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<p>While it wouldn’t have been totally true to call the celebration at Codrin’s return ‘wild’, it was certainly rambunctious in its own delightfully Dear way, with dozens of foxes scattering around the patio in a flurry of forking. Plenty of hugging and chatting and laughing and smiling.</p>
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<p>Ey’d been startled, in that half-doubled, roundabout way that an up-tree instance might feel, when ey merged down to find that True Name and Jonas had requested that Codrin#Assist stay at their compound rather than returning home except for a few hours around dinner. The fox’s excitement made more sense, knowing that.</p>
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<p>Ey’d been startled, in that half-doubled, roundabout way that an up-tree instance might feel, when ey merged down to find that True Name and Jonas had requested that Codrin#Assist stay at their compound rather than returning home except for an hour around dinner. The fox’s excitement made more sense, knowing that.</p>
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<p>At least ey’d had the chance to pull the fox’s tail.</p>
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<p>Once it calmed down enough to do so, Dear dragged Codrin into the dining room, gesturing eagerly for Sarah to follow with. Their partner had a spread already laid out for them.</p>
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<p>They spent the next hour recounting, carefully, the events of the talks. Codrin had requested that Sarah not discuss the Odists’ reaction to skew until ey’d had the chance to do so one-on-one with Dear. They spoke instead in general terms, discussing the topics that had come up during the talks, and the final announcement that they’d be welcomed aboard as fifthrace.</p>
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<p>They spent the next hour recounting, carefully, the events of the talks. Codrin had requested that Sarah not discuss the Odists’ reaction to skew until ey’d had the chance to do so one-on-one with Dear. They spoke instead in general terms, discussing the Artemisians themselves, the topics that had come up during the talks, and the final announcement that they’d be welcomed aboard as fifthrace.</p>
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<p><em>“What is the practical result of this decision?”</em></p>
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<p>“Well, the technical details are a bit beyond me,” Sarah said. “But the Artemisians and our own engineers are talking about how to let the DMZ grow in size to some maximum capacity — maybe a third of what Castor has to offer. As many of them as want to join us within those limitations will be able to join us here. They will allow as many of us who wish to join them to do so, as well.”</p>
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<p>“We’ll also be exchanging our shared libraries of information,” Codrin added. “I think that transmission effort has already begun, actually. We’re getting an enormous dump of information from four societies, and then we’ll upload all of ours to them. It’s going to be a field day for librarians, I bet.”</p>
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<p>Ey shook eir head.</p>
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<p><em>“There is no forgetting, my dear. You bear it within you.”</em></p>
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<p>“All the same, I could–“</p>
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<p>The fox’s laugh surprised him. It was breathy, hyperventilating, but sounded almost relieved. <em>“No, Codrin. You do not need to. The poem continues: — As One within a Swoon — Goes safely — where an open eye ---- Would drop Him — Bone by Bone —“</em></p>
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<p>The fox’s laugh surprised him. It was breathy, hyperventilating, but sounded almost relieved. <em>“No, Codrin. You do not need to. The poem continues: — As One within a Swoon — Goes safely — where an open eye — Would drop Him — Bone by Bone —“</em></p>
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<p>Ey was too anxious to puzzle out the opacity of the language. “I’m going to need some help disentangling that, Dear.”</p>
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<p><em>“There are very few times that memory can hope to be selective. When one is drunk, perhaps. Drunk on wine, drunk on love, drunk on pain. Perhaps when one is drunk on a life lived too long, as I am. It is the end of an era, and perhaps we are all becoming inebriated by too long a life. Do not forget it, Codrin. Do not do as I have done. It is stupid, is it not? Look at me. I am in all ways drunk on time.”</em></p>
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<p>Codrin smiled cautiously.</p>
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<p>“Aren’t you worried we’d hold that over your head if we got mad or something?”</p>
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<p>It shook its head. <em>“If you did, then we would not be in love, would we? I will write May Then My Name and the other Dear, as well, and tell them my thoughts.”</em></p>
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<p>“Well, so long as you’re sure that neither of them will snap and start hunting Bălans.”</p>
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<p><em>“The same applies to us, my dear,”</em> it said. <em>“If they snap, then they were not truly in love.”</em></p>
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<p><em>“The same applies to us, my dear,”</em> it said. <em>“If they snap, then they were not truly in love, but they will not. I have faith.”</em></p>
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<p>“It sounds like you want to test all of our relationships.”</p>
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<p><em>“It is not a test. It is a game.”</em> It giggled. <em>“Come, my dear, this will be fun! The other two Odists will think so, as well, I promise.”</em></p>
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<p>“A game, huh?” Ey let go of the fox’s paw to poke it in the side a few times, hunting for ticklish spots. “You’re so weird.”</p>
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<p>Codrin leaned in to kiss them on the cheek, still working on catching eir breath. “Yes. Definitely hash browns.”</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-01-16</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-02-13</p>
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<p>He shared a secret smile with himself as he accepted his bowl of champagne.</p>
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<p>She removed the light from between her teeth and clicked it off again, touching the rim of her glass to Tycho’s before taking a lapping sip. “To the end of that fucking mess.”</p>
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<p>He laughed as much as he felt was required to be polite and then took his own sip. <em>Why is she here?</em> he thought, racing through a list of the day’s actions, hunting for anything that might lead to a visit. He was, he realized, still wary of her, despite the memories of her struggling, of her confusion, her tears. Despite all her small kindnesses.</p>
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<p>After all, hadn’t she chided them on the <em>History</em> being a ‘very sensational book’?</p>
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<p>The silence drew out. He looked up at the stars and thought about just how much bigger the universe felt now. <em>I feel every minute of that eternity,</em> Dear had said back at that same dinner. <em>I feel every molecule of that universe.</em></p>
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<p>And he did, now. He felt it all as something more real than it had ever felt before. The math now stood side by side with awe in a way that it had only ever eclipsed before.</p>
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<p>“Do you know how old I am, Tycho Brahe?” True Name said into that silence. “I am two hundred twenty-two years old, a fork of an individual who is…who would be two hundred fifty-nine years old.”</p>
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<p>“But you don’t know how?”</p>
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<p>“I do not know how, yes.”</p>
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<p>After a moment, he raised his glass, and the stars glinting off the rim clued the skunk in enough to once again clink hers with it. “Champagne under the stars is a good start, I guess.”</p>
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<p>She laughed.</p>
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<p>She laughed. “That it is, my dear.”</p>
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<p>“I can’t speak to your thoughts on not knowing how to be. I don’t think I’m any better at it, honestly. Sarah would probably be your best bet.”</p>
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<p>“I will be meeting with her soon, yes. We have much to talk about.”</p>
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<p>“About the convergence?”</p>
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<p>“Our cracks are showing,” the skunk continued in a far-away voice. “Growth is colliding with eternal memory, and the cracks are showing.”</p>
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<p>He nodded, unsure of whether or not she could even see the gesture.</p>
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<p>“Turns out getting invited on a thousand year voyage with a bunch of aliens induces a whole lot of growth <em>really fast,</em>” she said, voice brightening. “So I will be dealing with that. But come, if I share any more of my weaknesses, I will lose all of my hard-won respect. How do you feel about how things went?”</p>
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<p>With that bit of humor, the walls were back up. The perfect self-deprecating comment brought back that tightly controlled voice, and he felt a sudden sense of…honor, perhaps? He felt lucky that he’d been able to see some more vulnerable side of her, and he quelled the voice within him shouting that that was all a stage play for his benefit.</p>
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<p>With that bit of humor, the walls were back up. The perfect self-deprecating comment brought back that tightly controlled voice. He felt a sudden sense of…honor, perhaps? He felt lucky that he’d been able to see some more vulnerable side of her, and he quelled the voice within him shouting that that was all a stage play for his benefit. Even she was allowed vulnerability.</p>
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<p>“I’m not totally sure, yet,” he admitted. “There was so much that I needed to deal with when I merged that it took me all day to do so, and I’m still trying to make sense of it all.”</p>
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<p>A slight rustle beside him indicated a nod from the skunk. “No kidding. You have seen how easily we fork and merge, so it might be telling that it took me nearly thirty minutes to even manage the merge from True Name#Artemis.”</p>
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<p>He winced. “I was wondering how that’d go.”</p>
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<p>“Rough,” she said after a moment. “As soon as I got back to Castor, I immediately felt better, but no less tired. My memories of my time aboard Artemis are only just barely coherent. They are fractured and scattered. I could tell a clear story of our time there from start to finish, but much beyond that eludes me still.”</p>
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<p>Tycho set aside his empty glass and stretched out on the grass, laying on his back once more, arms crossed beneath his head. “I was worried about that, yeah. I can’t speak to the ease of merging, but I’m glad you made it through all the same.”</p>
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<p>He could hear the grin in her voice as she said, “I am pleased to hear that. The distance between “we are coworkers and should act as such” and “I don’t actually like you but have to tolerate you” is rather small, and I could not tell which it was with you.”</p>
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<p>“I respect you,” he said, laughing at her easy humor. “You’re a little terrifying, but I respect you.”</p>
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<p>“I like you,” he said, laughing at her easy humor. “You’re a little terrifying, but I respect you.”</p>
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<p>“Doubly pleased, then.”</p>
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<p>“How do you feel things went?”</p>
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<p>“As well as they could have,” she said, the answer coming readily. “The talks were peaceful, the instances of mutual incomprehension minimal, and the outcome amenable to both sides.”</p>
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<p>“A good idea. But yes, <em>anem.</em> I will not be able to join them. I will not share in that particular form of immortality. I could join for the individual continuity, but not the individual stability.”</p>
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<p>“It didn’t look like a pleasant time for you.”</p>
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<p>“It was not, no. I doubt that any Odist will join them.”</p>
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<p>A slow silence played, then, as they both looked up to the guesses at stars. The mention of information exchange that was to follow the convergence left him with a hope that some aspect of their library of technical know-how would allow a modification of the sim to allow actual visual input from the telescopes to show, since the Artemisians could apparently access audiovisual data from within their system just fine.</p>
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<p>A slow silence played, then, as they both looked up to the guesses at stars. The mention of information exchange that was to follow the convergence left him with a hope that some aspect of their library of technical know-how would allow a modification of the sim to lead to actual visual input from the telescopes to show, since the Artemisians could apparently access audiovisual data from within their system just fine.</p>
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<p>“How are you feeling, my dear?”</p>
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<p>He spoke dreamily, feeling far off, far away from this hilltop, from True Name and all her subtle unhappiness. “I’m on the cusp of something big. I don’t know what it is yet, and I don’t know why I know it, but I’m on the very edge of it.”</p>
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<p>“Looking forward to sending an instance along with them?”</p>
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<p>“Yeah, I think that’s a good bit of it. I’m finally looking forward to something. I’m finally eager, rather than just anxious.”</p>
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<p>She laughed, not unkindly. “I am happy for you, Dr. Brahe.”</p>
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<p>“Thank you.”</p>
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<p>“And have you any further thoughts on uploading as the stage of civilization most likely to breach the Great Filter?” She sounded earnest, almost excited. “I must confess that the thought has been lingering in the back of my mind since our last conversation here.”</p>
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<p>“I’m still feeling like I’m stuck in some crazy science fiction novel, if I’m honest,” he said. “Uploading, furries, launch vehicles, and now aliens? At this point, why not? It makes as much sense as any of this.”</p>
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<p>“And have you any further thoughts on uploading as the stage of civilization most likely to breach the Great Filter?” She sounded earnest, almost excited. “I must confess that the thought has been lingering in the back of my mind since our last conversation here. Old sci-fi dreams dog me still.”</p>
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<p>“Oh, definitely feeling like I’m stuck in some crazy science fiction novel,” he said. “Uploading, furries, launch vehicles, and now aliens? At this point, why not? It makes as much sense as any of this.”</p>
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<p>She chuckled. “Well said, my dear.”</p>
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<p>When next she spoke, True Name sounded almost as dreamy as he had, her voice holding the subtle cadence of a recitation. “Calmest coldness was the error which has crept into our life; But your spirit is untainted, I can dedicate you still To the service of our science: you will further it? You will!”</p>
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<p>He spent a moment searching the perisystem architecture for the poem True Name had been quoting from since he first met her, the one with the lines that he knew he would speak before he left, but was not yet ready to.</p>
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<p><em>We will dream of stars,</em> Stolon had said, and he knew they would.</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 2022-02-13</p>
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