well, I suppose they’ll send over something uploadable which will drop it in the DMZ. I don’t imagine they’ll start that for a while yet, given the distances between us. They’ll probably want to talk more before doing so, and if they’re sending us instructions on how to make an exchange of personalities, that’ll give us time to work on that.”</p>
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<p>“If we want to,” the skunk said, nodding. “And, as you were out and we are now gating messages from the Dreamer Module through us, we will keep an eye out for such. We will do our best to keep you in the loop, of course.”</p>
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<p>He blinked. ‘Gating’? Perhaps that meant that they’d cut his access and would be sharing only what they chose with him. “I didn’t mean to…I mean, I hope that my response was not too far out of line.”</p>
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<p>She smiled to him, and while her expression remained friendly, there was the smallest note of pity in that smile. “Do not worry, Tycho Brahe, you are not in trouble. We have been running simulations on the various possible outcomes ever since this portion of the Dreamer Module was okayed. This possibility was on our list and well within our parameters. We know what it is that we will be doing going forward, and that does not include reprimanding you in any way.”</p>
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<p>She smiled to him, and while her expression remained friendly, there was the smallest note of pity in that smile. “Do not worry, Tycho Brahe, you are not in trouble. We have been running simulations on the various possible outcomes ever since this portion of the Dreamer Module was okayed. This possibility was on our list and is well within our parameters. We know what it is that we will be doing going forward, and that does not include reprimanding you in any way.”</p>
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<p>“I’m sorry,” he said, before he could even stop himself. “I probably should’ve asked.”</p>
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<p>The skunk waved a paw as though the comment was simply irrelevant. “You will even keep access to the Dreamer Module; I meant what I said when you will still be kept in the loop. We will simply have <em>first</em> access.”</p>
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<p>He nodded, hoping that there was still enough red light shining on him that she could see the gesture.</p>
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<p>Both of him frowned, and after a moment’s thought, the new instance was tagged Tycho Brahe#Artemis, all while scanning his memory for the reference. Goddess of the Moon, yes, but of the hunt? Wild animals? Artemis with her bow? There were too many correspondences and not all of them savory.</p>
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<p>“Why Artemis?” he asked.</p>
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<p>“They are flying like an arrow through the night sky, are they not?” True Name said.</p>
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<p>“Does that make the others on the ship Artemisians or whatever?”</p>
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<p>“Does that make the others on the ship, uh…Artemisians or whatever?”</p>
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<p>The skunk stood, offered a paw to help Tycho#Artemis in standing. “That or Sea People.”</p>
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<p>“Sea People?” he asked, accepting her paw. As he stood, he realized that he was more than a head taller than the skunk, a fact which had missed him as they sat there on the hill.</p>
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<p>“We had better hope for Artemisians, but we must also be prepared for Sea People. Come, Tycho. #Artemis, we will have a place for you to stay. #Tasker, you may stay here, and expect contact soon.” She looked up to the sky one last time, and said. “Do you know the poem about your namesake?”</p>
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<p>After True Name and Tycho#Artemis left, he stood there on the top of his hill, in the middle of his field, surrounded by his ring of trees, and looked up into the night sky, thinking on all that it meant to be powerless.</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-02-13</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-03-14</p>
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