update from sparkleup
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Madison Scott-Clary
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<p>He nodded, unsure of whether or not she could even see the gesture.</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>“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, he realized. 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 that side of her, and he quelled the voice within him shouting that that was all a stage play for his benefit as well.</p>
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<p>With that bit of humor, the walls were back up, he realized. 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 that side of her, and he quelled the voice within him shouting that that was all a stage play for his benefit as well.</p>
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<p>(how they both feel, She’s kind of sad, but guess it went okay, he is on the cusp of something big even if he doesn’t know why yet, finally feeling eager rather than just anxious)</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#Emissary.”</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 minute. “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 coherent story of our time there from start to finish, but much of it eludes me.”</p>
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<p>Tycho 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>“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>“I think I hear a ‘but’ coming.”</p>
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<p>He could see the shadow of her nod. “Yes. But also, there are some aspects of them that I personally do not understand, and that is uncomfortable to me. They say that they don’t manage sentiment or use much in the way of subtlety, and I believe them in that this is usually the case for them, but I disagree with the assessment that their checklist was a matter of preparation. They had goals coming into this convergence, and while I am pleased that they largely aligned with ours, I am unnerved by the fact that they either do not understand the ways in which they steer or, more likely, refuse to admit such. The two failed convergences they only ever talked around show this quite well.”</p>
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<p>“Frustrated, perhaps?”</p>
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<p>There was a moment’s pause as the skunk shifted to lay down beside him, echoing his posture. “I suppose. Frustrated, a bit sad.”</p>
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<p>“Sad?”</p>
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<p>“Do you remember what the Bălans wrote about me and Jonas in regards to the Launch project?”</p>
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<p>“That your aim was for stability and continuity.”</p>
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<p>“Yes. There is a self-serving aspect to this, as there must always be.” She sighed, and he heard her shrug against the mossy ground. “The Artemisians and I share a goal of continued existence. I am pleased that we as a whole have been invited to share in that. I would call that a success.”</p>
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<p>“But you won’t be able to join them, <em>anem?</em>“</p>
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<p>She laughed. “Practicing?”</p>
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<p>“I guess,” he admitted. “I want to get used to the language.”</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 long silence played, then, as they both looked up to the 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>“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 his 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>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’d speak before he left, but was not yet ready to.</p>
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<p><em>That is a poem about death,</em> she had said, all those weeks — and yet so few! — ago, and as he prowled through the lines, he could see how it was that she had interpreted it, how she had seen in the lines the danger of being left incomplete in one’s goals, of the risk of not being able to see something through to the end.</p>
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<p>He was nothing if not a scientist, though, and although her reading, as one who dreamed in her own ways, was as accurate as his, he knew he had his own understanding of leaving a work unfinished so that others could pick it up. That was his dream, the dream of so many calm, cold scientists before him. It was a different take on the same dream, perhaps; where True Name might see regret in that error of calmest coldness, he saw only the comforting truth of his later science.</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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<p>Page generated on 2021-11-30</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-01-10</p>
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