update from sparkleup
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<p>The Artemisians had continued to fine-tune the new setup of the meeting space for the emissaries, so that the Odists beds were no longer in the same room as their half of the table. Now, there was a small, stone-paved unison room for their half of the table, at the back of which sat a low bench for sitting and talking, as well as a pitcher and glasses of water. To the side of that, a short hallway led to the two unison bedrooms.</p>
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<p>That True Name and Answers Will Not Help had requested separate bedrooms had felt notable to Codrin, though ey could not put eir finger on why. Perhaps one or both of them were having a hard enough time even while sleeping that it was keeping the other awake? Answers Will Not Help certainly looked as though she’d not slept since arriving.</p>
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<p>Both Odists had taken to spending any break longer than five minutes laying down, and ey’d taken it as eir task to ensure that they were up and moving a minute or so before the meeting resumed.</p>
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<p>One upside of this, however, was that it gave em as much latitude as ey wanted to talk with Tycho and Sarah without feeling like ey was leaving True Name and Answers Will Not Help behind.</p>
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<p>One upside of this, however, was that it gave em as much latitude as ey wanted to talk with Tycho and Sarah without feeling like ey was leaving True Name and Answers Will Not Help behind. Or, ey realized, like ey needed to hide anything from them.</p>
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<p>“So. Day three.”</p>
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<p>Tycho laughed. “Yes, though I feel like we’ve been here for at least a week by now.”</p>
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<p>Tycho groaned. “Yeah, though I feel like we’ve been here for at least a week by now.”</p>
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<p>“Might as well have been. The room is pinned at plus point two, so we’re already given far more time than we might have on an ordinary day.”</p>
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<p>“And it’s easy to take a long, lazy break,” Sarah said. “But yeah. Day three, I guess. What are your thoughts, Codrin?”</p>
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<p>Ey leaned back against the column outside the unison room, arms crossed, and looked up at the clear sky above the open courtyard. The blue was more intense than ey remembered from Earth or any of the sims ey’d been in. Some part of em always felt as though ey was falling up into it, whenever ey stared up like this.</p>
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<p>“At least it’s easy to take a long, lazy break,” Sarah said. “But yes. Day three, I guess. What are your thoughts, Codrin?”</p>
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<p>Ey leaned back against the column outside the unison room, arms crossed, and looked up at the clear sky above the open courtyard. The blue was more intense than ey remembered from Earth or any of the sims ey’d been in. Ey always felt as though ey was falling up into it, whenever ey stared up like this.</p>
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<p>“I’m tired,” ey said at last. “Some of that’s from just how long it feels like we’ve been running, and how I feel like I need to be <em>on</em> for all of that time, but part of it is our other emissaries.”</p>
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<p>“Oh?”</p>
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<p>“Them being so…is unwell the right word?”</p>
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<p>Sarah nodded, “Maybe, yeah. Unwell. Struggling?”</p>
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<p>Sarah nodded, “Maybe, yes. Unwell. Struggling?”</p>
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<p>“Right, yeah. Them struggling so much means that I have to be an active part of the discussions as well as focused on them. There’s nothing I can do to help them, but I still feel like I need to be attuned to everyone around me.”</p>
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<p>“Is that part of your amanuensis duties?” Tycho asked.</p>
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<p>Ey frowned, silent as ey thought. “Perhaps. It is part of what’s going on here, isn’t it?”</p>
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<p>Ey frowned, silent, as ey thought. “Perhaps. It is part of what’s going on here, isn’t it?”</p>
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<p>“It is,” Sarah said. “But you don’t need to be a complete sponge, soaking everything up.”</p>
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<p>“I don’t know that I can just turn that off.”</p>
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<p>“And that’s okay. It’s less about turning it off than mitigating it. Find the times where you can turn down your engagement and use those where you can. Find the things that don’t require your full attention and let them go, even if only for a few seconds.”</p>
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<p>“Think it’s going well?” Codrin asked.</p>
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<p>“As well as it can be, all things considered. We’ve not wound up in any thorny patches or anything.”</p>
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<p>Tycho nodded. “Agreed, though I have to admit that I’m getting kind of bored. Codrin told me I should steal some time with Stolon, and I’ve been doing that all I can, but the rest is just…boring. I want to be able to engage, but it’s just all over my head, and when I do start feeling like I’m getting a hold on it, Turun Ka or True Name will nudge us back ‘on topic’.”</p>
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<p>“‘On topic’ meaning politics and history and the like?”</p>
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<p>“‘On topic’ meaning history and politics and the like?”</p>
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<p>He nodded. “I knew that going into this that #Castor would be having much more fun than I would.”</p>
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<p>“Well, lets see if we can find you something to focus on,” Sarah said.</p>
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<p>He tilted his head, frowning. “How, though? I can’t exactly ask us to just start talking about the science side.”</p>
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<p>“Well, no, but you can keep an eye on dates and the like and start using that with what we <em>do</em> know of the science behind everything. Start thinking about where they might have been coming from before the…uh, gravity assist? Is that it?”</p>
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<p>“Well, no, but you can keep an eye on data. Maybe look out for dates and the like and start using that with what we <em>do</em> know of the science behind everything. Start thinking about where they might have been coming from before the…uh, gravity assist? Is that it?”</p>
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<p>His frown deepened, but he nodded.</p>
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<p>“Start thinking about what’s in that direction and how long it might have taken them to get here.”</p>
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<p>“You can probably keep track of the math involved with the time scale better than any of us, too,” Codrin added. “So you can see where there might have been inflection points in history and if that might’ve had to do with any of their travel. If there were big societal changes, then maybe–“</p>
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<p>Tycho held up his hand, and Codrin watched as his eyes lost focus, staring into nothing for a long few seconds.</p>
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<p>Tycho held up his hand, and Codrin watched as his eyes lost focus, staring into nothing for a long few seconds, breathing rapidly in some higher skew.</p>
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<p>Ey looked to Sarah, who shrugged.</p>
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<p>“Sorry, maybe should have skewed faster,” he mumbled. “You just reminded me of something, is all. There’s a lot beneath the plane of the ecliptic relative to us, but only a little bit of it is close for them to have plausibly passed by it. A few of those systems are kind of interesting.”</p>
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<p>“Sorry, skewed faster,” he mumbled. “You just reminded me of something, is all. There’s a lot beneath the plane of the ecliptic relative to us, but only a little bit of it is close for them to have plausibly passed by it. A few of those systems are kind of interesting.”</p>
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<p>“Interesting?” ey asked.</p>
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<p>“Like, stuff we’ve been keeping an eye on for possibly having life, that sort of thing.”</p>
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<p>“Maybe Artante’s system?”</p>
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<p>“It’s a very big ‘might’,” he said. “They could just have been using the stars for slingshots, after all.”</p>
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<p>“But it’s a possibility.”</p>
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<p>He nodded.</p>
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<p>Sarah shook her head. “To make sure I’m following, you think they may have spotted life elsewhere? Or perhaps some other possible societies and not had them join them as a race?”</p>
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<p>Sarah shook her head. “To make sure I’m following, you think they may have spotted life elsewhere? Do you think the might have run across other possible societies and not had them join them as a race?”</p>
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<p>“Right. Could be they just hadn’t started uploading, of course.” He hesitated, then added, “Or that they had, but didn’t want to join or didn’t make the cut.”</p>
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<p>Codrin rubbed eir hands over eir face, willing away the tiredness that kept threatening to come back. Every time ey felt like ey was getting a hold on the situation ey was stuck in, some other bit of info would be brought to light and eir grasp would slip once more.</p>
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<p>Now here this was. Perhaps the Artemisians had run across more than just races two through four on their journey. Perhaps there had been failed convergences, not counted among the existing three and the fourth they were living through.</p>
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<p>Tycho’s comment about ‘not making the cut’ carried with it additional consequences, as well. It implied that there was a barrier to entry that one had to pass. This, in turn, implied that there were a set of requirements for getting to join as a race. Ones that had never been mentioned.</p>
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<p>There may very well be specific steps they had to take that had never been provided to them.</p>
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<p>When ey shook away the rumination, ey found both Tycho and Sarah looking at em. “Sorry if I was mumbling. Tycho, hold off on actually asking about this for now, but keep thinking about it, alright? At least let me run it past True Name first.”</p>
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<p>There may very well be specific steps they had to take that had never been provided to them. Hadn’t ey picked up a sense of that from the letter so long ago? ‘You have asked the correct question’?</p>
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<p>When ey shook away the rumination, ey found both Tycho and Sarah staring at em. “Sorry if I was mumbling. Tycho, hold off on actually asking about this for now, but keep thinking about it, alright? At least let me run it past True Name first.”</p>
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<p>The astronomer nodded.</p>
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<p>“On that note, we should probably start getting ready again,” Sarah said.</p>
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<p>They broke after that, Tycho walking another lap around the courtyard and Sarah making for the pitcher of water, while Codrin went to rouse the Odists.</p>
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<p>“Should we ask more directly about it? I told him not to until I’d talked with you.”</p>
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<p>“Thank you. Yes, he should hold off for now. It may be best to ask about the sentiments within the society during those inflection points first. Coming at it sideways like that will allow us to phrase the question about other convergences more effectively.”</p>
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<p>Ey nodded. “If there was strife, it may not have been a good convergence, you mean.”</p>
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<p>“Precisely.” The skunk wobbled to her feet, accepting Codrin’s offer of a hand to steady herself. “Come. Let us see how Why Ask Questions is doing. Better, I hope”</p>
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<p>“Precisely.” The skunk wobbled to her feet, accepting Codrin’s offer of a hand to steady herself. “Come. Let us see how Why Ask Questions is doing. Better, I hope.”</p>
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<p>“Given the differences between our systems, the focus on time skew versus forking, I’d like to see what some of the political and sociological differences there are that result from that,” Codrin said, once the meeting began again.</p>
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<p>Both Iska and True Name sat up straighter.</p>
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<p>“This is broad-large-all-encompassing topic, recorder Codrin Bălan.” Turun Ko angled its head down and to the side, a move that appeared either confused or perhaps condescending. “Please restrict-refine.”</p>
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<p>“Well, okay.” Ey tapped the end of eir pen against eir lower lip, considering. “Perhaps we can begin with how common working with skew is among everyday individuals. We have our concept of dissolution strategies, based on how one approaches forking, after all.”</p>
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<p>There was a blurred conference between the Artemisians, then Iska said, “There is a spectrum of approaches to skew. Some rarely utilize it, some utilize only fast-time to complete tasks or slow-time to pass long stretches of time out of boredom or to wait for a specific event. Some, such as myself, utilize skew for enjoyment.”</p>
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<p>“These map loosely to your concept of taskers, trackers, and dispersionistas,” Artante added. “We noticed similar during the third convergence, though the concept remained only within fourthrace, and died out within a century of the convergence. I was reminded of the topic by one of your early letters.”</p>
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<p>“I remember you a mention that fourthrace had forking,” True Name said, voice tightly controlled. “Was the transition from that to skew difficult for those members of fourthrace that joined?”</p>
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<p>“I remember you mentioned that fourthrace had forking,” True Name said, voice tightly controlled. “Was the transition from that to skew difficult for those members of fourthrace that joined?”</p>
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<p>“For some, yes. There was one recorded instant of a member of fourthrace becoming so despondent about the lack of forking that they exited the system.”</p>
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<p>True Name and Answers Will Not Help looked at each other, letting the silence that followed speak for itself.</p>
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<p>Codrin let the moment pass before continuing. “Thank you. For what occupations there are — I believe you also described them as ‘intensive leisure activities’ — is there any particular expectation regarding one’s approach to skew?”</p>
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<p>“No,” ey said. “They wish us well.”</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-01-16</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-02-12</p>
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</footer>
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